OMG! More famous voices for Oblivion

[DarkSign]

Fixed and done.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Is kathode really a bethesda developer? No offense, I'm just wondering.

Yes.

 

[Chefe]

hello world

 

[kathode]

Your mistake in this analysis is that we didnt say money fixed problems, we said that it produced more products. But while you're at it, more money would pay for either a higher level of Q&A or more testers. If you deny that, you'd have to have as your fundamental premise that your Q&A workers cant do their job. Merely using the fact that games have bugs doesnt prove that money doesnt produce more product.

At the extreme ends of the analysis, money can certainly help. Give an indie group a big check and it will certainly improve things. Unfortunately the reality after a point is that there's a little thing called Diminishing Returns (good wikipedia entry too). If I could throw 200 people at a single product and somehow have that equate to being able to produce any feature you dreamed up, I would do that in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, EA stands to show that that thinking doesn't always work. More features by definition create more places for things to break, creating more risk. And adding more people doesn't completely mitigate that risk because unfortunately the reality of the matter is that in software development, unrelated systems are perfectly capable of breaking each other.

My main point is voice acting has nothing to do with it. If I tell management I need more people to do something, they'll get me more people. But that doesn't automatically win me more features fully formed. It is a long road from design doc to working feature in the game, no matter how many people you have.

Now let's throw an argument your way. Lets say you have one pot of simple tomato soup to be cooked. Of course paying 5 chefs to make that one pot would be overkill. The extra money wouldnt yield any results...but only if you assume that you only want one pot!

This is such a spurious analogy that I shouldn't even respond. For one you are assuming the ingredients are the same and that you have enough of them. You are producing a larger quantity of identical product. You are hiring people who immediately know how to use pots and pans and how to make tomato soup - you apparently don't have to train them on how you run your kitchen and how your codebase is structured. Oops, I mean, um... well i guess your particular recipe. I don't know.

My counter analogy would be that I can't take nine women and have a baby in a month. I'm fond of that one Like most analogies though, it only applies in parts.

Player entertainment is important so I might see fudging for something that would entertain more than eeking out 5% better gameplay.

That the player will be entertained with Oblivion is the least of my worries. We have trees and soil erosion after all I will always value polish over quantity of features. Always.

Hmm... he kind of seems like a gimmick account to me. No offense, of course, if he really is Gavin.

It's ok. From where I'm sitting, 90% of the accounts on here are gimmick accounts

 

[merry andrew]

From where I'm sitting, 90% of the accounts on here are gimmick accounts

 

[Chefe]

hello world

 

[Vault Dweller]

My counter analogy would be that I can't take nine women and have a baby in a month. I'm fond of that one

Well, we weren't talking about releasing Oblivion faster, we are talking about having more features, and nine women can deliver 9 babies as of opposite to one woman and 8 nurses, no?

 

[Section8]

With the way the industry works, things are measured by their commercial success, ie profitability. Paying Patrick Stewart as opposed to paying Neville Nobody decreases the profit margin and thus the success of the game. Sure you could argue that the big Patrick Stewart stamp of approval brings in more buyers, but it's a grey area, like most marketing decisions. The money is better spent buying off reviewers.

Or, you could look to the way overly successful developers work for a reason to save your marketing budget for something more useful. A developer who can self fund has so many advantages over a developer at the whims of a publisher. They have so much freedom in the way they develop their creative output, more control over their IP and more control over the development schedule. That's exactly why you guys at Bethesda have been able to spend four years on Oblivion, using your own Elder Scrolls license, and companies like Arkane Studios are now working on a Might and Magic spinoff.

 

[kathode]

Then what did you mean when you said that you would have like to have given the morrowind team alot more money? I thought more money didn't work?

I meant that I would like a raise The original interview transcriber saw fit to remove my from after that sentence, for some reason.

It all comes down to good ideas.

I agree. However, I see no direct evidence that money solved any particular Sims developement problem. Maxis had a history of great games and I'm not shocked they continued it. I do know they took some of that cash that you say EA showers them with and made Sims Online, so there's that.

So, are you telling me that if you had more people you still wouldn't have been able to insert the Nine Divines guild, crossbows, thrown weapons, mounted combat, or anything else?

None of those things are simple or quick. My point is that adding those things increases risk, and adding people does not completely mitigate that risk. Diminishing returns is a real principle. The key is finding where it starts to kick in. I say one place, you want to claim another way far ahead of mine. Either way, I know we are taking tons of risk on, and I have no problem telling you I think it will be great.

That's nice to hear from a fucking game developer.

I would hope most game developers would be confident in their products. I don't see anything wrong with that. It's a lot of fun to play.

Well, we weren't talking about releasing Oblivion faster, we are talking about having more features, and nine women can deliver 9 babies as of opposite to one woman and 8 nurses, no?

Exact same issues as the tomato soup example. Your analogy replicates a process exactly to deliver an identical product, which unfortunately isn't applicable to feature development. There is no way we can be sure that the same effort required for one feature will get feature 2 finished. We can make reasonable guesses, but it is far from an exact science yet.

 

[Chefe]

hello world

 

[Roger P]

What kind of bullshit talking-point is soil erosion? Jesus, enough already. It's a technical aspect of the game world. What relevence does it have in discussing Oblivion? Do you guys think its still funny or something? Find another superfulous feature of the game to rag on.

 

[Chefe]

hello world

 

[DarkSign]

The point at which the law begins to operate is difficult to ascertain, as it varies with improved production technique and other factors

-- From the Wikipedia

I thought you might bring this up, but I didnt expect you to give me the ammunition to rebutt it

Ultimately Id gather the decision to use him was based on selling boxes not on gameplay. At the end of the day an unfamous wizened old british voice is as good as a famous one.

 

[kathode]

I do have another question: how long will it take Bethesda to match the skills and options present in the decade-old Daggerfall?

A long time! Consider: What was a horse in Daggerfall? It was a 2-d image of a horse head slapped on the screen, and some clip-clop sounds (and it ran over water, which was awesome). If I could slap a 2-d graphic on the screen and call it a feature then Oblivion would have more features than all the other Elder Scrolls games put together! The bar is a little higher these days.

So you opted for uber-realistic forests instead of just really-good forests

Yup. Polish > quantity. I love our forests. I think they provide tremendous gameplay spaces, great atmosphere, and really help out with.... with... wait for it!.... wait for it!
IMMERSION! :twisted:

You said in that the least of your worries is the player being entertained. The player, the consumer, being entertained by your product means he or she enjoys it and has fun. Therefore, by saying entertainment is the least of your worries you are saying that you're more concerned with getting the thing shipped and the cash in your pocket, right?

No way, that is one heck of an interpretation. I am saying I am confident in it being a fun and entertaining game. I am saying I am confident in the vast majority of players sharing my opinion.

 

[Micmu]

Yup. Polish > quantity. I love our forests. I think they provide tremendous gameplay spaces, great atmosphere, and really help out with.... with... wait for it!.... wait for it!
IMMERSION! :twisted:

It would be a lot more immersive if you put boobs back. And cheaper.

 

[Chefe]

hello world

 

[Chefe]

hello world

 

[Roger P]

I was just using it as an example. It's the first thing that came to my mind.

Calm down before you hurt yourself.

Okay, let's pretend that soil erosion isn't mentioned in every Oblivion thread. The horse is dead.

 

[Twinfalls]

I do have another question: how long will it take Bethesda to match the skills and options present in the decade-old Daggerfall?

A long time! Consider: What was a horse in Daggerfall? It was a 2-d image of a horse head slapped on the screen, and some clip-clop sounds (and it ran over water, which was awesome). If I could slap a 2-d graphic on the screen and call it a feature then Oblivion would have more features than all the other Elder Scrolls games put together! The bar is a little higher these days.

Right. So you admit that you sacrifice basic role-playing mechanics for graphics. Why's that then? The loss of development time and resources transferred to the extra flash?

Is role playing really a priority at Bethesda's RPG studio?

 

[Tintin]

Right. So you admit that you sacrifice basic role-playing mechanics for graphics.

What are you talking about? He never said anything like that.

 

[Roger P]

Why do Codexers think that a 2d rpg (or any game for that matter) is still a viable option in 2005? Excluding indie rpgs, of course. Wait, isn't AoD 3d?

 

[Chefe]

hello world

 

[Psilon]

Of course, if they didn't bother with the useless 3rd person view, adding a horse would be significantly easier. Still not quite as easy as it was in Daggerfall, of course, but much easier nonetheless.

 

[Micmu]

Right. So you admit that you sacrifice basic role-playing mechanics for graphics.

What are you talking about? He never said anything like that.

Well, he didn't quote the right part.
It is understandable, that things that could be done in 2D engine cannot be done just like that in 3D.
However, RP elements have been sacrificed:
stats reduced rather than revamped, weapon types reduced, guilds reduced (no religious stuff), and things that needed to be fixed are still left non-roleplaying (dead dialogue).

 

[Psilon]

Speaking of revamped...

Given that lycanthropy has been cut (again), are they keeping vampirism?