Incline Josh Sawyer appreciation station

[Artyoan]

I always got the impression (never having taken one in university myself) that a university ‘Gender Studies’ course back then was, for a guy like Sawyer used to be, thought of as a way to demonstrate open-mindedness, interest in the feminine perspective and an even-handed attitude. It is interesting and probably no accident how those courses changed and he somehow managed to keep pace with them long after he’d left.

If he was taking a class as a way to demonstrate some part of his own ego as a progressive social ploy, then he was always the type of person who wanted attention for the same reason. Which explains why he remains among the cult.

 

[Atlantico]

I always got the impression (never having taken one in university myself) that a university ‘Gender Studies’ course back then was, for a guy like Sawyer used to be, thought of as a way to demonstrate open-mindedness, interest in the feminine perspective and an even-handed attitude. It is interesting and probably no accident how those courses changed and he somehow managed to keep pace with them long after he’d left.

If he was taking a class as a way to demonstrate some part of his own ego as a progressive social ploy, then he was always the type of person who wanted attention for the same reason. Which explains why he remains among the cult.

It's probably a joke

 

[Roguey]

Sawyer making the claim that it was retailers who killed classic RPGs in the early 00s https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1736828629517316570

watching digitalfoundry talking about the death of e3 and dark1x mentioned it was tied to retail and I completely forgot how big a deal it was for best buy/walmart/etc. buyers to see your game which determined your shelf space and thus your sales. completely memory holed lol

it was extra special how walmart would act incredibly prudish about certain types of content but would throw all of that right out the window for GTA.

i think the worst thing was the self-fufilling vibes about a certain genre or mechanic or whatever not selling well, so the retailers wouldn't stock games with it and thus they wouldn't sell. the early 00s were so brutal for this, one reason why that era was so homogenous imo

Yep. The death of "iso" party-based RPGs on PC imo.

BioWare made Baldur's Gate, which sold well, and BG2 sold very well. Black Isle made Icewind Dale, which sold also sold well, but after BioWare announced Neverwinter Nights, retailers decided that 2D iso games were dead. Temple of Elemental Evil was the last for a long time.

People seething about not being able to truly "own" digital games in quite the pickle here. All the new RPGs likely wouldn't exist if PC games were still stuck in the physical realm.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

----------

i think the worst thing was the self-fufilling vibes about a certain genre or mechanic or whatever not selling well, so the retailers wouldn't stock games with it and thus they wouldn't sell. the early 00s were so brutal for this, one reason why that era was so homogenous imo

Yep. The death of "iso" party-based RPGs on PC imo.

BioWare made Baldur's Gate, which sold well, and BG2 sold very well. Black Isle made Icewind Dale, which sold also sold well, but after BioWare announced Neverwinter Nights, retailers decided that 2D iso games were dead. Temple of Elemental Evil was the last for a long time.

I can't stress enough how often I'd hear a retail rep declare a genre/style/look was dead with zero supporting data. Truly vibes-based forecasting, which resulted in self-fulfilling prophecies.

"See? The thing we refused to stock didn't sell. No one wants these games anymore."

Yes. The only way we were able to make Pillars is because of our backers on Kickstarter.

There was a perception that 2D iso games were a dead end from a tech investment standpoint. I was a huge critic of 2D games, mostly on the choppy nature of sprite-based animation vs the potential of 3d-spherical linear interpolation. The render pipelines were also very heavy

Sure, though ToEE addressed the sprite issue with a 2.5D approach that I thought worked quite well, personally.

It's interesting you list ToEE, as - at BioWare, at least - that game's failure was really what caused the nail to be put into the proverbial coffin, as I recall. Suddenly, iso and turn-based both were simply... off the table

 

[Roguey]

Turn-based was never on the table at Bioware.

 

[0sacred]

maybe some were in favor of TB, but were always overruled?

turn based NWN

 

[Roguey]

maybe some were in favor of TB, but were always overruled?

turn based NWN

Yeah.

Ohlen and Ray Muzyka butted heads over combat in Baldur’s Gate. Muzyka loved the Gold Box games because they had been predicated on turn-based combat, just like Dungeons & Dragons tabletop games. Turn-based systems allowed players to think through their moves before taking action. Ohlen appreciated the classics, but insisted that turn-based play was outmoded. Real-time strategy titles such as WarCraft II and Diablo proved that the future of gaming lay in fast, think-on-your-feet tactics.

They reached a compromise. Baldur’s Gate would play out in real-time, but players could pause the action during fights to take stock of their situation and queue up orders for their party to carry out when the action resumed. "You got the finer control of turn-based, but at the same time, you got the kind of exciting action of a real-time [strategy game]," Ohlen said.

 

[Atlantico]

Turn-based was never on the table at Bioware.

2D and/or turn-based were out everywhere in the early 2000s. Bioware was no exception

 

[Roguey]

2D and/or turn-based were out everywhere in the early 2000s. Bioware was no exception

Irrelevant to the point I was making about Gaider's statement

 

[Atlantico]

2D and/or turn-based were out everywhere in the early 2000s. Bioware was no exception

Irrelevant to the point I was making about Gaider's statement

The point was Gayder didn't have a point. It was on not tables anywhere. Had nothing to do with success or failure of TOEE.

 

[Roguey]

The point was Gayder didn't have a point. It was on not tables anywhere. Had nothing to do with success or failure of TOEE.

Retailers had already given up on it, but ToEE not really moving the needle is what he's saying convinced the Biodocs to tell their staff not to bother pitching any projects involving iso-only cameras.

 

[Atlantico]

The point was Gayder didn't have a point. It was on not tables anywhere. Had nothing to do with success or failure of TOEE.

Retailers had already given up on it, but ToEE not really moving the needle is what he's saying convinced the Biodocs to tell their staff not to bother pitching any projects involving iso-only cameras.

I know what he's saying, but he's talking out of his ass. TOEE came out in 2003, after NWN and the next Bioware game was KotOR.

Sawyer wrote "after BioWare announced Neverwinter Nights, retailers decided that 2D iso games were dead. Temple of Elemental Evil was the last for a long time."

Gayder replied "It's interesting you list ToEE, as - at BioWare, at least - that game's failure was really what caused the nail to be put into the proverbial coffin, as I recall. Suddenly, iso and turn-based both were simply... off the table"

Which is bullshit, because the upcoming games from Bioware were console titles. Turn based was never ever ever on the table in the mid 2000s for a mainstream IP, even if TOEE has been a massive sales success. Gayder is a fucking weirdo and a liar.

(TOEE was arguably a mainstream IP, but it was a turn-based mainstream IP)

 

[Roguey]

Which is bullshit, because the upcoming games from Bioware were console titles. Turn based was never ever ever on the table in the mid 2000s for a mainstream IP, even if TOEE has been a massive sales success. Gayder is a fucking weirdo and a liar.

(TOEE was arguably a mainstream IP, but it was a turn-based mainstream IP)

Dragon Age Origins had been in development since 2004 as a PC title (and became multiplatform in 2008). It had a third-person and pseudo-isometric camera. Any chance of DA:O only having the iso cam died with ToEE.

 

[Atlantico]

Which is bullshit, because the upcoming games from Bioware were console titles. Turn based was never ever ever on the table in the mid 2000s for a mainstream IP, even if TOEE has been a massive sales success. Gayder is a fucking weirdo and a liar.

(TOEE was arguably a mainstream IP, but it was a turn-based mainstream IP)

Dragon Age Origins had been in development since 2004 as a PC title (and became multiplatform in 2008). It had a third-person and pseudo-isometric camera. Any chance of DA:O only having the iso cam died with ToEE.

BG wasn't turn based, nor was any game Bioware made ever — before 2003 or after 2003.

Because Bioware didn't make turn based games so that was never on the table.

Gayder is a liar and a weirdo

 

[Dreed]

Which is bullshit, because the upcoming games from Bioware were console titles. Turn based was never ever ever on the table in the mid 2000s for a mainstream IP, even if TOEE has been a massive sales success. Gayder is a fucking weirdo and a liar.

(TOEE was arguably a mainstream IP, but it was a turn-based mainstream IP)

Dragon Age Origins had been in development since 2004 as a PC title (and became multiplatform in 2008). It had a third-person and pseudo-isometric camera. Any chance of DA:O only having the iso cam died with ToEE.

BG wasn't turn based, nor was any game Bioware made ever — before 2003 or after 2003.

Because Bioware didn't make turn based games so that was never on the table.

Gayder is a liar and a weirdo

They made the turned based Sonic RPG in 2008

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_Chronicles:_The_Dark_Brotherhood

 

[Decado]

maybe some were in favor of TB, but were always overruled?

turn based NWN

Yeah.

Ohlen and Ray Muzyka butted heads over combat in Baldur’s Gate. Muzyka loved the Gold Box games because they had been predicated on turn-based combat, just like Dungeons & Dragons tabletop games. Turn-based systems allowed players to think through their moves before taking action. Ohlen appreciated the classics, but insisted that turn-based play was outmoded. Real-time strategy titles such as WarCraft II and Diablo proved that the future of gaming lay in fast, think-on-your-feet tactics.

They reached a compromise. Baldur’s Gate would play out in real-time, but players could pause the action during fights to take stock of their situation and queue up orders for their party to carry out when the action resumed. "You got the finer control of turn-based, but at the same time, you got the kind of exciting action of a real-time [strategy game]," Ohlen said.

I have no problem with this, because I do not mind RTwP.

 

[Bulo]

I don't hate RTwP, but it does strike me as merely a way to soften the blow of poor encounter design

 

[Bulo]

I doubt Interplay would have received so much rat cave-related hate mail if Fallout had shipped with RTwP

 

[antimeridian]

I doubt Interplay would have received so much rat cave-related hate mail if Fallout had shipped with RTwP

Classic case of gamers being their own worst enemy and optimizing the fun out. You can just leave while fighting two or three rats along the way but nooo

 

[Beastro]

Which is bullshit, because the upcoming games from Bioware were console titles. Turn based was never ever ever on the table in the mid 2000s for a mainstream IP, even if TOEE has been a massive sales success. Gayder is a fucking weirdo and a liar.

(TOEE was arguably a mainstream IP, but it was a turn-based mainstream IP)

Dragon Age Origins had been in development since 2004 as a PC title (and became multiplatform in 2008). It had a third-person and pseudo-isometric camera. Any chance of DA:O only having the iso cam died with ToEE.

BG wasn't turn based, nor was any game Bioware made ever — before 2003 or after 2003.

Because Bioware didn't make turn based games so that was never on the table.

Gayder is a liar and a weirdo

They made the turned based Sonic RPG in 2008

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_Chronicles:_The_Dark_Brotherhood

I was flipping through this page like mad and read that link name without context.

Made me think for a sec that someone made a Sonic mod for Skyrim for a moment.

The idea of someone doing such a thing is so funny I'm not saddened that it's not that and is just a stupid Bioware game.

 

[Roguey]

The man who had terrible taste in cities

City I dislike: Las Vegas
City I think is overrated: Seattle
City I think is underrated: Chicago
City I like: London
City I love: Berlin
City I feel most myself in: Costa Mesa (lol/rip)
City I still need to visit: Florence
City I dream of living in: Berlin

 

[Atlantico]

Sawyer is a massive Germophile ... Germanophile whatever.

Berlin makes sense. Degenerate, Americanized and Liberal.

 

[Butter]

Twitter users demonstrating daily why they shouldn't be allowed to leave their bug cities.

 

[Robert Erick]

Only criminals and homosexuals want to live in Berlin. Which one is Sawyer?

 

[mediocrepoet]

Only criminals and homosexuals want to live in Berlin. Which one is Sawyer?

The answer is yes.