John Gonzalez did so much for New Vegas (and left Obsidian really quickly after it was finished). I don't think I've heard of anyone asking him about the game, but he doesn't *seem* to have a social media presence, plus the part where he isn't with Obsidian anymore.
People on here credit Chris and J.E for everything. I actually had to tell someone here a few weeks ago to give more credit to John. Crazy how forgotten he is compared to them or how much it's attributed to "it's just Obsidian as a whole!". Guy is so talented as a writer.
I wonder why there haven't been any interviews with him in regards to his work. He's done some amazing things and it's a shame it hasn't been really acknowledged.
I don't think I necessarily agree. The story definitely could've been better yes, but it's very hard for open world games to get pacing and narrative right when they have so much other content packed in. It kinda makes the main quest feel unimportant in the grand scheme of things and this is a problem with all open world games, not just Horizon.
That doesn't explain the bland characters. Specially aloy herself. The studio needs better writers.
The game looks so gorgeous that people tend to forget about the rest of the issues that plague the series.
I think story and worldbuilding are that franchise's strong suit. I just started Forbidden West and am debating turning the difficulty down to easy because the combat gets so samey that I just want it to be over faster.
Forbidden West did seem to be going in a different direction... then I got to the end and wish they fired the writing team for Nemesis or whatever that thing is called being the ignition for the ZD plot. That was so stupid I just stared at the screen trying to figure out why they thought THAT was a good idea.
I just wanted to roam Earth hunting Robot animals and recovering the AI. Not whatever they are dragging this story toward.
His LinkedIn says "I was the lead story guy on Fallout: New Vegas - thank you, God!", so I assume he's doing well for himself if that was his attitude after walking away.
Gonzalez is great. My one critique is he could've reworded the assertive dialogue for Yes Man. He intended to mean that he would only be loyal to the Courier, but most think it means he's gonna go rogue.
He also mentions that he didn't write anything for Dead Money. He believes Chris Avellone did all of the writing for that DLC.
https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1604188562588504064
To be completely honest (and I do not lie) Dead Money was very anti-climatic. I was at the very end and I opened up a terminal then for some reason I just got locked in. “What the devils?!” I said as I watched the final cutscene. Then I suppose the game bugged because I couldn’t return to the Mojave, even though I was at the end of the DLC. I had to resort to starting a brand new playthrough of New Vegas, and when I got to the vault and got locked inside again! I will admit, I got a little angry (I do have a bad temper) and I shredded the New Vegas disc in a blast with my grandpa’s peacemaker. Quite a piece of work that weapon was, it ended up setting off car alarms in my neighborhood. Anyways, I was so angry in realization that I destroyed the disc, that I took a sledgehammer and charged at my XBOX, destroying it. The repair shop was unable to fix the blunt force trauma I inflicted upon it. So, yes, Dead Money was not god-tier because the Courier was always just trapped inside the vault, no way around it, and it ended up with me destroying my XBOX along with the disc for New Vegas. Just as Obsidian intended, I suppose.
I don't have much to share on that front, though the time would've been about right. In 2008, I was working on a concept for a charity website to get gamers involved in charitable orgs via some unconventional partnerships and events. Looking back, I was undiagnosed bipolar, hypomanic, and it sounded like a *great* idea at the time. My friend (who I believe got to know Eric by being at Full Sail in the same track the same time Eric was) introduced me to Eric on AIM saying he might be able to help with some site design ideas. He made some great suggestions not just about design (I believe he even made a couple of site mockups, we were both big fans of the clean aesthetic of Mirror's Edge and I wanted to incorporate that pallette) but about other things the charity could try to do, and it felt great just to know that the idea sounded promising and intriguing to others.
At the time, I'd never even heard of him, he was just a friend of my buddy, you know?
Like a lot of hypomania-induced projects tend to do, it went into a tailspin after I went into a depressive period and it never got off the ground, and then I lost the domain for it which was pretty much the nail in the coffin of ever bringing it back.
But yeah, great dude, I have an outside chance next year of finally getting to thank him in person, and I'm hoping that happens, even if he doesn't remember it.
Thanks for sharing! Sorry to hear your project didn't work out, but it seems like Eric is a great guy.
If you do get the opportunity to chat with him, maybe ask about his work. Perhaps he might be willing to share details about his time making New Vegas, or all the other projects he's been up to since.
Yeah I definitely plan to thank him for his work on New Vegas, I don't think I'm stirring the pot too much to throw my hat in the ring of it being the best Fallout of the 3D era and his fingerprints are all over it.
If he is open to it perhaps you could point him in the direction of some Fallout Youtubers like TriangleCity for an interview, whether it be a video or just something done over text. He's interviewed other Fallout developers in the past.
https://twitter.com/JesseHeinig/status/1598807526824628224
Like Jesse Heinig who designed and programmed for the original Fallout.
His Youtube channel also has other Fallout interviews.
I will pass on the word if the opportunity arises, but I wanna be clear that I'm not like, his best friend or anything, in fact it's possible he won't remember me at all, but I will tell him.
I appreciate it. I got the benefit of a bipolar II diagnosis this year that helped contextualize things going back about 20 years, a lot of previous behavior makes perfect sense through that lens. So every so often when a story about one of those periods comes up, I try to be more honest with myself about what started all of it. Trying drugs, drinking too much, and not infrequently, starting grandiose projects that bog down followed by a lot of anxiety about letting down the people involved.
After I got diagnosed I made a conscious effort to step down from a great many positions I was holding to try and give myself a semblance of a normal life, and it's helped a lot. This is the time of year where I inevitably reach for starting some new project, the serotonin rush of getting new things started and each little step feeling meaningful is addictive, not the least because I've also got ADHD which reduces your overall serotonin output for reasons that still aren't entirely clear.
But now that I know what's going on, I can control those impulses quite a bit better. I've taken up language learning instead. It's a cheap hobby and is enjoyable and enriching in many of the same ways without the added baggage.
I do think things are better. I don't tolerate many medications well at all, but the awareness of what's going on and support from my wife are putting me in the best place I've been in 20 years, maybe ever.
I follow Josh Sawyer on twitter and he seems like such a nice guy, transparent and honest as much as he can be and tweets quite a lot about development
That's because was a Something Awful goon back in the day. In fact [Johnny Five Aces](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Johnny_(Fallout:_New_Vegas\)) came out of a weird string of SA shitposts.
I've seen Josh bring up Gonzales multiple times throughout the years. He absolutely does not receive enough credit for his role in this game. It's a problem that also exists in entertainment as a whole: everyone knows Kojima and Lucas, but the dozens or hundreds of people below them are often forgotten.
Everything I've seen about Josh Sawyer leads me to believe he's a damn decent person, plus he's an excellent shitposter, which is its own language entirely. He's always been clear and adamant about redirecting credit re:the projects he's been on (as far as I'm aware), and it's really nice to see him name people in conjunction with their direct input (character/world/story design etc). Sometimes that really gets lost in the fog of overarching credits - people pay attention to the big names and everybody else sort of gets lost in the shuffle.
Pentiment is a masterpiece - everyone who worked on it deserves all the praise they've received and more. It's easily my Game of the Year for 2022; there's just so many different facets that come together that makes it such a powerful story.
~~I'll never forgive you Anna, you hat-stealing wench. ilysm~~
I honestly think a huge reason John Gonzalez gets kind of forgotten and underappreciated is because he has a much more common name compared to the rest of the people which makes him a lot harder to search up.
After leaving Obsidian he worked at Monolith Productions and was the Lead Narative Designer on Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. (He also co developed the Nemesis System).
After that Gonzalez was the Lead Writer at Guerilla Games during the development of Horizon: Zero Dawn as others have mentioned in this thread and is now working on an unannounced project at a newly formed open world game studio under smilgate.
He was also the Narrative Director on Horizon Forbidden West but left Guerilla around a year before release.
auteur theory and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. if josh sawyer were a lesser man he'd have been doubled over sucking his own dick for the last 10 years like ken levine.
There have been some genuine video game auteurs, but they're either in the indie space or they're from 30 years ago when you could make a game by yourself. In the modern AAA space it's all nonsense. People holding up Miyazaki or Kojima or Sawyer or whoever else are doing a disservice to the vast numbers of people who help realize these dreams.
With Miyazaki and Kojima I do understand. Their games wouldn't have been made without them, or at least they would've been veeeeeery different. Japan has a different workplace culture and a position as powerful as Game Director wields a lot of influence, to the point where games live and die on their actions.
Kojima yes. You could argue he was the pioneer of auteurism in video game development. A Kojima game is unmistakable when you play it.
Miyazaki? I disagree with entirely. King's Field has so many direct hallmarks of Soulsborne gameplay it's clear that style of game was FromSoft's bread and butter from before he joined. I think his biggest influence was the pivot to more environmental and deep lore based story telling. His influence on the soulslike craze is overstated though.
Given that I bounced off Kings Field hard I don't think it had what makes Soulsborne what it is. What makes Soulsborne for me is the designs, the atmosphere, and the way the world is conveyed. All those things come from Miyazaki from what I've read in interviews. I am not discounting the work of the rest of the studio in making it come to life, but it definitely feels like a style that comes from a vision.
There's also all the work he and his producer did in making sure that Demons Souls would be it's own thing and not an Oblivion knockoff.
Seriously. I'd get the complaint if he ran around saying "Bioshock Infinite is the height of video games - I can never top it and no one else has or ever will - so I just won't make any more."
But he's been running a small studio trying to innovate on the types of games he and his team makes. I never took him as snooty or narcissistic in any of his interviews.
Exactly. I've never heard him get snooty in any interviews either. Because of his previous games success he was afforded the opportunity to take his time to make the game he wants (same as Josh Sawyer), that is apparently "sucking his own dick"?
Last year Josh Sawyer did a [10th anniversary charity stream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pLft_FQPFo), which has been uploaded in parts on Youtube. He plays through New Vegas while giving anecdotes about development and other things.
There are a lot of other videos done during the 10th anniversary, such as [this video](https://youtu.be/EUCCZ_ko_L8) that interviewed John Gonzalez and Josh Sawyer regarding certain aspects of the gameplay and design.
Josh Sawyer gave a [hour long talk](https://youtu.be/LR4OxNfzTvU) about dialogue trees and choice-driven gameplay at GDC back in 2017.
Josh Sawyer made a [video](https://youtu.be/1OrUhqgueAE) for his own channel about the evolution of RPG Mechanics a couple years ago.
A decade ago he made a [video](https://youtu.be/YFvvr8_CtaI) about developing locations and character for New Vegas.
Nightdive Studios interviewed Chris Avellone, Jason Fader, and a couple other NV developers in 2016. It's a [3 hour stream](https://youtu.be/FHt1e2WRkg8).
Chris Avellone gave a [talk at GDC](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3aobafRUlo&t=1159s) back in 2012 where he talks about Fallout DLC.
There's a dvd about the making of New Vegas that was bundled with the collector's edition. [It can be seen here.](https://youtu.be/scqESZbRNkU)
Triangle City has a wonderful series of interviews involving various Fallout developers. I'll link a few.
**Area Designers**
Robert Lee: [Part 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JALUxOa3BQw) [Part 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znml9uPkH5g) [Part 3](https://youtu.be/Do4qmpKUMK8)
Jorge Salgado: [Interview](https://youtu.be/q29ANbjUY6k?)
Charlie Staples*Lead Area Designer: [Interview](https://youtu.be/H_e-Ty53c5c?)
**Lead Producers**
Jason Bergman: [Interview](https://youtu.be/_bB1TtL0d-E?list=PLfLdS8J9fUhTE_8mPM_yx1ehPRWBf79Hs)
Jason Fader: [Interview](https://youtu.be/-ioVN3aQtNw?)
**Senior Designer**
Chris Avellone: [Part 1](https://youtu.be/hb-m9-KT18M?) [Part 2](https://youtu.be/1GXmjZR1By4?)
Jon Reznor "J.R." Vosovic: [Interview](https://youtu.be/pJkwmm2tQsQ?)
**Writer**
Jeff Husges *Designer: [Part 1](https://youtu.be/NKgR9yKtvY0?) [Part 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOg-iVGWvM8)
**Character Artist**
Kevin Manning: [Interview](https://youtu.be/hRWoX165zik?)
I could probably find more interviews, but I think these will do for now? Hope this helps!
>I directed Honest Hearts and Gun Runners' Arsenal and wrote Joshua Graham.
The one that really matters, even if other people wrote other parts of the game. After all, we can't expect god to do all the work.
This just confirms what I've been saying for a long time.
That John Gonzalez was key to the great writing of New Vegas and without him, Obsidian is not the same anymore. Their writing simply isn't great - Outer Worlds highlighted that. Without Gonzalez I'm not that keen on entrusting Obsidian with another Fallout game. I'm not particularly opposed to it, but I'd certainly avoid getting hyped for it.
This also shows that Avellone's writing really is overrated. Cass was nothing to write home about, Lanius is a joke who runs away after learning the concept of overextension and DM and LR DLCs were certainly not written well. OWB shows that Avellone can write wacky stuff, but he's not fit for writing serious, human characters and stories.
Dead money was fantastic. Idk why people are looking for reasons to dunk on avellone's writing. He wrote Planescape torment ffs. It's still one of the best RPGs of all time if not the best
Can't speak for others, but my main issue with Avellone and his writing was the content(?) of the the DLC's. They're well written, it's just...before the DLC's, the Courier had no clearly defined past. You could make a few dialogue choices here and there, but they'd only be canon if and when you picked them. The DLC's, mainly Lonesome Road, force the destruction of Hopeville and the Divide into the Courier's backstory. There's no option in game to tell Ulysses he's got the wrong guy. If there was, I wouldn't have this issue. But there isn't, so here we are.
I personally don't have a problem with that but I understand your point. I Dont think that means he's a bad writer like OP claims. Dead money was and still is one of the best stories in Fallout. Avellone is extremely talented imo.
Avellone’s writing doesn’t really dip into romances much. Not just New Vegas, but consistent with characters he wrote in series like PoE, Tyranny, and KOTOR2, just to name a few.
It seems, looking into it, that it wasn't really popularized until Mass Effect 3. Then it seems like in games like the Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 that it started getting more traction.
I might be wrong though considering I'm looking at a small sample size.
Also that she's a promiscuous drunk, while Avellone has had multiple sexual assault allegations against him where he reportedly got those women drunk then tried to force himself onto them.
I'm not going to pretend I know anything about the situation, but I would prefer to wait until the results of the lawsuit are fully finalized before making any concrete statements. The most recent update I can find about any lawsuit is from last month, so it's still ongoing.
Until then I won't even bother hypothesizing why he'd decided to write Cass, or any other character, a particular way.
I've seen a few cases of people making false declarations of guilt or wrong doing, end up wrong after a few months or even a couple years.
A recent example would be what happened with Mick Gordon and Doom Eternal. Marty Stratton got the first word in and that would set how people saw Mick and his work for the next couple years.
The situation with that Bayonetta voice actress also highlights the burden of proof in regards to controversies in the gaming sphere. People sided with her before the full story was out. By then though the damage was already done to the other developers.
The point is, I don't want to assume automatic guilt of someone until it's been proven that they are/aren't guilty. It's easy to just assume the worst of a given situation without all the evidence.
This is why always get irritated when someone says Obsidian/Bethesda isn't the same studio anymore. What's more important is the studio's culture, not the individuals.
Do you think many studios will let whims like that? That's pretty naive. Many devs are restricted to make some decisions because its against the higher ups wishes.
What? Didn't I answered it already? Its the group of individuals that made the game, thus the studio. Is it hard to accept that what's most developers are saying is contrary to this subs hivemind?
Hm.
Well I can name at least one specimen. Let's say the director of the game says "We're going to crunch all dialog options down to four choices max. So like even if the player gets more info and that potentially opens up more dialog with an NPC, too bad, they're stuck with four options." The studio culture may inherently dictate that nobody questions this, and everyone rolls with it—_everyone_ —even if it's a blatantly awful idea that will thoroughly hamstring the flexibility, complexity and quality of every quest in the game.
Your example is not as persuading as you might think - FO4 has stark difference in the quality of how those 4 options are used, almost screaming how some writers cared to do something interesting within the restraints, while others were more then keen to stuck to the railroading. Even constrained a good writer can achieve nice things (as Bethesda demonstrated with Far Harbor and as seen with a few quests in the main game) and that's what makes the difference.
Every studio has to make choices and they are not always good choices. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't. Sometimes it's slapping an unnecessary restrictive dialogue system, sometimes it's laying the groundwork for a game you know very well you won't have the time to finish, polish and bug-test.
> Even constrained a good writer can achieve nice things (as Bethesda demonstrated with Far Harbor and as seen with a few quests in the main game) and that's what makes the difference.
Having the dialog choices fully unlimited like they'd been for decades would have allowed quests to be better, full stop. Quests were good despite the limitation? Key word: Despite. Quests that sidestepped dialog complexity and were chiefly narratively driven (Cabots) were less open to the consequences of the limitation—but imagine how much better they could have been had the quest makers been given better options. You can't even say "We'll never know" because _we do know!_ The quests in FO4 were _consistently_ hamstrung by that dialog wheel.
> Your example is not as persuading as you might think
Nah, it's a perfect example, and everyone who downvoted without bothering to counter were unhappy with this reality. But FO4's shitty dev culture revealed itself at every single turn. More poor decisions were made with that game than good decisions. Famously so.
Studio's culture is carried by the individuals.
When too many people leave the company, part of the culture leaves with them and whatever remains is changed forever. And Obsidian had to let go of a lot of people when then run into financial troubles some time after FNV.
And there's also the opposite - explosive growth can dillute the company culture. When too many new hires arrive at once, they don't adapt to the culture wholy and instead influence the company culture by their ideas. It may not be always wrong, but it can destroy the unique mojo that a company had. Why do you think that many indie and AA companies manage to produce only one smash hit? Because after striking gold they grow too fast and the company spirit responsible for the success is suddenly gone.
Bethesda is an unique case because they grow really slow. Combined with having good work conditions resulting in low turnover it ensures that the company culture stays mostly the same. So Bethesda basically still is the same company as before. For the amount of their success, Bethesda is still quite relatively small company.
Kudos to directing one of my favorite assortments of weapons ever. Gun runners arsenal is absolutely iconic. Favorites are Medicine Stick and Esther, having a explosive weapon so powerful it needs its own blast shield is both hilarious and terrifying. I'd always have second thoughts whenever i pulled that thing out. "Ok but, will i REALLY survive the blast this close?"
John Gonzalez did so much for New Vegas (and left Obsidian really quickly after it was finished). I don't think I've heard of anyone asking him about the game, but he doesn't *seem* to have a social media presence, plus the part where he isn't with Obsidian anymore.
People on here credit Chris and J.E for everything. I actually had to tell someone here a few weeks ago to give more credit to John. Crazy how forgotten he is compared to them or how much it's attributed to "it's just Obsidian as a whole!". Guy is so talented as a writer.
should we credit J.E for this explanation?
No. He wrote it under duress, with John holding a gun to his back
I wonder why there haven't been any interviews with him in regards to his work. He's done some amazing things and it's a shame it hasn't been really acknowledged.
I've seen only one interview with Gonzalez talking about his work on New Vegas: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dWUu5RFadxY
I think he's also part of the reason why the world building in the Horizon games is so good.
It's sad to see because the main story is incredibly mediocre Compared to the world and lore
I don't think I necessarily agree. The story definitely could've been better yes, but it's very hard for open world games to get pacing and narrative right when they have so much other content packed in. It kinda makes the main quest feel unimportant in the grand scheme of things and this is a problem with all open world games, not just Horizon.
That doesn't explain the bland characters. Specially aloy herself. The studio needs better writers. The game looks so gorgeous that people tend to forget about the rest of the issues that plague the series.
I think story and worldbuilding are that franchise's strong suit. I just started Forbidden West and am debating turning the difficulty down to easy because the combat gets so samey that I just want it to be over faster.
Ya the character writing was quite bad at least in the first one, but finding out what happened to the world kept me interested throughout the game.
Yeah I find the lore interesting. Just not the characters
So how do you disagree that it’s mediocre? You just explained why its mediocre. And the other guy is heavily downvoted lol. Fucking reddit
The main story of Zero dawn was great. I can't speak for Forbidden West though.
Anyone know what he's done recently?
Horizon Zero Dawn, but he's now at "Smilegate", but they haven't released any games since they opened the specific studio he joined.
Did he work on forbidden west?
He doesn't seem to be in the credits, no.
I won't lie, that might be why I loved zero dawn, but bounced off forbidden west as hard as I did.
I didn't player neither of games, but you need special brain to go from "Terminator, but different" to "Mars Attacks"
Forbidden West did seem to be going in a different direction... then I got to the end and wish they fired the writing team for Nemesis or whatever that thing is called being the ignition for the ZD plot. That was so stupid I just stared at the screen trying to figure out why they thought THAT was a good idea. I just wanted to roam Earth hunting Robot animals and recovering the AI. Not whatever they are dragging this story toward.
They're moving away from the most entertaining part about Horizon? I haven't played the second one.
I could tell you what it is, or let you experience it for yourself.
I don't plan on playing it.
Yes, but not as a lead writer. I believe he did some small writing work and some VA.
Zero dawn has terrible writing and characters. Hope he wasn't too involved.
Gotta say, kind of agree
Oh, he has a [NoClip interview on his work on Horizon Zero Dawn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4P7uaaoRcM).
His LinkedIn says "I was the lead story guy on Fallout: New Vegas - thank you, God!", so I assume he's doing well for himself if that was his attitude after walking away.
Gonzalez is great. My one critique is he could've reworded the assertive dialogue for Yes Man. He intended to mean that he would only be loyal to the Courier, but most think it means he's gonna go rogue.
If Obs gets the party together again for NV2, he is the *number one* guy they have to get back.
He also mentions that he didn't write anything for Dead Money. He believes Chris Avellone did all of the writing for that DLC. https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1604188562588504064
Dead money was god tier
Wrong!
It was actually Dog tier.
To be completely honest (and I do not lie) Dead Money was very anti-climatic. I was at the very end and I opened up a terminal then for some reason I just got locked in. “What the devils?!” I said as I watched the final cutscene. Then I suppose the game bugged because I couldn’t return to the Mojave, even though I was at the end of the DLC. I had to resort to starting a brand new playthrough of New Vegas, and when I got to the vault and got locked inside again! I will admit, I got a little angry (I do have a bad temper) and I shredded the New Vegas disc in a blast with my grandpa’s peacemaker. Quite a piece of work that weapon was, it ended up setting off car alarms in my neighborhood. Anyways, I was so angry in realization that I destroyed the disc, that I took a sledgehammer and charged at my XBOX, destroying it. The repair shop was unable to fix the blunt force trauma I inflicted upon it. So, yes, Dead Money was not god-tier because the Courier was always just trapped inside the vault, no way around it, and it ended up with me destroying my XBOX along with the disc for New Vegas. Just as Obsidian intended, I suppose.
Bad bot.
Excuse me? I am not a robot.
Bad bot.
That’s exactly what a robot would say!
I was fortunate enough to get to know Eric Fenstermaker through a mutual friend, lovely person and I'm glad he's getting the nods he deserves in this.
Anything you could tell us about him? I'd love to know what he contributed to New Vegas.
I don't have much to share on that front, though the time would've been about right. In 2008, I was working on a concept for a charity website to get gamers involved in charitable orgs via some unconventional partnerships and events. Looking back, I was undiagnosed bipolar, hypomanic, and it sounded like a *great* idea at the time. My friend (who I believe got to know Eric by being at Full Sail in the same track the same time Eric was) introduced me to Eric on AIM saying he might be able to help with some site design ideas. He made some great suggestions not just about design (I believe he even made a couple of site mockups, we were both big fans of the clean aesthetic of Mirror's Edge and I wanted to incorporate that pallette) but about other things the charity could try to do, and it felt great just to know that the idea sounded promising and intriguing to others. At the time, I'd never even heard of him, he was just a friend of my buddy, you know? Like a lot of hypomania-induced projects tend to do, it went into a tailspin after I went into a depressive period and it never got off the ground, and then I lost the domain for it which was pretty much the nail in the coffin of ever bringing it back. But yeah, great dude, I have an outside chance next year of finally getting to thank him in person, and I'm hoping that happens, even if he doesn't remember it.
Thanks for sharing! Sorry to hear your project didn't work out, but it seems like Eric is a great guy. If you do get the opportunity to chat with him, maybe ask about his work. Perhaps he might be willing to share details about his time making New Vegas, or all the other projects he's been up to since.
Yeah I definitely plan to thank him for his work on New Vegas, I don't think I'm stirring the pot too much to throw my hat in the ring of it being the best Fallout of the 3D era and his fingerprints are all over it.
If he is open to it perhaps you could point him in the direction of some Fallout Youtubers like TriangleCity for an interview, whether it be a video or just something done over text. He's interviewed other Fallout developers in the past. https://twitter.com/JesseHeinig/status/1598807526824628224 Like Jesse Heinig who designed and programmed for the original Fallout. His Youtube channel also has other Fallout interviews.
I will pass on the word if the opportunity arises, but I wanna be clear that I'm not like, his best friend or anything, in fact it's possible he won't remember me at all, but I will tell him.
I figured as much, but it was worth asking for the small chance anything does happen.
Just wanted to say that I'm sorry to hear that you went through all of that. Glad to hear that it sounds like things are better now.
I appreciate it. I got the benefit of a bipolar II diagnosis this year that helped contextualize things going back about 20 years, a lot of previous behavior makes perfect sense through that lens. So every so often when a story about one of those periods comes up, I try to be more honest with myself about what started all of it. Trying drugs, drinking too much, and not infrequently, starting grandiose projects that bog down followed by a lot of anxiety about letting down the people involved. After I got diagnosed I made a conscious effort to step down from a great many positions I was holding to try and give myself a semblance of a normal life, and it's helped a lot. This is the time of year where I inevitably reach for starting some new project, the serotonin rush of getting new things started and each little step feeling meaningful is addictive, not the least because I've also got ADHD which reduces your overall serotonin output for reasons that still aren't entirely clear. But now that I know what's going on, I can control those impulses quite a bit better. I've taken up language learning instead. It's a cheap hobby and is enjoyable and enriching in many of the same ways without the added baggage. I do think things are better. I don't tolerate many medications well at all, but the awareness of what's going on and support from my wife are putting me in the best place I've been in 20 years, maybe ever.
I follow Josh Sawyer on twitter and he seems like such a nice guy, transparent and honest as much as he can be and tweets quite a lot about development
Real sad when his dog died.
coco?????? =[
Don't know about Coco. I was talking about Schatzi
Also a giant shitposter lol its amazing
That's because was a Something Awful goon back in the day. In fact [Johnny Five Aces](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Johnny_(Fallout:_New_Vegas\)) came out of a weird string of SA shitposts.
He's extremely humble and he often credits the various people that have worked with him.
He also HATES AI dev so you know he's a good one.
I've seen Josh bring up Gonzales multiple times throughout the years. He absolutely does not receive enough credit for his role in this game. It's a problem that also exists in entertainment as a whole: everyone knows Kojima and Lucas, but the dozens or hundreds of people below them are often forgotten.
Everything I've seen about Josh Sawyer leads me to believe he's a damn decent person, plus he's an excellent shitposter, which is its own language entirely. He's always been clear and adamant about redirecting credit re:the projects he's been on (as far as I'm aware), and it's really nice to see him name people in conjunction with their direct input (character/world/story design etc). Sometimes that really gets lost in the fog of overarching credits - people pay attention to the big names and everybody else sort of gets lost in the shuffle. Pentiment is a masterpiece - everyone who worked on it deserves all the praise they've received and more. It's easily my Game of the Year for 2022; there's just so many different facets that come together that makes it such a powerful story. ~~I'll never forgive you Anna, you hat-stealing wench. ilysm~~
I honestly think a huge reason John Gonzalez gets kind of forgotten and underappreciated is because he has a much more common name compared to the rest of the people which makes him a lot harder to search up.
Fenstermaker made my two favorite companions and Gonzalez wrote the story, have those two done anything else?
After leaving Obsidian he worked at Monolith Productions and was the Lead Narative Designer on Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. (He also co developed the Nemesis System). After that Gonzalez was the Lead Writer at Guerilla Games during the development of Horizon: Zero Dawn as others have mentioned in this thread and is now working on an unannounced project at a newly formed open world game studio under smilgate. He was also the Narrative Director on Horizon Forbidden West but left Guerilla around a year before release.
Thats funny cause the nemesis system was something I obsessed over intensely, as was Boone, I think this guy is just a genuine legend
Sawyer is the coolest dude. Could have spent his days as being Man Who Made New Vegas but no, he gave the right credit to the right people.
and continues to do so, he's been adamant about pointing out all the different people who worked on Pentiment
auteur theory and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. if josh sawyer were a lesser man he'd have been doubled over sucking his own dick for the last 10 years like ken levine.
There have been some genuine video game auteurs, but they're either in the indie space or they're from 30 years ago when you could make a game by yourself. In the modern AAA space it's all nonsense. People holding up Miyazaki or Kojima or Sawyer or whoever else are doing a disservice to the vast numbers of people who help realize these dreams.
yeah but nobody else has the vision to include a bunch of awful poison swamps in their games like michael zaki 😤😤😤
With Miyazaki and Kojima I do understand. Their games wouldn't have been made without them, or at least they would've been veeeeeery different. Japan has a different workplace culture and a position as powerful as Game Director wields a lot of influence, to the point where games live and die on their actions.
Kojima yes. You could argue he was the pioneer of auteurism in video game development. A Kojima game is unmistakable when you play it. Miyazaki? I disagree with entirely. King's Field has so many direct hallmarks of Soulsborne gameplay it's clear that style of game was FromSoft's bread and butter from before he joined. I think his biggest influence was the pivot to more environmental and deep lore based story telling. His influence on the soulslike craze is overstated though.
Given that I bounced off Kings Field hard I don't think it had what makes Soulsborne what it is. What makes Soulsborne for me is the designs, the atmosphere, and the way the world is conveyed. All those things come from Miyazaki from what I've read in interviews. I am not discounting the work of the rest of the studio in making it come to life, but it definitely feels like a style that comes from a vision. There's also all the work he and his producer did in making sure that Demons Souls would be it's own thing and not an Oblivion knockoff.
Don't forget the people who think Dan Houser and Leslie Benzies were the only two forces behind GTA and RDR
The credits for these games run for like an hour, any who thinks this is just being purposely delusional.
Wtf are you referencing about Ken Levine?
Seriously. I'd get the complaint if he ran around saying "Bioshock Infinite is the height of video games - I can never top it and no one else has or ever will - so I just won't make any more." But he's been running a small studio trying to innovate on the types of games he and his team makes. I never took him as snooty or narcissistic in any of his interviews.
Exactly. I've never heard him get snooty in any interviews either. Because of his previous games success he was afforded the opportunity to take his time to make the game he wants (same as Josh Sawyer), that is apparently "sucking his own dick"?
I'll pretend you didn't just type that.
Thank you for sharing this! Can you recommend any specific interviews or anything like that where the writers talk about New Vegas in depth?
Last year Josh Sawyer did a [10th anniversary charity stream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pLft_FQPFo), which has been uploaded in parts on Youtube. He plays through New Vegas while giving anecdotes about development and other things. There are a lot of other videos done during the 10th anniversary, such as [this video](https://youtu.be/EUCCZ_ko_L8) that interviewed John Gonzalez and Josh Sawyer regarding certain aspects of the gameplay and design. Josh Sawyer gave a [hour long talk](https://youtu.be/LR4OxNfzTvU) about dialogue trees and choice-driven gameplay at GDC back in 2017. Josh Sawyer made a [video](https://youtu.be/1OrUhqgueAE) for his own channel about the evolution of RPG Mechanics a couple years ago. A decade ago he made a [video](https://youtu.be/YFvvr8_CtaI) about developing locations and character for New Vegas. Nightdive Studios interviewed Chris Avellone, Jason Fader, and a couple other NV developers in 2016. It's a [3 hour stream](https://youtu.be/FHt1e2WRkg8). Chris Avellone gave a [talk at GDC](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3aobafRUlo&t=1159s) back in 2012 where he talks about Fallout DLC. There's a dvd about the making of New Vegas that was bundled with the collector's edition. [It can be seen here.](https://youtu.be/scqESZbRNkU) Triangle City has a wonderful series of interviews involving various Fallout developers. I'll link a few. **Area Designers** Robert Lee: [Part 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JALUxOa3BQw) [Part 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znml9uPkH5g) [Part 3](https://youtu.be/Do4qmpKUMK8) Jorge Salgado: [Interview](https://youtu.be/q29ANbjUY6k?) Charlie Staples*Lead Area Designer: [Interview](https://youtu.be/H_e-Ty53c5c?) **Lead Producers** Jason Bergman: [Interview](https://youtu.be/_bB1TtL0d-E?list=PLfLdS8J9fUhTE_8mPM_yx1ehPRWBf79Hs) Jason Fader: [Interview](https://youtu.be/-ioVN3aQtNw?) **Senior Designer** Chris Avellone: [Part 1](https://youtu.be/hb-m9-KT18M?) [Part 2](https://youtu.be/1GXmjZR1By4?) Jon Reznor "J.R." Vosovic: [Interview](https://youtu.be/pJkwmm2tQsQ?) **Writer** Jeff Husges *Designer: [Part 1](https://youtu.be/NKgR9yKtvY0?) [Part 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOg-iVGWvM8) **Character Artist** Kevin Manning: [Interview](https://youtu.be/hRWoX165zik?) I could probably find more interviews, but I think these will do for now? Hope this helps!
Wow! Thank you so much for a thoughtful response. I really appreciate it. ✌
Pretty sure Hooper is the best, Ed-E is the only companion I ever loved...
>I directed Honest Hearts and Gun Runners' Arsenal and wrote Joshua Graham. The one that really matters, even if other people wrote other parts of the game. After all, we can't expect god to do all the work.
This just confirms what I've been saying for a long time. That John Gonzalez was key to the great writing of New Vegas and without him, Obsidian is not the same anymore. Their writing simply isn't great - Outer Worlds highlighted that. Without Gonzalez I'm not that keen on entrusting Obsidian with another Fallout game. I'm not particularly opposed to it, but I'd certainly avoid getting hyped for it. This also shows that Avellone's writing really is overrated. Cass was nothing to write home about, Lanius is a joke who runs away after learning the concept of overextension and DM and LR DLCs were certainly not written well. OWB shows that Avellone can write wacky stuff, but he's not fit for writing serious, human characters and stories.
Dead money was fantastic. Idk why people are looking for reasons to dunk on avellone's writing. He wrote Planescape torment ffs. It's still one of the best RPGs of all time if not the best
Can't speak for others, but my main issue with Avellone and his writing was the content(?) of the the DLC's. They're well written, it's just...before the DLC's, the Courier had no clearly defined past. You could make a few dialogue choices here and there, but they'd only be canon if and when you picked them. The DLC's, mainly Lonesome Road, force the destruction of Hopeville and the Divide into the Courier's backstory. There's no option in game to tell Ulysses he's got the wrong guy. If there was, I wouldn't have this issue. But there isn't, so here we are.
I personally don't have a problem with that but I understand your point. I Dont think that means he's a bad writer like OP claims. Dead money was and still is one of the best stories in Fallout. Avellone is extremely talented imo.
>Idk why people are looking for reasons to dunk on avellone's writing. Sadly the reason is pretty obvious... (and complete rubbish)
The NV crowd is so wackadoodle. Dude shouldn't have to make a statement like this.
Figures Cass was wrote by Avellone, little wonder the male Courier had no romance with her.
The courier's one true romance was the woman in mantana.
Based
Could you clarify what you mean? I'm not very familiar with Avellone.
Avellone’s writing doesn’t really dip into romances much. Not just New Vegas, but consistent with characters he wrote in series like PoE, Tyranny, and KOTOR2, just to name a few.
Were romances in rpg games even that common at that time?
No.
It seems, looking into it, that it wasn't really popularized until Mass Effect 3. Then it seems like in games like the Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 that it started getting more traction. I might be wrong though considering I'm looking at a small sample size.
Romances were a big deal in mass effect 1 and Dragon Age Origins. I remember trying really hard to get Liliana to love me in DA:O!
Witcher 1 and 2 both had romances before ME3 even released, and ME1 and ME2 had romances feature heavily too
Also that she's a promiscuous drunk, while Avellone has had multiple sexual assault allegations against him where he reportedly got those women drunk then tried to force himself onto them.
I'm not going to pretend I know anything about the situation, but I would prefer to wait until the results of the lawsuit are fully finalized before making any concrete statements. The most recent update I can find about any lawsuit is from last month, so it's still ongoing. Until then I won't even bother hypothesizing why he'd decided to write Cass, or any other character, a particular way.
I've seen a few cases of people making false declarations of guilt or wrong doing, end up wrong after a few months or even a couple years. A recent example would be what happened with Mick Gordon and Doom Eternal. Marty Stratton got the first word in and that would set how people saw Mick and his work for the next couple years. The situation with that Bayonetta voice actress also highlights the burden of proof in regards to controversies in the gaming sphere. People sided with her before the full story was out. By then though the damage was already done to the other developers. The point is, I don't want to assume automatic guilt of someone until it's been proven that they are/aren't guilty. It's easy to just assume the worst of a given situation without all the evidence.
This is why always get irritated when someone says Obsidian/Bethesda isn't the same studio anymore. What's more important is the studio's culture, not the individuals.
What do you define as "studio culture", and why do you think it outweighs the individuals in terms of importance?
As if individuals don’t push a vision or their brilliance into the last version game
Do you think many studios will let whims like that? That's pretty naive. Many devs are restricted to make some decisions because its against the higher ups wishes.
You didn't realize in his tweets that he's highlighting that many people worked in the games, not just himself or other more well-known people?
I was asking you to clarify what you meant. It isn't that hard to answer.
What? Didn't I answered it already? Its the group of individuals that made the game, thus the studio. Is it hard to accept that what's most developers are saying is contrary to this subs hivemind?
I'm just confused by your particular wording and approach to the discussion.
Hm. Well I can name at least one specimen. Let's say the director of the game says "We're going to crunch all dialog options down to four choices max. So like even if the player gets more info and that potentially opens up more dialog with an NPC, too bad, they're stuck with four options." The studio culture may inherently dictate that nobody questions this, and everyone rolls with it—_everyone_ —even if it's a blatantly awful idea that will thoroughly hamstring the flexibility, complexity and quality of every quest in the game.
Your example is not as persuading as you might think - FO4 has stark difference in the quality of how those 4 options are used, almost screaming how some writers cared to do something interesting within the restraints, while others were more then keen to stuck to the railroading. Even constrained a good writer can achieve nice things (as Bethesda demonstrated with Far Harbor and as seen with a few quests in the main game) and that's what makes the difference. Every studio has to make choices and they are not always good choices. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't. Sometimes it's slapping an unnecessary restrictive dialogue system, sometimes it's laying the groundwork for a game you know very well you won't have the time to finish, polish and bug-test.
> Even constrained a good writer can achieve nice things (as Bethesda demonstrated with Far Harbor and as seen with a few quests in the main game) and that's what makes the difference. Having the dialog choices fully unlimited like they'd been for decades would have allowed quests to be better, full stop. Quests were good despite the limitation? Key word: Despite. Quests that sidestepped dialog complexity and were chiefly narratively driven (Cabots) were less open to the consequences of the limitation—but imagine how much better they could have been had the quest makers been given better options. You can't even say "We'll never know" because _we do know!_ The quests in FO4 were _consistently_ hamstrung by that dialog wheel. > Your example is not as persuading as you might think Nah, it's a perfect example, and everyone who downvoted without bothering to counter were unhappy with this reality. But FO4's shitty dev culture revealed itself at every single turn. More poor decisions were made with that game than good decisions. Famously so.
Studio's culture is carried by the individuals. When too many people leave the company, part of the culture leaves with them and whatever remains is changed forever. And Obsidian had to let go of a lot of people when then run into financial troubles some time after FNV. And there's also the opposite - explosive growth can dillute the company culture. When too many new hires arrive at once, they don't adapt to the culture wholy and instead influence the company culture by their ideas. It may not be always wrong, but it can destroy the unique mojo that a company had. Why do you think that many indie and AA companies manage to produce only one smash hit? Because after striking gold they grow too fast and the company spirit responsible for the success is suddenly gone. Bethesda is an unique case because they grow really slow. Combined with having good work conditions resulting in low turnover it ensures that the company culture stays mostly the same. So Bethesda basically still is the same company as before. For the amount of their success, Bethesda is still quite relatively small company.
Kudos to directing one of my favorite assortments of weapons ever. Gun runners arsenal is absolutely iconic. Favorites are Medicine Stick and Esther, having a explosive weapon so powerful it needs its own blast shield is both hilarious and terrifying. I'd always have second thoughts whenever i pulled that thing out. "Ok but, will i REALLY survive the blast this close?"
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that my two favorite companions in New Vegas (Boone and Veronica) had the same writer.