Gromnir

so again, it ain't that crpg fans want short games... is just the mythical average gamer. let us not lose sight o' that. so when a developer of crpgs explains that gamers want shorter games

this explanation would make perfect sense... if there were only one kind of game/gamer. in the 70s, people wanted cars that got better gas mileage, so auto makers made cars that were smaller and lighter and more aerodynamic, etc. however, ferrari not try to make a gas efficient sports car, and while ford and chevy tried to produce gas efficient trucks, the average farmer kansas still needed a vehicle with some muscle. trite oversimplification? sure. the average gamer wants all those things josh stated 'bove, but is that what the average crpg player wants? as much as we hear that the average gamer wants a 20-30 hour game... tops, we has met very few crpg players that want such games. *shrug* am not sure where developers get their data, but it just not seem to take into account the expectation of crpg fans. 'course, Gromnir recognizes that he is dealing with mostly gut feeling and anecdotal evidence, but while crpg fans we see across multiple boards seem willing to accept games of 40 hours, they surely not want 20-30 hour games. HA! Good Fun!

get your hands on, "Duran Duran: The First Four Years of the Fab Five." bet he gets a chuckle out of you asking him to sign it. HA! Good Fun!

is good reason we didn't answer. is how many different writers that worked on ps:t? kotor2? how many different and largely independent stories did ps:t and kotor2 have? kreia, were a character we liked as much as any joinable character in ps:t... though on occasion her dialogue made us groan. on the other hand, fall-from-grace were just plain crap... a one-trick pony (story wise,) and that trick were pretty pathetic. the mystery that is woman... bah. overall, ps:t is our favorite crpg, but it had many flaws, and much of the writing were... hokey. nevertheless, in spite of the bad, the good in ps:t were very good. ... is an exercise some creative writing teachers use for those young writers who seems overly impressed with their own fortune cookie philosophies... an exercise we highly recommend. tell the disabled writer to rewrite their story (or a portion of the story,) as if they were writing to an 8 year old audience. HA! Good Fun!

Care to give an example? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> already did. HA! Good Fun!

"Would you want that in place of the tutorial? Or as part of the actual story?" why need the two be separate... and we not see why there would be any problem in making the genesis portion o' the game fit into larger story. most heroic stories spend considerable time talking 'bout the origins of "Chesty McVargas, Knight Templar" or whoever you got as the protagonist. this were one of the few suggestions we made on the old board that tiffin thought were a good one

"Now, what if such a 'tutorial' was a full-blown scenario? What if character creation took 5 hrs, for example? How much 'character creation' are players willing to go through before actually tackling the 'real game'? I'm sure many RPG players are fans of character creation, but is there such a thing as too much of it - regardless of how it's being fleshed out?" have been asking for this kinda thing since bg2 were in development... and we has gotten almost 0 developer response, regardless of the mechanic being suggested to implement, and in spite of the fact that whenever the notion has been suggested, there has always been at least some support for the idea. other than race and gender, you can make virtually every aspect of character generation part of the playable game. HA! Good Fun!

"I don't think PS:T and KotOR2 suffered from the same problem. PS:T had great dialogue, flavor text, and story-telling throughout. " when ps:t had characters explain their philosophies, it got a bit... stoopid. comic book stoopid. which maybe is ok given the audience. in ps:t it were also, to a certain degree, necessary as tthe setting were built 'pon a "philosophy for dummies" kinda thing and with a crpg you not always got the time (or the audience) to allow folks to experience... sometimes you gotta take the short-cut and just tell. nevertheless, reading coaxmetal dialogue were a chore. it were just awful. *click, click, click* were dozens of such encounters in ps:t, and while some were necessary, (such as when you get introduced to various factions, ) others were just lame. compare dialogues in ps:t to those in "grendel." better yet, compare to "rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead." a writer can get as philosophical and profound as they wish to w/o resorting to their characters spouting profound speeches... and if a speech is necessary, an audience will accept it better from a character they know as a person, to give the speech context and simply 'cause we is more likely to care 'bout what a known character is saying. you see henry struggle with being a king, sacrificing friendship and lives in the name of some goal that even he ain't certain of no more. you spend the better part of an hour watching henry laugh and cry and bleed and you is maybe more willing to listen to his speech. but place henry's pre-battle speech at start o' henry V... when ps:t had human characters involved in human activities and displaying human emotions, it were great. talk with morte after pillar of skulls. talk with dak'kon 'bout why he follows. talk with mebbeth after returning to sigil. ps:t were a story 'bout a immortal guy wandering the planes, choosing 'tween philosophies and fighting bizarre creatures, etc. whatever. ultimately, every story worth telling is a human one and a familiar one. not matter if your protagonist is a overweight alcoholic anglican woman from podunk missouri or a quasi-sentient puddle of noxious gasses and frozen liquids existing in five dimensions simultaneously, 'cause in either case you is gonna have to try and make the reader care 'bout what is happening to the protagonist. the reader needs to empathize even if it is only enough to despise the character. kotor2 had lots of characters making speeches with their dialogues... and people rarely make speeches when they talk with each other. even shakespeare rarely had his characters make speeches

"Jade Empire is a good game, at any rate, so who cares? Oh, that's right, we're in a pissing contest regarding whether Jade Empire gets a pass for brevity or KotOR 2 gets a pass for writing. Ridiculous. :madr:" this thread is so far off-topic by now that we feel little guilt over joining with the mob. as to kotor2 writing... some was good... and some were just terrible. ... young writers and bad writers and writers of comic books often makes their characters talk strangely. such writers tries to make their characters say profound things in the hopes that maybe their writing will reveal some profound truth

*groan* HA! Good Fun!

will somebody say something 'bout josh? he is a sabre fighter, so he can't be all bad, right? HA! Good Fun!

Does that mean you own either company and/or are working on the game? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> what an interesting leap. well, not so much interesting as amusing. Gromnir is a consumer... am the person they make games for. drak said he were worried, 'bout nwn2 'cause of guidelines.... an we responded that we feared the guidelines not at all. one wonders at how drag gots so far off course... 'cause it sure weren't Gromnir who led you so far afield. is best to nip your foolishness in the bud. HA! Good Fun!

"Actually there is another problem with NwN2 for me. WotC and Hasbro are not giving that much freedom of content (that comes from hearing Troika, BioWare and even BIS staff comments) with leads to knowing whatever its end up being, its going to be aproved by WotC and Hasbro to be "safe"." not this crap again... other than the troika incompetents, every developer has noted that the wotc "guidelines" ain't a limitation on making a good d&d game. heck, recent d&d games has had evil options and slavery and drug use and all those things folks claimed were impossible... and even if you avoid that stuff you can still have a good game. is a bs crutch... 'specially since there ain't no real guidelines. those guidelines is applied ad hoc... which means they ain't no guidelines at all. did wotc screw bis over? sure... but unless you can point to recent obsidian comments that suggest that wotc has got their foot on the back of fergie's neck, then we say, "bs." heck, the fact that josh is back at obsidian suggests that your fears is unfounded... as josh had more of an axe to grind over wotc guidelines than anybody else at obsidian. if josh really thought that wotc guidelines doomed nwn2, his return woulda' been less likely, no? guidelines is hardly a serious fear for Gromnir. HA! Good Fun!

could not finish jade empire. same thing happened to us with fable... got 90% through game, and just couldn't stay interested 'nuff to finish. we had some medical problems recently that kept us on our arse far more than usual... finally had an excuse to play pc games and 'course we had nothing worth playing... so we replayed ps:t and bg2 and dark omens and every pc chess program we got. we were gonna try and play iwd2... never finished that game neither. unfortunately we got all sorts o' wacky performance problems with that game... games on the horizon... not a damned thing... which is just plain wrong. HA! Good Fun!

"he does not compromise his game design to appeal to the masses" at least as much as any single game designer can hope to... is not like josh had final say on any game he were part of developing. if you thinks that iwd2 were the game he wanted to make then you is crazy... which inevitably brings Gromnir back to jefferson. the developers of jefferson seemed almost universal in their optimism... they appeared to believe that they were finally getting to do a game the right way... or at least their way. ... anybody here think that the obsidian developers gots such genuine enthusiasm 'bout nwn2? HA! Good Fun!

"I've always assumed that Sawyer would end up at Obsidian, so it doesn't come as a surprise." shows what Gromnir knows. everybody keeps saying that they expected this, but it were a surprise for us. josh "nuke" sawyer coming to work at bis? rrrriiiiigggghhhhtttt. nuke working on nwn2? his first AAA title? HA! we got the, "i'm just here to help the team," kinda fluff from josh, which ain't a surprise, but the other stuff... HA! Good Fun!

josh is probably amused by the idle speculation more than he is annoyed... or maybe we is projecting. and josh can always ends the spec if he so desires. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

dunno... maybe. it were amusing to see how news o' josh leaving seemed to be the harbinger of bis doom for most people... inspite of fact that josh and others kept saying how josh's work on vb would be done before he left in november, and recognizing how limited josh's current role were on vb... a voluntary arrangement as josh not wanted to be lead post jefferson. fallout 3 were chris a's baby for years, and when he left there were very little news of it at major news sites. josh leaves bis and every on-line game magazine made it front page news. weird. HA! Good Fun!

already noted that k3 got timeline right... but is misleading. can probably find more posts if you wish... ones where josh says that he were pretty much just doing technical design when he were announcing leaving only a few months after chris a already left. only problem is the bis boards is gone. ask josh if you wish... that will clear it up... and maybe Gromnir is confused. HA! Good Fun!

p.s. found a puuk post "JE leaving was a big blow for all of us on the project, no way around it. However, the stuff he was working on, the technical side of the project (rules, interfaces, etc.), is nearly complete (I think there are only two more interfaces that need to be done, and they are simple ones). Josh made sure that part, the part he was responsible for, was done by the time he left, and I think that is a huge example of his integrity and his passion for doing a great job. "The story and areas for VB have been finished for a few months now, so his input has been received and applied. We are currently building maps and writing dialogues. Sean Reynolds has been creative lead almost since MCA left and has been doing a very fine job of making sure we knows hwo ta write good. "On a personal note, I have really enjoyed working with Josh, and have been very impressed watching him grow into a great lead designer. He is a person who learns from his triumphs and mistakes and grows from those lessons - and in this industry, that's almost impossible to find. He knows when to step in and when to step back, and knows how to empower his employees. He brings a lot to BIS and will be sorely missed. I wish him good luck in his future venture (no, it's not Obsidian) and I know he will develop great things when he gets there. "And VB keeps on chugging along..." HA! Good Fun!

Well, MCA was the lead for a short time, yes. Then I think it was Josh for the majority of the projects life and when he left it was SKR. I very well could be wrong, it was awhile ago now. But I'm sure JE can fill us in when he reads some of this, I'z gotz to goes, laterz. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> timeline you got right, but we think that it is misleading. chris a were lead... then it got dumped in josh's lap when chris a quit. so yeah, josh were lead for a short time. when josh left black isle he were only doing technical design. passed on torch before he left. HA! Good Fun!

chris a were lead... then sean k. maybe some few other folks were lead too at any given moment. if we recall right, josh were a ruelz monkey for vb... technical designer or some such. HA! Good Fun!

josh weren't a lead on vb... otherwise we coulda' added torn to the list too... and what does interplay have to do with gauntlet problems? *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

Gromnir not wanna be standing next to josh during a thunderstorm... given his crazy bad luck. iwd2 were doomed from start. jefferson, at opposite end o' the spectrum, seemed like the game that were finally putting together all those lessons learned by black isle folks over the years... were finally gonna be a crpg done right... so 'course it too had to die. gauntlet? am not privy to the details of its problems, but no doubt it is an.... interesting tell. in any event, we wishes josh "nuke" sawyer luck... good luck for a change. HA! Good Fun! p.s. did josh and fergie have a "moment" when they agreed to resume working relationships? bet there weren

That's a pretty tall order for anything intended as a persistent world. Anyway, I'm not going to Obsidian to jump in and start crescent-kicking people in the face for rule changes. Ferret, Frank, and the other peeps know what they are doing. I will be happy to work on area design for a change. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> ... anybody else flash on bull durham? fergie as crash davis and and josh as nuke laloosh? fergie: It's time you started working on your interviews. josh: What do I gotta do? f: Learn your cliches. Study them. Know them. They're your friends. (fergie hands josh a small pad and pen.) f: Write this down. "We gotta play 'em one day at a time." j: Boring. f: Of course. That's the point. "I'm just happy to be here and hope I can help the ballclub." j: Jesus. f: Write, write--"I just wanta give It my best shot and, Good Lord willing, things'll work out." ... am just hopeful that chris a ain't playing the part of annie savoy. *shudder* HA! Good Fun!