Interview Paradox's Fredrik Wester and Shams Jorjani on Tyranny 2 and Bloodlines 2

[Van-d-all]

Does anyone remember the first Witcher? It was sleazy boob-trading-card tier jank of an RPG. Sure, it was fun enough, and it was kind of ambitious with the time travel narrative -- but it was pretty shit.

I kinda like it. It's better than 2. I need a better gpu to fully appreciate 3 but so far it's pretty meh.

Was about to write exactly that. Witcher 2 was by far the best installment in the series. World was way smaller, but it made the game more streamlined and focused. W3 might be the best open world RPG so far, as CDP cleverly omitted fetch quests in it, but still most of the POIs are filler trash like treasure chests or monster lairs, because without them it would just feel empty.

 

[Roguey]

Tyrrany was obviously pretty low budget though. They probably thought they would get the same ROI they get with their strategy games but that is just impossible with RPGs even if the developer is great at making them. The main reason W 3 made so much is everyone played W1 and W2 and was excited for it.

Tyranny would have looked higher budget had Obsidian not spent Paradox's money on Pillars of Eternity.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

So Infinitron is back to sucking Fagass Cuckheart's dick.

Just look at his snivelling tone in the "news" post. Typical Zionist.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

What always strikes me as odd is the propensity for various fantasy universes to adopt the Antique model of deities (basically immortal, powerful, and very flawed humans), yet always choose the Medieval setting.

You know, that's a good point. Most Fantasy Universes seem to be pretty much "Generic Medieval Europe, but with Paganism instead of Christianity. Also Elves and stuff". Which is more Gygax than Tolkien.
Thing is, the Christian/Monotheist religion and the entire feudal system based on a multi-tier society of Nobles, Clergymen, Burghers and Peasants is kinda hard to mix with paganism.

I see where you’re coming from, but feudalism existed outside of Europe, too. Japan had a surprisingly similar feudal system with a hereditary warrior aristocracy, peasants who were tied to the land, political fragmentation, even monasteries where noblemen could deposit their surplus children. And they did it all without monotheism.

Ancient China kinda sorta had feudalism, too, and they were also polytheists. It seems like something societies stumble into when there’s no strong central authority over a region and few cities.

I agree that most fantasy settings show very little thought, but religion is the least of it. Like what use is a castle in a world with magic? Why would anyone live in a village with no walls when there are monsters all over the place? Why would a wizard ever obey some meathead nobleman—shouldn’t they be running the show?

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

No. Being declared "saint" means that a given individual, due to a good and pious life, martyrdom etc., has achieved salvation. In other words, it's a way of saying "this man was so good we know for certain he is in Heaven".

That may be the official church doctrine, but in folklore the saints definitely take the place of pagan gods, at least partly. In Eastern Europe, for example, Prophet Elias is said to smite devils with lightning while riding in his chariot upon the clouds. Saint Nicholas walks around the country dressed as a poor old man, giving people riddles and punishing inhospitable and selfish ones. If you had asked any old grandma to tell you something about Saint Nicholas, she wouldn't tell you about his pious life, she'd tell you that you need to offer food to poor people because otherwise you might be turned to stone. And that was as late as 20th century, in the middle ages with no centralised education and no printed books this is how most lay people thought of saints.

I'd like a source on that. Otherwise, I call bullshit.

A source on what exactly?

On what you're writing. I am from East Europe and have a Master's Degree in history, and never have I heard of practices like these within my country. Unless you are talking about Orthodox Christianity, I find what you're writing hard to believe.

Christ, Eastern European educational standards have really gone downhill since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Not only are there tons of folk stories about saints intervening directly a la old-school pagan deities, but in the Catholic and Orthodox churches people pray to saints. This was even more true in the medieval period. Yes, I know that technically it’s more of a request for them to intercede with God on your behalf, but in practice there’s very little difference. Any hardcore Protestant will tell you the Catholic Church is still halfway pagan.

1. What use is a single wizard when you can have a thousand peasants with bows? All it takes is one arrow. Besides, protection from other armed forces and any potential monsters.
2. Because 99% of villages can't afford walls. The same reason the didn't have those in our world.
3. Because a wizard has better things to do than rulling a bunch of normalfags. It's like asking a nerd if he'd like to run the football team. Besides, in case they do want to directly rule, you get kingdoms like Halrua and Thay in the Forgotten Realms.

The point is that magic and monsters would profoundly change the social and economic structure of the world. People stopped building castles when cannons became commonplace, a couple wizards ought to be able to accomplish the same thing. At the very least, fantasy fortresses should look more like squat, pentagonal early modern fortifications.

If a village can’t afford walls in a setting with monsters all over the place, it can’t afford to live. There are plenty of regions IRL where every settlement had a stockade.

Thay is a good example of D&D actually getting the implications of this stuff right. It stands in stark contrast to the typical one for one photocopies of feudal Europe you tend to find elsewhere in the genre. You should have fucked up dystopias run by paladins and weird theocracies and more arcane oligarchies in these settings, but time after time it’s feudal kingdoms.