Game News Brian Heins introduces Tyranny's Disfavored faction at Polygon

[Neanderthal]

Gaming needs more autists like in early days.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

That's different though, nobody expects indies to spend a lifetime on research before making a game losely based on history. But this is Obsidian, AAA developer charging AAA prices, they can easily hire a PhD to consult if they're too lazy to do the work. We're willing to give them more money because they're established studio with decades of solid track record, but as Confucius said, with great power comes great responsibility.

Or just google it. Same effect in this particular case, and way cheaper than PhD.
Boggles the mind that in the age where information is under your fingertips, people are too lazy even to check Wikipedia, not to mention more reliable and as easily obtainable sources and cross-reference them. It's not rocket science, but people still fail to do it somehow.

 

[tuluse]

I would fucking know the best about it, there are no fucking excuses

FWIW, this turns out to be really hard to pull off. I think it's reasonable to ask for a certain degree of diligence, but expecting a game designer to be the best in Bronze Age lore is kind of silly. I've spent years* studying the sagas and eddas and Viking age and Old English for Fallen Gods, and there are dilettantes on this very forum who know more than I do. (* Granted, we're talking about like 30-45 minutes a day of study, but still.) The amount of subject matter in any given area, even a small area, is so great and there are so many smart, curious people out there playing games, it's basically impossible to "defend the borders" as it were. Someone will always be able to spot flaws in your (mis)understanding of the subject matter. That's why I don't think there's anything wrong with their getting bronze/iron wrong, it's mostly just a tone issue in how they're presenting this stuff.

The hoplite mishap is a bit different, but that could be a simple as his having misspoken during the interview.

I don't understand why they are bothering with a copper/iron distinction in a high fantasy setting at all.

How about instead of trying to get history and metallurgy right, they just say it's easy to enchant iron and thus the empire with iron had a huge advantage. It's simple, consistent, and pure fantasy so no one has any nits to pick.

 

[Israfael]

How about instead of trying to get history and metallurgy right, they just say it's easy to enchant iron and thus the empire with iron had a huge advantage. It's simple, consistent, and pure fantasy so no one has any nits to pick.

It can be GRRM esque rationale that fantasy can and should be somewhat realistic-ish - no dragons, magix and other SoD things. Probably it will work if the GoT popularity wave won't start to go down.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

How about instead of trying to get history and metallurgy right, they just say it's easy to enchant iron and thus the empire with iron had a huge advantage. It's simple, consistent, and pure fantasy so no one has any nits to pick.

It can be GRRM esque rationale that fantasy can and should be somewhat realistic-ish - no dragons, magix and other SoD things. Probably it will work if the GoT popularity wave won't start to go down.

I just have to point that ASOIAF does have both dragons and magic, and also zombies. It's just they are introduced gradually and put on the backburner, so your average reader with aversion to nerd schlock was immersed instead in more quasi-historical novel than fantasy. GRRM's ASOIAF isn't even low fantasy, it has too much magical elements and overall magic power level for that.

 

[Neanderthal]

How about instead of trying to get history and metallurgy right, they just say it's easy to enchant iron and thus the empire with iron had a huge advantage. It's simple, consistent, and pure fantasy so no one has any nits to pick.

It can be GRRM esque rationale that fantasy can and should be somewhat realistic-ish - no dragons, magix and other SoD things. Probably it will work if the GoT popularity wave won't start to go down.

Hardly like GRRM invented havin a well thought out an consistent world, Tolkien an Howards worlds also made sense, had history an realism so that when you introduced fantastic elements they stood out all more from mundane an relatable, appeared even more weird or awesome then.

If nowt makes sense then its not fantasy, its poorly made shit.

 

[MRY]

I hate to agree with IHHN (because he's an asshole), but he's right here. Either study yourself, get a historian or shut up about history.

Well, the borders are, in my opinion, your own limitations, and if people think themselves smarter than they really are, shit always happens. They could have hired a B.Sc in history or something like that to fix the inconsistencies before going public

But this is Obsidian, AAA developer charging AAA prices, they can easily hire a PhD to consult if they're too lazy to do the work.

I don't want to belabor the point, and obviously I am biased on the subject since it bears on my own project, but I think this is way, way less feasible than you believe. One way or another, historicity is everywhere in a historically based on game, so it is not exactly clear to me where you would have the PhD come in. You can't bring them in on the back-end because there's too much lock-in at that point. You can bring them in to help brainstorm, but many things might not be obvious at that stage -- maybe you'd get some good ideas about iron vs. bronze, and sort of a high-level summary of core elements, but then you'd just start running into little things throughout, like trade goods or religious practices or whatever.

I also think you overestimate the number of PhDs willing to undertake such a project for the rates that they would be paid -- don't get me wrong, there is a glut of PhDs and they get paid crap as post docs, but working as a consultant on a game isn't academically glamorous work. Many people simply have no idea how they work or interest in understanding how they work. Also, often the output you get from them is so impenetrable as to be of little use.

It's really easy to attack "the walls." Some of the weakness they have (like the Hoplites) should have been obvious to them, but other stuff like "iron is heavier than bronze" is the kind of error that is much easier to spot when attacking than it is when defending.

Anyway, it's really neither here nor there. The project's flaws or successes will not be based on deep historicity. And you guys are surely right that they could've done better and presented it more modestly. But I still think you're wildly overestimating how easy it is. Though of course there's always Darklands to prove me wrong.

 

[Roguey]

But this is Obsidian, AAA developer charging AAA prices

Neither of those things is true.

 

[DeepOcean]

FWIW, this turns out to be really hard to pull off. I think it's reasonable to ask for a certain degree of diligence, but expecting a game designer to be the best in Bronze Age lore is kind of silly.

You don't need to know everything, I'm no expert on the bronze age but even I with my shitty knowledge acquired over the internet and shitty high school books know more than the fucking developer that is paid to say this PR shit. Look, I don't demand they to know the exact urban plan of Babylon, or specific stuff ( and if they did know something about, I would find that really impressive) but even general suff you can get on a cheap history book, that is beyond lazy. For sometime I've been noticing game developers in general just consume the lowest common denominator pop culture out there and as they place in game what they find cool... see Bethesda effect, the company that made lazyness a life style. It bothers me seeing Obsidian with this attitude.

 

[DeepOcean]

Gaming needs more autists like in early days.

At least autists care enough about the stuff they do.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I don't want to belabor the point, and obviously I am biased on the subject since it bears on my own project, but I think this is way, way less feasible than you believe. One way or another, historicity is everywhere in a historically based on game, so it is not exactly clear to me where you would have the PhD come in. You can't bring them in on the back-end because there's too much lock-in at that point. You can bring them in to help brainstorm, but many things might not be obvious at that stage -- maybe you'd get some good ideas about iron vs. bronze, and sort of a high-level summary of core elements, but then you'd just start running into little things throughout, like trade goods or religious practices or whatever.

I also think you overestimate the number of PhDs willing to undertake such a project for the rates that they would be paid -- don't get me wrong, there is a glut of PhDs and they get paid crap as post docs, but working as a consultant on a game isn't academically glamorous work. Many people simply have no idea how they work or interest in understanding how they work. Also, often the output you get from them is so impenetrable as to be of little use.

It's really easy to attack "the walls." Some of the weakness they have (like the Hoplites) should have been obvious to them, but other stuff like "iron is heavier than bronze" is the kind of error that is much easier to spot when attacking than it is when defending.

Anyway, it's really neither here nor there. The project's flaws or successes will not be based on deep historicity. And you guys are surely right that they could've done better and presented it more modestly. But I still think you're wildly overestimating how easy it is. Though of course there's always Darklands to prove me wrong.

Iron vs. bronze is only hard to spot for hobbyists like us. A PhD in ancient history would be on red alert within 3 seconds. That's the whole point of having a professional on board, he already knows what we would have to spend endless hours researching.

Obviously I've no idea how one goes about creating entire lore from scratch, but the way I imagine it, at least, is you start with really top-level stuff (say, low fantasy game roughly based on Castillan Spain or whatever). Then you make shit up as you go along, documenting everything along the way for reference to people working on low-level stuff. Something like that? Then your PhD rechecks the documentation every once in a while to see if there isn't any obvious BS in it. Seems simple enough, although I'm most likely talking completely out of my ass.

This far into the project I get that it's too late, because every time PhD changes anything, you'd need to recheck entire content for possible new inconsistencies, which is a mammoth job. But having a consultant early in the project should be doable.

But this is Obsidian, AAA developer charging AAA prices

Neither of those things is true.

 

[Israfael]

One way or another, historicity is everywhere in a historically based on game, so it is not exactly clear to me where you would have the PhD come in

Well, what i mean is to get some consistency (like this 'heavy iron' vs 'bending bronze' debate) and coherence rather than full 100% authenticity. It'd be enough for 99% of the typical players who aren't historians or majoring in Ancient Greece/Achaemenid Empire archeology. Well, or as you say, completely ditch faux historical relevance and create something coherent and believable in the more fantasy setting.

ASOIAF isn't even low fantasy, it has too much magical elements and overall magic power level for that.

Hardly like GRRM invented havin a well thought out an consistent world

Well, Apple also did not invent smartphones or tablets,but people think that Steve Jobs basically 'invented' whole thing from scratch. it's all marketing and the current commonthink that i meant (and Martin is hugely popular now, in no small part thanks to the fact that it _purportedly_ does not contain too much of the 'shameful' nerdy things like magic, las0rs and other 'kiddie' stuff, so it's cool to like it even for srs people (who think that their idea of spending weekend by drinking exorbitant amount of C2h5oh and going to parties is much more 'mature' than being a nerd who watches movies or reads fantasy/bolter porn kind of sci-fi)

 

[tuluse]

How about instead of trying to get history and metallurgy right, they just say it's easy to enchant iron and thus the empire with iron had a huge advantage. It's simple, consistent, and pure fantasy so no one has any nits to pick.

It can be GRRM esque rationale that fantasy can and should be somewhat realistic-ish - no dragons, magix and other SoD things. Probably it will work if the GoT popularity wave won't start to go down.

It *could* be. It *could* be anything. We know however, it's not. It's a clearly a high fantasy world with adventurers who blast things with fireballs.

 

[J_C]

But this is Obsidian, AAA developer charging AAA prices, they can easily hire a PhD to consult if they're too lazy to do the work.

That would be a waste of money, and wouldn't improve the quality the game at all. Because they don't base the game on real historic events and units. All that extra PhD guy would achieve is that they wouldn't mess up the terms in the interviews. So, Brien Hein wouldn't namedrop Greek Hoplites and mess up the iron-bronze argument in the interview. But the game would still be the same, because the game doesn't follow historic records.

In the end, Obsidian probably read up some information about the bronze age, just some very basic stuff and used it as a starting point for the their worldbuilding. And they don't need more for this game.

 

[Illuvatard]

Hey guys, remember darklands and betrayal at krondor? You know, when the people with phds and history degrees were the ones actually making the games?

You know, holy crap. I forgot about the Darklandslike game that Obsidian is making. I mean this is a cringeworthy disaster enough just imagine an attempt by these guys to do really true fereelz historical fantasy

But really guys, while I actually would like to play games that had history phds carefully checking each detail, is this knowledge seriously something that requires that much training? If it were just one thing, fine everyone makes gaffs. but we are talking about claims that armies had just a dozen guys, hoplites were harassment role soldiers on and on.

We are talking literally an afternoon of research to get the basics of iron vs bronze down, a couple days if you want to look at different historical units and basics of history like Alexander and his father, Early Roman stuff, bronze age collapse, and so on. I would really hope for a "nerd" to know most of that already though. It seems that the typical hipster game dev guy today is just someone who put on some geeky glasses - like hey guys I'm totally a nerd and smart and stuff. I mean I didn't go to school for history or even computer science I just took some full sail courses but I played sonic the hedgehog a couple times so I am totally legit old skool for life.

 

[joelofdeath]

Sawyer would be fine in charge of a Darklands-like game.

 

[Kev Inkline]

it's basically impossible to "defend the borders" as it were

They could have hired a B.Sc in history or something like that to fix the inconsistencies before going public

Well, if they hired one, my bet is that he'd end up caring only about balance.