Why did Zeb Cook leave?

CoHsucks · February 2006

Did he have a falling out with Cryptic? Disagree with Emmert's "nerf now, then nerf later" game design?

Anyone know?

baff · February 2006

Who is Zeb Cook?

Prismaticus · February 2006

Game designer who got his start in the D&D PnP RPG industry. One claim to fame was his cyber-punk DnD setting called Planescape. A PC game based on that fascinating setting called Torment, came out in the late 90s to critical acclaim.

CoHsucks · February 2006

He was also "Lord Recluse" in CoV, a lead designer I think..?

Just wondering why he left the CoX games.

baff · February 2006

He was no great loss then.

Planescape was aweful.

If they are not making anymore expansions, they won't require any more lead designers perhaps?

Bit a doom and gloom that one, maybe he's got a better offer and a new project to work on.

Somnulus · February 2006

Originally posted by baff

Planescape was aweful.

I just have to point out that baff is definitely talking out of his backside in the portion of his post quoted above.

Planescape: Torment was a fantastic game.

We now return you to the previously scheduled topic.

Prismaticus · February 2006

Originally posted by baff
He was no great loss then.
Planescape was aweful.

I loved the game. Torment had an amazing story, immersive content, just all around great playing. In fact it won a few top awards in 1999, one being the RPG game of the year.

baff · February 2006

I remember them trying to give it away as prizes at the Eurocon D&D convention. No takers. Just a big pile of them on the awards table and everybody laughing. The year before, it had been the autographed Wesley Crusher trading card in that position.

That game went straight to the bargain bin for a fiver in it's first month of release. It was a flop. Massive promotion, but no sales.

You are now the second and third people I have ever known to have played it.

Critically acclaimed. Top man, that got me laughing.

My own choice for RPG of the year 1999 would be Thief or System Shock 2 maybe. I also enjoyed Might and Magic 7 and Darkstone that year.

Prismaticus · February 2006

Baff,

To each his own. In my circle, Torment was very well received and appreciated. I wonder if the game was too esoteric, too specialized in its appeal? That would help explain why its appeal was limited. The circle I "hung with" back then were mostly uber-successful, post-grad school, motivated, corporate-climbing, 20-30 somethings all located in NYC and most working in exec positions for Viacom, Yahoo, and Sony. I am sure they would say now that Torment was like a fine cigar and cognac when most of the world wanted beer...

warfarin · February 2006

Well I guess the thred is semi off track at this point so I might as well chime in. Wasn't Planscape Torment the one with the guy that had magical tattooes that held powers and an interface like Baulder's Gate with a group that you could control in an RPG like environment. I seem to remember that was a solid game that I played through, for it's day it was right up there with Baulder's Gate.

Before the MMOs those games were hot items for me and it was one of the better ones. Of course I really enjoyed System Shock 2 more as mentioned above, I can still hear "I'm sorry" ringing in my head and being actually scared playing that game back in the day.

Well thanks for that little trip down memory lane I had forgotten about those games. I actually sold system shock 2 a couple years ago on ebay for 30 bucks - that is a sign of a game with some power 5 years later someone for nastalgi wanted that game so bad got in a bidding war and paid that much for it.

Weijyan · February 2006

Originally posted by baff

He was no great loss then.
Planescape was aweful.

I played Torment and enjoyed it. Still, even if you did not like Torment, you cannot blame Cook for that. He created the realm, not a game he had nothing to do with the design of. It was merely based on his Planescape setting. The setting, in and of itself, is one of the best settings ever released for pnp D&D.

He also did a lot of work for the various books. Some of these include the 1e Oriental Adventures design, "Second Edition Design" for the Dungeon Master Guide, Players Handbook, Monstrous Manual, Tome of Magic, as well as "Supervision and Developement" for Tome of Magic and more.

I could go on and keep looking through my books, but I would hope you get the point by now. David Cook was a huge loss to CoX in terms of creativity and design.

Serling · February 2006

"David Cook was a huge loss to CoX in terms of creativity and design."

Which begs the question - again - why did he leave? Did he get tired of Emmert's BS? Was he fired? Inquiring mind want to know.

baff · February 2006

Originally posted by Prismaticus

Baff,
To each his own. In my circle, Torment was very well received and appreciated. I wonder if the game was too esoteric, too specialized in its appeal? That would help explain why its appeal was limited. The circle I "hung with" back then were mostly uber-successful, post-grad school, motivated, corporate-climbing, 20-30 somethings all located in NYC and most working in exec positions for Viacom, Yahoo, and Sony. I am sure they would say now that Torment was like a fine cigar and cognac when most of the world wanted beer...

Excellent post. I got a good laugh out of that one.

I have to say I found the game concept of Planescape very weak.

As far as I remember it uses the weakest plot device in the book.

A device by which a player may travel to different realities. Examples of this device are time machines, portals, stargates etc. etc. etc.

Anything you can possibliy imagine fits perfectly into this plot device and concepts of theme and continuity are unnecessary. Worlds need no connection or interaction with each other a spew of unrelated flights of fantasy all happily coexist without interdependacy or need of rationale.

I think Planescape used portals. You wouldn't really want to buy a whole book about how to portal your party to anyone of the exisitng realities/worlds/dimensions that you have already bought or owned. No DM is actual that uncreative to not be able to do this for himself quicker than he can turn to page 73 and look one up. It's small surprise it never took off.

EDIT: Maybe Portal Corp was Zeb's idea. Can you imagine them asking the toilet cleaner and him coming up with a concept that could possibly have less teeth?

As for the PC game, wasn't it just Baldurs gate 3? A standalone expansion to a game everyone was already tired of. A poor premised world with an over used engine. repeating the same gameplay everyone had just uninstalled?

A typical TSR cash cow.

Zeb Cook worked on the Second Edition Dungeon Masters screen?

Now theres some creative input. I'm trying to work out whether I found the second or first edition more inspired.

Sorry folks, you're all excellent sports but this bloke is no creative loss to anybody and I am unable to take this seriously.

Somnulus · February 2006

Originally posted by baff

Originally posted by Prismaticus

Baff,
To each his own. In my circle, Torment was very well received and appreciated. I wonder if the game was too esoteric, too specialized in its appeal? That would help explain why its appeal was limited. The circle I "hung with" back then were mostly uber-successful, post-grad school, motivated, corporate-climbing, 20-30 somethings all located in NYC and most working in exec positions for Viacom, Yahoo, and Sony. I am sure they would say now that Torment was like a fine cigar and cognac when most of the world wanted beer...

Excellent post. I got a good laugh out of that one.

I have to say I found the game concept of Planescape very weak.

As far as I remember it uses the weakest plot device in the book.

A device by which a player may travel to different realities. Examples of this device are time machines, portals, stargates etc. etc. etc.

Anything you can possibliy imagine fits perfectly into this plot device and concepts of theme and continuity are unnecessary. Worlds need no connection or interaction with each other a spew of unrelated flights of fantasy all happily coexist without interdependacy or need of rationale.

I think Planescape used portals. You wouldn't really want to buy a whole book about how to portal your party to anyone of the exisitng realities/worlds/dimensions that you have already bought or owned. No DM is actual that uncreative to not be able to do this for himself quicker than he can turn to page 73 and look one up. It's small surprise it never took off.

EDIT: Maybe Portal Corp was Zeb's idea. Can you imagine them asking the toilet cleaner and him coming up with a concept that could possibly have less teeth?

As for the PC game, wasn't it just Baldurs gate 3? A standalone expansion to a game everyone was already tired of. A poor premised world with an over used engine. repeating the same gameplay everyone had just uninstalled?

A typical TSR cash cow.

Zeb Cook worked on the Second Edition Dungeon Masters screen?

Now theres some creative input. I'm trying to work out whether I found the second or first edition more inspired.

Sorry folks, you're all excellent sports but this bloke is no creative loss to anybody and I am unable to take this seriously.

Awright. Just some actual facts about Planescape: Torment. Mainly because I'm nearly 100% certain baff isn't talking about the same game we're talking about.

Rated a 9 by Gamespot

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/planescapetorment/review.html

The game was added to Gamespy's Hall of Fame in August 2004 (http://www.gamespy.com/articles/540/540546p1.html) and Gamespot's Greatest Games of All Time list in October 2005 http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/greatestgames/index.html

The game has been translated independently by fans into Spanish, Italian and Korean.

IGN calls it a "tremendous success" and rates it a 9.2

http://pc.ign.com/articles/159/159939p1.html

Moby Games gives it a 4 out of 5 (average of all rated categories).

http://www.mobygames.com/game/planescape-torment

Received an A- from Game Revolution

http://www.gamerevolution.com/oldsite/games/pc/rpg/planescape_torment.htm

Original sealed Planescape Torment 4 CD set going for $33 - $44

http://search.ebay.com/planescape-torment_W0QQfkrZ1QQfnuZ1

Ranked #560 in sales on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/B00002EPZ2/103-6412613-2333437?SubscriptionId=09FVDRT8TEJ64C2A7Y02)

System Shock 2 ranked #7,181
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004XRBM/qid=1141161381/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_unbuck_1/103-6412613-2333437?v=glance&s=videogames&n=541966)

Half-Life 2 ranked #809
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00006I02Z/qid=1141161532/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_unbuck_1/103-6412613-2333437?v=glance&s=videogames&n=541966)

But, going back to Prismaticus' post, to each his own. To misquote Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride "I do not think that game is the game you are thinking of".

No, it had nothing to do with Baldur's Gate, other than the fact that the Forgotten Realms (Toril) is part of the AD&D Planescape campaign setting, although not the Torment game, and it used the Baldur's Gate engine (much better and with more detail than any of the BG games, that's for sure).

Certainly, you portalled from one plane of reality to another; that was rather the subject of Planescape. The planes themselves were representational of all of the worlds of AD&D interconnected. Except you didn't actually portal if you were starting from the city of Sigil. Sigil was called the "City of Doors". Effectively, you could end up nearly anywhere just by walking through a door. Part of the challenge of Sigil was trying to learn the locations of reliable doors. The game Torment focused almost entirely on the city of Sigil, though.

Seeing as how it was based on an AD&D campaign, apparently there WERE DMs who utilized it (myself included).

Here's a link to the Wikipedia page on Planescape.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape

Sigil was a great place to begin a campaign; the players never knew where they might end up and the possibilities for adventure, both in the city itself and all of the planes, was enormous. Plus, like Torment, it had a heavy horror/gothic feel to it.

Torment had a huge amount of content and for a roleplayer, it was fantastic. It tended to lean on plot exposition and relationships between the characters and the protagonist a lot more than other RPGs and featured less combat (although, I was surprised at one of the reviews that said you could get through the game with only four major combats; I was fighting constantly. I guess I just didn't work well with others while playing that game).

Again, all of the above has zip to do with Zeb Cook. But Planescape, the AD&D campaign setting and Planescape: Torment were great vehicles for RPG adventure. I mean, in what other game is your boon companion a floating, glowing, talking, sarcastic SKULL? And that was just the beginning!

Prismaticus · February 2006

Baff,

I believe that, with the above post, you've been served.

Sanctus_Mors · February 2006

Boy, been awhile since I've lurked these forums. I've been out of CoH for about 2 months, been playing EQ2. I still visit my Supergroup forums and I got wind of this awhile back.

On my SG forum, seems we have 3 speculations

1. He got canned. In which case Cryptic will probably put some spin on it, but basicly he got fired.

2. He is leaving for a direct competitor like DDO. In which case Cryptic (like many companies) probably has a policy once someone gives notice to leave to a competitor they get walked right out the door (all network access denied, credit cards cancelled, etc...).

3. He just said, "I'm rich enough from all my D&D royalties", and just stopped going to work.

(Grassy hope you'r cool with me posting this..if not, we'll have some monkey on plant action!)

My strong guess is probably number 2. Although you can replace DDO with any other MMO out there.

Anofalye · February 2006

I don't know the guy personnally.

But if he did Planescape as a designer...I am humbled by the guy, and I am not alone.

Vanguard is developped by Brad McQuaid and all his happy crew...and they named their company SIGIL. Sigil has obviously many possible significations, but in this case, it is linked directly to D&D (SIGIL is the main city of Planescape, rule by some nasty lady), they are fans of the old grandpa RPG, just like me. I may not enjoy Planescape that much myself, but...it is nice, well design and think of this: Brad McQuaid and all his happy team are DREAMING based on this guy accomplishment! I don't necessarily agree with Brad about many things (raiding come to mind, just like that). But...come on, a guy who made Brad dream...with nothing related to MMOs.

I am pretty sure any team losing the guy would lose a LOT. Now if he is behind the 9372395 nerfs, he was very poorly thinking on those points, but that doesn't remove all he brings to the game. Odds are that he was trying to please his boss and saying yes to whatever they want rather than be left with choices, but I have no idea.

Maybe it is better for CoH that he leaves. That I cannot say. But...at the very least...this guys has great untap potential and make successfully dream a LOT of peoples...including Brad! Now if Bill Gates KBE could recruit him and put him in charge of Vanguard! Maybe we had been ridden of the raiding thingy! But well...let's me dream.

Speaking of dreaming...I am now at Page 17 of my "design doc" for a perfect MMO, well at least, perfect IMO. Most stuff in it is stuff I already write for free, but well, just to organised everything around so the peoples understand the vision behind it...and rewritting everything...I am so FAR from complete, but it is encouraging to see it progress!

baff · February 2006

Originally posted by Somnulus

Awright. Just some actual facts about Planescape: Torment. Mainly because I'm nearly 100% certain baff isn't talking about the same game we're talking about.

Same game. Never knew so many people found any worth in it.

After all those links you would have thought it had been a big seller. Money talks, and planescape didn't make any.

How old are the posters in this thread? It must be a generation thing. Maybe I am too old or too young or something.

Weijyan · February 2006

Originally posted by baff

Zeb Cook worked on the Second Edition Dungeon Masters screen?
Now theres some creative input. I'm trying to work out whether I found the second or first edition more inspired.

Wow, is that way off the mark. He was the main designer behind the Second Edition. Period. I listed several books he was in charge of, including the Dungeon Master Guide, not the screen (which has no credits listed on it at all).

Oh, and your comment about Planescape: Torment being Baldur's Gate 3 just shows how little you know about it. Nice try, 'bloke', but you need some new reasons to replace these ones if you want your stance of Cook to fly. If you just do not like him, say so. I can respect that far more than this garbage. It also would stand better on your credibility, since the more you talk about this, the more it becomes obvious that you are either not reading the posts, or just have no clue what you are talking about.

Weijyan · February 2006

Originally posted by baff

Same game. Never knew so many people found any worth in it.
After all those links you would have thought it had been a big seller. Money talks, and planescape didn't make any.
How old are the posters in this thread? It must be a generation thing. Maybe I am too old or too young or something.

You see, this is what I am talking about in my above post. Planescape: Torment made no money, yet Half Life 2, which ranked considerablely lower in sales, is considered a success? "Money talks", baff, and Planescape made plenty.

Ranked #560 in sales on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/B00002EPZ2/103-6412613-2333437?SubscriptionId=09FVDRT8TEJ64C2A7Y02)

System Shock 2 ranked #7,181
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004XRBM/qid=1141161381/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_unbuck_1/103-6412613-2333437?v=glance&s=videogames&n=541966)

Half-Life 2 ranked #809

xpl0de · March 2006

Well reading this discussion it seems totally off topic.

He left, stop speculating, get on with it.

Prismaticus · March 2006

Originally posted by xpl0de
Well reading this discussion it seems totally off topic.
He left, stop speculating, get on with it.

Good point about being off topic. Now to get back to the purpose of this thread -- Why did Zeb Cook leave?

Does he have a blog or does he post online somewhere that might be worth looking?

Stellus · March 2006

It's my personal belief that Zeb Cook left due to many arguments between he and Statesman (Emmert). They didn't see eye to eye with eachother and I didn't even see them converse too much at E3.

ungrimagrol · March 2006

his departure is so hush-hush that you gotta think he either got fired or left in a huff

baff · March 2006

Originally posted by Weijyan

You see, this is what I am talking about in my above post. Planescape: Torment made no money, yet Half Life 2, which ranked considerablely lower in sales, is considered a success? "Money talks", baff, and Planescape made plenty.

You think Planescape torment outsold half life 2?

Have a word with yourself.

baff · March 2006

Originally posted by Weijyan

Originally posted by baff

Zeb Cook worked on the Second Edition Dungeon Masters screen?
Now theres some creative input. I'm trying to work out whether I found the second or first edition more inspired.

Wow, is that way off the mark. He was the main designer behind the Second Edition. Period. I listed several books he was in charge of, including the Dungeon Master Guide, not the screen (which has no credits listed on it at all).

Second edition was just a cash cow. In essence a reprint of first edition but adding bonus power to each character class so that everyone bought all the new books. It didn't add anything to the gameplay except over complicate the rules. Being involved in a system revamp that is designed solely for the purpose of selling the exact same game back to the same people who have already bought it isn't something that impresses me either.

2nd editon D&D, and for that matter 3rd edition D&D are hardly great works of creative genius, they are almost exact word for word reprints of first edition.

Oh, and your comment about Planescape: Torment being Baldur's Gate 3 just shows how little you know about it. Nice try, 'bloke', but you need some new reasons to replace these ones if you want your stance of Cook to fly. If you just do not like him, say so. I can respect that far more than this garbage. It also would stand better on your credibility, since the more you talk about this, the more it becomes obvious that you are either not reading the posts, or just have no clue what you are talking about.

I don't dislike Zeb Cook, I have no idea who he is.

Every project that people have mentioned him to have been involved in so far, (with the exception of COH) has been nothing to write home about.

Torment is the third computer game to use the Baldurs Gate engine. The first two being Baldurs Gate and Baldurs Gate 2. All three are D&D games. Essentially they are the same games in all but scenario and Torment is the third in the series. Had Torment been in anyway financially successful, there would have been a fourth.

NB Halflife 2 has sold enough to warrant an expansion pack. (surprise surprise). Torment has not.

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Why did Zeb Cook leave?

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