sawyer wants rpg to evolve

[Cael]

Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadash

Cadash was extremely garbage. One would be much better off with Capcom's arcade D&D games.

Hey! Shadows over Mystara was a great game. I played the crap out of it when I was in uni. OK. it helped that a single credit would last me over 90min (usually complete the game on one credit or close to it), but still...!

 

[2house2fly]

I guess we've to see Pillars of Eternity 2 sales to check this out

I wonder if Josh is genuinely scared of how this game is going to perform sales-wise, these comments are a bit weird

They've put way more money into this than was kickstarted at this point. Pumped up the area design budget to have locations that aren't the city, pumped up the voice acting budget to voice every single line of dialogue in the game, I'd be scared too

 

[RNGsus]

They’re much more action orientated, much more focused on the immersive experience. That shows there’s more room for RPGs to grow than just to be what they were 20 years ago. It’s really a matter of finding an audience that matches up with that

I guess if immersion is running backwards holding the trigger down, then yeah they "found" their audience.

 

[abnaxus]

J.E. Saywer's about to make you his bitch.

 

[frajaq]

J.E. Saywer's about to make you his bitch.

I hope so my friend, I hope so...

 

[RNGsus]

An a serious note, part of a problem is that all the grognardy aspects have traditionally involved all the challenging, in depth and rewarding parts of gameplay which would "reward" the players who did 5 playthroughs of a game with new insights and cool stuff the "noobs" who only did one playthrough did.

If you want to take the math out of RPGs you have to replace it with source of in depth entertainment for those hardcore fans who find all the tips and tricks, master the mechanics and like the complexity that bring on duh math brings. And nobody has ever done that as far as I know, ever time someone takes out the math and the tabletop mechanics they've replaced them with action adventure mechanics or else severely dumbed it all down overall.

That's because the mathy parts actually make the game more accessible. For the most part, BGS games do everything their predecessors have. The difference being each successive title has hidden even more mechanics, taking them away from the player and giving the entire job to the code. I mean, there's no more universal language than numbers; frankly your story can crash and burn, but I can still enjoy a role-playing game for it's mechanics alone. "Evolving" past stats is an adventure game, which are fun, but old news too.

 

[Neanderthal]

First match what were made twenty years ago then you can start evolving, at moment they're devolving into mediocre, boring, pretty non games.

 

[Luckmann]

sawyer wants rpg to evolve

Yeah, well I want Sawyer to evolve, yet here we are.

 

[Lurker47]

He pointed to Bethesda’s success with Fallout and The Elder Scrolls games as examples of a developer taking role-playing games in a different direction.

“The traditionalists probably get angry about this stuff, but Bethesda’s RPGs are very different from isometric RPGs.

“They’re much more action orientated, much more focused on the immersive experience. That shows there’s more room for RPGs to grow than just to be what they were 20 years ago. It’s really a matter of finding an audience that matches up with that,” he added.

I guess this is a form of evolution in the same way that deceleration is scientifically a form of acceleration.

 

[Comte]

This guy releases the most boring bland paint by numbers rpg and then complains that he wants to see radical changes in RPG games whatever.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

That line of argumentation is really odd. Fallout 4 the radical new direction for RPGs?

So they make this traditional RPG and are quite successful with it because its a game for a niche audience that craves for this stuff after being served the action adventure sort for a decade.

Then after becoming successful with that, he says those niche fans are resistant to change and there are much more radical things RPGs could be. Fair enough, like what? Well, like the kind of action adventure we have been getting for over a decade now whose success is exactly the reason you have been successful with your traditional niche games in the first place.

 

[Infinitron]

Then after becoming successful with that, he says those niche fans are resistant to change and there are much more radical things RPGs could be. Fair enough, like what? Well, like the kind of action adventure we have been getting for over a decade now whose success is exactly the reason you have been successfull with your traditional niche games in the first place.

See, this is where I think we're missing the context. This was a panel about "Evolving the Genre". According to VG247's writeup, during that panel, Josh Sawyer said these two things:

1) RPGs can/should evolve.

2) In the past, RPGs have evolved by adapting the Bethesda open world RPG formula.

People ITT are now assuming that those two statements are one and the same. That Sawyer said "We need to evolve our RPGs, by turning them into Bethesda games". But we don't know that. All we have is VG247's context-free summary of various things that he said.

 

[Artyoan]

If I were to summarize his points from this context-less article it would be:
-Numbers and stats underlying an rpg are not core elements of what makes an rpg an rpg
-Elder Scrolls is an example of a way an rpg can move towards an action game and still be considered an rpg and that is not bad
-The core of an rpg is still about being able to define your character's personality and have their choices matter

If anything I think he is saying this: We should be making immersive/action rpg games like Elder Scrolls that actually let the players make big choices, have branching paths, and not be focused on the numbers underwriting the systems contained within the game.

 

[Cael]

If I were to summarize his points from this context-less article it would be:
-Numbers and stats underlying an rpg are not core elements of what makes an rpg an rpg
-Elder Scrolls is an example of a way an rpg can move towards an action game and still be considered an rpg and that is not bad
-The core of an rpg is still about being able to define your character's personality and have their choices matter

If anything I think he is saying this: We should be making immersive/action rpg games like Elder Scrolls that actually let the players make big choices, have branching paths, and not be focused on the numbers underwriting the systems contained within the game.

DID your choices matter post-Morrowind TES, though?

 

[Artyoan]

I don't think he's saying that choices did matter in newer Elder Scrolls games. I think he's saying that they advanced from more number oriented affairs to action ones which is good. But they didn't advance in the way an rpg should, which is choice and consequence.

 

[Infinitron]

If anything I think he is saying this: We should be making immersive/action rpg games like Elder Scrolls that actually let the players make big choices, have branching paths, and not be focused on the numbers underwriting the systems contained within the game.

Yeah, I think if what Josh said in this panel is a clue about some future development, it's probably the announcement of Cain and Boyarsky's game, which is supposed to be something like that. E3 is in two months...

 

[GrainWetski]

Action games with dialogue choices are still just action games.

 

[Cael]

I don't think he's saying that choices did matter in newer Elder Scrolls games. I think he's saying that they advanced from more number oriented affairs to action ones which is good. But they didn't advance in the way an rpg should, which is choice and consequence.

When Fallout Tactics, which is a squad tactical game, has more possible outcomes and C&C than Bethesda's offerings, you know how utter poo Bethesda has become.

 

[Brother Rat]

I know it's banal to bring up the "what is an rpg" question, but it's necessary in order to understand the full scope of what Josh is saying here. I think we can all agree that the defining characteristic of an rpg is that the game reacts to the choices you made during character creation. So when Josh says that rpgs can only evolve by moving the focus away from character building to choices made during the game, he's basically saying that rpgs can only evolve by becoming less like rpgs. It's obvious decline, like saying that video games can only evolve by becoming less like games and more like movies. That, coupled with the weird attack on some traditionalist hardcore player strawman, makes Josh seem incredibly out of touch.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Translation: I want to make make RPGs for people who don't like RPGs.

Evolve... fuck off, how about wanting to make good RPGs in the first place? Nah, it's much easier to try to reinvent the wheel and then blame "grognards" when your shitty vision inevitably fails.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

evolve

Right....

W T F

Sure, there’s room to do different shit, but your company nostalgia-baited those derisive “traditionalists” to stay in business.

Very much so THIS!
And they managed to deliver a boring, lackluster product. Guess they really figured out that "traditional CRPG" genre huh? Get the fuck outta here.

For Sawyer, role-playing games are defined by the player’s ability to alter the storyline of the game through his or her actions, rather than the amount of stat tweaking or hit points a player delivers in combat.

Maybe give both a shot
Fucking disgusting article that reads like a unity-rpg job interview. That's fine though, enough worthwhile games left to play before dragging poe2 out of a bargain bin.

 

[Mustawd]

So much talk about Sawyer. Not enough talk about Feargus wanting to do a AAA rpg one day.

And for all of you who are surprised, do you really think Sawyer wants to make games based on an old, dead genre? He's probably sick of isometric IE-likes by now.

As someone already mentioned before, PoE was pitched as a last minute effort to save the company. It's not what obsidian is about, and it's definitely not what they want to be about in the future.

EDIT: There really isn't a nuObsidian. It's just the old Obsidian before the kickstarters.

 

[fantadomat]

So much talk about Sawyer. Not enough talk about Feargus wanting to do a AAA rpg one day.

And for all of you who are surprised, do you really think Sawyer wants to games based on an old, dead genre? He's probably sick of isometric IE-likes by now.

As someone already mentioned before, PoE was pitched as a last minute effort to save the company. It's not what obsidian is about, and it's definitely not what they want to be about in the future.

I thought that they wanted to be "not bankrupted". It will be nice if they branch out and do other kinds of rpgs,as long as they don't forget to make an isometric one from time to time. If they keep to just one subgenre,it will fuck them up.

 

[Mustawd]

Let me ask you this: Did they make an IE-like game BEFORE they were going out of business?

Yah, didn't think so.

 

[Infinitron]

EDIT: There really isn't a nuObsidian. It's just the old Obsidian before the kickstarters.

When people say "nuObsidian" they don't mean an Obsidian that wants to make popamole AAA games. In fact, there are a good number of people on this forum who prefer the old Obsidian that made popamole AAA games.

The old Obsidian is the Obsidian of Chris Avellone, the Obsidian that specialized in making ambitious, often buggy sequels to popular licenses, with heavily character-driven narratives and a tendency towards "philosophical" or trope-deconstructing writing.

The nu-Obsidian is the Obsidian of Josh Sawyer, the Obsidian that's focused on creating its own IPs with voluminous amounts of "lore", that seems more interested in system design than narrative, that prefers to play it safe and is wary of over-ambitious project scope.