Josh Sawyer Q&A Thread

[Roguey]

Bah, evidently you non-spinney-rotatey people have never heard of muscle memory. The process becomes completely transparent, you just have to slightly adjust your, ahem, perspective.

But that might just be because I'm a pianist and touch typist, so "busywork" with my fingers is (as it were) invisible to me, it doesn't register to me as any kind of effort.

It doesn't add anything. One has to do it when any particular level isn't designed to be looked upon from one angle. It's a burden put on you the player to compensate for the designer's ill-suited level design. Granted there are some edge cases where one would benefit from a different angle, so I support the option being there, as long as there is a default view the level was made for that you can easily snap back to.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Lol i's not about effort to the fingers(WTF?). Even in a best case scenario where maps are designed well, constant camera management still adds nothing to the experience. And maps are rarely designed well.

 

[gurugeorge]

Bah, evidently you non-spinney-rotatey people have never heard of muscle memory. The process becomes completely transparent, you just have to slightly adjust your, ahem, perspective.

But that might just be because I'm a pianist and touch typist, so "busywork" with my fingers is (as it were) invisible to me, it doesn't register to me as any kind of effort.

It doesn't add anything. One has to do it when any particular level isn't designed to be looked upon from one angle. It's a burden put on you the player to compensate for the designer's ill-suited level design. Granted there are some edge cases where one would benefit from a different angle, so I support the option being there, as long as there is a default view the level was made for that you can easily snap back to.

It adds more realism and gets rid of the absurd contortions devs have to do in terms of level design, art design, architecture, etc., to make everything relevant visible/interactable on the 2-d plane while still trying to give the impression of a 3-d space.

Isometricist fanaticism is just people hankering for the goofy side-effects of technological limitations they became comfy with when they got into gaming. Spinney-rotatey forever!

 

[gurugeorge]

Lol i's not about effort to the fingers(WTF?). Even in a best case scenario where maps are designed well, constant camera management still adds nothing to the experience. And maps are rarely designed well.

Nonsense, it satisfies curiosity. You rotate to see what's there, it mimics looking around the environment you're in to search for goodies, baddies, etc.

It also enables (hopefully lol) naturalistic level design that leverages one's natural instincts about what should be where in 3-d spaces (as opposed to, e.g., having every POI in a level clumped against the far wall).

 

[Roguey]

It adds more realism and gets rid of the absurd contortions devs have to do in terms of level design, art design, architecture, etc., to make everything relevant visible/interactable on the 2-d plane while still trying to give the impression of a 3-d space.

What matters is good gameplay and pseudo-iso games that demand frequent rotation are an ever-present irritation that feel worse than any game where the camera is static. When playing Neverwinter Nights or Dragon Age I never felt "oh yeah this feels far more realistic than Baldur's Gate."

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Finding the goodies on a 2D map also requires scanning the environment. Unless you play games by starting at one pixel in the middle like a mongoloid, which would explain how you came up with nonsense about everything being planted in the far wall, which literally never happens anywhere ever.

And yeah I don't know how circling an angled top down camera can be called a "naturalistic navigation". Bro if you're viewing the reality from an angle it's called having a seizure.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Josh knows that rotating cameras is evil after he unleashed the monstrosity that was NWN2's camera unto the world. He has repented, like a good christian should.

 

[gurugeorge]

It adds more realism and gets rid of the absurd contortions devs have to do in terms of level design, art design, architecture, etc., to make everything relevant visible/interactable on the 2-d plane while still trying to give the impression of a 3-d space.

What matters is good gameplay and pseudo-iso games that demand frequent rotation are an ever-present irritation that feel worse than any game where the camera is static. When playing Neverwinter Nights or Dragon Age I never felt "oh yeah this feels far more realistic than Baldur's Gate."

"Pseudo-iso" lol

Of course not, because you're used to, and have grown familiar with, the limitations forced on game design by older technology.

To me, the ever-present irritation of strict isometric games (apart from the absurd visual goofiness of the strict isometric perspective itself) is that I can't spin/rotate. It never feels to me like the illusion of a real space I'm exploring, but like the illusion of a queer proscenium, set set up specifically for my convenience.

 

[gurugeorge]

Finding the goodies on a 2D map also requires scanning the environment. Unless you play games by starting at one pixel in the middle like a mongoloid, which would explain how you came up with nonsense about everything being planted in the far wall, which literally never happens anywhere ever.

And yeah I don't know how circling an angled top down camera can be called a "naturalistic navigation". Bro if you're viewing the reality from an angle it's called having a seizure.

A 2-d map is not an environment.

 

[Roguey]

"Pseudo-iso" lol

Of course not, because you're used to, and have grown familiar with, the limitations forced on game design by older technology.

To me, the ever-present irritation of strict isometric games (apart from the absurd visual goofiness of the strict isometric perspective itself) is that I can't spin/rotate. It never feels to me like the illusion of a real space I'm exploring, but like the illusion of a queer proscenium, set set up specifically for my convenience.

I shouldn't have to roleplay someone in a crane or a helicopter, that doesn't feel natural to me. Neverwinter Nights 2 was wretched to deal with it, Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny were not. Wasteland 2 was wretched to deal with, Wasteland 3 was not. Kingmaker was fine, Wrath of the Righteous was not. There's nothing about the way the levels are put together in those janky-feeling games that make it a worthwhile trade-off to me.

 

[ropetight]

It adds more realism and gets rid of the absurd contortions devs have to do in terms of level design, art design, architecture, etc., to make everything relevant visible/interactable on the 2-d plane while still trying to give the impression of a 3-d space.

What matters is good gameplay and pseudo-iso games that demand frequent rotation are an ever-present irritation that feel worse than any game where the camera is static. When playing Neverwinter Nights or Dragon Age I never felt "oh yeah this feels far more realistic than Baldur's Gate."

"Pseudo-iso" lol

Of course not, because you're used to, and have grown familiar with, the limitations forced on game design by older technology.

To me, the ever-present irritation of strict isometric games (apart from the absurd visual goofiness of the strict isometric perspective itself) is that I can't spin/rotate. It never feels to me like the illusion of a real space I'm exploring, but like the illusion of a queer proscenium, set set up specifically for my convenience.

Personally, never liked completely free cameras, it felt like like dolly movie camera or driving a tank, moving at one direction and looking at other.
3D with fixed camera angle with rotation in 90 degrees steps, limited zoom (ATOM RPG had such mode), was the best of both worlds.
It enabled you to find everything with ease, and retained isometric visual goofiness of Fallout I liked.

 

[gurugeorge]

"Pseudo-iso" lol

Of course not, because you're used to, and have grown familiar with, the limitations forced on game design by older technology.

To me, the ever-present irritation of strict isometric games (apart from the absurd visual goofiness of the strict isometric perspective itself) is that I can't spin/rotate. It never feels to me like the illusion of a real space I'm exploring, but like the illusion of a queer proscenium, set set up specifically for my convenience.

I shouldn't have to roleplay someone in a crane or a helicopter, that doesn't feel natural to me. Neverwinter Nights 2 was wretched to deal with it, Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny were not. Wasteland 2 was wretched to deal with, Wasteland 3 was not. Kingmaker was fine, Wrath of the Righteous was not. There's nothing about the way the levels are put together in those janky-feeling games that make it a worthwhile trade-off to me.

Pfft, you're rp-ing a crane in isometric too, or a helicopter that can't yaw for some bizarre reason But you know, fair enough. It's all costs and benefits fitting particular personal taste weightings.

 

[Butter]

The solution is to make every game a blobber.

 

[gurugeorge]

It adds more realism and gets rid of the absurd contortions devs have to do in terms of level design, art design, architecture, etc., to make everything relevant visible/interactable on the 2-d plane while still trying to give the impression of a 3-d space.

What matters is good gameplay and pseudo-iso games that demand frequent rotation are an ever-present irritation that feel worse than any game where the camera is static. When playing Neverwinter Nights or Dragon Age I never felt "oh yeah this feels far more realistic than Baldur's Gate."

"Pseudo-iso" lol

Of course not, because you're used to, and have grown familiar with, the limitations forced on game design by older technology.

To me, the ever-present irritation of strict isometric games (apart from the absurd visual goofiness of the strict isometric perspective itself) is that I can't spin/rotate. It never feels to me like the illusion of a real space I'm exploring, but like the illusion of a queer proscenium, set set up specifically for my convenience.

Personally, never liked completely free cameras, it felt like like dolly movie camera or driving a tank, moving at one direction and looking at other.
3D with fixed camera angle with rotation in 90 degrees steps, limited zoom (ATOM RPG had such mode), was the best of both worlds.
It enabled you to find everything with ease, and retained isometric visual goofiness of Fallout I liked.

Yeah xx degree steps can definitely be a reasonable hybrid, and it's always going to feel better for some people to do one tap rather than a series of small adjustments. It works well in the XCOM-alikes too.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.tumblr.com/jesawyer/724585026532048896/whats-your-mbti-kingincultas asked:

incultas asked:
what's your mbti king

FWIW (not much), it's pretty consistently INTJ.

https://www.tumblr.com/jesawyer/724584999034208256/have-you-ever-played-vampire-the-masquerade-or

jamboreen asked:
Have you ever played Vampire the Masquerade? Or any of the video game adaptations, like Bloodlines?

I've played Vampire: The Masquerade, Mind's Eye Theatre, and Bloodlines. I haven't played any of them recently, unfortunately.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Chanel Oberlin]

3 years (Pentiment): 9 months in pre-production and ~27 months in development.

What in the actual fuck?

 

[Infinitron]

3 years (Pentiment): 9 months in pre-production and ~27 months in development.

What in the actual fuck?

Very small development team working from home during the pandemic?

 

[Chanel Oberlin]

Very small development team working from home during the pandemic?

The pandemic didn't last that much, and even if they play the "smarr company prease understand" card, it's still what amounts to a very short indie game. The only way this makes sense is if the game got scrapped and redone several times over during development, which wouldn't surprise me, but it still amazes me how much more inefficient developers are getting at making games.

 

[Butter]

Sawyer probably leveraged the small team size to negotiate for more time.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

That was probably something they did on their spare time, so to speak.

 

[Hace El Oso]

That was probably something they did on their spare time, so to speak.

I don't believe that for a second. They were paid their salaries just like they always are. They aren't working at some small independent company living on subsistence wages until release and only then paid commensurately with the success of the title.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Listen it takes a long time browsing through different medieval fonts.

 

[ferratilis]

They did it in their spare time of sitting on their asses all day and doing nothing, as is usual for Microsoft-owned studios. Why work hard and take risks when you can do nothing and still get paid?