algroth

Sounds good! I may have been mixed on the first game, but I'm still up for playing a new one.

The only craziness regarding COD is that they *didn't* change it. There's no acceptable argument whatsoever towards portraying American war crimes as Russian ones instead. That isn't escapism, that isn't "not being political". On the contrary, it's deeply political, and worst of all, it's outright propagandist and manipulative - you are literally blaming real events on other people to deflect the shameful parts of your history towards other people and countries, all in a game played by kids who aren't aware of these historical episodes and who largely lack the capacity to scrutinize what they're being shown. But then again, this is the same company whose idea of "not taking a political stance" involves banning a professional player from their tournament for a whole year after defending basic human rights and firing the casters because of merely being on the stream the same time the player was when he said it - because they wouldn't want to upset the nation responsible out of fear of being censored. I don't do this often, but you really didn't get it. I suggest playing closer attention. Again, I suspect you didn't get this either. I repeat, the only reason why politics are "too much right now" is really because the "politics" in question threaten the "safe space" video games are perceived to be by the anti-LGBT crowd. It's extremely telling that of all the Tom Clancy games and military shooters and depictions of turbulent historical times and mental illnesses and whatnot, the only time this comes up is when gender fits into the equation. Another case in point: Again, let's cut the hypocrisy here.

In other words...

It'd be better to not assume how everyone plays video games or engages with them. Some are fine with sheer escapism, others enjoy games because they're a valid narrative artform and have interesting things to tell. It's the reason why people love games or films that "make them think". It's certainly why I engage with Obsidian's work on a much deeper level than I do many that of many other companies out there. What's more, let's stop the hypocrisy for a moment here. The matter of "politics" in games, and of "people play games to escape the real world", are topics that are only ever brought up in regards to discussions about gender and minority inclusion. I've *never* seen anyone criticize a game like This War of Mine or Innocence: A Plague Tale in these terms, even though they sink their feet deep into the mire of regular civilian life in horrible historical times. I've never heard a Call of Duty player complain about the constant depiction of war crimes, acts of terrorism and modern warfare as "not being escapist" when they go to such painstaking ends to capture those events as realistically and with as much meticulous detail as possible (I've certainly heard *other* complaints about them, like trying to pass off US war crimes as Russian acts, but I digress). And I sure as Hell don't see people complaining about The Outer Worlds bombarding one with anti-capitalist corporate satire at every turn, or that the game doesn't shy away from a late-stage capitalist society in decline and literal starvation and the likes, where you have discussions on various political systems, unionization and more. If you think this isn't political, look closer. No, we bring up the matter that games "offer an escape from the real world" only when someone brings up the matter of LGBT inclusion. It's a front, it's an excuse used to mask the rather blatant and heavily documented bigotry and intolerance towards LGBT groups rampant across the gamer community. And again I have to stress: I'm wary of representation for representation's sake. I certainly don't think the response is to include for the sake of including. But just because we shouldn't do that doesn't mean it's not a topic worth considering, or a topic we should discourage from being represented in games. The same we don't discourage hundreds of other political and social themes often depicted in the medium.

Representation does not imply being "based on" said matter. A sci-fi game can still absolutely include non-binary people, especially one with these many characters (yes, there are lots of NPCs in the game), without being strictly about gender politics or any less a sci-fi. It's sort of what science fiction as a genre does: touch on social, political and existential issues through the lens of technology, science, speculative futures and the likes. This itself is a pretty big talking point in the current socio-political landscape, so it'd make sense to touch on it. Secondly, no one is "forcing" anything onto video games. No one spoke of non-binary inclusion as a demand here, and rather as a speculation on their inclusion or how they'd fit into the setting - heck, I've made the argument that their complete *absence* could make sense given how relationships and gender are shown in the setting to exist only because it's a means to ensure a new generation of workers for the Board, and not because the Board cares about human relationship or identity per se. If anything the only one here who seems to be wanting to force something *out of* video games is yourself, with this post of yours. The only one being "selfish" here, demanding the exclusion of a very real demographic in society, is yourself. Lastly, you're going about your demands the wrong way. "What about wheel-chair bound people? Or people with prosthetic limbs? Or blind people walking down the street using a walking stick, or an assistance dog?" Yeah, why *don't* we see more disabled people in games? Talking about the potential inclusion of one minority doesn't preclude the potential inclusion of another - I certainly wouldn't mind seeing the presence of people who are impaired in any way, especially in a setting that makes pretty constant references to worker accidents and misshaps, and where such accidents and failures in workplace safety are placed on the worker opposite to the company. A side-quest dealing with such a scenario would have been very fitting to the game's setting and very interesting as well. Your argument is similar to the sort people who work 60 hours a week on minimum wage use to discredit the very real complaints people who earn more or work less than they do have regarding work times and salary - the question shouldn't be "why should they ask for better working conditions?", or in this case "why should they get representation?", and rather "why aren't we asking for the same?".

It's not the ideal option, but you can always choose to ignore levelling your skills and perks as you progress in the game. Dunno if you can decline attribute points however.

I believe Star Wars prints were made by Eastman, in which the reds would notoriously degrade faster than the blue or greens, both washing out and making the print a little greener over time as a result. That's probably what you're seeing there, also why the blacks look a little more washed out and so on. Based on that single frame I might also have a slight preference for the unrestored version, it looks a tad more "organic" for me, but really, you can't make much of a decision based on a single frame. Still, pretty cool restoration!

I may be wrong, but I think the OP's point is that despite having the game accomodate non-binary or more androgynous options in terms of appearance, there's no character that really blurs the binary configuration of gender roles/identity and so on. I wouldn't mind a bit more representation in that regard though I'm also usually wary of representation for representation's sake, for what it can say or fail to say in a certain context and so on (e.g. I think a setting where trans people are just like anyone else and treated in the same fashion, you run the risk of belittling or ignoring the very real discrimination and segregation they suffer in the real world, and with it ignore several anxieties that are produced as a fear of responses and repercussions caused by the same and so on). It also ignores that the absence of a minority in a culture or sphere or other can speak volumes of that sphere: maybe in the Outer Worlds setting, the reason why gender identity is binary is also because it's convenient to the corporations: it's already stated that newborns are born into the "family" of a corporation and are made corporation property - if so it makes sense that in this setting an affair that couldn't produce an offspring would be counter-productive and a waste of time that'd be better spent working instead - if so, a non-binary understanding of sex or gender could be suppressed by merely being non-productive and so on (i.e. romance, gender and relationship as far as the Board is concerned is only relevant insofar as it produces a new generation of workers). Just throwing out ideas, of course, bit still.

I mean, there's no harm in suggesting ideas, I suppose. It's also not as if Obsidian haven't implemented fan suggestions and content in their Pillars games for example, be it through backer content or else. I will say that most people do come into any creative medium with aspirations of their own about games they'd like to create, so it'd be hard to see them not giving their own ideas priority over those of a complete third party to the dev/publisher/investor, with no financial backing or means to take part in the actual production of that game. Well, some ideas are just plain bad ideas, for starters. What makes an idea appealing is very personal and not everyone shares the same enthusiasm or interest towards it as its originator. But then, even if you get a good idea, very often the same can be left wanting by the end product, either because of sheer bad design, or insufficient resources, or technological limitations, or corporate meddling, or because the idea was too ambitious in the first place, and so on. We all have an idea we think would make a "great game" in our heads, the devs do too, but that's an ideal which rarely translates to perfection to a finished product for any number of reasons. There's always a gulf between the concept and the realized product, and a lot of the things that made the concept interesting can be lost in that stretch. And then there's the money factor too - a "Star Wars Diablo" sounds good in paper but it's a niche type of game built around a massive IP that is currently in control of EA, who have shown they're clearly not interested in making small-scale niche games with the property but massive twice-a-year blockbusters that can spread as wide a net on the gamer demographic as possible, and milk as much money out of every outing as they can in the process. Meanwhile new IPs are much riskier ventures because audiences don't know what they are and they can fail to garner attention if they fail to strike a chord with a large enough sector - so even if you create an IP "like Star Wars" for a Diablo clone, maybe people will fail to latch onto it for any number of reasons, ranging all the way from the IP being too niche or alien for most to the IP looking like just a Star Wars knockoff. The small companies that are in it to take risks and make the games they want have to struggle with keeping the doors open every day, whilst the big AAA companies are largely not satisfied with "modest hits". One needs the money and has to make concessions on their ideas to make their games appealing in order to survive, the other wants money and will get it by churning out tried-and-true formulas year after year until they're no longer meeting their expectations. What you're asking for with a World of Starcraft is the kind of project that to me sounds both risky and expensive, precisely the two words that haunt the sleep of most of the people with the money. Again, it's not that there aren't ideas. Josh would make a historical turn-based classless RPG if he could - he just knows how hard it is for a project like that to be viable or of interest.

It seems like you're looking for an "idea guy" position, but that is, as mentioned many times before, not a very worthwhile role on its own. Everyone has ideas, everyone has their own worlds and stories they'd love to see made into a game, or their own mechanics they'd love to implement into one. But having an idea means very little in the process of actually implementing it, and what developers look for is people who can actually do and not merely think up. Basically this: https://davidmullich.com/2015/11/23/sorry-there-is-no-idea-guy-position-in-the-game-industry/

Yeah, as mentioned above, it was a mistranslation. Well, that's good I guess.

Yeah, only for multiplayer. Still, considering they were making a big fuss about having no MTX in the game, this does leave a bit of a sour taste in the mouth.

Cyberpunk 2077 will have MTX after all: https://happygamer.com/cd-projekt-red-quietly-announces-micro-transactions-for-upcoming-cyberpunk-2077-43769/

I don't think it's been released yet, but you may want to ask Justin over on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sonic_presence Alternatively, @Justin Bell

Again, depends on what you mean with "risk". Developing a Star Wars game might not be much of a financial risk but Josh is clearly talking from a design perspective, and in that sense a lot of things could either go wrong or be underestimated due to an initial optimism going into the project. I'm not a dev myself but I've seen similar things all too often in film production, where certain time schedules were set under the assumption that the scenes or shots in question could be resolved in said time, which didn't account for many foreseeable obstacles and complications. I've ran into the situation of shoots that should've ended at 10pm extending all the way to 5am all too often, and often paired with a schedule that required us to be on a different set at 8am that very morning. As Josh alludes to, an overambitious schedule can lead to a failure in planning which in turn could lead to overtime, which means a *lot* more money when working with unionized workers, which could also lead to burnout, vice recividism and so on, so forth. In a way, KOTOR 2's a pretty good example of this too, far as I know - Obsidian started with an ambitious plan which to my understanding got even more ambitious through production, but which eventually led to a lot of content scrapped because they ended up having to rush to meet deadlines and so on. The end result was a pretty broken, unfinished game that required fan patches and the likes to be the game we recall today. I reckon what Josh refers to as avoiding "risks" is to avoid situations in development that could threaten to become quicksand, the way naval combat in Deadfire became and so on. Though I could be incorrect. That said I feel the question and answer have relatively different connotations of "risk" too. I might be mistaken though, as I've heard people complain that in terms of game mechanics and systems The Outer Worlds feels pretty safe as well, but still, I feel like the question and usual criticism stems a bit from the narrative elements not being risky, not involving unlikable or controversial characters or major narrative subversions or big genre reinventions or whatnot, and it's not really what Josh responded to. I can get that criticism even if I reckon Tyranny for example is a pretty subversive game all around.

Depends on what you mean with "risk". If you're a flop away from bankruptcy, I'd definitely call banking your company's future on a Kickstarter-backed original-IP revival of a genre/game-style that was last relevant fifteen years ago quite the gamble. Also in terms of how these games compare to their predecessors there's certainly a lot of ways in which they refined and reinvigorated the formula, I think calling these mere clones or pastiches is selling them much too short. If we mean "risk" as in reinventing a genre and its associated systems and mechanics, then yeah, it played it pretty safely even if they were, again, a step forward.

Very odd, seems I cannot edit the parts I wanted to add after the spoiler tag, which were included in it instead. Oh well.

Just as I think the series is starting to get interesting, in comes a load of bollocks at the final five minutes that offer just about the worst we've seen of the series thus far and kills much of the tension moving forward.

From the premise alone it reminds me a bit of Why Don't You Play in Hell?, which was an absolute riot. Similarly that's all about a group of amateur filmmakers who set up a Yakuza war in order to shoot a Yakuza film. Very absurd, over the top, full of fourth-wall breaks and the likes.

My understanding is that this is on purpose...

I disagree. The entire game was built around pre-buffing and made the act absolutely necessary for me. It made the difference between being assblasted by three alchemists spamming constant fireballs at you every turn and being essentially invulnerable to their one attack, or much the same for the Wisps in Candlemere or the giant slugs in the Swamp-Witch's Cottage and so on. Even on normal difficulty those slugs attack you for 6d6 acid damage with their regular attacks, when you're at best a lvl 5-7 party. It forces you to either be "lucky" (i.e. bash your head against a wall until you survive the encounter relatively unscathed), or cast a communal protection from acid spell prior to the fight to negate just about all of the damage. Similarly the fact that poisons, blindness, and so on become so inordinately punishing that your one feasible option becomes that of casting protections prior to any combat. In the IE games pre-buffing was a convenient work-around, in Kingmaker they thoroughly felt like a necessity.