alright you know being a really good writer is tough
but it is not at all difficult to be a non-shitty writer
how we wind up with shit like D3's plot is beyond me
though YOU CANNOT JUDGE ME is still one of my favorite cutscenes basically ever
Writing at all for video games, especially they way they are developed at Blizzard, is a pretty different thing for writing for any other medium.
Kind of like writing for any medium!
Diablo 3 did not look very much itself at the end of production compared to the beginning of its production; neither did Wings of Liberty. This is, however, not a thing most people get to see. All they have is the finished product, and they go "man, it is not that hard".
But actually, it is pretty hard. Things get shuffled and cut and reworked, and often times you are dealing with an inability to re-record lines. So you have to fiddle with what you have and try to make it work. The first Zeratul Map in WoL had a line of dialogue removed and some dialogue shuffled that sucked the LIFE out of a conversation between Zeratul and Kerrigan, and made it much more generic sounding. To this day, I remain baffled as to why that line was changed.
But "it is not all that difficult to be a non-shitty writer" is flat out an ignorant statement, Shorty. Writing for games is a very, very bizarre process that varies drastically between studios, never mind how different it is from any other medium. I cannot stress that enough.
When I was working there, I was usually super jazzed and excited about how writing was going
and by the end of these projects, I was all "Man, really?"
alright you know being a really good writer is tough
but it is not at all difficult to be a non-shitty writer
how we wind up with shit like D3's plot is beyond me
though YOU CANNOT JUDGE ME is still one of my favorite cutscenes basically ever
Writing at all for video games, especially they way they are developed at Blizzard, is a pretty different thing for writing for any other medium.
Kind of like writing for any medium!
Diablo 3 did not look very much itself at the end of production compared to the beginning of its production; neither did Wings of Liberty. This is, however, not a thing most people get to see. All they have is the finished product, and they go "man, it is not that hard".
But actually, it is pretty hard. Things get shuffled and cut and reworked, and often times you are dealing with an inability to re-record lines. So you have to fiddle with what you have and try to make it work. The first Zeratul Map in WoL had a line of dialogue removed and some dialogue shuffled that sucked the LIFE out of a conversation between Zeratul and Kerrigan, and made it much more generic sounding. To this day, I remain baffled as to why that line was changed.
But "it is not all that difficult to be a non-shitty writer" is flat out an ignorant statement, Shorty. Writing for games is a very, very bizarre process that varies drastically between studios, never mind how different it is from any other medium. I cannot stress that enough.
When I was working there, I was usually super jazzed and excited about how writing was going
and by the end of these projects, I was all "Man, really?"
well now we're talking about the process of producing a video game
that's a different thing
like, there is no reason that a halfway decent writer looking at any line of dialogue in D3 would say "yeah this is acceptable"
and I get that developing a game is a complicated thing with lots of moving parts
but what you'll note is that I did not say that it isn't hard to make an unshitty game
it's super hard to make even a mediocre game
but what you seem to be suggesting is that we should accept bad writing because, hey, games are hard to make
and that seems bogus to me
+2
Options
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
well now we're talking about the process of producing a video game
that's a different thing
like, there is no reason that a halfway decent writer looking at any line of dialogue in D3 would say "yeah this is acceptable"
and I get that developing a game is a complicated thing with lots of moving parts
but what you'll note is that I did not say that it isn't hard to make an unshitty game
it's super hard to make even a mediocre game
but what you seem to be suggesting is that we should accept bad writing because, hey, games are hard to make
and that seems bogus to me
That's not at all how working with other people works. Especially if your title is "Writer" and not something like, say, "Producer" or "Lead Designer" or "Chief Executive Officer" or "Director of Operations" or something else super fancy that implies that you get decision-making power while everyone else basically has to put up or shut up.
Diablo 2 said more about the world, the player characters, and the supporting cast with one tenth the dialogue Diablo 3 has.
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
alright you know being a really good writer is tough
but it is not at all difficult to be a non-shitty writer
how we wind up with shit like D3's plot is beyond me
though YOU CANNOT JUDGE ME is still one of my favorite cutscenes basically ever
Writing at all for video games, especially they way they are developed at Blizzard, is a pretty different thing for writing for any other medium.
Kind of like writing for any medium!
Diablo 3 did not look very much itself at the end of production compared to the beginning of its production; neither did Wings of Liberty. This is, however, not a thing most people get to see. All they have is the finished product, and they go "man, it is not that hard".
But actually, it is pretty hard. Things get shuffled and cut and reworked, and often times you are dealing with an inability to re-record lines. So you have to fiddle with what you have and try to make it work. The first Zeratul Map in WoL had a line of dialogue removed and some dialogue shuffled that sucked the LIFE out of a conversation between Zeratul and Kerrigan, and made it much more generic sounding. To this day, I remain baffled as to why that line was changed.
But "it is not all that difficult to be a non-shitty writer" is flat out an ignorant statement, Shorty. Writing for games is a very, very bizarre process that varies drastically between studios, never mind how different it is from any other medium. I cannot stress that enough.
When I was working there, I was usually super jazzed and excited about how writing was going
and by the end of these projects, I was all "Man, really?"
well now we're talking about the process of producing a video game
that's a different thing
like, there is no reason that a halfway decent writer looking at any line of dialogue in D3 would say "yeah this is acceptable"
and I get that developing a game is a complicated thing with lots of moving parts
but what you'll note is that I did not say that it isn't hard to make an unshitty game
it's super hard to make even a mediocre game
but what you seem to be suggesting is that we should accept bad writing because, hey, games are hard to make
and that seems bogus to me
On the contrary! I think you should be really vocal and have every right to be upset that writing in ANY game is bad!
What I'm saying is that it is NOT easy to write something "non-shitty". Because even if you start out with something that's totally balls to the wall fuck-you awesome, the process of AAA game development is so disjointed and iterative that it is really actually rather hard to make sure that it doesn't get diluted or warped into mediocrity or even reall dog-shittiness
and the culture at Blizzard definitely doesn't have a ton of space for the kind of revision and reworking that minor, cumulative changes to the writing require to prevent the quality of it from degrading. It's MUCH harder than in other media.
My issue is that you were like "it should be easy for this not to suck donkey balls" and I'm saying "Well, it isn't".
Edit: See, like, you're saying it in this post too. "That's a different thing"
Well, yeah, Game writing is technically different from game development
but they are so intertwined that the latter has a big impact on the former
and at a company like Blizzard (as compared to say, bioware), writers don't always have the freedom, leeway, or clout to fix things that go awry.
Which sucks, and I hate it!
But it definitely makes their jobs harder.
Again, this is not to say that we should be content with shitty writing.
Merely that painting it as "easy" to fix is an ill-informed opinion.
alright you know being a really good writer is tough
but it is not at all difficult to be a non-shitty writer
how we wind up with shit like D3's plot is beyond me
though YOU CANNOT JUDGE ME is still one of my favorite cutscenes basically ever
Writing at all for video games, especially they way they are developed at Blizzard, is a pretty different thing for writing for any other medium.
Kind of like writing for any medium!
Diablo 3 did not look very much itself at the end of production compared to the beginning of its production; neither did Wings of Liberty. This is, however, not a thing most people get to see. All they have is the finished product, and they go "man, it is not that hard".
But actually, it is pretty hard. Things get shuffled and cut and reworked, and often times you are dealing with an inability to re-record lines. So you have to fiddle with what you have and try to make it work. The first Zeratul Map in WoL had a line of dialogue removed and some dialogue shuffled that sucked the LIFE out of a conversation between Zeratul and Kerrigan, and made it much more generic sounding. To this day, I remain baffled as to why that line was changed.
But "it is not all that difficult to be a non-shitty writer" is flat out an ignorant statement, Shorty. Writing for games is a very, very bizarre process that varies drastically between studios, never mind how different it is from any other medium. I cannot stress that enough.
When I was working there, I was usually super jazzed and excited about how writing was going
and by the end of these projects, I was all "Man, really?"
well now we're talking about the process of producing a video game
that's a different thing
like, there is no reason that a halfway decent writer looking at any line of dialogue in D3 would say "yeah this is acceptable"
and I get that developing a game is a complicated thing with lots of moving parts
but what you'll note is that I did not say that it isn't hard to make an unshitty game
it's super hard to make even a mediocre game
but what you seem to be suggesting is that we should accept bad writing because, hey, games are hard to make
and that seems bogus to me
On the contrary! I think you should be really vocal and have every right to be upset that writing in ANY game is bad!
What I'm saying is that it is NOT easy to write something "non-shitty". Because even if you start out with something that's totally balls to the wall fuck-you awesome, the process of AAA game development is so disjointed and iterative that it is really actually rather hard to make sure that it doesn't get diluted or warped into mediocrity or even reall dog-shittiness
and the culture at Blizzard definitely doesn't have a ton of space for the kind of revision and reworking that minor, cumulative changes to the writing require to prevent the quality of it from degrading. It's MUCH harder than in other media.
My issue is that you were like "it should be easy for this not to suck donkey balls" and I'm saying "Well, it isn't".
Edit: See, like, you're saying it in this post too. "That's a different thing"
Well, yeah, Game writing is technically different from game development
but they are so intertwined that the latter has a big impact on the former
and at a company like Blizzard (as compared to say, bioware), writers don't always have the freedom, leeway, or clout to fix things that go awry.
Which sucks, and I hate it!
But it definitely makes their jobs harder.
Again, this is not to say that we should be content with shitty writing.
Merely that painting it as "easy" to fix is an ill-informed opinion.
it's easy the same way that fixing, say, systemic injustice is "easy"
like, it's not usually all that hard to find what's wrong and point at it
what is really ridiculously hard is actually getting the right people to do something about it
Okay, well, that's the only point I took issue with, the rest of what you said is pretty spot on.
I actually think that the "tent pole" process of writing more-or-less immutable scenes that take months-to-years to generate cut scenes is part of the problem with Blizzard games, and I am pretty sure that they are the only things that Metzen is really heavily involved in writing any more.
But that's a theory, I actually don't know how deep into the creative side he really is any more. I know he didn't write much in-game dialogue for D3.
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Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
yeah well I mean the post you took issue with is something I said out of hand, just bitching about something that peeved me in something I really otherwise enjoy, so
not exactly the most worthwhile opinion even in the best case
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Big Red Tiebeautiful clydesdale style feettoo hot to trotRegistered Userregular
Zoltan Kulle: Oh man you guys got my body back? SWEET, I'll totally get that Black Soulstone for you!
Leah: Okay, we'll resurrect you, but you're not gonna betray us, are you?
Kulle: What? Noooo, that's crazy! I'm totally not gonna betray you!
I think the delivery of Zoltan Kulle was hamtastic
but in terms of themes, guy who gets fed up with bullshit, flips the coffee table and gives the middle finger to everybody on his way out is really one of my favorite tropes.
Zoltan Kulle: Oh man you guys got my body back? SWEET, I'll totally get that Black Soulstone for you!
Leah: Okay, we'll resurrect you, but you're not gonna betray us, are you?
Kulle: What? Noooo, that's crazy! I'm totally not gonna betray you!
the joke is you kill kulle for trying to point out you're being betrayed by adria
I mean, Kulle is kind of a loose canon, and I really don't think he would rule over humanity as a benevolent dictator. Plus being dead for hundreds of years probably didn't do much for his sanity. I'm not shedding any tears for the guy, he pretty much immediately tries to kill you because he sees you as a pawn of the powers he's fighting, and I'm not a huge fan of "Join me or die" types.
Kulle actually had a super sweet afterlife going on before he was forcefully ressurected. So, you know, just taunting everyone cause what're they gonna do, kill him again?
I did a full run through of the game when loot 2.0 came out last week or whatever, and I tried to pay attention to this part to try and actually understand what happened
and it seems like:
you get his body back
he says some kulle stuff
you say yeah okay whatever man
the stone starts pulling in demon souls and kulle is all oh shit it is pulling in demon souls what the hell
then, as a nonsequitor, kulle invites you to rule the world like he has been the whole time he was just a head in your bag?
and you call him a crazy asshole, like you have been the entire time he was just a head in your bag?
and at this point one of two things happens: either Kulle decides that, after basically holding up his end of the bargain (or at least never saying he won't give you the stone), he doesn't have to take that kind of shit in his own home and attacks you OR you decide that he's such a crazy fucker that you'll have to kill him anyway so why not do it now without even first trying to see if you can just take the stone and go
I did a full run through of the game when loot 2.0 came out last week or whatever, and I tried to pay attention to this part to try and actually understand what happened
and it seems like:
you get his body back
he says some kulle stuff
you say yeah okay whatever man
the stone starts pulling in demon souls and kulle is all oh shit it is pulling in demon souls what the hell
then, as a nonsequitor, kulle invites you to rule the world like he has been the whole time he was just a head in your bag?
and you call him a crazy asshole, like you have been the entire time he was just a head in your bag?
and at this point one of two things happens: either Kulle decides that, after basically holding up his end of the bargain (or at least never saying he won't give you the stone), he doesn't have to take that kind of shit in his own home and attacks you OR you decide that he's such a crazy fucker that you'll have to kill him anyway so why not do it now without even first trying to see if you can just take the stone and go
I kind of think it's both at once.
Like I said, he feels like you're serving the Angels because of Tyrael, and you're dumb enough to be duped by Adria, AND you're preeeeetty powerful so just better to be safe and eliminate any competition from the get go.
I did a full run through of the game when loot 2.0 came out last week or whatever, and I tried to pay attention to this part to try and actually understand what happened
and it seems like:
you get his body back
he says some kulle stuff
you say yeah okay whatever man
the stone starts pulling in demon souls and kulle is all oh shit it is pulling in demon souls what the hell
then, as a nonsequitor, kulle invites you to rule the world like he has been the whole time he was just a head in your bag?
and you call him a crazy asshole, like you have been the entire time he was just a head in your bag?
and at this point one of two things happens: either Kulle decides that, after basically holding up his end of the bargain (or at least never saying he won't give you the stone), he doesn't have to take that kind of shit in his own home and attacks you OR you decide that he's such a crazy fucker that you'll have to kill him anyway so why not do it now without even first trying to see if you can just take the stone and go
I kind of think it's both at once.
Like I said, he feels like you're serving the Angels because of Tyrael, and you're dumb enough to be duped by Adria, AND you're preeeeetty powerful so just better to be safe and eliminate any competition from the get go.
See that makes a fair enough amount of sense
I feel like I would have liked it if Kulle had a line or two that connected those dots though, because in practice it just seems like you and kulle both just went "fuck it this sure looks like a boss room I guess we better kill each other"
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KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
no he says "you have been deceived, ignore those fuckers and join with me so we can rule the galaxy together!"
so even if he's right it's still a big conflict of interests in that he's a madman whose goal is world domination
Yeah that's what he says, but that isn't a thing to fight about and the writing doesn't do a particularly good job connecting that to his previous thought ("hey the somebody putzed with the stone/souls")
Oh I'm being fucked with? Well how about you let me handle that, just pass the stone over and I'll be on my way
I did a full run through of the game when loot 2.0 came out last week or whatever, and I tried to pay attention to this part to try and actually understand what happened
and it seems like:
you get his body back
he says some kulle stuff
you say yeah okay whatever man
the stone starts pulling in demon souls and kulle is all oh shit it is pulling in demon souls what the hell
then, as a nonsequitor, kulle invites you to rule the world like he has been the whole time he was just a head in your bag?
and you call him a crazy asshole, like you have been the entire time he was just a head in your bag?
and at this point one of two things happens: either Kulle decides that, after basically holding up his end of the bargain (or at least never saying he won't give you the stone), he doesn't have to take that kind of shit in his own home and attacks you OR you decide that he's such a crazy fucker that you'll have to kill him anyway so why not do it now without even first trying to see if you can just take the stone and go
I kind of think it's both at once.
Like I said, he feels like you're serving the Angels because of Tyrael, and you're dumb enough to be duped by Adria, AND you're preeeeetty powerful so just better to be safe and eliminate any competition from the get go.
See that makes a fair enough amount of sense
I feel like I would have liked it if Kulle had a line or two that connected those dots though, because in practice it just seems like you and kulle both just went "fuck it this sure looks like a boss room I guess we better kill each other"
Minor details like that that really pay shit off in a big way seem to get lost in development all the time in Blizzard games.
It's just man they reaaaaaallly make it obvious that you're gonna fight him
+1
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Lord DaveGrief CauserBitch Free ZoneRegistered Userregular
I never got the impression that my character ever thought anybody besides himself was ever going to get anything done besides betrayal and failure.
It's not like I didn't successfully solve all the problems with my axe in the end, so why spoil everybody's drama?
Posts
Writing at all for video games, especially they way they are developed at Blizzard, is a pretty different thing for writing for any other medium.
Kind of like writing for any medium!
Diablo 3 did not look very much itself at the end of production compared to the beginning of its production; neither did Wings of Liberty. This is, however, not a thing most people get to see. All they have is the finished product, and they go "man, it is not that hard".
But actually, it is pretty hard. Things get shuffled and cut and reworked, and often times you are dealing with an inability to re-record lines. So you have to fiddle with what you have and try to make it work. The first Zeratul Map in WoL had a line of dialogue removed and some dialogue shuffled that sucked the LIFE out of a conversation between Zeratul and Kerrigan, and made it much more generic sounding. To this day, I remain baffled as to why that line was changed.
But "it is not all that difficult to be a non-shitty writer" is flat out an ignorant statement, Shorty. Writing for games is a very, very bizarre process that varies drastically between studios, never mind how different it is from any other medium. I cannot stress that enough.
When I was working there, I was usually super jazzed and excited about how writing was going
and by the end of these projects, I was all "Man, really?"
its everything in between that's just eh
step 1: take the main story line script
step 2: feed it into the shredder
step 3: that's it diablo don't need anything besides end of act cutscenes
The end of Diablo 2 is fuckin' crazyballs
well now we're talking about the process of producing a video game
that's a different thing
like, there is no reason that a halfway decent writer looking at any line of dialogue in D3 would say "yeah this is acceptable"
and I get that developing a game is a complicated thing with lots of moving parts
but what you'll note is that I did not say that it isn't hard to make an unshitty game
it's super hard to make even a mediocre game
but what you seem to be suggesting is that we should accept bad writing because, hey, games are hard to make
and that seems bogus to me
That's not at all how working with other people works. Especially if your title is "Writer" and not something like, say, "Producer" or "Lead Designer" or "Chief Executive Officer" or "Director of Operations" or something else super fancy that implies that you get decision-making power while everyone else basically has to put up or shut up.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Steam Switch FC: 2799-7909-4852
Arrogant nephalem, my servants will feast on your pride as they devour your flesh!
What I'm saying is that it is NOT easy to write something "non-shitty". Because even if you start out with something that's totally balls to the wall fuck-you awesome, the process of AAA game development is so disjointed and iterative that it is really actually rather hard to make sure that it doesn't get diluted or warped into mediocrity or even reall dog-shittiness
and the culture at Blizzard definitely doesn't have a ton of space for the kind of revision and reworking that minor, cumulative changes to the writing require to prevent the quality of it from degrading. It's MUCH harder than in other media.
My issue is that you were like "it should be easy for this not to suck donkey balls" and I'm saying "Well, it isn't".
Edit: See, like, you're saying it in this post too. "That's a different thing"
Well, yeah, Game writing is technically different from game development
but they are so intertwined that the latter has a big impact on the former
and at a company like Blizzard (as compared to say, bioware), writers don't always have the freedom, leeway, or clout to fix things that go awry.
Which sucks, and I hate it!
But it definitely makes their jobs harder.
Again, this is not to say that we should be content with shitty writing.
Merely that painting it as "easy" to fix is an ill-informed opinion.
Shrugging and going "video games" is the most frustrating response to bad writing in the woooooooooooooorld.
it's easy the same way that fixing, say, systemic injustice is "easy"
like, it's not usually all that hard to find what's wrong and point at it
what is really ridiculously hard is actually getting the right people to do something about it
it's like collaboration is hard or something
weird
I actually think that the "tent pole" process of writing more-or-less immutable scenes that take months-to-years to generate cut scenes is part of the problem with Blizzard games, and I am pretty sure that they are the only things that Metzen is really heavily involved in writing any more.
But that's a theory, I actually don't know how deep into the creative side he really is any more. I know he didn't write much in-game dialogue for D3.
not exactly the most worthwhile opinion even in the best case
Conversations with him about his job were really interesting, he taught me a lot about what an unusual thing writing for video games is.
ENOUGH
Arrogant nephalem
ENOUGH
Arrogant Blaaaaarggghhh
Leah: Okay, we'll resurrect you, but you're not gonna betray us, are you?
Kulle: What? Noooo, that's crazy! I'm totally not gonna betray you!
Kulle: Ha ha, PSYCHE
"you're walking into a giant trap. lets you and me be gods instead. it'll be great! we'll have taco tuesdays!
MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
but in terms of themes, guy who gets fed up with bullshit, flips the coffee table and gives the middle finger to everybody on his way out is really one of my favorite tropes.
the joke is you kill kulle for trying to point out you're being betrayed by adria
you're the jerk, its you nephalem
Was this intentional?
Steam Switch FC: 2799-7909-4852
I did a full run through of the game when loot 2.0 came out last week or whatever, and I tried to pay attention to this part to try and actually understand what happened
and it seems like:
you get his body back
he says some kulle stuff
you say yeah okay whatever man
the stone starts pulling in demon souls and kulle is all oh shit it is pulling in demon souls what the hell
then, as a nonsequitor, kulle invites you to rule the world like he has been the whole time he was just a head in your bag?
and you call him a crazy asshole, like you have been the entire time he was just a head in your bag?
and at this point one of two things happens: either Kulle decides that, after basically holding up his end of the bargain (or at least never saying he won't give you the stone), he doesn't have to take that kind of shit in his own home and attacks you OR you decide that he's such a crazy fucker that you'll have to kill him anyway so why not do it now without even first trying to see if you can just take the stone and go
Hahahaha, no, but I'll leave it.
I kind of think it's both at once.
Like I said, he feels like you're serving the Angels because of Tyrael, and you're dumb enough to be duped by Adria, AND you're preeeeetty powerful so just better to be safe and eliminate any competition from the get go.
so even if he's right it's still a big conflict of interests in that he's a madman whose goal is world domination
See that makes a fair enough amount of sense
I feel like I would have liked it if Kulle had a line or two that connected those dots though, because in practice it just seems like you and kulle both just went "fuck it this sure looks like a boss room I guess we better kill each other"
Yeah that's what he says, but that isn't a thing to fight about and the writing doesn't do a particularly good job connecting that to his previous thought ("hey the somebody putzed with the stone/souls")
Oh I'm being fucked with? Well how about you let me handle that, just pass the stone over and I'll be on my way
Minor details like that that really pay shit off in a big way seem to get lost in development all the time in Blizzard games.
and now we're full circle.
It's just man they reaaaaaallly make it obvious that you're gonna fight him
It's not like I didn't successfully solve all the problems with my axe in the end, so why spoil everybody's drama?