World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 from Hardsuit Labs

[Wunderbar]

Bloodlines was not an immersive sim design-wise though.

DX had many simulated systems which led to creative manipulations and solutions for emergent gameplay. I don't remember VTMB having such systems. In that game options come from your stats in dialogue, stealth, disciplines, lock picking, hacking etc.

VTMB is still closer to Deus Ex than any other first person rpg.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

The Outer Worlds did fine because:

It did anything fine?

 

[Wunderbar]

The Outer Worlds did fine because:

It did anything fine?

commercially i mean

 

[Verylittlefishes]

The Outer Worlds did fine because:

It did anything fine?

commercially i mean

 

[Verylittlefishes]

trade Brian for Hideo Kojima

I believe Kojima is 10-50 times more expensive employee.

 

[Egosphere]

trade Brian for Hideo Kojima

I believe Kojima is 10-50 times more expensive employee.

And most definitely a bigger prima donna, to boot

 

[Duraframe300]

Bloodlines was not an immersive sim design-wise though.

Anybody can expand more on this? Probably Roguey ? I've never heard of this before.

An Obsidian developer told me that Mitsoda during his time at Obsidian was an arrogant prima donna and this is reflected in his intentions for Alpha Protocol (can't kill anyone because they're all going to show up in the sequel because of course there's going to be a sequel, how can there not), though I never saw this behavior on his Iron Tower subforum.

Doublebear part two will be amusing.

Never knew Josh Sawyer hated him though.

 

[Dodo1610]

trade Brian for Hideo Kojima

I believe Kojima is 10-50 times more expensive employee.

And most definitely a bigger prima donna, to boot

Say about Kojima whatever you want but he managed to start a new studio and release a AAA game within 4 years. Bloodlines 2 is in it's 5th year with no release in sight.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

trade Brian for Hideo Kojima

I believe Kojima is 10-50 times more expensive employee.

And most definitely a bigger prima donna, to boot

Say about Kojima whatever you want but he managed to start a new studio and release a AAA game within 4 years. Bloodlines 2 is in it's 5th year with no release in sight.

Well, his marketing was extreme, he even visited Russian TV show as a subject of "genius" meme.

 

[TT1]

Obsidian will hire him. They made a Fallout 3 clone, a Skyrim clone is in development... so why not make a Vampire clone?

Way to go, Obsidian!

 

[Sweeper]

Say about Kojima whatever you want but he managed to start a new studio and release a AAA game within 4 years.

>game

 

[Duraframe300]

Infinitron ?

I said that because I saw this post on Neogaf referencing a discussion on discord

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/bloo...n-mitsoda-fired.1561801/page-3#post-259789547

I know it seems like rumors, but they seemed pretty certain about it.

Sawyer did not leave Black Isle with the other Obsidian folks at first, he stayed and kept working on Van Buren until it was canceled, BUT regardless, I asked some more:

So Mitsoda was one of the few let go when the Fallout Fantasy project was ended (in 2001, I think?). I don't know much about this project.

When Fallout 3/Van Buren was hiring writers and designers (once Fallout 3 was becoming a reality after BG3: Black Hound was axed in 2002, I think, and Black Isle suddenly was without a project so they everyone was moved on to Fallout 3/Van Buren), word is Mitsoda was one of the ones who applied either on his own (before he went to Troika) or from Troika, apparently (although I suppose it's possible he re-applied after the layoffs from the Fallout Fantasy project and if rejected, went on to Troika and if so, good for him), but he did apply at that time and made it to the final round of applicants.

But that said, they were pretty clear Sawyer's firm no on Mitsoda caused him to get rejected from the Van Buren/Black Isle applicants. I don't know who was hired in Mitsoda's place, but it didn't matter much I suppose considering it sounded like the Van Buren game was on the chopping block because it was PC-only even before the team knew (if it had been something that could have gone to consoles, then it likely would have been kept and continued to try and be funded).

At Obsidian, you're right that Sawyer came after Mitsoda, and I don't think that was the situation at Obsidian for the reasons you state. It also doesn't sound like they worked on the same project when they were at Obsidian (or at least not primarily). Chances are that without Sawyer there is what allowed Mitsoda to be hired since Sawyer was out of the picture. BUT asking more:

Sawyer was the one who prevented Mitsoda from remaining at Obsidian once Mitsoda was being removed from Alpha Protocol - the approach internally was since Mitsoda wasn't working out on Alpha Protocol with the "organizational changes" and restructuring on that doomed title (Mitsoda "not working out" apparently was a judgment by the executive producer, whoever that was, but it was said that it was because Mitsoda wouldn't do any narrative changes and resisted changes to the old script despite the overhaul of the game), it was still felt Mitsoda might be able to move to Obsidian's other project (I think this was Aliens?), but it turned out the team (headed by Sawyer) had already intervened with the executive producer and said they would not want him on their project, so he had to leave Obsidian completely. It sounded pretty rough.

Tagging Roguey What do you think?

 

[Infinitron]

Interesting if that's true, but I just thought you were implying that Roguey's source at Obsidian (the one who said he was a prima donna) was Josh Sawyer. Pretty sure it was somebody else.

 

[Quillon]

Sounds like his arrogance is about having strong opinions about his work rather than general arrogant behavior. And butthurt "collaborative" devs stabbed him in the back over the years

 

[orcinator]

It would be impossible for him to work with a company that just axed him the way they did. There would be no trust either way.

The obvious solution is to just trade Brian for Hideo Kojima. Then we could get Silent Hills again and Bloodlines 2 gets some of that real weirdness in the mix.

 

[Saerain]

I have nothing to say here except that piracy is wrong.

 

[kirin]

the usual suspects

 

[Saerain]

It keeps niggling at me that this is less about redundancies—companies would usually at least hint in that direction with the public statements if so—than about wanting to make changes they expected Mitsoda/Cluney to be in the way of. I know it's hard to imagine a world in which those two are not Left enough, but we are so in that world, and they are in Seattle.

 

[Nano]

Duraframe300 FWIW, I know this part in a follow-up post of his is true. There was a brief time when Avellone and Mitsoda were working on Alpha Protocol together.

Edit: On Alpha Protocol, there was one additional comment someone said - while a lot of restruturing happened and people were let go when Alpha Protocol was rebooted halfway through, Mitsoda was one of the people they kept for a time to try and make the original story work, so that's a positive thing.

 

[Joseph Stalin]

This is the first time in my life I'm really glad never to have played Bloodbornelines. At least I won't experience another beloved franchise ruined.

 

[Duraframe300]

Duraframe300 FWIW, I know this part in a follow-up post of his is true. There was a brief time when Avellone and Mitsoda were working on Alpha Protocol together.

Edit: On Alpha Protocol, there was one additional comment someone said - while a lot of restruturing happened and people were let go when Alpha Protocol was rebooted halfway through, Mitsoda was one of the people they kept for a time to try and make the original story work, so that's a positive thing.

Holy shit if that is true. Must mean Sawyer was petty enough to kill Mitsoda's career twice in a row by once campaigning against him and the second time by essentially making him redundant.

Mitsoda must have murdered Sawyer's dog or something during Torn.

 

[kangaxx]

the usual suspects

The absolute state of that.

 

[Nano]

Holy shit if that is true. Must mean Sawyer was petty enough to kill Mitsoda's career twice in a row by once campaigning against him and the second time by essentially making him redundant.

Mitsoda must have murdered Sawyer's dog or something during Torn.

Found a source for my statement, from Sawyer himself in February 2008: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/4...real-3-project/?do=findComment&comment=833935

Mitosda is the creative lead on Project Georgia. Avellone is the lead designer.

Brian and Annie also posted in this thread.

 

[d1r]

the usual suspects

The absolute state of that.

 

[Tacgnol]

Sounds like his arrogance is about having strong opinions about his work rather than general arrogant behavior. And butthurt "collaborative" devs stabbed him in the back over the years

I asked Nick (from Iron Tower Studios) about what it was like to work with Brian in the other thread in site news, whether he'd had any bad personal experiences etc. He never reported any issues.

Obviously he may not have worked with Brian as closely as some of the people at Obsidian or Hard Suit, but it still suggests these reports of him being a prima donna should be taken with a pinch of salt.

I would normally avoid commenting on someone's personality behind their back, but since the silence would be ambiguous now... no, I haven't noticed anything like that. We've had our differences in technical details, and sometimes I've felt that design changes were revealed to us (the ITS part of the team) at a later stage than they should've been, but I have no development or personal drama to report, Brian always tried to keep it professional.