Josh Sawyer Q&A Thread

[Bulo]

Is it time for the Frog Helms Fan Club to arrange an OnlyFans

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Entropy takes many forms.

 

[DalekFlay]

There's definitely a place for shocking results stemming from a seemingly good choice. Fallout 3, for all its massive, MASSIVE narrative issues, had that rare great moment where you help the ghouls and Tenpenny people live in peace, only to come back later and find that the ghouls murdered all of them. If you make every quest, or even a significant number of quests, end like that though you'll make it rote and annoying. So not to sound too simplistic, but I think the key is just to keep it rare and impactful.

 

[Rivmusique]

Is that Killian/Gizmo thing from a mod? A very early version perhaps? I hear a few people say that. But my version had the help Killian > happy ending, I think. Fallout Wiki says: "In the original write-up of Junktown, the "ending sequence" was reversed from its final incarnation. See the alternate endings for the original versions" with the Fallout Bible as the source.

 

[Butter]

In version 1.0 Gizmo gave the positive ending. They immediately patched it out.

 

[Endemic]

As I understand it, basically Killian was too harsh and drove away business with his uncompromising rule, Gizmo was willing to allow things Killian didn't and meant Junktown flourished in the long run. Someone higher up at Interplay vetoed it apparently.

I can sort of see the appeal in that ending, but you'd also need to edit the Junktown quests and dialogue to avoid contradicting what is already shown of the two characters. So it's understandable the end slides were changed instead.

 

[Roguey]

Do you mind if I ask the story of how you hopped from being a webmaster to designing games there?

I harassed Colin McComb, Chris Avellone, and Feargus Urquhart relentlessly until Feargus agreed to allow me to do junior design work on Icewind Dale part-time.

Imagine a world where he was humble and this never happened.

 

[Desiderius]

Do you mind if I ask the story of how you hopped from being a webmaster to designing games there?

I harassed Colin McComb, Chris Avellone, and Feargus Urquhart relentlessly until Feargus agreed to allow me to do junior design work on Icewind Dale part-time.

Imagine a world where he was humble and this never happened.

Humility for thee but not for me. It’s the progtard way.

 

[Nano]

Imagine a world where he was humble and this never happened.

- Icewind Dale 2 would still be using the 2E ruleset.
- There would be no one to save Neverwinter Nights 2 from being a trainwreck at launch.
- I guess Avellone would've been the lead designer on the Aliens RPG, as opposed to him just being a Creative Lead reporting to Josh. Maybe under his leadership things would've went more smoothly and Sega wouldn't have cancelled it.
- Assuming Avellone still moved to Alpha Protocol, he might've ditched it mid-development to lead New Vegas (which would be a shame, because Alpha Protocol is awesome).

Yeah, keep your Sawyer-free world. I'm not giving up Alpha Protocol.

 

[luj1]

I harassed Colin McComb, Chris Avellone, and Feargus Urquhart relentlessly until Feargus agreed to allow me to do junior design work on Icewind Dale part-time.

After the double debacle of Pillars I can see why they might have been hesitant

 

[Avarize]

Once the devs pay for the development of the game they can expect royalties. Just start a game company and try to hire by telling them you won't pay anything but they'll get a part of the profits. See how many sign up.

 

[Efe]

a lot of indies start that way
what is your point?

 

[Avarize]

a lot of indies start that way
what is your point?

Is it really that difficult to grasp?

Sawyer advocating game piracy:

 

[Mikeal]

 

[Quillon]

 

[RepHope]

So what will they move on to next when they run out of states I wonder?

 

[Avarize]

So what will they move on to next when they run out of states I wonder?

Don't worry. Democrats are going to keep adding them.

 

[DalekFlay]

Puerto Rico will coincide with actually making Fallout: Puerto Rico.

 

[Nano]

Sawyer is proud of his autistic ways:

 

[Major_Blackhart]

It's easier to achieve balance in a game system he didn't design than one he did? And what the fuck does he mean by enjoyable balance? Best part is he doesn't elaborate on anything. Just leaves it all vague with regards to balance.

Basically, it sounds like all classes function the fucking same in all situations, no matter what. So why design a game with classes then if you don't like the concepts of strengths and weaknesses?

 

[purupuru]

Well, poe has magic (both spells and magic items) which is always a pain to balance. I mean, no weapon in FNV can cause as much balance problem as Frostseeker with a crit build.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Yeah, but if balance was such a thing with them then those magic weapons could have some sort of drawback too.

 

[Diggfinger]

What an awesome idea to use notebooks specific to the state-name of the project he works on!

Josh is such a genius

 

[Gordian Nutt]

It's easier to achieve balance in a game system he didn't design than one he did? And what the fuck does he mean by enjoyable balance? Best part is he doesn't elaborate on anything. Just leaves it all vague with regards to balance.

Basically, it sounds like all classes function the fucking same in all situations, no matter what. So why design a game with classes then if you don't like the concepts of strengths and weaknesses?

Many designers can design systems but few seem able to balance what they make, like Arcanum

Sawyer is the same and worse more a problem is how easily the players can understand the logic in such systems and figure out how they work

In POE was not the case, first one felt a struggle trying to figure out Sawyer system logic