Josh Sawyer Q&A Thread

[Quillon]

Design Director, Game Director, System Designer, Writer, Linguist, Singer, Song Writer, Avid Twitterer, Social Justice Warrior, Cyclist, Question Answerer, Youtuber, Tumblrererererer, Cat owner, Twitcher... next he'll be narrative lead for his FYSMD if he's not already for Deadfire and then he'll run for President.

 

[LizardWizard]

Design Director, Game Director, System Designer, Writer, Linguist, Singer, Song Writer, Avid Twitterer, Social Justice Warrior, Cyclist, Question Answerer, Youtuber, Tumblrererererer, Cat owner, Twitcher... next he'll be narrative lead for his FYSMD if he's not already for Deadfire and then he'll run for President.

Obergruppenführer Sawyer

 

[Quillon]

Obergruppenführer Sawyer

Yes, he should make The Man in the High Castle RPG, its historical.

 

[Jazz_]

Sawyer is so hipster he went completely grey at the mere age of 41. Or maybe that's just the trade off of some faustian bargain.

 

[2house2fly]

It's the stress of being a liberal in America in this day and age

 

[Infinitron]

Not sure he quite gets what I'm referring to.

 

[karfhud]

http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/156315232196/if-you-look-at-the-baldurs-gate-games-they-had-a

Did you mean, like, community banter?

 

[Abu Antar]

http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/156315232196/if-you-look-at-the-baldurs-gate-games-they-had-a

Did you mean, like, community banter?

I think he means a more living world in general, but I could be wrong.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Eric Fenstermaker held the writing reins on PoE, so Josh Sawyer wasn't really handed any keys to any kingdom...

He's probably referring to Josh being appointed to the role of "Design Director", well after PoE's release and MCA's departure.

Indeed.

Regarding Fenstermaker: After reading the Codex interview with him I have a strong suspicion that he was basically, at a certain point, the only person left at OES willing to take the blame for the didactic and over-written PoE narrative; he comes across as a "buck stops here" sort-of-guy (which is to be strongly admired, especially from a creative), but I think that the final product of PoE's base game stands in stark contrast to the insistence that there was a true Creative Lead. It is a schizophrenic mess of a storyline, both thematically and logically, and it does not seem to me that there was any strong unifying vision behind the narrative (please note that I think PoE is a fine "worth a play, solid 7 or 8 out of 10" game, it just happens to have possibly OES' worst narrative).

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I never saw Sawyer as shirking responsibility in anything he's done. That's fine, you see it enough. I just wouldn't blame him entirely for the disjointed stuff from the story overall.

Ultimately I just felt the story jumped the shark.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Prime Junta]

Haha he really does hate Tyranny

 

[Roguey]

Josh sunk four hours into Dungeon Rats, wonder what he thinks of its classlessness.

 

[vortex]

There's so much going on with Sawyer (PoE2 and Apocalypse) that I think next Q&A will be 3 or 4 times longer.

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/156315232196/if-you-look-at-the-baldurs-gate-games-they-had-a

Great question btw.!
I noticed that stuff myself in newer gaems per se, but especially with PoE (which I still liked a lot anyway). The result of that development is that everything feels kind of... "planned", if you know what I mean, which is a bit sad actually.

 

[Sensuki]

The ad-hoc nature of Raedric's Hold is likely the reason it was a good area.

 

[Infinitron]

Josh's D&D characters:

 

[LESS T_T]

 

[Chris Avelltwo]

Sawyer is so hipster he went completely grey at the mere age of 41. Or maybe that's just the trade off of some faustian bargain.

Maybe it is caused by an imbalance of the humours.

 

[Spectacle]

http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/157933744346/3rd-party-dialogue-tools

just… don’t. Use. Excel.

This advice also applies to many other fields than writing RPG dalogue. Excel must be one of the most abused tools in the software industry.

 

[Zed]

excel use should be restricted to finance, graphs, and csv
(and there are a thousand tools better for each of them)

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Chris Avelltwo]

Yeah, bugs are no joke in F:NV. In fact, the toughest enemy in the entire game (series?) is the Legendary Bloatfly in Old World Blues - which is funny, because Bloatflies are normally the weakest enemy. BTW, Bloatfly sliders are a pretty good meal you can cook. Too bad you can't really make something like that in real life.... yet. Could cure world hunger with those.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Prime Junta]

Huh, he's built his own bicycle frame.



Mad respect, that isn't easy. Good-looking bike too, especially like that he picked the Cuban flag as inspiration for the colours