Horror RPGs are tough because one of the things that makes something terrifying is our reaction to things that are unknown and that we don’t think we can deal with. On the flipside, RPGs generally follow a power fantasy arc where things may be scary at first but as you defeat them, you become more powerful and they lose their ability to frighten you. Making an enemy or enemies that remain scary in the long term throughout a game while maintaining the core RPG power fantasy is very tricky. I think there are a few games that have done a pretty good job at taking steps to merge the two (System Shock 2 is probably the best example I can think of) but I haven’t really seen a standout example yet.

WorstUsernameEver asked:
But anyway: What does “immersive” mean, in your opinion? It’s one of the most popular industry’s buzzwords today, yet I have never seen anyone explaining what they think it means. And on that matter, do you think it’s important for an AAA RPG today to be “immersive”?

Immersion means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, I think. To me, immersion is the extent to which a game world feels believable – note that I use believable and not realistic. Because a world feels believable, players tend to get “lost” in it – they stop consciously considering the gaminess of what they’re playing and instead accept the game world on its own terms.

As to why I think this happens, I think people generally act as if the world operates in predictable ways. If you repeat the same action multiple times, you expect the same results. You then combine your knowledge of different predictable operations in the world to form creative ideas. You can imagine an ancient human combining their knowledge that wood can float on water with the knowledge that holding a billowing cloth in the wind causes them to feel like they are being pushed, and developing the first sailboat from the combination of those two ideas. The core thought here being that people become creative when they combine knowledge based on consistent feedback within the world.

Games work in the same way – when you take an action in a game, and it responds in a given way, you’re encouraged to repeat it and combine it with other knowledge you have about the game. As you begin to experiment and get creative in your approach to the game, the “gaminess” of it fades – at least until the game world stops being believable, say when you hit a bug or something stops working the way you expect.

C2B asked:
And a completely standard question. Why did you decide to enter the game industry in the first place?

I graduated from college with a History degree and a Film and Digital Media minor, what else was I going to do?

Seriously, though, games (both console and PC) were one of my main hobbies growing up, and making my own games or rules variants to games I played was always a hobby as well, so in that sense it was a natural fit. Also, I personally enjoy working in an industry where there is always something new to learn or try – and game development is full of situations you didn’t expect or new developments in either design or technology you have to consider, and as a young medium we’ve barely scratched the surface of what we’re capable of. It’s very exciting and challenging, and I think that motivated me as much as anything.

Finally, I want to be able to provide the same kind of magical experiences to gamers that I had growing up. That’s the main reason I want to make games.

rafoca asked:
Any plans on developing Dungeon Siege IV; also what about Neverwinter Nights 2 for consoles?

We’d love to do be able to build on what we’ve done with DS3.

Neverwinter Nights 2 for the consoles is unlikely, for a variety of reasons – one of the largest of which is technical limitations. Many aspects of the engine would need to be completely re-architected for consoles and that seems unlikely at this point.

Tale asked:
Obsidian’s interesting to me in that they’ve done a wide variety of types of RPGs. KOTOR 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 were the more traditional party based affairs. Alpha Protocol was a solo cinematic style. New Vegas is open world and sandbox. Dungeon Siege III was more hack and slash. Does each style of RPG provide a unique challenge in comparison? If so, what new challenges did Dungeon Siege III present?

Every game presents unique challenges, some of which relate to the actual game itself, some relate to the business aspects of the project (like the budget and the timeframe of releasing the game) and some have to do with the team developing the game. Obviously there are other challenges that are pretty common to many games, but I’ll focus on the unique ones here.

From my perspective, DS3′s biggest unique challenges were:
• Development of a new engine from the ground up, including all of the development tools, pipelines, assets, etc. that go along with it.
• Creating enough content to satisfy players while simultaneously developing the engine and tools mentioned above.
• Creating a high quality melee action combat system.
• Developing a satisfying RPG system from the ground up.
• Finding how to execute a polished, high-quality game within the timeframe required and where to make the cuts necessary to ensure that the game was as good as possible.

There were other challenges that we faced in developing DS3, but those I think were really the core challenges that defined the project. I think overall we did well given the realities of the circumstances of production, but there were some things I definitely acknowledge we could have done better. That’s just being realistic, though – I’m sure if you ask any self-aware developer that, they’ll admit there are things they could have done better.

Tale asked:
When will I get to eat another god?

That’s a pretty personal question, isn’t it?

Chasted asked:
What’s your opinion on Cliffracers?

They were a little aggravating, but in kind of a funny way. I remember wandering around Vvardenfell and hearing the combat music start up, looking around frantically, and then looking up and seeing a cliffracer like 50 feet in the air slowly coming towards me. I’d usually kill them way before they got to me and they just kind of made me chuckle.

By the way, I really loved the setting, tone and story of Morrowind. I really don’t think that game gets as much credit as it deserves for presenting a deep and intriguing world and story. I don’t think I’ve played any mainstream games that have directly dealt with themes of player agency and questions of identity as directly as Morrowind has, and I found those aspects of it really, really interesting. Props to Bethesda.

Chasted asked:
What possessed the team on New Vegas to make the beast known as “cazadores”? They are large numbers, highly resistant to most forms of damage, poisonous and spawn rather often. I learned the best way to kill them is using a rapid fire SMG but those weapons chewed through ammo.

Josh Sawyer (the project director on Fallout New Vegas) really likes to kill players. Also he likes making scary bug enemies.

Interview Series: Nathaniel Chapman on DS3 and Obsidian, Part 1
Interview Series: Nathaniel Chapman on DS3 and Obsidian, Part 2
Interview Series: Nathaniel Chapman on DS3 and Obsidian, Part 3
Interview Series: Nathaniel Chapman on DS3 and Obsidian, Part 4

This was one of those things that, due to how late things like VO and intro movies come online in the development of a game, we didn’t really recognize until it was too late to change. We made a few edits where possible, but we couldn’t get it everywhere.

Chasted asked:
If you could change one minor thing to Dungeon Siege III, what would it be? (Minor being that it wouldn’t largely affect the story or how the game plays/game mechanics.)

Probably all the JEYNE KASSYNDEEEEERR’s.

greenpeas asked:
I play the game on PC, and really like it there (the keybinding helped me, though I only made very minor changes from default). Did you talk about simply not doing the game for PC? This forum suggests to me that PC gamers were always going to be angsty about a game on PC and console, particularly if the game was going to go for such a streamlined skills tree (no complaints from me there). PC folks were always going to yell “consolitis” because it offends their deep and complicated dignities about their mode of entertainment. I almost hate to ask, but is PC still worth it?

Sure, PC (generally speaking) is worth it. The questions are really the type of game, the budget, the control scheme, and the opinions of the PC market – PC gamers are very passionate about the platform and what they do and don’t want from PC games. Ultimately those are really the same considerations, when you’re developing for any other platforms, but in some cases they are magnified on PC.

One note: I do disagree that we have a more streamlined level-up system when compared to the earlier Dungeon Siege games. The level up and skill system from DS was actually quite simple – simpler than ours, for sure. I often think we’re really compared to games like WoW and Diablo 2 when people say “This isn’t as complex as Dungeon Siege.”. Now, that’s okay, people can compare us to whoever they want – but the issue isn’t that our mechanics are not as complex as Dungeon Siege 1 or 2, but instead that we’re not as complex as [insert Hardcore PC RPG here].

…and now on to a few questions about general industry and game design topics:

Purkake asked:
What kind(genre + setting) of a game would you like to make if you could freely choose your next project?

I really want to make a turn-based tactical RPG for the iPad/iPhone that hails back to the original Fallouts in terms of “oldschool RPG-ness”. That’s probably my dream genre at this point. I think that platform has an awesome interface for those kinds of games, and the market is there, too.
Or maybe a Space Sim (like the old X-Wing and Wing Commander games) for the consoles. I think you could do map those games controls over to consoles really well now. Heck, if they could make a decent port of Wing Commander on the SNES, we could easily do it on a 360

I wouldn’t necessarily want to do something post-apocalyptic, though. There are a ton of settings I’ve been kicking around in my head for a long time but I don’t know that they’d exactly be mass market successes. Historical+Fantasy settings always appeal to me. Western Fantasy – something like Deadlands – could be pretty darn cool. Same with Eastern Fantasy – something like Legend of the Five Rings. I’ve always wanted to make a straight historical game set in the Taifa period of Spanish History (11th-13th centuries roughly). I think the complex political, religious and ethnic tensions would make a great opportunity for an RPG like Darklands or even a strategy game with RPG elements – something like Castles. Or a sci-fi setting that deals with themes like humanity’s exploration into genetic and environmental modification, cybernetics, or digital life… they’re all potentially very interesting.

Purkake asked:
Oh and what’s up with the void/emptiness theme(no memory/mortality – PST, wound in the Force(+ Nihilus) – KotOR II, empty soul – MotB)? Do you have a guy who’s fascinated with that or what?

I think those kinds of existential themes are pretty fundamental to art/literature, especially in the last 100 years or so. To add one, I’d argue that futility is one of the major subtextual themes of the first Fallout game – which isn’t exactly the same as void/emptiness but is related.

Bendu asked:
Alvin (associate producer from Dungeon Siege III) tweeted that he is doing some research at work and that this is his favorite part of his job (IIRC). Could you, or Alvin elaborate on that a little bit more?

We have an internal motion-capture studio which we are looking into using in more in-depth ways as part of future projects. Alvin manages a good bit of that stuff and I think that’s what he was likely referring to.

Ghostie asked:
What do you think of the “The Longest Journey” Series?

I have had them recommended to me many times but I hate to admit I haven’t played them. I’m familiar with the genre broadly, though.

Ghostie asked:
Also, would you be willing to take on a game that would pretty much be filled with 80% storytelling and 20% exploration and puzzles?

It depends what you mean by exploration and puzzles. I like exploration and puzzles when the world is believable and thus exploration is intuitive, and I like puzzles that emerge naturally from core game mechanics that are clear and well explained.

I guess a good example of exploration being intuitive is something like (IMO) Fallout: New Vegas, where there are usually road markers and things of the sort letting me know that an area is dangerous vs. a game where I’d accidentally walk into a high level area and just get smashed (seemingly) arbitrarily.

I think Magicka and Braid are great examples of puzzles that arise out of the application of consistent core mechanics. I think many older graphic adventure games are examples of the wrong way to do puzzles, in that they’re essentially a game of “guess what the designer wanted you to do” – even though I love some of those old games, the gameplay itself was not particularly compelling in them. It’s the great writing, art, and general cleverness that I remember liking so much.

So, in short, I wouldn’t mind working on a game that was mostly storytelling, exploration and puzzles, but I would want to make sure it did those things in a way that I find satisfying as a player.

Stay tuned for part four coming next week as Nathaniel finishes up this interview series talking about horror RPG’s, what “immersive” means to him, and maybe a little insight into those pesky cazadores in FNV!

Interview Series: Nathaniel Chapman on DS3 and Obsidian, Part 1
Interview Series: Nathaniel Chapman on DS3 and Obsidian, Part 2
Interview Series: Nathaniel Chapman on DS3 and Obsidian, Part 3
Interview Series: Nathaniel Chapman on DS3 and Obsidian, Part 4

Not as far as I know, but I can see the resemblance!

Nonek asked:
Both Dungeon Siege III and the Witcher 2 mix the player’s skill and in-game character skills in their combat systems. Which do you prefer as players and designers?

I think the Witcher 2 has a really good combat system. It’s actually quite similar to ours in some ways, which was a satisfying thing to see leading up to the release of DS3. I’ve played a lot of it so I enjoy it both as a player and as a designer.

I think there are aspects that each game does better than the other, so I don’t really think I strictly prefer one to the other. Note that the kinds of things I’m talking about are nerdly details that I don’t know if most RPG gamers really care about – things like invincibility frames during dodges, presentation details, how they have hit reactions when you parry opponents (a nice touch.)

Overall I’m really impressed with their system and happy that it’s another great example of how you can mix good action gameplay with a hardcore RPG.

XxTaLoNxX asked:
Camera Angle. It’s probably the top complaint since you fixed the “keybinding” issue… or rather lack thereof, so can we expect any camera improvements? A few more zooms and angles maybe?

The game is built for the camera angles that are featured in the game – and not for others. It’s not likely that we would be able to add additional camera angles in the future without introducing a large volume of bugs, so unfortunately we aren’t likely to do it.

GhostOfAnakin asked:
Party interaction. Was there ever plans to expand on it? Most RPGs that allow companions/party members tend to have the ability to talk to those party members, to either learn their backstories or to open up a companion-specific sidequest or both. Was there a reason that kind of thing wasn’t available in DS3?

We had a lot of thoughts on doing additional things like companion-specific side quests, but our scope was such that it wasn’t possible for DS3. Now that we’ve developed all of the core gameplay in DSIII, though, it’s something I think we would like to do very much in a sequel.

greenpeas asked:
On Manx – he is disarmingly geeky (which has its appeal). He could have been deep-voiced Count Dooku type, or a wizened old Gandalf type. What discussions went on around the personalities of those four characters? Were there other characters considered?

We did. There were a lot of suggestions, and ultimately the decision was made to try to create a group of characters in which most players would be able to find at least one that matched their tastes. Obviously not everyone is going to like every character, but that was okay from our perspective. I’ve been happy to see that players seem to have a mix of characters that are their favorite, which means that (hopefully) we did our job right.

Interview Series: Nathaniel Chapman on DS3 and Obsidian, Part 1
Interview Series: Nathaniel Chapman on DS3 and Obsidian, Part 2
Interview Series: Nathaniel Chapman on DS3 and Obsidian, Part 3
Interview Series: Nathaniel Chapman on DS3 and Obsidian, Part 4

Welcome to the first of a new Interview series with many of the creative folks who work for Obsidian Entertainment. Your host for this round is Nathaniel Chapman, lead designer of Dungeon Siege III and frequent visitor to Obsidian’s forum community.

He took on a number of questions from community folks recently about the game and Obsidian in general, and in this first of several installments over the next two weeks, he answers some fun (and even tough!) questions about the game and thoughts behind how it was designed.

On to the questions with WorstUsernameEver and rafoca after the jump!

WorstUsernameEver asked:
Considering that the Dragon Age franchise (not to mention the Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic games) have shown that party-based role-playing games can be financially successful and Dungeon Siege III already uses a top-down perspective [camera] anyway, is there any particular reason you didn’t build on the previous iteration’s mechanics and instead went with an action-RPG/brawler hybrid?

Personally, I’d argue that the KotOR and Dragon Age games are not successful directly as a result of their party mechanics or their combat mechanics generally. Instead, I believe they are successful because they have great production values and present high-quality settings, stories, and characters that players find engaging. This is backed up by what you see reviewers highlighting as positives in their reviews for the games.

Having played a lot of more complex party-based combat games (like Icewind Dale or the BG games, or Final Fantasy Tactics) I’ve noticed that there’s actually a substantial difference between “Party Based Combat Games with Story” (like IWD or BG2) and “Story Games with Party Based Combat” (like KotOR and DA). It sounds like semantics, but the difference is that in Dragon Age or KotOR, combat is the stuff you do in between the meat of the game, which is dialogue, exploration, and character interaction. Compare that with IWD, where clearly the combat gameplay is the primary focus and the dialogue, exploration and character interaction is supplemental to that focus.

So, because of that difference, I’d argue Dragon Age and KotOR are successful because of reasons other than their party-based gameplay. And, our ability to succeed at the elements KotOR and DA succeed at – that is, crafting an engaging story, setting and characters – is partly independent of our particular combat mechanics. So when I look at the success of games like Dragon Age and KotOR, the message I take away is not “party based games are successful.” Instead, it is “story-driven games with engaging characters and high production values are successful.”

And, due to the nature of the series, we knew were going to rely more on combat vs. storytelling to get you through the game. So, those things added up in my mind such that I didn’t feel the success of other party based games was a strong reason to pursue party-based gameplay in DS3.

That sums up why we didn’t feel a need to actively pursue party based gameplay – now I’ll explain why we avoided it.

The other reason why I think KotOR and DA don’t focus as much on their party based games as the earlier PC only titles, is that the highly tactical, party micromanagement focused gameplay of the Infinity Engine games doesn’t mesh well with a console controller. This directly leads to implications in the gameplay.

For instance, KotOR2 does use a version of the D&D rule set. However, the classes in say, KotOR2, are more similar to each other than the classes in D&D – you don’t have the equivalent of the d4 hit die mage in your party. Because you don’t, you don’t need to micromanage your party members as much – you don’t stand as large a risk of your mage getting killed if he’s in the wrong position in KotOR2 as you would in IWD. Because micromanaging characters tactically in real time on a console controller is extremely difficult, it makes a lot of sense to design your party based gameplay such that your characters don’t need to be micromanaged, which means the consequences for poor positioning and other tactical errors need to be diminished.

But, we couldn’t take the approach that KotOR and DA2 took because we knew a majority of the game’s focus was going to be in combat – we weren’t going to be able to have combat take a backseat to storytelling.

Lastly, we knew that both earlier DS games, but particularly the first game, were criticized for feeling more detached and less interactive than their competitors. We didn’t want to go down that road, either. So, we decided to choose a combat system that we felt would be satisfying and fun to play on both the PC and on consoles, and that ended up being the heavily action-focused combat system we have. We may not have hit the mark on the PC controls for some people, and that’s a fair criticism, but I don’t think that our control issues are inherent to the combat system – they’re something, for instance, we could
improve in a sequel.

I think that most reviewers’ comments on the combat system have been neutral to positive, so I don’t really have any regrets about the decision to go with the combat we have.

WorstUsernameEver asked:
On that matter, how do you feel about the game’s reception? DS3′s debatable implementation of multiplayer and lack of customization have been the main points of criticism, but almost every element of the game has been divisive. Do you think that a lower price point would have lead to a better reception? Was that even feasible?

I have mixed feelings about the reception. On the one hand, personally and professionally I am really proud of the game. I’m also really proud of what the team as a whole was able to accomplish with the project’s scope. The game had a fixed maximum scope, and several of the aspects of the project (like getting the engine and tools done, implementing reliable networking, developing a new RPG system, etc.) were non-negotiable features – we had to do all of those. The fact that we not only executed those but also executed what I feel is our most polished, bug-free game is something that I’m proud of. It’s a game that personally I find really fun to play in terms of core gameplay – something that I can’t say about everything I’ve worked on.

On the other hand, some of the negativity directed at the game is obviously a bummer. I want everything I work on to Metacritic in the 90s and sell a bazillion copies. But, in my opinion the team did a great job executing on the project, and we couldn’t realistically include every feature that either we or the community wanted – so I don’t let the criticism on those features get me down. I think Obsidian has learned a lot from DS3, but those lessons aren’t necessarily the same ones that might seem obvious based on the reaction to the game.

Now, those are my personal feelings. I don’t think they matter (or should matter) to the customers or community at all – it’s really up to each individual person whether they think the game is good and whether it’s worth the asking price. To me, it would be. To others, it might or might not be, and that’s their decision to make.

WorstUsernameEver asked:
Now, that’s a personal consideration (though I’d be surprised if many disagreed with me) but dungeons in the game are a little.. barren and simplistic in design. Was that intentional, to avoid slowing down the gameplay, or do you feel you could have done more with traps/puzzles/secret passages/alternative routes/etc.?

Two things led us not to pursue things like traps and puzzles very often. First, some scope issues constrained the development of the toolbox that designers use to develop these. Then, when we tried to create these sorts of things with the toolbox we had, they turned out being of mixed quality, for many reasons. It would have required a significant time investment to get them working and fun, and that time would have been lost on some other aspect of the game. In the end, we decided to go with fewer traps and puzzles, rather than having frustrating or broken ones. As far as the secret passages and alternative routes, scope and technical constraints in many ways dictated the layout of the dungeons. Were we to do a DS4, I’d love to see more secret passages and alternate routes.

rafoca asked:
You guys seem to know a lot of how co-op works and DS3 is a proof of that, but why the decision on the shared screen?

A couple of things. First, we knew we were going to do local multiplayer, and we didn’t want to use split-screen for both technical reasons and because trying to parse what’s going on in DS3 when you’ve only got half a screen worth of space would be pretty chaotic.

So, for local multiplayer, we knew we were going to have a shared screen. That given, there was a substantial technical and art cost in allowing users to separate, and we’d only be able to let them do so in remote multiplayer. Given the kind of game we were making, we couldn’t justify using our time on that feature and thus not spending it somewhere else.

In the upcoming posts with Nathaniel, he answers questions from Nonek, GhostOfAnakin, greenpeas and other folks from the community. Stay tuned!

Interview Series: Nathaniel Chapman on DS3 and Obsidian, Part 1
Interview Series: Nathaniel Chapman on DS3 and Obsidian, Part 2
Interview Series: Nathaniel Chapman on DS3 and Obsidian, Part 3
Interview Series: Nathaniel Chapman on DS3 and Obsidian, Part 4

Old World Blues features the ‘Big Empty,’ an expanse filled with research centers, arboretums, canyons, scientific labs, and more, including a new customizable home base, known as the Sink.  Old World Blues brings new enemies like the surgically-altered Lobotomites, new perks, weapons like the Proton Axe and K9000 Cyberdog Gun, and new items such as implants which allow you to switch your body parts in and out for new effects.  Get it now!

Want to know more?  Check out Bethesda’s blog entry today announcing the DLC. It includes a short diary from Old World Blues’ lead brain, Chris Avellone!

For those of you who are fans, check it out here at Entertainment Earth!

Old World Blues goes live on Tuesday, July 19th.

Keybinding: Don’t like some or all of the default key controls in DS3?  Fear not! With the new keybinding tab in the Options menu, you’ll be able to remap the controls to however you prefer them. Each control option has two bindable keys, so if you like having one function controlled by two different keys, that is available as well. (As an example, some people might like having both W and Up Arrow as options to move forward.)

Move Left and Right: In addition, we’ve added two new controls that will allow you to move left or right (think strafing.)  For example, if you’d rather have A and D on your keyboard move your character left and right respectively instead of rotate the camera, you’ll now be able to set that as well.

Even though Dungeon Siege III has shipped, we’re not done!  There’s still a lot planned on the horizon – stay tuned!

Update: This patch is now live and will be automatically downloaded the next time you connect to Steam!

Hi, I’m Feargus Urquhart, CEO of Obsidian Entertainment, and on behalf of
everyone at Obsidian, I want to welcome you to our new official blog. Here
we’ll post about things going on with our projects, title updates, patches and
many of the fun stories, observations, reflections and more through our journey
of creating role-playing games for the next generation and beyond.  Plus,
we are going to use this space to throw out ideas that we’d like to get your
opinion on.  Let us know what you think over on our community forums at http://forums.obsidian.net.

So, keep on the lookout for upcoming posts from me and our team members and thank you for visiting our blog and hope you enjoy!

- Feargus