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Obsidian's Urquhart On NWN2, Fallout 3
Thanks to GameSpot for its interview with Obsidian Entertainment's Feargus Urquhart, as the ex-Black Isle founder talks about the formation of the Star Wars: KOTOR II developers ("I must have been at least an OK boss, or it was just Interplay almost going out of business, but of the 36 people working here at Obsidian, 18 of them are from Black Isle"), regarding updates to BioWare's engine for the 2006-due Neverwinter Nights 2 ("We are going over almost every inch of the engine to add new features and refine things that are going to stay the same. From a graphics standpoint, we are updating most of the graphics engine to support new graphical features like normal mapping"), and discusses the fate of the Fallout 3 license ("I think the team at Bethesda has their work cut out for them. This is mostly because there is almost nothing that they can do that will make the Fallout fans happy.")
Neverwinter Nights 2 needs a good single player experience. It's the single most dissapointing RPG game I ever single playered through that I still couldn't put down. I didn't know these were the guys that did Planescape: Torment. I figured it was some Udo Wiebel guy that did it. Either way, if they can put some good, old-fashioned, richly detailed gameplay into the neverwinter nights game, possibly with neverwinter being a city as detailed as Sigil was in Planescape:Torment (possibly the best Town I've ever seen in any RPG game) - this will be a game to treasure. They already got really, really close with the first game. Now let's hope they try and flesh out the game world, and enrich what is already there, rather than give the game engine more detail. If they can do that, they have my blessing.
...will welcome a stronger single player experience from Neverwinter Nights 2 - although don't get me wrong I really enjoyed the experience provided by the first one as a whole package. KotOR was definately one of the strongest RPGs in the last few years and I think the team at Obsidian will do a great job with it. I've been a fanboy of Fallout, Torment and Icewind Dale and I'm really excited to see what Obsidian produces.
I think Obsidian has its work cut out for it on the NWN engine which was outdated before it even left the gate. The game's development was so awkward because they built the tools before the game. This means they had no idea what they actually needed at the most critical design phases. So too much time was spent on unnecessary features while critical features were not discovered until after they started on the content. Constantly returning to the code base to alter very mature code put Bioware significantly behind schedule and at a distinct disadvantage when it cane time to make needed updates.
Ultimately, the NWN engine is a textbook example of how not to develop a game. It is so backwards and kludgy I'm surprised Obsidian has agreed to subject itself to untangling the spaghetti. They have all my respect if they are able to do so, but I think they could find better ways to dedicate their resources than on this lost cause. Why do you think Bioware is writing a new Dragon Age engine after only one game instead of releasing two or three like with the Infinity Engine games?
It should be easy enough. Just don't be stupid.
Keep the feel of the original games. Update the engine all to hell of course and give us flashy things (we like flashy things), but don't go changing the basics. The feel of the world with the whole retro 50's nuclear age motif is perfect. Don't do something strange like give it a fantasy, victorian, or God forbid 80's theme. Keep the gritty feel that the environments had. Bring us new plot devices, but make sure our old favorites (Radscorpions, mutants, slavers, Brahmin, etc.) are lurking around every corner.
Most of all, don't go dicking around with the game system too much. Fallout fans are Fallout fans because the system was so beautiful. You had really good character customization with the perks, skills, and stats. It was like playing a REAL RPG!!! I can see them trying to simplify it or automate it or something really dumb.
There's also this trend to move turn based games into real time combat. Fallout doesn't need it. It goes along with the system and how it makes it feel like you're playing a real table-top style RPG. Just because the world is twitch oriented, doesn't mean people always want their games like that. Even twitch action gamers like to calm down and strategize their combat now and again.
We want new stories. We want a flashy new engine and updated technology. Beyond that, what's so difficult to understand? If they can't understand why we like the original games in the first place, they have no reason to be building the new one.
Luckily, I think Bethesda understands and will have little problem making us happy.
I think the team at Bethesda has their work cut out for them. This is mostly because there is almost nothing that they can do that will make the Fallout fans happy.
On the other hand, the way thins were looking, Black Isle couldn't make them happy either. I remember the rather heated feedback that Black Isle got, first when they said that Fallout 3 would have 3D graphics (although it would still take place in a 2D space like Fallou 1 and 2 did), and later when they wanted to make the combat real-time.
After that, they wanted to balance certain things. Balance is supposed to be a good thing, but the community hated it for some reason. I was stopped reading NMA-fallout.com's forums after the response to a Black Isle member mused about reducing the bonus from the Gifted trait so it would be an actual tradeoff like it was intended to be, and not a freebie.
Just about every new idea thought of - improved science skills, weapon creation/modification, decan and repair, more limited resources in the game world, even more grass on the ground brought some amount of backlash. I just don't think anything short of a remake of Fallout 1 will satisfy many of the hardcore fans.
I can think of a thousand things Bathesda can do wrong with Fallout 3, but the existing fanbase is too firmly set with the original engine. They have to realize that without renovating the game at just about every level, it won't go anywhere. An original-engine game would sell a couple hundred copies to the hardcore fans, but even the bulk of the original fanbase has moved on to more modern things. What the most vocal part of the Fallout community seems to want just isn't a viable game in 2004, especially not with the modding tools available for Fallout and Fallout 2.
in the long term, they're fans of a certain SETTING and type of GAMEPLAY. fallout itself being a 'rehash'/beefed up version of an older post apocalyptic rpg.
though in that sense who owns the fallout franchise has little to do with who does the true fallout successor game. because, hell, there is nothing that you couldn't take for free expect character and faction names in the fallouts 1 and 2. and lets face it, character names never were that important.
so all and all, wtf you need the fallout name for if you're intending to do a post apocalyptic rpg? for pre-production hype (to get it financed)?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Even though the binaries lagged behind the original box release and are officially 'unsupported', and Bioware deserves a lot of credit for the excellent job they've done with NWN under Linux; it remains the only triple-A RPG title available natively for Linux (AFAIK).
Unfortunately, there was no Linux client forthcoming for KOTOR. Conspiracy theorists speculate that MS paid a premium to have KOTOR first released as an Xbox exclusive and there was no way in hell they'd allow Bioware to work on a linux client (or mac). Fun stuff to chat about, but any posts on the official KOTOR forums asking the developers about a mac or linux port of KOTOR is greeted by a whole lotta silence...
As far NWN2 goes, now that a new studio is working on it, who knows what thier stance on non-MS OS's is going to be. I did find this posting on the Obsidian forums from one of the actual developers:
We are not actively developing an OpenGL (mac/linux) version of NWN2 at the moment. Things may change, and people keeping the issue in the forefront is not a bad thing.
So if you want to see a mac/linux port of NWN2, then head over and make your voice heard.
make ALL of us happy. i can agree/disagree with every post above, personally i loved the single player NWN and its expansions, i don't do multiplayer so never gave a crap about that part of the game. I loved dungeon siege also. But i think the thing is that both of these games are initial 'forays' into a new 3d adaptation of the genre (yes i know there's been other 3d rpgs, but they weren't centered around toolsets/editors that were meant for the massess) anyway, the second iterations of these engines will be better (fingers crossed) as they will have had input as to how to improve and time to implement (some of) those improvements. this is like building a new model car, a particular car design gets improved every year as its life matures (well, if they're smart anyway). they don't just do a one year (mass consumer focused) run of a particular model and scratch it every year in favor of a different one, that's not economical, neither is dumping a new game engine, you improve upon it. not sure what i'm getting at, but anyway, i look forward to NWN2/DS2 just as much (if not more) as i did towards the first ones. The first ones didn't disappoint me and i hope the second won't either. of course the MP component of a game has absolutely no bearing (good or bad) on my opinion of the game, and i think i'm in the minority on that view, and seeing how MP can be more problematic to implement 'satisfactoraly(sp?)' more people will probably also find faults with the upcoming iterations of the engines, or perhaps not, if they only improve the existing one(?). anyway, i just hope they keep releasing more rpg's, cuz there's only so many dooms/quakes/unreals i can bother to constantly ignore.
sigs suck
Urqhart is right.
There is a classic example of what Bethestha might face.
Ultima 7 and its followers. In the early nineties Origin released the Ultima7s (now can be played via exult
Well in its original state the game was almost unplayable due to heavy machine requirements and bugs. Over time Origin fixed the bugs, and the game began to shine. After a few years people remembered the game better than it really was (not that it was bad it was a classic indeed) from that point on and from the point origin released the Underworlds which also connected to U7, Origin was destined to fail. First they released Ultima 8 which was quite good, but it was not another Ultima 7. They got a heavy beating, then year after year another delay. Ultima 7 became more and more nostalgic, and Origin/EA simply had to face a giant which they could not beat. Then U9 came out, buggy rushed, it got a deserved beating, although the game concepts itself were amazing and later games showed that the design can really work (The two Gothics come to my mind), Origin ran into the problem, a) that they again released a buggy game
b) that the fans expectations were so high that they never could have fullfilled it with the hardware back then or a totally different design.
The funny thing is Garriot basically was right with his design decisions, it was just the hardware and the bugs which crippled the game, together with a fan community which had over the top expectations.
I wish Bethesta good luck but if they are unlucky, they run into another U7 fiasco.
For me, it is turnbased combat, orthagonal view, tons of side quests that make the world breath. Great atmosphere.
If they just don't change those basic concepts, they will do fine. If they want to change any of them, just give the game a different name and try to do something original.
really fallout is a GURPS game, baldur's gate was D&D, fallout is GURPS, it just dosen't have a licence.
-You're wasting your time. Alfador only likes me.