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Codex: Ask your questions from Carrie Patel

Hormalakh

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So I was able to get in touch with one of Obsidian's narrative designers, Carrie Patel and she agreed to do an interview. So here is where I ask you guys for questions you'd like answers to. If you like a question that someone else has posed, go ahead and brofist the question. The questions with the most brofists get asked.

Last day to ask questions is Wednesday.

Carrie Patel is a narrative designer at Obsidian, and is currently working on Pillars of Eternity. She is also a writer, and is publishing her first book, "The Buried Life" in July. She has a blog over at http://www.electronicinkblog.com/. Her publisher is AngryRobotBooks. From the website, "Carrie Patel was born and raised in Houston, Texas. An avid traveller, she studied abroad in Granada, Spain and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
She completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Texas A&M University and worked in transfer pricing at Ernst & Young for two years."
 

Abelian

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You can start by asking her what's she doing to stop the decline. Then ask about her literary influences and favorite games.
 

Sensuki

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Codex 2014 Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
So I was able to get in touch with one of Obsidian's narrative designers, Carrie Patel and she agreed to do an interview. So here is where I ask you guys for questions you'd like answers to. If you like a question that someone else has posed, go ahead and brofist the question. The questions with the most brofists get asked.

Carrie Patel is a narrative designer at Obsidian, and is currently working on Pillars of Eternity. She is also a writer, and is publishing her first book, "The Buried Life" in July. She has a blog over at http://www.electronicinkblog.com/. Her publisher is AngryRobotBooks. From the website, "Carrie Patel was born and raised in Houston, Texas. An avid traveller, she studied abroad in Granada, Spain and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
She completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Texas A&M University and worked in transfer pricing at Ernst & Young for two years."

Well that was easier than I expected. So you're throwing it to the floor?

I have quite a few questions I guess I'll post them individually

  • Q1: One of the most important aspects of an RPG for many Codexers (particularly storyfag Codexers) is the quality of the writing including the story, the plot and the dialogue. One of the most important things in an Obsidian game is the Companion dialogue, which has been a thing ever since Knights of the Old Republic II. Chris Avellone, Eric Fenstermaker and Josh Sawyer have written companions for past Obsidian games and are likely contributing to them again in Eternity. Since you named as a Narrative Designer on the project do you also get to contribute Companion dialogue on Pillars of Eternity? If so, what can you tell us about your experiences of doing so while complying with the PE NDA on the story?
 

Sensuki

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Codex 2014 Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
  • Q2: In speaking to George Ziets, a previous employee of Obsidian, it is my (or our, as the codex) understanding that Narrative Designers are not the only ones that contribute to dialogue writing in a game. George said that (in the past, on other projects) Area Designers also contribute to dialogue writing in some instances, particularly in the area of Quest Design. What are you able to tell us about your involvement in the writing and design of Quests for Pillars of Eternity. Does the Area Designer design the in-engine content first and then once it is complete, would a Narrative Designer such as yourself come in and fill in any blank dialogues where required? Are there any instances where you get to do any "paper design" before handing it to a designer to implement ?
 
Last edited:

Copper

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Fantasy often presents a romantic view of feudal life, where the best thing for the common people are enlightened tyrants, and the player has very little chance to challenge the unjust social order in any meaningful way, instead acting more like a social climber outside the normal social rules. Given the player's position of power in this game (stronghold 'lord' & tax collector) and the more modern setting, is this a theme that the team are interested in exploring in more depth, possibly casting the religious fanatics to the north in a more sympathetic light, such as English Roundheads?

Probably a no-comment, but oh well.
 

Sensuki

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They won't answer anything that asks about the themes or the story, yeah because of the NDA. You'd only get a "Gaming in general" comment.
 

Duraframe300

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They won't answer anything that asks about the themes or the story, yeah because of the NDA. You'd only get a "Gaming in general" comment.
BTW. Is there an actual NDA iin place, or is it just an internal agreement not to spoil anything?
 

Crooked Bee

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You could ask her something about what she thinks contemporary RPGs do particularly right or wrong narrative-wise, and where and how she thinks they could improve.

Maybe ask her about the difference between writing a book and writing a video game (an RPG in particular).

Also about the game's setting. What's the coolest thing about it to her as narrative designer? Does she contribute to the lore herself?

Maybe also something about why she quit Ernst & Young and went into games development instead.
 

Copper

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I can understand them not wanting to talk about specifics, but themes and player agency? They'd only do themselves favours among the storyfag gamer demographic if they put out more information there, without damaging anything, especially for sceptics like myself, who see a lot of love being given to combat, but vague promises of a 'gritty, low-key setting where we've really thought about things' but not enough information to make any call on that beyond blind trust in Obsidian. Of course, you're right and they won't say anything, but it's a tactical mistake in my opinion.
 

Tigranes

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What are some of the changes you made to the way you design after coming to Obsidian? In other words, are there any specific procedures, tricks, know-how that characterise how Obsidian does narrative and writing?
 

tuluse

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How does she approach the challenge of player agency and balancing that with trying to tell a story?

Does she think we'll ever have something better than dialog trees for interacting with NPCs in RPGs? If so how does she see the future of character interaction working?

Is there any aspect, besides writing, of making cRPGs or video games in general that intrigues her and she'd like to try at some point?
 

DragoFireheart

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Something something fan service via pictures in bikini something something.

Ask her about the dynamic of crunch time that the game industry posses on families/relationships and how it has impacted her. Also ask her how Obsidian compares to other places she has worked at and whether this is something specific to video games or other industries (since she's a writer). Also ask her if she thinks the culture of "crunch time is ok" is driving away talent.

As someone who was interested in getting into the game industry, learning that I'd likely sacrifice a family life drove me away (inbr4Dragofirefuck is terrible person and would be shit in the game industry).
 

LivingOne

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Will the game use means other than dialogue trees to tell the game's story,like item descriptions(wich contained informations about important characters in PST rather than telling random stories about the Forgotten Realms like BG/IWD)or enviromental storytelling?
 

sser

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I mostly want to know what difficulties there are transitioning from writing novels to writing for a video game where there appears to be a ton of non-writing elements elbowing for room.
 

BLOBERT

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OK BROS I WANNA NKWO SOMETHING

DOES OBSIDIAN KNOW WHAY MADE GAMES LIKE FALOOUT AND PLANESCAPE ARE REVERED AMONG AN AUDIENCE LIKE THE CODEX AND WHY OBSIDIANS TITLES HAVE UET TO MATCH THEM

BROS ASKING THIS AS AN OBSIDIAN FAN AND SOMEONE WHO BUYS MOST OF THEOR SHIT
 

Sensuki

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Codex 2014 Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
I can understand them not wanting to talk about specifics, but themes and player agency? They'd only do themselves favours among the storyfag gamer demographic if they put out more information there, without damaging anything, especially for sceptics like myself, who see a lot of love being given to combat, but vague promises of a 'gritty, low-key setting where we've really thought about things' but not enough information to make any call on that beyond blind trust in Obsidian. Of course, you're right and they won't say anything, but it's a tactical mistake in my opinion.

There's some unofficial information from Josh Sawyer and a few other sources that the themes will include Racism and "Factional Racism". Not necessarily oh you're a dwarf, you are scum but oh you're a Dyrwoodan, you are scum.
 

Sensuki

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Codex 2014 Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
Q3: The Eternity team benefited from a lengthy pre-production phase and during such time created a plethora of design documents for the game world including lore and even conlangs. Is the material created in design documents an inspiration for ideas themselves, or do you usually start off with your own idea, and use the documentation to make your idea fit into the context of the world?
 

Sensuki

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Codex 2014 Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
Q4: What can you share about your experiences working with people like Chris Avellone, Josh Sawyer and Eric Fenstermaker, veterans in the gaming industry. How has having people like them around helped with the transition from prose/novels to writing for games? Could you perhaps share an anecdote.
 

Abelian

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Was the idea of including a parser like Fallout or old interactive fiction games to supplement the dialogue options ever discussed?
 
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Have you noticed any strange characters following Josh around, staking out the entrance to the office, sending him underwear in the mail... that sort of thing? Do you have special security measures in place to deal with Sawyer's overzealous fans?
 

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