By Alec Meer on February 10th, 2012 at 5:26 pm.
Looks like Obsidian headbrain Chris Avellone’s earlier talk about getting ‘Kickstarter fever’ based upon Double Fine’s happy day (they’ve now passed $1.3 million in funding by the way – which, as Tim Schafer notes, is more than the budget for Day of the Tentacle and almost that of Full Throttle) wasn’t idle chatter. Obsidian have just posted a forum thread asking for community suggestions as to what they should make, were they to start a Kickstarter-funded game. Obviously this is purely theoretical right now and there are absolutely zero guarantees, but as they’re clearly feeling out the ground here, you should go and make sure that the ground they feel is green, pleasant and potentially profitable. And, ideally, old-school RPG-shaped.
Here’s the pertinent comments:
“The idea of player-supported funding is… well, it’s proof certain genres aren’t dead and sequels may have more legs than they seem. And the idea of not having to argue that with a publisher is appealing. Out of curiosity, if Obsidian did Kickstart a project, what would you want to see funded? (You can respond in comments or to @ChrisAvellone on Twitter, whichever you prefer.)”
Oh sure, some people will ask for Alpha Protocol and Neverwinter Nights 2 follow-ups, and that’s lovely for them. But they should really be asking for a new RPG with some of the values (and most especially the intelligence and strangeness) of Planescape: Torment. Not a sequel, though. Something brand new. MAKE IT SO.
Whatever they make: what I’m most excited about is the idea of Obsidian finally getting to make a game that wasn’t held to someone else’s deadline. I am certain great things will result.
(Note: Obsidian’s site seems to be under enormous, server-troubling pressure at the moment, so bide your time).
10/02/2012 at 17:27 Joshua Northey says:
I think a spiritual successor to Planescape with an updated interface would be good. It was an excellent game.
10/02/2012 at 17:48 Ninja Foodstuff says:
This. Although not in the “Dragon Age is a spiritual successor to” sense.
10/02/2012 at 17:49 El_MUERkO says:
/\
that, followed by an Alpha Protocol sequel!
10/02/2012 at 18:27 Duffin says:
I would happily front up £50 for something like this.
10/02/2012 at 18:33 mouton says:
Dragon Age is a pretty good successor to Baldur’s Gate. More than spiritual, actually.
10/02/2012 at 18:41 dontnormally says:
I imagine they’re going to want to re-use all that spiffy South Park technology they’ve been working on.
It does sound incredibly useful for rapid development of adventure games and rpgs especially.
10/02/2012 at 19:41 PostieDoc says:
Dragon Age Origins was a very good game, even if the world wasn’t as interesting as the one used by Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale (understandable as the latter two had the wonderful Forgotten Realms fiction at their mercy).
Dragon Age 2 on the other hand was just plain rubbish. It still grates with me how so-called respectable sites like PC Gamer rate that tosh high up in their top 100 ever PC games.
Something along the lines of Planescape? That would be amazing but how much would a modern day variant cost?
10/02/2012 at 20:08 Sarlix says:
“Dragon Age is a pretty good successor to Baldur’s Gate. More than spiritual, actually”
Are you ill?
10/02/2012 at 20:16 deke913 says:
A thousand times …YES!
I would like a top down rpg with planescape type story. 2d or 3d I could care less.
And please make it have turn based combat.
10/02/2012 at 20:23 FunkyBadger3 says:
wonderful Forgotten Realms fiction
Some people have dreadful standards.
Another Alpha Protocol would be aces.
10/02/2012 at 20:28 Epsz says:
I want and Alpha Protocol that I don’t have to quit midgame because I chose to focus on stealth. Wait, I already played that last year, it was called Deus Ex: HR
10/02/2012 at 21:00 JasonRabbit75 says:
I want Planescape Torment but with space marines and quick-time events!
10/02/2012 at 21:07 HadToLogin says:
Vampire Bloodlines 2 :)
10/02/2012 at 21:35 Kleppy says:
“Dragon Age is a pretty good successor to Baldur’s Gate. More than spiritual, actually. ”
Dragon Age was a good successor to Baldur’s Gate in the same way that Invisible War was good successor to Deus Ex. That is to say, no it wasn’t and you are insane.
10/02/2012 at 21:48 Ergates_Antius says:
I want them to make me an imortal kitten that fires laser beams from it’s eyes.
But a proper successor to Planescape would do in the interim I suppose.
10/02/2012 at 22:20 Khemm says:
“Dragon Age was a good successor to Baldur’s Gate in the same way that Invisible War was good successor to Deus Ex. That is to say, no it wasn’t and you are insane.”
QFT.
11/02/2012 at 02:13 FataMorganaPseudonym says:
Sadly, this very thread right here is a good example of why crowd sourcing game design could be a very bad thing. Different people want vastly different things, apparently. That said, I agree with the OP completely (and the article itself, of course).
[EDIT] And apparently every thread below this one is a good example as well. [/EDIT]
11/02/2012 at 04:42 MellowKrogoth says:
Yeah, I fully expect some people to give 30$ or whatever to the fund, with a free copy of the game included, and then feel entitled to have the game made exactly like they think it should. Then, when it’s not, they’ll spend the rest of their lives insulting the devs in every thread on the internet ever.
Like minecraft “fans”, basically.
11/02/2012 at 04:42 alinos says:
@FataMorganaPseudonym
Idk while people want different flavouring.
Infinity Engine style games seems to be the main suggestion.
Which is understandable since well there isn’t a single infinity engine game that wasn’t good IMO.
Be even better if you could get them to make the game and have it be fully moddable.
Personally i want to see something in the vein of Baldur/Icewind/planescape. Whatever flavor of title they want. Something they actually want to make.
That said i think that if they have a kickstarter they are going to need to provide a game concept or the like.
People gave schafer money willingly, I’d probably do the same for obsidian. But I think these kickstarter projects need to have a rough outline of the game concept to start with.
As opposed to “Adventure game, me, that guy, and it will either succeed or fail horribly but you’ll at least be able to see it fail in HD video if it does”
11/02/2012 at 07:54 BobbyKotickIsTheAntichrist says:
GIIIIEF PLX!!!
12/02/2012 at 17:06 Bloodloss says:
I agree with you guys, except in a different way. He is insane, because Dragon Age is far better than Baldur’s Gate, a glorified dungeon crawler with awful quest design and no choices and consequences whatsoever. Dragon Age Origins meanwhile, was a great RPG with good quest design. Its only real problem was having far too much filler combat.
12/02/2012 at 20:37 Wizardry says:
@Bloodloss: Define dungeon crawler.
14/02/2012 at 18:30 Major Seventy Six says:
Plain and simple: I want them to make the next Fallout.
10/02/2012 at 17:27 Jerakal says:
I need more Planescape in my life.
10/02/2012 at 17:28 megazver says:
So that totally destroyed their site.
10/02/2012 at 17:58 StranaMente says:
I’m going on a limb and suggest that people might be mildly interested in the matter.
10/02/2012 at 18:13 Sergius64 says:
Yeah, I can’t get into the forum. Guess this really got the attention of the masses.
10/02/2012 at 18:15 equatorian says:
I guess they have the answer to the ‘do we have customers for this kind of thing D:’ question right there.
Unless Lulzsec hacked their website or something like that.
10/02/2012 at 17:28 CKScientist says:
I want more Storm of Zehir-like games.
I think I’m the only person who enjoyed that, but whatever. Dungeons need to be smaller!
10/02/2012 at 17:41 Vinraith says:
Then you’re looking for an Icewind Dale sequel. Storm of Zehir was basically an IWD game reworked for the NWN2 engine.
10/02/2012 at 18:09 Kent says:
That’s almost like saying that Neverwinter Nights 2 were Baldur’s Gate reworked into 3.5e, but nobody would because that would be insulting to Baldur’s Gate. xD
I would most prefer Planescape Torment but if that weren’t on the table I would ask for a KotOR 3. Of course Obsidian doesn’t own the license, so that’s not gonna happen.
10/02/2012 at 19:12 Vinraith says:
@Kent
I actually heard that said (about NWN2 and BG) more than a few times. From a structural standpoint, it’s even true, but obviously there’s a fairly dramatic quality difference!
10/02/2012 at 19:26 Andy_Panthro says:
Storm of Zehir was great.
The use of skills was better than any other recent D&D game, and the overland map was quite nifty too.
10/02/2012 at 19:45 MichaelPalin says:
I would most prefer Planescape Torment but if that weren’t on the table I would ask for a KotOR 3. Of course Obsidian doesn’t own the license, so that’s not gonna happen.
I’m guessing EA will not allow for anybody to even look at a Star Wars licence for the following years, less so a KOTOR one.
10/02/2012 at 17:28 Cerius says:
A new game in the Planescape Setting
10/02/2012 at 17:29 Domothy says:
Anything.
So long as it’s a top-down, isometric RPG called Planescape 2.
10/02/2012 at 18:16 Lobotomist says:
Agreed.
And here is my cup of tea =
Just let it be isometric. Something like infinity engine – use the old school engine. No fancy new stuff. Just cheap engine. Something that works and not have need for much programming.
Than let the Obsidian writers go wild –
Make it in style of Planescape , Mask of Betrayer …
But if we rule out a sequel (and who needs those anyway)
I say do
STEAMPUNK game !
Or lets go even crazier =
Planescape gone Steampunk !
Now would that not be a rightly challenge for Obsidian boys :D
10/02/2012 at 19:26 Optimaximal says:
Half the problem there is making a 2D Isometric RPG isn’t cheap – on time or space. All the characters have to be drawn in many different poses, something that takes a lot more time that adding a skeleton to one mesh and using co-ordinates to animate it.
Of course, updating the old engine to add polygon models and stuff (or just licensing either Magicka or Torchlight’s engine) would be good.
10/02/2012 at 19:40 Blackcompany says:
+1 for Steampunk.
+1 for RPG.
+1 for Isometric. They already have the engine to support it. DSIII was built on the tech and while it was not going to blow minds it is certainly serviceable, with perhaps a mild camera angle correction.
.
Seriously, an RPG. One where choices and consequences matter. That sort of thing.
.
And thanks to Obsidian for posting something like this.
10/02/2012 at 19:48 MichaelPalin says:
I prefer 3D, but I now that would never happen for a Kickstarter project, a 3D RPG would require way too much money. Besides, I assume I’m in the (very small) minority here so nobody would back up a 3D Planescape game (the fools!!).
10/02/2012 at 19:56 Unaco says:
Steampunk, huh? I’ll just leave this here.
10/02/2012 at 21:27 Lilliput King says:
Why would you leave that here. Some kind of hipster cracked.com.
“What is it about chicks who’ve had a stroke that makes them so incredibly hot?”
Just why, Unaco.
Just why.
11/02/2012 at 02:24 Unaco says:
That wasn’t what I linked to at all. The link was relevant to the discussion, if the rest of the site wasn’t. Should we be responsible for every piece of content on a site we link to?
And Vice has been around for 13 years longer than Cracked.
11/02/2012 at 06:53 jrodman says:
@Unaco: I hold you responsible for the entire internet. Don’t look so smug either!
11/02/2012 at 12:21 Lilliput King says:
Well I wouldn’t have visited the website if he hadn’t posted the link, so he’s responsible.
And for that level of awful, there must be a reckoning.
10/02/2012 at 17:30 Vinraith says:
Something more Baldur’s Gate than Planescape would be my preference. Planescape may have had a lovely story and characters (I wouldn’t know), but the gameplay was shit.
10/02/2012 at 17:38 nrvsNRG says:
agreed, i prefered bg2.
10/02/2012 at 17:45 Bhazor says:
After the first 4 hours or you really don’t have to worry about fights. Your character is pretty much a god compared to the Sigil thugs and most other fights can be talked out of or simply ran away from. Once you reach the Clerk Ward it becomes a completely different game to what you started playing.
Missing out on Planescape just because of the bad combat design (no ranged attacks, just swarms of melee) is like refusing to read a great book because the movie version was bad.
It really really is amazingly well written. I’ve only played it for the first time this year so I’m not talking from nostalgia here.
10/02/2012 at 18:06 Vinraith says:
@Bhazor
No, it’s like refusing to read a good book because the writing is bad. Gameplay is the core of any game, narrative, character, and setting are secondary considerations. In Torment’s case, though, it’s not just the combat that’s offputting. The central, pre-made character, the implementation of the Planescape setting, the dull-as-dirt dialog system, nothing about it works for me. I’ve tried to play it at least half a dozen times and never made it more than a couple of hours in, it’s just not at all what I want out of an RPG.
10/02/2012 at 18:16 Bhazor says:
As I said the combat is dull. As I said the combat is practically forgotten about after 4 hours. It’s not an RPG its a choose your own adventure. Around the time the Clerks Ward is born it becomes a whole new game. Hence why it’s like refusing to read a book because the movie is bad.
I have to take exception to your comment about dull dialog when you haven’t even scratched the surface.
10/02/2012 at 18:24 Wizardry says:
He said dull dialogue system, not dull dialogue. There’s a massive difference. Planescape: Torment has a dialogue tree system which is the worst possible system for an RPG to have from a development perspective.
10/02/2012 at 18:24 MaximKat says:
The problem is that the last part of the game (after Raven) is mostly combat and it sucks big time, especially in the narrow corridors, where the path-finding tries to screw you at every possible moment.
10/02/2012 at 19:23 DrGonzo says:
Found the gameplay in both to be shit. But the plots in them all were excellent.
10/02/2012 at 17:31 Wizardry says:
A proper RPG like Realms of Arkania or something where statistics and equipment matter for everything you try to do. Communicating, travelling, dungeon crawling, fighting, resting, surviving etc. None of this shallow dialogue trees with skill checks nonsense.
10/02/2012 at 17:32 Vinraith says:
Is there any evidence that Obsidian would be good at, or even capable of, making a game of the sort you describe? I’d certainly love to see something like that, but I’m not sure these are the guys for the job.
10/02/2012 at 17:38 Wizardry says:
Of course not. Obsidian seems to be a studio full of writers, not RPG designers. New Vegas, Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 took most of their mechanics from existing games. Perhaps their best bet is to license a pen and paper RPG system to use in their game.
10/02/2012 at 17:47 Bhazor says:
Alpha Protocol was heavily stats based just go ahead and try using a weapon you’ve put no points into.
10/02/2012 at 17:50 Ninja Foodstuff says:
Or they could make something people might actually want to play.
10/02/2012 at 18:03 Vinraith says:
Modern RPG devs should never make their own systems, you end up with crap like the system in Dragon Age when they do that. So yes, clearly Obsidian should license something PnP for this, but since they’re mostly writers (as you say) I think something more narrative driven than what you describe is for the best (and, really, all they’re capable of). Maybe something Spelljammer…
On the up side, the kind of old-school, “real” RPG you describe does not require high end graphics or a big budget, so there’s no reason whatsoever that an indie dev couldn’t make such a thing. I’m perpetually surprised (and disappointed) that none really have, honestly.
10/02/2012 at 18:13 Lukasz says:
You don’t want RPG Wizardy. You want strategy game.
10/02/2012 at 18:28 Brass_cankles says:
@Vinraith: Or you end up with SPECIAL. Overall, I greatly appreciated the whole skill system in Fallout (even though it was not perfectly balanced), and it’s one of the (several) reasons why it is my favorite game of all time.
edit: Age of Decadence is supposed to be that kind of indie game that you’re talking about. It is, however, vaporware until proven otherwise.
10/02/2012 at 18:30 InternetBatman says:
So you’re asking for something that they haven’t made and you don’t believe they can make, because you don’t like the games they do make? That’s kind of worse than just outright negativity, it’s sheer intransigence out of spite. It’s like me expecting Epic to make a spiritual successor to Arcanum because I didn’t like the way UT3 turned out.
10/02/2012 at 18:31 Vinraith says:
@Brass
Regardless of what you think of SPECIAL (and that’s a can of worms I don’t care to open) no AAA developer would create a system like that these days. I’m not remotely suggesting that it was never a good idea to make your own system, but the design priorities of large developers in modern times invariably result in watered down, compromised, braindead systems.
10/02/2012 at 18:40 dogsolitude_uk says:
@ Wizardy: I’m in no way a hardcore RPG player in any way, shape or form, and used to utterly hate the damned things.
That is until someone explained to me that the whole point was to have the in-game success of actions like lockpicking/combat etc mainly dependent on the character’s skill, rather than the player’s.
Suddenly that made a lot more sense to me: you’re developing the character’s skills rather than your own muscle-memory.
So yep, I’d buy a game like the one you describe.
10/02/2012 at 19:08 Wizardry says:
@Brass_cankles: SPECIAL was hacked together in a week when Interplay lost the ability to use GURPS, a pen and paper system. It seems quite good on the surface, with a nice combination of features that seem to fit together well enough. However, underneath it’s a complete mess, with worthless perks and skills, huge balance issues and a totally broken combat system (aim for the eyes!)
@Vinraith: The best RPG systems devised by game developers were the ones used in the Dark Savant trilogy. Wizardry 8 specifically was a very well balanced game in a genre where balance issues were (and still are) commonplace. The systems were all class based, but with the ability to switch classes as much as you liked. Attributes, skills, races, classes, resistances, abilities and spells all tied together to create a system with almost limitless possibilities for characters. In Wizardry 8 you can literally pick any race and class combination and find something interesting about it. It has never really been topped.
For pure combat systems, the one used in Wizard’s Crown and Eternal Dagger is extremely detailed. It was almost a complete D&D rip off but made even more complex. Positioning and the direction each character was facing actually mattered in combat, and different weapon types had varying effects on enemies. It also had a system similar to Wizardy in many ways in which you could multi-class as much as you liked.
@dogsolitude_uk: *salute*
10/02/2012 at 19:53 Brass_cankles says:
I’m fully aware of the history of SPECIAL, and I’ve already noted the balance issues. I did find it to be an enjoyable system though – albeit more so on the subsequent playthroughs due to what you’re pointing out.
10/02/2012 at 22:23 ZeroMatter says:
@ Wizardry SPECIAL was based on GURPS?? Wow, didn’t know that that, but now that you mention it: That’s where the hit location rules were from! (But apart from that, there are quite a lot of differences, actually. PERKS??)
“a totally broken combat system (aim for the eyes!)”
That’s GURPS for you. That and: Aim for the vitals!
” However, underneath it’s a complete mess, with worthless perks and skills, huge balance issues”
That’s pretty much every RPG out there. You know what? Balancing is hard. REALLY hard.
Unless something is a competitive multiplayer game, like tabletop wargames or online games, most game developers just don’t bother, because it’s not worth the additional (HUGE) time investment. (And I agree. As long as it somehow works and is fun, it’s alright in my book.)
10/02/2012 at 22:56 ffordesoon says:
Maybe this is just me (and you can reply with “Yes, it is just you.” if it is), but seriously, screw balance. A game needs to be balanced until it’s the most fun it can be, and no more. This is something that, for all their faults as a developer (and, for that matter, their failings in this area), Bethesda have always intrinsically understood. It’s fun to exploit and break and sabotage systems, and as long as most players don’t twig to it, or ignore those who do, it’s perfectly acceptable to leave room for exploits in there. I see people complaining about their overpowered suits of enchanted armor in Skyrim, or how the quest rewards feel underpowered compared to your enchanted weapons, and I want to scream, “But you chose to do that! You put a lot of effort into it! You built up that perk tree, you spent loads of time leveling that skill, and now you’re disappointed because you got exactly what you wanted?”
And yes, a respec option would be nice, there are balance issues that lessen the fun, yada yada yada. But still, some of my favorite gaming memories are built around exploiting systems. I don’t see why everyone’s so obsessed with balance, particularly the balance of games where you’re not competing with anyone else. Single-player game designers should focus on fun first and balance second. Because games that are fair to players are intrinsically more fun than games that are unfair to players, I agree that balance should be a concern, but balance should never come at the expense of fun. Otherwise, you get Just Cause 2. The missions, not the game as a whole.
Then again, I’ve also never understood why some people seem to think every game should be hard. If the game’s fun, and not so easy that it’s boring, then it’s fine, as far as I’m concerned.
@Vinraith:
But isn’t the whole point of Kickstarter to not have to create “watered-down, braindead systems”? I don’t know if it’s the “design priorities of large developers” as much as it is the financial priorities of larger publishers. If the people who demand systems that aren’t watered-down are also your publisher (and, let’s face it, at least a large chunk of the fans who pay for this thing if it happens will be exactly that sort of grognard), and you’re accountable to them directly, surely that’s reason enough to aim for something hardcore-focused?
Also, Obsidian’s not that large, really.
10/02/2012 at 23:00 Hatman says:
“Or they could make something people might actually want to play. ”
I don’t like this thing therefore you shouldn’t either and anyone who does is irrelevant and stupid and wrong
ps you are elitist not me
10/02/2012 at 23:17 drewski says:
@ ffordesoon – it’s not just you. Agree with everything you said, especially about balance in single player games. Although if people like Wizardry don’t like it, that’s fine too! But I have no idea why he would want Obsidian to make that sort of game as it clearly doesn’t play to their strengths, so I rather think Wizardry has missed the point of Avellone’s query.
10/02/2012 at 23:22 Wizardry says:
@ffordesoon: This spam filter keeps eating my comment to you, so I’ll completely re-write it in the hope that this goes through (though I’m going to put far less effort in this time).
Imbalance is good because exploiting the system is fun. The problem with Fallout is that I end up making roughly the same character all the time (neglecting the same rubbish skills). This happens often in single character RPGs. I may do a low intelligence or a melee only run, but that’s about the extent of the play styles. Wizardry 6 and 7 are far more flexible. Even more broken, possibly even more unbalanced, but allows for so much exploiting.
Fallout’s problem is that a point in a weapon skill or speech is worth 20 points in some of the worst skills.
EDIT: YAY!
11/02/2012 at 00:03 ffordesoon says:
@Wizardry:
I actually completely agree with everything you said.
EDIT: In your last post, I mean. To be clear.
10/02/2012 at 17:32 Flint says:
If they were going for an isometric RPG in vein of Torment etc, I hope we could get one which actually has a good combat system.
10/02/2012 at 17:32 Chris D says:
“But they should really be asking for a new RPG with some of the values (and most especially the intelligence and strangeness) of Planescape: Torment. Not a sequel, though. Something brand new.”
I approve this message.
10/02/2012 at 17:43 Man Raised by Puffins says:
Yes.
10/02/2012 at 19:22 Dys Does Dakka says:
Yes.
10/02/2012 at 17:32 bit_crusherrr says:
Sure is great getting an investment you don’t have to pay back. Doesn’t matter if the end product is bad and doesn’t sell well as no one is there going “so where’s my return?”
10/02/2012 at 17:48 Rinox says:
Well, it’s still not without risk. It could destroy your rep if you deliver a crappy game that’s funded like this. But it won’t be the financial end of the studio, which is already a huge difference in delivering a game in terms of creative freedom and/or time pressures.
10/02/2012 at 18:22 bit_crusherrr says:
I just think crowd-sourcing is bullshit. Especially when its big names doing it. The way Minecraft/Interstellar Marines/Overgrowth are doing it is the only acceptable way. Charging for pre-orders during the alpha stage.
I wouldn’t mind if you got the money back minus a bit for your copy of the game.
10/02/2012 at 18:51 Reapy says:
I’m somewhat on board with you here… Is there some sort of contractual obligation they have with the money? Do people who donate even get copies of the game, or do you have to buy it too?
I guess I don’t know the way the world works, but it seems somewhat insane to me that an established game company can’t find the $ to scrape together a low budget game release.
All this really seems to me is people finally fed up with AAA’s pumping out crap-tacular sequel after sequel and taking a look at any way in hell they can get some of the classic genera’s revived. This isn’t a bad thing, but I think it is a dangerous precedent.
I always felt the payed alpha was dodgy as it was, but I liked better the idea that the it is typically a smaller team doing this, who actually need the money to support themselves while working on the game, and are giving you something for your cash.
From these kickstarters its like ‘hey, I’m going to make a game, and waste 100k recording us programming on video, oh and hey, you can post on the forums about the game, wahoo’. I just am somewhat shocked double fine couldn’t find 400k from a publisher to churn out an adventure game.
Meh, I don’t know, I like the spirit of this, but I have a feeling in 6 months this is all going to go sour.
10/02/2012 at 19:07 Brass_cankles says:
At kickstarter, it is customary to give the “backers” a copy of the product that needs financing. It’s basically a “pay what you want above the minimum price” pre-order scheme.
10/02/2012 at 20:53 Hidden_7 says:
With Kickstarter, various payment levels get you various things. It’s all layed out and very clear before you pay money. So yeah, you’d get a copy of the game.
You’re thinking about it the wrong way if you’re worried about people not getting a return on their investment. It’s not investing, it’s patronage. You are commissioning something to be made, and when it is made, you get a copy. This isn’t some dangerous new model for financing things; it’s been around for hundreds of years. The only difference now is that with the internet and digital products it’s more democratized and distributed. So instead of one rich lord or something commissioning a sculptor to make him a statue, we’ve got thousands of regular people chipping a few bucks in for a company to make a video game or movie or album, and then they all get it when it’s done.
10/02/2012 at 23:25 drewski says:
The problem with paid alphas and games like this is that there’s probably little replay value, so there isn’t the incentive there is with something like Minecraft to get in early except to save money – which essentially just costs the developer money.
And the reason Double Fine or Obsidian don’t just fund this stuff internally is because there’s no guarantee of a return on their investment. Asking for patronage takes the risk out of producing a niche product – you know the market will pay for your product, because they already have.
And if you’re not even bothered to learn how Kickstarter works, perhaps you should not be hasty to criticise people who are using it.
10/02/2012 at 23:40 Lyndon says:
I think the important thing to remember is that it’s not investment it’s patronage. People aren’t investing in Double Fine’s game, they are essentially commissioning them to create the product they want.
11/02/2012 at 07:07 jrodman says:
I think bit_crusherr’s criticism goes to show that kickstarter projects and kickstarter itself probably have some work to do to clarify the deal that they’re offering/requesting. I think many people get it, but I think some may misunderstand.
What if I give double-fine 45 bucks and then the project fails. If I viewed it as an early-buy, I’m going to feel terribly betrayed and want my money back. If I viewed it as patronage, I’m going to be disappointed and want to look at further such opportunities with a more critical eye.
I do think a certain amount of high profile failures will cause there to be a higher bar of demonstrated dilligence/competence/etc. Some people are succesful now on past reputation, but good presentation and plans may make up for it.
11/02/2012 at 10:39 bill says:
I said this in the double fine thread and everyone jumped on me.
I agree that this is more of a case of people showing their anger about AAA games not catering to them. And it seems a bit unfair for big companies to start using crowdsourcing to fund their projects.
If they are decent companies then they should be able to get funding through normal channels to make the games they want.
Crowdsourcing works great for crazy spontaneous or small stuff that’d have no chance in “real life” (like making a ROBOCOP statue for Detroit). But, as much as I want to see these guys make great games, why can’t they either fund it themselves or convince people to INVEST in it?
Now, I actually WOULD invest in some of these products, and I wouldn’t mind too much if i didn’t make a profit, or lost it all. But what happens if i give them $1000 and the game goes on to make millions in profits? they keep those, have no investors to pay back, and I get nothing.
Seems worryingly close to a con.
11/02/2012 at 14:10 InternetBatman says:
@bill Doublefine at least probably doesn’t have that much money to invest in it’s own projects. It’s publisher dependent to the point that they didn’t release a PC ports without a publisher paying for them. Remember, they had to keep running with no money coming in at all while Activision and EA were in a suit.
Obsidian is probably doing much better (they have two or three teams and NV was probably a financial success for them), but they probably don’t have a couple million to throw down without seriously risking the company. Few companies want to work with publishers, they mostly have to.
I think it’s fine for the larger companies to do this once or twice, but kickstarter shouldn’t be a continual source of funding. If your game sales don’t support the development of the next game you’re in big trouble.
10/02/2012 at 17:33 razgon says:
I’d want a new Icewind dale game of course!
10/02/2012 at 18:20 Khemm says:
Only if the combat was turn-based. Temple of Elemental Evil had the best combat EVER in party-based RPGs, IW’s real time with pause was shit.
10/02/2012 at 20:30 FunkyBadger3 says:
Why do otherwise sensible people, and Khemm, keep saying TOEE had good aspects – it was dreadful, dreadful nonsense.
Aaargh, I’m having a flashback – scouting ahead with a rogue character, fall into combat rounds, have to move every other bloody party member across half the bloody temple in bloody combat rounds.
Just awful.
10/02/2012 at 20:35 Wizardry says:
@FunkyBadger3: Name me a CRPG with a better combat system.
10/02/2012 at 20:46 Psychopomp says:
Fallout
Anything by Spiderweb :V
10/02/2012 at 20:49 FunkyBadger3 says:
Wizardry: I’m loath to say “better” – but I enjoyed, say, Champions of Krynn far more than TOEE.
10/02/2012 at 20:53 FunkyBadger3 says:
Other CRPGs I’ve enjoyed more:
Fallout 1&2
Pools of Darkness
Eye of the Beholder 1 & 2
Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2
Icewind Dale 1 & 2
PS:T
Avadon
Geneforge 1-3
etc.
(not sure if Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey counts, but if so, then that as well)
Games I have enjoyed less:
Ruins of Myth Drannor *shudder*
10/02/2012 at 20:57 Khemm says:
@Funky
Wizardry didn’t ask you which RPGs you liked more, but to name an RPG with a better combat system than ToEE.
Answer: ToEE has the best party-based combat ever. Whoever claims otherwise is WRONG.
10/02/2012 at 21:10 Wizardry says:
Guys, I said combat system not game. Blimey!
Fallout, Eye of the Beholder and Planescape: Torment can’t be serious suggestions, surely! They have terrible combat systems!
The only ones that come close are Jagged Alliance 2, Knights of the Chalice and Wizard’s Crown/Eternal Dagger, all for different reasons. Perhaps the Gold Box games (like Pools of Darkness and Champions of Krynn) for their simplicity of rules and grid-based layout (and their much better encounter design, but again that’s not part of the combat system).
10/02/2012 at 22:18 Tuco says:
@FunkyBadger3: We are sorry to inform you that your opinion sucks.
10/02/2012 at 23:17 ffordesoon says:
@Wizardry:
I kind of love Fallout’s combat, but I’m unfortunately completely with you on Torment. One of my favorite games, but the combat’s just dull.
I’m sure you won’t agree with me on this for one reason or another, but I always thought Chrono Trigger’s combat system was rather brilliant. Tactics Ogre PSP, likewise.
10/02/2012 at 23:44 FunkyBadger3 says:
Tuco: cut to the bone I am.
Still a bit hazy on how you classify combat systems as better or worse – other than using large fonts – so I tried sticking with personal enjoyment. The only metric I’m 100% on.
Still any scale that has TOEE at the top is clearly and obviously mad though.
10/02/2012 at 23:52 FunkyBadger3 says:
Actually, if its just tactical combat systems we’re talking about:
Final Fantasy Tactics
SMT: Strange Journey
Advance Wars
Ghost Recon DS
Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume
But none of these really count as RPGs… yet all are more fun than TOEE…
11/02/2012 at 00:08 Bhazor says:
Grandia 2 gets my vote. Best use of timing and risk/reward mechanics I’ve ever seen in a turn based RPG.
11/02/2012 at 13:28 FunkyBadger3 says:
Does Disgaea count as an RPG? Possibly according to Wizardry’s first definition – in which case that has hands down the best combat system.
11/02/2012 at 18:44 Wizardry says:
A lot of these Japanese RPG suggestions are truly awful. It’s funny how most people making these suggestions seem to have played far more JRPGs than WRPGs. 3.5E D&D is so much better than games like Disgaea that it’s not even funny. And if you want to open up the discussion to combat systems like the one in Grandia 2, Wizardry 8 destroys it.
11/02/2012 at 18:56 Chris D says:
Oh come on, I’ve played Wizardry 8. It’s a fine game for its time but it’s hardly the apex of RPG combat. It’s basically Dungeon Master where you’re outside some of the time.
11/02/2012 at 21:54 Wizardry says:
What are you on about? I was comparing it to shitty Japanese blobbers like Grandia 2. There’s a reason I didn’t mention it before. I’d like you to tell me a better blob RPG. Final Fantasy? Pff.
EDIT: “For its time”? It came out after Grandia 2. Why don’t you point out that all these JRPGs had good combat “for their time”? It’s funny how people tend to be nostalgic over JRPGs but not WRPGs. I never understood why.
11/02/2012 at 23:29 ffordesoon says:
Because JRPGs have warm, inviting, cute art, because they’re incredibly accessible, because they’re polished as hell, because their stories have fairly universal appeal, because they have linear stories that don’t paralyze you with choice, and because a lot of people played them when they were kids and regarded PC RPGs as these weird, scary, confusing things with boring art?
I mean, I’m discovering my love of WRPGs now, but as a kid, I was attracted to the ideas behind them more than the games themselves, and the dull Western take on medieval fantasy confused and bored me. That, at least, is still true. Japanese RPGs always had these weird, imaginative worlds full of hope and humor and romance (in the classical sense of the word, although there was certainly some of the other there) and cute little sidekick animals. Western RPGs were these dull, depressing things with hyperreal graphics and such. I’m sorry to make such a reductive statement, as I still do love JRPGs, but the reason why everyone feels nostalgic for JRPGs is because they felt like they were for kids. They were about going on an adventure and meeting all these amazing characters that we didn’t realize were archetypes until later in life. Western RPGs always felt somehow like they were about eating your vegetables and doing tax returns and math and stuff. They felt like school, and JRPGs felt like things you could have fun with. I hate to make it sound so cut-and-dry, because it really isn’t, but that was how I felt at the time.
I think that’s why I connected with Planescape so strongly upon release. Here was a game as weird and characterful as any JRPG, but with the darkness and maturity and intelligence of Western RPGs. It wasn’t content to be about equipping things or combat or whatever. It was scary, but the good kind of scary. It was colorful. It had themes. It was about something. It was trying to be interesting and funny and philosphical. If Baldur’s Gate felt like eating your vegetables, Planescape felt like this infinitely cool babysitter that made eating your vegetables fun and knew way more than you and tried not to talk down to you. And that game was the bridge that helped me understand the appeal of the other WRPGs that didn’t seem as cool to me.
You may not like story in your RPGs, and that’s fine, but it’s story that makes these games appealing to orders of magnitude more people than would otherwise find these games in any way interesting. Nostalgia is just a story you tell yourself so much that it begins to seem like a memory. People aren’t nostalgic for a vast assemblage of math problems when they wax rhapsodic about the RPGs of yore; they’re nostalgic for the stories generated by the math, or that they generated together with the math, or that they were delivered by the math.
I’m not trying to denigrate your taste or anything; you like what you like, and maybe you do have fond memories of equipping this or that axe and, I dunno, killing some goblins. But even those are stories. It’s not the stats you remember; it’s the stories that came of the stats.
Anyway, that’s why.
11/02/2012 at 23:52 Chris D says:
Wizardry
If by “Blobbers” you mean games where all the characters are gathered together at a single point then Grandia 2 isn’t one of them. If you didn’t mean that then |I have no idea what you did mean but Grandia 2 makes positioning matter. It’s been a while and I don’t remember all the details but it’s fun, fast paced and has at least as much depth as Wizardry 8 and then surpasses it by adding extra tactical possibilites.
Narratively I’d say Wizardry 8 is the better game but that’s not what we’re talking about.
The reason why no one objects to nostalgia for JRPG’s is that because for the most part JRPG fans don’t suggest that the genre reached it’s peak sometime in the 80′s and no further progress is possible
12/02/2012 at 00:45 FunkyBadger3 says:
3.5E D&D is so much better than games like Disgaea that it’s not even funny.
Care to give any reasons to backs this up? Disgaea’s combat is a wonderfully intricate combination of systems – character type, party make-up, position & movement tactics, damage types, facing and flanking considerations, terrain based puzzling etc. all blended together in an intoxicating melange…
3.5E D&D – it’s a decent but no where near as involved, there just isn’t the same tactical depth.
Would expect better reasoning from you to be honest, I thought you were the expert on this stuff.
12/02/2012 at 02:36 Wizardry says:
Woah, hold on there. You’re the one that made the statement saying that Temple of Elemental Evil has crap combat, not me. And your reasoning so far has been that it’s boring. And now you expect me to explain to you why Temple of Elemental Evil is actually better than an SRPG? The burden of proof is on you.
But what I’m willing to say is that D&D CRPGs have the most tactical array of spells I’ve seen in any CRPG. For 1981 Wizardry had the best spell selection out there, but D&D games, especially later ones like Baldur’s Gate 2 and Temple of Elemental Evil have such a wide range of spells that interact with each other in such a well designed way. There’s almost a counter spell for every single spell, and we are talking hundreds. Sure, D&D CRPGs have a load of useless spells (such as know alignment), but so does every game out there. But what no other CRPG tends to get right is spellcaster versus spellcaster combat. That’s really the highlight of the D&D combat system, especially pre 3rd edition.
Of course Temple of Elemental Evil, unlike Baldur’s Gate and the other Infinity Engine games, has tactical non-magic combat too. Like the Gold Box games there are attacks of opportunity (which is an entire system in itself with a load of rules governing when the attacks apply), a somewhat decent injury and recovery system (something the Infinity Engine games lack) and properly done initiative, factoring in many modifiers to make sure combat is resolved correctly. These add a huge amount of the tactical nature of the game. It may not be a Dragon Age: Origin style ability spamming fest, but having thousands of different types of attacks surprisingly doesn’t add much to a combat system if they don’t tie in well with the systems that govern the zones of control, turn ordering, character positioning and magic.
And then you’ve got items that you can make use of in combat. Potions, scrolls, wands and other charge based items improve the combat system by a huge amount. Many CRPGs have potions and scrolls, but most lack the variety and impact of D&D ones. A single scroll or potion can completely change the course of a battle.
Also, another reason (and probably the ultimate reason) why Temple of Elemental Evil beats nearly all CRPGs is that it uses a rule system that is completely transparent to the player. This reason alone elevates it above others tactically, as every option you can make can be weighed up, and as a result the game isn’t balanced for mere guessing games. All CRPGs should have a transparent rule set. The fact that so little of them do is a shame.
12/02/2012 at 07:13 bill says:
D&D spells might be wonderful, but you are sure right that many D&D games don’t make the system transparent to the player. Obscure names and descriptions don’t help… you need to keep the manual on your desk at all times to look up exactly what “colorful hands” or whatever it is actually does, and who it affects, and is it ranged or not? and who is immune? etc.. Which doesn’t work with digital downloads where the manual is a PDF.
The main reason i stopped playing BG2 was that it starts you with a load of high level characters, each with 6 levels of spells and priest spells, and then throws you into combat expecting you to know which to choose and how these will all interact. So i decided to go back and start with BG1 mainly to learn the spells… but even there the names and references are hardly clear, and it’s mostly blind luck or repeating the same spells.
(well, actually, I’ve mostly given up on spells and it’s just hitting things while pincushioning them with arrows… even the lots of potions don’t seem particularly clear or useful, so i only really use the health ones. But then again, I’m only fighting hobgoblins at this point. )
12/02/2012 at 11:43 FunkyBadger3 says:
@Wizardry: thanks for the response.
TOEE is the only version of D&D rules I’ve seen that properly implements attacks of opportunity, which are vital in that system for battlefield control – and it does that because its tied to grid (Dragon Age uses aggro to try to do this, a mechanic |I really don’t get on with).
All the rest of your points though, they’re generic. Every game has potions and wands and one-shot items, surely?
Disgaea certainly has all the features you mention as existing in TOEE plus the terrain interaction sub-game.
And is also fun to play. I cannot state enough how tedious and soul-destroying TOEE is to actually play – and its fairly crushing to talk about. Still the only D&D game I haven’t completed other than Myth Drannor. Oh, and Neverwinter Nights 2 – that was really, really awful as well.
12/02/2012 at 16:57 Wizardry says:
@bill: Well you’re playing the game completely wrong then. The spell descriptions in Baldur’s Gate II can be seen by just right clicking on the spells in your spellbook. They make it clear what each one does, what their saving throws are, what happens when they are saved against, what characters are affected by the spell and how long the spell lasts for. It’s all pretty clear in the Infinity Engine games. It’s only the old DOS CRPGs where you have to look things up in the manual all the time. But that was more due to disk space than anything else, just as you had to look up text entries that detail the plot in a companion journal that came in the box (Gold Box, Wasteland etc.)
@FunkyBadger3: The Gold Box games implemented attacks of opportunity. It’s just that, as far as I remember, the rules for them were a little simpler back then. It still made a huge contribution to the tactics involved in those games.
And on the topic of potions and scrolls, I know almost every RPG has them. It’s just that barely any of them made them as effective and tactical in their usage than D&D CRPGs. Dragon Age: Origins had potions – ones for healing and ones for various resistances. The resistance ones were useless other than against dragons. I ended up selling them all in the shop. D&D has all sorts. The various strength enhancing potions massively improve your melee attacks, potentially doubling your damage for a duration of time (none of this +5% crap). Then you’ve got stuff like potions of freedom and potions of mirror eyes that literally turn a loss into a victory with a single gulp. They tie in perfectly with the spell system, as freedom frees you from an entire category of snare spells while mirrored eyes protects against every form of petrification attack. These are all game changers, and valuable or rare potions have to be used in only the most vital situations. You don’t have an inventory containing 1000 of the same potion like you do in The Elder Scrolls games.
10/02/2012 at 17:35 Surlywombat says:
Obsidian are the sort of company that may really benefit from this sort of funding. They been tied to sequels for so long which have always felt like they needed just that bit of extra time to get polished but have been rushed out.
I’d hope that without publisher pressure something very interesting could arrive from them. Course I could be wrong and we end up with a buggy, rushed, heap of game!
10/02/2012 at 19:31 Shuck says:
Actually, a company like Obsidian is least likely to benefit from something like this. Kickstarter is great if you want to generate enough funds for five people to work on an adventure game for six months (which is apparently what Tim Shafer et al. were after, but support a full AAA dev team? Forget it. I’m not sure Kickstarter could raise the funds to cover a 2D RPG like Planescape: Torment. There were well over 100 developers credited on that game. The tools to make a game like that are a lot cheaper now, so a lot more could be done with fewer people in less time, but still…
10/02/2012 at 23:30 drewski says:
Anything that comes out of this won’t be anything like AAA. More a Torchlight budget than a Diablo 3 one.
11/02/2012 at 00:09 Bhazor says:
@ Shuck
Vogel would have something to say about that.
10/02/2012 at 17:38 derella says:
Part of what made Planescape so great for me was the setting. It was weird, and fantastic, and something you never really saw before. So yeah… I’d like to see a fantasy RPG that wasn’t set in medieval Europe :)
10/02/2012 at 18:20 Buttless Boy says:
I was thinking the same thing. I’d love an old-school CRPG (or any CRPG really) set in an interesting, underused setting. I made a list, because I’m that kinda person.
-Hunter S. Thompson-style drug-addled journalist trip gone awry
-Grim and gritty post-modern ’80s style superhero world.
-Anything bizarro.
-1920s style mountain-climbing melodrama.
10/02/2012 at 18:41 Lowbrow says:
So long as “not medieval Europe” doesn’t mean Chinese/Japanese, that sounds good.
How about a Bronze-ageish setting that’s not Greece/Early Rome? Scythian/Assyrian/Persian settings are underdone. A Byzantine setting would be a nice change, and court intrigue/racing factions would make for some great scenes. The Nika Riots would be an awesome set-piece:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots
How about a game set during an equivalent of the Mongol/Mamluk showdown?
Plea from an archaeology nerd: Set it during the shift from hunting/gathering to settled agriculture. Or Chatal Huyuk. Great opportunities are out there.
10/02/2012 at 19:05 Ignorant Texan says:
Fullmetal Murph -
Somehow I have my doubts that Acti would relinquish the rights to Arcanum. Especially as Acti seems to be one of the few developers to not have published an Obsidian project. I have no idea which party prefers not to deal with the other.
10/02/2012 at 23:52 ffordesoon says:
“Not Chinese/Japanese”? Surely you jest. Have there been any serious attempts at all from Western devs to do a Chinese/Japanese-focused single-player RPG besides Jade Empire? Because if there are some that exist, and they’ve been hiding from me all this time, I’ll be very sad.
As to the topic: basically anything about characters who aren’t smarmy white dudes in a smarmy-white-dude-type setting would be grand. There’s so much mythology and world history that remains entirely untapped in games, and particularly in Western RPGs; it’s genuinely bizarre to me that even Norse mythology has remained relatively underutilized in games until recently. Shit, even Celtic myths are rarely used! Pagan myths are rarely given any serious consideration, except that there are witches and warlocks sometimes. I mean, most of these games don’t even get into what’s interesting about Judeo-Christian mythology, Arthurian mythology, or… hell, mythology! Fantasy-wise, it’s almost always the same brown pseudo-European porridge Grandpa Tolkien cooked up, made and served to order by Daddy Gygax. Which is fine, but it’s time for a change.
Africa?
10/02/2012 at 23:59 ffordesoon says:
Ooh, a fantasy version of Russia! So many fascinating myths and political realities to play with! Or Russian SF! “We claim Mars in the name of glorious Mother Russia!”
11/02/2012 at 01:35 Wildcard says:
@ ffordesoon
Well, there was Throne of Darkness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EzdQWSNUM4
11/02/2012 at 03:46 InternetBatman says:
@fford There’s also Guild Wars Asia or whatever it was called. Weirdly enough, Guildwars is mostly singleplayer. You can choose to make it multiplayer, but all the levels are instanced and they have a ton of NPC party members for you to use.
11/02/2012 at 08:40 ffordesoon says:
What about a game that uses religion as more than a bit of flavor text?
@Wildcard:
Hmm, I remember reading about that. Not really what I had in mind, but it looks fun. I can’t imagine there’s a deep narrative behind it, though.
@InternetBatman:
Single-player. There are plenty of MMOs that take advantage of Asian mythology, the vast majority of which – shock of shocks – come from Asia. What puzzles me is the almost complete lack of single-player Western-style RPGs based on Asian mythology and culture. It’s this rich vein of culture that’s been mined for decades in every medium by people of all cultures and races with great success, and yet Bioware’s the only company to have ever done anything resembling a real narrative WRPG in a setting somewhat inspired by it?
BTW, I’m only using “Western RPG” as shorthand for stuff like Fallout and Baldur’s Gate and such. I’m not attempting to imply that only white dudes can make this sort of game or something. Just so we’re clear.
11/02/2012 at 10:44 bill says:
Something like the Elric novels (and other alternate characters/realms) would seem good source material for someone like Oblivion.
Or something like Albion/Avatar.
10/02/2012 at 17:38 Hoaxfish says:
I think this is a bit weird… Double-Fine has some form of idea of what they want, and have asked for blind-faith for their supporters.
I’m not sure how well it’s going to go if the initial impetus doesn’t even have that basic “seed” for the project.
10/02/2012 at 17:38 Anthile says:
Arcanum 2.
10/02/2012 at 17:49 Rinox says:
I’ll second a second Arcanum. More of that lovely string music, too.
10/02/2012 at 17:50 Bhazor says:
That was Troika dear.
10/02/2012 at 17:57 Tatourmi says:
Damn it, can’t we just fund Troika then? *Checks wildly name on google* Oh…
10/02/2012 at 18:55 Fullmetal Murf says:
Tim Cain should still be at Obsidian. I am sure he could at least get the consent for an Arcanum 2 from the rest of the defunct Troika crew. My vote definitely goes for it or Planescape. I think either would be a blast.
10/02/2012 at 18:58 Ironclad says:
wikipedia search gives us this:
Troika Games: Key people Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky & Jason Anderson
Timothy Cain: (October 2011 – Today) Tim Cain joined Obsidian Entertainment as senior programmer.[8]
Leonard Boyarsky: Boyarsky is currently working as lead world designer on Diablo III at Blizzard Entertainment.[3]
Jason Anderson: In January 2011, he left inXile to join Turtle Rock Studios.
Hey, one out of 3 ain’t bad..
10/02/2012 at 19:07 Ignorant Texan says:
Fullmetal Murph -
I have my doubts that Acti would relinquish the rights to Arcanum. Especially as Acti has not published an Obsidian developed game. I have no idea which party prefers not to deal with the other, or if this is a mutual decision.
10/02/2012 at 19:23 GiantRaven says:
If only sodding Activision didn’t hold the rights to the IP (at least I presume they do seeing as they are listed as publisher on GOG.com). Any more continuation of the Arcanum world make my year.
*sigh*
10/02/2012 at 21:33 Khemm says:
Troika = best RPG devs ever who share the throne with the creators of Ultimas, Darklands and Wizardry.
Fallout was their baby when they were still at Black Isle, then came Arcanum, Bloodlines and my beloved Temple of Elemental Evil.
Love you, Troika. ALWAYS WILL. We need you back to save the RPG genre from retardation plaguing it these days.
10/02/2012 at 21:45 Wizardry says:
@Khemm: You missed out Interplay, SSI, Attic and New World Computing.
10/02/2012 at 22:00 derella says:
Maybe we should start a Kickstarter campaign to buy the Arcanum rights.
10/02/2012 at 17:39 Fiwer says:
If they could make Planescape but not a shitty game that would be fine, but preferably something that is nothing like Planescape. I’ve actually read books outside of the fantasy genre before, so playing a shitty game for a story that’s slightly better than the stuff RA Salvatore shits out didn’t really appeal to me.
10/02/2012 at 17:40 NorfTehBarbarian says:
Just make a game that isn’t big buggy mess. That’d be great. Or use that money to fix up the bugs in Fallout: New Vegas.
10/02/2012 at 17:48 InternetBatman says:
If Bethesda couldn’t fix the engine by the fourth major game that they’ve made on it, what makes you think Obsidian stands a chance?
10/02/2012 at 18:11 Bhazor says:
With the exception of Alpha Protocol none of Obsidian’s games have been unnusually buggy. I honestly found more glitches in Mass Effect than I did in Kotor 2 and compared to Dragon Age: Origins Neverwinter Nights 2 and Dungeon Siege 3 were practically bug free. Seriously, there were thousands like me whose game was broke for months when Bioware released a dodgy patch DA:O.
10/02/2012 at 17:41 csuzw says:
Alpha Protocol 2. It doesn’t need to be the same setting but it needs to keep the dialogue system and choices that actually change things and make a difference because it’s the only game I’ve played that actually did this properly and it’s the reason AP is my favourite game ever. Every other game I’ve played the choices essentially mean nothing to the overall story, either they’re really localised choices that make next to no difference down the line or they’re that horrible non-choice where you can decide to accept or ignore a quest and the only result if you ignore it is that you miss out on content. In AP if you ignored something, you didn’t miss out, stuff just worked out differently.
10/02/2012 at 17:50 Brass_cankles says:
Alpha Protocol is a SEGA-owned IP, and therefore not an option.
10/02/2012 at 18:02 csuzw says:
If you’d actually read my post fully you would have noticed I don’t care about the setting, just significant game design elements which I’m pretty sure Sega don’t have the rights too.
10/02/2012 at 19:34 Andy_Panthro says:
I’d be happy with an Alpha Protocol 2 (or similar, which doesn’t need permission from SEGA).
I luckily never had any problems with bugs, and really enjoyed it. Played with a 360 controller it worked really well (glad I didn’t try to use M&K).
11/02/2012 at 00:06 ffordesoon says:
Beta Contingency.
There, no trouble from Sega.
10/02/2012 at 17:41 InternetBatman says:
I’d actually prefer a completely new setting. Not Planescape because licenses cost a lot of money. Arcanum was a great example of a completely different setting that hasn’t really been replicated. Maybe a game that takes place mostly underwater in the sunken ruins of a society that your character helped destroy? (I love underwater games/ levels.) Maybe an Arabian Nights kind of vibe? Maybe a game where a side that’s like the North in the American civil war is fighting a bunch disparate fantasy monsters? Maybe a time travel game where your character is fighting another time traveler and both of them keep on repeatedly messing up the same town and the timeline? Maybe a fatalistic world that’s trapped in a black hole’s gravity well and they’ve lost a lot of the tech that got them there? Whatever they chose, it’s important that they get the idea straight before asking me for money.
Oh, and this is a 2D isometric RPG of course. Nothing else should enter the discussion. I’d prefer ATB, but to each there’s no reason ATB can’t coexist with turnbased.
10/02/2012 at 18:06 Archonsod says:
I’d love to see a Napoleonic RPG.
Although the 2D isometric shit can fuck right off.
10/02/2012 at 17:41 equatorian says:
New IP in a world entirely out of their heads. That way they can keep milking it forever and I will buy every single one of the milked products.
The caveats are : isometric, old-schooled, meaningful choices, and preferably with a bit of metaphysics and more text than anyone knows what to do with. (I always skip through voice acting, what?)
10/02/2012 at 17:50 nrvsNRG says:
these days i always skip voice bits…just read the subs and skip.Apart from the voice acting in mass effect (say what you want about the game, but the voice acting was actually tolerable), every other game is like torture.
They should just save all the money they spend on voice production costs and spend it on making everything else better.
so yeah…isometric,text based,and a brand new IP.
10/02/2012 at 17:55 equatorian says:
Oh, I like Mass Effect fine, apart from the shooty bits and the morality hammer. I’ve just been skipping voice ever since they started introducing voice in games, that’s all. The only things I make exception for are some Japanese imports, and that’s mostly because my Japanese reading speed is slow enough that skipping won’t make things much faster.
But yes, isometric and text-based. Brofist?
10/02/2012 at 18:03 nrvsNRG says:
TEXTBROFIST
10/02/2012 at 18:24 Bhazor says:
The problem with videogame dialog is that it’s all punched. Recorded one line at a time so that the two characters in a conversation were never in the room together. This is why you never get characters talking over each other or reacting off each other. I swear sometimes you can hear a clunk as the next line loads.
10/02/2012 at 18:37 InternetBatman says:
@Bhazor, That and there’s not significant room for revision. Revision is a huge part of writing, even when people are reading your lines. It leads to a ton of stuff that works in theory but doesn’t play out. Oh, that and they keep on hiring people who make crappy novelizations of games. Half the stuff you read or hear in games sounds like shitty fanfic for a reason now. Blizzard is the worst for this.
I too skip the voice acting and think it’s bad for games in high amounts.
10/02/2012 at 18:38 equatorian says:
All the more reason to have none of it, then! Or as little as possible. My imagination provides a most wonderful voice-acting service, anyway.
10/02/2012 at 19:37 Andy_Panthro says:
Surely the best solution for voice acting is what they did for the IE games like Baldur’s Gate?
Have the opening line/paragraph voiced, and everything else just text. That way, you get an idea of what the person sounds like, then you get to read the rest of the dialogue without having poor voice acting all in your ears.
10/02/2012 at 21:35 Khemm says:
@Andy
Yep. Or only voice very important characters, like in Fallout.
Full voice overs brought only harm to the RPG genre.
11/02/2012 at 00:22 ffordesoon says:
FINALLY, MY OPINION IS SHARED!
If your voice acting isn’t at least as good as Uncharted (hey, whatever you think of the game, it’s got great voice work) or Portal 2′s in EVERY SINGLE LINE, you need to take your voice acting budget, throw it in the trash, reach into the trash when you realize you’ve been an idiot and thrown away money, and then use that money to pay for more of literally anything else.
@Bhazor:
Word. When I heard that was how Bioware did it, all the crummily passive line readings in their games suddenly made sense. I mean, the people who play Shepard are told that they can’t show too much emotion because each performance has to be the same as the other! I suppose they think that helps with player identification. Yes, because it’s not like an actor’s job is to convey emotion sufficiently that the audience can empathize/sympathize with them.
Fuck voice acting. It’s almost always uniformly terrible. The bigger the game, the worse it is. Worse, it slows the game down. That’s only excusable if the acting is Oscar-caliber, and even then…
The ONLY reason I’ve ever heard that made sense as to why voice acting in RPGs was necessary was to cater to blind and developmentally disabled people. Everyone else, though? Ehhh.
11/02/2012 at 00:55 The Tupper says:
Speaking of dreadful voice work, who is that English guy in Skyrim? He’s bloody awful.
11/02/2012 at 01:11 ffordesoon says:
Oh, you mean Mincing Pedophile Attempting To Sound Cultured Guy? The one who asks if you “get to the Cloud District very often”?
Yeah, he’s… yeah.
11/02/2012 at 01:26 The Tupper says:
You’re not gonna believe this, but “Mincing Pedophile Attempting To Sound Cultured Guy” was exactly the phrase I was looking for!
Americans seem to have a problem when it comes to English guys: they can’t tell the difference between merely-posho and camp-as-knickers-weirdo, exemplified by that guy who played the security chief in Star Trek Enterprise.
11/02/2012 at 01:36 nrvsNRG says:
@ffordesoon
you have to admit Mordin was pretty awesome in ME2.Also there seemed to be more direction given which made a difference.
11/02/2012 at 02:12 ffordesoon says:
@nrvsNRG
To be clear, I am a MASSIVE Bioware fan, and ME2 is one of my favorite games ever, with some of the best voice work yet seen in a game of that scale. Mordin is amazing.
The problem, to the extent that there is one, is with Bioware’s method, not the acting itself. They have great voice actors. It’s just that every line feels disconnected from every other; you don’t get the sense that these are two characters in a room talking. Watch one of their cringeworthy romantic scenes, then watch a similar scene in a live-action movie. It’s not just the uncanny valley character models or the creepy animations. It’s the lack of background noise and the way each character takes a turn to speak. It’s the way the actors all sound as if they were just prompted to say a line. Most of all, it’s the lack of actual intimacy you get from saying a bunch of lines into a microphone without knowing what the hell you’re talking about.
11/02/2012 at 03:07 Bhazor says:
For me the worst part is they never overlap so theres no urgency. It’s like everyone is too polite to just butt in so you have these hilarious moments where two characters (recorded days apart) are talking and then they both just stop for two seconds and then character 3 butts in. It’s like an am dram production where the stage hand has to wave to the actor to make them say the next line. This is at its worst when the wheel comes up and you just have dead air whilst the characters just stare into each others eyes.
Another bug bear I have with Bioware is that the conversations are just so lazily shot. In Mass Effect I was seriously having Phantom Menace flashbacks as every dialog was done in shot-reverse shot.
For me the only RPG to get spoken dialog right is probably Alpha Protocol. Alpha Protocol got it right by going fully cinematic by essentially doing it as a movie. Characters had extensive stage directions, were sometimes recorded together (though not always) and perhaps more importantly the timed conversations meant there was no dead air whilst your characted made their choices. Have a more structured pace meant they could also play with the camera more with panning shots, shaky cam/weak man footage and even some spaghetti western super close ups. If there is one more thing Bioware desperately need to steal (as they’ve already stolen character influence and arguably NW2 inspired DA:O) from Obsidian its this .
11/02/2012 at 09:08 NathanH says:
I pretty much always skip voice acting, whether it’s good or bad, because I can read faster than people talk, and so why would I hang around listening to something I’ve already read?
10/02/2012 at 17:42 caddyB says:
Freespace 3, Turn based Squadron tactical space combat sim/rpg
10/02/2012 at 17:43 BloatedGuppy says:
They should start a kickstarter fund to hire a QA team.
10/02/2012 at 17:51 Ultra-Humanite says:
They should hire Beta Breakers.
10/02/2012 at 17:44 ZX k1cka55 48K says:
Well I would spend 100€ without hesitation on a Planescape: Torment remake…
About funding… i don’t know, i didn’t see anything exceptional from Avellone post Black Isle times yet.
10/02/2012 at 17:45 Wizardry says:
I am wondering, without starting up a big argument over the definition of an RPG, why people consider Planescape: Torment old-school. Planescape: Torment is definitely one of the originators of the “new-school” of RPG design – one that shifted focus from deep, intertwined systems to branching trees and story-heaviness. Planescape: Torment’s design lives on in both Obsidian and BioWare.
On the other hand, old-school RPGs like Wizardry and Might and Magic have almost nothing in common with Planescape: Torment and newer games. Surely if these games are old-school then Planescape: Torment is “new-school”.
Let’s keep this friendly, guys.
10/02/2012 at 17:52 InternetBatman says:
Because it’s on the Infinity Engine and over a decade old. A third of videogame history has passed by since then. A poor third. And even their version of 2D isometric RPGs are getting increasingly rare these days. You have Jeff Vogel or a bunch of startups like Age of Decadence.
Also, I’d argue that the style owes far more to Baldur’s Gate than to Planescape. Planescape was way more text heavy than anything since for one.
10/02/2012 at 17:54 Ignorant Texan says:
I imagine it has a lot to do with the age of the person calling PS:T ‘old school’.
10/02/2012 at 18:01 equatorian says:
In my case, it’s because they still remained games that didn’t hand you everything on a silver platter. Planescape was easy on combat, but if you want to get the most out of it, you still have to explore and experiment quite a bit more than is asked for by, say, ME. Narrative and choice, too, was something that started with Ultima, so it’s older than you’re saying it to be—and newer games simplified the depth of the narrative down quite a bit from those days, I’d say.
And yes, I did play Might & Magic in my youth. Perhaps it’s my fault for starting with Clouds of Xeen, but I honestly didn’t see anything too stat-based in it, either. Now, Realms of Arkania, now that’s a delicious stat-based game—-though it’s not what I would associate with the word ‘old-schooled’ as far as CRPGs are concerned. They’re kind of anomalous to me.
EDIT : Let me reword my reply – I consider old-schooled to be ‘immersive without being cinematic’. Perhaps that’s a restrictive definition, but oh god can we ever get rid of cinematics, I am so done there. /unpopular opinion
10/02/2012 at 18:01 Juan Carlo says:
Kind of a pointless and futile discussion as what is or is not “old school” is all relative.
I do think Planescape is old enough and different enough, though, that it can safely be called “old school” compared to most RPGs today. Although, again it’s all relative. I recognize there are some crotchety sorts who will scoff at the notion that it is “old school.”
Son las cosas de la vida, I guess.
10/02/2012 at 18:03 Alec Meer says:
they’re just, like, some words’n'stuff.
10/02/2012 at 18:04 Chris D says:
I think terms like old-school and new-school are largely dependent on what you grew up with. (Doesn’t everyone remember loading games on cassette? Then there were these new-school 5&1/4 inch floppies. What? You remember punch cards? How old are you, Grandad?) Planescape is far enough back so that it’s aitomatically old school as far as many gamers are concerned.
On your main point though, I don’t think branching narrative and deep systems have to be exclusive and I suspect it’s more a case of two independent trends growing in popularity at the same time rather than one inevitably leading to the other.
10/02/2012 at 18:05 Brass_cankles says:
@Wizardry: Never thought of it that way. That’s a damn good observation. I don’t think it does make PS:T a bad game by any means, but it does explain why I don’t crave a sequel to that as much as I crave a new Fallout.
edit: I interpret the original post as pragmatic more than anything. It is not a really a request for a definition. It’s more like: “What are people actually asking for when they say they want an “old-school” RPG?”
10/02/2012 at 18:31 TheWhippetLord says:
From my point of view as a grumpy old man.
“Old-School” = games I enjoyed in the past.
The infinity engine games were the first ‘RPGs’ (defined as ‘games which have RPG written on the box’, for lets-not-argue’s sake :) ) I played. Torment was the game I enjoyed the most of the bunch, so I am a bit nostalgic about it. As to whether I’d dig it as much now I’m no longer a mopey teeneger, I don’t know.
I think it’s a good point about Torment (or maybe the IE games generally) marking the turning point from mechanics-heavy to story-heavy RPGs. Whether that’s good, bad or neither depends which way you swing I guess. There are plenty of other changes over the years, though: loss of isometric perspective, reduced party size etc. I’d guess that where you put the line between the old, good stuff and the new, bad stuff depends on what annoys you the most. One might even theoretically enjoy modern games more, but let’s not get silly. :P
10/02/2012 at 18:33 Khemm says:
I definitely agree that the branch of RPG with emphasis on dungeon-crawling where pure mechanics mean more than dialogue trees is worth resurrecting.
But I doubt Obsidian would be capable of creating a juggernaut like Wizardry 8.
10/02/2012 at 19:19 Wizardry says:
@Khemm: I don’t think it’s fair to call them “dungeon crawlers”. You do just as much, if not more dungeon crawling in games like Baldur’s Gate II and Dragon Age: Origins than in games like Realms of Arkania and the Gold Box games. You don’t need to be limited to dungeons to have an emphasis on the mechanics. Look at Darklands for example. And even Wasteland!
10/02/2012 at 23:38 drewski says:
I don’t know why anyone would *want* Obsidian to do a Wizardry 8 style RPG. I can see why you would want it to exist, but I don’t know why you would want Obsidian to do it…
I crave Jagged Alliance 3, but I wouldn’t suggest it if People Can Fly were asking what they should develop next.
10/02/2012 at 23:56 Wizardry says:
Why not? They are supposed to be an RPG development studio. You’d think they could handle a Wizardry 8 type game.
11/02/2012 at 01:04 Turkey says:
I’ve never really thought about it like that, but you’re right, It’s got a lot more in common with the newer choose your own adventure style RPGs than with the other Infinity engine games.
10/02/2012 at 17:46 cookieheadjenkins says:
Planescape sequel or a proper ending to KOTOR The Sith Lords
10/02/2012 at 17:52 Bhazor says:
Kotor2: Remastered? Fuck yes.
10/02/2012 at 17:46 deadly.by.design says:
Half-Life 3?
Somebody’s got to do it…
10/02/2012 at 20:18 Sarlix says:
Yeah, hopefully Valve!
10/02/2012 at 17:49 Brass_cankles says:
New IP, isometric, turn-based, amount of voice acting same as Fallout 2 (as voice acting is time consuming, expensive and would compromise other areas of the game).
New IP also because they might actually see some money from that. They should have gotten filthy rich after Fallout: NV, yet they didn’t. The ultimate goal must be to go Larian on the publishers.
I am a bit concerned about Obsidians management, though, after all the drama surrounding Alpha Protocol.
10/02/2012 at 17:50 KilgoreTrout_XL says:
Baldur’s Gate 3 or Icewind Dale 3 with a modern-day infinity engine or its equivalent (read: for holy fucks sake do NOT make it first or third person).
I like Double Fine, but I am much, much more excited about this fundraiser.
10/02/2012 at 17:50 Bluerps says:
Torment 2: Die Harder
Seriously – a new RPG in the spirit of Planescape Torment would be great. It would not even need Planescape to be the setting. Any setting that is comparably unconventional would be sufficient.
10/02/2012 at 17:51 Wooly Wugga Wugga says:
I would say another expansion to NWN2 which is of as high a quality at Mask Of The Betrayer.
10/02/2012 at 17:54 Moraven says:
Curious how the pay to start development of a game compares to start making a game (Kickstarters) and continue funding with pre-orders (Project Zomboid, Natural Selection 2, Grim Dawn) compare.
In a way its like investing into a start up, but instead of owning a piece of the company, we are getting the finished product plus other goodies. It is giving an avenue for to fund games they want.
Other route is the small developers already put in their initial start up costs, but hope to bring in more money early from pre orders so that they can put back into the game to make it better.
In the end this can be a good way for the developers to make money to fund future projects. Ideally they are basically breaking even with their funds and deliver to their backers. Any copies sold after that are profit they can use to fund future titles.
10/02/2012 at 17:56 MythArcana says:
We’ll be on standby for a cartoon shaded, toilet humor riddled s73@/\/\ game with RPG/Tower Defense/RTS elements…like the other 732 games they already sell there.
10/02/2012 at 17:56 RyuRanX says:
A turn-based D&D 3.0 RPG in the veins of Temple of Elemental Evil.
10/02/2012 at 17:56 Beelzebud says:
Wasteland – Done in the style of Fallout, but with a modern engine.
10/02/2012 at 17:57 Samuel Hill says:
A game that captures a bit of the Torment level of storytelling would be my first choice. Turn based, real time etc etc wouldn’t really matter as long as the writing and general feel of the game came close.
That being said another another Planescape based title would probably tempt me to part with money, especially if Obsidian were working on it.
10/02/2012 at 18:02 Khemm says:
The only correct answer: isometric party-based dungeon crawler in the vein of Temple of Elemental Evil or Icewind Dale, with turn-based combat (real time with pause sucks), plenty of dialogue options, meaningful choices and consequences etc.
Of course, something even grander in scope like Arcanum, another Planescape game or Baldur’s Gate would awesome, but such games would probably be waaay too big for Obsidian.
I’d ask them for proper Fallout 3, but yeah…
10/02/2012 at 18:04 RuySan says:
Preferably a new IP with turn-based combat and loads of stats. Or Bloodlines 2.
Better yet, buy the IP from Ubisoft and make Albion 2.
10/02/2012 at 18:05 Hoaxfish says:
Does anyone remember Torn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Isle%27s_Torn
10/02/2012 at 18:08 equatorian says:
But doesn’t that belong to Interplay?
Whatever Interplay is right now.
10/02/2012 at 18:11 Hoaxfish says:
I’m not even sure how that works with a cancelled product, let alone the whole Interplay mess.
10/02/2012 at 18:06 Jimbo says:
Basically a party-based RPG, but which plays more like Men of War.
10/02/2012 at 18:09 It's not me it's you says:
As long as Avellone is the lead writer and the story is personal and not yet another rah-rah hero-who-must-save-the-world-and-everyone-in-it, I’ll pay pretty big for it.
I also would like it not to be a sequel to anything and not be saddled with shitty mechanics just because the licensed property they’re using requires them. Make a nuanced, personal story that can only be told in a game and then build the systems around that. I don’t care about setting, genre, or anything else.
10/02/2012 at 18:09 pkt-zer0 says:
I thought Mask of the Betrayer was supposed to be that Planescape: Torment spiritual sequel.
Anyway, yeah. More of that. And proper turn-based combat.
10/02/2012 at 18:12 Stevostin says:
A new Fallout obviously. I am sorry about not asking something original, but seriously, there is never enough Fallout. That something I can’t say about any other license they worked on, with the possible exception of Vampire Bloodlines. But PLEASE, dont listen to the fake hardcore crowd asking for anything else than first person view : the real old school is Dungeon Master / Ultima Underworld. The only reason why first RPGs werent FPV was technical limitation. There is absolutely no point, when offering a trip to a new world, to shoot yourself in the foot and deny immersion for whatever reason.
10/02/2012 at 19:29 GiantRaven says:
Obsidian didn’t make Vampire: Bloodlines, that was Troika.
…Troika…*sigh*
10/02/2012 at 18:12 Stardog says:
I haven’t liked an Obsidian game apart from New Vegas. Neverwinter Nights 2 was particularly bad, and Alpha Protocol was B-rate.
I suggest they stick with Fallout 3′s RPG formula and just make a new version in their own world/setting. Creating the tech for that wouldn’t be too difficult.
Also, please, no Cthulu horror, zombies or generic fantasy, plz.
10/02/2012 at 18:28 Khemm says:
Fallout 3 is a piece of crap that only made the series CoD crowd-oriented. Away with that devilry.
10/02/2012 at 20:05 Brass_cankles says:
@Khemm: Amen to that.
@Stardog: Those that liked Fallout 3 will get more of that stuff in the years to come, don’t worry. Besides, it’ll take a lot more moneyz than a “kickstart” to get such a “AAA” game financed. Kickstarter, in regard to games, is all about niche products. An isometric, turn-based cRPGs like e.g. the original Fallouts have become such a product (with a seemingly large niche from the amount of uproar it’s causing :)).
10/02/2012 at 22:59 Ysellian says:
Mask of the betrayer was amazing >_<
10/02/2012 at 18:16 apt says:
Aliens RPG, please. Maybe success with Kickstarter would send a message to Sega or whoever decides these things.
10/02/2012 at 18:17 Nameless1 says:
Oh Jesus, am I dreaming?
Are we actually talking about a developer asking the players what game they would like to be developed?
There must be a trick somewhere.
10/02/2012 at 18:20 Sardonic says:
Either a new fallout game set in Europe or something, or getting the ME license from Bioware and making a game set in the first contact war. There is no way in hell both of those wouldn’t sell like hotcakes.
10/02/2012 at 18:21 Jason Moyer says:
I want Chris Avellone and JE Sawyer to make my babies. Seriously, they could say they’re doing anything and I’m pretty sure I’d throw a pile of cash into the pile without thinking about it.
10/02/2012 at 18:31 Drake Sigar says:
Sorry, I still want another Alpha Protocol. Best game I’ve played in the last five years.
10/02/2012 at 19:32 GiantRaven says:
Since I’m assuming Obsidian don’t own the IP themselves, the best thing to do with an Alpha Protocol ‘sequel’ would be to just take all the best mechanics of the game (dialogue/choice/reputation systems) and put them into a similar game set in the same kind of world.
10/02/2012 at 18:35 Lobotomist says:
Actually.
I think that Obsidian does fantastic RPGs with no need of player funding. Shame that Alien RPG got cancelled though
10/02/2012 at 18:39 luckyb0y says:
Not to piss on anyone’s parade but if Chris Avellone thinks he’ll get similar results he’s deluded. As much as I love Planescape, Obsidian just aren’t in the same league as Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert. Not to even mention that point and click adventures need way less development resources compared to sprawling RPGs. Torment’s dialogue is 800000 lines, Double Fine on the other hand aim to finish the game by the end of the year. Sorry for the rant I think I’ll just cry myself to sleep now. God, please let me be a false prophet.
10/02/2012 at 19:21 Wizardry says:
You don’t need 800,000 words of dialogue to make an RPG. Wizardry had like 50.
10/02/2012 at 21:11 ResonanceCascade says:
A game from 1981. Relevant.
10/02/2012 at 21:49 Wizardry says:
Of course it’s relevant when I’m trying to say that RPGs don’t need the amount of words that modern games have.
10/02/2012 at 22:58 InternetBatman says:
You need more than 50 words to make an Obsidian game, a lot more. It’s a fair bet that if they make a kickstarter game it’ll be like any other Obsidian game, just smaller and probably 2D. Why keep insisting they play against their strengths?
10/02/2012 at 23:44 drewski says:
Again. What relevance does Wizardry have to a game *Obsidian* would potentially develop? There’s no reason to think they’d do it well.
11/02/2012 at 00:00 Wizardry says:
Maybe because there aren’t any RPG developers around any more? Ever considered that? Who else could possibly make one? BioWare? Bethesda? Yeah right. Obsidian should be able to handle a game in the same style as one made by a couple of guys 33 years ago on an Apple II.
11/02/2012 at 03:52 Jason Moyer says:
Wizardry had 50 words because in 1980 merely being able to have tabletop RPG mechanics taken care of by a computer was a novel idea, and all you had to do to make a successful RPG (aside from selling 50 copies) was have the computer handle the dice rolls. Later, games like Wasteland, Dragon Wars, Fallout, and Planescape Torment came along and included the thing that people actually played tabletop RPG’s for: roleplaying. Yeah Wizardry and the early Ultimas and Xyphus and Bard’s Tale and even Knights Of Legend were great games and provided a great experience for people who are primarily interested in fantasy strategy games, and I loved all of them to death at the time, but the move towards cRPG’s that focus either on immersion/exploration (see: Bethsoft) or on interactive narrative (see: Black Isle, Bioware, Obsidian, Troika) while spending less time on the wargaming/strategy aspects has created games that are more in line with why most people start(ed) playing tabletop RPG’s to begin with. In a sense, moving away from the core cRPG mechanics has created a modern genre that is actually more in line with the experiences of the RPGs that cRPGs were influenced by.
11/02/2012 at 09:43 Jimbo says:
That’s how I see it too, Jason. Well said.
11/02/2012 at 12:44 Wizardry says:
And your mistake comes from the fact that you’ve forgotten that RPGs came from wargames. Guess what? RPGs don’t need dialogue in to be RPGs! A shock to your system I know!
You seem to want RPGs to be adventure games/interactive fiction when you’ve already got adventure games/interactive fiction.
11/02/2012 at 22:30 Jason Moyer says:
Tabletop RPG’s borrowed their mechanics from wargames, but their appeal was in the user-driven creation and exploration of worlds. A Dungeon Master’s role isn’t to coldly calculate roll results or enforce mechanical rules, it’s to create an engaging and imagination-stimulating experience for the players. This is why Chris Avellone and JE Sawyer are, IMHO, the best at making cRPG’s – they come to the games as DM’s creating an interactive experience on top of the mechanics, where the user’s ability to shape the characters and the story take precedence over strategy and mechanics.
I grew up on the Apple ][ era of RPG’s, and I still remember them fondly, but they were very much in the vein of the modern casual action RPG’s (I realize they weren’t casual in terms of difficulty) where you’re watching a series of numbers go up. Which is fine, I just wouldn’t use those games as the basis for decrying modern games that aren’t like that.
For me, cRPG’s really hit their stride with Wasteland and Dragon Wars. Those were the first two titles were I actually felt like I was playing a proper roleplaying game; in addition to the sheer joy in obsessively watching a series of numbers increase, I felt like I (through my characters) was able to shape the virtual world we were exploring. I can still remember the first time I replayed Dragon Wars and inadvertently destroyed a village of ex-slaves because of a choice I made that I didn’t think would do anything, and it blew my goddamn mind.
Having said all of that, I don’t know why no one is making big RPG’s in the style of the early Wizardrys or Ultimas anymore. I think there would be an audience for them. Hell, even something like ToEE would have been a fantastic game if they had spent some time making certain features a bit easier to use (I found it unreasonably frustrating to not be able to see how far I could cast a spell prior to moving a character, for instance). I would love to see a modern remake of Knights Of Legend with its insanely complicated and unforgiving turn-based combat system.
12/02/2012 at 04:26 Wizardry says:
CRPGs have to represent both the DM and the RPG rules. You can’t escape that. A lot of CRPG developers chickened out (for the best) and just licensed (or stole in the early days) D&D for their games, and then created a game world and story to represent the DM portion. You can’t develop a CRPG without any rules to tie the various systems together with the characters. But video game designers tend to suck at coming up with their own rules. This is why modern CRPGs suck, because they are less inclined to rip off something established and sufficiently play tested like D&D. You get half baked systems that are quickly abandoned for the sequel.
The DM has been ever present, though. Wizardry had a dungeon and a paper thin story. Wasteland had a world with multiple human settlements, multiple quest solutions, a high degree of non-linearity and many uses for non-combat skills. But when the mechanics are streamlined and the player facing statistics are reduced you have to rely more on the DM to give the player both freedom and the feeling of progress. The DM is the game’s content. The world, the characters, the lines of dialogue. And the problem with this is that, not only are you reducing the game portion while increasing the free-form collaborative storytelling portion, you are also focusing CRPGs on something they will never be better than humans at, which is the free-form collaborative storytelling portion.
You see discussions all the time about whether a specific feature of D&D is worth using in a campaign. Specifically whether the feature is worth the time investment to follow. Some people ignore rules to make the game play faster, for example. RPG rules are often simple models of reality to sufficiently speed up play. Computers don’t have this constraint. This is why rules heavy RPGs translate best to CRPGs than rules light RPGs.
12/02/2012 at 23:16 InternetBatman says:
It seems like you’re arguing that narrative content is bad (by reducing the dependence on game mechanics and making the game less freeform), that game developers are bad at designing combat systems but should have no problem doing it since people did it in the past, and that cRPGs are different from war games because they have content in the place of a DM, but that most of the content they provide is not necessary. Also, you don’t praise Obsidian (ever to my knowledge), or like the types of games they make, but seem to think they’re the only ones capable of doing this kind of game. I’m just having a hard time jiving your views together.
cRPGs have other strengths than just their ability to crunch numbers. One is letting players replay through content and make more optimal decisions. Another is letting players consume content at their own pace. D&D is amazingly reactive, but it’s also really slow and requires four to seven people to coordinate schedules. Also, the difference between having a professional and an amateur make your content is huge. There’s many more that I missed, but there are far more strengths than just their ability to crunch numbers.
10/02/2012 at 18:44 dogsolitude_uk says:
Can we have a Lovecraft-based RPG?
A decent Lovecraft RPG, with loads of skills and stats to mess about with. A deep, long and complex story with plenty of text, lore and a proper PC interface. That would do me nicely.
10/02/2012 at 19:50 I_have_no_nose_but_I_must_sneeze says:
I was just about to suggest this. Obsidian could take a stab at the Cthulhu Mythos and put you in control of a team of investigators in deep, deep trouble.
10/02/2012 at 20:37 FunkyBadger3 says:
Wouldn’t work as a computer game – not and be true to the setting. Not unless they came up with some really smart ideas to handle player failure.
11/02/2012 at 00:30 ffordesoon says:
@FunkyBadger3:
The company that made Planescape: Torment can’t think of a smart, thematically appropriate way to handle player failure?
11/02/2012 at 13:44 FunkyBadger3 says:
But you don’t get reincarnated in CoC, you go slowly, cripplingly insane and then die. If you’re really lucky the world doesn’t end shortly after…
11/02/2012 at 20:39 dogsolitude_uk says:
Notions of ‘success’ in Lovecraft’s world were a little ‘pyrrhic’ to say the least…
One could argue that due to the nature of the antagonists a Lovecraft game would presuppose player failure, the only real way one could play would be to hold off on failing for as long as possible, or perhaps reach some kind of Faustian bargain with other powers, or find some way of engineering things so that the various ‘nasties’ simply lose interest in our planet and just disappear off somewhere else.
A friend of mine once held a p&p Cthulhu roleplaying game. In this one you either ended up dead or mad, since it was rather difficult to do anything about vast and terrible alien entities when you’re armed only with the odd pistol and pre-WWI ordnance…
So I guess the question would be this: how would the game handle player *success*?
12/02/2012 at 08:22 Lars Westergren says:
This is currently iPhone/iPad only, but they are working on Mac, Android and PC ports. It is more strategy than RPG, but it has RPG and Cthulhu in it. It’s getting really good reviews, keep an eye out for when the port arrives.
http://redwaspdesign.wordpress.com/call-of-cthulhu/
10/02/2012 at 18:45 AltF4 says:
Take Temple of Elemental Evil, and ditch the rule set so you can make your own. Don’t care which setting you use, or if it’s a sequel or brand new IP, as long as it’s an isometric rpg with interesting plot/npcs with turn base combat. I wish Troika was still kicking :(
10/02/2012 at 18:59 Khemm says:
*Brofist*
10/02/2012 at 18:49 ResonanceCascade says:
Since Obsidian is big on licensed games, how about a dialogue-heavy thievin’ game in the Gentleman Bastard world, eh?
Seems like a nice fit for Avellone’s sensibilities.
10/02/2012 at 18:49 brkl says:
Every time Obsidian makes a game, Chris Avellone’s Planescape cred gets dug up. However, Obsidian has not once in their history made an acceptable game. So they get no money from me.
10/02/2012 at 18:58 mR.Waffles says:
Sounds like someone never played Mask of the Betrayer.
10/02/2012 at 19:05 elfbarf says:
New Vegas…?
10/02/2012 at 19:21 equatorian says:
Bugs aside, I thought Alpha Protocol was a rather fine game. And to be frank, if I manage to put up with Bethesda’s bugs I’ll manage to put up with Obsidian’s.
11/02/2012 at 16:39 Nim says:
Sorry but there is a bug in your statement.
Change:
Obsidian has not once in their history made an acceptable game.
Into:
Obsidian has not once in their history made an UNacceptable game.
You forgot the not operator on line 2. But now it should compile and compute. No need to thank me.
11/02/2012 at 16:52 Dominic White says:
Obsidian have probably produced most of my top 10 RPGs of the 2000-2010 period, and even got in a good shot at 2011. They’ve also been screwed over by publishers fairly consistently.
KOTOR 2 was a technical mess because Lucasarts moved up their release window six months mid-way through development, meaning they had to cut out vast chunks of major plot arcs in order to have half a chance of releasing it, and then Lucasarts buried it because word is that Lucas himself really disliked them questioning the binary good/evil logic of the setting.
Alpha Protocol, aside from a couple of minor graphical glitches (usually ragdolls after enemies died) ran great for me. The only real problem I had is that the skills were unbalanced – some where useless, others wildly overpowered, but it was still worth playing through several times, because it really does let player choice affect the narrative.
And New Vegas? It’s the true Fallout 3, and a respectable followup to Fallout 2, IMHO.
13/02/2012 at 00:15 ffordesoon says:
@Dominic White:
Wow, really? Do you have a source for that Lucas thing? That’s interesting.
10/02/2012 at 19:02 Tyrone Slothrop. says:
An infiltration stealth-persuasion-combat RPG around a single named-but-malleable character where you must commit espionage in an alternate history 1929 Vienna, with an art nouveau and deco-inspired steampunk world with Arcanum’s music and various pre-Columbian motifs. The level of sophistication of the steampunk elements actually transcends into cyberpunk-esque sophistication with enormous factory-sized difference engines powering elaborate punch-card outputs and projections. The game will also have reality-shattering experiences dealing with metaphysics and heavy psychedelic drug use mandating the use of Directx 11 for appropriate hallucinogenic shaders.
Also there should be some kind of hub area which reacts to your various decisions over several defined ‘days’ (chapters in other RPGs).
10/02/2012 at 19:11 DocSeuss says:
I would absolutely play this. Cyberpunk and punch cards are two things I have a great deal of love for.
10/02/2012 at 23:00 InternetBatman says:
You want Dx11 mandatory graphics in a game that optimistically has a budget of a million?
11/02/2012 at 00:58 Bhazor says:
One thinks he is being “witty”, sir.
11/02/2012 at 01:03 The Tupper says:
Against all available evidence, I must concur with Bhazor.
11/02/2012 at 10:32 Tyrone Slothrop. says:
But I really want satisfactory hallucinogenic effects when appropriate ;_; And really it’s incomparably more feasible than suggestions for a sequel to Alpha Protocol being developed for only a million dollars.
10/02/2012 at 19:04 buzzmong says:
I want to see Fallout 3 aka Van Buren, in all it’s isometric glory.
10/02/2012 at 20:38 Khemm says:
GIVE ME A HUG, because I love you.
11/02/2012 at 16:47 Nim says:
Has not most of the ideas they had for Van Buren at least been partially covered by Fallout New Vegas?
10/02/2012 at 19:04 elfbarf says:
I’d love to see a new Vampire game, Bloodlines was incredible and I’m sure Obsidian’s writers could come up with something just as good.
10/02/2012 at 19:06 Keymonk says:
I would heart all over an old-school RPG set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe. Or 40K, if we’re desperate, i guess. Preferably fantasy.
10/02/2012 at 19:10 DocSeuss says:
I don’t like the gameplay from most of the old isometric RPGs. I find them boring and lacking in any sort of challenge. It all comes down to numbers.
I liked this about Dragon Age: Origins. It was fun to play as a game.
However, it wasn’t nearly as good as an RPG.
So… I’d want a game that’s as fun to play as DAO. To all the people who say it’s simplistic: yes, mages are broken and if you min-max, DAO will be a boring-ass game; playing three times through as a rogue, I’ve found and used different skills and ways to play each and every time, despite this supposed simplicity. I haven’t even touched the archer skill tree yet. Each time, my build and style of play is radically different, and it’s awesome for that. The game’s biggest fault was not shoving players outside of their comfort zones enough to let them realize just how deep it really could be.
Now that that tangent’s over with…
Basically, I find isorpgs hard to get into, because they’re so boring. I’m in them for all of five minutes, and then it’s all “meh, bored, on to the next thing.” If they could make the gameplay experience more compelling, but couple it with the fantastic writing, camera view, and aesthetic classic RPGs, I’d be all over that shit. Go ahead, throw in more abilities and classes! Make the game even more complex! That’d be great! Toss in options for turn-based, real-time, and pause n’ play modes, so people can play how they want (that’s part of what an RPG is, after all!). I don’t like turn-based games. I’ve expressed that. Letting me play pause n’ play while letting you play turn-based could only be a great thing!
It’s hard for me to get into a world when the game is constantly saying “hey, wait your turn!” Give me the flow and additional control over the game that DAO provides, and I’ll donate $100.
10/02/2012 at 23:10 InternetBatman says:
Dragon Age Origins really offers little change from the older RPGs. Some environmental effects and spell combinations, better backstab and flanking detection, and more interesting physical abilities (although that was already getting fixed by BG2 and NWN), but nothing that was a huge leap forward. It was a bunch of small improvements with some glaring scaling flaws.
10/02/2012 at 19:10 scorcher24 says:
Alpha Protocol 2 :)
Definately. But please with a newer Unreal Engine Version or something else. CryEngine anyone?
Espionage Games are so rare..
But I would also be cool with a 2D RPG, as long as it has a good story.
10/02/2012 at 19:12 Jip says:
Personally I’d love to have an RPG set in the Greyhawk universe, the same world Temple of Elemental Evil was set in. If it was made around the era of the Greyhawk Wars or just after then even better.
10/02/2012 at 19:15 Dominic White says:
More than anything, I’d like to see them expand on what they started with Alpha Protocol. A lot of the reviews never even saw what made it so notable – you constantly make decisions that have real effects on the story and gameplay, and two playthroughs can work out almost completely differently. It was relatively short for an RPG – 10/15 hours – but the replay value is through the roof.
I’d rather have a complex, dense, branching-but-coherent narrative that I can steer than a 50 hour slog through dialogues with a clear ‘right’ solution based on character stats.
11/02/2012 at 00:33 ffordesoon says:
BROFIIIIIIIIIST
10/02/2012 at 19:24 DrGonzo says:
A game in the tone of Planescape. Doesn’t need to have anything to do with it gameplay wise or the setting. But something a bit more adult, more interested story, character and actually saying something meaningful about anything.
10/02/2012 at 19:29 Diogo Ribeiro says:
nothing to do whatsoever with planescape torment. enough is enough. as much as i loved the game with all my heart, i don’t want a rehash. i trust obsidian, not their fan club. i want to see them doing something new. call it a spiritual successor, dig up Torn’s corpse, whatever. just leave torment alone and *move on*.
10/02/2012 at 19:34 DrGonzo says:
You mean like they have? I’m a little confused by the comment because it suggests they have done nothing but rehash Planescape, but they’ve done nothing like it at all. Neither has any other company I’m aware of.
10/02/2012 at 19:37 Kadayi says:
No, what he’s saying is that PS:T is a game of it’s time (a good ten years ago) and that He’d prefer anything they do to be forward thinking and progressive rather than fan service.
10/02/2012 at 19:44 Diogo Ribeiro says:
DrGonzo: what Kadayi said :)
10/02/2012 at 19:34 Kadayi says:
Persistent open world (possibly Sci-fi/futuristic setting) RPG with a consistent story line. Think DX:HR crossed with ME & AP, but without the globe trotting and daft gaming conventions. Big on storyline, character, choice & consequence and favouring player ingenuity to resolve situations Vs a reliance on better equipment.
10/02/2012 at 19:36 wisnoskij says:
The thing about PT is that there is a lot of old and new old school RPGs. Sure PT is the best ever isometric RPG but that does not guaranty that PT2 will stand above the pack.
And all in all, I am all for leaving old IP as a good memory and going on to new ideas.
10/02/2012 at 20:05 Wizardry says:
Dark Sun: Shattered Lands was better.
10/02/2012 at 19:36 WeeMadAndo says:
Arcanum Protocol. They’ve got the devs to make this happen.
Maybe they don’t own the IP, but ARCANUM PROTOCOL people!
10/02/2012 at 19:56 DocSeuss says:
Steampunk fantasy espionage?
As long as it isn’t as fucking stupid as Alpha Protocol (“Hey, this random dude who, like, gave you a gun or something earlier for a grand total of thirty seconds is the villain!” “What do you mean that the ‘love triangle’ is totally cliche?” “Yes, listen, we know he throws eight grenades at once and has a sniper rifle; all you need to do is run to that non-obvious tower, climb it, and shoot him. It’s only hard if you don’t somehow know the solution!” “The way you beat the final boss is just to stand behind this giant pole and wait for him to shoot it. Then, pop out, shoot him, dodge, and repeat!”), I’d be game.
10/02/2012 at 19:47 pintoyac says:
Hey Obsidian! Make this into an isometric Rpg, it’s about time someone did.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadlands
10/02/2012 at 19:55 Sarlix says:
Baldur’s Gate but in a cyberpunk setting and with guns.
Please.
10/02/2012 at 20:03 ResonanceCascade says:
Baldur’s Stargate: The Wrath of Boo
10/02/2012 at 20:27 Sarlix says:
Go for the cybernetic eyes Boo! Go for the cybernetics!
10/02/2012 at 20:07 Tom OBedlam says:
I’d love a Planescape game where you didn’t have to fight anyone if you didn’t want to. RPG combat is always shit because that isn’t the point!
10/02/2012 at 20:45 Wizardry says:
Combat is at least as much the point as talking or stealthing. RPGs aren’t about anything specifically. As long as you can define your character within the scope of the game then it’s fine. If it’s a combat centric game then you expect to have lots of combat statistics. If it’s a conversation centric game then you expect to have a network of conversation related statistics.
11/02/2012 at 00:37 ffordesoon says:
I’ve always wanted an RPG with the combat entirely removed. It’d be interesting to watch Obsidian design around that.
11/02/2012 at 02:04 Wizardry says:
Going by their past games they will just have trillions of lines of branching dialogue full of skill checks. This is the absolute worst way to achieve the goal. You need some sort of topic-based key word system, with multiple per-character reputation meters, party-based conversation participation, tone setting, and some kind of integrated risk versus reward game. Stuff like the gender, class, race and origin/background of the participants should play into the system, just like how some characters have bonuses against creature types in D&D combat (rangers’ racial enemies, short race bonuses versus giants).
11/02/2012 at 02:33 ffordesoon says:
I have to stand up for the humble dialogue tree here. It’s deeply flawed and mildly cumbersome, but nobody’s ever really improved on the clarity and user-friendliness of that system without sacrificing some level of granularity/complexity, in my opinion.
That said, I would like to see more responses based on your character’s background, race, gender, and all the other things you mentioned. Also, the return of the text parser, perhaps?
11/02/2012 at 13:07 Wizardry says:
I’m conflicted over text parsers. I like them in adventure games but in RPGs they allow you to say stuff to NPCs your character may not know to ask them. In other words they are more adventure gamey than even dialogue trees are. Still, even dialogue trees originated from adventure games. They were only adopted in RPGs in 1992/1993.
11/02/2012 at 14:26 Kadayi says:
“That said, I would like to see more responses based on your character’s background, race, gender, and all the other things you mentioned.”
I think it’s all well and good for a game character to recognize aspects of you on a personable level ‘We don’t serve Orcs around here!!’ ‘ A fellow Nord, well met’ ‘You’ll pay for this insolence girl!’ , as well as acknowledge your achievements ‘Why you’re the hero of riverdale aren’t you?’.
However Wizardry essentially wants to reduce narrative interaction to nothing more than a maths equation. If you’ve read enough of his posts in articles on RPGs or on the RPS forums you’ll soon realise that his ideal RPG is basically a sandbox game where he can go around killing anything and anyone (and I mean anyone), level up, acquire loot/shinies and not get bogged down with any of that pesky boring plot/quest/storyline stuff. A narrative RPG devoid of the potential to turn into violence at any given opportunity is an anathema to him.
11/02/2012 at 18:54 Wizardry says:
Yeah well. At least I don’t want my ideal RPG to be an adventure game.
When you translate a mathematics heavy game like an RPGs to a computer, a device which does number crunching, you assume you’ll at least keep the same amount of player-facing numerical calculations. Computers are not the ideal format for extensive, human written, branching dialogue.
It seems as if you want cRPGs to always stay in the shadow of real RPGs. I don’t, and I apologise for being forward thinking!
11/02/2012 at 19:09 Unaco says:
“Yeah well. At least I don’t want my ideal RPG to be an adventure game.”
Did Wizardry fail his “Witty retort Check”? That was weak.
11/02/2012 at 19:11 Chris D says:
I don’t know.
” I apologise for being forward thinking!”
I haven’t laughed so hard at anything all year
11/02/2012 at 20:41 Kadayi says:
“Yeah well. At least I don’t want my ideal RPG to be an adventure game.”
*chortles*
You don’t even want you games to be RPGs let alone contain adventures. Murder simulators seems to be the extent of your wishes judging from previous commentary on the subject (I do recall you made a big deal about how upset you were that you couldn’t kill Anders on the spot for daring to making a pass at you in DA2). I imagine this guy must be some kind of hero to you: -
http://kotaku.com/5863096/a-peek-inside-the-home-of-skyrims-first-serial-killer
11/02/2012 at 22:05 Wizardry says:
If the game chooses who my character likes and doesn’t like, and therefore who I can swing my sword at and who I can’t swing my sword at then it’s doing it wrong. The only exception is in highly abstracted games where there aren’t actually any proper characters, like in Darklands. Why am I wrong for wanting an RPG where you can attack anyone? You could do it in Wasteland. You could do it in Fallout. You could do it in Ultima. Why not Dragon Age?
“Kadayi: You can only role-play the way I tell you to!”
You would make a great DM.
11/02/2012 at 23:55 ffordesoon says:
@Kadayi:
Even if you think Wizardry’s being a snob, the guy’s entitled to his opinions. I mean, my definition of “RPG” is far more in line with yours than Wizardry’s, but you’re being just as much of a snob as you accuse him of being. More to the point, he is right in one important way: the games he wants, be they “RPGs” or “murder simulators” or “wargames” or whatever, aren’t being made. The games you and I like are. I mean, them’s the facts, plain and simple. That alone gives him more of a right to complain than we have. So lay off, will you? The guy knows what he wants, and he’s not getting it. Shouldn’t he have the right to voice that opinion? I mean, I’ll agree that he does it to the point that it’s annoying, but that’s a separate issue.
I mean, I’m not a fan of the way you throw around insinuations of corruption and incompetence at RPS, but do I walk over and piss in your cornflakes?
12/02/2012 at 09:33 Kadayi says:
@ffordesoon
“More to the point, he is right in one important way: the games he wants, be they “RPGs” or “murder simulators” or “wargames” or whatever, aren’t being made.”
And why do you think that is exactly? There is absolutely nothing stopping any large game developer from making ‘old school’ style RPGS from yesteryear (it’s not like they’ve been banned by the UN or some such). The means and the method are still there and readily available. Plain truth of the matter is they don’t get made because firstly there’s no viable market for it in terms of audience and secondly the medium and those who produce it have moved on. Beyond the issue of making a living and building a career there’s simply no technical or creative challenge for professional artists, writers or programmers in making those sorts of games any more. Sure it might win you the approval of rabid types like Wizardry (who btw is no fan of Chris avellone or PS:T for that matter based on previous commentary by him), but it’s not taking you anywhere in terms of career arc.
‘Shouldn’t he have the right to voice that opinion?’
Sure if he was prepared to respect the opinions of others, however based on form to date that’s never ever likely to happen. It’s not enough that no ones making the games he wants to day, it’s apparently a heresy to him that people think that say Mass Effect is an RPG and dare to talk about it as such, and they need to brought to task and shown the light ad nauseum, ad infinitum. There’s no room for the ‘RPGs’ you and I like in the mind of wizardry (see adventure game comment earlier on), so why should we countenance his opinion? The sword cuts both ways.
“I mean, I’m not a fan of the way you throw around insinuations of corruption and incompetence at RPS, but do I walk over and piss in your cornflakes?”
I hate to break it to you, but you’re confusing me with some other poster. The only real issue I’ve ever expressed about RPS is over fact checking at times, nothing more nothing less. I’ve certainly never accused them of taking handouts as you seem to imply. Feel free to retract that comment at your leisure.
12/02/2012 at 11:52 ffordesoon says:
@Kadayi:
I’m not confusing you with anyone. But fair enough, I’ll cop to going a little too far with my last remark. I can only remember you questioning their fact-checking, as you say, so, yes, I strike my last comment from the record and apologize for it.
That being said, I stand by the rest of my remarks.
12/02/2012 at 13:59 Kadayi says:
@ffordesoon
Apology accepted. However I’ve presented counter arguments to your points, so you need to formulate a response to those.
10/02/2012 at 20:19 cypher says:
Considering Avellone’s mind produced planescape I think letting him and some of his favourite amigos go and produce something along their own personal ideas that might never see the light of day via a conventional publisher.
Ideally something that that preserved the two things that made Planescape so amazing for me, the incredible narrative depth and the gloriously original world design (which admittedly was party done for them). But definitely something they actually wanted to make themselves.
10/02/2012 at 20:28 ninjapirate says:
As a collector of TSR’s AD&D Planescape books I can assure you: The Planescape multiverse is incredibly large. You could easily create dozens of PS games, each with a unique atmosphere – and none of them would feel like a Torment sequel.
The Planescape setting offers so much potential for games that it’s mind-boggling!
10/02/2012 at 20:35 dethtoll says:
Anyone who’s actually asking for another game in the vein of Planescape Torment must not actually like Obsidian.
10/02/2012 at 20:40 Cerius says:
Obsidian forums are back up
http://forums.obsidian.net/blog/1/entry-158-if-obsidian-kickstarter/
10/02/2012 at 20:41 mollemannen says:
how about multiplayer?
10/02/2012 at 21:03 gritz says:
I want them to collaborate with Bethesda again and make a new Elder Scrolls game with Obsidian-quality writing and world building. Basically the Elder Scrolls equivalent to New Vegas.
They’d get bonus points for setting it in the ruins of Morrowind and hiring Michael Kirkbride.
10/02/2012 at 21:12 TwwIX says:
How about a game that isn’t a rushed and broken mess? That would certainly be a first for Obsidian.
12/02/2012 at 08:40 Lars Westergren says:
Dungeon Siege 3 says hello. Mask of the Betrayer was contentwise very bug free (quest scripting etc). I had more bugs with Mass Effect 1 or 2 than I did with Alpha Protocol.
KOTOR 2 had it’s development time cut short without warning, eliminating the final polishing iterations. F:NV was buggy, but lots of this has to do with the engine as you can see from F3 and Skyrim, and reworking the engine was not part of their task when making it. I don’t hold the amount of bugs against Bethesda either since the engine is much more ambitious when it comes to what you can do with it than most.
10/02/2012 at 21:20 Lemming says:
Yes to those saying a spiritual successor to Planescape.
No to those saying actual Planescape/Forgotten Realms or any D&D. Remember they’d have to ask for licenses for that, no matter how much money they ‘kickstarted’.
10/02/2012 at 21:28 Strutter says:
I want a new Baldurs gate 2 style game set in the planescape universe.
10/02/2012 at 22:30 Therosfire says:
Isometric Shadowrun. I would pay much money for that.
10/02/2012 at 22:49 Griefindor says:
The market wants crap so devs don’t even make the effort of making good games like before. Even Blizzard is raping warcraft! The horror.
Reading many comments here I must say, please leave the classics alone, if for example anyone remake bg and take the d&d rules it’s just burning another classic, better leave them alone honestly.
10/02/2012 at 23:40 jaheira says:
As far as I can tell, they haven’t specified a genre. In view of that, I’d like to see them make something like Heavy Rain or Dreamfall. Something story and character heavy like that with plenty of writing in it.
11/02/2012 at 00:15 Tom De Roeck says:
I have liked every game these people have ever made, loved even. I just want them to make one THEY like, and that works. Both are important/necessary.
Also, wiz, atleast these people have made some crpgs you talk about all the time. So theres a chance theyll make a gooddun.
PS: if they get it to work well with optional turn based combat, I will be happy as well.
11/02/2012 at 00:42 Wizardry says:
Optional turn-based combat? We all saw how Arcanum turned out…
11/02/2012 at 04:00 InternetBatman says:
It turned out amazing, one of the legends of the field.
One of the greatest weaknesses with turn-based games is the amount of time wasted on easy enemies. You’re not engaging in strategic combat, you’re just facerolling them. It’s good during times like that to turn the combat to active and just let your characters wade through them.
11/02/2012 at 09:48 Tom De Roeck says:
@wiz: well. I like to have a choice, and I did say “if they do it well”. I have fond memories of XCOM Apocalypse being two different games, if you played in RT or TB mode. It would take a heap of balancing, I guess.
But I guess the difference in play style between an RPG and XCOM Apocalypse is just too large. Where X-Com you have squad based “engagements”, in most RPGs you have a group of people, always carrying what they are using.
PS: anyone know how to follow these posts, except remember the page number and wish it to stay the same?
11/02/2012 at 13:15 Wizardry says:
@InternetBatman: Ever heard of an auto-resolve button? CRPGs used to have it in the 80s. Why can’t people think outside the box these days?
11/02/2012 at 13:35 Unaco says:
“Think outside the box”… What? You mean, like when they introduced real time pause or phase based combat systems or similar? We all know how well that went down with some people.
11/02/2012 at 19:03 Wizardry says:
Yeah, and when you ask people why they prefer real-time with pause to turn-based combat they usually tell you that real-time with pause is quicker and speeds up the killing of trash mobs. Not only is this factually incorrect (because turn-based is effectively only limited by human input speed and not animations), it’s also irrelevant if you (re)introduce something that cRPGs had in 1985 back into the genre (auto-resolved combat).
12/02/2012 at 07:33 Tom De Roeck says:
@wiz: problem is, auto-resolve usually depends on the stupidity of the computers decision making. I agree that it is very in the spirit of roleplaying as it puts control in the hands of the character, but… Was there somewhere where autoresolve works as it should ie. where the outcome is fair and not “OMG IF I DID THAT MESELF I WOULD HAVE WON !!!111″
12/02/2012 at 20:48 Wizardry says:
What do you mean? Is there an implementation of auto-resolved combat where the results end up being just as favourable as if you manually played through the combat? No. Because that would discourage you from bothering with the combat system at all. You’ll end up auto-resolving difficult fights. The whole point of automatically resolving combat is to get past easy but time consuming encounters in which doing poorly matters little. If a fight is even remotely challenging then the combat system should be good enough to make the player want to give it a go themselves.
13/02/2012 at 00:24 ffordesoon says:
I actually completely agree with Wizardry on that. One thing I love about Dragon Quest is the way I can set my dudes to automatically fight for me if I want, then jump in at any time if it’s not going well. Granted, I’d also sort of like an option to fast-forward through the fight and just get to the result, but still.
Oh, and Tactics Ogre PSP let you do that, too. Really helpful for grinding.
Which, I suppose, begs the question of why the grind’s there at all. I don’t think it should be, at least on any system I have to actually sit down in one spot for an extended period and use. Portable systems are a different story.
But that’s all off-topic, so I won’t get into that.
11/02/2012 at 00:42 MadTinkerer says:
“But they should really be asking for a new RPG with some of the values (and most especially the intelligence and strangeness) of Planescape: Torment. Not a sequel, though. Something brand new.”
This makes me sad because I know it’s not going to happen like you want it to. Because Planescape is basically an invention of Gary Gygax, but not precisely. Let me explain where the Planescape setting actually comes from, according to Dragon Magazine:
Once upon a time, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were young game enthusiasts who didn’t have videogames because video arcades were only just starting. So they became wargame enthusiasts instead because the kind of board games Paul and Quinns enjoy also didn’t exist yet. But Gary and Dave were also huge literature nerds, and they loved (what we would now call classic) fantasy and science fiction books. Not just Tolkein and Vance* but also Moorcock, a guy who more or less invented the concept of the Multiverse.
And so now we get to the bit where Gygax invents what would eventually turn into Planescape. So Gary and Dave sort-of-accidentally invent the RPG with D&D, which they then spin-off into it’s own standalone version and ditch the competitive multiplayer for pure co-op. At the time D&D includes what is now considered the classic Alignment system with Good and Evil as well as Lawful and Chaotic (which are inspired by, but not identical to the Moorcock definitions). Eventually the subject of the afterlife comes up. Certainly it’s not a binary afterlife because it’s not a binary morality system, and besides which several pantheons of mythological deities had been pressed into service. So Gygax comes up with a series of afterlifes and puts them together in a wheel. And then he writes about it in Dragon Magazine.
But that’s still not quite Planescape. Being a science fiction nut, Gygax liked to rationalize magic. Where the heck do elementals come from, where does negative energy come from and so on. So he decided that all of the exotic creatures, elements, and energies used to power magic spells normally resided in their own segregated universes and hey maybe since we’ve got these afterlifes floating around, maybe they’re just all a whole bunch of alternate universes stitched together? So Gary Gygax writes The Manual of the Planes. About a decade later, after Gygax leaves TSR, the ideas in the Manual are expanded to make the Planescape setting, where instead of an abstract complex series of otherworlds you might get to visit once you are a high enough level, you start off there instead. And then it was licensed as a video game setting.
It takes a lot of work and a lot of conceptual gymnastics to come up with Planescape. To come up with a setting just as unusual, you’d need to invent D&D again by tossing out everything you know about standard RPG settings** grabbing you favorite books and mashing their settings together. The more the settings contradict, the better. Rationalizing the contradictions and obsessively-compulsively building new worlds to justify those rationalizations will get you your own Planescape setting.
Okay, maybe it’s not that hard. But you still need to know how to do it right, or else you’ll just end up with something weird no one wants to play.
*Often cited as the two main influences of D&D because of the Tolkein-ish races and “Vancian magic”, but really, there was a lot more.
**And fuck, in the tabletop realm there’s a ton of inventive stuff already. As a fan of tabletop RPGs, Dragon Age and Skyrim and Amalur just make me yawn when it comes to their settings. You have elves in your game, huh? Why do you have elves? Because it’s a fantasy RPG? You don’t even know why fantasy RPGs sometimes have elves, do you, jackasses?
11/02/2012 at 01:06 Iskhiaro says:
New IP would be nice….but something along the lines of VtM: Bloodlines (Would say planescape, but I haven’t gotten around to getting far in it yet) EDIT: I KNOW bloodlines was Troika, not Obsidian. I’m talking about the style of game (deep, clever, sometimes humorous dialogue) which is similar to what I’ve played of Planescape
11/02/2012 at 02:23 Pugiron says:
A game without bugs.
11/02/2012 at 02:30 LuNatic says:
A well drawn, well written 2D Iso party based RPG (Allow us to have more than three people in the party please – five would be nice. Oh, and don’t force the main character to have to spend all his/her skill points on a tree only available to him/her. In fact, let us start with making all five characters for ourselves, instead of having premade companions forced on us through the game). Tales of the Ketty Jay by Chris Wooding would make for a nice setting ;)
11/02/2012 at 02:31 edit says:
To me it’s not the isometric graphics or resulting gameplay that makes these games interesting, it’s the depth of the world, characters and plot. If I were to support a kickstarter for this kind of game, ideally it’d be a first-person, open-world RPG which has just as interesting paths through the story for a player who does NOT want to kill everything as for a player who does. I’m kind of losing interest in RPGs which don’t offer that kind of option… which unfortunately means most RPGs.
A big part of the reason funding that DF Adventure got me excited is that those kinds of games (ie Tim Schafer adventure games) aren’t abundant. They are among the few games with scope and depth that don’t rely on violence. The focus is on making memorable characters for you to relate with rather than making characters whose sole purpose is to die a few seconds after appearing on screen.
So basically, I’ll get behind this if it’s something different. If it’s a deep, rich world to explore, and you can explore it in your own way (including.. NOT grinding through millions of enemies) then it’ll perk my interest. If it’s any kind of action-focused RPG it’d have to be pretty damn unusual or interesting in some other way to get my cash. I have nothing against some combat in games, but I’m just regularly disappointed to discover that most developers seem to have forgotten there is any other way it can be. If this kickstarter offers me a glimmer of hope in that regard, I’ll probably want to support it.
11/02/2012 at 09:00 Kadayi says:
Similar thoughts. Old games are a a reflection of the technologies available at the time. Were the technologies of today available when PS:T was conceived it’s unlikely the game would of been isometric, but something more akin to DA:O/DA:2. Turning back the clock mechanistically serves no great purpose save to feed the nostalgia of a core audience.
11/02/2012 at 10:11 bill says:
100% agreed. Making a 2D Isometric game would have no real purpose, unless they actually wanted to. Just doing it because their old games were like that would be dumb.
Making a turn-based CRPG with similar mechanics to their old games would be ok i guess, but it would similarly seem to be missing the point. Planescape wasn’t great because it was like older RPGs, it was great because it wasn’t. (i heard… i didn’t get very far personally).
I’d be interested in what they could do with a game that WASN’T an RPG… I don’t see why game developers have to be pigeon-holed by genre too much… we wouldn’t ONLY let Ridley Scott make sci-fi monster movies because he happened to make Alien..
11/02/2012 at 13:20 Wizardry says:
Planescape: Torment was turn-based? No wonder I disliked it – I must have been playing the wrong game!
11/02/2012 at 17:54 Kadayi says:
“Planescape: Torment was turn-based?”
A lot of people see it that way given it’s based on the D&D system (which uses turns & rounds to regulate combat, something you’d know if you’d ever played P&P). Still perhaps you should go to the thread on the Obsidian boards and tell them that they are all wrong.
11/02/2012 at 19:06 Wizardry says:
No. They took a turn-based system (D&D) and made it real-time. What’s hard to understand? If Baldur’s Gate is turn-based then why is it so fundamentally different to Pool of Radiance? I find it so hard to take people seriously when they claim an obviously real-time game is turn-based because it’s based on turn-based rules.
11/02/2012 at 20:00 Kadayi says:
It’s not real time. You don’t aim like you would in an FPS. Clicking on a target faster doesn’t make you attack them any quicker. You pause the game to issue orders to your team, but the system underlying everything is still D&D. The squad AI is just a tad smarter than in the earlier games and will do it’s own thing is left to it’s own devices.
11/02/2012 at 22:10 Wizardry says:
So now only FPSs can be real-time? This is absurd. It’s like you think StarCraft is turn-based.
You do know that characters can move between rounds in the Infinity Engine, right? This actually does mean that the faster you click the faster they start moving. It’s real-time. There are no turns. You can issue orders mid-round. It’s not turn-based.
12/02/2012 at 01:28 malkav11 says:
@Bill:
I am not in favor of pigeonholing developers, per se. But the simple fact of the matter is that there are hardly any developers making anything resembling traditional western RPGs anymore, at least outside the low budget indie market. Until recently, it was Bioware, Obsidian, a couple of developers out of Europe, and maybe Bethesda if we squint a bit. Bioware’s sliding rapidly out of the picture, at least one of the European developers has folded (the Drakensang folks)…spending money to get one of the last remaining developers (and imho the most consistently excellent and prolific) on that list to try their hand at genres already swamped with entries would be a betrayal.
12/02/2012 at 05:50 Selix says:
@Wizardry
You still have to take into account that you were still firmly within the ruleset. I think you can argue all day about the virtues and evils of allowing some free movement (accessibility, the feeling of it, finding one or the other more nerve-wracking), but in the end the complexity doesn’t need to suffer, as far as I can see.
12/02/2012 at 20:57 Wizardry says:
It does actually. A lot of the complexity of D&D combat comes from the initiative and the resultant turn order. Things like gaining attacks of opportunity couldn’t be implemented in the Infinity Engine, even though D&D CRPGs before and after the Infinity Engine (Gold Box and Temple of Elemental Evil) had them. There were lots of issues with spell casting too as a result of moving to real-time. Spell interrupting was also way too easy as a result.
12/02/2012 at 23:32 InternetBatman says:
@Wizardry But Neverwinter Nights, which was also ATB solved a lot of those problems. Flanking and backstabbing still worked. Opportunity attacks were in there and caster interruptions were solved with concentration checks. Personally I liked the way caster interruption worked in the infinity engine games, it gave a lot of spells extra utility past straight damage and god knows casters were powerful enough in that game.
11/02/2012 at 02:38 jkinder says:
You all know that what you really want is for them to dig out another classic DnD setting. just imagine: Spelljammer: Asphyxiation. The story of the last person who actually remembers that Spelljammer ever existed and their last days of life before the air runs out…
11/02/2012 at 03:14 Vinraith says:
As someone that actually DM’d a number of Spelljammer campaigns back in the 90′s I’d love nothing more than to see a well done Spelljammer game, complete with turn based naval combat between spacefaring galleons and giant spider ships.
11/02/2012 at 10:15 bill says:
Sounds either great… or like a JRPG. Can’t decide which. ;-)
11/02/2012 at 13:33 Wizardry says:
There actually is a Spelljammer game and it’s better than its reputation indicates.
11/02/2012 at 17:16 Vinraith says:
@Wizardry
Really? I’d always heard it was awful, hence I’ve never played it.
11/02/2012 at 19:14 Wizardry says:
I didn’t say it was particularly good. It’s one of those older games that hardly anyone has actually played yet everyone assumes is terrible because the one person (exaggeration) who has reviewed it said it was crap. It’s buggy, it’s pretty much unfinished, it’s sort of playable, it has some good ideas and it has some terrible ideas. It’s a mixed bag, and had far more potential than was realised.
12/02/2012 at 05:04 Vinraith says:
@Wizardry
That’s a real shame. Spelljammer is such a marvelous, ludicrous concept and it would translate so well to the cRPG space. It’s criminal that more hasn’t been done with it.
12/02/2012 at 21:01 Wizardry says:
I agree. I believe the Spelljammer CRPG was made at just the right time as 1992 was a fantastic year for the genre. It’s just a shame that, unlike the many great CRPGs that came out at the time, it ended up being a low budget hack of a game churned out for no good reason. It could have been among the highlights of the genre, just as many early 90s CRPGs are. But it ended up a mess of a game and the setting hasn’t been revisited since (I don’t think). A real pity.
11/02/2012 at 03:30 bill says:
they should make WHAT THEY WANT TO MAKE.
Surely the whole advantage of something like player funding is that it gives them much more freedom to make the game they want to make, rather than worrying about pleasing publishers or shareholders or fitting in with market research and trends.
Much as I love some of these old games, it would seem a shame if the only result of player funding was either sequels or clones of old games.
(it is of course the same problem that publishers have – people say they want new original games, but the brand recognition of an old game will get you a lot more cash).
Capture some of the magic of the old games, but don’t just churn out sequels or cookie cutter repeats.
If it was me, from these guys, I’d like a non-party-based RPG mixing adventure and epic strategy. Lords of Midnight meets Chronicles of Thomas Covenant with modern-ish graphics and capabilities.
11/02/2012 at 03:33 Kresh says:
I’ll give them $500 if they promise to never, ever, touch the Fallout franchise again.
11/02/2012 at 05:03 ulix says:
Why?
Because Fallout: New Vegas was the best RPG in 10 years (at least), and you don’t want them to fail the incredible expectations raised by that game?
11/02/2012 at 07:59 Delixe says:
Did you even play Fallout: New Vegas or did you just read Quinn’s review? (Yes I went there)
11/02/2012 at 13:35 Wizardry says:
New Vegas wasn’t any better than any of Vogel’s games and Knights of the Chalice destroys New Vegas which, to be fair, is basically a first person shooter.
11/02/2012 at 13:47 Unaco says:
I had a look at that “Knights of the Chalice” game. Would maybe be interested, but I’m a little suspect about their business practices… I see the game, but I also see they’re selling a map of a location from the game, separately and in addition to the game itself… Is that map useful for the game? Why sell it separately? Why not include it in the package? That’s what they used to do, isn’t it? Hell, last 3 TES Games I bought came with copies of the map… The Witcher 2 came with a copy of the map… I could see if it was an additional thing, like a piece of art or similar… but selling it separately like that just doesn’t pass the smell test with me.
11/02/2012 at 17:37 NathanH says:
From the demo, Knights of the Chalice seems really quite good, thanks for mentioning it. I particularly like it is very transparent with all the rules and dice rolls, that’s very good.
11/02/2012 at 19:18 Wizardry says:
@Unaco: What map are you talking about? It’s a download only game. You don’t need any map to play it. Perhaps you’re on the wrong site or something.
11/02/2012 at 19:21 Unaco says:
I’m on the Heroic Fantasy Games website, in the Shopping Area, they sell the game itself, and above that, there is this…
http://www.heroicfantasygames.com/DigiVendorPro/index.php?page=detail&get_id=4&category=
If it has nothing to do with the game, that’s cool. I just felt, if it was part of the game, that their ‘nickle & diming’ wasn’t very nice.
11/02/2012 at 19:42 Wizardry says:
I’ve never seen that before. It’s not relevant at all. I’ve no idea what it’s for, either. He seems to be selling random stuff there like that desktop wallpaper.
12/02/2012 at 09:22 Tom De Roeck says:
Fallout:NV was good, but not the “best rpg in the last ten years”. FalloutNV was good in comparison to Fallout 3, and pretty much great in comparison to anything Bethesda released in the 21st century; but because their storytelling is so cumbersome and horribly crap. They made the best out of a horrible RPG system, almost touching on KOTOR2 grounds, as far as story is concerned.
Atleast in Skyrim they’re beginning to understand that, even though some dialogue and scripted events are the most horrible, ever.
11/02/2012 at 05:43 Dogun says:
I want something I can feel nastolgic about in ten years. I want it to be fun, have intuitive controls, and to have a memoralbe story or concept, so that I can tell people what the game is about and have them get excited too.
I want an interface that doesn’t make me want to rip my eyes out, and decent voice acting if it’s a dialogue game. I want well-considered graphics, as opposed to an impossibly detailed 3d-world.
I want good music. And I want my emotional involvement in the game to be enough that I’m inclined to cry at least once.
11/02/2012 at 07:57 Delixe says:
Fallout 4, Planescape: Torment 2, Alpha Protocol 2 I don’t really care. I love Obsidian’s games and if Chris Avellone and Josh Sawyer are writing then count me in for $100.
11/02/2012 at 08:42 Zarunil says:
I’d like to see another Planescape. I never played the original, and I’m not finding it all that appealing due to it’s age. I’m sure there are many like me.
11/02/2012 at 19:26 trjp says:
If you don’t get on with PS I’ve no idea why you think making it shinier or (god forbid) 3D would help.
The appeal of PS is in it’s story and it’s approach to the whole world – the atmosphere and lore and dialogues etc. etc.
That’s not going to improve by adding HI RES TEXTURES is it?
11/02/2012 at 10:01 Jimmy Z says:
While I would dearly love to see another PlanceScape – game, sadly I think it’s well beyond the scope of this kind of a project. Main reason is, that the D&D license from WoTC alone would probably cost more than could be conceivably collected with Kickstarter funding.
However, I’m all for them making a party-based ‘birds eye view’ RPG in the spirit of the original Infinity engine games. However, realistically speaking it would have to have:
‘Isometric’ 3D
Any great amount of 2D art like seen in the original IE games is hugely expensive and time consuming to do. Doing 3D costs a lot too, but it has a lot greater degree of re-usability and you can do stuff like lights and shadows ‘on the fly’, as opposed to painstakingly drawing each frame by hand. Also, they probably have a lot of pre-made 3D engine code they could readily use, as opposed to probably having to code a 2D engine from scratch.
Isometric-like / ‘birds-eye-view’, well just because I prefer that perspective and more importantly, it requires far less from the art assets than super-detailed first person 3D. Obviously, they could go for less detailed first person 3D, but that would just probably make the game look clunky and dated. I’d much rather have stylish isometric 3D (zoomed fairly high up) that’s at least somewhat modern (just think of the Infinity engine stuff, but done in 3D with somewhat modern dynamic light and shadow stuff), than a dated looking 1st person game.
Original IP
I’m repeating myself here, but it would really *have* to be an original IP. Everything else is just too expensive or restricting. Unless someone would grant them a really cool license out of the goodness of their hearts (yeah, that’s gonna happen..)
Text based dialogue
Not only do I feel that voice acting would be unnecessary for this kind of a game, it’s just way too expensive to do properly. Sure, they could have the dev team themselves mumbling some lines in front of a microphone, like back in the good olden days of early video game voice acting. However, I’d much rather have no voice acting at all, than badly done voice acting.
–
As for the game itself, beyond being isometric party-based RPG in the general vein of the Infinity engine games, I don’t actually care that much to be honest. Sure, the whole medieval fantasy thing has been sort of done to death, but you have to remember that most of the games with such setting have simply been shit. There haven’t been that many many good games with that kind of a setting in the past, say, 10 years. So I wouldn’t actually mind that much even if they did just that, except with some interesting mechanics, cool twists and an awesome story.
However, I wouldn’t mind Something Completely Different either. As long it’s made by Obsidian with their creative juices flowing free from the tyranny of publishers and IP holders! <3
11/02/2012 at 13:38 Lars Westergren says:
+1 to all of that, Jimmy.
11/02/2012 at 13:56 InternetBatman says:
They have their own proprietary engine now, the one they used on Dungeon Siege III. So presumably they would use that to reach their goals.
11/02/2012 at 15:32 Bhazor says:
@ Internet Batman
In an interview with one of the devlopers they said that they designed the DS3 engine to be flexible as they planned to use it in their next game(s). They mentioned it was “intended for other types of RPG” so take from that what you will.
11/02/2012 at 10:23 bill says:
One thing I would like is something with a different narrative structure. If you compare games to movies/books you tend to find that games have a very limited and un-ambitious narrative structure. (as well as generally failing to address complex themes).
These guys seem to have an ok record with addressing complex themes, so a different narrative structure or storytelling technique would be refreshing. Everyone seems to be assuming it’d be an RPG. Personally I’d rather not, but if it was then i hope it doesn’t follow the usual RPG structure.
(the main reason i hope it isn’t an RPG is because I think the needs of the CRPG mechanics tend to stifle any chance at innovative narrative, structure or progression. )
It doesn’t even have to be very innovative in terms of general art, just in terms of games.
11/02/2012 at 12:08 fenriz says:
It’s at times like this im reminded how harmful 3d has been
it has increased costs at minimum 500%, which forced devs to simplify and stupidify games, and it invited the “new kids” who only want violence in their pastimes, which in turn made ‘em stupider and violent. And this in turn gave videogames a bad name. Roberta Williams was so right about it, videogames arcadia was invaded by the mongoloid barbarians.
3d has ruined everything an it’s not like the rise of the novel, which brought middle class to them, it’s worse because of bloated costs.
think about Psychonauts. Because of its costs it has to be about a damn thingie jumping around: we had to renounce realistic, beautiful and deep item interactivity, we lost the use,look,walk,pick verbs, we lost the ability to examine the virtual world. And for 5 times its cost. Jesus there’s something so rotten and foul about videogames industry thinking about it gives me cholera
11/02/2012 at 15:46 malkav11 says:
3D is actually significantly cheaper and quicker to work with than (good) 2D. Hence why Telltale uses it in all their cheaply produced episodic games.
11/02/2012 at 16:11 fenriz says:
That’s absurd.
You’re saying Syndicate was more expensive than Crysis and its development took longer. You’re nuts.
How can hand-drawn static screens require more work than 3d levels, ridden with bugs and problems?
How can you say that, when clearly Tim Schafer stated, for a 2d adventure game he needed 400k$, for a new psychonauts how much did he say, 20 million$ i think. And when a young german scholar made his beautiful adventure game (whispered world) by himself? And that other guy made Gemini Rue with free software adventure game studio… and it was REALLY good 2d graphic.
11/02/2012 at 16:22 Apples says:
fenriz, it’s true, 3D can be cheaper – but only in certain circumstances.
The reason Telltale use 3D is because it allows them to:
1) Use many camera angles and lighting setups without having to redraw an entire background. This also allows the game to use more than just ‘static screens’ and therefore be more visually and probably mechanically interesting.
2) Reuse many, many assets (most rooms in their games are modified versions of a small set of rooms, with reused assets strewn around).
3) Reuse character models and animations with slightly modifications.
The entire thing is about reuse and fast development.
3D programs also have many functions to aid development, for example utilities that quickly rough out walk cycles, whereas in 2D every animation would have to be drawn by hand.
In the majority of cases, unless you need to be churning out small games very quickly with low-quality 3D, I would think staying 2D would be significantly easier and cheaper, and result in better visual quality. The reason 3D is so expensive now is because people demand AAA-quality with shaders and detail maps and specular maps all over the place, 3D in itself is not inherently all that expensive.
I also mourn the loss of beautiful 2D games like Abe’s Oddyssey – there’s no reason except people’s idiocy that 2D games could not have continued alongside 3D ones. But 3D also has its uses and in open-world sandbox games is essential. There are great uses of both, it’s just a shame one is considered to be ‘better’ than the other.
11/02/2012 at 16:29 malkav11 says:
That’s not actually what I’m saying. Game budgets and team sizes have clearly expanded over the years. Your mistake is assuming that this is strictly because of the 2D to 3D transition.
And yes, for many purposes 3D is cheaper. Everything you do in 2D has to be hand drawn by an artist, and hand modified any time there are changes. They have to have sprites for every possible angle of view. 3D models can easily be altered on the fly, new animations simply attached to them, new textures quickly painted over, etc etc.
Personally I tend to prefer 2D graphics for many types of game and I feel they age more slowly than 3D. But there are reasons people switched to 3D and barely looked back.
11/02/2012 at 16:37 jalf says:
No, he’s saying that a hypothetical 2D Crysis would, if it had to retain a similar graphical detail level, have been far far more expensive.
Which is true.
With 3D, you get a lot of things for free. You model a character once, and then it can be seen from *any* angle and at *any* distance for free.
With 2D, you draw your character once, and then it can be seen at one particular size, facing one particular way. If you want it to be seen from another angle, (or from a different distance without it looking like shit), then you need to draw the character again. And again… And again… And that’s where it becomes absurdly expensive.
But of course, it depends on the game. In Space Invaders or Pacman, these drawbacks are basically non-issues. You only need to redraw Pacman for the sake of animation (which is what, three different frames?) That’s a lot easier than creating a 3d-model.
But then take Syndicate. They had to draw and animate every sprite once for each direction it could face (3 or 5 depending on whether you had a diagonal facing, I can’t remember if that was the case). Or they could have modelled the character once, animated it once, and the character could then be faced in *any* direction for free.
Or take Crysis. If it’d been 2D, they’d have had to draw and redraw every character model, every item, every piece of scenery a near-infinite number of times, if they’d wanted a game that felt even remotely the same.
So yeah. there are fair reasons to be nostalgic about the “good old” 2D days, but “3D makes development so expensive” isn’t one of them. What makes modern games expensive is the developers ambition for insane levels of detail, for huge complex environments, for animations and interactions that would have been impossible in a 2D game.
The same detail levels in a 2D game would have been vastly more expensive.
Oh I don’t know, perhaps because they’re different games?
Because a new Psychonauts would have to be as visually and spatially big and complex and varied as people expect and demand of a 3D platformer, whereas an adventure game, whether 2D or 3D, is ridiculously simplistic: you have a couple of static backgrounds, characters never have to be seen from different angles, and are barely animated, and the gameplay is so much more simplistic: you never need to jump, attack, fight or anything else. You walk up to X, click on verb Y and click on item/character Z. Then some text appears on the screen, and if you’re really lucky, your character extends an arm or something.
That’s cheap whether you do it in 2D or 3D.
Psychonauts is expensive whether you do it in 2D or 3D.
11/02/2012 at 16:54 malkav11 says:
@jalf:
Yes, exactly. Plus, I’m pretty sure the game Double Fine was going to make for $300k (the other $100k was for the documentary) was going to be, well…the sort of game you can make for $300k. A few hours worth of enjoyable adventure gaming, perhaps comparable in size and complexity to their other recent bite-sized games like Costume Quest and Stacking. Not a Grim Fandango or Day of the Tentacle sort of scale. (The fact that you get a copy of the game for the $15 pledge level suggests that to me as well.) Now that they’re raking in way more than that…well, we’ll see!
11/02/2012 at 17:08 Kadayi says:
“You’re saying Syndicate was more expensive than Crysis and its development took longer. You’re nuts”
Don’t put words in peoples mouths to justify luddite thinking. Shooting a B&W silent film is a obviously a lot cheaper than making a fully featured colour film, but the latter allows for more scope than the former.
11/02/2012 at 18:50 fenriz says:
Apples:
oh come on. A 3d engine needs more than 1 person working only at it technically, then the artist too, then a license cost, in most cases. That’s already more paychecks to the employers. Then i don’t see why a 2d artist would have to “redraw” anything, it’s not like he makes a “3d world” by painting every single visual and camera angle, hehe that’s bizarre.
I also don’t see why a 2d artist can’t reuse assets too.
11/02/2012 at 19:09 malkav11 says:
2D games need engines too.
11/02/2012 at 19:43 Apples says:
Are you seriously and actually incapable of understanding why a 2D artist would have to redraw things? Even though an example was given? OK, another one: think about Pokemon games. The 2D artist has to draw every Pokemon from the front (for enemy battles), from the back (for your own Pokes), in a pose (for the Pokedex), in a following sprite for games like HG/SS, in a surf sprite, etc etc etc. A 3D artist creates the Pokemon model once. It can have different animations applied to it, but very likely the same animation will be used for all common Pokes (e.g. all bipedal/quadripedal could have the same/similar animations). The reuse rate is much higher. You might think that the 3D model will take longer and therefore not be ‘worth it’ – you might be right in this specific case because Pokemon is so low-res, but you’d be surprised how quickly low-res models can be made too.
Also, for any camera or lighting change in a scene the entire scene has to be redrawn for each frame. This again is not the case for 3D models of a scene. Do you understand this.
The game doesn’t HAVE to feature situations in which things would have to be redrawn, but it would be an extremely visually static game if that were the case.
2D games will also have more than one artist. The engine is a totally separate matter and the fact that you try and imply that only 3D games require complex engines shows that you don’t really know what you’re talking about! Also did you know that a lot of 2D games have sprites that are just screenshotted high-res 3D models (because then they can REUSE the model by just turning it into different positions/poses)? It’s true! They are doing that work anyway in some cases!
11/02/2012 at 12:22 Dreamhacker says:
Isometric RPG. Wether it’s turn-based or real time w/ pause matters little. I’m just craving a good, classical-looking isometric RPG to play.
11/02/2012 at 13:44 Lars Westergren says:
Chris is reading this thread and taking notes by the way, so keep good suggestions coming.
http://forums.obsidian.net/blog/1/entry-158-if-obsidian-kickstarter/page__st__120
11/02/2012 at 14:30 Campaigner says:
I’m not much of an RPG gamer as I haven’t played any Dragon Age, Mass Effect and Planescape Torment but as long as the games can be easily played and understood (not Baldurs Gate or Icewind Dale series) like people say Dragon Age is, then it should be good.
Part of me wanted to post this to fight back against what I consider RPG snobs.
11/02/2012 at 16:28 Lars Westergren says:
>Part of me wanted to post this to fight back against what I consider RPG snobs.
But there are so many games for non-RPG snobs. Can’t you let us have just this one? Especially since the success of Double Fine seems to be that actually did something for their hardcore fans, not something that appeals to the mass market as the publishers constantly demand.
11/02/2012 at 17:08 Apples says:
What’s with all the reverse snobbery on the internet? Let’s make things that are mediocre and easy to get into so that… what, more people can enjoy the mediocrity? We already have tons of RPG-lites (including Dragon Age, which was more like a single-player WoW than an old-school RPG) but nothing for them to lead into except games that were made over 10 years ago. Why don’t we also write all novels using only one-syllable words so that they’re nice and easy to understand? I’d rather have thousands of RPGCodex people than thousands of people who go “I love RPGs, Mass Effect was great!” (this is not an insult to ME, but it is not an RPG.)
Incidentally I am too stupid to figure out Baldur’s Gate gameplay (I can play roguelikes, DF and PS:T alright so god knows why) but I still think it’s absolutely right and necessary that those types of niche games exist..
11/02/2012 at 17:30 NathanH says:
Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale are actually among the few popular RPGs that can easily be understood, because they tell you all the rules and show you all the random numbers. Indeed, they are much easier to understand than Dragon Age. In Dragon Age I have no idea exactly what my spell is doing or whether my inability to hit an opponent is because it is hard to hit or because I have been unlucky.
13/02/2012 at 04:17 Campaigner says:
@Lars Westergren
First off, I didn’t find any “reply” button on your comment so had to click on my own (I’m new here so don’t know how this sites commentsystem works ^^)
You’re right. There are many games for non-RPGers so you can have this one.
When I think about WHY I posted what I did I remember I felt annoyed. But now when i read the article again I wonder what I was annoyed about….
11/02/2012 at 14:57 Ultima says:
Personally, I’d love to see a turn-based RPG again; the sameification of all RPGs these days is only doing the genre harm. People so often mistakenly believe that TB games were only TB due to the limitations of technology. I think this started becoming a popular line of thought around the time Fallout 3 was being hyped and a dev made a comment along these lines. While hardware/software limitations might have played a role (hurr hurr) in the popularity of TB RPGs during the Gold Box era – although even as early as the 80s you had realtime RPGs and the majority of non-RPGs were realtime, so I doubt it – in truth TB is just as valid a system as realtime, just with a different sort of appeal. Just try to imagine playing a game like Civilization in RT, it simply wouldn’t work without being a completely different game.
Actually, that brings up another point. Although some old RPGs had excellent combat, I think a lot of people hate TB in part because so many popular TB games have poorly-designed combat systems. Compare the complexity and polish of a game like Civilization 4 to almost any TB RPG, and the RPG will come up lacking. Even in relatively well-known classics like Fallout, the game is good despite its combat rather than because of it. With a generation that’s been raised on games like Final Fantasy with their attack-attack-heal, use fire spell on ice boss and other heuristic strategies which don’t capitalize on the strengths of TB, it’s no wonder so many of them hate TB. The only place you can find good TB combat these days is in indies like Knights of the Chalice. But if a relatively big player like Obsidian were to use the opportunity to avoid publisher fiat allowed by Kickstarter to introduce this new generation to TB RPGs and put the same level of quality into the combat as their games have in areas like dialogue, it could go a long way towards dispelling this pernicious myth about TB.
11/02/2012 at 19:31 Wizardry says:
The best comment I’ve read.
11/02/2012 at 19:56 NathanH says:
I agree, and this is coming from a fan of real-time-with-pause.
12/02/2012 at 11:21 Kadayi says:
“The best comment I’ve read.”
Alt account ftw.
12/02/2012 at 21:04 Wizardry says:
Nah, it isn’t. I’m sure the RPS guys can check the IP address. It’s blatantly either a spoof account or one that mine has inspired.
11/02/2012 at 15:43 malkav11 says:
I really only ask for three things:
1) Turn based tactical combat.
2) Character skill based success and failure rather than player skill based success and failure. I.e., gimme a nice crunchy advancement system, preferably with more interesting choices than just making numbers go up a point or two.
3) An original setting with the writing depth and nuance of Torment. And a similar -amount- of it.
Which is a lot to ask, I know. But I don’t care about petty stuff like whether it’s 2D or 3D, isometric or first person or top down or whatever. I don’t need it to have an expensive license (which would be required for an actual sequel to almost anything Obsidian or Black Isle made). I don’t need (or want) the kind of wide open sprawling vistas that the Elder Scrolls games have to offer. Focus on the core elements and make the other details fit as needed.
11/02/2012 at 16:10 Ghoulie says:
It is absolutely crucial to be allowed to do a “dunce-run” ala Fallout 1, Fallout 2 and Arcanum (Where minimum intelligence vastly alters your dialogue) .
Allow players to solve conundrums in inventive ways without having to resort (wholly or partially) to violence, think Arcanum and the first half of VtMB.
ATMOSPHERE. Atmosphere is something sorely lacking in many, many games today. If you can make me feel as though your world is a living, breathing place I will be extraordinarily happy.
If you can deliver those three things I will throw my money at your game hard enough to concuss you.
11/02/2012 at 17:35 NathanH says:
Completely changing all dialogue depending on your intelligence score is a massive waste of time, in my opinion.
11/02/2012 at 18:02 Ghoulie says:
Some of the most fun I’ve ever had was doing dunce-runs.
“Oh God, the chosen one is an idiot!” was one of the highlights of Arcanum.
11/02/2012 at 19:36 Wizardry says:
I like the idea of dialogue changing the dumber your character is, but in practice it hasn’t worked well so far. Let’s say low intelligence dialogue options appear when you have 3 or less points in intelligence. Why 3? Why do you suddenly go from a “normal” sounding character to a dumb one between a single point of intelligence? Ideally you’ll need a gradient of some kind so that options get dumber and dumber the less points you have. This isn’t really feasible with the dialogue tree approach to RPG conversations.
11/02/2012 at 22:21 Ghoulie says:
I believe that the conversation should remain as normal, except have a few of the options taken out (the options that only a smart character would notice for example) and only the extreme case (eg. below 3 as you said) has duncealogue.
11/02/2012 at 16:17 Gary W says:
A game in which the entire planet has been converted into a endless suburb where people play games all day. The gameplay must be better than God Hand, and the level design & mise-en-scène must be better than the 2002 remake of Resident Evil.
If that sounds too difficult, then some shitty fanservice RPG like Planescape 2: The Planescapening or Wizardry MCMXCIII.
11/02/2012 at 18:46 Lars Westergren says:
Edit: My sarcasm detector broke. Nevermind.
11/02/2012 at 18:42 Lars Westergren says:
As Brother None said on RPGWatch – it’s baffling how many people ask for sequels that could never be made with this Kickstarter because the IP is already owned by big publishers who will never relinquish them. Publishers who either sit on it and do nothing (too many to mention), or abuse beloved franchises (see Dungeon Keeper the Chinese MMO grind, or Age of Empires the Facebook microtransaction game).
Now is a golden chance for Obsidian to create something original and unique that *they* would own all the rights to and could choose to develop exactly as they want in the coming years with 100% of the profits going to them. They know this of course, and I hope they take that chance no matter how many beg them to make another Fallout or Planescape game.
If they don’t, that would be really tragic. I mean, yeah, *of course* I would love a Planescape sequel, P:T and Grim Fandango are tied for my greatest game ever. But at the same time it would feel like a missed opportunity to change the long term fortunes of one of the last great independent studios.
11/02/2012 at 19:09 pipman3000 says:
make someones ASOIAF/witcher crossover fanfic into an rpg like bioware did
11/02/2012 at 20:29 nootpingu86 says:
A good game.
12/02/2012 at 12:22 Iskariot says:
Obsidian only does mediocre games.
11/02/2012 at 20:43 wodin says:
It would be pretty pointless exercise if they didn’t make Planescape 2 or something of similar elk.
Actually who made Arcadium? If it was Obsidian then I want a sequel to that.
Or something along those lines. Something that isn’t catered for already.
11/02/2012 at 22:49 malkav11 says:
Arcanum, you mean? That was Troika. They’re no longer in business, and I assume Sierra owned the rights.
12/02/2012 at 00:41 Sarlix says:
Anyone ever get the feeling that we spend more time talking about games than we do actually playing them?
12/02/2012 at 00:52 Lazaruso says:
Well, most people spend more time talking about sex than engaging in it. It’s normal behavior.
12/02/2012 at 05:41 Selix says:
Since Planescape Torment also wasn’t the pureblood RPG experience that some are asking for, but took some terrible creative freedom, and is still one of the greatest RPGs of all time, I wouldn’t make that the strictest requirement for a game by Chris Avellone.
12/02/2012 at 08:22 Colaholic says:
Any PC game they make that don’t suffer from consolitis, will make me happy.
12/02/2012 at 12:21 Iskariot says:
There are several games I would like to be made, but I would not want Obsidian to do it, because it would very likely turn out to be less than mediocre.
12/02/2012 at 18:22 MadMatty says:
was i the only one who thought Dragon Ago was cheesy as fK, with cliched cardboard cut out characters and gameplay identical to old Baldurs Gate, xcept for the damn linear maps.
Heroes who wont get their feet wet, and wont even climb small hills. sheesh
and invisible walls everywhere.
I *DID-* enjoy Mass Effect, which has many of the aforementioned flaws, but it just managed to steal it- Jennifer Hales acting put it up above average.
And the shooting, which i like.
13/02/2012 at 07:39 Craymen Edge says:
Whatever it is, could we get Obsidian to write/design it and someone else to make it?
13/02/2012 at 22:59 ZillaRacing says:
They would have to change a lot… Planescape was a terrible game. The only thing that got me through was the storyline. I literally had to force my character through just to see what happened next. After i was done, i vowed to never object myself to that again.