Editorial RPG Codex Report: A Codexian Visit to inXile Entertainment

[Bumvelcrow]

How? He's not wrong. Many wouldn't.

That's true, but the tweet reads like he's waiting for a rimshot and canned laughter at so wittily dumping on his former employers. It may not be about Obsidian, but it's hard not to read that into it. Surely CA would have been aware of that when he wrote it?

 

[Goral]

No, the issue is that execution matters more than concept.

Numanuma is so overwritten that it describes what you're literally seeing with your very own eyes. There's nothing in this text that I can't see by myself, it's 105% useless.

Well, the example you've given isn't too good because you can't tell whether what we see are arms or drills or cannons or some other medical instruments (so the complaint should be directed at the artists if anything). You're right that the rest could be omitted but then it would look even more awkward and they had to give us some way to interact with it. So the only other way would be to click on stuff directly but that would require more work...

And in all honesty, in Planescape: Torment which has about 750k words (according to this guy over a million) there were many situations where things that could be clearly seen were also spelled out to us, e.g. when meeting the Silent King or Coaxmetal, etc. Of course it was better written so it didn't stand out as much but Numanuma wasn't as bad as you make it out to be.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Is this seriously ALL that Fargo sees in Planscape? I can't help but feel this exact simplified, clueless and directionless perception of "classics" is the reason why W2 turned out so insultingly mediocre, by-the-numbers, generic and uninspired.

You know, one thing I like in the interview is that when they talk about Wasteland 3, Torment and Bard's Tale 4 you see that they know they're 3 different kinds of games, with different approaches.
I think Diablo, Witcher and other actions games focused on combat and dialog with some stats and quests are basically all shit (I know it's subjective), and that's what the biggest part of industry consider exactly as the only thing an RPG is.
In the other hand I like a lot of kind of RPGs and it's really refreshing to read some people from a relatively big studio talking about and working on these different kinds of games I like.

This is a non-comment that has nothing to do with the quoted part, why even bother quoting in the first place?

He wasn't asked to write a deep analysis on why Planescape became the cult classic it is. There's is nothing wrong in his short comment though. Yes, Planescape is famous for being different and otherworldly, and its wordiness and novel-like "gameplay" has been brought up by both fans and detractors as one of its defining characteristics.

Agreed to an extent, it's a knee-jerk reaction on my part, however, I still have doubts that highlighted statement wouldn't still be representative if Fargo actually did a deep analysis on Planescape. But that's just my bias.

 

[Junmarko]

That's true, but the tweet reads like he's waiting for a rimshot and canned laughter at so wittily dumping on his former employers. It may not be about Obsidian, but it's hard not to read that into it. Surely CA would have been aware of that when he wrote it?

I doubt it. It reads to me more like "yeah...you'll be here a while "listing" them..."

He's not Guido man lol.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

It is regrettable that the sales of the game are disappointing. I do think it is more because of unfortunate timing (Horizon Zero Dawn, Mass Effect etc.) and the whole kickstarter goals scandal than because of the actual quality of the game.

The probability of this game being a hit (over 1 million sold units) was always low. TB combat, text-heavy, "weird" setting - it's a pretty niche product.

So, with their potential buyer base being so low, I sincerely believe that they screwed themselves over with:

1) Trying to appeal to a wider public that couldn't give two shits about this kind of game. I mean, really, how many people could have bought this on the PS4?

I think they made it pretty clear in this interview that PS4 deal was more about finding additional funding more than anything else.

 

[you know what time it is]

Also kind of bullshit to say the Codex was asking for walls of text. A few people were, others were saying that that was fucking stupid.

There has definitely been a shift in Codex preferences. Case in point: written descriptions. Used to be the best thing since sliced bread, now suddenly you have the retards spouting their "show don't tell" lines and asking why they put those stupid, tedious descriptions in there instead of visual effects.
Same thing with CYOA bits. I remember before the release of PoE everyone was fapping about those cool, Darklands inspired little episodes, now they are some kind bullshit nobody in their right mind would consider including in a video game.
Voice acting used to be something we could gladly do without, now we bitch about there being to little of it in ToN.
Different approaches to quest-solving that you will only notice on multiple playthroughs? Who the fuck cares, I ain't playing games more than once.
Realistic female armor? Fuck you, are you some kind of SJW or what? (that last one has litte to do with ToN or wiriting though)

The list goes on.

Pretty sure the biggest problem is not quantity but quality of all of the things mentioned. When people say they want wall of text (or text heavier games in general) it doesn't mean they want to LITERALLY read walls of some uninspired drivel.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Cudos to InXile for being so open! No other developer would be this open I believe.

I almost feel they were to submissive in their answers to the Codex douchebag who interviewed them.

Anyway, great answers from Brian & co!
A good read.

 

[Aenra]

your false sense of self entitlement.

I know it's trendy with manchildren of all ages to use nice, beefy expressions; i do. You know what isn't very trendy? Reading comprehension. Children need to read first, think afterwards and reply last.
There are many sites out there that have "guest writers"/anonymous "articles" and so on. Not coincidentally, they're all shit. All of them.

Are we shit? No. Will be become shit? Sincerely doubting it.
That however does not negate our just having set a bad precedent. Unlike what you think in that teenage brain of yours, we are all interlinked. The same thinking, practices, you call it, people tend to have one place, they tend to in another. Human nature.
Do not mistake your 'prestigious' Codexian gaming preferences with human nature. My using the term precedent was not accidental. That we hold different games in high esteem, does not make us any different (in everyday practices, life, etc) than most.

And to prove to you how shallow your thinking/mentality is, let me also address your last part. Our "secret agent" you say wanted anonymity because he fears being called a cuck.
First of all, if one is so immature so as to fear other peoples' opinion, the fault lies in that person, not the audience. It's in his head.
Secondly, what and how you are judged by is your actions. You do it right, you respond to the criticism right and you'll always, always be fine here.

If you can't stand being yourself (figuratively), in the Internet of all places (anonymous, safe), gimme a fucking break and go kill yourself. Don't white knight unnamed "secret agents", not with me. Leave SJWing for other, younger folks.

And as to self entitlement; if you think someone's voicing a disagreement or reminding of bad practices (as seen elsewhere) relates to entitlement!? You need stop jerking off and playing games and get some fucking life into ya. The real kind.

 

[almondblight]

O rly. Find me anti-wall of text posts on the Codex from before PoE's release.

Here's a decent discussion from 2013. One of my posts from that thread:

A game turning into a watered down book isn't any better than it turning into a watered down movie (though thankfully people seem to at least realize now how bad FMV games mostly were). One, it's a different medium. Two, most writers for games aren't that good. I recognize that mediocre to poor writing is often a tradeoff for games, but it would be nice if the designers were aware of their own limitations.

You can also find earlier posts with people complaining about it in specific games when it occurs. But it wasn't really an issue that came up a lot back then.

Also keep in mind that people mean different things when they're talking about walls of text (the discussion in the link suggests this as well). A lot of people complaining about walls of text aren't saying that text adventure games suck. When I hear the term, I'm usually thinking of things like:

"Paragraph

Paragraph

Paragraph"

1. Really?

2. You don't say.

Options 1 and 2 both lead to:

"Paragraph

Paragraph

Paragraph"

1. Go on.

2. Continue.

Options 1 and 2 both lead to:

"Paragraph

Paragraph

Paragraph"

1. That makes sense.

2. I see.

Etc.

People also dislike the purple prose where the video game writer thinks they're a better writer than they are. You know, instead of writing "There's a waterfall in the distance" they write, "In the distance you see a segment where the river stops lazily flowing down the countryside and suddenly and violently finds itself being thrown over the edge as the bottom drops out into a gorge. The resulting fall leaves splashes of water and mist that lazily float around the drop, and through them you can barely see the point of impact where the water hits the ground, as if you're viewing something from the edge of a dream."

I actually liked the CYOA in PoE and games like Sorcery!. Both of those are text heavy, but people don't complain about them, because they're not just dumping pages and pages of mediocre writing on you with your only interaction being to click through them.

 

[Irenaeus]

The closest thing to a "Millenial" on Torment's writing team might actually be MRY.

Wrong again. Beekers and sea (and who knows who else)

 

[Lurker King]

I would counsel inXile to try elements of the VD approach to design. Namely, the "interacting with your fans and mining them for ideas and opinions" bit.

It wouldn’t help. VD always has the core design ready when he asks for feedback. ITS’ games are good because they know their stuff, their core design is solid. Inxile core design ideas are week, superficial. Paying more attention to bugs and UI won’t fix this. The feedback that would help Inxile would affect the core design of their games and would require reformulations, money, etc. This has been the case since W2.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

The closest thing to a "Millenial" on Torment's writing team might actually be MRY.

Wrong again. Beekers and sea (and who knows who else)

That's right, only a few of their senior "star" developers are older, the rest are millennials.

The big problem is that the game industry is very hostile to establishing a normal family and doesn't pay well, so normal people don't stay into it.

 

[sser]

Damn that's pretty dope. Is that what all of California looks like? In a month, my work is sending me out to Bakersfield, CA to do some home inspections. Really looking forward to it now cause Dallas is wearing me down. Yesterday I had to call the cops on a house for child abuse and in another inspection I found bullet holes in the aluminum siding. An alcoholic whose hands wouldn't stop shaking showed me the round. And then I got accosted by an addict with an arm more scab than muscle. Anyway, I'll put this picture in my sunblocker to look at while driving. California, here I come!

 

[Irenaeus]

Is that what all of California looks like?

This is literally one of the most expensive places in California, dude.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport_Beach,_California

 

[commie]

Good, honest and frank interview. I regained some respect for the InExile guys though I won't be backing any of their future projects antytime soon. Maybe if against all odds Wasteland 3 turns out decent and they keep supporting ToN I'll change my attitude.

I think that interview shows that Fargo is not the fraudster super villain some people on the 'dex regard him as.

Whatever the production issues and bad decisions(like having a million writers, which seems fine in theory to speed things up, actually had opposite effect and damaged consistency), no one can say Brian didn't have the heart in the right place giving it a go. Who else would try to make a Torment style game given the limited sales it was going to ever have? Or a Bards Tale crawler? He could have just made a Tank MMO for Russians like Feargus. I even get the feeling that KS gave him too much enthusiasm to try all these things at once rather than taking it one thing at a time.

Further, I don't really understand Codexers whining about the style of answers or the questions. Clearly these people don't go out much to actually talk with others since they expect Brian to suddenly go off on a tirade against Saunders or whatever, raging at the world, covering his head with ashes in a desperate act of contrition to placate such a great place as the Codex etc. MCA doesn't fling shit at Feargus either and doesn't get the same anger directed against him for not being a 'straight shooter'. What do people here expect? That the interviewer was going to be vicious and Brian and co were meant to launch into tirades? Would that have made it all better?

 

[MRY]

The closest thing to a "Millenial" on Torment's writing team might actually be MRY.

Having been born in 1980, I think I fall into the age bracket. Plus, I'm desperate for approval, think-skinned, lazy, over-educated, coddled, and frail, so I might also fit the cladistics. If not for the fact that I'm already going bald, I probably would have purple hair or something. (That said, I think Leanne is a few years younger than I am, so she is probably closer to millennial than I am. I think Gavin's a little older, and obviously the rest of the team is practically retirement age.)

 

[Outlander]

rpg codex > A tier 1 CRPG publication.

 

[Outlander]

Is that what all of California looks like?

This is literally one of the most expensive places in California, dude.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport_Beach,_California

Elections[edit]
In the United States presidential election, 2016, Donald Trump received 24,459 votes, and Hillary Clinton received 18,073 votes.

:mrpresident:

 

[Elwro]

rpg codex > A tier 1 CRPG publication.

This needs to become a thing.

 

[Blackstaff]

Meh.

Denial is a bit too strong at inexile. I can't say, after reading that, that there is much chance they are going to use their failures in a good way for their future games.

Also, Fargo says their sales on other stores are negligible. I can believe that : Torment is on the page 33 of 39 of bestselling titles on GOG. It has sold as much copies as such stellar games as Neverending Nightmares or "Oh sir, the insult simulator!".

 

[Elwro]

I was wondering how the box deal with Techland fared. In Poland the game was quite aggressively promoted...

 

[CryptRat]

This is a non-comment that has nothing to do with the quoted part, why even bother quoting in the first place?

It has everything to do with the quoted part. PS:T? weird and with a lot of dialog (I'm ok with that). About Bard's tale 4? It's all about combat so let's talk about combat.
That's what I want to hear from someone who like RPGs and is aware about the classics, weird and with a lot of dialog is not some generic stuff appliable to any RPG out there, it's what characterizes PS:T.

Totally different from what a terrible studio like Spiders would say, one same speech for all their games, something like "We like RPGs and we want to make RPGs with an engaging story, engaging combat, deep character customization blablablabla" (which can describe any RPG) which means that in definitive they're just making another generic action-RPG, and when you dig they don't like RPGs anyway, they just like one series of RPGs, the Witcher, and only make Witcher clones. Inxile is making a turn-based blobber, you can also make a QFG clone, a RoA clone, a game inspired by diverse old interesting RPGs or whatever instead of generic modern games if you really like RPGs. That everything Inxile make is shit or not is another debate.

 

[laclongquan]

I'd say it's self shock on the part of writing teams. Who would have thunk a wordy chunk of text disguised as a game fall flat!
I am not surprised at the passive hostility of the representive for the writing dept. But thank god for that small favour, that Numenera fall flat, or we would have a flood of amateur writers jump on the gaming industry, professional writing being competitive as it is.
That said, the various insufficiency of gameplay prolly can be fixed in patches and mods. If we are lucky, expansions.

I will note that "commercial failure" is not a bad point in Codex's book, particularly mine. We like flawed gems, and a feature of flawed gem generally is a low sale number. bad for devs, sure, but there you have it.

We're also trying to get more efficient by using outside contractors. Like for the combat system in Bard's Tale IV we're using a small team out of North Carolina. They're not employees; it's about four people.

Not sure if outsourcing your combat system to contractors is a good idea, but I guess we'll find out.

Could work if instead of North Carolina they outsourced it to a group in Serbia known for making a good tactical rpg. As it is, we are probably going to get a bad(worse) version of Heartstone.

Nah, Eastern Europe, either Poland or Russia is where it's at. I would have said jap devs will save the day but those otaku fuckers are expensive.

And he blame Codex's opinion of wallotext. Problem is, Codex is not a hivemind, and storyfags is just one very vocal but minor faction.

I don't know if you are trying to be edgy or you somehow managed to not play Underrail, but nobody from Poland or Russia has made the game of similar or better quality as those Serbian guys did (at least in terms of tactical gameplay and combat).

I see your Underrail and raise a triple of Silent Storm engines, a full house of Space Rangers engine, and Witcher series. Say what you will but Eastern European and Russians are good coders, artists, and mapmakers.

 

[Lurker King]

The closest thing to a "Millenial" on Torment's writing team might actually be MRY.

Having been born in 1980, I think I fall into the age bracket.

Being a millenial is a state of being, not a matter of age. A 60 year old can become a millenial with the right attitudes.

 

[Sizzle]

It wouldn’t help. VD always has the core design ready when he asks for feedback.

Well, they sort of did as well - they gave the fans both the alpha and beta versions of the game to playtest. And they changed some of it based on feedback... and then also reverted back several changes... for some unfathomable reason.

ITS’ games are good because they know their stuff, their core design is solid.

VD knows his marketing and knows who his fans are, what they want. inXile blew their mark with this - they think that a big part of why their game isn't selling well is because it was released at the same time as Horizon Zero Dawn. They still don't understand that they're not competing with a game like that - an AAA open world that sells millions - but with other old-school revival isometric RPGs like PoE and D:OS.

Inxile core design ideas are week, superficial.

It's not a problem of core design ideas per se, but the fact that systems that exist to support them are unfinished (and in several cases - completely cut). The tides, for example. An interesting and fresh core design idea. But what's the use of them if all we get is some useless fluff dialogue?

The whole game is unfinished, everything about it - the design, the story, for fuck's sake, even the art and VA. All that's left is to ponder what might have been if Saunders continued making it, and they didn't scramble to somehow rush it out to completion without adequate project leadership.

Paying more attention to bugs and UI won’t fix this.

A good UI would have made the game much less of a chore.

The feedback that would help Inxile would affect the core design of their games and would require reformulations, money, etc.

As it stands now, the game is an epic clusterfuck. Nothing can change that. What they easily could have changed with even cursory QA were problems such as:

- The combat being slow, buggy, boring as fuck, and having to watch minutes of 20+ enemies taking their sluggish moves. Quick solution - put in a combat speed slider, significantly reduce the number of enemies (and allies and neutrals) in combat. It's not like anyone's playing this game for it.

- Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much text. I understand their need for this (it's not like there's anything else to do in the game except reading), because otherwise T:ToN wouldn't be even 20h long, but any editor worth his salt would have chopped off at least a third of all those empty and boring words, and the game would have been much improved.

These are just two thing that could have (and should have) been done in any step of development, and would have made the game a whole lot more tolerable.