Game News Jeff Vogel Responding To Critics

[ElectricOtter]

There goes my last pitiful scrap of respect for Vogel. Way to make a complete idiot of yourself, buddy.

that said, i still hope avadon 2 will be awesome and i will most likely buy that fancy remake of avernum 2 you're planning as long as you don't remove of content

 

[Severian Silk]

Can't really blame him for not wanting to dig through all the Codex crap to find what the Codex's "real feelings about Jeff Vogel and his games" are. It's a HUGE pile of crap to dig through.

 

[ChristofferC]

But why make a blog post about it?

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

But why make a blog post about it?

Exactly.

If he is too lazy to 'dig through the crap', it would have been better for him, in every way, to continue that laziness and not bother blogging about the issue. Face it, he had a brain snap from one of the...less pleasant comments... and is too proud to admit it.

 

[Sceptic]

Face it, he had a brain snap from one of the...less pleasant comments... and is too proud to admit it.

But it's still going on. Read his later comments in that blog post (I quoted one earlier). If his original blog sounded just unfair, some of the comments later on are utterly retarded. If you snapped and then don't want to admit it, I can understand, but digging yourself ever deeper is not a good idea.

 

[Azrael the cat]

It's a pity, given that Vogel's been a definite contender for my favourite developer in the past decade, but not overly surprising. I don't expect developers to have an understanding of how rpgcodex works,and a casual read through the forums would convince most people that a developer simply can't win and everyone here hates them. The mere fact that the language commonly used regarding even good games doesn't lead to forum bans and moderation would convince most that the form has some grudge against them.

What's annoying here, is that he has gone through and picked comments out of the thread, enough to indicate some degree of reading it, and yet is adamant (against the contrary clarifications of codex regulars) that folks are lying when they say his games have a big following here. Most people who aren't fans of Vogel's stuff here simply ignore him and threads about his games, and most of the criticism of Avadon have come from people with a sizeable collection of Spiderware Software games.

Vogel's blogs on game-making have always been out of synch with his games, to the point where he's the only developer I can think of whose hype actually UNDERsells his products. But the fact that he hasn't even attempted to address one of the biggest concerns, the seeming linearity of the game compared to his usual degree of inter-and-intra-factional choices and his past sprawling world maps, tells me that he just hasn't got any objective idea of why a sizeable chunk of his customers liked one of his main 2 IPs.

The codex isn't exactly the first place to turn to if you want to make a decent living from game development, but turning to your own forums for objective feedback is at least as foolish, and is more a matter of patching up your insecurities than actually turning a critical eye to your work. Obviously you want to keep your core fans happiest, but all forums have a degree of groupthink and developer forums inevitably become a sea of blind praise, where those that disagree simply stop posting rather than staying to argue against the tide. Everyone knows this, including him.

I don't hope that the guy's business flops. Partly because it's cruel, but largely because I'm still happy to see anything that encourages more people to produce crpgs. But I think I've probably hit the end of purchasing his games. Still, no shame there - as a developer Spiderware Software has had a pretty incredible run. Even factoring in the graphical remakes, the Geneforge and Avernum/Exile games, and the Rome-Celt game, add up to a very long list of decent crpgs. Troika made 3 before they went broke. Origin made 7 Ultimas before they went to shit. Bioware started declining after - what - 2 games? Even if we look at the golden eras, with Sir-tech and the Gold Box games, Spiderware Software's 11 or so good games is a pretty impressive record. I'm not saying that his games are on the same level as Troika's - I've found them to be awesome, but I'd understand why many would say that they aren't in that league, to the point where I'd pencil the difference in to an oddity in my tastes rather than a flaw in their's - but they are good. And prior to Avadon, he not only resisted the decline, but arguably got better with his later games.

That's a good run by any developer's standards, and an incredible run for a one man company. They all go into decline at some point, and he's done enough that I'll respect his prior work (but not his blogs) even if he goes 'full retard' from this point out.

 

[mondblut]

Sad thing is, for all his drive to finally become one man's Bioware, his desired target auditory's typical reaction will still remain "lawl it looks liek shit, 90s called and want they're gaem back".

Because, no matter how much they insist party banter and gay sex are the single sole reasons they play games, they are still gigantic graphic whores. Wrong turn, Jeff.

 

[Claw]

The "show posts" is broken for me too, but the search function is still working very well for both of us, if you're so curious. But you're just not that interesting for me to waste my time searching for a nice line to quote, sorry.

Well, a search for your name yields some posts complaining about the quality of commenters on the forums, sadly. Not that I have the time or curiousity to read every result.

Is not a spine that is missing in me, is the ability to care anymore. Why should I dig throught so much bullshit, memes and one liners to find some content? Why should anyone? No point-of-view here is worth that much, and the best reviews are posted as news anyway. It just lost the point.

You never had it, as far as I can tell. If making useful posts isn't worth your time, you may as well refrain from posting altogether and stop wasting my time with pointless static. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem etc.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

DISLIKING MY GAMES AND MENTIONING IT IS LIBEL

 

[Reptilian Shapeshifter]

- QWINN!!!

 

[Gondolin]

The codex isn't exactly the first place to turn to if you want to make a decent living from game development, but turning to your own forums for objective feedback is at least as foolish, and is more a matter of patching up your insecurities than actually turning a critical eye to your work.

Myeah, I noticed that one of the guys commenting on his blog began his reply with "You know Jeff makes great games". There's no such thing as a blank check, dude.

Perhaps the members of his forum are not critical enough for Vogel's own good. Oh, well.

 

[villain of the story]

By TPB, the poster means The Pirate Bay. In other words, he's saying to go pirate it. I honestly think that most of these complaints are not sincere. They're just pretending the game is bad to justify their pirating it (and playing the whole thing three times). Another good reason to be very careful about whose feedback you accept.

Generally I thought Vogel was a pretty reasonable person but this... is just plain fucking delusional in a gigantic faggot in denial way. If someone's gonna pirate, he's gonna pirate. Most people neither feel a need or bother to make up excuses, and such convoluted ones at that.

Fuck you, Vogel.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

DISLIKING MY GAMES AND MENTIONING IT IS LIBEL

Yes I noticed that. Very silly. As I said, his pride must be monstrous, and to be honest, if you read his blog you will never find him admitting he was wrong about something. Ever. Calling him on things only seems to ramp up the rhetoric.

 

[felipepepe]

The "show posts" is broken for me too, but the search function is still working very well for both of us, if you're so curious. But you're just not that interesting for me to waste my time searching for a nice line to quote, sorry.

Well, a search for your name yields some posts complaining about the quality of commenters on the forums, sadly. Not that I have the time or curiousity to read every result.

And your point is...? Where is the contradiction? Where is the hypocrite atitude you acused me of? This IS a thread about someone questioning the quality of the Codex posts, after all.

Is not a spine that is missing in me, is the ability to care anymore. Why should I dig throught so much bullshit, memes and one liners to find some content? Why should anyone? No point-of-view here is worth that much, and the best reviews are posted as news anyway. It just lost the point.

You never had it, as far as I can tell. If making useful posts isn't worth your time, you may as well refrain from posting altogether and stop wasting my time with pointless static. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem etc.

You out of nowhere acused me of being hypocrite, went through the trouble of searching my posts for something to quote, found nothing, and still say that I am wasting your time? Seriously?

TIP: Next time save your "precious" time and just click ignore.

 

[villain of the story]

On top of that, apparently, a very small minority here ACTUALLY likes rpg games other than [random 90's indie game that nobody knows].

Another sweeping generalisation. Sounds like you hang out at /gd more than /grpg and news.

And "random 90's indie game that nobody knows" ? Like what?

The thing is, yes, if you started gaming post-2000 and you simply can not be bothered with finding out about good games from before your time, then yes, most of those games will sound like indie games and games that nobody knows about to you. Now whose fault is that? I've been lurking and posting here frequently since 2004 and 2005 and even I haven't heard of many "random 90's indie games that nobody knows about", probably because I was around and playing games in 90s.

FFS.

 

[Sceptic]

And "random 90's indie game that nobody knows" ? Like what?

He probably meant Phantasmagoria. Or Wing Commander 4.

 

[Markman]

Lol at the blog posts. Hes in a imaginary world about him and his games. Its OK when people praise his games but its shit when they criticize them. He should've shut the fuck up and take the fucking money, instead lets alianate one portion of his fans.
Well, he wont get my money.

-signed by a dude with over 300+ games bought on digital download stores

 

[villain of the story]

This place has always been like that. Liberal use of the ignore button tends to help those with a thin skin.

It's definitely gotten worse though, seems we have a lot more posters now who enjoy being dicks for it's own sake, rather than enjoying being able to voice their opinion on anything without worrying about being a dick.

True. And Jeff Vogel is right, also.

I may not post much, as I don't have internet at my job, but been reading the Codex for about 5 years. It's seems after Fallout 3 started to take form, releasing sreenshots, people just went berserk, and started just trolling all new games. On 'No Mutants Allowed', was the same thing, with all that "Glittering Gems of Hatred" stuff, and they being proud of that. Fallout 3 was crap, but years have passed and most people are still just hatting everything new that comes in at the forums (but playing them at home).

Most of the posters here can't even find the guts to say (at least openly) they liked Dragon Age: Origins or Fallout New Vegas (both great RPG's), just because they aren't "HARDCORE" or indie. They are afraid of looking like a newfag in front of all the "amazing old-school masters" we have here. You can even find some guys saying "yeah, Baldur's Gate 2 was already decline", with no argument behind, trying to be Codex Hipsters. How lame can you get?

RPG's are not even doing so bad. We had far worse years. And most people here just stay on the PC (master race bla bla bla), talking about about shitty games like Sword and Sorcery - Underworld ("the only best dungeon crawler of 2010" - Etrian Odyssey III and SMT: Strange Journey are from 2010 too), just because is in their confort zone, and ignore that the Nintendo DS has many great RPG's, and MANY Dungeon Crawlers a lot better than the indie ones being released for PC. But people keep "ahn, anime-style art", "ahn, it's on a handheld CONSOLE, it must suck", "ahn, havn't even tried but I'm sure is too easy, just for kids". Yeah, right. It's a shame that even IGN DS reviewers talks about better RPG's than the fucking RPG Codex most of the time.

Grow a spine guys. Talk about good RPG's you like, and why you don't like the bad one, not just keep posting "graphic whore" or "decline" hoping everyone notice how cool and "hardcore/old-school" you are.

Here's an idea: stop trying to get noticed about how wise and moderate you are by pointing some imaginary decline. Go back to the earliest threads in the Codex and they are more or less the same. Except there is more infighting now than before because there are more people with more varied views clashing with each other now.

FFS. Always the same "decline of the Codex, why not try to be more intelligent, waaaaaaa" bullshit. Year after year.

 

[villain of the story]

This place has always been like that. Liberal use of the ignore button tends to help those with a thin skin.

It's definitely gotten worse though, seems we have a lot more posters now who enjoy being dicks for it's own sake, rather than enjoying being able to voice their opinion on anything without worrying about being a dick.

True.

I may not post much, as I don't have internet at my job, but been reading the Codex for about 5 years. It's seems after Fallout 3 started to take form, releasing sreenshots, people just went berserk, and started just trolling all new games. On No Mutants Allowed, was the same thing, with all that "jewells of hatred" stuff, and they being proud of that. Fallout 3 was crap, but years have passed and most people are still just hatting everything new that comes in.

Most of the posters here can't even find the guts to say (at least openly) they liked Dragon Age: Origins or Fallout New Vegas (both great RPG's), just because they aren't "HARDCORE" or indie. You can even find some guys saying "yeah, Baldur's Gate 2 was already decline", with no argument behind, trying to be Codex Hipsters. How lame can you get?

RPG's are not even doing so bad. We had far worse years. And most people here just stay on the PC (master race bla bla bla), talking about about shitty games like Sword and Sorcery - Underworld ("the only best dungeon crawler of 2010" - Etrian Odyssey III and SMT: Strange Journey are from 2010 too), just because is in their confort zone, and ignore that the Nintendo DS has many great RPG's, and MANY Dungeon Crawlers a lot better than the indie ones being released for PC. But people keep "ahn, anime-style art", "ahn, it's on a handheld CONSOLE, it must suck", "ahn, havn't even tried but I'm sure is too easy, just for kids". Yeah, right. It's a shame that even IGN DS reviewers talks about better RPG's than the fucking RPG Codex most of the time.

Grow a spine guys. Talk about good RPG's you like, and why you don't like the bad one, not just keep posting "graphic whore" or "decline" hoping everyone notice how cool and "hardcore/old-school" you are.

My thoughts exactly. This is why I have to take a break from Codex from time to time. There is limit to how much hatred I can tolerate. I know people say that you don't have to take everything seriously here (or on the internet), but when 90% of the comments about a decent or good game is just hate speach, it gets really tiring.

So let's hear what these decent games that get hate speech are, and then let's see whether there's a considerable cocksucking speech also.

 

[Data4]

The re-read the post was clearly about him saying that yes, he belives that other people have diferrent experiences, but FOR HIM it doesn't work like that. As he said, immersion "it's a subjective thing". I don't know how so many guys here say they love text-heavy RPG's, but are unable to understand a simple 2 lines post.

Oh god, let me try to streamline the thinking for you, he first say that:
1)Yes, immersion. It's a favourite thing to bash around here, and I get the reason.
So in other words he is talking about immersion in the meaning of "feeling to be there" that is criticizing on the codex.
2)But every one of you fuckers know that if you can't get some sense of immersion from a game, it decreases the amount of enjoyment.
To make it relevant to the first sentence he must define immersion as in the first sentence. Notice that he had said every one so no he doesn't acknowledge that people have different experiences when it comes to immersion.
3)It's a subjective thing. You may be able to get immersed with a spreadsheet, but I can't.
He gets confused, and uses the world in different meaning then before, or else nothing that he had written makes any sense, it is a common mistake so I had ignored that attempt at making an argument.

If he meant to define immersion differently, then how he defines it? Maybe I am wrong, and I just didn't read people criticizing immersion defined differently then "feeling to be there" on the codex.

*facepalm* Why is immersion bashed around here? It's because of the superficial definition of it you get from the likes of Bethesda fanboys. Their definition of immersion--or how we write it when making fun of them, IMMERSHUN!!-- is "in my world, I can pretend to be a vegetarian and have to take a shit every three hours". Vastly different from my definition.

 

[Elzair]

I know you wrote this a while back, but I need to respond.

Most of the posters here can't even find the guts to say (at least openly) they liked Dragon Age: Origins or Fallout New Vegas (both great RPG's), just because they aren't "HARDCORE" or indie.

I am pretty sure I made it clear that I loved New Vegas and considered it the Fallout 3 I mostly wanted without much criticism. I despised DA:O though.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

immersion -> Wow, I've been playing for 3 hours already? Guess I should take a brea - hey, what's this?


immershun -> It's like I'm really a space marine

 

[villain of the story]

The Codex very much work in the reverse form of the Hype journalists.

Game "journalists": All new AAA game is destined to awesomeness. Only after some time has passed and another "awesome" game comes along you can start criticizing the first one.

Codex: All new AAA game is doomed to fail. Only after some time has passed and another "doomed" game comes along you can start praising the first one.

If only I got a cent every time I heard this same bullshit spewed out here. But go ahead, tell us which games got praised later on, despite initial hate waves.

 

[villain of the story]

Anyone that already seen an review of a game around here knows that the reviewer writes 2 pages about a game just to get massive feedback like "I stopped at X", "tried. fell asleep.", "EA fucked everything" and 1 line premade shit like that and very few actual discussion. So yes, I should tottaly write an detailed review of DA:O just to prove my point to you.

"BWAAAAA people have different opinions than mine and I just can not stand how they state their opinions".

Another bullshit. You've been here for how long and you believe this shit. Cocksucker.

 

[villain of the story]

Also with regard to the guys that say that the codex was never different, that's just plain wrong.
The guys here have always been a bunch of raging elitists but the difference was that back then they actually backed up their reasoning and criticism with arguments. Its also pretty obvious from the links that were given despite claims to the contrary.
Nowadays you have to dig through four troll or meme posts before finding the first serious response. On the flipside this is the best april's fools day site on the net now, so choice and consequences right?

Another difference is that we now have LOTS of anti-Codexers who keep making up unsupported bullshit about how the main body of Codex hates everything new and praises once it becomes old and whatnot, kind of make-believe things that they can not back up because all the evidence is to the contrary.