Iron Tower Studio’s lead developer Vince D. Weller was kind enough to answer some questions about his upcoming tradition-minded RPG “Age of Decadence” in an email interview.
He talks about his own game, the importance of choice and story, and how his studio’s approach to storytelling contrasts with that of big name developers like Bethesda and Oblivion.
Down the Wall: First, could you introduce yourself and your team?
Vince: 5-people team: designer, programmer, artist, modeler, animator. My name is Vince, I’m the designer.
DtW: “Age of Decadence” has a very interesting setting. How did you decide on that?
Vince: We wanted to make something different. High and generic “medieval” fantasy has been done to death and then some. We also wanted to go with a “fall of an empire” scenario for storytelling reasons and the Roman Empire is an obvious choice there, both as an inspiration and as a reference. The rest was influenced by some Michael Moorcock’s works (city of Quarzhasaat) and Lovecraft’s stories.
DtW: What games exemplify the non-linear story that you are going for with “Age of Decadence”? What’s your inspiration?
Vince: Prelude to Darkness, a great indie RPG that nobody’s heard of, and Arcanum, a Troika RPG masterpiece.
DtW: How does “Age of Decadence” tell its story differently than modern RPGs like those of Bethesda and BioWare?
Vince: Bethesda specializes in “do whatever you want” sandbox RPGs. The story is the weakest aspect there by definition, and Bethesda’s belief that “you’ve got to accept that the whole of your writing - characters, narrative, everything - is simply not as important as the gameplay” doesn’t help.
Bioware is the storyteller; they are the Ying to Bethesda’s Yang. Who cares about gameplay? Shut up and listen to the story. Here is an interesting article where one of the good doctors explains Bioware storytelling mechanics:
“…all BioWare stories orbit around the player, who is the center of everything. He even mentioned BioWare believed in the concept of games providing a sort of fantasy fulfillment, allowing you to become your secret dreams and desires.”
Troika, may it rest in peace, focused on the choices and consequences.
Let me give you an idea of what made Troika great. Here are two scenarios, one featuring a regular game idea, and one featuring a Troika game idea:
Regular game idea:
What the player experiences: You were told that the wealthy owner of the Inn can help you find the buried treasure. You walk into a bar. The bartender greets you with a fine “Hello Stranger! Come and enjoy a pint of ale on the house!” You will notice that you when you click on anyone else in the room you get a generic “good day sir”, you certainly can’t attack anyone, and if the game let you fire off an explosive spell, it wouldn’t do any damage in room and no one would notice that anything had happened. You talk to the inn keeper and he says if you give him 10 gold, he’ll give you the map to the secret treasure! So you do.
What the developers were thinking: Well, this has to be this way, right? I mean, the bartender has knowledge that keeps the quest moving along so we can’t kill him. And what if we attacked someone else in the corner of the bar? We couldn’t have that because it would look strange if the people just sat there! And I mean, c’mon, if you can kill this guy, wouldn’t that mean you can kill the others too? Oh plus, our publisher informed us yesterday that we have to take out all the kids in the game because we can’t sell the game in Germany if it has kid killing. Yeah….. killing people in a friendly town is out of the question.
Troika game:
What the player experiences: You walk into a bar. The bartender greets you with a fine “Hello Stranger! Come and enjoy a pint of ale on the house!” At this point, you shoot an arrow through his neck…. he drops dead, the bar maid and most of the patrons freak out and run for the door… You laugh maniacally until you notice some guy in the corner (who happens to be the bartenders’ brother in law enjoying a pint himself) unsheathing his vorpal sword and coming after you with bloody vengeance in his eyes… You kill him too and take his sword. You search the inn and find a key underneath a bottle of whiskey behind the bar. The key opens a lockbox upstairs in his room where you find a map.
What Troika was thinking: Hey, what if I want to shoot the bartender? Yeah, I hate those stereo-typical jolly fat bartender guys. It’ll be more trouble, but we’ll make sure you can get the map some how. For the people in the room, we’ll have them check against your faction and skills, if you attack anyone, they will determine if they are scared, hostile, or unmoved by your actions. If they are scared they’ll run, hostile they’ll attack, and unmoved they will just sit there drinking a beer while all hell breaks loose. Yeah, we should put at least on guy in the bar who’s tough as nails. The tough quiet dude who calmly drinks his beer… The guy you DO NOT want to mess with. Yeah, and if you kill anyone in this inn, the cops in town will attack you on sight. The more neutral shopkeepers will still sell to you, but they will jack the prices up because even they think you are a cold blooded killer.
And then we have Obsidian, but like a college kid, they are still in the experimenting and sleeping with everyone phase. KOTOR 2 was promising. It was a more mature game than the original and it didn’t shove the storytelling in your face. NWN2, on the other hand, tried to suffocate you with a storytelling pillow. Mask of the Betrayer was a fantastic, original, and non-linear game, but the press butchered it because the game tried to make the dumbfucks think. I’m curious to see what Obsidian will do with that spy game.
Also, coudn’t help but notice this lovely quote:
“If you want people to follow your plot,” Ken Levine told the audience, “it has to be really f***ing stupid.”
His words weren’t exactly eloquent, but the creative director and co-founder of BioShock developer 2K Boston got his point across: video games stories aren’t valued very highly. “The bad news is, for storytellers, nobody cares about your stupid story,” Levine said during a packed session at the recent Game Developer Conference in San Francisco.
Where do we stand? We picked up Troika’s ball because somebody has to. While we lack Troika’s talent, we have enthusiasm, so hopefully that counts for something.
DtW: Why is player choice important to you?
Vince: Because that’s what role-playing is all about. An RPG without choices is an adventure game with stats, and since we’re making an RPG…
DtW: How do you achieve player choice? How does that goal influence the narrative?
Vince: I assume the first question should be read as “how do you insert a choice into a story without breaking it?”. The answer is by providing multiple solutions and story arcs, which, by the way, is more logical and interesting than set-in-stone events.
Let’s take “The Witcher” as an example. For storytelling reasons your character is arrested when he tries to enter the city and thrown in jail. In the jail your character is asked to kill a creature in the sewers where he meets an important NPC. That’s the drama- and twist-filled story. It works great in a book format where the reader is following adventures of the main character, but it’s too restrictive in a game where the player IS the main character.
A better design would have been to offer an alternative. Allow the witcher to enter the city via the sewers (after fighting the guards and escaping or after being warned about the ambush as a reward for developing relationship with the villagers) and then run into the above mentioned NPC who will offer you to join him to kill the creature. As you can see, it’s still the same overall story and direction, and the alternative doesn’t require new art assets and tons of development time. It reuses the same situations - the arrest, the creature in the sewers, the knight NPC, the same villagers, and the same sewers, but suddenly you get an important choice instead of a forced situation that you are unable to avoid.
That’s our design “philosophy”, for the lack of a better word.
DtW: How do you get the player involved in telling the story of “Age of Decadence”? Why is player involvement important?
Vince: Because that’s his or her story, not mine. I build the framework and lay down the paths and options, set reasons, motivations, perceptions. The rest is up to you, the player. You pick your path, you decide what to do, how, and why, and you even pick your enemies. There is no designated evil boss dude to kill in order to save the world, but there are plenty of people to piss off who will gladly put you on their shit list. I understand that it won’t appeal to everyone, of course, but they don’t call indie RPGs a niche market for nothing.
DtW: “Age of Decadence” is a huge world with multiple endings and over a hundred quests. How much of the game’s story can a player see on one run-through? How does this compare to other mediums for storytelling?
Vince: No more than 60%. How does it compare? Well, many companies and publishers believe that most people will play a game only once, so they focus on making that single playthrough as memorable as possible, without worrying about replay value. Consider Knights of the Old Republic. First, the “OMG! I’m Revan!” surprise works only once and it tends to overshadow the replays. Second, there isn’t much to replay (unless you really love the story and want to experience exactly the same thing again). Keep in mind, we aren’t talking about the overall quality of the game here, we are talking about the replay value.
We designed the game with replayability in mind. You can replay the game 3-4 times taking different paths, discovering different things, arriving to different conclusions. Almost like playing several different games within the same story arc. Needless to say, we can’t rely on twists and surprises. Instead we focus on the player’s perspective, different ways to progress, and different storylines to follow.
DtW: “Age of Decadence” sounds like a lot of work. Why is it worth it? What drives you to do it?
Vince: What drives us? A lot of things. Riches, glory, possible world domination, but mostly the chicks. I mean, party members of the female persuasion. Everyone knows that girls can’t get enough of indie RPG developers, right? RIGHT?
DtW: Finally, how important is story to game design, for any genre?
Vince: Very important, obviously. Games of all genres can benefit from having a good story, including shooters and real-time strategy games.
Choice and consequence a RPG does make
Hes right story is fundamental to games also choice and consequence based gameplay affects replay value for the better, hence why I find myself coming back to play fallout 1/2 arcanum and to lesser extents planescape torment and baldurs gate 2.
While I find Bethesda games to great amazing for what they are, I agree that a lot more time could be put into things like story, choice, and dialogue.
For example, when Martin says he needs the blood of a Daedra Prince…why does it have to be an artifact?? Theres a good chance I had to kill a lot of people and/or monsters to get the thing and now I have to give it up?!
A better situation would be: After loading the Shivering Isles, put saving the Empire on hold while I make a jaunt over to Sheogorath’s realm and run through his quests real quick. Stab Jyggylag in the face a few times with a rusty iron short sword I picked up on the cheap, then head back over to Cyrodil and give Martin the blood he requires.
Granted, if you dont have the expansion, you can’t do that. But I do have the expansion.
Is this guy really selling it? Bethesda and Bioware are AA devs who present AA games. I don’t get how his marketing strategy is simply to troll on them and mention how great troika was. His amateurish downgrade studio ( no offence meant, it’s his first game and it doesn’t look good) shouldn’t be mentioned next to the 3 for christ’s sake. Allright, so Bioware games suck ( as he says over and over again in every interview) : Can he make it better? NO. “Vince” should tone down his ego until he actually shows something half decent. I don’t get why this guy thinks he’s some kind of demigod of game development. Oblivion had it’s flaws but it was a great game, even if it didn’t fit into some nerdish deffinition of “what is an rpg”. The fact that this guy thinks he can fart something better than it makes my head turn.
What a great interview, I’m really impressed with this guy, he seems to have the right idea about RPGs in general. He’s right about Troika, they were probably one of the the most talented developers of all time and Arcanum remains my favourite CRPG ever (alongside P:ST.) If Age of Decadence has half the ambition and originality that Arcanum had, then this could be an incredible game. I’ve seen the videos of Age of Decadence and I’m pretty impressed by the Fallout-esque combat and the art direction. If he produces the Choices and Consequences that he is promising then this is shaping up to be a great Indie release.
As for Bethesda and Oblivion, well that game was one of the most dumbed down, idiot proof, shallow and lifeless “RPG”s (if you can call it that) that I’ve ever played. Morrowind wasn’t much better but at least the world was interesting, OB didn’t even manage that. Bioware produce some pretty good games (I liked KOTOR, BG2 and Mass Effect) but their writing leaves something to be desired. Obsidian don’t seem to know what they want and I’m neither looking forward to, nor dreading Alpha protocol or Aliens.
Anyway nice interview and I’m looking forward to Age of Decadence despite the fact I’ve only known its existence for a month :P.
“Allright, so Bioware games suck ( as he says over and over again in every interview)”
I’ve never claimed that Bioware makes bad games. I’ve always had a good relationship with Bioware and did several interviews with them.
If you are unable to understand a point one makes, you shouldn’t jump to stupid conclusions.
“Oblivion had it’s flaws but it was a great game, even if it didn’t fit into some nerdish deffinition of “what is an rpg”.”
That’s the least of Oblivion flaws. It failed on pretty much every level, but did phenomenally well in the hype department.
Well, I suspect that nobody who said that Oblivion was “extremely enjoyable” meant the actual game by Bethesda, but that game + about as much (at the very least) mods, some of them changing gameplay VERY drastically.
Admit it, unless you are very indiscriminate, vanilla Oblivion sucked… in the long run, at least, after initial ‘Oh, shiny!’ impressions ran out, and numerous flaws became more and more apparent. (And I’m not even touching storyline and lack of choices) Even graphics were NOT ‘top-notch’, due to horrible blotchy distant LOD textures (quickly fixed by… right, modders), boring (save a few places) landscapes, etc.
@ Barrabas
As for ““Vince” should tone down his ego until he actually shows something half decent.” - well, that’s what butthurt crappy writers reply to every critical review. And their few, but rabid fanboys.
However, one thing for certain - you can be an expert in something without actually producing it.
That goes for wine-testers (they don’t have to be brewers, you know), for film and movie critics… and, right, video game critics.
Being a good, informed critic may help you greatly when actually attempting to make something you usually criticize, right, but it’s not required.
So, he has every right to criticize it. As you for criticizing him for criticizing Bethesda, but it leave you open for me criticizing you for criticizing him for criticizing Bethesda :P.
This is a very good commentary on storytelling in RPGs. I happen to agree with Vince about the kind of narrative flexibility that makes RPGs fun to play. I’m really looking forward to AoD and future projects of Iron Tower.
The ladies love the RPG developers…
Barrabas should tone down his ego until he has anything to show for himself.(no offence meant, it’s just that his opinon is stupid and shouldn’t be posted online to waste anyone’s time reading it)
Hey, I liked Oblivion and I just don’t see where this bloke is coming from when in interviews he claims fps players are “retards” and Oblivion is the epitome of shitdom. Who the fuck does he thinks he is? I mean, his game doesn’t have half the charm of Oblivion.His art hurts the eyes, the writing could be summarized as “Miss Rappaport’s nightmare”, and all the game seems to be just about a poorly done rehash of Arcanun and Fallout, without the qualities of neither. It’s like a 10 year old kid playing a toy guitar and claiming Jimi Hendrix sucks. It’s ridiculous.
Oblivion wasn’t the second coming of christ, I agree… but then again, what’s up with Vince’s “Crusade” against it? Doesn’t he have something better to do? Like maybe make a good game ( It doesn’t seem he is trying too hard, does it?)?
@Barrabas. Erm hardly. Continuing the analogy to music, Iron Tower Studios is the equivalent of a really pissed off unsigned Jazz Fusion band who hates the fact that all the talentless assholes in the pop industry, who suck, are earning loads of money based on looks rather than substance. (Oblivion)
You made me LMAO, when you said his writing was awful. What about Oblivion’s?
“I saw a Mudcrab, the other day, nasty creatures.”
“Yes, I avoid them wherever I can.”
Wow great writing there mate. Truly OB is an inspiration to us all!
The main quest is the most cliché horrible mess I’ve ever seen, I mean did someone actually write that?! If so he\she is one talentless writer.
The AoD art is great, its Roman inspired and doesn’t rip off the LoTR films like OB. If you don’t believe me, go compare the Elven Armour in OB with the Elf Army’s armour in Fellowship of the Ring. It’s basically plagiarism. Here check this link out: http://www.alleycatscratch.com/lotr/Exhibit/Travel/Lyric/elf_armor_front_top_fg.jpg
As for you whining about AoD being crappy, then you go make an Indie game based on the Torque Engine without the limitless funds of Zenimax Media. Even so, Bethesda still managed to produce a mediocre game even with that all that money.
I still keep the kid with a toy guitar analogy. I frankly don’t see why this mess would be the equivalent of Ornette Coleman and his pals.
And for christ’s sake, Oblivion is a sandbox game ( a great one as well). You are not gonna tell me Daggerfall and Morrowind were well written as well will ya? They are not meant to be well written. They are too non-linear to have a deep story structure, and just too fucking big to have every quest and character being deep.
In AOD’s case it’s different. It’s a game that like Fallout and Arcanum, will try to sell itself on the setting and creative writing. I don’t see neither. It utterly fails on both aspects. The roleplaying is there, but so what?
Come on, just tell me you saw a character more interesting than Uriel Septim ( wich I agree is ridiculously generic) or some quest that’s better than the dark brotherhood in AOD so far ( in the videos, articles, “let’s play” and etc). Go ahead, I want examples. Who fucking cares if you can solve the quest in 5 different ways if it’s a boring ( and ugly) shitfest?
And you know, I might as well try to make an indie game. I mean, if there are tards looking forward for this…might as well spend a couple hundred dollars on torque and recruit a kid who knows how to spell words properly and other who has a modicum of skill with digital art. This would be simply beaten.
For today’s first exhibit, I present to the audience Exhibit A..
His name is Barrabas. He repesents bethesda’s target audience.
Any of you out there who are dissatisfied with where RPG’s are headed in the current era, go ahead and blame it on people like him.
He looks like just the kind of… slow person who would enjoy a insubstantive non-RPG like oblivious.
I think it’s pretty clear why Barrabas “doesn’t see why this mess would be the equivalent of Ornette Coleman and his pals”. Fallout was a sandbox game, just like Oblivion, but, unlike the latter, it managed to deliver very good quality writing. Daggerfall ws a sandbox game, just like Oblivion, but, unlike the latter, it managed to deliver an interesting rewarding gaming experience. Arcanum was a sandbox game, much closer to Oblivion than Fallout was, and its writing, even with its highs and lows, is one of the best I’ve EVER seen in any game outside Torment.
Barrabas, you don’t see a setting and creative writing in Age of Decadence? Give me an example please. Let’s see you backing your baseless arguments up.
About examples, Antidas is much more interesting than Uriel. And so is the lieder of the raiders. The first vignette is very interesting, what with all the actions and all. But so seems to be (we’re still in the middle of that) dealing with the raiders. Pretty much everything that was shown in the “let’s play” thread is more interesting that the Dark Brotherhood questline (which sucked for the most part, despite being less sucky that the rest of the game), PRECISELY because there are consequences for our actions. You can’t see that, right? Don’t feel bad, this game is just not for you. Go play whatever else you like playing and stop complaining about things you can’t understand. Or am I being too harsh here and jumping to conclusions? I don’t think so, seeing how much of a trollfest your comments are
Barrabas reminds me of Jedi_Learner.
“Barrabas: And for christ’s sake, Oblivion is a sandbox game ( a great one as well). You are not gonna tell me Daggerfall and Morrowind were well written as well will ya? They are not meant to be well written. They are too non-linear to have a deep story structure, and just too fucking big to have every quest and character being deep.”
Daggerfall was linear? You are a clueless kid, Barrabas.
http://www.uesp.net/dagger/hints/walkthro.shtml
Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to read it as your comprehension problems are obvious. Just take a look at the main quest chart. While DF’s random quests were generic, the main quest was very well written, had great characters like the King of Worms (back when he was cool), plenty of depth, and quite a few meaningful endings.
“Barrabas: I don’t see neither. It utterly fails on both aspects.”
If you say so. You are clearly an expert of video games and your refined taste adds a lot of weight to your, uh, arguments.
“Barrabas: The roleplaying is there, but so what?”
Considering that it’s an RPG, that’s already a good start, don’t you think?
“Barrabas: And you know, I might as well try to make an indie game. I mean, if there are tards looking forward for this…”
You are mistaken. While we’d like to target tards, Oblivion dominates this market and we simply can’t compete with them.
Right, I like Oblivion so I must be a retard. same with the thousands of people that played it and enjoyed it. Nice going guys, I would call it…
NERD RAGE !!!!
I’m sorry Vince, your game is clearly an ugly looking and poorly written masterpiece of gaming. You don’t target “tards” but you target virgin basement dwellers who spent half their lifes playing Darklands right? brilliant.
It’s horrible how such a looser can have such an ego. How can you fail this way Vince?
“Barrabas: Right, I like Oblivion so I must be a retard. same with the thousands of people that played it and enjoyed it. Nice going guys, I would call it…”
Already hiding behind other tards who liked the game? MANY PEOPLE LIEKD IT? HOW CAN IT BE BAD GAEM? Your logic is flawless.
“Barrabas: I’m sorry Vince, your game is clearly an ugly looking and poorly written masterpiece of gaming. ”
Clearly. Now go and play some AAA title, will you?
Ouch, must’ve touched a nerve there ;).
I have no idea why you hate Oblivion so much to the point that enjoying the game makes someone a mentally ill human being…but perhaps you should get yourself a shrink man. You clearly have…issues.
“Barrabas: Ouch, must’ve touched a nerve there ;)”
Your skillful and witty “Oblivion rocks! Your game sucks!” arguments will reduce anyone to tears. I’m not sure if you’re aware of it, but so far you’ve failed to either explain why AoD is such a horrible failure of the free market or why Oblivion is a such a great RPG.
If you’re curious about my opinion:
http://www.rpgcodex.com/content.php?id=129
Don’t sweat it too much Vince, his favorite movie is probably Armageddon.
But of course! What do you think? That democracy is good because what most people believe is the best thing? Ahah…
Oh, the irony!
‘Barrabas:Who fucking cares if you can solve the quest in 5 different ways if it’s a boring ( and ugly) shitfest?’
If I worked for Bethesda I would kill myself for having such “inteligent” supporters like barrabas. Well done idiot!
*strokes goatee*
I’m off to do some charity work and plant some trees.