Codex Interview RPG Codex Interview: Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2016

[Elwro]

What happened with this Bubbles guy? Did he pull an Exitium or what? Seems like a worthwile content-provider.

 

[Lexxx20]

Anyway here is a 28 page summery of what went down. http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/where-my-bubbles-gone.112302/

tl;dr: He got mad at Infinitron and it was all Prime Junta's fault.

Thank you!

 

[Infinitron]

It's been a while now but the only defect I remember was coming across three copies of the personal letter from a father to his son or something. It was like the level designer really wanted players to experience that fluff.

That letter is the Skaen lorebook. There's one for every god - one might assume that they're mass-produced by believers.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

The message I boil it down to is that there won't be much change to the formula. Saying things like 'it's hard', but meaning 'no'.

I also get the impression that they need engine or tool help. They seem to be hobbled by shit that should be solvable.

 

[Shadenuat]

Yes, very interesting interview, to Josh, Bubbles and Roguey.

Spoiler

My guess only a few classes would have engagement mechanics/option to land an AOO in PoE2 if it happens, like fighters.

 

[oneself]

He talk good but I wish he do good too.

 

[TT1]

We're making a tank MMO game, and that's like half the company.

Oh... well...

 

[Hobo Elf]

Feargus is weak and needs to be removed if Obsidian wants to actually become good.

 

[LizardWizard]

Feargus is weak and needs to be removed if Obsidian wants to actually become good.

To be fair, he is letting Sawyer do his niche historical game.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Feargus is weak and needs to be removed if Obsidian wants to actually become good.

To be fair, he is letting Sawyer do his niche historical game.

I thought Sawyer said that Feargus was warming up to the idea and that people need to tell him more that they want that kind of game. It's not a set in stone project yet. It may never even happen.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Feargus is weak and needs to be removed if Obsidian wants to actually become good.

we should do feargus interview to make codex warm up to him and then shit on the next dude in obsidian

 

[Azrael the cat]

Tags: J.E. Sawyer; Obsidian Entertainment; Pillars of Eternity; Pillars of Eternity: The White March

Back in August, Obsidian Design Director and Codex anti-hero Josh Sawyer gave a talk at the annual Game Developers Conference in Cologne, Germany. The video of the talk, which was a Pillars of Eternity retrospective entitled Looking Back and Moving Forward with Pillars of Eternity, has yet to be publicly released, but the original slides and a summary are available. But that's not what this post is about. Former Codex contributor Bubbles was in the audience for that talk, and after it was done he met up with Josh for what was meant to be a brief interview. They ended up talking for nearly two and a half hours.

A couple of days after that Bubbles was off to Gamesom, and unfortunately he never got around to transcribing his recording of the interview before his unfortunate departure. We did however manage to secure Bubbles' permission to allow the Codex's #1 Josh Sawyer fan, Roguey, to transcribe the interview in his stead. We sent the recording to Roguey, expecting a long wait...and were provided with a near-perfect transcript less than 72 hours later. Probably should have done that sooner. So there you have it, four months late and just in time to be the last piece of Codex content for 2016. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and enjoy the read. It's a long one.

Read the full article: RPG Codex Interview: Josh Sawyer at GDC Europe 2016

One question. When Josh Sawyer is being interviewed by his own Codex troll account, come on there's internet stalking ability and then there's Roguey, nobody is that good at internet stalking, especially a quiet target like a game developer Roguey, does he do the Gollum/Smeagle voice-change? Do they know they're the same person? Does non-drinker Sawyer have a unbeknownst-to-him alcohol+ambien problem, where he just blacks out every night, with no memory of drinking or taking anything, only to find there's a new set of Roguey posts putting out info that only he could know about?

Why else would Roguey not use this opportunity to dismiss all the Codex troll talk of Roguey being a guy, buy just playing the footage, and getting her voice in there interviewing him? I'm not buying that it's because Roguey's a guy-who-isn't-Josh-Sawyer - if Roguey was playing that game, I'm pretty sure Roguey would just get a female friend to do the interview and fake the Codex out. Now, just think about this. Bubbles interviewed Sawyer, and Sawyer could easily have given Bubbles the slides to transcribe if he was making them publicly available. Or he'd just post them on the Obsidian forums himself. No, this is another case where Roguey is posting material in Josh Sawyer's exclusive knowledge/possession, while 'Josh Sawyer' believes he is sleeping, Tyler Durton style.

Hell, has anyone checked which one of them surfaced on the internet first? If Roguey appeared first, then could it be that Roguey is taking ambien in the morning to stave off the DTs after drinking and posting on the Codex all night, and hence forgets that she/he rocks up to Obsidian each day as a developer with strangely similar design philosophies? The ambien would explain why Sawyer fails to live up to Roguey's stated "Sawyer's design principles".

(thanks for posting the transcript. I utterly detest the shift to video interviews - you can always read in 5-10 minutes the same interview that takes an hour to listen to live, and the Codex policy of providing transcripts for these things is a godsend)

 

[Roguey]

I suddenly got a whole bunch of visitors to my almost-completely-unrelated-blog from a completely-unrelated-thread in badgame (Josh's orb posting lair), which reminded me to check it for the first time in ages to see responses to the interview. Let the snitching begin.

Thank you for answering our questions, Josh. The antidote is in the next room. We will be watching.

What thenfuckmis a blobber. Please kill all Europeans

:/

yeah thats a dumb term

you knew that fucking temple had too many enemies and you did nothing you fucker

i believe we did thin them out in 3.0.

False. I checked myself back in October. As mentioned in the interview, apparently no one ever had time to delete them.

it is difficult to achieve expectations with a game like this. some players want it to have as many NPCs as BG2, but all at the depth and reactivity of torment NPCs, with all of the stat-based dialogue, plus skill-, class-, and race-based dialogue that wasn't in the IE games, all in a game that's no shorter than icewind dale at a bare minimum.

Haha, yeah, "some players."

Like Tyranny?

Like what?

Tyranny.

Oh... yeah

it doesn't come across in the transcript but the interviewer had a strong accent and i just didn't understand what he said there.

Face: saved (I still stand by what I said).

Additionally, as noted by Infinitron at the Obsidian forums, the RPG Watch response to this interview was far more negative than the response here which is just crazy https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35267

Like seriously, what, how? The Watch is more grognardish than the Codex?

 

[Sentinel]

One of the things we're looking at for skills is allowing for people to contribute more directly to skill checks, so if you have a character who has skills that could apply to dialogue, they can apply to those additively

Are you fucking kidding me?
Not this shit again.

There are no outside forces forcing him to do anything in particular.

In general I would say that's true. And that's more that they would call on companions to help them than companions would just jump in front of them to do something.

Companions are still gonna be your slaves, I see.
Dropped.

 

[Roguey]

Are you fucking kidding me?
Not this shit again.

He gives examples of how that would be appropriate, and is against using it in places where it wouldn't make sense.

Clearly the Lord of Balance would carefully consider how high those checks would need to be so that not anyone can pass every check on the strength of just any companion combination alone, unlike Tyranny.

 

[Quillon]

Feargus is weak and needs to be removed if Obsidian wants to actually become good.

In fact, around eight years ago, Obsidian actually turned down the opportunity to do the first Game of Thrones RPG.

“I don’t know if the project would have ever happened,” says Urquhart, candidly, “but we were approached by a big publisher, and they had the Game of Thrones licence at the time. And I love Game of Thrones – it’s an incredibly rich story and world and obviously the characterisation is amazing. But, there’s a couple of things about it that are challenging if you want to make a roleplaying game.

“Part of it was very interesting to us because of the focus on characters, and that’s kind of what we do. But if you think about the world, it’s so much about the politics and it’s so much about the linear story of what’s going on. Then you tie that to magic playing a very little role, and to be honest, [the story is] mostly [about] people. There’s not a lot of standard role-playing fantasy things, [like] putting an adventuring party together and going to find the abandoned ruins full of zombies and witches and ghosts and spectres and ghouls and all that kind of stuff.

http://www.redbull.com/en/games/stories/1331721253309/pillars-of-eternity-what-next-for-obsidian

Yep, Obs needs a brave new leader who shouldn't be afraid of making RPGs outside traditional norms.

 

[Fairfax]

Haha, yeah, "some players."

Easy for him to act like players had unrealistic expectations, but the team itself set the tone by promising to combine the IE games:

Project Eternity will take the central hero, memorable companions and the epic exploration of Baldur’s Gate, add in the fun, intense combat and dungeon diving of Icewind Dale, and tie it all together with the emotional writing and mature thematic exploration of Planescape: Torment

Feargus is weak and needs to be removed if Obsidian wants to actually become good.

In fact, around eight years ago, Obsidian actually turned down the opportunity to do the first Game of Thrones RPG.

“I don’t know if the project would have ever happened,” says Urquhart, candidly, “but we were approached by a big publisher, and they had the Game of Thrones licence at the time. And I love Game of Thrones – it’s an incredibly rich story and world and obviously the characterisation is amazing. But, there’s a couple of things about it that are challenging if you want to make a roleplaying game.

“Part of it was very interesting to us because of the focus on characters, and that’s kind of what we do. But if you think about the world, it’s so much about the politics and it’s so much about the linear story of what’s going on. Then you tie that to magic playing a very little role, and to be honest, [the story is] mostly [about] people. There’s not a lot of standard role-playing fantasy things, [like] putting an adventuring party together and going to find the abandoned ruins full of zombies and witches and ghosts and spectres and ghouls and all that kind of stuff.

http://www.redbull.com/en/games/stories/1331721253309/pillars-of-eternity-what-next-for-obsidian

Yep, Obs needs a brave new leader who shouldn't be afraid of making RPGs outside traditional norms.

Yeah, I remember that interview. Shows how clueless he was about the IP and how they wasted a huge opportunity for stupid reasons. He says that magic plays a "very little role", but that's only in the time depicted in the books/show (though I'd argue it's not that small). The licensed games had complete freedom to choose different eras, which is what the strategy game ended up doing. They could've picked a different setting without the constraints placed by the books. ASOIAF has the Others and wights, which have more potential than regular zombies, and also dragons, direwolves, firewyrms, ice spiders, several forms of magic, witches, druids, skinchanging, and a lot more traditional RPG stuff. He is right that it has more potential for a strategy game, but that doesn't mean there isn't a great RPG to be made there.

Not to mention they got the offer years before the show, which means they could've got a much better deal than after it became so popular. Feargus probably didn't bring it up with a lot of people, otherwise someone there would've pointed out the potential. Worth reminding that this was around the time Obsidian folks took Snow White (!) and turned it into an interesting concept.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Right, the company what made Kotor 2, alpha potatocol, south park etc., is unwilling to consider a not-very-traditional rpg.

 

[Tigranes]

Usually with Obsidian, what happens isn't that they turn down cool IP opportunities, they (1) beg for it but don't get it, (2) persuade a publisher who then bones them over, (3) beg, persuade, get half-boned, get it out the door, and it's a buggy mess

I wonder what the decision making process is for things like these though, Feargus is obviously the guy for it but they're also supposed to have a Five Founders (uh, Four) structure.

 

[Prime Junta]

Whatever happens, I hope they keep pushing for their own IPs. At least there they get to set the constraints. Do that a few times and they will get good at it. Tyranny was a fairly minor faceplant in the grand scheme of things and probably didn't lose them money, and it is to be hoped that the people working on it learned something.

I would really love it if they pushed boundaries a bit. Tyranny tried at least. If Pillars ends up as their bread-and-butter and they do some smaller, experimental projects on the side, that'd be pretty cool already. (Josh's historical-mythical TB Darklands spiritual successor for one.)

 

[Quillon]

Right, the company what made Kotor 2, alpha potatocol, south park etc., is unwilling to consider a not-very-traditional rpg.

Clearly he can't think of medieval RPGs without supernaturals at every corner(And I'm writing this here where most everyone grew up with such RPGs). Expeditions series disagrees and I'm hoping KC:Deliverance will be successful enough to widen guys like Feargus' horizons. Where publishers[we hate] should stop previously undone pitches, he does it himself where as a developer he should be one who is ambitious.

 

[Fairfax]

Usually with Obsidian, what happens isn't that they turn down cool IP opportunities

Feargus has a big mouth, but he rarely talks about the stuff they've turned down. Surely because it's embarrassing to tell everyone you're the guy who passed on a huge opportunity.

they (1) beg for it but don't get it, (2) persuade a publisher who then bones them over, (3) beg, persuade, get half-boned, get it out the door, and it's a buggy mess

There's also (4) pitch something they couldn't possibly get, like the Star Wars games they pitched to Disney after EA had already signed the exclusivity deal with them.

I wonder what the decision making process is for things like these though, Feargus is obviously the guy for it but they're also supposed to have a Five Founders (uh, Four) structure.

Feargus said in one of the Matt Chats that he's always involved in pitches, and MCA said he was involved in a few, but not much is known about the other partners.

Whatever happens, I hope they keep pushing for their own IPs. At least there they get to set the constraints. Do that a few times and they will get good at it. Tyranny was a fairly minor faceplant in the grand scheme of things and probably didn't lose them money, and it is to be hoped that the people working on it learned something.

I would really love it if they pushed boundaries a bit. Tyranny tried at least. If Pillars ends up as their bread-and-butter and they do some smaller, experimental projects on the side, that'd be pretty cool already. (Josh's historical-mythical TB Darklands spiritual successor for one.)

Paradox owns Tyranny, not Obsidian. They created the IP and sold it. Might as well license an existing one.

 

[Neanderthal]

Gotta say Sawyer at least knows his shit, good straightforward interview, still don't like a lotta design on Poe but at least hes acknowledgin some o faults.

Forgot about Obs rejectin GoT but Fearghus is just facin reality there, most players want usual shit an plenty on it, wi a good dose o more streamlinin an stripped features to top it off.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Gotta say Sawyer at least knows his shit, good straightforward interview, still don't like a lotta design on Poe but at least hes acknowledgin some o faults.

Forgot about Obs rejectin GoT but Fearghus is just facin reality there, most players want usual shit an plenty on it, wi a good dose o more streamlinin an stripped features to top it off.

who knows it might just took off and made obsidian took off GoT is a big IP with a huge followers. The ip is just perfect for obsidian with their focus on writing and c&c

 

[Infinitron]

Are you fucking kidding me?
Not this shit again.

He gives examples of how that would be appropriate, and is against using it in places where it wouldn't make sense.

Clearly the Lord of Balance would carefully consider how high those checks would need to be so that not anyone can pass every check on the strength of just any companion combination alone, unlike Tyranny.

Reminder - we got an early look at the possible user interface for this: