Interview critical of Bethesda RUBBED OUT

[Doppelganger]

It just goes to show that video games are the works of the Devil. I thought you folks would appreciate that sort of thing. It's all fun. Damn.

But will we be able to continue laughing with you as our enemy? Certainly.

 

[bryce777]

Fuck him and the horse (that returns to his owner magically) that he rode in on.

Hehehehe...to me, of all the stuff, that one points to a bad game; when they start to do dopy crap like that, it just shows they are too lazy to bother to craft a world that makes any sense.

 

[Blacklung]

I would've told Captain Kirkwood to go fuck himself, kept the interview online AND all of his fanfiction shit and then said "So sue me". It's odd that he'd think taking an interview down would somehow remove it from the internet too. Plenty of people go file -> save as to stuff they like. Even better, there's always the google cache.

I think it would be awesome if someone took that link and emailed it to Kirkbride. Talk about shitting your pants in surprise.

 

[villain of the story]

Ken and I also disagreed on "relativism" and "betrayal," among other things. I appreciate disinformation, but I believe it works best when you know what the truth is. I like to write a true account and then conceal it among carefully designed false accounts. Ken wrote a dozen different accounts, apparently without any personal preference to which, if any, was accurate, and ignored the contradictions. I wanted to have NPCs betray the player in a few quests, but Ken had a "no-betrayal" rule (and some other rules, like "only one coincidence allowed"), which didn't make sense to me. I can't say that I'm right and he's wrong. In fact, I often felt that he was talking past me or over my head. I understood all of his words, but they didn't combine into sentences that made sense to me.

Wow, these guys were like ying and yang. One wants betraying and cheating NPCs but also wants one TRUE(tm) account of everything to rule them all. The other one wants lots of subjective opinions and mindfucks but wants honest to god, fair NPCs. WTF? What an unlikely double-folding dualism.

Also:

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Jesus, I actually had a lot of respect for MK.

 

[villain of the story]

Hahaha you haven't read that before? Wow, been so many years. I still remember the day.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

I'm surprised, that was pretty much the height of my active involvement in the Bethesda forums/lore community. Must have just gone right over my head.

 

[Black Bart Charley]

TES sucked since Arena. Full Feature Film at the usual time.

 

[Topher]

Great interview I'd never seen it until now either. Thanks for the necro.

 

[Mastermind]

Ha ha, this MK guy fucked that TIL bitch straight up the ass.

 

[Turjan]

Ken and I also disagreed on "relativism" and "betrayal," among other things. I appreciate disinformation, but I believe it works best when you know what the truth is. I like to write a true account and then conceal it among carefully designed false accounts. Ken wrote a dozen different accounts, apparently without any personal preference to which, if any, was accurate, and ignored the contradictions. I wanted to have NPCs betray the player in a few quests, but Ken had a "no-betrayal" rule (and some other rules, like "only one coincidence allowed"), which didn't make sense to me. I can't say that I'm right and he's wrong. In fact, I often felt that he was talking past me or over my head. I understood all of his words, but they didn't combine into sentences that made sense to me.

Wow, these guys were like ying and yang. One wants betraying and cheating NPCs but also wants one TRUE(tm) account of everything to rule them all. The other one wants lots of subjective opinions and mindfucks but wants honest to god, fair NPCs. WTF? What an unlikely double-folding dualism.

I have never seen this. I'm not really sure what the problem with that interview was and why it was taken down. Just because it had a negative tone? I cannot really say that I agree with many of Douglas Goodall's points. I thought that the ambiguity of Morrowind's main story line was one of the more interesting aspects of the game.

 

[Santander02]

Ha ha this thread gave me a good laugh, amazing how dickish some people can be.

Makes me wonder, has someone ever attempted to sue the Codex for posting "confidential" (or wathever) stuff ? I wager that the legal threats and prompt Codex "fuck off" response could make some great lol material.

 

[Flanged]

Fascinating interview and thread - never heard of this particular drama before. Wouldn't say Morrowind sucked or was lore-weak, or that it was all that inconsistent internally, but it's amazing to see how the herp and the derp have grown to rule at Bethesda and prevail over wiser, cooler heads.

Absolutely nothing Goodall said is in any way insulting, either to Morrowind or Beth Soft. He goes out of his way to blame himself for everything, and says about four times that the subsequent success or Morrowind proved his position wrong (when it sounds like he was actually right).

Douglas Goodall:
No one writes like Kirkbride. I admire him. He's a genius. A little crazy, maybe, but still a genius.

...without Kirkbride's work, the Elder Scrolls would be indistinguishable from dozens of fantasy games and trilogies. Ted Peterson's stories bring the world of Tamriel to life, and Michael Kirkbride's work makes it unique.

...I wasn't up to the task. I can't write Dwemer the way Michael Kirkbride does. I know. I've tried it (see "Hanging Gardens" as a particularly bad example of me trying to write Dwemeri style). I decided that random letters were better than another bad attempt at writing like MK, or writing something like "drink your Ovaltine," so that's what I did. Besides, I figured it would be obvious that it was just random letters... In retrospect, this was another mistake.

Kirkbride's response to this kind of near-fellation (he called him a genius! for helping to make a computer game) is "ShutupshutupNooo! I can kill you just by fucking looking at you!"

What a maniac.

Nice pen portrait of Todd in there, though, which might be the real source of the buthhurt.

I disagreed with Todd a lot because Todd and I do not like the same kinds of games. This is not his fault or mine. Whether it is more fun to smash things with a huge axe or coax secrets from obfuscated texts is pure opinion. Whether it's better to play against dice or against an intelligent designer is pure opinion. Frankly, most gamers are more like Todd. It is in Bethesda's best interests to appeal to those gamers, instead of making a game that appeals to me.

Goodall's playing a diplomat/assassin here for sure. Twist that knife!

 

[Luzur]

hahah, i remember reading this thread before, many years ago.

EDIT: THREAD, goddamn it. THREAD, not POST.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

This is actually something like a quality necro.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

I disagreed with Todd a lot because Todd and I do not like the same kinds of games. This is not his fault or mine. Whether it is more fun to smash things with a huge axe or coax secrets from obfuscated texts is pure opinion. Whether it's better to play against dice or against an intelligent designer is pure opinion. Frankly, most gamers are more like Todd. It is in Bethesda's best interests to appeal to those gamers, instead of making a game that appeals to me.

Goodall's playing a diplomat/assassin here for sure. Twist that knife!

Oh my lord, what a sting!

(Meh.)

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Apparently Mr Rolston is the Thomas Edison of elder scrolls writing

I congratulate him on his self-promotion skills

 

[asper]

Hey why doesn't some oldtimer make a compilation of excellent threads such as this? The Codex actually has quite some interesting content, but it is all buried in the forum history.

The Codex was also better in 2005

 

[SCO]

Quality necro.

 

[sea]

As someone who's been in the process of dealing with Bethesda's PR ghouls, I can say that they basically want to control everything. They flat out refuse to interview about certain topics and you basically have to filter everything through their editorial department before they even consider responding, not to mention that there's a good chance they might not even let you post it after the fact...

 

[Raapys]

Yeah, very nice necro.

And by the looks of it, I might actually still like TES if Goodall had taken charge instead of Todd.

 

[abnaxus]

So Michael Kirkbride is a major aspie. News at 11.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I don't know what's better, the interview or the threat e-mail And to think I took the time to read some of Vivec's lessons in Morrowind.

by the way,

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic ... 749#172749

"No betrayal" meant that key NPCs couldn't turn on the player, lie to the player if they were honest in the past, nor could an NPC steal an item from the player, etc. This is good as a general rule, but it's the kind of rule that begs for exceptions.

Why make a rule like that? It makes no sense at all, in fact it's quite stupid. I hope he who made that rule won't be involved in the design of fallout 3.

I think there is exactly one quest in FO3 where the NPCs "betray" you, it's the one where the good karma path has you convince Tenpenny to let the ghouls live in his tower / town. After you get your daily dose of feelgood, you go away because I think that's the only real quest in that place. Next time you come back, turns out Vault City was right about the zombies - the ghouls killed all the humans. Bonus lulz points for giving bad karma for killing the ghoul leader after learning of it, further infuriating players who find out they can't reload their way out of that situation and want to take it out on the nearest target.

I wonder who was responsible for that quest.

 

[waywardOne]

Whether it's better to play against dice or against an intelligent designer is pure opinion. Frankly, most gamers are more like Todd. It is in Bethesda's best interests to appeal to those gamers, instead of making a game that appeals to me.

Easily still top 5 quote of the decade and quite prescient.

 

[Shannow]

Ha ha this thread gave me a good laugh, amazing how dickish some people can be.

Makes me wonder, has someone ever attempted to sue the Codex for posting "confidential" (or wathever) stuff ? I wager that the legal threats and prompt Codex "fuck off" response could make some great lol material.

A few year back I read through this. It's not the codex but lulzy nonetheless.

I miss obediah