Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

KickStarter Dead State: Reanimated

Joined
Jul 11, 2010
Messages
3,213
Location
Vostroya
Ehh... I'm really not sure I want to see a game from a company where at least half of the writing staff buys into gluten-free fad


Retweets Brianna Wu of all creatures (that man probably just saw xir face up close, which explains his reaction)


Participates in riveting discussions:
CVQY_a3UYAApx5z.png



Retweets Muslims like a good little librul


And also insults her own customers and generally writes and behaves like she's still MySpace teen, despite being in her thirties.

I kinda think that she should stick to making jewelry and not writing games.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
36,713
M-maybe she really does have a gluten allergy...

Edit: Quick stalking shows this is in fact the case!



Have a heart. :)
 
Last edited:

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
Patron
Joined
Jan 12, 2004
Messages
11,842
Location
Black Goat Woods !@#*%&^
Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Ehh... I'm really not sure I want to see a game from a company where at least half of the writing staff [does things different from me with her life and doesn't carefully vet every social media post to impress me]
Wow, I didn't know you were so edgy, I'm impressed. I never knew that all good games were only designed by people who ignored the most recent theories about dietary health. I'm sure if we looked at your twitter/facebook history we'd never find a boring post. Weird, looking back it looks like you got some good mileage out of Dead State until the latter third of the game. Too bad you didn't know the horrible truth about Annie or you could have been spared from enjoying it. :?
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2010
Messages
3,213
Location
Vostroya
Ehh... I'm really not sure I want to see a game from a company where at least half of the writing staff [does things different from me with her life and doesn't carefully vet every social media post to impress me]
Wow, I didn't know you were so edgy, I'm impressed. I never knew that all good games were only designed by people who ignored the most recent theories about dietary health. I'm sure if we looked at your twitter/facebook history we'd never find a boring post. Weird, looking back it looks like you got some good mileage out of Dead State until the latter third of the game. Too bad you didn't know the horrible truth about Annie or you could have been spared from enjoying it. :?
Mate, you need to put more points into your sarcasm skill, truly. I sporadically followed on social media both Brian (because of Bloodlines) and Annie (largely because of her posts here) for at least 5 years. DS' mid- and endgame would have sucked probably with and without her, I don't know the full extent of her involvement in writing and plot structure design. If it's mostly on Brian though, then I'm forced to conclude that Bloodlines' Malkavian dialogue and some other awesome parts are probably the work of some random intern, and Brian just took more credit than he deserved. Marketing failures though - they are largely on her. Also going blatantly anti-GG and sucking up to all those dubious SJW "celebrities" was a dumb move for anyone not making pixelated indie masturbatory shit or some walking simulator about postmodern lesbian utopia crushing cryptopatriarchy.

I know that the post-modern theory is still all about "the death of the author", but I never subscribed to it. Dead State's failures are not only mechanical (or related to marketing), for me the narrative ones outshine mechanical ones by fair bit. I discussed this already back when the game was released, tl;dr - midgame dragged, and the plot resolution sucked giant hairy balls. Given that Annie publicly took credit for writing - well, naturally I will put some blame on her.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2010
Messages
3,213
Location
Vostroya
M-maybe she really does have a gluten allergy...

Edit: Quick stalking shows this is in fact the case!



Have a heart. :)

Diagnosed or self-diagnosed tho'? :philosoraptor: Her circle of "friends" really loves to self-diagnose shit.
Well, more power to her, I guess. Now she can fight ableism too, one cupcake at a time.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
36,713
I don't know the full extent of her involvement in writing and plot structure design. If it's mostly on Brian though, then I'm forced to conclude that Bloodlines' Malkavian dialogue and some other awesome parts are probably the work of some random intern, and Brian just took more credit than he deserved.

Brian said he wrote the Malkavian dialogue during the final months of crunch. It's not that difficult to write wackiness plus insight. :M

Additonally, he said one of the most enjoyable characters to write in Dead State was the Dwight Schrute-from-the-US-Office expy http://www.hardbloxx.de/2015/06/05/...w-mit-brian-mitsoda-zum-zombie-rollenspiel/5/

There's also

Hardest character to write?
BRIAN: That was probably Clifford. Because like I said, I try to get in everyone's head when I write them, and Clifford is like an alien mindset for me. You kind of have to draw on times of your life when maybe you were, at your lowest? That's Clifford's life. No one likes him. He's not important. He's one of those people that everyone passes by; no one thinks about. He's also a creep. He's got some really demented views about human beings, women, sex. Yeah, he was hard to write.
Writing Todd was also difficult because at his core, Todd is religious, he believes in God, he believes in the lessons of the Bible. He’s got some personality issues that relate to that. I'm not Christian. I don't believe in faith, and he's faithful. I have nothing to draw upon that's like him except for my experiences with people who have faith, and people who presented religion in a light that was something I could understand. He was a very different character in a way that was challenging to write: Clifford was just icky to write, but Todd was a real challenge. You don’t see many religious characters in games without them being very stereotypical, or very safe, very one-note, – like "Evil Priest" or "Kick-ass Priest" or "Priest who represents Good" – you don't see nuanced religious figures.

ANNIE: Fiona. To the point where I actually had to re-concept her character because I didn't think I could do it properly. It was hard to make her a real person under all the layers of plot or nuance or whatever I put on her. She couldn't breathe. So I shaved off some of those layers and explored one aspect of her person - her obsessive drive to make herself into whatever others wanted her to be, her need for that. She was hard because that kind of person really scares me.
I also tried to balance every conversation with her so she doesn’t just throw crazy in your face, but phrases everything with such loving and devoted terms. And I wanted to sort of exploit the fact that so many RPGs make companions, especially love interests, not into people but scary little puppets that do nothing but want to please you, and we’re supposed to believe that they’re people when they’re really just wants personified. I wanted to sort of that that idea, that player expectation, and put it in a real world context. That when you meet her you should think she’s sweet and charming, and suddenly you start to realize what she’s doing – starting to idolize and worship your character – and really ideally it should kind of horrify you. But I couldn’t always write it assuming the player was horrified. Maybe that was the sort of player they are, who likes that kind of treatment from characters, and finding that line with giving them that space and going “No, that’s too far,” that was difficult. And ending her arc in a way that says “No, this is a human being, there are consequences to obsession taken too far, and this is the result.” Every single conversation with her was tricky.

So
85lqCQt.jpg

55jWFiA.jpg

E8tVM0z.jpg

was no problem but Clifford's just toooooooootally out there, such a demented view about human beings, women, sex. :smug:
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
Patron
Joined
Jan 12, 2004
Messages
11,842
Location
Black Goat Woods !@#*%&^
Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Oh good, Roguey found a new excuse to post those screenshots again of that one character she has a suspicious hate-boner for ...

That stuff about Fiona is interesting though ... I did find her a fascinating NPC, one of the most thought-provoking in the game. gj Annie.
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,498
I played for about 10 in-game days before getting bored so I guess that's a fair enough price.





Enjoy funding indie-game-scene-values non-RPGs. :M


Maybe not, have they changed their mind about not making any rpgs anymore ? Maybe someone in good term with them, if there's still someone , could ask .
How come annie never post anymore on the dex , what drama happened so she cut all bridge with our cesspool?
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
36,713
Maybe not, have they changed their mind about not making any rpgs anymore ?

From the interview I posted up above which is from about six months ago

All I can say about our next game is that it won’t be an RPG.

Additionally, if they're announcing two games, then they're definitely not RPGs.

How come annie never post anymore on the dex , what drama happened so she cut all bridge with our cesspool?

Her values are now largely the values of the indie game developer scene.
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,498
Her values are now largely the values of the indie game developer scene.
Iindies devs are still posting, whalenought studio, styg, err i mean LORD styg , charlescgr, recently a few dungeonmaster clones devs , quite a few more in the adventure subforums.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
Patron
Joined
Jan 12, 2004
Messages
11,842
Location
Black Goat Woods !@#*%&^
Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Her values are now largely the values of the indie game developer scene.
Iindies devs are still posting, whalenought studio, styg, err i mean LORD styg , charlescgr, recently a few dungeonmaster clones devs , quite a few more in the adventure subforums.
She has been tarred with the "SJW" brush, Codex treats that tag as untouchable. Just scroll up this very page, it's pretty surprising.

" liberals "
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
36,713
Her values are now largely the values of the indie game developer scene.
Iindies devs are still posting, whalenought studio, styg, err i mean LORD styg , charlescgr, recently a few dungeonmaster clones devs , quite a few more in the adventure subforums.
They're indie game developers, but they're not part of the indie game developer scene.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2010
Messages
3,213
Location
Vostroya
Her values are now largely the values of the indie game developer scene.
Iindies devs are still posting, whalenought studio, styg, err i mean LORD styg , charlescgr, recently a few dungeonmaster clones devs , quite a few more in the adventure subforums.
Well, you have to understand, that 'dex always had the reputation of being somewhat of PR nightmare (e.g. Obsidian bans posting here, etc). In this days though, if a company or a developer wants to appease SJW librul crowd, wants to appear progressive and :incloosive:, he (or they) must self-censor as if he'd been living in North Korea. Obsidian, being large (for indie) company, nevertheless bowed before pretendbian and changed some stupid limerick which offended him. Now imagine if this pretendbian, or some of his friends, or any self-proclaimed trans*, lithromantic otherkin will stalk a dev and discovers that he posts at the den of nazism, homophobia, misogyny, transmisogyny, creationism, reactionism, capitalism, etc. etc. There would be a (minor) shitstorm, some shits will boycott them, and there would be some lost sales. But for some reason, for many american developers to appear non-progressive and non-liberal is a fate worse than death. Probably due to many devs working in Canada and SoCal, but I can't be sure.

Now that was about middle-to-large independent studios, if we are talking about smaller indies, then either you find your own niche, know your audience, polish your game and self-promote your labor of love (Iron Tower's VD&co, Styg, Whalenought Studios, MRY, Infamous Quests, etc.), or you suck up to "Indie scene", with all its Sarkeesians, Anthropies, Loves, Wus and many other rainbow-colored, permanently butthurt individuals.

Former is hard. For former you really must love both your project and the genre in which you're making it as a whole. You must know most of the hangouts of your potential player base and advertise there, take honest feedback, don't throw tantrums, and generally listen to your audience (to an extent, of course). All this won't guarantee you and your project a success though, it won't give you free publicity, you won't receive a shortcut to various indie game shows. Also you can't blame GG or misogyny if your project will flop commercially.

Later is easier. You just need to conform to the party line, and show how progressive you are. If you're constantly outraged on twitter about misogyny, trans* erasure, transmisogyny, homophobia, the value of black lives in modern US society, diversity and so on, if you follow the right people and suck up to them - well, chances are you would be included in their club. You'd get some free press coverage (not too much though), and can participate in various gameshows catering to hipsters, liberal audience and so forth. Also maybe you will be mentioned positevly in some tweet from the one of SJW "celebs". But you never, ever should go and post something which differs from party line, and especially you don't wont to be associated with visiting the "wrong" kind of resources, 'dex being one of them.

Objectively - for such hassle, the later path nets surprisingly little gain for most participants. If you are making hipster shit or walking sims, or sex-positive text adventures embracing female sexuality, or some such - then yeah, by making a little effort in making such "game" and then choosing the later way, the effort/reward scale would heavily tip to the right. Non AAA RPGs, OTOH, are a huge hassle to make. Their core audience mostly aren't SJWs, and rainbowhaired crowd doesn't really like old school RPGs, nor do they buy them. Going full retard and retweeting all SJW "celebs", and then loudly and publicly complaining about that the game just won't sell and the customers are selfish entitled assholes - ehh...

Anyway, tl;dr: 'dex be toxic for them.
ByuEgYPIgAA3FAo.jpg:large

ic8iLDW.jpg
 

boobio

Arcane
Trigger Warning Shitposter
Joined
Oct 2, 2011
Messages
578
I played for about 10 in-game days before getting bored so I guess that's a fair enough price.





Enjoy funding indie-game-scene-values non-RPGs. :M


Maybe not, have they changed their mind about not making any rpgs anymore ? Maybe someone in good term with them, if there's still someone , could ask .
How come annie never post anymore on the dex , what drama happened so she cut all bridge with our cesspool?

No drama; I think she only started to post around the time they were announcing the game and never came back. She was only here to promote the game.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
36,713
Annie actually joined to promote Storm of Zehir so that's partially correct. :)
 

Infinitron

I post news
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
99,628
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Well, you have to understand, that 'dex always had the reputation of being somewhat of PR nightmare (e.g. Obsidian bans posting here, etc). In this days though, if a company or a developer wants to appease SJW librul crowd, wants to appear progressive and :incloosive:, he (or they) must self-censor as if he'd been living in North Korea. Obsidian, being large (for indie) company, nevertheless bowed before pretendbian and changed some stupid limerick which offended him. Now imagine if this pretendbian, or some of his friends, or any self-proclaimed trans*, lithromantic otherkin will stalk a dev and discovers that he posts at the den of nazism, homophobia, misogyny, transmisogyny, creationism, reactionism, capitalism, etc. etc. There would be a (minor) shitstorm, some shits will boycott them, and there would be some lost sales. But for some reason, for many american developers to appear non-progressive and non-liberal is a fate worse than death. Probably due to many devs working in Canada and SoCal, but I can't be sure.

Now that was about middle-to-large independent studios, if we are talking about smaller indies, then either you find your own niche, know your audience, polish your game and self-promote your labor of love (Iron Tower's VD&co, Styg, Whalenought Studios, MRY, Infamous Quests, etc.), or you suck up to "Indie scene", with all its Sarkeesians, Anthropies, Loves, Wus and many other rainbow-colored, permanently butthurt individuals.

And then there are SJW devs like inXile's who also post here, I assume out of a sense of morbid amusement. :P
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2010
Messages
3,213
Location
Vostroya
Well, you have to understand, that 'dex always had the reputation of being somewhat of PR nightmare (e.g. Obsidian bans posting here, etc). In this days though, if a company or a developer wants to appease SJW librul crowd, wants to appear progressive and :incloosive:, he (or they) must self-censor as if he'd been living in North Korea. Obsidian, being large (for indie) company, nevertheless bowed before pretendbian and changed some stupid limerick which offended him. Now imagine if this pretendbian, or some of his friends, or any self-proclaimed trans*, lithromantic otherkin will stalk a dev and discovers that he posts at the den of nazism, homophobia, misogyny, transmisogyny, creationism, reactionism, capitalism, etc. etc. There would be a (minor) shitstorm, some shits will boycott them, and there would be some lost sales. But for some reason, for many american developers to appear non-progressive and non-liberal is a fate worse than death. Probably due to many devs working in Canada and SoCal, but I can't be sure.

Now that was about middle-to-large independent studios, if we are talking about smaller indies, then either you find your own niche, know your audience, polish your game and self-promote your labor of love (Iron Tower's VD&co, Styg, Whalenought Studios, MRY, Infamous Quests, etc.), or you suck up to "Indie scene", with all its Sarkeesians, Anthropies, Loves, Wus and many other rainbow-colored, permanently butthurt individuals.

And then there are SJW devs like inXile's who also post here, I assume out of a sense of morbid amusement. :P
Say one thing for Brian Fargo, say he's a good salesman. To sell an oldschool RPG you'll need to reach out to various communities, and that's exactly what are they doing, no more, no less. Just business. At the same time they will be trying not to offend potential customers, of course, so even if they dislike some codexers' politics, behaviour and so on, they won't engage.

P.S.: For the most part InExile and other devs here can separate personal and professional behaviour, and that's the second most important thing for any developer in my opinion. Sadly, I can't say the same about Annie.
 
Last edited:

Jedi Exile

Arcanum
Patron
Joined
Oct 10, 2010
Messages
1,179
Project: Eternity Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I'm forced to conclude that Bloodlines' Malkavian dialogue and some other awesome parts are probably the work of some random intern, and Brian just took more credit than he deserved.

The problem with Brian is that he wanted to do something he isn't very good at. He can write, as his work on Bloodlines shows, but he probably wasn't ready to design a survival game about zombies. It was a very weird idea to begin with (why the hell you want another game about zombies?) but he seemed to really like it back then. Well, talented people sometimes do crazy things.

I think she only started to post around the time they were announcing the game and never came back. She was only here to promote the game.

Annie Carlson was a regular poster on the Codex way before DoubleBear was even formed and she became Mitsoda.
 

boobio

Arcane
Trigger Warning Shitposter
Joined
Oct 2, 2011
Messages
578
I'm forced to conclude that Bloodlines' Malkavian dialogue and some other awesome parts are probably the work of some random intern, and Brian just took more credit than he deserved.

The problem with Brian is that he wanted to do something he isn't very good at. He can write, as his work on Bloodlines shows, but he probably wasn't ready to design a survival game about zombies. It was a very weird idea to begin with (why the hell you want another game about zombies?) but he seemed to really like it back then. Well, talented people sometimes do crazy things.

I think she only started to post around the time they were announcing the game and never came back. She was only here to promote the game.

Annie Carlson was a regular poster on the Codex way before DoubleBear was even formed and she became Mitsoda.
Ann promoting Storm Of Zehir Nov 18, 2008
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/will-you-solo-storm-of-zehir.27763/

Dead State announced Aug 6, 2009
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/briiiiaaaaaaans.35182/

Her last post was a dead state post.
 

kwanzabot

Cipher
Shitposter
Joined
Aug 29, 2009
Messages
597
This game is really bad even without bugs idk why anyone would have fun playing it it is so boring .. .


i got my money back on steam from this shit too thanks for steam refunds merry christmas!
 
Last edited:

Mozg

Arcane
Joined
Oct 20, 2015
Messages
2,033
I thought the Fiona stuff was good and she's one of the few character I remember at this point. If Annie wrote her she's not a shitter. Got some gameplay C&C testing your skills at diagnosing a loopy person to keep them functional.

Whereas I thought Todd was pretty awful shit to make the religion guy a transparent scumfuck and everyone that respected him look like a sucker.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
36,713
This game is really bad even without bugs idk why anyone would have fun playing it it is so boring .. .


i got my money back on steam from this shit too thanks for steam refunds merry christmas!


You could have just tried out the demo instead of going through that hassle.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom