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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."
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?
Can't say I disagree with your loathing of EA. Didn't they do something like that with ORIGIN?
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
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.
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.
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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.
Everything will be taken away from you.
You're right. I mistyped. Not EVERY emulator user is in it just for free games. Just 90% or more. Happy now?
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.
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.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.