Go bug J.E. Sawyer

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Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
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Fallout: New Vegas lead designer J.E. Sawyer has joined formspring.me, yet another <s>stupid</s> awesome web 2.0 site that allows us to ask questions of him freely. Let's try to land some interesting questions, but stay away from New Vegas as a topic. Some good questions:<blockquote>How does it feel to know you/Obsidian are one of the few great game devs us cynical WRPG fans have left, and that we're all relying on the likes o' youse to maintain quality writing in video games? :)

I think it's sad, honestly. In my opinion, gamers set the bar very low for good writing.

From a design standpoint, what's your favorite game?

I think it's still the 1992 PC CRPG Darklands. That might seem narrowly-focused, but I love MicroProse for making an RPG that almost seemed like it was designed by non-RPGers -- like traditional conventions about how skills, leveling, races, classes, alignment, health, armor, etc. were "supposed" to work in RPGs really didn't matter. Being set in 15th century Holy Roman Empire didn't hurt, especially since they filled the game with so many details like canonical hours and Medieval currency.

Have you ever played the STALKER games, if so, what do you think of them? Somewhat related to New Vegas.

I only played a few hours of the original STALKER before my system died (for unrelated reasons... I think). I really want to play the newer games because I feel the series has a much different, and very interesting, take on a post-apocalyptic environments and gameplay than other PA games.

Is PC gaming dying? Merely taking a break before it's big comeback? Just fine as it is?

I think the PC market is definitely changing, mostly due to the rapidly rising ease of piracy in North American and European markets. There are some titles that do very well on PC, but I've seen some of the piracy figures for high-profile titles and they are depressing. Console piracy has been huge for over a decade in many Asian countries, but in North America and most of Europe, it's still far behind PC piracy. Publishers are trying a lot of different DRM schemes to combat it, but I honestly I think they need to take a step back and figure out a different profit model (and possibly a different high-level design aesthetic) if the want to focus solely on PC gaming.

As a Project Director and Lead Designer for RPGs, obviously you have to deal with games that are heavy in story and narrative, while not sacrificing gameplay. In current generation games, how relevant and important do you believe cutscenes are?

I think cutscenes are as relevant and important as developers and audiences make them. I believe that the library of top-selling games from the past few years shows that there's room for cutscene-heavy and cutscene-light game. Clearly Metal Gear Solid players don't mind cutscenes or they wouldn't keep buying games in the series. The Half-Life series is tremendously popular and it has scripted events, but virtually no "stop the gameplay" events.</blockquote>Link: J.E. Sawyer on formspring.me.
 
What game were you not involved in developing in any way - that you wish you had been part of?

I think most people would expect me to say "Torment", but I've never really wished that. I can't imagine what I could have contributed to the project that everyone else already covered -- save some combat balance, but for most people the game did not hinge on its combat. The games I wish I could have been a part of are projects that had great potential but some terrible problems with execution, games that had great technology, great presentation, and exceedingly poor system or content design. And I'm not going to name any of them.

fallout 3 and all the DLC :D
 
I thought this one was the best use of entire page:

If Joanna Newsom, Bjork, Imogen Heap and Cat Power were in a no-holds-barred fight to the death, which weapons do you think they would choose and who would be the ultimate winner?

I'm not sure about weapons but I honestly think that Joanna Newsom would die first -- I think Chan Marshall is a bit more fierce, but I don't see either of them taking out Björk or Imogen. Björk is renowned for her martial prowess, but I think Imogen would win because she is a giantess. But instead of dying, Björk would actually turn into a whale and swim away.
 
My question to J.E.S:

"What do you find is the best model in terms of player interaction with the characters in a video game? We've seen many different iterations: Half Life, Heavy Rain, Torment, etc; but what do you feel is the best 'storytelling/roleplaying method'? :)"
 
I don't like the "it's not profitable" attitude that some companies seem to exude. Look at the EU games... they serve a very niche market, and yet PI stays in business year after year, making games that appeal to their fans and not simply appealing to the lowest common denominator.
 
Heh, he answered mine:
Creating something like this seems kind of pretentious don't you think?

I can understand that sentiment, but I'm mostly interested in having people ask me game development questions. I don't think I'm a particularly interesting individual or anything.
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I was rude there, but it's a weird choice of a site for doing that kind of questions. :P Doesn't he have a blog already?
 
Ultimately, I try to stay focused on player experience more than personal taste. Because when it comes down to it, we're not making games to satisfy my desires or the desires of any of the dozens of other people on the team. Keeping the audience(s) in mind helps bring things into perspective.
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I think he just summed up why his games and those of a part of the industry will inevitably suck.
You CAN'T make anything creative without making your taste interfere. You just end up with the personnality-less shit we are being fed these years. That's just the dumbest thing I ever read.
 
He didn't say "completely ignore my personal taste" but "focus more on player experience". L2R.
 
Oh yeah, so that should explain why all the games he has worked on were utter crap without personnality (namely a bunch of dungeon crawlers and an insipid RPG named NWN2).
I guess a lot of his personal taste DID interfere in the process, didn't it ?
You have to learn to read between the lines : he just gave you the reason of this failure in a nutshell - he's the consensual type, whereas making good creative works takes balls and a strong vision.
 
Catering to an audience doesn't have to be a bad thing. It all depends on the audience, really. In fact catering your own tastes is at least in small part a common feature as the one your audience would expect.

If my memory serves me right, the fallout bible had an entry on this town inhabited by talking animals or furries - not quite sure which one, but neither of those was a very good idea. Someone at the team reflected that cute fuzzy tribal animals is batshit crazy and cut it - because that's not something that would fit in with the audience.

In Fallout's case, the audience was the RPG crowd, not very far from what the developers themselves would like to play.

Of course today's games are designed for an audience recovering from anesthetics and for lobotomy patients. As developers in general are smart folk, I guess this means most devs can only fully appreciate their games after partial brain necrosis.
 
archont said:
Catering to an audience doesn't have to be a bad thing. It all depends on the audience, really. In fact catering your own tastes is at least in small part a common feature as the one your audience would expect.

If my memory serves me right, the fallout bible had an entry on this town inhabited by talking animals or furries - not quite sure which one, but neither of those was a very good idea. Someone at the team reflected that cute fuzzy tribal animals is batshit crazy and cut it - because that's not something that would fit in with the audience.

In Fallout's case, the audience was the RPG crowd, not very far from what the developers themselves would like to play.

Of course today's games are designed for an audience recovering from anesthetics and for lobotomy patients. As developers in general are smart folk, I guess this means most devs can only fully appreciate their games after partial brain necrosis.
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Of course, the truth is that all of this bottom-scraping media (TV, movies, games) is also contributing to the "stupification" of the audience.

Throw in fluoride, MSG/aspartame/excitotoxins, and microwaves (cell phones) and you've got a recipe for a zombie horde.
 
Arr0nax said:
Oh yeah, so that should explain why all the games he has worked on were utter crap without personnality (namely a bunch of dungeon crawlers and an insipid RPG named NWN2).
I guess a lot of his personal taste DID interfere in the process, didn't it ?
You have to learn to read between the lines : he just gave you the reason of this failure in a nutshell - he's the consensual type, whereas making good creative works takes balls and a strong vision.
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The works that would carry a lot of his vision have been consistently cancelled.

Also, as much as you'd like, your opinion is not fact. Hate to break it to you.
 
Ixyroth said:
Throw in fluoride, MSG/aspartame/excitotoxins, and microwaves (cell phones) and you've got a recipe for a zombie horde.
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General Ripper is that you? I don't think I've seen a serious reference to the John Birch Society conspiracy theories of the 50's/60's in quite a long time!
 
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