Interview Interview with Josh Sawyer at Hardbloxx

[Infinitron]

IMO the most telling part of the interview is this:

our fans simply may not be interested in some of the ideas we come up with.

They want their audience/fans to be either dudebros or then hipsters who hates the gameplay, dudebros cares fuck all about what Obsidian does and if they really want the gameplay-hating pretentious hipsters, good luck with that, they're even smaller market than us "grognards".

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it does sound like that.

Actually, I think what he may be saying is that his idea of a dream RPG wouldn't be popular with people - eg, a turn-based, statless, classless RPG set in medieval Prussia with woodcut-like graphics.

(if you don't know what I'm talking about, do some more research on Sawyer)

If we have a stronghold (or strongholds) in a future game

Hmmm.

Fuck. You. Seriously. The stronghold was such a slap in the face that I can't even comprehend. The BG2 Strongholds weren't that FUCKING COMPLEX. It was just ONE QUEST CHAIN. Sawyer. You fucked up ROYALLY with the stronghold. It was shit. It didn't fell short, because it was already dead in the ditch. Stabbed before conception.

You tell a system designer to create a stronghold, he'll create a stronghold system, not a quest chain. However, I bolded a word there which may be a hint as to what they're thinking of for a sequel.

 

[felipepepe]

The logic behind the stronghold system made sense: Monies must be BALANCED for the average player. Doing side-quests awards monies, thus completionists have too much monies. Thus we make optional monies-sink that gate completionist content. Hurray!

Of course, like many things in PoE, they fucked up on the transition from idea on paper to actual game.

 

[Morality Games]

You tell a system designer to create a stronghold, he'll create a stronghold system, not a quest chain. However, I bolded a word there which may be a hint as to what they're thinking of for a sequel.

Thus having failed to create one compelling stronghold, they decide the solution is to create more, ala Dragon Age: Inquisition? All I read out of that is that they are considering replacing a quality quest chain with a huge quantity of simple management of tasks.

A wiser policy would be to recycle the management system into a Romanesque country estate, with a manor and olives and stuff, assuming that the sequel takes place in the Aedyran Empire. Or a shipping empire if in the Valian Republics.

 

[Infinitron]

Thus having failed to create one compelling stronghold, they decide the solution is to create more, ala Dragon Age: Inquisition?

No.

If PoE is like BG1, then some people think PoE2 should be like BG2. Now, what feature did BG2 have?

 

[Morality Games]

Thus having failed to create one compelling stronghold, they decide the solution is to create more, ala Dragon Age: Inquisition?

No.

If PoE is like BG1, then some people think PoE2 should be like BG2. Now, what feature did BG2 have?

Class specific strongholds?

That seems unlikely to me for some reason.

 

[felipepepe]

Yeah, even PoE's companion quests were very brief, I don't see them doing multiple strongholds in any decent way.

 

[Infinitron]

Thus having failed to create one compelling stronghold, they decide the solution is to create more, ala Dragon Age: Inquisition?

No.

If PoE is like BG1, then some people think PoE2 should be like BG2. Now, what feature did BG2 have?

Class specific strongholds?

That seems unlikely to me for some reason.

In the context of a company's inaugural Kickstarter game, strapped for cash and investing most of its resources into setting up basic features? Yeah, it does. But now? Who knows.

I agree with you that they're probably not so hot about the idea of making large amounts of class-exclusive content, but I think that if Sawyer and co feel that's that's a feature that they just have to match in order to meet fan expectations, the're a good chance that they might do it.

In fact, if I were a BG2 fanatic, I'd start a "PoE2 demands" thread on the Obsidian forums right now, asking for multiple strongholds, asking for mage duels, etc.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

In fact, if I were a BG2 fanatic, I'd start a "PoE2 demands" thread on the Obsidian forums right now, asking for multiple strongholds, asking for mage duels, etc.

BG2 fanatics are over

 

[felipepepe]

In fact, if I were a BG2 fanatic, I'd start a "PoE2 demands" thread on the Obsidian forums right now, asking for mage duels, asking for multiple strongholds, etc.

Who would ask multiple strongholds when they couldn't do one right? Mage duels ain't gonna happen with that magic system, and I'm not confident on their ability to even understand the genius of Baldur's Gate II itemization.

Based on what we got, I would ask them to make companion quests & interactions more meaningful. In BG2 Misnc could become Aeris protector, Edwin would turn into a woman, Keldorn could retire, Amoen could pass or fail the paladin's test and them even become a vampire and die (and resurrected later)... plus all the party banter & alignment restrictions.

But Josh "no failure" Sawyer would never allow a party member to abandon players, and they don't even have MCA anymore...

 

[Infinitron]

Who would ask multiple strongholds when they couldn't do one right?

Who would ask for a Shadowrun Returns DLC when they couldn't get the OC right? Good thing we didn't have to.

 

[Morality Games]

You might be bailing water out of a sinking ship, Infinitron. Chris Avellone's vision of RPGs was one that resonated with a large minority of the Codex and drove a lot of enthusiasm for Obsidian as a company through some rough patches. Whole Codex is going through a period of adjustment where we acclimate ourselves to the reality of a post-Avellone Obsidian.

Even those of who enjoyed Pillars of Eternity are going to be very gloomy about Obsidian/Pillars of Eternity's prospects when the guy whose game design ideology we respected the most decided that the company didn't fit his game design ideology.

 

[felipepepe]

Who would ask for a Shadowrun Returns DLC when they couldn't get the OC right? Good thing we didn't have to.

A lot of what was improved and changed in Dragonfall came from consumer feedback/backlash, such as the save system.

Saying "hey, the save system sucked, improve it!" is very different from saying "hey, the stronghold you did sucked, do 11 of those".

 

[Thonius]

Actually, I think what he may be saying is that his idea of a dream RPG wouldn't be popular with people - eg, a turn-based, statless, classless RPG set in medieval Prussia with woodcut-like graphics.

I'd like to see that. Reminds me Serpent in Staglands, still unplayable after 7 patches.

 

[Infinitron]

You might be bailing water out of a sinking ship, Infinitron. Chris Avellone's vision of RPGs was one that resonated with a large minority of the Codex and drove a lot of enthusiasm for Obsidian as a company through some rough patches. Whole Codex is going through a period of adjustment where we acclimate ourselves to the reality of a post-Avellone Obsidian.

Even those of who enjoyed Pillars of Eternity are going to be very gloomy about Obsidian/Pillars of Eternity's prospects when the guy whose game design ideology we respected the most decided that the company didn't fit his game design ideology.

Eh, I don't think this discussion would really be much different if MCA was still there.

A lot of what was improved and changed in Dragonfall came from consumer feedback/backlash, such as the save system.

Saying "hey, the save system sucked, improve it!" is very different from saying "hey, the stronghold you did sucked, do 11 of those".

*shrug* If you don't ask, you won't receive. This sulking seems pretty counter-productive.

I repeat, we really don't know exactly what Obsidian are capable of producing now that they have all the basics ready. We know that Harebrained Schemes managed to improve A LOT with a shoestring budget and a rookie team. inXile have more money, but they keep radically switching concepts and engines, so we don't have a good sense of how much they're improving. So this is really uncharted territory.

(but yeah, I doubt they'd make a stronghold for each class, more likely it'd be grouped, ie a Warrior Stronghold for Fighters and Barbarians, Spellcaster stronghold for Wizards and Ciphers, etc)

 

[Hegel]

They won't improve because they don't think those suggestions would constitute an improvement.
BGII is not coming back, not only you're wrongly assuming they retain the skills to pull it off (and they don't), that type of experience conflicts with Sawyer's vision. It won't happen period, they made a deliberate choice. Either you like their formula or you move somewhere else. As of now Larian and inXile are our best bet.
Sawyer made it clear, he talked volumes about the supposed flaws BGII carried. Sadly those "flaws" are what most of us liked.

 

[Morality Games]

I repeat, we really don't know exactly what Obsidian are capable of producing now that they have all the basics ready. We know that Harebrained Schemes managed to improve A LOT with a shoestring budget and a rookie team. inXile have more money, but they keep radically switching concepts and engines, so we don't have a good sense of how much they're improving. So this is really uncharted territory.

(but yeah, I doubt they'd make a stronghold for each class, more likely it'd be grouped, ie a Warrior Stronghold for Fighters and Barbarians, Spellcaster stronghold for Wizards and Ciphers, etc)

I agree with the notion that Pillars of Eternity 2 will be an improved version of Pillars of Eternity. I've expressed that opinion pretty regularly.

Whether those improvements are going to speak to the things Codexers would enjoy in a game like this is something I've yet to see settled.

For me, I want an Influence-driven companion system (such as existed in their previous games) with elaborate interactions and range of success and failure states and a stronghold that has story and significance.

Even if they committed to do either of those things, its not clear to me that they would succeed. If anybody could do with companions Chris Avellone could do with companions he wouldn't be such a valued designer.

 

[Jarpie]

They won't improve because they don't think those suggestions would constitute an improvement.
BGII is not coming back, not only you're wrongly assuming they retain the skills to pull it off (and they don't), that type of experience conflicts with Sawyer's vision. It won't happen period, they made a deliberate choice. Either you like their formula or you move somewhere else. As of now Larian and inXile are our best bet.
Sawyer made it clear, he talked volumes about the supposed flaws BGII carried. Sadly those "flaws" are what most of us liked.

I wrote about this couple months back in the incline 2015 thread, the culture of making the rpgs akin to those from the late 90s and early 2000s looks to be gone, there's no devs who has ability, will or knowledge to do games like BG2, Arcanum or Fallout 1+2 were. Infishilltron is wishing too much if he thinks that Obsidian and Sawyer would make anything like BG2 with hard-counters and mage-battles, especially not with the magic system they have in PoE.

 

[Infinitron]

I do not believe that a "mage duel" experience requires hard counters. I even made a thread about it: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/mage-duels-without-hard-counters.97027/

I wrote about this couple months back in the incline 2015 thread, the culture of making the rpgs akin to those from the late 90s and early 2000s looks to be gone, there's no devs who has ability, will or knowledge to do games like BG2, Arcanum or Fallout 1+2 were. Infishilltron is wishing too much if he thinks that Obsidian and Sawyer would make anything like BG2 with hard-counters and mage-battles, especially not with the magic system they have in PoE.

PoE isn't "Sawyer's vision" either. He'll make what he thinks the fans are demanding. If he's convinced that the fans want mage duels, well, you'll get mage duels with a Sawyery twist, and multiple strongholds with a Sawyery twist, and a big Athkatla-like city of adventure with a Sawyery twist. You might still not like that, but right now they haven't even really tried to make the BG2 fans happy.

 

[Jarpie]

I do not believe that a "mage duel" experience requires hard counters. I even made a thread about it: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/mage-duels-without-hard-counters.97027/

I wrote about this couple months back in the incline 2015 thread, the culture of making the rpgs akin to those from the late 90s and early 2000s looks to be gone, there's no devs who has ability, will or knowledge to do games like BG2, Arcanum or Fallout 1+2 were. Infishilltron is wishing too much if he thinks that Obsidian and Sawyer would make anything like BG2 with hard-counters and mage-battles, especially not with the magic system they have in PoE.

PoE isn't "Sawyer's vision" either. He'll make what he thinks the fans are demanding. If he's convinced that the fans want mage duels, well, you'll get mage duels with a Sawyery twist, and multiple strongholds with a Sawyery twist, and a big Athkatla-like city of adventure with a Sawyery twist. You might still not like that, but right now they haven't even really tried to make the BG2 fans happy.

Maybe not, but I don't have exactly confidence in him to design them well enough as he afaik hates both hard-counters and mage duels.

 

[Hegel]

Look, what Sawyer feels like is non-consequential. I'm sure he would have loved to run wild and burden-free. But the problem here is that POE suffers from too much Sawyer already, and adding more would have inevitably led to a worse experience.
No Athkatla or BG like city, lower content density in the cities as if they were deserted villages, packed wilderness areas, ecologic dungeon making, dumbed down itemization, a senseless ruleset, no hard-counters, no mage battles, no utility magic, no pre-buffing, no companion iteration, cutting down Avellone's content, terrible MMORPG-like combat and stat system, the lore dump and the stupid plot/world, even stuff like the stronghold (which despite being Tim Cain's work is still under Sawyer's supervision, he's was the lead designer after all); this is all Sawyer's doing. Look at the stealth system or at the way the thieving mechanics (which I'll give you, weren't that great in BGII) were butchered.
Whether the expansion is going to be good, I'm sure more Sawyer is not the solution, at least not for those who wanted a BGII-like game.
Look, Pallegrina is the perfect example of everything I mentioned above. The most tedious NPC couldn't be anyone else other than the one he designed.

 

[felipepepe]

PoE isn't "Sawyer's vision" either. He'll make what he thinks the fans are demanding.

Nonsense. BGII is still played today by grognards, and we all know his opinion on those. Alternatively, Biodrones love all the romance & character development, and that's pretty damn shallow/non-existant in PoE. If Sawyer made what fans are demanding, the game would have things like romances, hard counters and multi-class.

That's why PoE is such a shallow game, it has nothing to hold people, to make you come back for more. It's a simulacrum of the IE games, that fools you at first, but begins to crumble the more you look at it.

 

[Jarpie]

PoE isn't "Sawyer's vision" either. He'll make what he thinks the fans are demanding.

Nonsense. BGII is still played today by grognards, and we all know his opinion on those. Alternatively, Biodrones love all the romance & character development, and that's pretty damn shallow/non-existant in PoE. If Sawyer made what fans are demanding, the game would have things like romances, hard counters and multi-class.

That's why PoE is such a shallow game, it has nothing to hold people, to make you come back for more. It's a simulacrum of the IE games, that fools you at first, but begins to crumble the more you look at it.

I'd say there's one other big flaw in PoE IMO, it's not or at least it doesn't feel like "Labour of Love" for a game they claimed to love to do during Kickstarter campaign.

 

[Infinitron]

Nonsense. BGII is still played today by grognards, and we all know his opinion on those. Alternatively, Biodrones love all the romance & character development, and that's pretty damn shallow/non-existant in PoE. If Sawyer made what fans are demanding, the game would have things like romances, hard counters and multi-class.

I'm not talking about grognards, I'm talking about normal fans. Fans don't demand specific mechanics and implementations - they demand overall experiences. If there's something that feels like a mage duel, with that same kind of push-pull-penetrate experience, they won't care if it's a hard counter or not.

I believe that many Codexers are grognards, but many will find out that they're just regular fans once they receive the kind of overall experience they were looking for. Of course, there's a far greater chance of that happening if they go and ask for those experiences.

 

[Hegel]

I have the feeling they treated it as a pet project with only a minority of people tasked on full-time. They, perhaps, didn't believe it would result into a succes and relegated the whole thing to an afterthought as they tried to secure sources of income tied to other projects. Of course the game sold more than expected but not enough to warrant a full blown commitment or a risky creative effort.
PoE was a let's fleece the sheep cause we need to survive wonder. It achieved its goal as it afforded Obsidian enough leeway to shop and enter into more publisher sponsored contracts (the new games). That's why they are lukewarm on the kickstarter thing, heck they are not jumping at POE's prospects either.
My kudos to Sawyer and the rest of the team, it's a great hobby project.

 

[felipepepe]

I'm not talking about grognards, I'm talking about normal fans. Fans don't demand specific mechanics and implementations - they demand overall experiences. If there's something that feels like a mage duel, with that same kind of push-pull-penetrate experience, they won't care if it's a hard counter or not.

I believe that many Codexers are grognards, but many will find out that they're just regular fans once they receive the kind of overall experience they were looking for. Of course, there's a far greater chance of that happening if they go and ask for those experiences.

Again, romancing NPCs was a huge deal in BGII and a lot of people asked for that. Normal fans, not grognards. Yet it isn't in the game.

Your theory of "Sawyer does what people ask for" clearly is wrong. His position is more towards "I'll give them what they need, not what they want", and that sucks, because we know he didn't like BG2. That's why the majority of PoE's high points comes from the Baldur's Gate blueprint; the majority of flaws come from the things Sawyer decided he could do so much better.