Game News Russian studio Owlcat Games to develop Pathfinder CRPG, Chris Avellone onboard as narrative designer

[ERYFKRAD]

did anyone ever cared about that fact?

Those bios were pretty cool though.

 

[Johannes]

MCA is doing Russian shovelware now?Oh how the mighty have fallen,inb4 the next MCA project is in the App Store/Google Play

It's likely a cameo appearance for the sake of marketing bullet list. Much like that JA2 writer doing merc bios in Brigade E5 (did anyone ever cared about that fact? guess he wasn't a rock star enough). A glorified "famous MCA endorses this" blurb.

Did anyone ever even know that fact? Not that I care either way.

 

[mondblut]

It's likely a cameo appearance for the sake of marketing bullet list. Much like that JA2 writer doing merc bios in Brigade E5 (did anyone ever cared about that fact? guess he wasn't a rock star enough). A glorified "famous MCA endorses this" blurb.

Did anyone ever even know that fact? Not that I care either way.

Well, it was listed in its USP bullet lists, otherwise why bother?

 

[Dyspaire]

Is it possible to design a system that is both turn-based and real-time, and elegant at both?

Tabletop rules are turn-based, and turn-based allows for more complex gameplay. Plus, it's fun to stop and think about what to do next without the pressure of passing time.

(At least I think so. Never liked feeling rushed when playing an rpg.)

But turn-based can get bogged down and repetitive if easy enemies and too many of them are encountered.

I Am Not A Game Designer, but if you just implemented the table-top rules in a turn-based system, and then had scripting strong enough to allow that turn-based system to play itself out in real-time as needed... I dunno, with Sword Coast Stratagems installed with the IE games, it almost feels like what I'm talking about. It's almost there.

When the system and scripting was running in real-time, it would be competent enough for that to be elegant gameplay too. And you would always have ability to pause and adjust and override the scripting seamlessly, of course.

I know many people reading this (if that many do) will understand what I'm trying to describe. Again, IAMAGD, but I've seen so many games get so close to what seems a self-evident solution to implementing tabletop rules into a crpg.

Easier said than done, I suppose; as nobody has quite nailed it yet after all these years.

Gold Box, JA2, ToEE, SCS, several others... so close sometimes.

2c

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Is it possible to design a system that is both turn-based and real-time, and elegant at both?

Tabletop rules are turn-based, and turn-based allows for more complex gameplay. Plus, it's fun to stop and think about what to do next without the pressure of passing time.

(At least I think so. Never liked feeling rushed when playing an rpg.)

But turn-based can get bogged down and repetitive if easy enemies and too many of them are encountered.

I Am Not A Game Designer, but if you just implemented the table-top rules in a turn-based system, and then had scripting strong enough to allow that turn-based system to play itself out in real-time as needed... I dunno, with Sword Coast Stratagems installed with the IE games, it almost feels like what I'm talking about. It's almost there.

When the system and scripting was running in real-time, it would be competent enough for that to be elegant gameplay too. And you would always have ability to pause and adjust and override the scripting seamlessly, of course.

I know many people reading this (if that many do) will understand what I'm trying to describe. Again, IAMAGD, but I've seen so many games get so close to what seems a self-evident solution to implementing tabletop rules into a crpg.

Easier said than done, I suppose; as nobody has quite nailed it yet after all these years.

Gold Box, JA2, ToEE, SCS, several others... so close sometimes.

2c

And that's how we probably have gotten Fallout Tactics, lul.

 

[i.Razor]

Maybe russians will do it right? It seems that game development became too much expensive in the West? The guys in the business just can't allow themselves to make risky moves - too much money at stake.

I don't know.

 

[Crescent Hawk]

In which universe do we have a triple A Riddle of Steel rpg. Pathfinder... oh Lord. Still I am really happy for Avellone.

 

[Terpsichore]

Spotted the companion for which MCA will be writing, a magical negro marksman with gay romance options.

 

[Israfael]

We had several talented studios back in the oughties (GSC, Elemental/Katauri, Apeiron, Nival and so on) but the MMO blackhole (and probably the rise of Wargaming & CD Projekt) left a barren wasteland both in Ukraine and Russia. I'd like to see another Space Rangers/ Kings Bounty (especially with MCA involved), but that dream is even further away than a TB 3.5ed/Pathfinder game.

 

[Invictus]

Avellone is like a washed up Actor who used to be the headliner and now does cameos and straight to video movies... or he is Adam Sandler at best doing some bullshit hand for hire mercenary shit
He has not been relevant for more than a decade while the Obsdian crew seems to have gotten better in the last 5 years
Basically since he is willing to anyhing from this Russian game to hanging with Sven to sucking on Trento's asshole

 

[huskarls]

Celebrity contributors is cancer. Its easy to shit on Sawyer for POE but at least he made a game rather than pimping his name the last few years. If I never see another article with "fallout inspired" and "Chris Avellone" in the title it would still be too soon. Also KOTOR2 had worse writing than dragon age 2

 

[Black]

rather than pimping his name the last few years.

You're implying he has a name to pimp.

 

[thesheeep]

Rage of Mages and Evil Islands? These games were quaint and adorable in year 2000, very nostalgic for me, and i'm of course glad thesу guys finally got out of f2p shovelware gulag, but i kinda doubt they have the skills to make a really good classical RPG.

Whoa!
Be careful with that, you just caused me to experience a minute long flashback to my early youth.

Also, I really like the Pathfinder system. It isn't the best out there, but IMO a very good entry point for PnP.
Easy enough to get for a noob, complex enough to do some meaningful character building.
Obviously, the pure combat focus sucks, but you can hardly blame it for that.

 

[Xzar]

Spotted the companion for which MCA will be writing, a magical negro marksman with gay romance options.

These folks are Russians. Unless they are Navalny fans, which seems unlikely, you can bet there will be no gay content.

 

[thesheeep]

These folks are Russians. Unless they are Navalny fans, which seems unlikely, you can bet there will be no gay content.

There's a pretty large difference between narrow-minded country folk and open-minded city folk. That is true everywhere, of course, but rather extreme in Russia.
Country folk is rarely found among development studios.

 

[Xzar]

These folks are Russians. Unless they are Navalny fans, which seems unlikely, you can bet there will be no gay content.

There's a pretty large difference between narrow-minded country folk and open-minded city folk. That is true everywhere, of course, but rather extreme in Russia.
Country folk is rarely found among development studios.

Spoken like a true victim of liberal brainwashing. Have to disappoint you - by Finnish standards, 95% of all folk in Russia is "country folk". Socially racist term, by the way.

 

[thesheeep]

There's a pretty large difference between narrow-minded country folk and open-minded city folk. That is true everywhere, of course, but rather extreme in Russia.
Country folk is rarely found among development studios.

Spoken like a true victim of liberal brainwashing.

It has nothing to do with brainwashing, or any kind of opinion, actually.
Just look at the facts. Where do nationalists and other right-wing parties gain most votes and supporters (in percentages, obvisously)? In the countryside, in areas with a sparse population, rural areas, towns below 20-30k citizens, etc.
It's like that everywhere. Germany (where I lived most of my life), Finland, USA, Russia, Turkey, simply everywhere. Just look at the percentages of people voting for Erdogan in cities vs rural areas for a more recent example. Or Trump.
It is pretty damn obvious, no matter which "side" you agree with more.
And it is not even surprising. Everything those globalization "victims" are so afraid of (all that liberal stuff) they do not even really know from experience, since it doesn't exist in their small worlds. They are just afraid of change, that's all.

Have to disappoint you - by Finnish standards, 95% of all folk in Russia is "country folk". Socially racist term, by the way.

I doubt you know anything about Finnish standards
And here, have some actual numbers instead of whatever is floating in your head.

Also... would "village people" hurt your feelings a little less, or would the homosexual implication make it even worse?
Please tell me, I'm always looking to increase the efficiency of my mocking.

Oh, and just to prevent accusations of me doing nationality bashing, I didn't say anything bad about Russians (or other nationalities) in general.
Just that development studios are usually situated in cities, which usually have a far more tolerant populace than... other areas.

 

[Zed]

There's absolutely nothing about this game that makes it sound promising and it looks like Torchlight or something.

 

[mondblut]

Is it possible to design a system that is both turn-based and real-time, and elegant at both?

No.

I Am Not A Game Designer, but if you just implemented the table-top rules in a turn-based system, and then had scripting strong enough to allow that turn-based system to play itself out in real-time as needed...

It doesn't work like that. In turn-based shit, well, takes turns doing stuff. In realtime it happens simultaneously. You can't have both. At best you're going to get phase-based with an option to end rounds automatically much like IE did, but phase-based works like shit in anything less abstracted than Wizardry. I.e. homing fire and forget arrows that fly in circles vs arrows being sent to where the target hasn't been present for half a minute.

 

[Genghis Cohen]

I don't really mind the generic, stylized look - d20 is pretty much the epitome of generic fantasy stuff and Pathfinder is a decent system (and the closest thing to TOEE 3.5 we may ever see). Fuck the RTwP shit though.

I agree. It's a similar case, 3.5ish rules in an adaptation of a premade tabletop module. A shame they'll use RTwP, because the pathfinder core rulebook has some pretty detailed descriptions of tactical turn-based combat, which could be adapted to a crpg easily.

 

[Xzar]

There's a pretty large difference between narrow-minded country folk and open-minded city folk. That is true everywhere, of course, but rather extreme in Russia.
Country folk is rarely found among development studios.

Spoken like a true victim of liberal brainwashing.

It has nothing to do with brainwashing, or any kind of opinion, actually.
Just look at the facts. Where do nationalists and other right-wing parties gain most votes and supporters (in percentages, obvisously)? In the countryside, in areas with a sparse population, rural areas, towns below 20-30k citizens, etc.
It's like that everywhere. Germany (where I lived most of my life), Finland, USA, Russia, Turkey, simply everywhere. Just look at the percentages of people voting for Erdogan in cities vs rural areas for a more recent example. Or Trump.
It is pretty damn obvious, no matter which "side" you agree with more.
And it is not even surprising. Everything those globalization "victims" are so afraid of (all that liberal stuff) they do not even really know from experience, since it doesn't exist in their small worlds. They are just afraid of change, that's all.

Have to disappoint you - by Finnish standards, 95% of all folk in Russia is "country folk". Socially racist term, by the way.

I doubt you know anything about Finnish standards
And here, have some actual numbers instead of whatever is floating in your head.

Also... would "village people" hurt your feelings a little less, or would the homosexual implication make it even worse?
Please tell me, I'm always looking to increase the efficiency of my mocking.

Oh, and just to prevent accusations of me doing nationality bashing, I didn't say anything bad about Russians (or other nationalities) in general.
Just that development studios are usually situated in cities, which usually have a far more tolerant populace than... other areas.

It has to do, and you partially prove it in your own post. Why it is so? Because rural people consume less propaganda. Why? Both because they are largely irrelevant to upper classes, and because they have less time to do so. Ever tried living a farmer life? You'd barely have time to check your mail, reading WaPo and NYT are out of question. Those who do read them either gonna fail as farmers or move to city or in rarer cases realize the conspiracy and become Breitbart readers. Thing what is different between West and Russia though, is absence of Protestant background. Thats why even developers there are critical of LGBT. I'd say about half of people who self-identify as liberals in Russia are homophobic by Western standards. And there are only so much liberals, despite large urban populations in Moscow and Petersburg. To sum up, why intellectual classes support LGBT in the West: 1) heavy Protestant and Jewish influence, leading people to believe in flawed idea that people are equal, 2) post-Protestant("liberal") and Jewish elites, who make sure that upper classes in their societies consider liberalism as thing that separates them from lowly masses, sort of intellectual exceptionalism, while Russian elites support hierarchy and patriarchy. Also, returning to actual topic. Dont forget about this law - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gay_propaganda_law Do you really think these devs gonna break actual law under living Putin? :D

 

[thesheeep]

Also, returning to actual topic. Dont forget about this law - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gay_propaganda_law Do you really think these devs gonna break actual law under living Putin? :D

Well... that kind of is a valid argument, yes.

 

[mondblut]

Also, returning to actual topic. Dont forget about this law - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gay_propaganda_law Do you really think these devs gonna break actual law under living Putin? :D

Well... that kind of is a valid argument, yes.

Not really. Selling in droves on the west rather than being pirated in russia is a holy grail of every developer. They don't even have a russian-language version of the site, that's how much they care. Arranging a calculated scandal over being victimized and persecuted by homophobic gubmint because of a wonderful and unique genderomantic interfluid character created by MCA himself sounds like pretty solid shot at worldwide fame for everyone involved. And it's going to be safe enough, unless they play the game in a church.

I know I would :D

 

[Xzar]

Also, returning to actual topic. Dont forget about this law - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gay_propaganda_law Do you really think these devs gonna break actual law under living Putin? :D

Well... that kind of is a valid argument, yes.

Not really. Selling in droves on the west rather than being pirated in russia is a holy grail of every developer. They don't even have a russian-language version of the site, that's how much they care. Arranging a calculated scandal over being victimized and persecuted by homophobic gubmint because of a wonderful and unique genderomantic interfluid character created by MCA himself sounds like pretty solid shot at worldwide fame for everyone involved. And it's going to be safe enough, unless they play the game in a church.

I know I would :D

Sounds exactly like premise of commercial flop called Siege of Dragonspear.

 

[mondblut]

Sounds exactly like premise of commercial flop called Siege of Dragonspear.

They hadn't an evil gubmint to go all "Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help! I'm being repressed!" with (nor did they have MCA) and had to resort to their own fucking players taking up the niche of evil oppressor. Which, as Gamergate taught, is a poor idea when you also plan to sell them your game.