George Ziets opening a new RPG studio - Digimancy Entertainment

[The Wall]

Another free idea: survival city-builder/Guild-like where you are governor of border town during Fall of Western Roman Empire. Your avatar dies because Ostrogoths rape him to death and you had no heir? GAME OVER. You can assume direct control over your avatar at any time

 

[Brancaleone]

Your avatar dies because Ostrogoths rape him to death

Sounds more like Gothic Horror than City-Builder

 

[The Wall]

Last free idea: be born as bastard child of Zeus. Involve yourself in reality show Olympus, forge friendships and enemies, take epic quests from greek mythology to prove yourself to Daddy Zeus, destroy Titans or have Daddy Issues and help them destroy Olympus. Race across skies in chariots with Apolon, hunt Hydra, have orgy with Amazonians, pet Cerberus. Earn your birthright and become GOD

Graphics: stylized af 2D/3D Perspective: isometric

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Free idea:

Another free idea:

Last free idea

 

[lukaszek]

It's a false dichotomy because you can be a story-driven enjoyer and combat-enjoyer all at the same time.

Heh. It's obviously true that Codexers prefer story-driven RPGs over other types, but they don't want to be explicitly told that. Makes it sound try-hard.

we want combat driven story

 

[gaussgunner]

Last free idea: be born as bastard child of Zeus. Involve yourself in reality show Olympus, forge friendships and enemies, take epic quests from greek mythology to prove yourself to Daddy Zeus, destroy Titans or have Daddy Issues and help them destroy Olympus. Race across skies in chariots with Apolon, hunt Hydra, have orgy with Amazonians, pet Cerberus. Earn your birthright and become GOD

Graphics: stylized af 2D/3D Perspective: isometric

Isometric Dragon's Dogma.

 

[The Wall]

Free idea:

Another free idea:

Last free idea

Ok, Mr. IHaveSmallDick

 

[Roguey]

100% of time it turns out that without good gameplay loop even the best writing falls flat.

And then there's The Outer Worlds where a good gameplay loop combined with tepid writing lead to a game people aggressively didn't care about. Ziets's own Dungeon Siege III also fell victim to this. in all things (that is you can be decent in both things or great in one thing and lacking in the other, but if one thing is merely good and the other not, blandness ensues)

 

[mediocrepoet]

100% of time it turns out that without good gameplay loop even the best writing falls flat.

And then there's The Outer Worlds where a good gameplay loop combined with tepid writing lead to a game people aggressively didn't care about.

Are you serious? Outer Worlds gameplay was shit and it was ridiculously easy to the point of being a sleep aid.

 

[Roguey]

Are you serious? Outer Worlds gameplay was shit and it was ridiculously easy to the point of being a sleep aid.

I'm under the impression that it was considered an improvement over New Vegas's. You can always try supernova.

 

[Quillon]

better gunplay sure, bar was too low anyway but no way it has better "gameplay loop" than NV, Tim Cain failed hard in this regard

 

[Darth Canoli]

Ghoulishness about a dev studio run by a guy who's a good person and has made at least one truly great game (MOTB) strikes me as bad form. Hard to make games, especially if you're not trying to follow a cookie-cutter mold, which I don't think George is.

It's not a game, it's a MOD!
So, it makes Georgie better than beamdog but way below anyone who released a decent game.

And I'd add way way below because of the choice of the engine to release his mod, poor judgment to begin with.
It makes me wary of anything he might release in the future.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Ghoulishness about a dev studio run by a guy who's a good person and has made at least one truly great game (MOTB) strikes me as bad form. Hard to make games, especially if you're not trying to follow a cookie-cutter mold, which I don't think George is.

It's not a game, it's a MOD!
So, it makes Georgie better than beamdog but way below anyone who released a decent game.

And I'd add way way below because of the choice of the engine to release his mod, poor judgment to begin with.
It makes me wary of anything he might release in the future.

Do you understand how being an employee works, or is your understanding of capitalism primarily from watching badly translated reruns of Friends?

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

m under the impression that it was considered an improvement over New Vegas's. You can always try supernova.

better gunplay sure, bar was too low anyway but no way it has better "gameplay loop" than NV, Tim Cain failed hard in this regard

The fundamentals are good and on launch I think most people's expectation was for Pillars-style improvement once patches start rolling, but they didn't bother doing anything beyond bug fixing.

 

[Roguey]

The fundamentals are good and on launch I think most people's expectation was for Pillars-style improvement once patches start rolling, but they didn't bother doing anything beyond bug fixing.

Yeah I wouldn't expect Josh Sawyer-style balance obsession from Tim and Leonard, Troika wasn't like that.

 

[Camel]

It's not a game, it's a MOD!
So, it makes Georgie better than beamdog but way below anyone who released a decent game.

And I'd add way way below because of the choice of the engine to release his mod, poor judgment to begin with.
It makes me wary of anything he might release in the future.

Do you mean MOTB is a mod? Beamdog actually vandalized a classic game and I’m not sure you compare them with Ziets.

 

[MRY]

Ghoulishness about a dev studio run by a guy who's a good person and has made at least one truly great game (MOTB) strikes me as bad form. Hard to make games, especially if you're not trying to follow a cookie-cutter mold, which I don't think George is.

It's not a game, it's a MOD!
So, it makes Georgie better than beamdog but way below anyone who released a decent game.

And I'd add way way below because of the choice of the engine to release his mod, poor judgment to begin with.
It makes me wary of anything he might release in the future.

Fair enough; it’s a mod like FO2, FO:NV or even, to some extent, PS:T. Since I found NWN2 terrible, and terrible in ways that MOTB had to inherit (camera, combat, even, honestly, ruleset), I don’t think it’s a slight on George to say MOTB is a mod. It’s true, though, that from a development standpoint it’s way easier to make a mod or work off an existing engine.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

So that's the secret, make mods to games that were a complete disaster, and you can only go upwards.

 

[MRY]

A mediocre mod to a bad game is worse than mediocre. My point was that discounting MOTB's greatness on the theory "it's a mod" fails to account for the base it was working from. Fallout 2 worked from an amazing base, and in bungled the tone in all sorts of ways (but improved the gameplay in other ways). The Gold Box games worked from an amazing base, and some added in cool ways, some missed the mark. FO:NV started from a lousy base and made it great. FO4's mods add-ons. That's just how it is.

What a dev releasing a great expansion doesn't tell you is whether they can build a great game from scratch. But my point with George wasn't that MOTB guaranteed his future standalone games would be great. It's that he made a game that added a lot of pleasure and even some richness to players' lives, and for that reason people should tone down the jerkiness.

 

[Immortal]

So that's the secret, make mods to games that were a complete disaster, and you can only go upwards.

The primary incentives to mod a game is either you adore the game intimately, or there's a large audience that will drench you in accolades and praise filling your hollow existence (and patreon).
Neither are likely true for shitty dead games that nobody could love.

 

[Polanski]

Free idea:

Another free idea:

Last free idea

Ok, Mr. IHaveSmallDick

All ideas are free, you know?

There is no such thing as being paid for a game idea.

 

[Harthwain]

Fair enough; it’s a mod like FO2, FO:NV or even, to some extent, PS:T.

Lumping everything into a "mod" category fails to emphasize the differences between standalone games, expansions and the actual mods. Distinctions exist for a reason.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Fair enough; it’s a mod like FO2, FO:NV or even, to some extent, PS:T.

Lumping everything into a "mod" category fails to emphasize the differences between standalone games, expansions and the actual mods. Distinctions exist for a reason.

You should probably address that to Darth Canoli since MRY was just taking the piss out of his retarded comment.

I mean, even if someone agreed with Canoli about MOTB, it's not like Ziets only worked on that and otherwise was a non-entity.

Re: some of the other commentary: The entire point of waiting to see what Digimancy does is to see what Ziets will deliver when not working as an employee or contractor. It seems like there's at least the potential for greatness.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

In other words, Brian was Jobs and George was Wozniak.

 

[Harthwain]

You should probably address that to @Darth Canoli since MRY was just taking the piss out of his retarded comment.

Indeed. Perhaps I was trying to avoid the quote pyramid a bit too much.