BioWare Founders On 2003, Future Prospects

Thanks to C+VG for their interview with BioWare founders Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, discussing "their thoughts on the videogames of the past year [and] potential future developments" for their own company. They lament that "one of the most unfortunate things happening in the industry today is the demise of the small independent developer", and note they're "working on three new games, all set in BioWare-created intellectual properties, right now" (lending credence to the previous rumor that the BioWare-affiliated Obsidian Entertainment may be creating the sequel to Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic, which sports an external IP.) The internal BioWare projects include the already-announced Xbox action-RPG Jade Empire, as well as "a PC RPG inspired by our own past work on both the Baldur's Gate series and Neverwinter Nights."

Comments

Finally!

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Good to see some attention to this topic!

Re:Finally!

[Kethinov]

To what topic specifically are you referring to? Future gaming prospects? BioWare in general? Or the demise of the small independent game developer?

I think that the last of three is the one that we should be paying the most attention to. Small game companies are being washed away by megacorps like Square-Enix (whom I call Squenix) who have hundreds of developers working on every game they produce.

When this first started happening I assumed that the quality of gaming in general would improve, but my experience over the last few years tells otherwise. Whenever a large company is involved in producing anything, politics and marketing get in the way of the real product.

Re:Finally!

[ooPo]

I'd say the true evil to watch out for is companies like EA. They tend to dump a bunch of money into a small company to produce a game. If the small company succeeds, EA moves in and absorbs the talent. If they fail, EA removes funding and they die off unable to sustain the staff they hired on to finish the EA game in the first place.

A great way to absorb all the good, and sue the bad for wasting their investment cash. In the end all we'll have is incremental sports game releases, Sims expansions, and the latest in boring-ass console FPS crap. Is it any wonder emulation is so popular now?

Re:Finally!

[Kethinov]

Can't say I disagree with your loathing of EA. Didn't they do something like that with ORIGIN?

Re:Finally!

[Babbster]

At the risk of being acused of baiting the old flames, emulation is popular because people like to play games and they like to play games for free - I think it has very little to do with current games sucking (many do, many don't). The Internet has enabled people to be cheap and lazy in this regard as never before. After all, it's not that hard to find a working Sega Genesis, Master System, NES, SNES, etc. (go to the video games section at eBay if you need proof). Emulation software and the people willing to distribute ROMs on the Internet, however, allow people to get all of it for free.

Ah, gone are the days of the Commodore 64 "User Group" pizza parties where we actually had to bring our computers, disc drives and monitors with us to do the heavy stealing of 170k games. Oh, how I envied that cool kid with the SX64 and dual disc drives...hex editors, Fast Hack'Em, blank 5-1/4s...but I digress.

There are good games being produced but they cost actual money or take a bigger effort (downloading multiple gigs that can take days and monopolize bandwidth, modding a console, buying/installing a DVD burner...) to steal - except for the PC where it's pretty darned easy.

Re:Finally!

[Kethinov]

Emulation is not just popular because people want free games. The biggest reason I love emulation is so I don't have to go out and buy a new console device every time I want to play a game. For example, all the playstation (1) games I play I rightfully own. But I don't play them on a playstation. I play them on ePSXe. IMHO that's a superior gaming experience compared to a limited console.

Many people, probably more than less, disagree with that. Citing reasons such as emulators being hard to setup and computers being more expensive than consoles. But in my situation, that being the fact that I already own a nice computer, it's cheaper to emulate than it is to buy an entirely new platform. And for the extra effort I expend in setting up an emulator, I gain the ability to save whenever I wish and make infinite savegames (among other things).

There are good games being produced but they cost actual money or take a bigger effort to steal

As it should be. As a man with an emulation fettish, I'm not asking for free games. I'm asking for the freedom to choose my own gaming platform.

How did this conversation digress into emulation again? ;)

Re:Finally!

[Joe Tie.]

At the risk of being acused of baiting the old flames

No, I accuse you of ignoring others viewpoints in order to justify your own opinions. I used to do the hacking part of a few translations, and I can tell you that there's a huge amount of people out there who simply love the style of the old 2D consoles. I spent an entire year working on one of them in particular, and either I or the translator could have used the time we spent on that to earn enough money to buy every single rpg produced for the current batch of consoles at that time. We didn't because we felt that game offered something that you couldn't find these days. Right now I'm playing through the first Star Ocean game - and it's not because the game is free. The reason is that I simply am having a better time with it than the newer rpgs I have around right now. Just because a game has become old dosn't mean the gameplay or story has just disapeared, no more than being new and shiney automatically means that either is going to be there!

After all, it's not that hard to find a working Sega Genesis, Master System, NES, SNES, etc. (go to the video games section at eBay if you need proof).

None of which are going to be able to play translated games without a huge investment in a copier. I own one, but they're getting rare and expensive enough that I don't expect people to just rush out and get one. But to get back to your first point about the money, yes, I'm sure that 'some' people are in it for the free games. But I don't think it's anywhere near the overwhelming majority that it'd have to be to justify blanket statements that everyone is in it for the same reason.

Re:Finally!

[Babbster]

You're right. I mistyped. Not EVERY emulator user is in it just for free games. Just 90% or more. Happy now?

Re:Finally!

[orim]

Didn't I just read about EA in the latest Newsweek (with Jon Stewart on the cover)? They were lauded for being the top moneymaker in the game business, having all these hit games, like the Sims, Harry Potter, etc, etc...
What we're seeing here is a very *business-oriented* company infiltrating the traditionally artsy/geeky world, and hey, it seems that they're doing well.

(no point here, insert own thoughts on the evils of capitalism, or the rightful domination of the free market).

Re:Finally!

[Snake_Plisken]

Heh - I regularly bash EA on the stratics boards for their mishandling of UO over the last couple of years. I boycot EA's products as a result (not that they care, but it makes me feel good anyway...)

Great

[obeythefist]

Okay so Bioware has just announced they're making sequel games to KOTOR and NWN, though I understand that KOTOR is built from a lot of the same code base that NWN used (certainly some elements of the look and feel for the games are the same).

This really doesn't seem like news, "Games company making sequels based on reasonably popular games".

At least they're making some nice roleplaying games, unlike Interplay who are too busy knifing some of their best development studios.

Re:Great

[Drakin]

What are you reading?

Bioware has stated they've got 3 projects in the works.

1 X-Box game, Jade Empire.
1 PC game, no title known.
1 other game with no info.

-all- of them are being done with thier own intellectual property.

They'll likely use updated versions of the Aurora (NWN) or Odyssey (KotOR) engines for the games, because why make yet another engine. But they won't even be useing the same rules system, they're making thier own.

Re:Great

[DaveCBio]

The 2 announced games are original IPs, they are not sequels. I can't say anything about the the other game.

RTFE (Read The Fucking Excerpt)

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay so Bioware has just announced they're making sequel games to KOTOR and NWN

No they didn't. They announced the exact opposite.

bioware for president

[understyled]

i'm a huge fan of the work bioware does - especially the baldur's gate series - since imho they pretty much revived a dying genre. baldur's gate 1 was a nostalgia trip for me to the days of the bard's tale and ultimas and ultima underworlds and all the classic epic RPGs. sure there were a few gems here and there throughout the years, like eye of the beholder, the fallouts, planescape torment, system shock 1&2, but i don't think the RPG genre was as popular as it is these days. i'm not one to point fingers or anything but bioware gets a pointing from me for putting out quality, timeless games that made people look twice.

Re:bioware for president

[JFMulder]

That's what everyone I know who plays these games have told me. The only Bio-RPG I played so far is KOTOR, which is awesome I have to admit, but I never had the chance to play Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights because I never had a good enough computer to even consider running these. It's a shame really. I'd really like to have these guys opinion on RPGs like FFX, Xenosaga and the JRPGs gameplay.

bioware for president
Sorry pal, they're canadians so the best they can be in the US is governor. ;) I'm sure they'd make a better government here in Canada though than the liberals though... :p

Re:bioware for president

[Squozen]

Erm, Baldur's Gate will run on a 64Mb Pentium 200 with an old TNT card (that's the machine I first played it on). If you can't make those specs, throw your PC out and spend $50 on a secondhand box that can handle it; it's worth it. Baldur's Gate II is superior in every aspect to the first game and doesn't require much more in terms of hardware.

Re:bioware for president

[JFMulder]

I had a P133 with a el cheapo trident card when Baldur's Gate came out. ;)

Now I have a PC powerfull enough to play the games, but I bought a console for games so I don't really look into computer game anymore. I sit in front of a computer all day so last thing I want to do now is hang around one after work to play games.

BioWare...Eh....

[Mitleid]

Is it just me, or does anyone else find BioWare EXTREMELY overated? I guess it would be safe to say I fell into the hype of SW:KOTOR this summer when it was released, and sadly it was one of the primary reasons I went out and purchased an XBOX. Well, I bought the game new days after it was released, and to this day I have never gotten any further into it than maybe 6 or 8 hours. It just hasn't grabbed me. People rave about the open-endedness and the impact your character choices have on the game, but I've found the character development to be incredibly limited and the story incredibly boring. Take a game like Fallout (1&2). Brilliant games. The difference it seems is that between a game like Fallout and SW:KOTOR is that in KOTOR, a character that you choose to develop as a "Thief" is more of a cosmetic gameplay mechanic than anything else. In the end, KOTOR comes down to how strong your character is in battle. In Fallout, if you wanted to play as a "thief" you could, and nothing was stopping you from stealing anything and everything you wanted, sneaking around wherenever and whenever, etc. A game like KOTOR only encourages those possibilities to a certain degree, then brings you crashing back down to earth when it is time to progress the story ...Here we go, another battle that is going to be unbelievably hard unless you have a party full of "fighters"... I don't mean to say that BioWare is a bad developer; I've enjoyed many of their games over the past years, but I honestly have to say I'm not very impressed with their most recent releases (NWN and KOTOR) and I just think they are received WAY TOO MUCH credit; much more than they deserve. It just seems like in the end its all just boiling down to hack and slash. Eh, maybe that's all people want and I'm just missing the point entirely.

Re:BioWare...Eh....

[Frequanaut]

It's just you. Bioware is an oasis in the desert that passes for the quality and imagination of the game industry.

Re:BioWare...Eh....

[superultra]

It sounds like quite specifically what you didn't like about KOTOR was the lack of thieving ability. There is that (obviously you never got far enough), but I'll concede that it definitely is not as developed as Fallout. Why? Because thieving doesn't really fit into the Star Wars universe. Star Wars has always been about having huge epic battles, and sneaking around in the shadows is just not what characterizes Star Wars.

As far as the story, if you've only played 6-8 hours you probably haven't seen enough of the story to care. I'm one that believes a game should grab you by the collars within the first hour otherwise it's useless, and KOTOR definitely did that for me. Nevertheless, the story does pick up. Moreover, what was great about KOTOR was the fact that if you sat there and talked to everyone over and over again, the story became much more detailed and full of subplots. If you had just talked to everyone one time and went on your merry little way, you're probably missing a huge chunk of these highly intricate character development subplots.

For me, KOTOR was one of the few games in which character development does occur. Moreover, it's only one of the only games I've played in which I really cared about the NPCs and what happened to them; they really had enough dimension to them for me to be concerned about whether they completed their own personal quests. Which is far more than I can say for Episode I & II. Sigh.

Re:BioWare...Eh....

[Mitleid]

Well, I won't deny that a thief-based character is my preference when it comes to role playing games, but that aside I just found KOTOR to be a bit to restrictive in regards to the character development in general. Eh, maybe I just need to sit down with the game and quit worrying about how I think the game SHOULD be played and just play it... But that's just my opinion; I'm not saying KOTOR is a bad game; in fact I find it incredibly polished and thorough. I just didn't feel BioWare deserved so much credit for an RPG; a good game, yes. But RPG pioneers, I still have a hard time declaring them as such.

Re:BioWare...Eh....

[Slider451]

But RPG pioneers, I still have a hard time declaring them as such.

If you'd played Baldur's Gate I the year it came out, when the RPG had been declared a dead genre by all the major game critics, you wouldn't be saying that.

Re:BioWare...Eh....

[orim]

Amen, Brother!
I had serious doubts about buying this game, even after reading many rave reviews and all... It's Star Wars, right? The same universe in which the new movies suck horribly? :)
But the first day I played, I was up till 2:30am, trying to do "just one more thing". It's been years (probably Fallout) since I've done that.
You're right about the SW=battles there... I was giddy when I first started kicking ass as a Jedi :)
The thing about the character classes - why make such a stupid distinction? Completely unnecessary. Give people a way to fully customize their characters... For every level, give them N advancement points. Make feats cost x points each, skills y points, and jedi powers Z points. Let people do what they want!

xbox fantasy rpg

[*weasel]

all i want is a good xbox fantasy rpg. something like kotor, but in a fantasy setting. and morrowind just didn't do it for me. (a little -too- open-ended. the main story didn't pull me in whatsoever). and i'm beginning to doubt fable actually exists.

that jade empire thing... meh, i like my fantasy a little more generic. i know, i'm not hardcore, something must be wrong with me, etc, etc. but i don't care to 'explore' a world that tries to deviate from the tolkien-archetypes for no reason.

If the story demands an eastern setting, that'd be fine. but i get the sinking suspicion that, like every 'oriental adventures' rpg before it, the story will have little eastern feel. it'll be a new setting for its own sake, and that's nauseating.

just touch up the kotor engine, switch 'force' to 'magic', 'blasters' to 'crossbows' and give me a good story.

Re:xbox fantasy rpg

[orim]

Hmmm... and I thought Kotor was so great precisely because it didn't have all those cliched elements.
I loved Fallout2 because it was futuristic (and had many realistic guns). System Shock2, you guessed it, in the future. Even old games that tried it, like Buck Rogers RPG, now that was fun. The only challenge is to balance those games... after a while, you get the feeling you're just looking at a sea of stats, since you have no idea of how a poly-alloy armor is different from a titanium/chrome bodysuit.

Have you played Kotor, btw? Excellent, gripping story. Borrow it from a friend and give it a whirl!

Re:xbox fantasy rpg

[*weasel]

i rented KOTOR, loved it. plan on buying it with holiday cash.

but it got me right into the story because it -did- have cliched elements. you -knew- the universe. Jedi are predominantly good, wookies are predominantly good, rhodians are questionable, etc. The story set up who you are, what you did, what the call to adventure is, what you 'should' do next, and where you shouldn't go. it left things open but you knew where to go to move 'forward' when you were done exploring a given area.

what i'm complaining about is games like morrowind, where the world is different simply for the sake of being different, and the story is so openended that you end up spending just as much time trying to figure out where you can and can not safely travel at your particular 'level' as you do investigating the story.

open ended gameplay like that isn't bad - but i prefer either a cliche setting with traditional rules (goblins are weak, etc), or some better 'intro' into the world to establish who-hates-who and which direction outside of town you don't walk in as a newbie.

like i said, if i could get KOTOR-quality in a fantasy setting, i'd be a happy man. i won't deny it, i though i loved KOTOR, i simply prefer fantasy for my RPGs. scifi imo lends itself more easily to action/rpg ala Deus Ex or Jedi Outcast

Re:xbox fantasy rpg

[Anonymous Coward]

what i'm complaining about is games like morrowind, where the world is different simply for the sake of being different

Tamriel, the world in Morrowind, is a well-established universe that has been built up over about four or five games now, starting a decade ago with Arena. It's not "different for the sake of being different" any more than the Star Wars universe is - you happen to be familiar with that one and not this one. I haven't played KOTOR, but I doubt it goes to any great efforts to explain what a Jedi is.

i prefer either a cliche setting with traditional rules (goblins are weak, etc), or some better 'intro' into the world to establish who-hates-who and which direction outside of town you don't walk in as a newbie.

Moreover, Morrowind includes huge quantities of explanatory texts, detailing everything you could possibly want to know about the world. If, as a beginner, you do what you're told - take a silt strider to Balmora - you're then within a hundred yards of a huge bookshop filled with information about the world. If you choose not to read it, that's you're problem, not the game's.

On top of that, the game is set up so that enemies get tougher as you do. That means you can walk in any direction from the town without reaching any terrible enemies immediately.

Re:xbox fantasy rpg

[*weasel]

i'm not attacking morrowwind. i understand it's a well respected game with a deep story and a dedicated fanbase. i'm saying it ain't my cup of tea and it's not exactly the same style of rpg as, for instance, nwn.

both good, both do their own thing, one is what i prefer.

my personal problem with marrowwind was that it was -so- open-ended I had a hard time keeping straight which thread was the main story thread. when i was done wandering and exploring (things i do enjoy and appreciate) i found it difficult to determine where to go to get back on the main story. it's been a year since i rented it - i remember either no autojournal, or an autojournal that didn't take down important details about names and locations. the distinct emotion it evoked was a feeling that i no longer had the taste for an rpg that required me to keep my own notes to avoid getting lost.

maybe on the PC with a 'personal journal' option where i could type in notes, it'd be less of an issue. but i'm talking about morrowind as a console rpg here.

maybe i'm a dumb console rpg'er spoiled by blinking dots on my overhead maps, i dunno. i just found that the openness, combined with the lack of direction was frustrating. perhaps i was fighting more with the interface than the game, i dunno.

perhaps if i'd played earlier games the culture-shock from jumping into the game would be lessened. but keep in mind, i'm not saying it's a -bad- game, i'm just saying it isn't -my- kind of game. certainly not my kind of -console- game. maybe in a different mood, on a different day i'd be more inclined to play, i dunno.

but as it stands, it isn't my preference - and perhaps as such i'm unnecessarily harsh in my judgement of the intent of the designers decision to differentiate the world and leave everything so player-driven, without a clearcut sense of urgency, player history or enemy.

but it's all just an opinion - and me stating my opinion does not invalidate yours.

yes, my not reading the books in the bookshop is my problem. but if the designers want me to play their game - it does become the game's problem.

if they have enough customers and everyone else likes it the way it is - then clearly it's not much of a problem for them. but neither is my not liking the game your problem.

As long as they don't forget

[The Analog Kid]

Forgotten Realms, I'll be happy. NWN and Baulder's Gate were and still are cool games, and from what they said in the interview there will be another Forgotten Realms game(they said based on NWN and Baulder's Gate), hopefully they will put out a Linux port for it too.

Re:As long as they don't forget

[Anonymous Coward]

Were you reading the same article I was because the summary clearly says they're "working on three new games, all set in BioWare-created intellectual properties, right now" which means no Star Wars and no Forgotten Realms (WOTC IP)

BioWare and Black Isle

[Kaimelar]

The Baldur's Gate series are some of my favorite games, so I'm thrilled at the mere rumor of a sequel coming out of BioWare. However, recently Slashdot mourned the passing of Black Isle Studios. At the time, I got the impression that no more Black Isle meant no more Baldur's Gate. Apparently, I was wrong. I think this is because I've never really understood the relationship between Black Isle and BioWare. Could someone enlighten me as to who was responsible for what?

Re:BioWare and Black Isle

[DaveCBio]

They were our publisher. They also provided most of the VO and sound effects for the BG games. We made BG, TotSC, BGII, and ToB. They made PS:T and IWD I&II with our engine.