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Aenra Offline OP
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I believe i have only posted once here, complaining about the lack of night/day implementation, despite the Kickstarter goal reaching. I have now come to believe i was being a touch unfair, in the sense of seeing only one side of the coin.

Having more time on my hands recently, i have given Wasteland 2 a try. And you know, it got me thinking, and in ways aside the obvious comparisons i was bound to make (both being Kickstarted, both having some funding a priori to it, and so on):

- You did not have the equivalent "weight" to bring into the PR/expectations. Though something tells me you do now smile
- You could not be expected (realistically, not being offensive here, on the contrary) to be able to gather an analogous momentum, or more concretely, a similar pledge amount
- Quite possibly, your team was not "as" seasoned in the production of something this costly as theirs was. Saying "as" considering the Inxile guys had pleeeenty of experience in a giant back then (Interplay). They have all had their baptism in fire, and multiple times
- You have had, and still do, a certain problem on story richness/presentation
- Your wages are Belgium wages, not backwater County South
- And most importantly, you did not use a premade engine that is easy to handle to boot. You went and made your own, despite the cost this had had, thinking ahead

And still, you brought D:OS to be where it is, and where it is..is miles, miles and miles ahead of anything i have touched the last..i fucking loved it. Abso-fucking-lutely amazing, well done! Could not believe this was the same company that once did DD..and after having considered the above, and realising how much harder it must have been for you, let alone when remembering the issues you faced in the past with previous publishers..

Congratulations, you should be damn proud!
And my apologies once more for that first post. While i still fear disregarding promises can be a bad premise, i need to keep in mind that we are humans, and as such exceptions need be made

Looking forward to the next one!

Last edited by Aenra; 21/01/15 08:50 PM. Reason: syntax, grammar and all the usual suspects

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I am joining to this....I want to express a lot of respect to Aenra because this person have quite enough courage to admit his\hers fault
my requests to the game,when release day came I and many other people started to compare what was in game and that wasn`t in for various reasons
But almost none of us weren`t interested how Kirill Pokrovsky is feeling and how Larian were feeling after this crazy and busy development process I think that it`s realy shame-(
And I want to apologise too, for being too selfish sometimes.

Last edited by James 540; 22/01/15 01:55 AM.

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I am pretty sure that Larian would rather want to hear criticism than X amount of people praising them. In the end, you only ever improve by listening to (valid) criticism. And from the blog posts it's clear Larian wanted to do so much more with D:OS. I am sure in the future they are going to show us what they can do with an engine they know how to work with from the start.

Game development is always a bunch of compromises and hopefully a fun game at the end. So to me this KS was a success wink I have 75 hours into D:OS and that's some serious value for my meager pledge and however much I lament some problems with writing and mood setting in the end I had tons of fun beating D:OS and am still reserving my 2nd real play-through for that "difficulty" patch wink

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I dunno man, if you get on swen's wrong side you get soul forged with a chicken.

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Originally Posted by eRe4s3r
you only ever improve by listening to (valid) criticism.

A little bit of praise now and then couldn't hurt to compensate for some of the not-so-valid criticism.

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Originally Posted by Raze

A little bit of praise now and then couldn't hurt to compensate for some of the not-so-valid criticism.


How about this: [Linked Image]

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Originally Posted by Cattletech
I dunno man, if you get on swen's wrong side you get soul forged with a chicken.

He soul forged me to my keyboard. It's write or die out here! ;-)


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Returning were as tedious as go o'er.
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So you must use your keyboard day and night ?
Typing like a sleeping zombie or die, right ?
Typing, typing, endless typing and no time to read the clock ...
When you're soul forged with the Lord of the Anti-Writers Block !

A Hug makes everything better
To write a long looong letter



On 7th of february 2015 : I start a new adventure in the Divinity world of Original Sin,
it's a Fantastic Freaking Fabulous Funny ... it's my All Time Favorite One !
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Originally Posted by Macbeth
Originally Posted by Cattletech
I dunno man, if you get on swen's wrong side you get soul forged with a chicken.

He soul forged me to my keyboard. It's write or die out here! ;-)


Could've been worse - at least you're not forged to a touch screen!

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Originally Posted by Aenra
I believe i have only posted once here, complaining about the lack of night/day implementation, despite the Kickstarter goal reaching. I have now come to believe i was being a touch unfair, in the sense of seeing only one side of the coin.

Having more time on my hands recently, i have given Wasteland 2 a try. And you know, it got me thinking, and in ways aside the obvious comparisons i was bound to make (both being Kickstarted, both having some funding a priori to it, and so on)

Umm... aahhh...

Oh boy...

I really hate to do this to you but, it needs to be done. Talking about "apologies"... You will probably need to offer a few more.


1. Inxile did not have any apriori funding or development done on W2, as D:OS did.



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- You did not have the equivalent "weight" to bring into the PR/expectations. Though something tells me you do now smile

Its funny when you think about it. Fargo is clearly a talent for PR, yet it turned out that his game is mostly hype and PR, while D:OS turned out to be a great game through and through and sold much better and won more awards.

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- You could not be expected (realistically, not being offensive here, on the contrary) to be able to gather an analogous momentum, or more concretely, a similar pledge amount

Thats true but Larian was not shooting for the same amount. Not even the same starting amount. Because Larian funded the game themselves and only needed additional funds to make it better.

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- Quite possibly, your team was not "as" seasoned in the production of something this costly as theirs was.

UH! AH! Arrghh... UUUHHH... :lol:


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Saying "as" considering the Inxile guys had pleeeenty of experience in a giant back then (Interplay). They have all had their baptism in fire, and multiple times

There was literally no one left in Inxile from Interplay days. And dont even get me started on that. I was there when it was falling apart. Its a... very long story.

Only later on, when they started doing kickstarter for new Torment they brought in a few devs that actually worked in Interplay, Colin McComb - an actual designer, and Adam Heine who only worked in QA there for a short time.


Fargo was never a developer, just a producer and CEO. And he had luck to aim at a whole niche market that nobody catered to for years and years. I highly doubt they will ever repeat success of two kickstarters built on nostalgia for most famous games of that era, Fallouts, Wasteland and Planescape Torment. Their whole team are young devs who NEVER worked on a single cRPG, but did a few mobile games and that actiony failure called Hunted.. or something. Fargo refuses to talk about it to this day.

On the other hand most of Larian team have been working together for years and years, and they made the game on their own engine which they knew very well inside out.


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- You have had, and still do, a certain problem on story richness/presentation

Smaller stuff, nothing near as bad as InXile Wasteland team did.
Richness is certainly not a problem. And lets not forget that the chosen setting and style informs writing to a large extent.


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- Your wages are Belgium wages, not backwater County South

I wont even ask what this means. inxile is stationed in California...

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- And most importantly, you did not use a premade engine that is easy to handle to boot. You went and made your own, despite the cost this had had, thinking ahead..

Easy to handle?

:lol:

Inxile postponed the game several times, did not talk to anyone for weeks when they first failed to release the beta on time, even though people kept asking what the hell is going on... The first beta was actually some alpha version that was falling apart at every seam. Almsot completely unplayable.

The game has so many bugs and lousily designed parts that they are still patching it and trying to improve all of it so it looks like a full game. Larian has and is patching the game too but in much lesser extent.
Unity turned out to be not that great as many thought it would be.


And what they managed to churn out in the end looks like a shovel compared to orbital lasers of D:OS in both art quality and complexity of mechanics and writing and everything else.
In my humble opinion thats not such an overstatement as it may look at first.


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And still, you brought D:OS to be where it is, and where it is..is miles, miles and miles ahead of anything i have touched the last..i fucking loved it. Abso-fucking-lutely amazing, well done!

This... is true.




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Aenra Offline OP
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^^



what we agree on aside;

Unity is not exactly applied chaos theory math level. Sorry. If they had issues with it, more than happy to take your word for it, not Unity's fault. What faults it has, they lie not in ease of use/familiarisation. Especially for a team that has had prior knowledge of it. It is easy/easier to handle than most. They had only to "fight the engine", easier than most as it is. Lar had to make it first too. I find my point still stands ^^

I am aware of Interplay's story, pre and post Herve's acquisition, Fargo's faults and "direction shifts" included. I still think it was a feat for Larian. Because fact does remain, neither in sales nor income are they, or have they been, anywhere near old time Interplay's levels. Respectively. The friction of everyday management/production at such levels does bestow a different level of experience and expertise. With all the dangers inherent.. so not having people amongst them (unlike InXile) that had reached such a level yet, while still managing to produce and showcase (important) -this- game is a feat to me.

Will remind you that hourly minimum wage between Belgium and California is at or over 3 bucks a difference. That is the hourly. And on minimum. Goes up disproportionately. Won't even go on insurance. Or cost of life. Two buck meals in Belgium? Find me one. Will also remind you that movies aside, Cali features more, and a lot worse, than endless golden beaches and upper class condos. Lastly, we do call it hyperbole. For a reason smile



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Yes i joined in 2014. Amazing isnt it. Must mean something significant to you.


Not sure why you put the rest in spoilers.

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Unity is not exactly applied chaos theory math level. Sorry. If they had issues with it, more than happy to take your word for it, not Unity's fault.


You say this as a renowned Unity expert and close confidant of InXile dev team, right? You know what and how they adapted of it to their game?

And then all the barely functioning features and problems are Inxile fault? Man... i thought they were all geniuses in game design, collecting exp points since Interplay days.
Maybe you should go and help them.

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Especially for a team that has had prior knowledge of it.

Which team would that be?

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It is easy/easier to handle than most.

Well by golly! Run and tell them and Obsidian so! They must be fucking things up royally.
And they could have fixed all their problems with it and adapting it to a "old school" rpg game just IF THEY ASKED YOU.

Unlike Larian who, fools that they are, went and made their own engine... right?
They could have just bought Unity and hired you!

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I still think it was a feat for Larian.

it is but not for those reasons.


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Because fact does remain, neither in sales nor income are they, or have they been, anywhere near old time Interplay's levels.


:lol: what does Interplay have to do with inXile?

You said you were aware of something?



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The friction of everyday management/production at such levels does bestow a different level of experience and expertise.

Oh yeah....

Look pal, i see that you think this is a compliment of some kind... but you are actually calling Larian studios less experienced and knowledgeable of their own engine that they made with their own hands - then inXile who never made a rpg and made mobile games for living and who made a game in a bought engine - that btw, looks and plays like shit.


I mean, its no biggie to me. I just thought to warn you that instead of apologizing you are practically insulting them even more.

Not that they care much, of course... but... whatever.



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Aenra Offline OP
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It was just a joke Hiver..the Balkanian..would have thought you'd have recognised where one usually gets to come across that particular type of "joined" comment. My apologies for the confusion.

hint: before i started teaching, i was an editor in a publishing house. You'd be surprised how important working with the sharks, at their level, is for getting a feel of what making money out of art entails. How lacking said "friction", could and has, more than you can know unless we are colleagues[?], caused many a good writer to vanish. So when i say here that despite never being ""there"" (to my mind at least) they still fared even better than those who HAVE, i would personally tend to regard it as a further compliment. Partly my age, partly my tone in writing, i would have thought it beyond obvious that had i not honestly cared, i just..would not have bothered smile

Regardless, my original purpose was to apologise. Hopefully in a sufficient manner..
Whatever comparisons i may have brought up, they were only referenced here in light of how/what made me thinking a tad further than i would have been expected to perhaps.
Additionally, although perhaps not evidently (my fault), what value i give to D:OS i give it sans any juxtaposition/association; i fucking loved it because i just did. On its own rights. Just to clarify.

I like conversing, but i feel i would only be helping in further derailing this by continuing.


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I needed to correct you on one thing.
Brian Fargo was a developer once (of sorts).
He designed the dungeons in The Bard's Tale.

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Corrections accepted.

You will therefore accept a correction about balkanians. I am not from Bulgary.
You might think its some cheap shot you can make but it just shows ignorance.

Im sure Larians took the apology as well meaning, even poorly worded as it was.



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And I can correct you Hiver because the name is not Bulgary it is Bulgaria.

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By all means. Bulgaria it is.


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@Hiver oh and dude sorry if I sounded like I was attacking you that was not my intention.

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No. Not at all. It was quite an ordinary sentence. And correct too.

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Originally Posted by eRe4s3r
I am pretty sure that Larian would rather want to hear criticism than X amount of people praising them. In the end, you only ever improve by listening to (valid) criticism.

How very untrue.
From personal experiences I know I still gladly work on a mod that's deemed "standard use" for the game and I get thanked for often, while I completely abandoned work on another project where all my hard work just got thrash-talk.
Developers also consist of human people, just hearing negatives about you tends to seriously depress one, and that can lead to really bad results down the line.

I'm pretty sure being Game Developer is an own little personal hell.
And people like you aren't helping with it...

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