Joshua Sawyer Formspring posts/2013

A collection of Formspring statements by Joshua Sawyer.
Posts
JESawyer responded to Formspring 2 Jan
What's your favorite cartoon character?
Wednesday the cat or Mystery Solving Teens as drawn by Kate Beaton.
JESawyer responded to Asakiro 2 Jan
In New Vegas, why were laser weapons semi automatic or automatic but never a sustained beam?
We tried implementing continuous beam weapons and they were catastrophically buggy. There were only two "wacky" things we tried doing for weapons, neither of which seemed like they would be difficult to implement. Continuous beams were cut relatively early. Looping reloads (for weapons like the lever-action guns) turned out to be long-term problem.
Early on, the system just manifested a few edge case bugs, so we kept squashing those bugs... but others would spring up. It was very odd, because it did not initially seem like a system that would be particularly problematic.
JESawyer responded to Inertiax 2 Jan
If armor determines how much damage you take. What dictates whether you hit/miss/dodge an attack in PE?
Right now, Tim, Steve, and I are experimenting with with a set of defenses that cover the basic "did you get hit?" mechanics of all sorts of attacks, from melee swings to arrows to fireballs to mind control spells. Currently, characters have a defense against melee attacks that attackers try to overcome (like AC without the armor component -- but with shields).
A "miss" against any defense translates to half minimum damage inflicted or half minimum duration on any sort of status effect. I.e. there aren't "full" misses, but mitigated effects. A hit is the standard damage/duration. A hit that is within the critical hit range does 150% max damage or duration.
This system is already implemented and seems to be working pretty well, but we'll continue to experiment with it.
JESawyer responded to LurkerOfTheSky 2 Jan
If you had the opportunity to a historical RPG set in medieval/early modern Europe, would you preference be to include supernatural elements like Darklands, or leave them out?
I like low-magic quasi-supernatural Europe in the vein of Darklands, Ars Magica, and even (arguably) Brotherhood of the Wolf. I like there to be a bit of magic oddity. Even in Ars Magica, it feels like there's still a lot that is "unknown".
JESawyer responded to hedfone 3 Jan
As a person who LOVES fallout 3 and new Vegas and has played them for hundreds of hours. Do you have any basic tips that would make playing fallout 1 and 2 much easier? Every attempt I've had at playing them has been like running into a brick wall.. :/
Fallout and Fallout 2 can be much harder games than F3 and NV, especially with certain character builds. If you're making a combat-oriented character, start off with Small Guns tagged. Also, you should have as high an AG as possible. AG is useful for VATS in F3/NV, but it is incredibly important for combat AP in F1/2. Don't drop your ST too low, both for carrying weight and for using certain weapons. A 6 should be sufficient for most of the pretty darn good weapons.
JESawyer responded to ksaun 3 Jan
Hi Josh! Which of the games you've worked on -- completed or not -- do you feel you learned the most from? How do you feel Project Eternity is benefiting from that experience?
I think I've learned a lot from every project I've been on, but I guess F:NV was the most illuminating. It had the longest development cycle of any game I've shipped and, by far, sold the most units on the most platforms. I think that wider-than-usual net helped show how much people "got" or didn't get certain types of gameplay mechanics, narrative structures, etc.
I also had more freedom to mess with the rules on F:NV than I did on any of the D&D games I contributed to, and seeing how people responded to the minor and major shifts between F3 and F:NV was very informative.
I think the biggest thing I took away, more definitively than ever, is that how things actually work matters more than how people react to the idea of how they will work. I.e., there are really two levels of response to something in the game: the idea of what it is (often interpreted outside of the game) and the reality of what it is. The idea is often more upsetting or disconcerting to people than the reality. But the bottom line is that the reality actually has to be enjoyable in the context of the game, regardless of where the idea started or what the intent was.
When we eliminated Big Guns and spread the weapons around to other skills, there was a lot of head-shaking. After the game came out, not many people complained about or or really even seemed to care. That isn't to say that NO ONE cared -- some people cared, and still care, a lot about it. But the end result didn't generate a lot of negativity and most people responded positively to it or just didn't care.
On the other hand, the way the map was illustrated was logical and map-like but confused people because they thought it was literally at the same scale as the F3 map. In F3, the map border *is* the border of the world. In F:NV, the map border is the extreme outer extent that encapsulates the irregular border of the world. Essentially it was like forcing Colorado and Nevada to be fit into an identical square frame map that's 10" by 10". Nevada is larger than Colorado in reality, but it is always going to take up less space if pushed to the edges of a 10" by 10" map because Colorado has a rectilinear shape and Nevada doesn't. Long story short: it makes sense, but it confused a huge number of people who thought that we were wasting portions of the map. We addressed this in Honest Hearts by using an irregular border instead of a square one.
And speaking of Honest Hearts, I also learned that between the free-wheeling nature of F:NV's content implementation and the strict, low-risk implementation of Honest Hearts content, OEI content usually needs to fall somewhere in-between. A quest that is completely cut-and-dry bog-standard will usually come across that way even if it takes place in a new setting. A quest that is a tangled skein of nightmare scripting will probably ship as a broken mess of half-fulfilled dreams. So when it comes to working with designers, it's good to start with a really solid, stable core of gameplay but leave time for (and encourage) more risky secondary elements after the core has been developed.
Having content that's just "in" and works isn't enough -- both for designers and for people who are playing an Obsidian RPG. People enjoy weird and wacky stuff in quests; it just has to work properly. Our concepting, design, and review processes need to account for the basics but also ensure there's time for the cool and unusual stuff.
JESawyer responded to Melnorme 3 Jan
Can you tell us yet if enemies in Project Eternity will also have the dual stamina/health system, or will that be for PCs only? Enemies in CRPGs typically don't need "strategic resources", after all. How "symmetric" is the game's ruleset, in general?
In general, the system will be pretty symmetrical. I think some of the most interesting fights are with classed/leveled enemies, so having a symmetrical system allows designers to build enemies like "regular" characters.
JESawyer responded to DrHL 3 Jan
Do you like any other webcomics besides HAV?
I honestly don't find many webcomics funny. Hark, A Vagrant! is the only webcomic site I will go to regularly for updates. Kate works at her art (even the simple, quick sketches are often pulled out of larger series) and her characters have a lot of personality. The topics and sense of humor in HAV are a lot more appealing to me than most webcomics. I can honestly say I can't remember laughing out loud (LOLing, if you will) at any webcomic other than HAV, but I laugh out loud at many HAV strips.
Even when HAV goes into SERIOUS, REAL LIFE mode, I still think it's good.
JESawyer responded to Melnorme 4 Jan
Would you describe your design philosophy as "psychologically manipulating players into accepting fail states instead of reloading, by shifting the consequences into the longer term"?
No. That's really narrow for an overall design philosophy. When it comes to mechanics, I believe we should design systems that work together to produce challenging gameplay content and a variety of tools players can use to overcome those challenges. If challenges can be easily circumvented by using one skeleton key tactic (whether it's reloading, a singularly overpowering item/ability, or something else), then the gameplay will get boring quickly.
I think gameplay is most enjoyable when there's a balance of frustration and triumph. Without frustration, triumph becomes cheap. Continuous frustration with minimal/infrequent triumph often feels like it isn't worth the effort. Every player has a different balance point for what they enjoy, but if the systems have easy "outs", it can make the challenges trivial.
JESawyer responded to Rehvenge4 4 Jan
In older games don't you think the type of system used,chaotic systems,breakable systems with a sense of humor in mechanical design(think Fallouts) were part of the charm?In a more coherent and restrictive system don't you think something is missed?
Not really. Are you suggesting that we should design an incoherent system? I don't think the sense of humor in Fallout was in the mechanical design, but in the content supporting the mechanical design. E.g. the area design and art, characters, animations, sounds, text descriptions, etc.
If you took a Fallout crit shotgun blast and removed the sound effects, hand-touched sprite "blown out torso" animation/effects, and the text description accompanying it, there really wouldn't be anything humorous about it. It would just be a hit that did a lot of damage.
Late game Fallout 2 is where the limits of the system really started to get pushed. Extended fights with Enclave troopers were typically slugfests where you and the enemies traded single-digit damage until someone (usually you) scored an armor-bypassing critical for triple-digit damage and annihilated the target.
If it weren't for the continuous satisfaction that comes with massive overkill body-melting plasma criticals (which is due to the content supporting it, not the mechanic itself), the combat would have been much less enjoyable.
JESawyer responded to SerMcWorst 7 Jan
Is there any chance we could see some prototype footage, or did you decide it's ultimately not worth it to show something so early after the reactions to the art update? It could help us understand the flow of combat and contextualize some design choices
It's still pretty early.
JESawyer responded to MillardK 8 Jan
Will non-combat skills be restricted by class? I like to play warriors and characters good with diplomacy/speech/persuade skills. Few games let players do both at once and I was wondering if PE would be different.
They won't be class-restricted, but some classes will have more of an advantage with certain skills.
JESawyer responded to Inertiax 8 Jan
What are some of the incentives to using a lighter armor type in PE? Is it just an encumbrance thing? Is will your movement speed be affected even if you have the strength to carry heavy armor?
You will attack, cast spells, and perform most other actions (not including standard movement) more quickly. A character in the heaviest armor will likely have somewhere in the range of a 30% speed (again, not movement) penalty to his or her actions. In the time it takes an unarmored character to complete a given action 10 times, a character in the heaviest armor will have completed the same action 7 times (roughly).
We are using this trade-off because it seems to pose a more interesting problem for players than a combat vs. non-combat trade (e.g. protection vs. carry weight or non-combat skill use) and it's not as mathematically straightforward as a damage avoidance vs. damage reduction model (i.e. dodging vs. absorbing hits).
Characters that stay away from the front lines (e.g. traditional long-range wizards and archery-focused rangers) may tend to wear less armor because they are not subjected to as many attacks. Some front-line combatants may wear light armor with the strategy that dealing damage more quickly will make up for their relative lack of protection.
JESawyer responded to Hormalakh 8 Jan
In a follow-up to a previous question you answered, how easy will it be to change out armor during combat in Project Eternity? Are you allowing it, disallowing it, or penalizing it in some way?
The party can't access anything in the "top of pack" during combat, so it's impossible to switch anything other than equipped weapon sets. Outside of combat, you can switch any equipped item with anything in the "top of pack" freely (including something you've just found). At a camp or certain other locations, you can move items freely between equipment, pack, and stash.
JESawyer responded to undecaf 9 Jan
How are you considering handling in game economy with the "stash" system (which has unlimited space??) so that the player doesn't become a billionaire early on and that there is some actual value for currency and stuff to spend it on with a purpose.
Sale prices have to reflect the fact that the player has unlimited inventory space. In most games, we have to balance around the hope/belief that most players aren't patient -- because really, nothing actually prevents the player from yanking everything out of a dungeon and marching it down to a shop other than their own impatience. That's not a great way to balance things because the gulf of value between the impatient and the patient is pretty large.
JESawyer responded to atuckett 9 Jan
In Project Eternity will you be able to adjust the camera like you can in wasteland 2?
You will be able to zoom out and can pan, but not rotate, since the environments will be rendered out as 2D images.
JESawyer responded to HiverZ 10 Jan
Are you going to go with fixed amount of HP points or will players be able to raise the amount of HP in any way, by leveling or otherwise, during the game?
Characters will gain HP throughout the game.
JESawyer responded to KaeseEs 10 Jan
Was the relatively early availability of an "ascension kit" (DRCA, brush gun/survivalist rifle, tons of herbs) via Zion by design? I tend to race to stone bones cave then take the rest of the game at a leisurely pace (cf. alpha pavonis vii in SC2) 
Not intentionally, no. I don't have any problem with players making meta-game plans to bee-line to a good piece of gear if they've already played through the content. Presumably you've already played it through without a guide the first time and you enjoyed it enough to play it again.
JESawyer responded to jvdgoot 14 Jan
When talking about designing combat system you make a distinction between strategy and tactics. What is the difference?
The definitions are not used concretely, but strategies focus on planning or preparation and tactics focus on reactive elements "in the moment". A simplified way of looking at it might be to consider good tactics necessary to win battles, but good strategy is required to win wars.
In a D&D campaign, how you build your character is strategic. You're making choices for the future based on some amount of speculation. A wizard selecting magic missile for his or her spellbook is not necessarily a bold choice because its applicability is broad. A ranger selecting abominations as his or her favored enemy either knows something really specific about the setting and campaign or is making a wild gamble.
Similarly, gear selection and spell preparation is strategic -- how strategic depends on how limited the availability of options is in the field. If you can carry eight weapons at a time, per character, you don't need to be that careful. If it's like XCOM:EU, where most characters go into the field with one main weapon and one sidearm, it's a big deal.
Sometimes, a decision made in battle can be tactical and strategic. For example, using a limited resource ability (e.g. a high level spell). The most tactically efficient thing to do may be to spend the limited resource ability, but if you think you have more difficult enemies coming up prior to regaining that resource, you may want to hold off.
I like RPGs to have both tactical and strategic elements, which is more in line with the AD&D-based RPGs of the late 80s-early 2000s. I'm trying to ensure PE will have both layers for players to consider.
JESawyer responded to suejak 14 Jan
Hey Josh, you don't take things like this seriously, do you? http://nexus404.com/2010/11/05/the-top-six-reasons-fallout-3-is-better-than-fallout-new-vegas-after-playing-both-i-discover-six-reasons-that-fallout-new-vegas-just-cant-surpass-fallout-3-yet/ You seem like the type who'd say, "O Woe, he is a Consumer and I am but a Designer. If and he and the masses are displeased, I have failed." Please don't. Screw him.
http://nexus404.com/2010/11/05/the-top-six-reasons-fallout-3-is-better-than-fallout-new-vegas-after-playing-both-i-discover-six-reasons-that-fallout-new-vegas-just-cant-surpass-fallout-3-yet/
I don't try to make everyone happy, but I do try to communicate what I/we are trying to do and listen to how people respond to that. A consumer can be upset for whatever reason he or she wants. If I think the reason is shared by enough people, I have to at least consider it may be valid. In some cases, we change things (especially if I don't think it's going to cause a negative response from anyone else). In other cases, I accept that they aren't going to like Thing X about the game and we move on.
JESawyer responded to Hormalakh 14 Jan
Can you describe your vision for how loot will be gained by the player? Will it be mostly gained through combat, quests, or other forms?
Quests will probably be the least frequent, with combat and environment making up the dominant methods. Most of our loot will be hand-placed with a small amount randomization. The amount of loot you will find will be more in line with the IE games than games focused more heavily on finding/sorting/selling items.
JESawyer responded to Petrarch 14 Jan
Quite a while ago you discussed with us how you professionally detach personal feelings for a project because at the end of the day, it's your job and you're a professional and you don't "own" the game. Do you still feel the same with Project Eternity?
Yes. Project Eternity belongs to Obsidian and was backed by individual gamers based on what we said we were going to give them. It is definitely not "mine", but I am responsible for directing it.
JESawyer responded to jvdgoot 15 Jan
As someone who was not really good at the combat in IE games will I be able to put it on "easy" mode and still play the game for the story?
We're designing the game for people who enjoy the challenge of combat, but different people have different capabilities. If you don't like combat at all, PE will probably not be enjoyable. We consider tactical combat to be a core component of the game. I would like to focus most of our difficulty increases around changing the staging of the encounter, primarily what enemy combatants are present and how they are positioned. At lower levels of difficulty, you will often have fewer enemies to deal with, which can make the challenges less exacting.
JESawyer responded to Hormalakh 17 Jan
Is weapon reach going to be a consideration in Project Eternity?
Most melee weapons will have a standard/uniform reach. Characters don't need to be right on top of each other to engage in melee, but they need to be fairly close. Some weapons, like pikes, have the advantage of being able to attack from fully behind another character.
JESawyer responded to MVozda 17 Jan
Hey Josh, I'm not sure if this was ever answered but I'm very curious; When you first started on Fallout NV, was Vegas the first & only location you wanted to base the game around or was there other locales tossed around before deciding on NV? Thanks!
I wasn't part of the decision-making process for where the game was set. I'm not sure if the owners/Bethesda had any other ideas.
JESawyer responded to uaciaut 17 Jan
Would blunt damage dealing damage weapons have a weakness against light armor if they have an advantage over heavy type? Would enchanted weapons be able to bypass some damage-type weakness so as you should mix and match weapons but you can afford not to?
The base damage of crushing weapons is lower than slashing weapons and has no inherent armor bypass (like piercing weapons), so they are less efficient against light and medium armor. Once armor hits a certain strength, the raw damage and armor negation values of slashing and piercing weapons can't make up for the high DT. Because crushing weapons have a higher minimum damage after DT is applied, they always maintain clear superiority in high DT situations.
An enchanted weapon will typically reinforce the basic properties of the weapon, not work around them. One thing we're trying to avoid are mathematical situations in which all obstacles can be turned into nails if your hammer is big enough. E.g., a mighty enough sword can eventually ignore the shortcomings of slashing weapons. Because piercing weapons' DT negation scales with damage bonuses and because crushing weapons' minimum DT is a multiplier of base damage, this should not generally occur.
However, the "bands" of applicability do grow as damage output rise. If everyone is doing 2x as much damage with their slashing, piercing, and crushing weapons, slashing weapons are dominant against higher DT than they are when they start out. Similarly, piercing weapons take over at a higher DT and hold that dominance for a larger band of DTs. Because there's no effective cap on DT, crushing weapons always have a place to shine assuming that some enemies will always have a DT that outstrips damage output.
JESawyer responded to Colddog 18 Jan
Doesn't the blast ability get less important once wiz characters begin to access "free" low-level damage-dealing spells? I presume it will have different advantages which low-level spells cannot offer. What would be possible implementations?
Blast scales with the weapon damage of the implement the wizard uses to generate it, so it should remain useful, damage-wise, even when lower-level spells become a less precious resource. Blast's area will also likely be of a unique (somewhat small) size that not many spells will duplicate.
JESawyer responded to Petrarch 18 Jan
What is your support for unarmed combat shaping up like? The idea of playing an unarmed karate master in most RPGs seems really appealing but I usually end up disappointed because your fists don't have stats or the ability pool is low.
Monks can use "normal" weapons but their default unequipped weapon state is different from other characters. I.e., their unarmed attacks have elevated stats that make them a viable (and attractive) alternative to using other weapons.
PE monks aren't quasi-Asian, though they are unarmed fighters and tend to wear light or no armor. They aren't considered exotic in the Dyrwood and other than their unarmed fighting techniques, they do not use special weapons.
Many of their special abilities are unlocked via mortification of the flesh, i.e. as they take incoming Stamina damage, they immediately convert a portion of it into a resource they can use to power things like stun attacks. Damage absorbed in this way does not influence Health and is a motivating factor for ability-oriented monk characters to wear lighter (or no) armor, though they can certainly be overpowered by heavily damaging attacks.
JESawyer responded to DarkLordRahl 21 Jan
Why do you feel that its bad game design to encourage someone to fight something for experience, but not to encourage skipping over something because facing it yeilds no benefit and wastes resources?
Because there are other ways to accomplish the ostensible goals (quests) that are not systemically rewarded. We can either systemically reward every action the player performs -- which typically results in some form of grinding, e.g. DX:HR hacking, and becomes an XP mess -- or we can view those different actions as means to content-specific rewards (what do you get out of the specific interaction in a specific instance) and systemically reward completion of the quests (and objectives within quests).
JESawyer responded to TrueWarriorPoet 22 Jan
Recently in the forums it sounded like the animators had their hands tied due to design decisions 4 combat animations. I'm worried combat is gonna be so simplistic & tedious & feel like grinding & not fun. Can u explain ur vision 4 how combat should flow?
They only way their hands are tied is logistically, i.e. they have a lot to do to support the breadth of what we want the characters to do in game. New actions have to be prioritized over variants of extant animations or we'll be sacrificing player functionality for aesthetic variation. I'm pretty confident we'll wind up with multiple standard attacks per weapon, but they still have to be prioritized behind new actions.
JESawyer responded to Melnorme 23 Jan
Isn't the new damage/armor system a "rock-paper-scissors" type thing? I thought you didn't like those.
No, because only one tactic is demonstrably inferior. In rock-paper-scissors, all tactics but one are inferior.
If you fight a fire giant in A/D&D, using fire is usually not a valid tactic. You don't have to use cold to beat one. You just can't use fire.
JESawyer responded to Hormalakh 23 Jan
Can you expand a little further on what you meant in regards to armor type vs. damage type, please? It is a little difficult to understand what is wrong with the previous system without some details. Thanks!
Hopefully this is a better description of the problems:
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63...tion-damage-vs-armor-and-a-tileset/?p=1303123
JESawyer responded to roastedostrich 23 Jan
You look very young and healthy for your age, tell us your secrets! Do you watch what you eat? What about workouts?
Thanks, but I think it's mostly the dim lighting of the video. Up close, I look like someone in his late 30s.
I don't eat meat (including fish), but otherwise I don't eat particularly well: a lot of candy, soda, and cheese. I'm getting over a sinus infection right now, but normally I bike to work three days a week, which works out to about 70 miles. Road season is starting up again, so I'll be doing longer rides when the days get longer. In the summer, I usually average 110 miles a week, but I'd like to bump that up closer to 150 this year.
JESawyer responded to christopherran 24 Jan
Hello Mr. Sawyer. I am a huge Fallout: New Vegas fan, I had a lot of fun playing through the game, I think you guys did a great job! I was wondering if there is some kind of "Behind the Scenes" type of thing for the game? maybe blogs, videos, books?
Thanks! We recorded a bunch of interview videos for F:NV and I think all of them wound up in the Collector's Edition. Some of them may also be on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlJttwoRP0s
JESawyer responded to Mirokunite 24 Jan
So the Norway cheese fire. Give us your thoughts?
It is a tragedy.
BTW, if you can find some gjetost (the defunct old name for brunost that is used in the US), it is excellent.
JESawyer responded to Melnorme 24 Jan
I've noticed you haven't really discussed Project Eternity's attributes (Strength, Dexterity, et al) in length. I'm beginning to wonder if they're going to be there at all.
There will be attributes. I would rather design the rest of our system and subsequently determine what attributes make sense/what they should affect than design attributes first.
JESawyer responded to Melnorme 24 Jan
Hey, Sawyer! Neverwinter Nights 2 is for sale on GOG now. Are you guys still getting royalties from this game, or did that deal collapse with Atari?
To be honest, I have no idea. Feargus is probably the best person to ask about that.
JESawyer responded to AgeCaves 25 Jan
Hello, Josh! Just a quick tiny baby question. For the HUD and Pip-Boy of Fallout: New Vegas, why did you guys choose the default colors amber, opposed to Fallout 3's Green/Blueish color? Was it to match the Mojave Wasteland color pallet?
Yes, I think Joe Sanabria, our lead artist, picked the amber color to match the overall palette.
JESawyer responded to jvempire 25 Jan
How long was the development time of Fallout New Vegas (from the start of the project to release)?
About 18 months.
JESawyer responded to Richie9999 26 Jan
Hey, something that I've wanted to know, what gun is the .357 magnum in FNV based on, the Single Action Army, or one of the many variants/knockoffs of it? Any specific one in particular?
It's essentially a Colt SAA, but I think the artist, Mitch Ahlswede, used a few different guns for reference.
JESawyer responded to Richie9999 29 Jan
I have another Fallout: New Vegas weapon question for you, what gun, if any, is the Hunting revolver and Ranger Sequoia based on?
They're based on the Magnum Research BFR with a little bit of the short-lived Bison Bull.
JESawyer responded to MikeGolf 29 Jan
Hey Josh can you help settle a little debate.In FNV was the Pyromaniac perk meant to be governed by the Explosives skill and not EW or is this a small oversight.
It was meant to be governed by EW because that's where the Flamer was, skill-wise. Also, early in development we didn't have a way to display OR conditionals for perks in-engine. Pyromaniac could have benefited from an Explosives OR EW requirement.
JESawyer responded to cacadookiepoop 30 Jan
What's the hunting rifle in FNV based on?
It's just based on Fallout 3's hunting rifle, which is pretty similar to old Winchester Model 70s.
JESawyer responded to MLoone 31 Jan
Do you get less questions now that people can't ask anonymously?
Yep.
JESawyer responded to Mirokunite 31 Jan
Now that FO:NV soundtrack is on iTunes do you get royalties for your three songs?
No. Those weren't done under any special contract.
JESawyer responded to Petrarch 3 Feb
At what point in the dev cycle do you generally realize what stuff isn't going to make it in, or that you need more time?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjH4s06XXQY
JESawyer responded to alexmac142035 3 Feb
In writing dialog, what is the order of priority in terms of information expressed to the player? (IE. Is plot stressed more than, say, characterization of the speaker?) Is there even a delineation at all or are all aspects ideally complementary?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYzhCYnDTAc
JESawyer responded to Formspring 5 Feb
What's your best trait?
Bloody Mess.
JESawyer responded to cacadookiepoop 6 Feb
Why is the engraving on A Light Shining in Darkness in Greek and not the Deseret alphabet?
Because John was originally authored in Greek and its soteriological concepts are wrapped in Hellenistic ideas (later expanded upon through Neoplatonic discourse).
JESawyer responded to HiverZ 6 Feb
Clarification needed. Will a combat focused character be able to master two or more different weapons to the same degree? In regards to the concept of switching weapons in combat to adjust for different circumstances and or enemies. Which i like, btw.
Yes. Weapon specialization-oriented Talents will be thematically grouped (e.g. Knight Weapons) rather than specific weapons or damage types.
JESawyer responded to Vieira1990 10 Feb
Meaningful choices and consequences. Reactive characters. Particular roles not forced into the player's character (e.g. the chosen one, the last hope). Are you guys still intending to deliver these features?
Yes.
JESawyer responded to RoobixCoob 10 Feb
Regarding the plasma defender from NV, was there any reason that it was so big? Like the handle jutting out of the hand big.
I thought that the Plasma Defender and many other EWs should feel oversized/bulky because it fit the general tone set by F3's EWs.
JESawyer responded to Richie9999 11 Feb
Mr. Sawyer, what's the Silenced .22 pistol in Fallout: New Vegas based on, some sort of Ruger .22?
Yeah, some sort of Ruger Mk. III variant.
JESawyer responded to Inertiax 11 Feb
We have not heard from tim cain in a while. What has he been up to PE wise?
Tim has been working on some of the basic abilities for the "non-core" classes as well as spell lists. Most of the initial work we did was on "classics" that people might expect when coming to a class. If you play a barbarian, you're probably going to expect to have some sort of rage-y ability. If you play a wizard, you're probably going to expect something resembling a magic missile. There don't need to be a ton of these things and they don't need to mechanically ape D&D, but we want them to be familiar enough to help orient a player at the start of the game.
We've started working on the more PE-world-specific class abilities and spells with other designers (e.g. Avellone and Fenstermaker) contributing ideas.
JESawyer responded to deuxhero 11 Feb
Who came up with the First Recon's "The last thing you never see" motto?
It was either Eric Fenstermaker or Roger Chang, I think.
JESawyer responded to Formspring 11 Feb
What was the first concert you attended?
I believe it was Pink Floyd at Camp Randall in Madison, WI in 1994. It was the Division Bell tour. I think their encore closed with Run Like Hell, though this was my favorite song of the evening:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOc79piZa-A
JESawyer responded to damiaen 11 Feb
Does a fully automatic, high ROF, low itemhealth/CND, high DPS, late-game 100 Guns-skill Pancor Jackhammer-derived shotty sound like a good weapon concept, or is it ostensibly in too much competition with the Riot Shotgun/other high ROF weapons?
It would have a lot of overlap with the Riot Shotgun and I think minor differences between the two (e.g. ammo capacity) would not be an issue frequently enough to fully differentiate them. The Pancor might make a good replacement for the Riot Shotgun.
Of course, in a mod, there's nothing necessarily wrong with having two weapons fill the same role. It's just something I try to avoid in core game design because I usually think the resources could be better used elsewhere.
JESawyer responded to TraderRager 12 Feb
What would have been easier to balance- a .50 MG two-shot break action Elephant Rifle, or M2-esque .50 MG Machine Gun?
Some sort of insanely huge break action .50 MG double rifle would probably be easier to balance.
JESawyer responded to TheQwinnar 15 Feb
Hey, Mr. Sawyer. Do you ever plan on attending PAX?
I'm not sure. For whatever reason, it's never come up as something I needed to do for work.
JESawyer responded to KevintheLemon 16 Feb
(Sorry if this is a repost) Hey Josh, do you know anything about Black Isle studio supposedly reopening and claiming to make a game called V13?
Other than what's already known by the public, I don't know anything more.
JESawyer responded to cacadookiepoop 17 Feb
Have you ever done any conlangs?
Not well-developed ones, no. We made a pass at some for Honest Hearts, but they were really just lightly hybridized languages with limited grammar developed for them.
JESawyer responded to LeoJSaravak 17 Feb
Did you intend for Joshua Graham fit with the classical greek 'tragic hero' archetype? I was arguing with someone about Graham today and I realized how much his ending in HH is tied to you choosing whether he experiences anagnorisis & catharsis or not.
Subconsciously, yes, but I didn't sit down and think "gonna make this dude a Greek tragic hero".
I knew that Joshua had to be in an unresolved state, moved on from his life with the Legion but in a state of denial about his current motives. Joshua's struggle is about what burns inside him -- light that illuminates or fire that consumes.
JESawyer responded to damiaen 18 Feb
How often are you bothered by the kinds of opinions or questions you see or hear out of the gaming community, especially in regards to your projects (eg, FNV:HH) & things you feel strongly about in the industry (eg, the primacy of bigoted points of view)?
Not really. The work I do is the most compelling medium I have to make any argument. If someone doesn't like it, I have to decide if I didn't make my argument well, if my position was flawed, or if the person is beyond convincing. There's always a way to respond based on those three conclusions.
As far as the opinions of people or gamers at large, I'm not usually bothered much by them because we're all (people) mostly terrible on any given day.
JESawyer responded to BenQNanke 18 Feb
It would be a better industry if developers made games like you and your team do. Thanks for having the right mindset. PS I finally got NV for pc, and I'm playing your mod. It's a blast.
Thanks. I'm glad you like it.
JESawyer responded to LurkerOfTheSky 18 Feb
How do you feel about games that go out of their way to fulfill male power fantasies (crush your enemies, hear the lamentation of their women etc.)?
I think there's room for games to fulfill a lot of different fantasies. I "get" the Conan-style fantasy but it doesn't have a ton of appeal for me, personally. Ultimately, I'd rather expand options available to gamers rather than suggest someone else's fantasy is a bad one. A single game's style isn't going to appeal to everyone, so I just try to find something that I and the target players are all going to appreciate.
JESawyer responded to RadekSmektala 19 Feb
So, this just happened: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xxmb1s_ac_videogames#.USQA9pG9KK0 Any comment on that? Thanks!
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xxmb1s_ac_videogames#.USQA9…
I can't comment on it, unfortunately.
JESawyer responded to lttibbles 27 Feb
When was your first experience with a P&P rpg, and what did you play?
I think it was in 1984 or 1985. I played Basic (red book) D&D with my friend Ryan. I don't remember what character I played, unfortunately. I mostly played Basic and Expert with Ryan for a long time. A few years later I started playing 1st Edition AD&D with some middle school dudes.
JESawyer responded to gabordomjan9 28 Feb
I had a debate about the Grimoier Slam. I've been told that "The idea that a wizard would use his most prized possession he/she/it is helpless without to slam big, ugly and green fuckers in the face is self-evidently ridiculous." Do you agree with this?
If grimoires were fragile objects, sure. They are not fragile objects. Grimoires are all enchanted capacitors of soul energy that happen to be made in the shape of a large book. Every time a wizard casts a spell, he or she gathers and channels soul energy through the grimoire before releasing it. Even without the wizard using it, a grimoire is a magic item.
If a wizard uses Grimoire Slam, he or she is not just swatting the target with the weight of a large book, but hitting the enemy with a magical capacitor. It happens faster than most spells are cast and, if it hits, can knock the enemy back. In a melee situation, that's why a wizard would use it.
It's also an optional class-restricted Talent, not a core class Ability. If you don't like the flavor of Grimoire Slam, don't buy it. You'll have spells you can cast with more traditional magic effects that could
JESawyer responded to Melnorme 3 Mar
A while ago you said on SA that PE on Expert/Path of the Damned would be "as difficult as IWD2". Do you stand by that comparison? If so, did you mean IWD2 with HoF mode, or vanilla IWD2? Is there another game you would compare PE to, difficulty-wise?
Icewind Dale 2 in Heart of Fury mode (though that could still vary in difficulty a lot depending on your party build). Yes, I'm still targeting that. With standard difficulty settings/modes, I'd like PE to be in the range of standard Icewind Dale 2 and Baldur's Gate 2.
JESawyer responded to thesisko 3 Mar
What is your favorite Pink Floyd album?
I think it's either The Wall or The Final Cut.
Pink Floyd - Is There Anybody Out There?
When the Tigers Broke Free
Pink Floyd Final Cut (11) - The Final Cut
JESawyer responded to anek5 4 Mar
Someone asked an interesting question about PE on the forum: "Are we going to see the classic power evolution where a mage starts out as relativly weak and then becomes powerfull were as the fighter goes the other way around?" Care to comment?
I think I may have answered this in the past, but no, that isn't the intention. I'd like all of the classes to have good and reliable utility at the beginning of the game that increases at an even pace as the levels rise.
JESawyer responded to adriandostanic 6 Mar
I will be Honest Fallout 3 Was my first fallout game, and then later on i decided to play the originals and i always wondered why is the game SOOOO Hard? I mean i get old school games i like them as the second person but Fallout 1 was hard how come?
I didn't work on the original Fallout or Fallout 2, but I enjoyed both of them a lot as a player. I think the original Fallout is just representative of the challenge level that RPGs were made at during that era. I grew up playing the original Bard's Tale, Ultima, Wizardry, and Phantasie games as well as the SSI "gold box" series, so that was the type of difficulty I was accustomed to (and still enjoy).
JESawyer responded to jackhorrorshow 10 Mar
So as I understand it, you went with "not-BG" as pitch for P:E, because it felt like a surer bet. Now seeing that T:ToN is somehow getting even more pledges than P:E do any of you guys feel a twinge of "dang, should have went full Torment"?
That wasn't our reasoning, but no. I never doubted that a Torment successor KS would meet even a very high goal.
JESawyer responded to Master33 10 Mar
How do you feel about the first video from Tropes Vs Women? What do you think of the assertion that it's too "basic" and lacks critical insight?
It's the first in a series, so I expected it to be pretty basic. What critical insight is necessary that isn't obvious? Allow for a larger representation of female characters to have some agency and power in their stories. Don't make all female characters in your games passive objects. If you are updating games in which female characters had no agency and were passive objects, consider a variety of modifications (if possible) to give those characters more agency.
It seems like simple stuff to me, but if people don't agree there's a problem with the trend of these representations to begin with, it's hard to move a conversation forward.
JESawyer responded to jvempire 12 Mar
do we have free will? [3]
I don't know and I don't care.
JESawyer responded to Formspring 12 Mar
Which magazine do you want to be on the cover of?
High Times.
JESawyer responded to DevastatinDave 15 Mar
What would you do if Torment beats PE in money earned?
Spin my beanie propeller and make an "AWOOOOOGA" noise.
JESawyer responded to SacredPath82 15 Mar
are your retarded answers over the last few days a retort to retarded questions, or are there any internal causes?
1. Whether I have free will or not has no impact on how I live my life, so I don't care if I do or not.
2. High Times and pot culture are hilarious to me and I laugh every time I see that magazine. Though I have never smoked marijuana in my life, I would want to be on the cover of High Times more than any other, preferably holding huge dank nugs.
3. What am I supposed to do if another game Kickstarter exceeds PE's funding? Cry? Ritually disembowel myself?
JESawyer responded to Richie9999 16 Mar
Are you planning on exporting your formspring responses and possibly posting them elsewhere?
I plan to, yes.
JESawyer responded to KevintheLemon 18 Mar
What other website can we ask you questions and follow you? (That you currently use)
http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/
JESawyer responded to Asakiro 22 Mar
Why does the Temple of Trials exist?
I don't think I can give a definitive answer on that. Feargus may be a better person for that question.
JESawyer responded to thomaswalpole 26 Mar
Hi Joshua, Recently I played through IW2 and Fallout NV. I noticed in these games that there were many options for creating lots of strange character combinations via perks or items. Will this continue in Project Eternity ?
Yes, hopefully. If people want to play very traditional fantasy RPG characters, we have a lot options for that, but I think a lot of players want to make something that is unique or at least unusual. We will try to support that as much as possible.
JESawyer responded to Formspring 27 Mar
What's the oldest piece of clothing you still wear?
I've lost so much weight in the last 15 years that I don't have anything all that old. The oldest is probably a duck shirt from Björk's Vespertine tour in 2003.
JESawyer responded to KevintheLemon 20h
When exactly does Arcade say "It's a thing...a science thing. It hurts robots. Nevermind." It's sounds like he's referring to emp I just never heard him say it before.
It's a response he gives to a player who chooses a low IN (I think) reply when talking to him about EMPs. I think it comes up when he's talking about ED-E.
Category:Out-of-game source texts