Interview RPG Codex Interview: George Ziets on Eternity, Torment, and crafting worlds

[Cyberarmy]

Splendid interview!

So if I could design another Fallout game… I might not design a traditional RPG at all. Instead, think of a strategy-RPG hybrid like King of Dragon Pass – set in the Fallout universe. You’re placed in the role of the tribe’s leaders, responsible for establishing a home base, keeping your people safe and fed, exploring the surrounding wasteland, and managing relations with other tribes and factions.

You’d mold the future of your tribe by plundering knowledge from Vaults and ruins and deciding whether to utilize that knowledge/technology or keep it hidden from your people. Revealing old world secrets would always have consequences, both positive (e.g., economic or military benefits) and negative (e.g., jealousy or fear from your neighbors). Unearthing stories from the old world might unlock opportunities to change the organization and personality of your tribe - think of how old-world stories opened possibilities for Caesar or the Three Families. You’d also choose how to feed and supply your people - by looting ruins, raiding other tribes, or trying to rediscover secrets of agriculture and animal husbandry from the Vaults. Ultimately, you’d have to decide how to survive in the face of external threats. Would you build a slave empire like Caesar, establish a democratic federation of tribes, or just turn to cannibalism and prey on your neighbors? It may or may not have mass market appeal… but I’d play that game.

Total War: Wasteland plus King Arthur (first game)

 

[Maelflux]

Great Interview! - he really has some good ideas, and the right angle to many things

 

[grudgebringer]

I used to do radio and podcasts in the 90s - back before it was called podcasting - and I’ve always wanted to get back to that.

 

[Grunker]

If MCA is our one and only true God, is then Ziets a saint?

Or are we polytheistic?

Based on that interview, Zeits deserves our worship much more than MCA.

 

[evdk]

If MCA is our one and only true God, is then Ziets a saint?

Or are we polytheistic?

Based on that interview, Zeits deserves our worship much more than MCA.

As always, polytheism is the way.

 

[CappenVarra]

 

[Cosmo]

Not one single objectionable thing in this interview.
I'm lost guys, i don't even remember how to react to things like that...

 

[dunno lah]

Did the Watch ever get something like this? I hope not. Too much awesome for them to handle. With so much incline-speak from Ziets, I have to wonder whether he is as awesome as the interviews make him out to be. 'Cause MCA turned out to be not-so-awesome after the Arcanum debacle...

 

[Grunker]

One of that man's solely redeeming qualities as of late has been having a hard time with a sucky game

 

[Infinitron]

Am I gonna have to go Ordo Hereticus on your asses?

 

[dunno lah]

I hope MCA is just trolling the fuck out of everyone because I'd hate to actually think he's that dumb.

 

[clemens]

This guy has to be, not a "stretch goal", but a lead creative designer on more of those "old-school classic renaissance" projects. With some luck, they would end up not so much "classics", but actually innovative, setting and story-wise, for once...

 

[Azael]

Khan of Red Rock Canyon? Yes, please!

Great interview, Ziets is a bro.

 

[Kane]

Loves turn based combat
Mentions KotDP multiple times
Likes the beginning of stories to be interesting

Ziets needs to be the creative lead on a kickstarter.

It is almost like as if he is a normal person!

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Another important goal is to think of all elements of the game as part of a coherent whole. No element – gameplay, story, art – is more important than any other. They all need to work together to create a unified experience. Ideally, we should approach every game with a high-level idea of what kind of experience we want to craft and then make sure that the story, mechanics, and art style all reinforce that big idea.

This perspective can be difficult to keep in mind at mid- to large-sized studios, where disciplines have become increasingly specialized, with one person doing nothing but combat design, another doing nothing but writing and story, another focused entirely on items, etc. This is one of the reasons I favor the older system of designers as generalists, which tends to encourage us to look at the whole experience, rather than one specific part.

I honestly think a lot of what we perceive as decline since the late 90s has to do with this. Modern games are a bit like small Frankenstein monsters, stitched together from parts that don't entirely fit together, because developers (and more importantly, project leads) simply don't appreciate the importance of a coherent vision for their creation. Errant Signal got a bit of flak for focusing on aesthetics in his Doom/Rage comparison video, but one of the things he absolutely nailed is the huge difference in focus between the games, and how that follows from their development methodologies.

In other words, someone give Ziets creative freedom in his own project, and platinum babies will fly.

 

[dunno lah]

Next(possible?) Obsidian kickstarter should have Ziets as lead. He sure sounds like he has a lot of ideas flying around in his head.

 

[Arkeus]

Next(possible?) Obsidian kickstarter should have Ziets as lead. He sure sounds like he has a lot of ideas flying around in his head.

Has Ziets been hired back by Obsidian? I thought he was still freelance.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Next(possible?) Obsidian kickstarter should have Ziets as lead. He sure sounds like he has a lot of ideas flying around in his head.

Has Ziets been hired back by Obsidian? I thought he was still freelance.

He was a stretch goal for P:E.

 

[Infinitron]

He's still freelance.

 

[Rake]

Next(possible?) Obsidian kickstarter should have Ziets as lead. He sure sounds like he has a lot of ideas flying around in his head.

Has Ziets been hired back by Obsidian? I thought he was still freelance.

Not yet, they left it open, but it's a fucking shame if he won't be hired back. Every single thing he says is

 

[Infinitron]

Loves turn based combat
Mentions KotDP multiple times
Likes the beginning of stories to be interesting

Ziets needs to be the creative lead on a kickstarter.

It is almost like as if he is a normal person!

Not so fast:

For example, if it was entirely up to me, we’d have turn-based combat… which in itself is something that a Kickstarter can do that most publisher-funded games currently cannot.

A while back, I had a great Formspring question that listed a bunch of literary genres and asked which ones I thought would be good for a game. That’s exactly the sort of thing we should be thinking about as developers, but publishers rarely greenlight games that don’t fit the standard models.

When Obsidian was (briefly) working on Baldur’s Gate 3, the design team spent a couple days putting together a proposal for a turn-based combat system, but it was dead on arrival. It wasn’t considered viable for a mass market RPG.

George Ziets is clearly another failed developer trying to steal money from the poor publishers with his shitty pitches.

 

[Zed]

I hope they'll pick him up though. If nothing else, to put him as a permanent contributor to the Project Eternity team (as there will very likely be more games, expansions and stuff following the first game).
A Ziets-led anything would be pretty cool, but I would say his strength is in creative writing, perhaps not figuring out game systems etc.

 

[Kane]

George Ziets is clearly another failed developer trying to steal money from the poor publishers with his shitty pitches.

i don't think you understood what i was talking about.

 

[dunno lah]

Perhaps Ziets is comfortable pretty fucking proud having inadvertently creating a new occupation.

 

[MicoSelva]

This guy sounds too good to be true. I bet he does not really exist and has been conceived by The Codex' insane subconscious when the hivemind was not able to withstand the decline any longer and descended into madness.

That would also explain how we managed to score an interview with him.