Codex Interview RPG Codex Interview: Eric Fenstermaker on Pillars of Eternity​

[circ]

That's some cognative dissonance at play there. Is this why Obsidian don't learn from their mistakes? PoE had nothing going for it, least of all the writing. In the first week of its release codex regulars were already laughing at its combat, its (lack of) difficulty, its out-of-whack balance, its ridiculous NPC spawns, its pacing - to name but a few issues, and its writing that just got worse the farther you progressed.

But. But. Let's skip actually interesting interviews and instead do one for a game everyone's pretty much forgotten about.

also re: academic background required for good writers. Yeah. NOPE. I think of the great game designers and writers, and the one thing they have in common isn't a degree, it's imagination.

 

[Fry]

PoE had nothing going for it

a game everyone's pretty much forgotten about.

 

[Excidium II]

I don't think there's a single game more discussed than PoE on the codex nowdays.

 

[Fairfax]

Most were softball questions, but still an interesting interview.

You may have identified the recurring theme of resource scarcity.

No surprise there. With 2.5 years of development + the months they spent creating the concepts for the Kickstarter campaign, "resource scarcity" is a very weak excuse here. This isn't a KOTOR2 situation. This time they had more than enough time and talent to make a much better game.
I agree 100% that the game would've been better if it had been shorter, but I don't remember being concerned with length during the KS campaign. It certainly didn't have "80+ hours" as part of its selling points. Codex voted PS:T the best CRPG of all time, for instance, and I've never seen people complain about its length here, even though it's a considerably shorter than PoE. Fallout 1 takes what, 30 hours if you want to everything?

Anyway, this is on the Project Director, and on Obsidian as a whole for the overly ambitious stretch goals.

Steam achievement statistics suggest that only about 9% of Pillars owners completed the game. In many cases that's probably because we lost the player's interest, but it also suggests that the game was already plenty big for the majority of our player base. Whereas if we were to invest in depth instead, that's something players get to enjoy whether or not they finish. If we were to end up being bigger, great, as long as we prioritized getting better first.

Completion rates for RPGs are considerably lower than other genres, but 8.8% is extremely low regardless. It's not because it was too long. Only 43.6% finished Act I, which is pretty short. It just didn't keep most players hooked.
Act II is where it starts to go downhill IMO, and the numbers speak volumes. 20.7% finished Act II. That means more than half of the players who finished Act I abandoned the game during Act II. Act I + parts of Act II would take what? 15-20 hours? That's not much, so it wasn't "already plenty big" for them.

 

[abnaxus]

Someone post the academic background of all current Obsidian staff pls

 

[Gord]

With 2.5 years of development + the months they spent creating the concepts for the Kickstarter campaign, "resource scarcity" is a very weak excuse here.

I think it's a relatively likely explanation for some of the games shortcommings.
The Kickstarter money is not that much when supposed to fund a relatively big project like PoE. Imo, Kickstarter is suboptimal as a main source of funding for the larger projects (which might be part of the reason why Fig got created).

 

[Fry]

Pretty much. $4 million isn't actually that much for a California-based company with 100+ employees.

The longer it takes the more it costs and the more employees have to be pulled off the project to work on other contracts.

 

[Roguey]

I don't think there's a single game more discussed than PoE on the codex nowdays.

It's definitely the most played RPG of 2015 judging by those poll results.

Most were softball questions

Funny, a few SA goons were annoyed by how many biased and leading questions there were.

This time they had more than enough time and talent to make a much better game.

Judging by the quality of comparable projects (Wasteland 2, any given Shadowrun), I'd say not. You need 3.5 years to make a quality full-scale RPG from scratch.

 

[Excidium II]

Judging by the quality of comparable projects (Wasteland 2, any given Shadowrun), I'd say not. You need 3.5 years to make a quality full-scale RPG from scratch.

I wonder how much better it could've been without the stretchgoals. The content just made the game worse and the extra classes could just have been introduced in the expansions.

 

[Urthor]

Pretty much. $4 million isn't actually that much for a California-based company with 100+ employees.

The longer it takes the more it costs and the more employees have to be pulled off the project to work on other contracts.

I'm pretty sure it's semi-acknowledged that Obsidian and a large chunk of the other Kickstarter are definitely getting advances from a publishers vs predicted future sales, their release date went out as soon as they signed with Paradox for example.

The Kickstarter money fills the gap between the internal rate of return for the publisher of 15% P.A. or whatever the figure is, and the viability of the project. PoE is probably the reverse, prob 50% plus Kickstarter, but it was almost certainly a 5 plus million dollar game because it had pretty solid expected sales numbers, half of gaming journalism was on the "Baldur's Gate 3" wagon.

That's the Shenmue model, Sony's risk for throwing money at curated indies is 5-10 million or somesuch, the Shenmue kickstarter adds to that 5-10 mill.

 

[MrE]

Let's interview the lead programmer!

I admit, it's never crossed my mind. But there might be a lot to learn from such an interview, especially for the modders (I don't mean PoE here, just the idea of such interviews in general). Though general audience could probably also find out lots about stuff concerning various limitations resulting in more tangible design decisions. It would require for an interviewer to be knowledgeable about programming etc. but who know, maybe one day someone will try it... Perhaps if (hopefully when) Eric 'puts his degree to use' (answer to the antepenultimate :-P question of the interview)

Otherwise, a really nice interview, great to see all the questions answered so exhaustively, even though some of the revealed facts might be saddening/disappointing/disillusioning for some.

 

[Trashos]

The other theme, I think, is something related to submitting to vs subverting authority (most obviously seen in Pallegina's quest)

Perhaps Eric likes Sagani's quest conclusion because it manages to clearly relate to both of the themes.

You may be on to something. There is also the Leaden Key strongly pointing to the same direction. I was also thinking that the "Against the Grain" and the brothel quests form a pattern that could support your argument (but I have to think about it still, maybe your suggestion needs to be rephrased).

On the other hand, there are some things that don't work out for me. For example, if the 2nd main theme is the one you are suggesting, then I can't reconcile Grieving Mother's quest with either main themes.

I still need to do Sagani's and Hiravias' quests. Maybe I 'll have more ideas when I do.

 

[tdphys]

Hiravias' quest was probably my favorite quest, the ending was visceral and triumphant - and made me feel that he had somehow raised his self-awareness above his personal history.

Sagani's quest was similarily interesting, but her character wasn't *charicaturized* enough for me to care. From her dialogue, I felt she wasn't conflicted enough about leaving her family. She needed to be more crazy mad bitter and angry and exhibit a more affected personality by being forced by her traditions to leave love and family.

Both quests, however, do seem to go along the lines of subverting tradition... which compliments the overlying theme of whether or not the traditions of the gods is worth keeping around, especially if *nothing is as it seems*

 

[Zanzoken]

Agree 100% on his comment about making games shorter but better polished. I would augment it by saying you should also cut systems that aren't essential to the overall design vision.

Devs taking a narrower focus is how we get better games. Not by trying to make the same huge RPG every time, with all the same elements.

 

[tdphys]

I'd also like to point out that it's interesting that we are even having this debate post-RPG. As a point of contrast, even if some people didn't enjoy *playing* POE, I've certainly enjoyed mulling over it's exposition and themes as opposed to the Pulp Fantasy Faerun games of yore. Now I'll go try and force myself to play through torment, even though the gameplay sends me screaming to Dota land .

 

[Tigranes]

Agree 100% on his comment about making games shorter but better polished. I would augment it by saying you should also cut systems that aren't essential to the overall design vision.

Devs taking a narrower focus is how we get better games. Not by trying to make the same huge RPG every time, with all the same elements.

The stronghold is the #1 thing that should have been cut in POE. By the same token, we see an example of a very sensible cut of gameplay systems (the extra 'minigames' required by Durance/Grieving Mother), though the cut there just wasn't very elegant. And come POE2 we will see hundreds of people whine about how it's not as big as BG2, with the expectation that everything in POE2 should be bigger and longer.

 

[tdphys]

So what about an Episodic model of an epic game/story line, chaining 3 20-30 hour decent games together over say 3 years? The White March seems to show that decent gaming can be done in this fashion. RPG's are really playable literature anyways ?! Seems to work well with top scifi/fantasy series.

 

[Fairfax]

Pretty much. $4 million isn't actually that much for a California-based company with 100+ employees.

The longer it takes the more it costs and the more employees have to be pulled off the project to work on other contracts.

200, and this is beside the point. The KS campaign was meant to pay for itself, not for the whole company.

Funny, a few SA goons were annoyed by how many biased and leading questions there were.

They're pussies, no surprise there.

Judging by the quality of comparable projects (Wasteland 2, any given Shadowrun), I'd say not. You need 3.5 years to make a quality full-scale RPG from scratch.

It can take more with a small team, or less wit ha bigger team. The IE games themselves had very different development cycles.
I think Sawyer said the team had ~20-25 people for most of development?

 

[Aenra]

I find the 'length' excuse moronic, sorry.
I could name you so, so many games that the player needed MONTHS MONTHS MONTHS to finish. Ok? Proper, kickass games. In fact, unless you are young enough to have started this whole thing in the opposite manner, chances are you are still baffled when you see 40-60 hours worth of content and no one complaining. Or worse, finding it O.K.

Now if you want to live and work in Cali, have tits to look at outside your window, have two houses and vacation somewhere exotic, or (to pre-empty the "i'm so humble a dev! You got us wrong!!" approach) if you want to make it to the big paychecks despite the market of RPGs (i mean real RPGs) no longer being what it was.. your fucking problem.. don't come to me for excuses. Just don't tell me about length again. I cannot believe so many of you gobble this up.
Just as again, it IS your fucking problem if you want to make said real RPGs but still get to include voice overs/fancy tech/other manhours intensive factor that costs you money in so many different ways.
You are welcome to disagree, but far as i'm concerned?
- Either you accept the fact that:
i) mostly everything is still shit, because exceptions notwithstanding*, a) it is, and at best, almost as good as it would have been decades back, b) that's pretty much the best we can look forward to ffs, never mind some fucking progress
ii) even that has to be in reduced length for someone to make it (because decline)
- Or you complain about it.. making excuses based on the factoring of invalid factors as valid is not exactly complaining

[good interview, he did his best to answer some hard questions, yes, good professional too for today's standards. None of these changes any of the above. Wake the fuck up. If you don't have it in you to demand something at least closer to what once was, closer, never mind better, then at least acknowledge this fact. Don't go about posting how you "like your games small and tight" as if the inverse is some sort of crime/oddity/exaggeration the players have no right to ask for]

* and they do exist. Just, what a surprise, not in the studios the 'big' names are in, not in the studios where the Dex favourites/famous devs tend to work in. In fact, barring one AAA title that at least tried for something above the 'what once was'? We're talking exclusively small-time/indie. And yet.. here you are.. "it's ok Eric and team, not your fault! Next PoE, make it 10hours long! It will rule then am sure!".

 

[Fairfax]

I find the 'length' excuse moronic, sorry.
I could name you so, so many games that the player needed MONTHS MONTHS MONTHS to finish. Ok? Proper, kickass games. In fact, unless you are young enough to have started this whole thing in the opposite manner, chances are you are still baffled when you see 40-60 hours worth of content and no one complaining. Or worse, finding it O.K.

Now if you want to live and work in Cali, have tits to look at outside your window, have two houses and vacation somewhere exotic, or (to pre-empty the "i'm so humble a dev! You got us wrong!!" approach) if you want to make it to the big paychecks despite the market of RPGs (i mean real RPGs) no longer being what it was.. your fucking problem.. don't come to me for excuses. Just don't tell me about length again. I cannot believe so many of you gobble this up.
Just as again, it IS your fucking problem if you want to make said real RPGs but still get to include voice overs/fancy tech/other manhours intensive factor that costs you money in so many different ways.
You are welcome to disagree, but far as i'm concerned?
- Either you accept the fact that:
i) mostly everything is still shit, because exceptions notwithstanding*, a) it is, and at best, almost as good as it would have been decades back, b) that's pretty much the best we can look forward to ffs, never mind some fucking progress
ii) even that has to be in reduced length for someone to make it (because decline)
- Or you complain about it.. making excuses based on the factoring of invalid factors as valid is not exactly complaining

[good interview, he did his best to answer some hard questions, yes, good professional too for today's standards. None of these changes any of the above. Wake the fuck up. If you don't have it in you to demand something at least closer to what once was, closer, never mind better, then at least acknowledge this fact. Don't go about posting how you "like your games small and tight" as if the inverse is some sort of crime/oddity/exaggeration the players have no right to ask for]

* and they do exist. Just, what a surprise, not in the studios the 'big' names are in, not in the studios where the Dex favourites/famous devs tend to work in. In fact, barring one AAA title that at least tried for something above the 'what once was'? We're talking exclusively small-time/indie. And yet.. here you are.. "it's ok Eric and team, not your fault! Next PoE, make it 10hours long! It will rule then am sure!".

40-60 hours can be OK. Length does not make or break a game, unless it's something absurd (2hr long RPG or whatever).

You're right about VO and fancy shit, though. It's a shame to see that part of the reason the Durance/GM content was cut is because they didn't want them to have less recorded dialogue than the other companions. What a stupid decision.

"RPG market not being what it used to be" is a common misconception, by the way. It's bigger than ever before. Baldur's Gate titles sold a few million (5 million by 2006), but that was the exception. Games with large cult followings today sold a few hundred thousand*. A game like D:OS is almost a million seller, something that never would've happened in the late 90s/early 00s.

*PS:T is the only title from that era that sold more than people think it did.

 

[AN4RCHID]

Great interview on both the questions and respones

I like the sound of this:

Hypothetically, I have a few things I would want to play with. I don't want to tip my hand, so pardon the vagueness. One would be having fewer, but far deeper and more interconnected companions - interconnected both with respect to one another and with respect to the overall plot. "FEWER?! FUCK THAT," you say. But everything is zero-sum in this business, and every companion we add takes a ton of time to write and implement. So yes, fewer. But better. More memorable. More like a real group of people. Less likely to be collecting dust in your stronghold.

The other big thing is I would want to do a plot that is more dynamic and player-driven. Pillars is no more linear than Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment, but the structure was still A to B to C to D to E. Next time, if there is a next time, I would want the player to have some agency in picking where the plot goes next, and I would want the world to respond to it in big, meaningful ways during the game. Big talk, I know. But I do have an idea for this that pushes dynamism and puts my degree to use (for once) that I would be excited to experiment with.

Guy's got his head on straight.

 

[Haba]

I find the 'length' excuse moronic, sorry.
I could name you so, so many games that the player needed MONTHS MONTHS MONTHS to finish. Ok? Proper, kickass games.

Really now? Please do name a few. I've played about 200-300 RPGs and can't name a single one.

Some games did take a while to finish back in the day when loading times were 30 minutes and I couldn't read English, but even those I completed in weeks, tops. And this is in the era with no patches to fix game-breaking bugs, no walkthroughs, no youtube tutorials and no internet forums.

 

[Aenra]

Length does not make or break a game

Precisely.. hence my point. So why are we allowing for these bullshit excuses that would have us focus on length as a detractor? More importantly, why do we allow for such bullshit excuses when we know more has been done? Already? And with higher a quality factor? Even if we put nostalgia aside..?

"RPG market not being what it used to be" is a common misconception, by the way. It's bigger than ever before

Not at all. You are using exceptions to re-define the rule with them as paradigms. What we consider incline RPGs do not sell well as a rule of thumb. The market has both shrunk and changed. Two different factors. Also, i said "proper" RPGs. Neither W3 nor Skyrim nor DS twitchfests qualify. Your facts do stand, but they are the exception. Not the rule. Eidos, Bethesda et al. constitute that now.

Haba First you tell me (by your own admission) that yes, there were games that took you WEEKS (plural) to complete, but when i say months (ie anything over 4 weeks) you find fault. Ok
Leaving aside my exaggerating for emphasis.. Let's have some fun, one by one: How long did it take you to finish Wiz I? Cause it sure as fuck was month+ for me. And i did not finish it. Still haven't ^^

 

[Tigranes]

Obviously it's not about some golden ratio where any game that goes over x hours is shit or whatever

The point is that given any game's budget and resources you can try and stretch it to make a big game or try to make some early cuts so you can do additional writing passes, complicated scripts, etc, etc, etc on what is there

The point about POE being that Fenstermaker thought it sometimes bit off a bit more than it should have (writing only got one basic pass after first copy, really?)

You are responding to something else, and I don't even really disagree with your point, it's just... it's not the point here.

 

[Fairfax]

Length does not make or break a game

Precisely.. hence my point. So why are we allowing for these bullshit excuses that would have us focus on length as a detractor? More importantly, why do we allow for such bullshit excuses when we know more has been done? Already? And with higher a quality factor? Even if we put nostalgia aside..?

"RPG market not being what it used to be" is a common misconception, by the way. It's bigger than ever before

Not at all. You are using exceptions to re-define the rule with them as paradigms. What we consider incline RPGs do not sell well as a rule of thumb. The market has both shrunk and changed. Two different factors. Also, i said "proper" RPGs. Neither W3 nor Skyrim nor DS twitchfests qualify.

Haba First you tell me (by your own admission) that yes, there were games that took you WEEKS (plural) to complete, but when i say months (ie anything over 4 weeks) you find fault. Ok
Leaving aside my exaggerating for emphasis.. Let's have some fun, one by one: How long did it take you to finish Wiz I? Cause it sure as fuck was month+ for me. And i did not finish it. Still haven't ^^

Well, if by incline you mean turn-based (seems to be the majority here), it's always been a niche outside JRPGs. And even those have been moving to action-based systems for several years now.