Well, I did not expected this level of honesty about what target audience really want.
It almost like finding "and its also addictive, in most profitable kind of way" in Marlboro brand pitch deck.
Its kinda refrshing.
There are a couple of unfortunate character portraits of "babes", that don't match the actual character descriptions or behavior. It's the only juvenile aspect to the game, along with some of Morte's quips.
The actual game is neither juvenile nor a power fantasy. It is an anti-power-fantasy. It is about atonement for past misdeeds. Killing is often not the solution, and in fact there is a "pacifist" walkthrough.
Most of the characters you find are mentally and physically scarred by things done to them by [redacted].
See new Netflix shows for how idiotic and self-sabotaging it can get if you choose lying to fans (see Witcher).
Imagine Peter Jackson made Sam betray Frodo and sell him to Saruman, Gandalf was actually trying to turn Frodo into an orc, elves were actually going to the middle earth not escaping it, and the big bad wasn't Sauron but some new character invented by Jackson that makes no sense but sounds vaguely Icelandish because we want to keep the Nordic theme. Oh and half the party gets killed in Rivendale by the new villain mindfucking Frodo.
And magic stops being unexplained and mythical. You just gather shiny rocks and you can cast spells.
This is roughly equivalent to what has been changed in season 2. Characters and motivations are unrecognizable, the world is a mess.
Season 3 is widely boycotted by fans.
This has strong “boycott Modern Warfare 2” energy.
IIRC it was the other way around, the pitch document went overboard with that because it was what the executives/publisher believed audiences would want :-)
Remember this wasn't the design document but the document to convince those with money to spend that money to make the game.
The lead designer (Chris Avellone), who I think was the primary author of this document, is often playful and energetic/hyperbolic with his language, yet is extremely focused and professional in his approach to the actual game design. (I.e., this exact type of disconnect between the energy/tone of this document and the energy/tone of the game is consistent with what I know of him. The self depreciation, noted in the comment below by ricardobayes, is also on brand for him.)
Source: I've worked with Chris very directly on three games and indirectly on several others. We've talked about this document in passing before (though I didn't know him until a few years later).
Edit: https://kotaku.com/fallout-new-vegas-avellone-sexual-miscond...
They completely recanted their allegations and paid him a sum of money.
But I also got the overall vibe that the pitch document goes overboard in terms of emphasizing that aspect as well as other kinds of shallow badassery such as the violence of the game.
The pitch document also makes a big fuss about "ego masturbation" and the "player's power fantasy", and how the main character and his destiny are the centrepieces of everything. But that's not the vibe I got from the game at all. The main character is obviously at the centre of a lot of things, and I think the games does allow you to play selfishly. But I don't think the game really directs you towards that, let alone glorifying the character or the results of his past actions. Those parts of the pitch document read really weird to me.
The game does of course make a point of being morbid and gruesome, even macabre. But I think the game does that with a lot less bravado than the pitch document suggests.
But then, it is a pitch document, and not even marketing for the finished product.
Annah looks like a bimbo in her 3D model, but in game most NPCs find her repulsive or at least off-putting. She's not sexualized in-game, but her portrait is that of a "sexy babe".
Conversely, Fall-from-Grace is described in-game as a tempting succubus (though she doesn't behave like one) and is supposed to be extremely attractive, yet her 3D portrait is rendered in shadows, very skinny, with scary bat wings and no hint of "babe" characteristics. She is not "sexy".
I wonder if the people who drew the character portraits were going by the early pitch draft, because the disconnect with the actual characters is extreme.
That will tell you what you need to know about the state of the computer gaming industry and publishers at that point.
This was circa-"John Romero's about to make you his bitch" [0] as acceptable copy for a full-page ad.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikatana#Promotion_and_rele...
PS:T is a well written and introspective RPG and in this capacity it is rivaled by only a handful of contenders.
The only other game I can think of with that level of narrative craft is the Marathon series, which isn't an RPG, but rather an FPS.
I'm kind of surprised Marathon 4 hasn't been kickstarted yet. There is definitely a whole lot of money on the table there, as the System Shock remake proves.
I thought it was very good, but also seemed to be trying too hard to do "torment again" and IMO felt rather forced in the process. Also, I find the Ninth World setting to be a bit too deliberately odd, whereas Planescape feels more naturally odd. I'm also looking at PST with huge nostalgia goggles (first played it in my early teens), but played TToN around age 30, so it's far from a fair comparison.
Time for an "Asian babes" mod I guess.
> Babes: Think babes. Then think more babes.
Slightly different times :)
Like, "Why, hello there, infant." dogwhistle
There's actually sort of a real reason for this. In the traditional monogamous or even polygamous relationship throughout human history it's usually the Male taking care of the female. Women when seeking a relationship are sort of searching for a caretaker that has sort of father like qualities of having enough resources to take care of them, taking a dominant role... etc.
The relationship most similar to it is father and daughter I can sort of see why the linguistics have sort of merged.
Obviously, in the last century, things have changed and the etiquette of relationship dynamics need to be spoken of in a way that's more egalitarian.
But you can't completely deny millions of years of human anthropological behavior. If men usually played more dominant/caretaker roles in relationships in the majority of civilizations, then along that timescale certain behaviors become a bit ingrained biologically through natural selection. It's not surprising to see these attributes creep into language.
If "daddy" is a thing, it's because of frequent age differences, since pregnancy is extremely hard on your body (fatality rates as high as being a soldier in a warzone until the advent of modern medicine).
The difference now is it's less culturally accepted to talk like this even in casual situations even when just among men.
Plenty women objectify men by wealth and status and they refer to men this way even publicly. The cultural change is mostly one sided, skewed more towards not offending women.
For example, referring to men as Hunks or Chads is just not offensive at all. In fact it's a compliment. I feel it's almost entitlement if a girl gets offended by being called a babe.
However, it entirely overlooks the fact that for many women, this behavior is non-stop, and comes with the very important difference that men are inherently much stronger than women, which means that they constantly feel a lot more threatened and unsafe than men do in the same situations.
> You mean that slack-jawed beyond the grave look?