Interview J.E. Sawyer Interview By Grupo97

[Rosh]

I'm not going to reply to the whole article, but I'll reply to several of these Shiny Jewels of Stupidity™ (not to be confused with the Glittering Gems of Hatred™ that represent those with standards).

The threshold of simplicity that a hardcore gamer will accept is a lot lower than the threshold of difficulty that a mainstream gamer will accept.

I guess that is what happens when you dumb down your audience, eh?
They stop being able to think for themselves while having the publisher's PR and gaming rags think for them as they sheep along.

Then you end up designing games for these kind of people because no matter how stupid they are, they represent income for the game publisher. The developer just has to do barely enough work to fool most of the other people, mainly the ignorant mainstream gaming press (who are ALSO a bunch of fast food rejects and "journalists" unable to work in a decent paying field) so their readers will flock along.

A hardcore gamer may accept an automapping tool but scoff that in "the old days", he or she had to write things out on graph paper. A mainstream gamer will probably not accept the absence of an automapping tool. He or she will stop playing the game and tell everyone they know that it is terrible.

And therefore, the opinion of an idiot is put on the same level as someone who can map themselves - which is also something players do in any basic D&D game, unless the GM just throws their map at the players from the start nowadays.

Of course, it helps to have the locations and areas memorable, so they might not need mapping. Too bad most CRPG locations and areas are not memorable in any way aside from the player wanting to erase them from their memory (see: Fallout 3, Ass Effect, etc.).

I guess it depends on how similar they need to be. In terms of mechanics, I think a lot of gamers wouldn't accept the controls or conventions of those old games. In terms of content, I believe it's still possible to do, but it's harder now.

If today's gamers can't understand click'n'move, click on an enemy to attack, and to use a menu, then it's perhaps time for the X-Box to support some other controls than just have a chimp mash a button.

I can also understand the confusion by morons being unable to see what two buttons of a mouse do in context to a game engine. Just TWO buttons! Of course, this might explain why they only trusted Mac users with one button for so long...

No wonder Adventure games are considered to be dead. Players have been taught to dry-hump the scenery while mashing the X button a la Final Fantasy VII and other titles, to find the "hidden" items. So getting them to understand environment and object manipulation is a tall order.

The current gaming market doesn't typically support big budget games that deal with intellectually mature issues. Mature content is equated with sex and violence. Video games have not often been used as a theme-based or didactic medium, but that's not entirely the publisher's or developer's fault. As with films and books, most gaming audiences simply don't care as much about issues and themes as they do about visceral feedback.

When you make games that involve the least amount of thinking, you get players used to not thinking as they mash a button through a romance plot for their digital persona to get laid. Puerile appeal != mature, JE. Mature = able to think about complex issues and details. I also have to call you a liar in part about books and films. Yes, the Lowest Common Denominator might adore a Wil Ferrell movie, but that doesn't mean there isn't an audience for thought-provoking titles like The City of Lost Children, Brazil, A Scanner Darkly, and similar writing from the past. I'm sure Philip K. Dick, Asimov, Madeline L'Engle, and other science fiction greats just roll in their graves at these excuses of yours.

Thanks for giving excuses for publishers and developers to no longer try anymore, and then be comparatively crap to what was already written long before this "audience" of yours was born. Is the human race regressing down to chimps? Your argument supports that.

I only did a bit of design work on the Dark Alliance games, but I think it was good for Interplay and Black Isle to work with Snowblind on those projects. Black Isle consisted almost entirely of PC RPG developers and it gave us a narrow focus. I think working on console titles helped open up some of the developers (myself included) to look at other input systems and gameplay styles.

YAY! We don't have to do anything but get the chimps to mash buttons! We don't have to try anymore!

 

[Pseudofool]

Rosh, you need to start thinking in terms of degree, and not type. Your responses, at least to me, come off as incredible disconnected with mainstream desires (not that you should be connected to such, but you should know what I mean).

While it'd be nice if a medium (any medium) could inspire its audience to think, that just doesn't happen. Video games (and largely all media) have an antagonistic audience. They are enculturated to dislike something before they learn to like it; at least in the US, people are trained to give up on product and move to the next.

However, and this is where I appreciate your tenacity and incredulity, over a long stretch of time, that audience will begin to bore of the simplistic forms of entertainment (whom Wyrmwood seems to champion) and demand something more from this media. It will take time though. Videogames are really are just presently going mainstream, there's a cultural shift that needs to take place before we can speak about getting one's audience to think.

All that said, keep fighting the good the fight, but don't condemn thoughtful game designers whose realism is, in the end, a blessing, because it keeps them working. It should say something that we have a thread where one poster condemns JE for his high ideals and another condemns for playing to the masses. Sounds like JE gets it to me.

 

[Rosh]

Rosh, you need to start thinking in terms of degree, and not type. Your responses, at least to me, come off as incredible disconnected with mainstream desires (not that you should be connected to such, but you should know what I mean).

The "mainstream" is simply nothing more than the publishers dropping their standards so low by trying to get as many people as possible, fooling the ignorants as long as possible. When they can't appeal to those people anymore, they turn to dumbing it down even further for the next batch of people they are trying to bring in through some marketing buzz-word.

While it'd be nice if a medium (any medium) could inspire its audience to think, that just doesn't happen. Video games (and largely all media) have an antagonistic audience. They are enculturated to dislike something before they learn to like it; at least in the US, people are trained to give up on product and move to the next.

Yup. Why bother challenge yourself and think, when you can have it made easier for you by a game that coddles idiots?

However, and this is where I appreciate your tenacity and incredulity, over a long stretch of time, that audience will begin to bore of the simplistic forms of entertainment (whom Wyrmwood seems to champion) and demand something more from this media. It will take time though. Videogames are really are just presently going mainstream, there's a cultural shift that needs to take place before we can speak about getting one's audience to think.

Games were considered mainstream in the 90s as well. Every kid had to have a Nintendo, a SNES, or Sega. History has done little but repeat itself since then, and it has actually gotten worse since.

Here's the problem. The folks who grow bored of the same recycled shit from the publishers get a bit jaded, and eventually abandoned, as the publishers turn towards appealing to the next (de)generation of ignorant masses. As people keep squirting out more retarded versions of themselves, there will be a continuously refreshing mainstream "new market".

All that said, keep fighting the good the fight, but don't condemn thoughtful game designers whose realism is, in the end, a blessing, because it keeps them working. It should say something that we have a thread where one poster condemns JE for his high ideals and another condemns for playing to the masses. Sounds like JE gets it to me.

JE Preaches high ideals, but in the end they all turn into half-finished Feargus SLAM DUNK!s. At least as of late. The real question is...if PS:T was so good, why isn't Obsidian even remotely trying to continue that quality? Oops.

 

[Pseudofool]

I tried to be gracious, friend, because I appreciate your spirit but there's dreadful naivete, here.

The "mainstream" is simply nothing more than the publishers dropping their standards so low by trying to get as many people as possible, fooling the ignorants as long as possible. When they can't appeal to those people anymore, they turn to dumbing it down even further for the next batch of people they are trying to bring in through some marketing buzz-word.

There are morons everywhere, and they buy things, including videogames. These morons keep publishers in business. I agree it's phoney and discouraging, but there it is. These people exist, and without them, there would be no market for videogames.

Yup. Why bother challenge yourself and think, when you can have it made easier for you by a game that coddles idiots?

Again, this comes off as sheepishly ideal. Of course, I want to think; but that speaks nothing of the manifold who actually spend their hard earned cash on videogames. So many of these people have been trained in anti-think, and we need to acknowledge that and curb our expectations for what kind of art studios can produce. That doesn't mean we should forgive crap, but it does mean we should see our current moment as step in teh stairway up to where videogames can be art.

Games were considered mainstream in the 90s as well. Every kid had to have a Nintendo, a SNES, or Sega. History has done little but repeat itself since then, and it has actually gotten worse since.

Here's the problem. The folks who grow bored of the same recycled shit from the publishers get a bit jaded, and eventually abandoned, as the publishers turn towards appealing to the next (de)generation of ignorant masses. As people keep squirting out more retarded versions of themselves, there will be a continuously refreshing mainstream "new market".

I think you misunderstand history, while we conceive ninetendo as ubiquitous, it really wasn't. It was considered a toy and not a medium for art; there are plenty of gamers who are in their thirties, and many of them are here, looking for games with depth. But there are far more new gamers of all ages who have yet gone through a generation of platforms or PCs, who still might join our ranks. Again, I'll point to TV as an example where the narrative demands of an audience increase rather than erode. Of course, it remains to be seen whether or not this will be the case with videogames.

JE Preaches high ideals, but in the end they all turn into half-finished Feargus SLAM DUNK!s. At least as of late. The real question is...if PS:T was so good, why isn't Obsidian even remotely trying to continue that quality? Oops.

Well, clearly they are trying to maintain that quality (even if it ends up capitalized), but if high ideals interfere with the bottom line you end with troika. Obsidian needs to bid it's time, and when it has financial heft, and lots of it, maybe it can make games that do what we want, but I'm not so foolish as to demand given how precarious the positions even vaguely honorable studios find themselves in.

I'm with you in spirit, just not in practicality.

 

[Rosh]

I tried to be gracious, friend, because I appreciate your spirit but there's dreadful naivete, here.

Yes, could you please cut it out? It's nothing I haven't heard in the last 10 years. :D

There are morons everywhere, and they buy things, including videogames. These morons keep publishers in business. I agree it's phoney and discouraging, but there it is. These people exist, and without them, there would be no market for videogames.

WRONG. There was a video games industry long before they decided to cater to morons. The reason to compromise game detail and complexity for morons is simply to get more people. Which is understandable from a business point of view.

However, CRPG developers DO NOT need to cater towards morons. Leave that for the FPS, RTS, sports, and other genres. CRPGs do not need to be designed as a FPS with a stat system. CRPGs are by definition requiring of thought, but the publishers are more interested in the audience capable of mashing buttons. Mashing buttons does not make a decent CRPG.

Again, this comes off as sheepishly ideal. Of course, I want to think; but that speaks nothing of the manifold who actually spend their hard earned cash on videogames. So many of these people have been trained in anti-think, and we need to acknowledge that and curb our expectations for what kind of art studios can produce. That doesn't mean we should forgive crap, but it does mean we should see our current moment as step in teh stairway up to where videogames can be art.

It might surprise you, but people used to buy games to involve a bit of thinking. Adventure and other genres are a good example of that. There is nothing wrong with a good FPS, I like several, but when you are lobotomizing a genre almost wholesale to cater towards idiots, then there's a problem.

I'd rather have good games instead of having everything dumbed down because of people like this. People like that, while having some disposable income at some part of their life, aren't really deserving of society's attention. They are human waste. People like that shouldn't even have money to begin with, because that would imply that someone paid them to do anything but sit on their ass.

I think you misunderstand history, while we conceive ninetendo as ubiquitous, it really wasn't. It was considered a toy and not a medium for art; there are plenty of gamers who are in their thirties, and many of them are here, looking for games with depth.

And that is where you misunderstand history. Nintendo was out while the PC game industry had some brilliant work going on that seriously shit on anything Nintendo had released. This was bleeding into the PC market to make it "accessible" and that is the reason why many good game series died.

The difference between consoles and PC originally was okay, it was a difference, each had their own audience, up until people decided to start catering towards morons. Lately, it seems like everything needs to be on every other console/platform, and to do that they severely need to dumb things down.

But there are far more new gamers of all ages who have yet gone through a generation of platforms or PCs, who still might join our ranks. Again, I'll point to TV as an example where the narrative demands of an audience increase rather than erode. Of course, it remains to be seen whether or not this will be the case with videogames.

Welcome to the jaded, and the publishers simply don't care about them anymore as long as they can appeal to the tits and button mashing crowd. As you said it before, if the game poses too much of a challenge for the chimp, they will scream and throw feces at the game and then go onto another. We live in a generation of idiots. That doesn't exclude that good, quality work can be made.

Who knows? You might just capture all those jaded people like Fallout, Fallout 2, and PS:T did easily. They are the titles with top marks, while the mass-produced filler shit tends to sink as time goes on.

Well, clearly they are trying to maintain that quality (even if it ends up capitalized), but if high ideals interfere with the bottom line you end with troika. Obsidian needs to bid it's time, and when it has financial heft, and lots of it, maybe it can make games that do what we want, but I'm not so foolish as to demand given how precarious the positions even vaguely honorable studios find themselves in.

Maybe it would help if they actually finished a game before it shipped. Troika had its own issues, though the games had their impact. I agree that there was little place for them in the industry today outside of the jaded, but you have to admit that was mainly due to the average intelligence of the gaming audience going down quickly in the last few years.

I'm with you in spirit, just not in practicality.

Again, about history, while things were being dumbed down in the 90s, we also saw some incredible games bucking that trend. Fallout, PS:T, and others. It is also why we see a devoted audience towards the Spiderweb Software and Telltale Games developers.

Why can't we have that same good quality, today, by the people who claim they go for that quality in the mainstream? Either they can be honest and deliver, or start tattooing themselves on the forehead with "I AM A WHORE".

 

[Pseudofool]

I think you misunderstand how industry works. It take more money and more people to produce videogames with emerging technology; it becomes more expensive to make videogame art. The technology will have to plateau before we can really see a focus on content again, while many studios still value such, it's not what keeps them in business. At some point the technology will plateau (or new medium will develop and the process starts over), and we'll begin to see art.

It's just silly to think that Mario (or whatever) dumbed things down. Rather, people are already dumb and they are drawn to simplicity. Computers and videogames were kitchy in the 80s and early 90s so it drew a specific audience of kitchy people, but once computers and vidoegames broadened their audience and along with the increasing demands of techonology, it's absolutely foolish to expect that the ideals of game designers would win over market demands.

Hey market capitalism totally perverts art and artist, that we can agree on. But it's a reality. And while we, as consumers, and say, artists, should strive against it, we should also look for and sponsor those among us whose have managed to break through (so to speak) and have some influence on game design that is both thoughtful and practical. It's not ideal by any means, but it might be on the right track.

 

[MetalCraze]

In terms of mechanics, I think a lot of gamers wouldn't accept the controls or conventions of those old games. In terms of content, I believe it's still possible to do, but it's harder now.

It was perfectly possible 10 years ago, but now it is harder? What is this bullshit?

 

[J.E. Sawyer]

JE Preaches high ideals,

I really don't think I do. I try to be practical about the work that I do, which does mean that I am constantly trying to satisfy a wide, mostly non-hardcore audience. I try to find ways to introduce optional mechanics that take a relatively mainstream game style and make it more engaging for the hardcore audience. I may not be very good at it, but that is what I am trying to do.

 

[J.E. Sawyer]

It was perfectly possible 10 years ago, but now it is harder? What is this bullshit?

Game art content, in general, takes longer to make for next gen platforms (including PCs) unless the content is of "retro" detail/quality. The games being described were very large, and I think most studios would find it very challenging to matching the amount of content in a single game. Additionally, many games now have full VO and lipsynching for all characters with dialogue, which slows down the creation of dialogue content compared to the mostly-text days.

 

[Rosh]

I think you misunderstand how industry works.

I think you're new.

It take more money and more people to produce videogames with emerging technology; it becomes more expensive to make videogame art. The technology will have to plateau before we can really see a focus on content again, while many studios still value such, it's not what keeps them in business. At some point the technology will plateau (or new medium will develop and the process starts over), and we'll begin to see art.

That is what I've been saying for years.

It's just silly to think that Mario (or whatever) dumbed things down. Rather, people are already dumb and they are drawn to simplicity. Computers and videogames were kitchy in the 80s and early 90s so it drew a specific audience of kitchy people, but once computers and vidoegames broadened their audience and along with the increasing demands of techonology, it's absolutely foolish to expect that the ideals of game designers would win over market demands.

No, Mario didn't dumb things down - BioWare, Bethesda, and others have dumbed things down by taking the concepts of a genre and made it pretty much in name only.

Hey market capitalism totally perverts art and artist, that we can agree on. But it's a reality.

On this note, I'd like to say "Hi, JE!"

And while we, as consumers, and say, artists, should strive against it, we should also look for and sponsor those among us whose have managed to break through (so to speak) and have some influence on game design that is both thoughtful and practical. It's not ideal by any means, but it might be on the right track.

I think I already mentioned a couple of dev houses who have a devoted following because of this.

In terms of mechanics, I think a lot of gamers wouldn't accept the controls or conventions of those old games. In terms of content, I believe it's still possible to do, but it's harder now.

It was perfectly possible 10 years ago, but now it is harder? What is this bullshit?

Exactly. The genre has gone downhill (not regressed) to catering to idiots while the audience regresses back to chimps. Or Christian fundies who kill over the teachings of one of the world's first hippies, whichever origin of mankind you believe.

JE Preaches high ideals,

I really don't think I do. I try to be practical about the work that I do, which does mean that I am constantly trying to satisfy a wide, mostly non-hardcore audience.

I think you're mistaking "non-hardcore audience" with the social wastes who sit around doing nothing with their lives but mooch off of mommy and daddy while eating Pop-Tarts.

I try to find ways to introduce optional mechanics that take a relatively mainstream game style and make it more engaging for the hardcore audience. I may not be very good at it, but that is what I am trying to do.

A pity that since the games Obsidian have developed are released as half-finished, that half of your design doesn't quite make it through.

 

[Rosh]

It was perfectly possible 10 years ago, but now it is harder? What is this bullshit?

Game art content, in general, takes longer to make for next gen platforms (including PCs) unless the content is of "retro" detail/quality. The games being described were very large, and I think most studios would find it very challenging to matching the amount of content in a single game. Additionally, many games now have full VO and lipsynching for all characters with dialogue, which slows down the creation of dialogue content compared to the mostly-text days.

Swing and a miss. We were discussing mechanics of the game, the actual GAME, versus the superficial shit used to cover up the lack of a game.

Unless they now mean the same thing to you.

 

[J.E. Sawyer]

Sawyer, you fail. If you are reading this forum (which you often do), heed this.

...

With all due respect, if you (and many other developers) actually worried about the videogame being good as a videogame, and not about pseudo-intellectual digressions of what themes and ideas you can fit into them, then they won't have a myriad of broken game design, technical issues, and absolute lack of actual gameplay content.

That's what I wrote in the interview, at least in this part: "I think developers have to lead the way: we need to make games that are enjoyable as games and also have mature themes to explore that complement the gameplay."

I do believe that the gameplay needs to be the central focus of development. However, I genuinely believe it is possibly to surround that gameplay with interesting themes. That doesn't mean I think the designer should be vomiting their ideas on the player, though.

 

[J.E. Sawyer]

I think you're mistaking "non-hardcore audience" with the social wastes who sit around doing nothing with their lives but mooch off of mommy and daddy while eating Pop-Tarts.

No, not really.

A pity that since the games Obsidian have developed are released as half-finished, that half of your design doesn't quite make it through.

I agree. I think our games should be much better than they have been.

 

[Rosh]

That's what I wrote in the interview, at least in this part: "I think developers have to lead the way: we need to make games that are enjoyable as games and also have mature themes to explore that complement the gameplay."

Unfortunately, it seems like the "mature" things are "boobies" and other things we don't tell kids about, like how daddy is really Santa Claus. A pity it isn't for mature people, who have a background education with fiction ideas akin to those authors I mentioned.

"Here's a setting with some quirky elements."

"Get ready for the mature part....ROMANCES CHEESIER THAN JAPANESE HENTAI GAMES! BOUNCING BOOBS! SKIN SHOTS IN SEX SCENES! SWEAR WORDS! BLOOD AND GORE! WHOO-HOO!"

"Uh, what about the gameplay? We're still working on tha...what, we have to ship out the game? Okay..."

I do believe that the gameplay needs to be the central focus of development. However, I genuinely believe it is possibly to surround that gameplay with interesting themes. That doesn't mean I think the designer should be vomiting their ideas on the player, though.

When themes > game, there's a problem. Your problem.

 

[MetalCraze]

Game art content, in general, takes longer to make for next gen platforms (including PCs) unless the content is of "retro" detail/quality.

I disagree. I have yet to see a 3d game, especially RPG graphically on a par with BG2/IWD1/PS:T which actually had more textures per map, especially the ones on the "next-gen" platforms, aka hopelessly outdated X360 and PS3 with their castrated video and usual memory.

The games being described were very large, and I think most studios would find it very challenging to matching the amount of content in a single game.

Yes because most studios are talentless. Much smaller teams with limited technology where you couldn't just license the engine and start making the game right away managed to create games like System Shock, Thief, Fallout and even that BG - which also needed lots of highly detailed 3d objects before rendering them to 2d.

Additionally, many games now have full VO and lipsynching for all characters with dialogue, which slows down the creation of dialogue content compared to the mostly-text days.

That is a bad excuse. It didn't stop Troika with their constantly limited budget from making VtmB, which has much more content (including VOs) than any modern shooter-wanna-be-actionRPG.
Who needs VOs for every character in a RPG anyway? Console kids don't play RPGs at all. The problem is - you cater to a shooter market where eye-burning bloom is more important than gameplay, that's all.
But I think a better excuse is, perhaps, laziness? Or concentrating your whole studio on 3 badly-made games that will be forgotten in one month instead of making one but good aka reason "greed", eh?

 

[Rosh]

Who needs VOs for every character in a RPG anyway? Console kids doesn't play RPGs at all. The problem is - you cater to a shooter market, that's all.

Or the kids who sit on their parents' couch eating Pop-Tarts, who require full VO because they can only understand one out of three written words on the screen.

Sometimes it helps to have them color-coded for those chimps, like in Ass Effect.

I find it hilarious that the target market for "mature" themes are mostly illiterate.

 

[Data4]

I think Microsoft dumbed things down when they made their OS more user friendly by going graphical with Windows 95. That was the beginning, anyway. I've always been a PC elitist because I firmly believe the chasm that separated the thought-requiring games from the mindless button mashers was the need to tweak two DOS files: AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS. The PC was the playground of the nerdy, D&D stereotype of the mid to late 80's, and while it was a caricature with pocket protectors, buck teeth, and horn-rimmed glasses that defined "computer geek", there was truth in it.

Capitalism played its part as well, and I say this as a good believer in capitalism. Apply to the LCD and more money can be had. Nothing that hasn't been said here already, but there you go.

However it's evolved since the good ol' days, you can bet your sweet ass it's rooted in Bill Gates' desire to get his software into as many homes as possible.

 

[Azrael the cat]

One thing to remember with Troika regarding linking their fall to a lack of a market for their products: their games on release were nothing like the gems that they are now.

Arcanum was pretty good on release, but as is famous had massively broken combat. To the point where you really couldn't be too hard on another gamer for giving up on it at the first mines, in which case they'd have missed out on much the game has to offer.

TOEE is a niche title at best. But not because it's a hardcore rpg. It's because it's a combat only dungeon-crawler combined with a pure turnbased rpg. To players wanting the next BG2/Arcanum it would have been a HUGE dissapointment (heck, I sure know I was disappointed when I bought it shortly after release). Not to mention it being buggy as heck. The poor reviews were understandable. Now, it's a good budget title, partially because people know what to expect. Whereas all the previews and publicity for ToEE pre-release was that it would be a BG2-style rpg.

Ahhh....Bloodlines. Got middle-of-the-run reviews on release, far lower than the huge praise it needed to shine out over HL2 that was released simultaneously. And you know what? It deserved every shit review it got - at the time. The game was seriously unplayable on release. Code was so crap that computers that ran HL2 just fine would stutter unplayably, or worse, as soon as you left the apartment. And as for bugs - that would have to come close to being one of the buggiest games ever to be released by a professional development team. And many, many of them were game-stopping. I specifically remember quite a few reviews going 'game looks to be great, but it's unplayable, and in the rare event that it runs ok you're probably going to run into one of the several game-breaking bugs later on.' For every dumbass reviewer who complained about 'why don't the guns do lots of damage like a shooter just because I haven't put a single point into firearms????' there were many others who said 'this game is unplayable in its current state. Seems like it might be good, but we really can't recommend it.' Remember, these were the days that gamespy and others were still mediocre enough to post articles saying they were wrong to give Morrowind such a high score, because the quality really drops off once you realise how lifeless the game is (wish I had the link to that:-( I search of gamespy might find it).

Bloodlines is one of my all-time favourites, but not the Bloodlines that was 1st released, but the massively community-patched one, that is even now still an unpolished gem with too much filler combat at the end.


Troika's collapse doesn't prove there isn't a market for those games. It just shows that if you're making niche market games you really have to make sure the game is finished and polished, because you don't have the same margin for hype-driven-sales. If Troika's games were released in today's state (with all the community patches and polishes, and ToEE marketed as a strategic tactics DnD-crawler rather than a Bioware rpg) they might still be around.

 

[Rosh]

I think you're mistaking "non-hardcore audience" with the social wastes who sit around doing nothing with their lives but mooch off of mommy and daddy while eating Pop-Tarts.

No, not really.

Yes, you are. Either they play the genre or they don't. Dressing a FPS or a hack and slash as a CRPG is just wrong unless it's going to be a decent hybrid in design like Bloodlines. If the customer is afraid of a lot of words or thinking beyond binary decisions, they aren't the target audience of a CRPG, nor should ever be.

Azrael the cat:
Technical faults aside for a moment, at least Troika offered good enough gameplay to warrant the fans to take that much time and effort to finish the polish upon them.

This, versus Bethesda's work, where the fans are obliged to come up with something to add some decent gameplay or to axe out critical gameplay faults. The core of Troika's gameplay has stayed intact for the most part through fan patching, as the core problems are just bugs. You can't say that of Bethesda and a few others.

 

[bhlaab]

Dressing a FPS or a hack and slash as a CRPG is just wrong unless it's going to be a decent hybrid in design like Bloodlines.

"Never EVER mix action and RPG together... unless it turns out good."

I have no problem with action RPGs. Alpha Protocol looks great, I'm a big fan of Morrowind and Deus Ex, and Fallout 3 would have been middling-to-decent had it not been an attempt at a Fallout game.

The problem is, I can count the number of hardcore, traditional and action-free crpgs released in the past 10 years on one hand. And if I take away the ones that aren't particularly spectacular or have too many bugs/balance issues due to underdevelopment I'm left with a very pathetic number.

Dumbing down isn't the problem, consoles aren't the problem, the games that do come out aren't the problem-- it's the ones that AREN'T. To me it's just crazy that there's a rabidly loyal audience this starved for titles being outright ignored in favor of a bottom line that demands multi-million budgets and competition with sales juggernauts like Halo.

 

[Kingston]

*grabs popcorn*

 

[MetalCraze]

@Azrael:
Troika's problems were mostly because of chronic lack of luck and rushed games/bad programmers. Sierra contributed very heavily to downfall of the Arcanum, ToEE wouldn't be niche if it wasn't rushed because apparently besides combat and gameworld Troika forgot to include everything else in 1.5 years besides bugs. With 2 years long VtmB dev. term it was vice versa - combat sucked but other things were good - and again bugs.
However with their limited resources Troika didn't make 3 games with 1 year development term at once.

It's like Obsidian doesn't care about quality as much as about churning out badly designed, half-finished games as fast as possible. I imagine if led by talented people which will concentrate the whole studio on one game they could make a good game. But so far it's all about the mods for Bioware (and Bethesda) games and bad excuses.

 

[Rosh]

The problem is, I can count the number of hardcore, traditional and action-free crpgs released in the past 10 years on one hand. And if I take away the ones that aren't particularly spectacular or have too many bugs/balance issues due to underdevelopment I'm left with a very pathetic number.

Fallout, Fallout 2, PS:T, Exile/Avernum, Geneforge, Shin Megami Tensei (and associated series, over 20 games at least), and so on. I know I'm missing a few, particularly some Japanese titles, but the games are there if you look for them. It takes digging, though, to weed out the mis-hyped FPS, RTS, and hack and slash games.

The smaller number would be the amount of "action RPGs" that are done right, even though most publishers think that's the way to go so it can be hyped out onto the X-Box BRAINDEAD! service.

Quite frankly, Halo sales are FPS sales. That doesn't mean that the player will suddenly go into a CRPG even if the CRPG is lobotomized in favor of making it as much of a Halo clone as they could get away with.

Dumbing down isn't the problem, consoles aren't the problem, the games that do come out aren't the problem-- it's the ones that AREN'T. To me it's just crazy that there's a rabidly loyal audience this starved for titles being outright ignored in favor of a bottom line that demands multi-million budgets and competition with sales juggernauts like Halo.

BINGO! While it's easier for the developers/publishers to cater towards the morons, their reasoning is often: why should they put forth extra effort that would go to waste?

That's the only reason why I think Obsidian can still shovel out half-finished games, because the fanboys keep thinking that the next one will somehow magically finish itself. Fallout: New Vegas in a year? Obsidian standards at their best, because they keep repeating it with no end in sight.

 

[Barrow_Bug]

Whoah, J.E. Posts here? Cool. To be honest, I bypassed the HUGE WALLS OF TEXT becuase I was scanning for any inkling of info on New Vegas. All I can say is best of luck with it, and I'm happy we'll most likely have some instresting scenarios in the next game with J.E. at the helm.

 

[fastjack]

re

mr. sawyer, thank you for your posts. I just want to say that i hope that some of these obsidian games on the horizon live up to your (and at least some of our, or at least my) standards/expectations.

i enjoy obsidian games, i think they are a step or half-step below the quality of gameplay we got from some 'classic' crpgs, but they are improving and represent our last best hope for non-indy classic rpg experiences.