Company News This Is Like That Thing Annie Carlson Is Working On

[Texas Red]

You bet I'm going to actually BUY ITS games. An outrageous thought to be sure.

Vince, how will the payments work? Can I just transfer money to your Swiss bank number and have you send me the game? Can the game be downloaded from your special site?

EDIT: Do you need a REAL man on the team?

 

[Rhalle]

Mitsoda > Carlson

He's awesome as evidenced by V:BL.

Hopefully he can teach her how to write as what was seen in SOZ was H.O.R.R.I.B.L.E

With one-in-a-hundred-million-exceptions, women simply can't write. Not really, anyway.

Lots of reading and practice and faux-attitude can give you a woman that can learn to do all the tricks (and do them pretty well)-- but they always just skate on the surface.

Just for you Volourn: this is why Dragon Age has a 1 in 3 chance of being good.

 

[Volourn]

"With one-in-a-hundred-million-exceptions, women simply can't write. Not really, anyway."

u r dum

 

[Avu]

He might be or not but he is right.

 

[MetalCraze]

He's actually right - writing done by chicks in games is usually awful or at least very boring to read. Recent King's Bounty remake comes to mind (compare that to their own SR2 where writing was done by men). Not everyone can be Terri Brosius unfortunately.

 

[Gragt]

I come back from work and learn of these news. Quite a nice surprise. I hope the game will feature a group of lunatics worshiping a book.

I wonder if I'll finish my Sailor Moon LP before their game is out ...

 

[Shannow]

I come back from work and learn of these news. Quite a nice surprise. I hope the game will feature a group of lunatics worshiping a book.

So do I.

 

[mondblut]

Nice news. However, I am sceptical about a project of two writers with likely very little of actual game *designing* experience. High risk of another IF with an actual gameplay of zero.

 

[Azael]

Great news. When it comes to characters and writing, Bloodlines comes pretty damn close to the quality of Torment.

No. It was a good game, but let's not get carried away, alright?

Close, but not quite all the way. Bloodlines had some really good dialog and interesting characters though.

 

[Data4]

Don't see much point in getting excited about this announcement. All we have are two names, one with some p good credits, one without. And a "trust me" from VD with respect to the design doc.

At this point, if Pete Hines was to tell me that grass is green and VD was to tell me it's purple, I'd take VD's word for it.

 

[no]

Ura, such a great news! My sincerest thanks and respect to you, Vince. Your project is really turning out to be not only the saviour of quality RPG gaming, but an initiative for putting all the wasted talent stuck on the multimedia-lobotomy industry to its proper use!

 

[Pliskin]

:This space reserved for cautious optimism:

 

[MetalCraze]

Ura, such a great news! My sincerest thanks and respect to you, Vince. Your project is really turning out to be not only the saviour of quality RPG gaming, but an initiative for putting all the wasted talent stuck on the multimedia-lobotomy industry to its proper use!

ITS trying to do something non-mainstream is good and all, but tell me, dear ESF'er, how do you know that ITS is a saviour of quality RPG gaming - what if ITS games will turn out to be worse than mediocre?

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

So did Brian and Annie quit Obsidian to start an indie company or were they let go?

 

[winterraptor]

Hopefully they'll be able to show other game developers that you don't need huge budgets to make good games

But they do apparently need huge melons.

 

[Pliskin]

Hopefully they'll be able to show other game developers that you don't need huge budgets to make good games

But they do apparently need huge melons.

I believe that's what is referred to in the industry as "Value Added".

 

[Vault Dweller]

So did Brian and Annie quit Obsidian to start an indie company or were they let go?

Brian left Obsidian. Obsidian did change the AP storyline and canned all Brian's characters for the game, so that probably had something to do with it. Nobody likes when his work is thrown out just because it's not AWSOME!!! enough.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Ura, such a great news! My sincerest thanks and respect to you, Vince. Your project is really turning out to be not only the saviour of quality RPG gaming, but an initiative for putting all the wasted talent stuck on the multimedia-lobotomy industry to its proper use!

ITS trying to do something non-mainstream is good and all, but tell me, dear ESF'er, how do you know that ITS is a saviour of quality RPG gaming - what if ITS games will turn out to be worse than mediocre?

There are two kinds of games: SHIT! and SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! So, clearly AoD is either one or the other. Even we give it the undeserved benefit of the doubt, it's still gonna be SHIT!, so what's the point?

 

[MetalCraze]

Well I don't know about you but I believe that there are much more gradients of SHIT! than only two, perhaps you should widen your view on games?
I'm on the fence about AoD, it looks promising however that's it.

Benefit of the doubt and blind "OMG ITS saves RPG genre!" (even though you have 4 projects, 2 of which are in the eternal "when it's done" state and are like half as old as Duke Nukem Forever himself) are two different things.

 

[Mortmal]

Ura, such a great news! My sincerest thanks and respect to you, Vince. Your project is really turning out to be not only the saviour of quality RPG gaming, but an initiative for putting all the wasted talent stuck on the multimedia-lobotomy industry to its proper use!

ITS trying to do something non-mainstream is good and all, but tell me, dear ESF'er, how do you know that ITS is a saviour of quality RPG gaming - what if ITS games will turn out to be worse than mediocre?

There are two kinds of games: SHIT! and SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! So, clearly AoD is either one or the other. Even we give it the undeserved benefit of the doubt, it's still gonna be SHIT!, so what's the point?

Then lets just hope age of decadence is SHIT... ahem maybe not the best way to promote your game.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I'm on the fence about AoD, it looks promising...

I expect the world to end any minute now. Thanks a lot, skyway.

 

[OSK]

Nice news. However, I am sceptical about a project of two writers with likely very little of actual game *designing* experience. High risk of another IF with an actual gameplay of zero.

Mitsoda also helped design VTM: Bloodlines. In particular he designed the haunted house: http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php ... c&start=81

 

[Vault Dweller]

http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/in ... opic=781.0

^ interview with Mitsoda. I think it's very clear that he does understand the design aspect well and isn't "just a writer".

 

[MetalCraze]

I believe he'd meant gameplay - not the LARP-story-driven things. I imagine making a good, tactical, rich on functionality turn-based party combat is much more difficult than making a "point a crosshair at an enemy and twitch". I don't doubt Mitsoda's ability in creating "role-" part of the gameplay, what about "playing" part? VtmB and SoZ had awful combat, not that I'm saying that Annie or Brian are responsible for that, however it surely doesn't add to the experience.

 

[no]

Ura, such a great news! My sincerest thanks and respect to you, Vince. Your project is really turning out to be not only the saviour of quality RPG gaming, but an initiative for putting all the wasted talent stuck on the multimedia-lobotomy industry to its proper use!

ITS trying to do something non-mainstream is good and all, but tell me, dear ESF'er, how do you know that ITS is a saviour of quality RPG gaming - what if ITS games will turn out to be worse than mediocre?

What I meant was simple: ITS is building up to be very promising way for RPG developers to offer a variant to the mainstream RPG market, which just doesn't happen to tickle my fancy. Of course I'll pass the final judgement on the final product, but by far all the promoting Vince and co. have been doing has sounded like the kind of RPG I'd like to play. And I've better things to do with my time, than getting all involved and armchair-critic-sceptical on the little details like some of you guys. Simple enough?
Also, what's an ESF'er?