Developer Story Time with Old Man Davis

[TwinkieGorilla]

Eric Fenstermaker

One of the best writers for FO:NV, if not the best, imo.

 

[sea]

Hm, so I have a question. How does one get a job as a designer? I always assumed that one started as a programmer, or maybe art, and then was promoted to design. Or is there a pathway to design from starting in as management?

Depends. Many studios these days do appreciate the role and talent of a game designer who actually knows game design as a discipline, which is still rare and unfortunately can be hard for someone to prove without past experience. You can just straight up get a job as a designer at a studio, especially a large one (i.e. one of the billion Ubisoft factories out there), without much if any direct experience at all. This is because their teams are so huge that typically efficiency goes out the window and a designer really does not have to have too much technical knowledge in such an environment.

At other studios you can't really become a designer unless you have practical experience doing design for another company in the past, or unless you work your way up the ladder doing other jobs. This is actually a good thing because it makes sure you have practical experience and are familiar with the workplace, with workflow and process, and hopefully understand the demands a designer has in the real world instead of "okay here's a great idea, I'll collect six figures while you guys actually make it" that a lot of hopefuls kind of think (not at all maliciously).

If one accepts that a game designer is not just an "idea guy" but a person dedicated to critical thinking and problem-solving, engineering gameplay that is fun and addictive, as well as how to present those gameplay concepts with appropriate and marketable themes, artwork, and so on, then the skill ceiling actually raises quite a bit. Perhaps what is even most important is recognizing the distinction between making a game that is enjoyable for a given demographic, vs. what is enjoyable for you - a designer should revel in any design project, whether it's a strategy game, turn-based game, shooter, platformer, simulation, or virtual pet, and aimed at any audience. In otherwords, that designer has to appreciate and be able to perform good design regardless of context, and must be passionate for the discipline itself, not just the cool games he/she has floating in his/her head.

In practice there are more game designers who have the practical, not necessarily the theoretical understanding of good design. Both components are important, and in my opinion if you are the kind of person who loves the idea of "this cutscene would be so awesome" but whose eyes glaze over when you start talking about the intricacies of mechanics, systems, UI, QA, playtesting, bug-fixing, and so on, then you probably aren't cut out to be a game designer.

 

[Semper]

There was also another project with very complex puzzles done through GUI, I think it was by the guy who made the XML guide for beginners.

guess you mean lance botelle and his gui based puzzles for althea.

@anthony: do you know why obsidian released expotron (plugin for 3dsmax to export animations through the granny pipeline) and later deleted every single trace of it? were there any legal issues with rad game tools? also why did obsidian use granny besides knowing that it will damage the mod community? is it really that time- and cost-saving?

 

[Smejki]

Eric Fenstermaker

One of the best writers for FO:NV, if not the best, imo.

 

[Excidium]

He wrote Veronica so...no.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Anthony Davis, were there any features that never made it into the game from which, you believe, the game would have benefitted? Also, were you involved in development of SoZ expansion ?

Just got back from 11 hours in the car, so this will be short and sweet.

I forget who was the project director on SoZ, it was either Rich Taylor or Tony Evans, or both. Both of them also handled their respective lead roles, lead programmer for Rich and lead designer for Tony. I was Rich's work horse for getting features implemented.

Tony Evans created the initial designs on the Party Conversation System and the Party Creation System. I reviewed the designs and made recommendations that would allow them to be created within the time we had and within the existing code base. Those were my favorite things I created for NWN2, and in the case of the Party Conversation System, my favorite thing ever. More party based games should use it.

My favorite design thing on SoZ was working with Josh in bringing back Skullcrusher from Pool of Radiance. Josh took my idea and turned it into something BEAUTIFUL.

I also implemented the new death and dying rules used in SoZ... and boy was that a nightmare.

Nathaniel Chapman, who now works at Blizzard, was the creative force behind much of the world map stuff.

Jeff Husges, a TRUE unsung hero, was simply a content machine. He implemented many of the areas in the game, including the boss fights.

 

[Jaesun]

Tony Evans created the initial designs on the Party Conversation System and the Party Creation System. I reviewed the designs and made recommendations that would allow them to be created within the time we had and within the existing code base. Those were my favorite things I created for NWN2, and in the case of the Party Conversation System, my favorite thing ever. More party based games should use it.

Yes. That was excellent. I wish more Developers would use it.

 

[Anthony Davis]

This thread

How about a story with one of Obsidian's unsung heroes? Someone who's name doesn't get thrown around very often but deserves more recognition?

Hmmm, so many to choose from...

Dan Rubalcaba
Dan Spitzley
Rich Taylor
Tony Evans
Justin Cherry
The tools guys: Javier and Dave


I guess it depends, most programmers are unsung. Some designers are unsung. Some artists are also unsung, though many artists are known within their local art community they participate in.

I got some ideas about the next big post.

Dude, I sung.

I sung and I got my heart broken when he got laid off.


Needles to say, Justin Cherry story request.

I don't think Justin Cherry got laid off, maybe he did, he was there when I left, and then a little while later he was at Turtle Rock Studios.

Justin Cherry, wow, where to start. That guy is like an artistic force of nature. The first story that pops into my head about Justin Cherry was when I emailed him a request....


We were working on Dungeon Siege 3, and something was bothering me... all the heroes and heroines were white. I very cautiously emailed Justin about it with a suggestion that we make Reinhardt non-white. Black, Mediterranean, anything...

You see, as friendly and awesome as Justin is, I was cautious because I am not qualified to make artistic requests and usually artists don't like unsolicited critiques.

To my surprise, he emailed me back that he agreed and it was something he wanted to change too.

It was then that I really discovered how laid back and confident he really was. Criticism was always welcome, even when it wasnt taken.

So Justin worked on some mock ups, I think Zane Lyons helped too, and then we made our presentation to Ferg who agreed.

Also, Justin and I played a LOT of Dragons Dogma, Dark Souls, and Monster Hunter. Well, not together, cause those games arent EXACTLY multiplayer, but we sure did talk about those games a LOT. I remember buying this AMAZING Monster Hunter art book and walking around showing it to all the artists.

This art book:
http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Hunte...68220&sr=1-2&keywords=monster+hunter+art+book

Of course when I bought it was only like 30 bucks.

Anyway, Justin thought it was so amazing he bought it too as soon as he could. Within a few weeks, most of the artists had it too.

I don't know, he was always so chill to talk to and so cool about everything, games, art, movies, you name it. We didn't exactly run in the same circles, he had lots of art friends, I hung out with programming nerds. He never seemed to hold it against me that I was a stodgy, conservative, programming dork, he always treated me well and was always quick with jokes, laughing, and sharing anything visually awesome.

He was also the driving force at Obsidian for creating a "Visionary Director" who is responsible for keeping the art style, which is usually worked on by 30+ people, unified and coherent.

 

[Anthony Davis]

He wrote Veronica so...no.

He also wrote Boone... sooooo

 

[Anthony Davis]

There was also another project with very complex puzzles done through GUI, I think it was by the guy who made the XML guide for beginners.

guess you mean lance botelle and his gui based puzzles for althea.

@anthony: do you know why obsidian released expotron (plugin for 3dsmax to export animations through the granny pipeline) and later deleted every single trace of it? were there any legal issues with rad game tools? also why did obsidian use granny besides knowing that it will damage the mod community? is it really that time- and cost-saving?

I only remember bits and pieces of that... situation.

I think a lot of legal stuff changed after we had already committed to using the tech. I can see if I can get the straight story from Rich or Adam... if they still remember. Man, that was a long time ago.

Also, awesome GUI stuff.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Hm, so I have a question. How does one get a job as a designer? I always assumed that one started as a programmer, or maybe art, and then was promoted to design. Or is there a pathway to design from starting in as management?

Depends. Many studios these days do appreciate the role and talent of a game designer who actually knows game design as a discipline, which is still rare and unfortunately can be hard for someone to prove without past experience. You can just straight up get a job as a designer at a studio, especially a large one (i.e. one of the billion Ubisoft factories out there), without much if any direct experience at all. This is because their teams are so huge that typically efficiency goes out the window and a designer really does not have to have too much technical knowledge in such an environment.

At other studios you can't really become a designer unless you have practical experience doing design for another company in the past, or unless you work your way up the ladder doing other jobs. This is actually a good thing because it makes sure you have practical experience and are familiar with the workplace, with workflow and process, and hopefully understand the demands a designer has in the real world instead of "okay here's a great idea, I'll collect six figures while you guys actually make it" that a lot of hopefuls kind of think (not at all maliciously).

If one accepts that a game designer is not just an "idea guy" but a person dedicated to critical thinking and problem-solving, engineering gameplay that is fun and addictive, as well as how to present those gameplay concepts with appropriate and marketable themes, artwork, and so on, then the skill ceiling actually raises quite a bit. Perhaps what is even most important is recognizing the distinction between making a game that is enjoyable for a given demographic, vs. what is enjoyable for you - a designer should revel in any design project, whether it's a strategy game, turn-based game, shooter, platformer, simulation, or virtual pet, and aimed at any audience. In otherwords, that designer has to appreciate and be able to perform good design regardless of context, and must be passionate for the discipline itself, not just the cool games he/she has floating in his/her head.

In practice there are more game designers who have the practical, not necessarily the theoretical understanding of good design. Both components are important, and in my opinion if you are the kind of person who loves the idea of "this cutscene would be so awesome" but whose eyes glaze over when you start talking about the intricacies of mechanics, systems, UI, QA, playtesting, bug-fixing, and so on, then you probably aren't cut out to be a game designer.

Yeah, this and your previous post both have good information here.

I'll add some more of my own thoughts here too:

If anyone thinks that are qualified to be a game designer solely because they have "cool game ideas" then you will never make it.

Game Designer by itself is a very vague term in my opinion and I usually shy away from it when talking "shop talk". Lumped in with Game Designers are usually Writers, System Designers, Level Designers, Character Designers, etc... It's not specific enough.

That aside, Game Designers require MANY talents and skills to be successful, ie. more than a junior designer. These talents and skills that are hard to come by, they are also challenging to master, and until you master them you will be both unsung and not paid much simply because there are a million other people just like you trying to prove they can do it.

Once you can walk up to a dryboard and explicitly explain why some game feature is fun you are on your way. Understand what I mean here by explain, I mean explaining "fun" the same way an electrical engineer can explain Ohm's Law here... If you can't get any further than, "neat" or "empowering", you gotta keep working at it.

In addition to that, a healthy understanding of programming, how computers/consoles WORK, philosophy, systems design, and art theory are all VERY relevant.



As for GETTING the actual job, have a demo, have a lot of patience, and apply for ANY position you qualify for, even if it is only QA, and then bust your ass when you get in.

 

[Zed]

What can you tell us about Ziets? I know he reads this thread :D

What's your situation at the moment, Anthony? Working for the family business still, or in-between jobs? Something else?

And as a follow-up to those two questions, I present to you a Hypothetical:
George Ziets goes indie... with Double Bear's Mitsodas and Vaul Dwellers multiple personas, for a cool spinoff thingy based on P:E (generously granted by Obsidian now when it's their world). Their pitch is "like a MotB for P:E, with new innovative systems for storytelling". They throw in a Avellone-written character as a stretch-goal for that guaranteed crowdfunding success. Also, RPG Codex collects at least $5k for the cause, so you have to put some shitty statue in the game or something.
They approach you. Interested?

 

[sea]

Game Designer by itself is a very vague term in my opinion and I usually shy away from it when talking "shop talk". Lumped in with Game Designers are usually Writers, System Designers, Level Designers, Character Designers, etc... It's not specific enough.

Which is funny because many studios advertise specifically for game designers. I assume at certain studios that prioritize various aspects of gameplay over others (or adapt to meet the needs of a given project), they will make smaller distinctions here and there, but it's very rare I see a "systems designer" advertisement anywhere. Maybe that's because they expect them to be able to do all of that, but then the actual job descriptions also tend to be kind of vague in those same cases.

That aside, Game Designers require MANY talents and skills to be successful, ie. more than a junior designer. These talents and skills that are hard to come by, they are also challenging to master, and until you master them you will be both unsung and not paid much simply because there are a million other people just like you trying to prove they can do it.

How do you draw the distinction here between Game Designer(TM) and junior designer? What is the difference? I kind of take from the way you're wording it that a game designer in this is sort of the mastermind and responsible for a significant portion of project direction and creative oversight, but then isn't that role also often delegated to project leads, producers, directors, management, etc.?

(full disclosure: my knowledge is NOT first-hand, as I am not and never have been employed as a game designer, however I do try to involve myself with the development community, I do my own hobbyist/amateur game design in the form of modding, as well as games "journalism" and other writing on the subject of game design; though strictly speaking I do work in the games industry)

 

[Zed]

I think many corporate-style (publisher-owned) studios see designers as project leaders. They want people to take blame for shitty design calls. They want Jay Wilsons to fire when they make shit games, or Cliff Bajsinskis to celebrate when they slam dunk.

 

[Space Satan]

Anthony, can you tell us about cut content? Especially one you regretted the most?

 

[Roguey]

Jeff Husges, a TRUE unsung hero, was simply a content machine. He implemented many of the areas in the game, including the boss fights.

But all that content was terribly boring...?

 

[Anthony Davis]

Game Designer by itself is a very vague term in my opinion and I usually shy away from it when talking "shop talk". Lumped in with Game Designers are usually Writers, System Designers, Level Designers, Character Designers, etc... It's not specific enough.

Which is funny because many studios advertise specifically for game designers. I assume at certain studios that prioritize various aspects of gameplay over others (or adapt to meet the needs of a given project), they will make smaller distinctions here and there, but it's very rare I see a "systems designer" advertisement anywhere. Maybe that's because they expect them to be able to do all of that, but then the actual job descriptions also tend to be kind of vague in those same cases.

That aside, Game Designers require MANY talents and skills to be successful, ie. more than a junior designer. These talents and skills that are hard to come by, they are also challenging to master, and until you master them you will be both unsung and not paid much simply because there are a million other people just like you trying to prove they can do it.

How do you draw the distinction here between Game Designer(TM) and junior designer? What is the difference? I kind of take from the way you're wording it that a game designer in this is sort of the mastermind and responsible for a significant portion of project direction and creative oversight, but then isn't that role also often delegated to project leads, producers, directors, management, etc.?

(full disclosure: my knowledge is NOT first-hand, as I am not and never have been employed as a game designer, however I do try to involve myself with the development community, I do my own hobbyist/amateur game design in the form of modding, as well as games "journalism" and other writing on the subject of game design; though strictly speaking I do work in the games industry)

It's true. Once in a blue moon I will see requests for level designers or a senior systems designer, but true, most companies just say they are hiring game designers and then list the skills they would like those game designers to have. Based on those skills they request, you can then infer what they are actually looking for.

Many companies have different variations on all of this. For example at TimeGate, there were no explicit level designers, the level ARTISTS created and designed the levels with oversight from a designer.

At Obsidian, you have level designers and level artists, and of course many of them share similar skills. Don't forget, many of these level designers also have or are developing writing skills, or system design skills. It feels like I'm going in circles, but I don't mean to, people at Obsidian tend to wear a lot of different hats.

Most designers at Obsidian have either strong programming or technical skills OR they have strong art and writing skills. A very few, like Chris Avellone, Eric Fenstermaker, Josh Sawyer, Nathaniel Chapman, and Jeff Husges, have all of that at once.

Regarding my use of junior designer, what I meant is just a generic junior developer/designer. Usually junior designers at Obsidian are not specialized at first. It is almost unheard of to hire a "junior writer" or a "junior systems designer".

 

[Anthony Davis]

What can you tell us about Ziets? I know he reads this thread :D

What's your situation at the moment, Anthony? Working for the family business still, or in-between jobs? Something else?

And as a follow-up to those two questions, I present to you a Hypothetical:
George Ziets goes indie... with Double Bear's Mitsodas and Vaul Dwellers multiple personas, for a cool spinoff thingy based on P:E (generously granted by Obsidian now when it's their world). Their pitch is "like a MotB for P:E, with new innovative systems for storytelling". They throw in a Avellone-written character as a stretch-goal for that guaranteed crowdfunding success. Also, RPG Codex collects at least $5k for the cause, so you have to put some shitty statue in the game or something.
They approach you. Interested?

I know whenever you guys/girls/trannies ask me about specific people at Obsidian I always sound like a broken record because I say the same things, AWESOME, SUPER COOL, etc. Even though I do seem to repeat myself, I am actually not a broken record. There are very good reasons for this:

I am much more extroverted and gregarious than the average programmer. There were very few people at Obsidian I did not like/love. Even people I would sometimes disagree with, like Nathaniel Chapman, I have immense respect for because he is still very nice and SUPER smart, and he works very, very hard. The vast majority of Obsidian actually gets along very well with each other and many of them regard each other as family. Obsidian also takes steps to help this "family":

1. Obsidian tries very hard not to hire jerks. Sometimes it happens, but that is usually the first thing people get filtered out on during the interview process.
2. Obsidian has offices for people for quiet work, but they actively encourage keeping an open door policy. I could for example, and to Feargus' chagrin I did this a lot, go into Feargus' office and ask if he had a few minutes. I could then talk to him about how awesome Texas is or something and he would listen and laugh and tell me only two things come from Texas....






Republicans and mediocre programmers. What, you heard different?



3. Obsidian really stresses cross team work. Programmers, designers, and artists work on almost everything together. There are a few exceptions to this, but the majority of the work is really done as a team. Many companies I am familiar with sort of "black box" their different departments to each other. At TimeGate I mainly worked with other programmers. I never worked with a designer, and the only artist I worked with was Sergei and John, the UI artists.

Obsidian is not perfect. They have made mistakes, but thankfully they have endured and in enduring, grown stronger.


I wrote all of that because you ask about George Zeits and guess what, he's AWESOME and SUPER COOL! While I was at Obsidian working with George, he was almost exclusively a writer. He was always involved in content review, but his area of expertise that I witnessed is creating narratives and characters. Chris Avellone once said to me something along the lines of that George convinced him (through actual writing, not dates or anything) romantic dialogs could be handled well, and they were handled pretty well in MotB.

During MotB, George worked late a lot and he was CONSTANTLY writing, writing, and writing. The results were amazing.

He went to Bethesda for a while and worked on something he was not allowed to tell me at the time, but I would guess it was the MMO. I think he moved there to be closer to his family for a while.

Anyway, he came back and worked on Dungeon Siege 3. Now, I could write pages and pages on Dungeon Siege 3 the project, but let's all be grown ups and admit that the original Dungeon Siege was a little light on the narrative. An argument could be made that there was a lot of story there, it was just very subtle. Regardless, George Zeits went about writing what would later be known as the Ehb Sourcebook. It was amazing. It was like over a hundred pages of short stories, all of them awesome. I wish I had kept a copy, and I wish it could be released it for reading.

George is just a super talented, down to earth, nice guy. I was thrilled when he was added as a stretch goal for P:E, and his reward banner on the kickstarter made me laugh my ass off.

 

[Anthony Davis]

Jeff Husges, a TRUE unsung hero, was simply a content machine. He implemented many of the areas in the game, including the boss fights.

But all that content was terribly boring...?

Despite the obvious troll, I'm gonna address this.

One, designers don't always get to create the content the implement.

Two, if you thought SoZ was boring or Sozzy, you are obviously entitled to think that. I think SoZ is awesome, and not just because I worked on it. Opinions are subjective and everyone is entitled to theirs.

Three, if more game companies had designers like Jeff Husges, who is a rock solid designer, completely trustworthy to get his work done in a timely and efficient manner, and be a master at implementing content without breaking game engines, and be a nice, confident and soft spoken person who gets along well with others, more game companies would be better off.

Hell, the world would be better off with more people like Jeff in it.

I say all of this with 100% confidence that not a single person at Obsidian, or anyone outside of Obsidian who knows Jeff, would disagree with me. Most would say I am not giving ENOUGH credit to how awesome he is. Avellone and Sawyer both routinely praise Jeff's work.

 

[J_C]

Don't mind Roguey, she just got a Stockholm syndrome with Sawyer.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

My headcanon is that she's Sawyer's ex-girlfriend.

 

[Blaine]

It occurs to me that Josh might not be too fond of Roguey if he were made fully aware of her rhetoric.

On the other hand, I doubt the majority of my favorite developers would be particularly fond of me either since I refuse to drink the librul (or conservative!) Kool-Aid, but at least I don't go around insulting their entire development team despite not knowing what the fuck I'm talking about.

Edit: I don't know who implemented that substitution script, but it's amazing.

 

[Kane]

Anthony, now that you've been rehired as Josh's personal lackey and PR megaphone, in light of your experience with Neverwinter, what is your take on Cryptic's/Perfect World's assault on the IP?

Edit: And another question, at what point during wrangling aurora did you turn insane? Was it a specific event that triggered it or just the general workflow over years and years and years and years



and years.

 

[piydek]

Thanks for this thread and insight Anthony. Much appreciated.

Now, I'd like to know something that's potentially a bit difficult to answer from your position, due to more than one thing. But, as i see Obsidian's track record, I've always felt your games are not exactly "rough gems", but games that aimed high, always showed potential, whose heart was in the right place, but that ultimately i just didn't enjoy. In most cases some major things felt "off" for me. Where in the Interplay/Black isle games i never felt that way, they were coherent. Now, my question would be: do you share this vision even if just a tiny bit? And if you do (or maybe don't, but just see where I'm coming from), which would be the real causes for those situations that seem to plague Obsidian quite a lot?

 

[Duraframe300]

Where in the Interplay/Black isle games i never felt that way, they were coherent.

By all love for Black Isle and while they are great games, I wouldn't call Fallout 2 or Planescape: Torment remotly coherent. (If you mean by coherent the entirty (gameplay + narrative) of a game.)