Interview Interview with the Tyranny Writing Team at Game Revolution

[Lightsinthesky]

Where the fuck did they get Starks, did they just go trawling on twitter for the most generic nerd girl to give a job?

 

[Fenix]

did they just go trawling on twitter for the most generic nerd gir

Pic!

 

[Infinitron]

She looks pretty good.

 

[Roguey]

Where the fuck did they get Starks, did they just go trawling on twitter for the most generic nerd girl to give a job?

Her last job was as a designer on Wildstar for Carbine, in other words, she came highly recommended from Tim Cain.

 

[Lightsinthesky]

Spoiler

I meant in her taste in media but no she doesn't, she looks like a poor man's boxxy. Bitch is gonna age like milk

 

[Latelistener]

One must be really talented to allow himself to mention Fallout 3 as a source.

 

[Fenix]

Usual girl, what so nerdy about her?

 

[LizardWizard]

Her last job was as a designer on Wildstar for Carbine,

Failing upward I see.

 

[Sannom]

Where the fuck did they get Starks, did they just go trawling on twitter for the most generic nerd girl to give a job?

Really? I'm more concerned about Land myself, his responses to the questions not related to the short stories weren't encouraging, and in the ones related to the short stories, it felt like he was way too enamored with his character. I'm talking Creator's Pet levels!

 

[Rivmusique]

or a lovable midget race of any kind.

Who do we have to complain to to get them to apologize for this? Maybe they could get the interview edited to avoid hurting anyone's feelings.

 

[a mod]

oh boy.

 

[Felix]

Megan Starks, Narrative Designer: I really like the dark humor in many of the Orcs' lines in the Lord of the Rings movies. I also like to think a bit about some different bad guy groups like the Governor or the people running Terminus in The Walking Dead, the raiders in Fallout 3, the reavers in Firefly, US prohibition-era gangsters, or hired gun type characters (whether it be a spy like Brock Samson from the Venture Bros or a sellsword like Bronn from Game of Thrones)
Another of our big themes is power and how it gets wielded. We take a lot of inspiration from Soylent Green

I liked MacLean's reply, but fuck, those are some shitty inspirations to have for a game. It's all pop culture, too. The only writer who didn't mention a single book, despite naming 6 sources of inspiration.
And Fallout 3 raiders? Seriously?

It's a woman, what did you expect from their shallow brains?

 

[agentorange]

LOL EPIC! THIS GAME WILL BE EPIC xD!!! I LOVE WALKING DEAD AND *currently popular tv show for dimwit americans*. I really hope there are some epic jabs at Trump in this game lol talk about a TYRANT, haha xD If I was a tyrant I would kill all white people who have children they are ruining the planet!! Also have everyone wear mustache and monocle haha!

 

[Excidium II]

shit

 

[Fenix]

I was a tyrant I would kill all white people who have children they are ruining the planet

Well he didn't specified about "white" or he did?

 

[Tigranes]

We are now fully in the age where game writers spend most of their free time playing other games, and not necessarily good games at that. Mock Sawyer's history degree all you like, but his personal preference for going into actual history is something that would benefit almost every RPG writer. Avellone also used to talk about going to movies, history, and other diverse media.

To me it sounds like a history degree would make you better at writing more unique lore, but if we have learned anything from Bethesda it is that you can have the most insane acid trip influenced stuff on the background, but bad excecution can still easily mould it to a set of common tropes.
What I'd really want from RPG writers is good grasp of the genre conventions so you can consciously avoid or play around with them, enough outside influence that you can come up with something outlandish and the kind of screenwriting experience that enables writing dialogue that isn't either infodump or melodramatic spewl.

Well, of course. Nobody said a hitory degree is the most important thing to be a good RPG writer. But an undergraduate history degree doesn't make you a walking chronicler or an expert in the bacterial population of windowsills in the Roman Empire - probably the most useful thing is that it helps you make your lore coherent and plausible instead of just pulling shit out of thin air, which is exactly what the Codex values and hates its lack in FO3.

I don't know what to make of Tyranny, really. Some of the stuff we've heard sounds really unique, a lot of stuff sounds really pedestrian and lacking quality. Hopefully we can see a city in action at some point.

 

[a mod]

LOL EPIC! THIS GAME WILL BE EPIC xD!!! I LOVE WALKING DEAD AND *currently popular tv show for dimwit americans*. I really hope there are some epic jabs at Trump in this game lol talk about a TYRANT, haha xD If I was a tyrant I would kill all white people who have children they are ruining the planet!! Also have everyone wear mustache and monocle haha!

My favorite is when they praise lord of the rings...THOSE WERE THE BEST MOVIES EVER BRO

What would be cool is if there was a game like that. I think it could even work as one of this things on amazon...uh, books?

 

[Lurker King]

Well, of course. Nobody said a hitory degree is the most important thing to be a good RPG writer. But an undergraduate history degree doesn't make you a walking chronicler or an expert in the bacterial population of windowsills in the Roman Empire - probably the most useful thing is that it helps you make your lore coherent and plausible instead of just pulling shit out of thin air, which is exactly what the Codex values and hates its lack in FO3.

Sawyer’s own account about his time on university is that he was a lazy and mediocre student, who waste all his free time playing cRPGs. From I could gather about the guy’s blog, his twitter and interviews you can see that he have interests for soccer, the environment, SJW themes, bicycles, game design, anything, but academic stuff. Moreover, even if he was a dedicated student, most academics can’t write shit, man. They are trained to use arid prose in ultra-specialized topics. And even if he had a deep general culture on top of his academic background, his knowledge about the way the world works would not translate in a good narrative unless he was a gifted writer. Is he a gifted writer? No, he is not. Pallegina is a poorly written NPC. The truth is that we would not even discuss the merits of this subject if we would not talking about Obsidian. They can take your money to deliver a bastardized BG clone, tell straight to your face they want to make a Skyrim product, shameless copy all the bad ideas of other popamole games, and somehow we are still discussing how they would provide what codexers really wants. The codexer is not a learning animal.

I don't know what to make of Tyranny, really. Some of the stuff we've heard sounds really unique.

 

[Forest Dweller]

So with that in mind, I’ve found most of my inspiration comes from non-fiction: fascism, American exceptionalism, drug cartels, capitalist corporations, and militaries through the ages have all provided a great deal of inspiration as to how evil wins.

Leftist detected.

 

[Latro]

So with that in mind, I’ve found most of my inspiration comes from non-fiction: fascism, American exceptionalism, drug cartels, capitalist corporations, and militaries through the ages have all provided a great deal of inspiration as to how evil wins.

Leftist detected.

I bet kyros or whatever will also be pro-life and not allow gays to ask for gay marriage cakes

TYRANNY

 

[a mod]

An (intentional) satire of tyranny like that would be hilarious, but I am guessing cringeworthy will be the reality.

 

[Tigranes]

Well, of course. Nobody said a hitory degree is the most important thing to be a good RPG writer. But an undergraduate history degree doesn't make you a walking chronicler or an expert in the bacterial population of windowsills in the Roman Empire - probably the most useful thing is that it helps you make your lore coherent and plausible instead of just pulling shit out of thin air, which is exactly what the Codex values and hates its lack in FO3.

Sawyer’s own account about his time on university is that he was a lazy and mediocre student, who waste all his free time playing cRPGs. From I could gather about the guy’s blog, his twitter and interviews you can see that he have interests for soccer, the environment, SJW themes, bicycles, game design, anything, but academic stuff. Moreover, even if he was a dedicated student, most academics can’t write shit, man. They are trained to use arid prose in ultra-specialized topics. And even if he had a deep general culture on top of his academic background, his knowledge about the way the world works would not translate in a good narrative unless he was a gifted writer. Is he a gifted writer? No, he is not. Pallegina is a poorly written NPC. The truth is that we would not even discuss the merits of this subject if we would not talking about Obsidian. They can take your money to deliver a bastardized BG clone, tell straight to your face they want to make a Skyrim product, shameless copy all the bad ideas of other popamole games, and somehow we are still discussing how they would provide what codexers really wants. The codexer is not a learning animal.

I don't know what to make of Tyranny, really. Some of the stuff we've heard sounds really unique.

Yes...? You're arguing with an imaginary friend. As an academic I am well aware of how useless 100% 95% of my expertise is for any aspect of making video games. The point I'm making is that I agree with someone like Chris Avellone when he says the real world and its histories is such a rich source of inspiration and more game writers could benefit from it.

Also " a lot of stuff sounds really pedestrian and lacking quality", I believe is the bit you left out when you were trying too hard to be a tabloid magazine

 

[a mod]

The annoying thing here is that they have 'good' options. The old movie fall of the roman empire was quite nice in that no matter what the protagonist did, things became worse and more fucked up. Same with I, Clauius and Claudius the God. That is the only way you can make something like this work. Oh well, I mean it's already not working for me anyway...aside from this really surreal interview with the hipster writers the companions seem just awful already.

 

[Schizophrenic monolog]

Dear Obsidian,

Here's a list of some inspiration for your game:

1. Moby dick (Captain Ahab is the villain) - it's all about revenge obsession.
2. Gladiator (the movie) - Commodus takes power.
3. Real life (our World controlled by religious).
4. Breaking Bad - a story of a teacher who becomes a kingpin.
5. Meshuggah (the band) - lyrics about human nature ; the future ; the end of humanity as we know it.
6. A song of ice & fire (The books!!!).

And I can think of hundreds more inspirational ideas in a sec.

All they need to do is to think of figures who obsessed with something (Power ; Control ; money) and the way they trying to achieve that goal.

They don't kill everybody.
They use people weaknesses, fear, poverty and manipulate them for their own benefit.

What a shitty list they gave... I'm surprised the power rangers weren't there...

 

[a mod]

I think this is a more likely inspiration:

Suddenly it all makes sense.