DirtyOldShoe
Some kind of lucky
RE: Better stories/Returning to a project
You have no idea who I am, but I know that you are aware of me and that you or at least your subordinates report back to you on their findings here.
I have tried to understand you Todd, get a feeling as to how much of a role you play in the games you release. I have come to terms with what has happened with the titles you released and hold no hard feelings any more. I did make a thread involving Emil to isolate issues that at that point I thought were within his realm of responsibility. I blamed him for the bad writing in your titles. I have come to realize that Emil may be part of the problem, but he is not to blame. I say this because I know that Emil is not a writer, I know that he knows how to write, like anyone can, but his skill-set is not in story telling. You had someone who could do that already and you let them go for whatever reason, justified or not, Michael Kirkbride was and is a writer. Your best writing was when he worked with you. I'm not recommending you hire him again, but when you release something for the world to experience, you can't un-release it. That experience will have a timeline in History.
Someone decided to give the rights of writing over to a yesman with mediocre writing talents. It is not the individuals error, but the one who put them there. If I were a boss of a Deli and I put someone behind the counter that knew what a sandwich was, but never made sandwiches, nor could identify meat, people would be angry, that anger would go to the inexperienced person unfortunately, but the real problem would be me for putting that person into that position.
I'm not recommending that you fire Emil, just find a field he is better suited in. He has been known to come up with some awful dialogue that has generated memes, viral memes are not necessarily good. Most people hate the arrow in the knee meme. When people think of Skyrim, do you want their last or most prominent thought to be of that meme? The answer should be no.
I don't wish to linger on this too long other then to say, you need actual writers to write your stories, yesmen will only sink the ship. If people are too afraid or lazy to think out-side the box, then they need to be shifted to new areas with different tasks. You need to bring in new talent like Avelone, he may not know Elder Scrolls, but he knows how to write. If you are failing at writing, outsource a writer that you find fascinating and be willing to be uncomfortable with the setting and plot.
Second part I want to address is returning to a project after time and seeing it with eyes not blind from making it, blind from testing it and blind from living it.
I know how you feel. You probably got to a point where you hated Skyrim during development, maybe not directly, but part of you dreaded it because working on one thing that is so big, for so long can only drain you. You can lose sight easily and even when looking for errors miss the most common things because it all ends up looking the same after a point.
I get it.
I haven't worked in a professional manner in regards to making a game, but I have some experience with putting years into a project with a team, not funded.
#1 Play testers. How much importance do you place on them? It shouldn't be everything, but I think more then what you do. The old saying is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Your system for testers is broken, you need to fix it. Testing is more then finding bugs, it is also looking for opportunity. As far as I am aware, you offer testing via form on your site. This is not a good idea, unless you are interested in hype. You are fishing through a pool of no talent, or a least have no promise of talent. When you seek out your voice actors, would you ever consider having a form on your sight for auditions? Probably not. It would turn out to be something like American Idol, it might be funny, but not productive. You have implemented an American Idol style testing. You need to put the same effort into testers as you do actors. Testers need to be paid and you need to seek them out. Ask yourself. Who do you want to test your game that will always have a history? Random fan with x platform? or person from a short list that you have seen their abilities? All angles of your work should be professional. Plus, yesmen will only sink your ship, you should want someone who will want to disagree with you from time to time, not worry about walking on glass. Talent find your testers. Sit with them. They will help you see your world from different eyes and help keep it fresh. Make this a thing you do.
#2 Removing unused features, I get where you are coming from when it is something that months are spent on and it is something that no one cares about, but you must see both sides. When you take something away, you need to have something in its place. The two best examples I can give you. Google got rid of the "Feeling lucky" Button years ago as no one used it. People were sad to see it go, so much so that Google added it back. It to this day is a feature that is rarely used, but people come to expect it. The question is, does it cost many hours of Google? I don't think so. I can make a connection to this and Morrowind. You had a spell called Earwig. I never used it, thought it was useless, but, I like that I can caste it if I want to. I like that I have the freedom to make that choice. If Morrowind updated and the spell was removed, even though I never used it, I would feel like something was taken from me. When you are going through this process, Ask yourself as well, what features cost little to no time at all? Do more of that to balance out the cut features instead of inventing a new feature that may also consume resources and be scrapped at a later time. People like options and chooses.
#3 Fatigue. My solution my not apply to you. You have to like your games and I honestly am not sure if you do any more. Fatigue is the death of inspiration. When you feel fatigued it is because nothing is fresh. Different tasks have different fatigue levels. I would say that making proper navmesh would be near the top of the fatigue tree as well as decorating multiple cells. Whatever the task is that is causing this, you have to try and break it. I do this in 2 ways. I play older games like Fallout1/2 and Morrowind, even Oblivion. It breaks the monotony of the task and helps point out areas of success and failure. Another thing I do is test similar things from mod authors. Someone else has done something like what I am doing, so I will play what they made. critique it, dissect it. It is still related to the subject matter, but I can distance myself from my own content. This is beneficial in many ways and helps you see your own work with fresh eyes. Now when you know the name over every static object, address for every sound file, then you need to stop working and take a break. That is a sign of creativity dying. You can get to a point when it stops being the game you are working on and it becomes meshes, textures sound files and scripted events. You see your game the way Neo see the matrix. The magic is gone.
If I make a dungeon every day, eventually they will all look and feel similar. That will cause fatigue, even if there is different kits used, creativity will die. Switching tasks is a good way to keep the creative juices fresh, and it helps to have time between repeated tasks so you can forget how you did it the last time.
You have no idea who I am, but I know that you are aware of me and that you or at least your subordinates report back to you on their findings here.
I have tried to understand you Todd, get a feeling as to how much of a role you play in the games you release. I have come to terms with what has happened with the titles you released and hold no hard feelings any more. I did make a thread involving Emil to isolate issues that at that point I thought were within his realm of responsibility. I blamed him for the bad writing in your titles. I have come to realize that Emil may be part of the problem, but he is not to blame. I say this because I know that Emil is not a writer, I know that he knows how to write, like anyone can, but his skill-set is not in story telling. You had someone who could do that already and you let them go for whatever reason, justified or not, Michael Kirkbride was and is a writer. Your best writing was when he worked with you. I'm not recommending you hire him again, but when you release something for the world to experience, you can't un-release it. That experience will have a timeline in History.
Someone decided to give the rights of writing over to a yesman with mediocre writing talents. It is not the individuals error, but the one who put them there. If I were a boss of a Deli and I put someone behind the counter that knew what a sandwich was, but never made sandwiches, nor could identify meat, people would be angry, that anger would go to the inexperienced person unfortunately, but the real problem would be me for putting that person into that position.
I'm not recommending that you fire Emil, just find a field he is better suited in. He has been known to come up with some awful dialogue that has generated memes, viral memes are not necessarily good. Most people hate the arrow in the knee meme. When people think of Skyrim, do you want their last or most prominent thought to be of that meme? The answer should be no.
I don't wish to linger on this too long other then to say, you need actual writers to write your stories, yesmen will only sink the ship. If people are too afraid or lazy to think out-side the box, then they need to be shifted to new areas with different tasks. You need to bring in new talent like Avelone, he may not know Elder Scrolls, but he knows how to write. If you are failing at writing, outsource a writer that you find fascinating and be willing to be uncomfortable with the setting and plot.
Second part I want to address is returning to a project after time and seeing it with eyes not blind from making it, blind from testing it and blind from living it.
I know how you feel. You probably got to a point where you hated Skyrim during development, maybe not directly, but part of you dreaded it because working on one thing that is so big, for so long can only drain you. You can lose sight easily and even when looking for errors miss the most common things because it all ends up looking the same after a point.
I get it.
I haven't worked in a professional manner in regards to making a game, but I have some experience with putting years into a project with a team, not funded.
#1 Play testers. How much importance do you place on them? It shouldn't be everything, but I think more then what you do. The old saying is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Your system for testers is broken, you need to fix it. Testing is more then finding bugs, it is also looking for opportunity. As far as I am aware, you offer testing via form on your site. This is not a good idea, unless you are interested in hype. You are fishing through a pool of no talent, or a least have no promise of talent. When you seek out your voice actors, would you ever consider having a form on your sight for auditions? Probably not. It would turn out to be something like American Idol, it might be funny, but not productive. You have implemented an American Idol style testing. You need to put the same effort into testers as you do actors. Testers need to be paid and you need to seek them out. Ask yourself. Who do you want to test your game that will always have a history? Random fan with x platform? or person from a short list that you have seen their abilities? All angles of your work should be professional. Plus, yesmen will only sink your ship, you should want someone who will want to disagree with you from time to time, not worry about walking on glass. Talent find your testers. Sit with them. They will help you see your world from different eyes and help keep it fresh. Make this a thing you do.
#2 Removing unused features, I get where you are coming from when it is something that months are spent on and it is something that no one cares about, but you must see both sides. When you take something away, you need to have something in its place. The two best examples I can give you. Google got rid of the "Feeling lucky" Button years ago as no one used it. People were sad to see it go, so much so that Google added it back. It to this day is a feature that is rarely used, but people come to expect it. The question is, does it cost many hours of Google? I don't think so. I can make a connection to this and Morrowind. You had a spell called Earwig. I never used it, thought it was useless, but, I like that I can caste it if I want to. I like that I have the freedom to make that choice. If Morrowind updated and the spell was removed, even though I never used it, I would feel like something was taken from me. When you are going through this process, Ask yourself as well, what features cost little to no time at all? Do more of that to balance out the cut features instead of inventing a new feature that may also consume resources and be scrapped at a later time. People like options and chooses.
#3 Fatigue. My solution my not apply to you. You have to like your games and I honestly am not sure if you do any more. Fatigue is the death of inspiration. When you feel fatigued it is because nothing is fresh. Different tasks have different fatigue levels. I would say that making proper navmesh would be near the top of the fatigue tree as well as decorating multiple cells. Whatever the task is that is causing this, you have to try and break it. I do this in 2 ways. I play older games like Fallout1/2 and Morrowind, even Oblivion. It breaks the monotony of the task and helps point out areas of success and failure. Another thing I do is test similar things from mod authors. Someone else has done something like what I am doing, so I will play what they made. critique it, dissect it. It is still related to the subject matter, but I can distance myself from my own content. This is beneficial in many ways and helps you see your own work with fresh eyes. Now when you know the name over every static object, address for every sound file, then you need to stop working and take a break. That is a sign of creativity dying. You can get to a point when it stops being the game you are working on and it becomes meshes, textures sound files and scripted events. You see your game the way Neo see the matrix. The magic is gone.
If I make a dungeon every day, eventually they will all look and feel similar. That will cause fatigue, even if there is different kits used, creativity will die. Switching tasks is a good way to keep the creative juices fresh, and it helps to have time between repeated tasks so you can forget how you did it the last time.