New Obsidian Kickstarter (Update: Not really, dammit Duraframe) (Banned Duraframe - DU)

[Sensuki]

(though my personal trust in the abilities of Tim Cain are fast approaching 0).

All those years working on MMOs didn't do him any favors.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Yeah, well, trying is not enough.

And I doubt they actually try. More like they try to sell what they are (were) good at to the mass market. Which results in shit. When they try things they REALLY suck at, you get abhorrent shit like Alpha Protolol.

 

[SwiftCrack]

...But will there be a kickstarter?

 

[DeepOcean]

Game of Thrones. THAT would give them a couple of millions.

I hope not because I fucking hate fucking retarded Game of Thrones.

Fuck you. Too edgy to enjoy quality?

Also wow I hope Obsidian doesn't push through with that.

Why not make a non fantasy rpg?

Wild west, mafia, spy, illuminati, gundams, etc

Or some space like Star Trek or ME

Ahahahahahahah, quality? Game of Thrones is fucking retarded soap opera porn with fucking retarded characters. Game of Thrones is basically excuse for to watch or read soft porn with shitty story.

If you had read the books you would see the sex scenes are HBO stuff as it is their custom to inject bobbies in all their series, the sex scenes in the book sre fucking rare and nowhere soft porn stuff. Yes, it is totally soap opera when most the good guys are killed in horrible ways and everyone that left is a scheming douchebag wanting power. The series touch the problem of fighting slavery when it is an accepted cultural practice, what happens with the civilian population in case of war and how the Lords don't give two shits to the death and destruction they cause (even the villains are assassinated and poisoned all over the place) or the danger that is to give military power to a religion.

 

[tuluse]

(though my personal trust in the abilities of Tim Cain are fast approaching 0).

Can I ask what has possibly changed recently to change your opinion of him?

You hate the concept of cyphers or stronghold mechanics?

 

[Sensuki]

Have to wonder why Activision doesn't just sell IP that doesn't fit their annual multiplatform franchise vision. I know corporation love hoarding IP but honestly what could they ever do with Arcanum?

Prevent the competition from using it.

 

[Sensuki]

Did you read the A Song of Ice and Fire books? soft porn? The amount of sex scenes in the books is not even close to HBO's adaptation.

All of them are pretty horribly wrong and unsexy as well (the actual non past tense ones).

Why Obsidian gets so much a pass from the Codex is beyond me. They have yet to release something that could be called a "good game". Even their best (Kotor2, I guess?) was packed with more excuses than content.

The only Obsidian game I've finished is KotOR2, finished that a few times.

Played NWN2 once, got to near the end, but didn't finish.

Boycotted the rest.

 

[Broseph]

the only "good" games are incredibly flawed at their core with some saving graces that make them playable

You mean just like every other RPG ever?

 

[FeelTheRads]

the only "good" games are incredibly flawed at their core with some saving graces that make them playable

You mean just like every other RPG ever?

No.
All games (RPGs included) have flaws, but they're not all "flawed at their core".

 

[Grunker]

(though my personal trust in the abilities of Tim Cain are fast approaching 0).

Can I ask what has possibly changed recently to change your opinion of him?

You hate the concept of cyphers or stronghold mechanics?

His designs during the start of the crafting discussion and much of the follow-up that came from that, combined with historical highlights that some of the stuff he liked in Fallout/Arcanum is far from the things I find made them work.

 

[Sensuki]

I am pretty sure that all class mechanics and all the Stronghold stuff are all designed by Josh. Tim implements them. They do have him down as doing some System Design, but I think it's more on the implementation side - "ok I programmed it into the game, but perhaps this would be better?"

Actually I recall asking Josh about that, I'm pretty sure he said he designed all of it.

 

[tuluse]

His designs during the start of the crafting discussion and much of the follow-up that came from that, combined with historical highlights that some of the stuff he liked in Fallout/Arcanum is far from the things I find made them work.

That's what confuses me. If you should never have had faith in Cain, really.

I am pretty sure that all class mechanics and all the Stronghold stuff are all designed by Josh. Tim implements them. They do have him down as doing some System Design, but I think it's more on the implementation side - "ok I programmed it into the game, but perhaps this would be better?"

Actually I recall asking Josh about that, I'm pretty sure he said he designed all of it.

Tim Cain came up with the concept for cyphers. It was in one of the updates.

 

[Sensuki]

Sure and Bobby Null thought of the Paladins as Warlords/Marshalls. Josh designed the class mechanics though.

 

[Grunker]

His designs during the start of the crafting discussion and much of the follow-up that came from that, combined with historical highlights that some of the stuff he liked in Fallout/Arcanum is far from the things I find made them work.

That's what confuses me. If you should never have had faith in Cain, really.

I didn't realize these things until PoE design started. You people are the ones who filled my head with all this technical info on what each designer had done, ffs. Before I was blissfully ignorant and satisfied with dividing games and gameplay into "stuff I like" and "stuff I don't like", instead of assigning the parts I liked/disliked to individual designers.

(I also loathe the fact that the only designer on these Kickstarters who mainly wants to focus on how his fucking game actually plays is also an arrogant douchebag, and I especially hate how the debate he started made me realize that half the fucking Codex doesn't give two shits about gameplay as long as their simulationist wishes are fulfilled or their fucking setting that mixes space aliens and fantasy is implemented or whatever)

[/rant]

 

[Mrowak]

(I also loathe the fact that the only designer on these Kickstarters who mainly wants to focus on how his fucking game actually plays is also an arrogant douchebag, and I especially hate how the debate he started made me realize that half the fucking Codex doesn't give two shits about gameplay as long as their simulationist wishes are fulfilled or their fucking setting that mixes space aliens and fantasy is implemented or whatever)

[/rant]

Part of that is because Codex knows it overvalues parts of gameplay, instead of focusing on how those parts work together. That is, we can produce pointless rants on how e.g. TB is oh my gosh superior tactical, deep, mature and all the fluff, while in reality we just want to play fun games. And "fun" by the lowest common denominator just so happens to be a simulationist setting mixing space aliens with fantasy.

 

[Grunker]

(I also loathe the fact that the only designer on these Kickstarters who mainly wants to focus on how his fucking game actually plays is also an arrogant douchebag, and I especially hate how the debate he started made me realize that half the fucking Codex doesn't give two shits about gameplay as long as their simulationist wishes are fulfilled or their fucking setting that mixes space aliens and fantasy is implemented or whatever)

[/rant]

Part of that is because Codex knows it overvalues parts of gameplay, instead of focusing on how those parts work together. That is, we can produce pointless rants on how e.g. TB is oh my gosh superior tactical, deep, mature and all the fluff, while in reality we just want to play fun games. And "fun" by the lowest common denominator just so happens to be a simulationist setting mixing space aliens with fantasy.

I think I agree with this, mostly.

 

[The Bishop]

I also loathe the fact that the only designer on these Kickstarters who mainly wants to focus on how his fucking game actually plays is also an arrogant douchebag

I feel like most of that perceived douchebaggery is really just product of Roguey's trolling campaign. When we say Sawyer, we think Roguey.

 

[Broseph]

Sawyer strikes me as a person with strong convictions, but not an arrogant douchebag.

 

[Grunker]

I also loathe the fact that the only designer on these Kickstarters who mainly wants to focus on how his fucking game actually plays is also an arrogant douchebag

I feel like most of that perceived douchebaggery is really just product of Roguey's trolling campaign. When we say Sawyer, we think Roguey.

Nah, that ain't it. I'm perfectly capable of distinguishing the Josh from the Roguey.

I've talked about direct Josh quotes before where he takes a huge dump over traditional system design without ackknowledging those are the exact "shoulders of design" he's standing on. I've also pointed to other examples. But I'm repeating myself.

Sawyer strikes me as a person with strong convictions, but not an arrogant douchebag.

Sorry, but you have to be pretty arrogant to dismiss every RPG system ever as "poorly designed" and "players should demand refunds" for everyone of them, and that when you implement houserules you're "fixing shit the designers should have fixed." That's like saying modding video games means those video games are shit. It's just customization.

The only reason Sawyer's able to take steps to design something different is because the groundwork is done. That, and Sawyer ain't exactly designing hugely complex, universal systems like GURPS. He's a midget kicking the shins of giants sometimes, when it comes to system designs. Even if I hope he'll be among the giants of video game system design someday. That's the core of my issue.

You're right though that he believes. And I'm glad he does. This fucking world needs someone who loves RPGs for their gameplay and not the empty frame around it.

 

[Grunker]

I will say though that I underestimated Sawyer when design of PoE launched, and I also underestimated his intentions with designing a new system from the ground up. Too many amateurs wanting create their own pwetty indwividwual systems had jaded me.

 

[tuluse]

I didn't realize these things until PoE design started. You people are the ones who filled my head with all this technical info on what each designer had done, ffs. Before I was blissfully ignorant and satisfied with dividing games and gameplay into "stuff I like" and "stuff I don't like", instead of assigning the parts I liked/disliked to individual designers.

(I also loathe the fact that the only designer on these Kickstarters who mainly wants to focus on how his fucking game actually plays is also an arrogant douchebag, and I especially hate how the debate he started made me realize that half the fucking Codex doesn't give two shits about gameplay as long as their simulationist wishes are fulfilled or their fucking setting that mixes space aliens and fantasy is implemented or whatever)

[/rant]

Let me start over.

In every Tim Cain game there are both good and bad things. If you feel the bad outweighs the good, you should have known this already.

I take a different view. If a designer was able to do anything I consider "good", I'm happy. I have a really specific and high bar for what I consider good. I would say no part of Dragon Age Origins was good for example, while I still enjoyed the game, and would say parts of it were above average.

Tim Cain's games have done many things that I consider good, so I like his design ideas.

Now, on the flip side. If a game does anything I consider good, I will be willing to overlook almost any other flaws that it has. This is why Fallout is my favorite RPG, and I like Arcanum for what it represents. I also had a pretty long debate about the dialog system in DX:HR because it did one thing I consider good, while the rest was average to poor. I realize that other people have different expectations, for instance expecting all major components of the game to actually be fun. This is reasonable, I just have a different view pont.

PS, I think the pairing of Tim Cain and Josh Sawyer is an excellent plan. From the last updates about reputation mechanics, and what I expect from Obsidian writing and world building wise, I'm actually expecting to enjoy PE more than any of the IE games.

 

[Grunker]

I didn't realize these things until PoE design started. You people are the ones who filled my head with all this technical info on what each designer had done, ffs. Before I was blissfully ignorant and satisfied with dividing games and gameplay into "stuff I like" and "stuff I don't like", instead of assigning the parts I liked/disliked to individual designers.

(I also loathe the fact that the only designer on these Kickstarters who mainly wants to focus on how his fucking game actually plays is also an arrogant douchebag, and I especially hate how the debate he started made me realize that half the fucking Codex doesn't give two shits about gameplay as long as their simulationist wishes are fulfilled or their fucking setting that mixes space aliens and fantasy is implemented or whatever)

[/rant]

Let me start over.

In every Tim Cain game there are both good and bad things. If you feel the bad outweighs the good, you should have known this already.

I take a different view. If a designer was able to do anything I consider "good", I'm happy. I have a really specific and high bar for what I consider good. I would say no part of Dragon Age Origins was good for example, while I still enjoyed the game, and would say parts of it were above average.

Tim Cain's games have done many things that I consider good, so I like his design ideas..

How Codexian. Good = shit game with momentary glimpses of absolute brilliance (Arcanum), bad = good game without any particular moments of brilliance (Dragon Age)

I get what you're saying, but I disagree. There are very few RPGs I like personally without "buts", but I don't think discussing my personal ifs and if nots is particularly relevant. What I do know I've come to increasingly care about is that so many RPG designers seemingly don't care about gameplay that much. Like Tim Cain for instance; I would think people who worked on Fallout or Arcanum or whatever would have learned from their mistakes and realize that their gameplay was basically horrific even if A LOT of other things shone. And then focus when designing on retaining the quality and fixing the shit.

Yet for Tim Cain, Brian Fargo and more, actual game systems seem to be an afterthought. Or just something you can do cool shit with i.e. "let's have 20 skills - yay - wouldn't it be need to have this skill - yay", with little reflections on what that actually means when you play the game. This is pure speculation but they seem stuck on the same philosophy they had when designing Fallout. That fucking pisses me off to no end. These guys are fucking game designers.

 

[tuluse]

(I also loathe the fact that the only designer on these Kickstarters who mainly wants to focus on how his fucking game actually plays is also an arrogant douchebag, and I especially hate how the debate he started made me realize that half the fucking Codex doesn't give two shits about gameplay as long as their simulationist wishes are fulfilled or their fucking setting that mixes space aliens and fantasy is implemented or whatever)

[/rant]

Part of that is because Codex knows it overvalues parts of gameplay, instead of focusing on how those parts work together. That is, we can produce pointless rants on how e.g. TB is oh my gosh superior tactical, deep, mature and all the fluff, while in reality we just want to play fun games. And "fun" by the lowest common denominator just so happens to be a simulationist setting mixing space aliens with fantasy.

I think I agree with this, mostly.

Ooh, something else I want to talk about.

I think the appeals to reality come from two reasons.

1) Once you get away from this, it becomes much harder to justify anything. If you're not worried about simulating reality, then what are the parameters for what makes something good? How do you quantify fun, so you can say mechanic 1 is greater than mechanic 2? Everything gets really abstract and difficult to discuss or even express your ideas.

2) RPGs need some level of verisimilitude to give context to actions, or else it's all just meaningless abstract mechanics. The easiest way to create verisimilitude is to copy reality. In my experience codexers are perfectly willing to accept that things can work differently in other realities, but most of us want consistency. Appeals to reality in this case are just mis-aimed appeals to internal consistency.

I mean this is ignoring the Draq school of absolute simulation whenever possible, but that's actually a rare argument.

 

[Rake]

What I do know I've come to increasingly care about is that so many RPG designers seemingly don't care about gameplay that much.
These guys are fucking game designers.

To fair, RPG players seemingly don't care about gameplay that much as well. I would argue the majority don't put gameplay as their most important aspect of an RPG. So game devs behave accordingly. And you can't realy blame them for it. After all, their job is to provide what their audience wants.

 

[Grunker]

What I do know I've come to increasingly care about is that so many RPG designers seemingly don't care about gameplay that much.
These guys are fucking game designers.

To fair, RPG players seemingly don't care about gameplay that much as well. I would argue the majority don't put gameplay as their most important aspect of an RPG. So game devs behave accordingly. And you can't realy blame them for it. After all, their job is to provide what their audience wants.

Yes and no. People certainly stand in line to say they don't agree, but is that really the truth?

I used to think, when I was kid, that I loved Baldur's Gate because of the dialogue and the characters. The more I grew up the more I realized than whenever I played through them I skipped through the dialogue. I actually realized as a 17-year-old that I had never seen the letter from Gorion when you re-enter Candlekeep because I had been focused on getting on with the combat.