Patrick K Mills

I'm glad you know what we were thinking when development began, I'd like to get the notes for some of the meetings that I missed.

You are correct, you didn't say it was a market failure. Neither you nor I would actually have access to the number of units sold. However, you did describe it as a disaster. As to the second part, if you really believe what you are saying about the scale of development, I have a link for you: http://www.obsidianent.com/jobs/

Not only have I never played it, I've never heard of it. That should tell you something about being over-ambitious. I'm also not entirely sure what you are advocating here, you seem to be suggesting that we should every feature we think is cool, regardless of quality or suitability. I mean, if the Boiling Point guys can do it, why can't we? I counter that a single case doesn't prove a trend, on top of that, the game you mention was, by your own admission, a failure at market. Now, I personally do not want to lose my job over a feature or suite of features that would be totally sweet but also totally unneeded and we don't have time for. Better to polish a smaller, solid product than have a 6,000 hour long game with trillions of moving parts that is "best played patched." To be completely honest, we, as a company, have been there, done that, and I don't think we're really interested in developing that reputation any more than we already have. EDIT: Yeah, that quicksave feature is cool, seen it in a few other games as well. I've been playing Heroes V recently and they also have a series of 10 rotating auto-saves each turn.

It's a figure of speech. Mike will do things that no human could *really* do, but nothing paranormal. He can't see ghosts, but he can shoot better than William Tell. He can't fly, but he can kick the crap out of Pei Mei.

Actually, yes.. It's a feature I like in most games it is in, but it's just not a feature that, at this point, we feel is really worth the time to put into *this* game. We may change our minds down the road when other things are coming together, but it's not something that will be changed based on forum posts or online petitions. If we do it we'll do it because it's right for the project. Obviously, I'm a fan as well as a designer, and when other developers are working on games that I'm excited about I can get a little wrapped up in my own pet ideas and features. I've got a running model of Fallout 2 and Dawn of War 2 running in my head and it is totally awesome. But, ultimately, it is the people at Bethesda and Relic who know the game best, who are the closest to it, who know the systems, technology, and vision better than I do, better than I could. And so I just kinda have to sit back and trust that they will do what is right for the game. Obviously, if they mess up, I'm disappointed and don't buy the product. Maybe they would have been better off if they had listened to me, maybe not. Maybe it would have been, but my ideas couldn't have been implemented, or some technical limitation I'm unaware of makes it more trouble than it is worth. All project development is a balancing act of one sort or another, and if you pull on one thing something else is going to have to give somewhere. The point is that it's important to remember that the product being made isn't the same as the product in your head. So while dragging bodies, or ammo management, or whatever, might sound totally awesome and JUST RIGHT for the game you imagine, it might not be right for the game that actually exists. As more information about the game comes out I, and others, can be more specific about why we chose to do one thing over another, I wish I could say more now, but we're still in development. Things can change and misinformation can be disastrous. Additionally there is the whole developer/publisher/press/community information flow pipeline that has to be respected.

I'm curious if you could design a smaller version of Uplink to use for hacking and have it still be fun(ish) and fast enough that it can be played in 30 second doses. I pose this challenge to you because Uplink is one of my favorite games of all time and I've thought hard (I'm paid to think hard about games, it's crazy) about how to accomplish the goal above and I come up with almost zilch. Uplink is a fun game because it's hundreds of systems interlinked with one another in novel ways that ultimately are displayed to the player in very small, concise doses. It's like a Jenga tower, remove one system and it's a weaker game, remove two and the whole thing might collapse. Even though it may just look like a single, simple structure, it's actually pretty complex. Uplink is a wonderful example of how to create a small, systems driven game- it is not a model on how to create a minigame that can be slipped into a larger game. If Uplink were to have a meatspace component the entire game would need to be designed around both systems so that they were deeply interconnected. If I want a minigame I can't just boot up Uplink everytime I want to hack someone's email. A minigame is not necessarily intended to be fun. This is a conceit I have been guilty of in the past. A minigame is intended to interrupt the regular gameplay for very short periods of alternate gameplay. In the best of cases they actually aren't fun, but are deep enough to provide room for player skill to interact with character skill, unobtrusive and part of the simulacrum so that they don't take you out of the game, and fast. Lockpicking in Splinter Cell and Thief 3 (and our game, I think) are good examples of this. Bad examples- well, lots.

None of the screenshots are touched up. I think I posted that before but it might have been in a different thread. Here at Obsidian we're very opposed to photoshopping our press screenshots. For reals, yo. We might set up a scene that isn't *exactly* 100% gameplay, but that's because it's often hard to frame a screenshot while guys are shooting at you.

"Good" is a relative term. I don't evade genres except sports and jrpgs because they tend to frustrate me. Most game stories are awful, so terrible I'd not even let my children play them for fear that they'd get the wrong idea about what constitutes good storytelling. On the other hand a few games have passable or intersting stories and writing. These are the games that many people who are fans of game writing like to hold up as real gems and proof of games as art. The problem is that anyone who reads anything other than Star Wars novels recognizes these stories for what they are, mediocre. Then there are a very very tiny number of games that have really interesting themes, well characterized players, very good writing, and a solid structure. Rarely do they have all of these qualities. Even rarer is it that they are also fun to play. In fact, I can't think of any. EDIT: OK, I can think of a few.

Well, you should play the games mentioned, because they are some of the best games released in the last five years without question. I can't play SS1 because of the control scheme. If it was just the resolution I'd bite the bullet, but the combination of the two renders the gameplay moot- I don't get to experience it because of factors unrelated to gameplay. Yes, the game is ugly only in light of time, but it could also be ugly despite it. If a game comes out today and looks terrible, a lot of people just won't play it- maybe it is their loss, but you can't say that they are wrong to not play something they find visually uninteresting or offensive. As for the gameplay staying with you, the two games I have the fondest memories of are Ultima 7 and Planescape: Torment. Both of them had crummy gameplay. I'm not making the argument that gameplay isn't important, instead I'm trying to make the point that games are ultimately a multi-media experience and every part matters for the whole. Honestly, I don't have the time to go back and play games from five years ago unless I'm researching something or am really, really bored (or it's a game like an MMO that is constantly offering new content). If you have a game that relies on people playing it for a very long time (MMOs, serial titles) you need to constantly offer new content, gameplay refinements, and yes, better graphics. That may be, but I don't consider plot structure to be the most important thing in a game's story. There must be a compelling theme, first and foremost, or it's all just a muddled sub-pulp dime-store adventure story. For an example see: virtually every game ever made. The themes (except for the survival themes) in Bioshock were very distinct from the previous Shock games, and far more refined than in the other Shock games.

For being discerning? Ignorance is bliss, I guess, but it's not my preference.

I would suggest a new hobby if that's really the case. Games have almost universally terrible stories. I can count on one hand the number of games I've played that had story and writing that was good enough to qualify as totally sweet. If you include games that had writing comparable to the average genre-fiction pulp I *might* have to use two hands.

The options are not simply "mean" "happy" and "sexy." While I have a fondness for those labels, as they are personally my only three moods, we do short descriptions for each stance option, and sometimes give explicit details in the title. They aren't specific lines of dialog, though. Think something like this: Aggressive = Force his hand = "Hey bad guy, I know you are bluffing, blah blah blah." Suave = Flirt = "What's a bad guy like you doing in a sewer level like this blah blah blah." Professional = Offer him a deal = "I'll pay you $300 to forget that I reloaded my game so I could try the flirt option." And so on. While you may see the words Aggressive, Suave, and Professional in the dialog sequences, most of the time you'll see descriptions that are written specifically for that line of dialog.

If you haven't played Half-Life 2, Portal, GTA4, or looked at the Spore Creature Creator tool I really don't know how convincing any broad statements you make about the modern game industry can be. The reason I consider SS1 to be borderline unplayable today is that it was developed prior to the interface that all first person games today use and as such requires a lot of relearning before you can play it. Combine that with a very low resolution and you have a game that I can spend only a few seconds in before becoming motion sick and frustrated. Anyone who played Quake before System Shock 1 would probably have a hard time getting into SS. Of course, that's how a lot of RPG fans like it, I'm not accusing you or anyone else here but, you know, the RPG Codex set. I would argue that the idea that the visuals of a game are quickly forgotten is kind of a weird thing to say. It's been months since I played Bioshock and I can't remember which button I pressed to shoot lighting nor can I recall the names of most of the secondary characters. What I can tell you is the color palate used in every area of the game, the architectural influences present, and I could rattle off a top ten money shots without even having to think very hard. I doubt I'll ever forget those scenes- I still remember the layout of Lord British's castle in every Ultima game since 5, Sigil from Torment will be with me till the day I die, and the moment I stepped out of the train station in Half Life 2 will be with me for a very long time. Graphics are not ephemeral. Humans are visual creatures, there is a reason you play games instead of reading books and it probably isn't the interactivity and it definitely isn't the story. Additionally, Bioshock had a very distinct series of themes and story elements, I'm wondering what it is that makes you think that it's just ripped off of SS2? The plot structure was very similar but the story and themes were definitely distinct.

I think you'll have to back that up with an argument. I'm curious to hear it. A game like GTA4 offers an amazing level of world sim and free-style gameplay that could only be generated in the past with meticulous scripting a la Ultima 7. Advancements in UI and control systems is just astounding- compare System Shock 1 to System Shock 2 to Bioshock, the original is arguably unplayable today, the second is playable but has a pretty clunky interface (with the sheer joy of interface tetris) and Bioshock offers a streamlined and simplified evolution that dispenses with pretty silly logistics (do I carry this bag of chips or the vodka?) in favor of making the *experience* the focus. Look at Half-Life 2 and Portal to see how the technical abilities in the realm of physics allow us to look into wholly new gameplay mechanics that would have been impossible (or impossibly broken, see: Jurassic Park: Trespasser) in previous generations. I'm not saying everything is perfect. Sometimes I do want some logistics- most of the time in STALKER I was really glad to have the inventory management because it didn't dilute the core gameplay, but instead accentuated it. On the other hand, if I had to feed Gordon Freeman every few hours of gameplay I'd be very unhappy. Also, one final word: Spore.

I was just playing the game and it's pretty fun. I totally shot a guy with a rifle and it was all like BANG-THWAP-SLUUUMP. Dude was dead. \m/

We have four primary weapons that you can switch between at will during a mission, plus your melee attacks and special weapons and gadgets. You upgrade your weapons via the safe-house between missions, though you can receive upgrades during missions as well from loot.

lolwut? In the past we have described one of our special attacks as an action that pauses time and lets you target multiple enemies, when you unpause your character takes shots at all of them. It may or may not function exactly like that in the final product. It should not be taken to imply a larger mechanic of actually targeting and shooting guys while paused. This post should not be taken to imply that we don't have such a system either. Basically, take what you read in articles with a grain of salt. Sometimes we aren't clear to the press, sometimes the press gets confused, sometimes we cut or change something that was working because it didn't turn out the way we wanted, sometimes we describe how we *want* something to work only to find out that it's not worth the time and there is a better way to do it. Nothing is final till it's released.

As a frequent poster at Something Awful I take offense to this, Something Awful actually tends to really like our games. Or at least they pretend to when Josh, Nathaniel and I are around.

I'm just copying the new build so I don't have time to address everything right now- maybe later. I wish I could just lay it all out for you guys to convince you that this really isn't a big issue, but there are three big problems with that. 1) I have to fight with one hand tied behind my back. We have rules about what we can and can't divulge, and while we're pretty liberal with those rules, fully explaining all the reasons why this choice was a good one touches on so many systems and technical requirements and in so much detail that I'd be pushing the envelope. Maybe later though- we'll see. 2) There is absolutely no way to convince everyone in text. Honestly, some of you won't be on-board with this until you've played it, and that leads into number three... 3) Some people won't like it no matter what. Some of you probably won't like this game. That's not saying anything about you guys or the game, it's just the law of averages. I fully expect, after release, to read on a forum somewhere (maybe here) about how Alpha Protocol is the worst game ever made and the number one reason was... maybe infinite ammo? Who knows? People dislike a lot of good games for a lot of silly reasons. It's very subjective.

Sure.

Or we just don't feel like arguing on the internet. Infinite ammo solves a number of very nasty problems, and what we lose from it is rather insignificant compared to the problems it solves. It is, like many features, something that sounds very desperately important when you read about it in a magazine, but after five minutes of playing you forget that it was ever an issue. If this game had been made ten or fifteen years ago and you read on a BBS or in the pages of CGW that we decided that the player character wouldn't starve do death if he didn't carry rations people would have had a fit, citing many of the same arguments that have been floated in this very thread. That isn't meant to diminish the criticisms or those who are critical, I'm just trying to put some perspective on the (non)argument. In this game you don't have limited ammo because, quite simply, we wanted to spend our resources and your focus on other areas. That doesn't mean that we are crazy anti-ammo fascists who hate Jagged Alliance 2 and System Shock. A choice had to be made about what we want the player to spend time doing and thinking about, and where we put our efforts when building systems and assets. This is the choice we made. Ultimately the public determines if we made the right choice, but I'm fully confident that we did.

That's OK, I'm not testing my orbital mind control rays, I'm just telling you that we made the decision for a good reason and we're happy with it.

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Games don't really work like that. You have systems that rely on other systems that rely on other systems that all tie back into the first system. You make a major change to a core system and everything else has to change with it. It would be like giving viewers the choice between Vader being Luke's dad or not- everything has to change to account for that choice because none of the scenes in the third movie would make any sense if Luke isn't a chip off the old block.

I was the part of the founding/core team for Action Quake 2 and I did a lot of the original docs for AHL and I'm *totally* in favor of unlimited ammo for this game.