http://baby-goat.livejournal.com/202002.html

 

Things have been busy at work. I'm adjusting to my new role as creative lead/lead designer on the Aliens project. I'm splitting management, which requires a lot of personal and regular interaction with the other designers, with a bunch of solid writing, which usually requires me to sit alone in my office for hours at a time. It's difficult, but I'm finding the balance. The hardest part is actually letting go of some of the system mechanics, with which I have always been heavily involved on every project. Aliens is an RPG, which seems to cause a lot of heads to explode. It's always seemed like a perfect fit to me, but communicating why I think it's a perfect fit has been more challenging. RPG genre conventions seem absurdly stultifying at times, and in many cases "RPG" seems to be more about checking off a list of required elements than playing with a subset of those elements.

 

Aliens aside, I really think this reduces and cheapens the genre, typically forcing core moment-to-moment gameplay into "oh yeah that too" priority. KotOR had absolutely terrible core gameplay, as did Jade Empire. Even though aspects of Mass Effect look dumb to me, I do hope that its core gameplay goes beyond terribly-balanced Poindexter stat management and combat that grinds to a halt every five seconds because of the overloaded radial menu system. Somebody has to make an RPG where the moment to moment gameplay is both visceral and fun. I honestly don't think it's that hard to do, but if you dump everything and the kitchen sink into a game, there's not much of a chance the core gameplay is ever going to receive enough attention to move beyond being "okay".

 

Mike Stout, lead level designer on Aliens RPG left Obsidian

Edited November 14, 200718 yr by funcroc

Who was the old one?

 

I have much faith in Sawyer as a creative entity. His opinions on many genre conventions related to RPGs have been very convincing and intelligently based and in general agreeable to me. That said, I hope he's capable of guiding Alien RPG into a product he can be genuinely proud of, because I suspect that might be a game I would heavily enjoy.

 

 

D..D...Dodger left? :'( He seemed like such a fun guy. His portfolio (being involved in a game with 3 different types of ninjas!) and interaction with this community impressed me.

Edited November 14, 200718 yr by Tale

Go go J.E.

 

 

And Dodger left? WHY?????

Avellone was, I think.

 

Suffice it to say, though, that it was a VERY VERY good offer. The kind that only comes around once in a lifetime. The kind that you

GOD****ING DAMMIT ****SUCKING MOTHER****ING SONOFA****ING************!!!!

 

Why did Dodger have to leave.

 

EDIT: Edited because some of my sailor words were not censored and would've gotten me in trouble.

Edited November 14, 200718 yr by Fenghuang

Dodger moved to a company called Bionic Games. Apparently they're a startup working on console games, I could find a reference to a Wii game specifically. Console games seem more with Dodger's background. It also sounded like it may be more convenient a commute for the man.

 

Hopefully it works out. I always get worried about startups.

Also, I find JE's change to lead creative director in addition to his lead designer status to be interesting.

 

Propably as close to auteurism as one can get with such projects.

 

Sawyer if anyone should be able to fight against dumbing down of this game. I'm still wondering how actual gaming mechanics are going to turn out, but I'm hopeful.

First off, that's some first-rate stalking, funcroc. Kudos.

 

I have to admit that I did like the fact that there was a dedicated designer whose primary job was overseeing DA RULEZ. Creating a new rules system for a new RPG franchise is a lot of work, and extraordinarily important to the end quality of the product. Diluting the responsibilities of DA RULEZMASTA, thus, probably isn't a positive development in that vein. But, if Sawyer was the best guy available to take on the overall lead responsibilities, so be it. Hopefully, there are good people to whom he can delegate some of the system mechanics responsibilities, and the product won't suffer as a result.

Hopefully this doesn't cause Sawyer to go insane and starting murdering people. I hate it when that happens.

 

So if Avellone is no longer CL on this 'un, what is he doing? Questions, questions.

 

It's unfortunate that Dodger had to split.

Edited November 14, 200718 yr by Pop

Aliens absolutely needs to have first rate moment to moment gameplay. RPG they may call it, but every one else equates Aliens with survival\horror.

 

If it turns out mediocre I\ll bet the game will flunk bigtime.

Edited November 14, 200718 yr by Gorgon

I was one of the sceptics when I heard that Obsidian would try to make Aliens into an RPG. From what I saw, I'm ready to eat my words. I didn't get to see much, but it's an actual RPG. For a variety of reasons, I've been a Sawyer fan for a long time, but that does not diminish the fact that I think he's a great fit for the job.

 

Like I said, I didn't come over to the idea of an Aliens RPG quickly, but it does look good.

I think this particular setting doesen't really require a very complex system. If 'dumbing down' means small levels, simplified combat, and no jumping or crawling, thats not a good thing, but the system itself dopesen't interest me half as much as the story and pulling off the right 'feel'.

 

The more arcade the better, special dual wielding uzi feats would be sooo stupid. Think in the vein of the first few Residen Evil games, with a lot of extras thrown in. Not that they seem so fantastic now, but they did when they first came out. The atmosphere was somehow just spot on.

Edited November 15, 200718 yr by Gorgon

In retrospect a lot of that comes across as a Bio Super Slam, so let me clarify a few things. BioWare and Bethesda both try to "do" visceral gameplay in their RPGs. To date, Obsidian has stuck to inherited Bio titles like the Neverwinter series (pure Poindexter gameplay for both their original title and our sequel) and KotOR (still pretty Poindexter, low-input combat that is a step up in moment-to-moment excitement from the BG/IWD/NWN type games). Of course, pretty much everything I worked on at Black Isle was also super Poindexter.

 

I really do appreciate that BioWare tried to step it up with Jade Empire. The focus was much heavier on the core action than on fiddly number (i.e. Poindexter) stuff. I feel that it fell short of what it could have been in the action department, mostly due to collision, timing, and framerate issues. I know a lot of folks found it refreshing, but... well, I play some pretty fast-paced action games and have developed high standards when it comes to that kind of gameplay.

 

The early videos I saw of Mass Effect's combat looked slow -- not when firing was going on, but in all the moments lost to shoving pawns around the battlefield and messing with the radial menu. I am optimistic about the combat now that I have seen more recent videos of how it flows and I am hopeful that the balance between core shootin' (which includes everything from acquiring targets to firing at them to moving from cover to cover) and "management" (which includes inventory, squad actions, etc.) allows for the management to be meaningful without disrupting the feeling of the shootin'. Apologies to Bio and Bio-fans for the comment about various ME things "look[ing] dumb". It's less than helpful/"professional" to post a comment like that in a casual blog entry. I mistakenly thought no one really cared what I wrote anywhere anymore. Whoops.

 

I guess what it comes down to for me is that I can have fun with super Poindexter games and super visceral action games, but few games have managed to successfully merge diverse "RPG elements" with good core gameplay. I don't feel like (m)any of the games I've made have particularly satisfying core gameplay and it's a shame that RPGs often wind up being kitchen sink games with a hundred elements that all feel bland, remote, and unsatisfying from moment to moment.

 

In other news...

 

Mike Stout's departure was a sad occasion, but he had a really great opportunity, so we only hate him a li'l. System design is now being handled primarily by lead system designer Paul Boyle with additional contributions from NWN2/Mask of the Betrayer superstar Eric "Hollywood" Fenstermaker. Paul used to work at EA/Maxis, where he was involved with Sims titles, Spore, and something else I'm probably forgetting. Paul also shamelessly powergames a halfling beguiler in our D&D campaign, which is Poindexter central.

I am looking forward to ALiens. I am eagerly awaiting to see what Obsidian can do without the Bioware-hand-me downs. I am betting this will slow down Black Hound a little, I guess. J.E., we all care what you post. We are also eagerly awaiting for each and every tid bit to disect and analyze with a fine tooth comb.

 

What? Are you saying that's just me?

[Deadly Off Topic]*Looking at the avatar of "baby_goat for a second"* a cute cat...

 

As long as role-playing factors exist, then, what I need is only fun game-play whether it is a combat-simulation or FPS. Indeed, there was a time when I thought Black Isle Studios could make an RPG with a well-designed combat simulation game-play with streamlined control scheme as opposed to "terribly-balanced Poindexter stat management and combat that grinds to a halt every five seconds." However, I always see myself as much more of a fan of role-playing than that of combat simulations. If J. E. Sawyer finds nannying broken stat based systems for geeks is not rewarding, then, so be it. Now, he reminds me of a Mask of Betrayer NPC

Kaelyn the Dove, who sees no point in dealing with dogmatic rituals for the dead

. Good luck on your "Second Crusade". After all, I have been looking forward to Alien RPG.

 

However, at the same time, I think it is high time for Alien team to struggle with the devils they don't know. Even Ken Levine confessed that the requirements of graphic department is getting higher and higher even though he is one of the designers who don't take genre issue seriously and accustomed to make some hybrid games.

 

[Edited due to some spoiler comments about MotB...oops]

Edited November 15, 200718 yr by Wombat

Poindexter games can be satisfying on an intellectual level. ToEE was a very satisfying game. BG2 also had some very challenging combats that were intellectually satisfying to overcome. But they aren't viscerally satisfying -- at least not for me. I get a certain excitement out of rolling in tabletop (last night my cleric got 12 on 2d6 for a very important turn attempt) because of the risk and the fact that I'm actually rolling physical dice. I don't get that in CRPGs where I'm sitting back and watching my dudes standing in place, cycling through attack animations over and over. I don't even get that in Front Mission 4, where every attack is "cinematically" framed and presented as a mini-cutscene. It can take half an hour to outfit your guys for one fight and then another 45 minutes to resolve that fight in Front Mission 4. Before each character's turn, you can spend up to a minute looking around at various options (mostly due to attack and defense links in the late game) before you select and resolve the action. That can be very fun, but it's not viscerally satisfying.

 

The games I have the biggest problems with are the ones that have quasi-action that falls short in various ways. I think Bethesda did a pretty good job with some of the action elements in Oblivion (stealth, for example), with my eternal exception to first-person melee, which I think had significant problems even in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.

I'm curious, what kind of problems did you see in the first person melee of Dark Messiah? I thought it was a great attempt.

Edited November 15, 200718 yr by Musopticon?

It was a great attempt, but I feel that a 1st person perspective will always handicap melee. The biggest problems are low situational awareness (due to the proximity of enemies and the limitations of FoV -- in fact the DMoMM designer admitted that enemies effectively hold back when out of view to deal with this problem), poor readability of your own character's attacks (for the same reason), and poor depth perception (a DMoMM designer admitted that their hit detection effectively "cheats" to help the player).

 

I sort of view first-person melee like turbine-powered motorcycles. You can make a well-executed turbine-powered motorcycle. Unfortunately, turbines are poorly suited for the sort of use that motorcycles actually see in most applications. DMoMM was the most viscerally satisfying first-person melee I've seen yet, but I found it frustrating to actually play.

It's a good point, look at Halo 3. First person melee only really works because a) it's freaking powerful (one hit kill on a backstab) b) is intigrated into all weapons, meaning it's only a single button press and basically acts as a secondary fire c) it will pretty much hit someone in range as long as they're at least 30% in the screen and d) your character jumps forward slightly if you're close enough, so that the hit will actually land.

 

It's fun within the context of the game, but requires large amounts of 'cheating' on the part of the game in order to make it work and is strictly a backup for the other weapons.

 

The dedicated close combat weapons have your character leaping forward a good 2 meters to land a hit and are generally always deadly.

3rd person melee isn't too much better. I suspect many people who played Metal Gear Solid 3 or Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops encountered quite a few accidental alerts because they ran into someone while trying to get close enough for a grab from behind.

Edited November 15, 200718 yr by Tale

You can have both, Hitman is behindview for situational awareness, disabling attacks and wrestling for the opponents gun, and first person for aiming. Although most games always favor one over the other, and the First person aim is usually a bit of an afterthough. Similarly the grapple attempts allways succed if you are close enough.

 

The premise of hitman is that you often start a level unarmed, and so it has justification. Otherwise bringing a knife to a gunfight is just plain stupid.

Edited November 15, 200718 yr by Gorgon

You can deride cheating on the players behalf all you want. Unless you want to sell your game to the huddled masses of hard core gamers (a group so elite even avid gamers like myself are exempt), you probably want to ensure gamers can make it through most of the battles.

I was under the impression that he's not deriding the cheating, he's pointing out the flaws of the situation that require the cheating.

Since melee is being discussed - I think that the best implementation of 3rd person melee is Mount & Blade, though I'm also willing to bet that the game does cheat and it is freaking hard (or perhaps I just suck). M&B melee is what melee should have been in oblivion, or at least it's closer.

I was under the impression that he's not deriding the cheating, he's pointing out the flaws of the situation that require the cheating.

 

Ah. I see that. erm. Well. Carry on. :Cant's sheepish smile icon: