Josh Sawyer Q&A Thread

[Infinitron]

Contrary to Roguey beliefs, Sawyer does not oppose all simulationism:

 

[Roguey]

I never said he was anti-sim, he's anti-pseudo-sim.

It's written in the Book of Sawyer that simulationism is okay if you go all-out on it with no half-measures. I'm personally not interested.

 

[Rake]

I'm personally not interested.

HERESY!!!!!!!!!! Sawyer will smite you.

 

[Roguey]

I'm actually grateful that Feargus is around to nix the low-historical-fantasy idea in favor of something that would actually sell more than thousands of copies.

 

[Zed]

I never said he was anti-sim, he's anti-pseudo-sim.

It's written in the Book of Sawyer that simulationism is okay if you go all-out on it with no half-measures. I'm personally not interested.

"pretty simulationist" sounds more half-measure than all-out to me.

 

[agris]

I'm actually grateful that Feargus is around to nix the low-historical-fantasy idea in favor of something that would actually sell more than thousands of copies.

Open your mind more, part of the problem with this sub-genre is poor marketing and connecting with fans. The Kickstarter-funded ARPG Kingdom Come seems to have overcome some of those challenges, and even has external investment (which is going to occur based on far more rigorous market-testing analytics than a KS campaign).

 

[Infinitron]

Some Josh talk: http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/

enverxis said: I see you liked Wolf: ET. Did you play competitive or just pubs? I played a bit of it on LAN, good FPS although not my favourite style of gameplay, however I did like how it required good tracking aim, as better players who could get consecutive headshots for a kill shined. Played with/against some of those guys in CoD and they were good smgers.

I just played public games or LAN games at Black Isle. I enjoyed the pace and overall gameplay style of W:ET much more than BF:1942 (though I did play a great deal of BF:1942 as well). Unsurprisingly, W:ET feels “Quakey” in movement speed and how many of the weapons work. The constrained maps and all-or-nothing objectives also lend themselves to much faster-paced, frantic play than BF:1942’s huge maps and death-by-ticket-loss. Each class in W:ET also felt distinctive and strong in their own way. Even Medics could eventually turn into combat monsters.

ilitarist said: Is it me or even with 3D games like FNV or Alpha Protocol Obsidian still does sort of 2D games? FNV was much more "flat" than Fallout 3, you rarely saw enemies attacking from above or below. Do you prefer to think in top-down perspective?

Most of the vertical elements in F3 were found in the ruined sections of DC. When we developed the parts of New Vegas away from the strip, we tried to reflect the building style of Las Vegas itself, which is flat in overall topography and relied heavily on Usonian/ranch-style houses as it expanded. The Strip wasn’t the place to have vertically-oriented combat because those were population hub areas.

In retrospect, we should have partitioned the different neighborhoods of New Vegas into their own world spaces (data/load-wise) and found ways to emphasize more vertical elements. When we worked on the various DLCs, we did emphasize vertical elements much more in both exploration and combat.

datoska said: My question about New Vegas. Do you think about general idea reducing number of skills, but give them many ways to use and shift accent from skills to perks, giving each skill a unique perk tree (like Skyrim). Inside these perk trees you give player to choose specialization (brunching), like ability to better use pistols, shotguns etc. Furthermore to learn these perks you need to find teachers in the world, who teach you for skill points and money. Thanks.

I believe that any time you have an array of things from which players can pick to invest in, it’s important to make sure that those options get roughly equal, somewhat frequent opportunities to shine in the game and that they feel distinct from each other. There are a lot of different ways to accomplish this. In F:NV, I made the choice to collapse various skills for more consistent use across the game, but I didn’t necessarily succeed in making them all feel distinct. Guns/EWs had a fair amount of overlap, as did Melee/Unarmed.

In a game like Burning Wheel, the player is presented with a truly staggering number of skills (literally hundreds), but the system is set up to allow a lot of cross-skill use based on the Field of Related Knowledge (FoRK) system. BW is very well-oriented toward tabletop play and players are expected to argue for why a skill can be related to any given test.

I do think perks and feats are the place to make the broad choices feel more specific, but I think they are least interesting when they are stat++ choices and most interesting when they give the player new options. I think this is true in games like D&D and Pathfinder as well as the Fallout series.

I wouldn’t want to make perk access depend on finding teachers and spending money, but I do like it when games additionally allow players to gain perks/feats/talents by completing quests and doing other challenging things in the world.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

Well, it's good to know it was a mistake! At least they got the Kennedy impersonation right for President Kimball.

 

[Roguey]

Looks like Josh nixed that idea he had about an antebellum-era south fantasy setting.

He wrote a short story about it, put in an awful lot of racial slurs.

 

[Hormalakh]

If Josh wants to visit the south, he can feel free to PM me. I'll set him up.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

If Josh wants to visit the south, he can feel free to PM me. I'll set him up.

Went to the trouble of shopping Josh into a scene from Deliverance.... then realised I'd shopped him onto a corpse

Seemed a bit too harsh to post.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Drax]

a lot of minor Legion characters came across as far more overtly misogynistic than I had intended them to.

What a retard.

 

[Irenaeus II]

What a retard.

 

[Roguey]

What a retard.

The Legion were supposed to be min/maxing-for-the-purposes-of-creating-more-soldiers-in-the-quickest-amount-of-time misogynists, not "LOL GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN" misogynists.

 

[Fairfax]

If he wants to popamole the shit out of PoE on tablets and consoles, I say let him. This way any meaningful project will be led by someone else.

What a retard.

This.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Get back in the kitchen is an ideology I can get behind.

 

[Drax]

The Legion were supposed to be min/maxing-for-the-purposes-of-creating-more-soldiers-in-the-quickest-amount-of-time misogynists, not "LOL GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN" misogynists.

They weren't "overly misogynacistic". They were as hateful with women as they were with their fellow men.
They are slave-traders ffs.

 

[Rivmusique]

Overtly, not overly.

 

[Roguey]

They weren't "overly misogynacistic". They were as hateful with women as they were with their fellow men.
They are slave-traders ffs.

The writers used the wrong kind of misogyny. Josh wanted "What, why would a woman want to fight in the arena????" not "WOMEN CAN'T FIGHT."

 

[Drax]

 

[Ninjerk]

If he looks up he might be able to catch the point before it sails over

 

[Duraframe300]

They weren't "overly misogynacistic". They were as hateful with women as they were with their fellow men.
They are slave-traders ffs.

Eh, let's be honest here.

Josh may go at this from an overly SJ angle one of the main complaints even/especially on the codex were that the legion was comically evil.

 

[an Administrator]

They weren't "overly misogynacistic". They were as hateful with women as they were with their fellow men.
They are slave-traders ffs.

This explains their whole viewpoint