Slashdot Mirror
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I think Obsidian has its work cut out for it on the NWN engine which was outdated before it even left the gate.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?
I can see them trying to simplify it or automate it or something really dumb.
I don't see Bethesda making a simple RPG system. Morrowind's character system is considerably more complex than Fallout's, and is essentially experience-less.
On the contrary, I'm more worried about Bethesda bogging down Fallout's character system, since it's a very simple and streamlined system considering its depth.
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.
Comfortable? Maybe, but I'm far more familiar with Morrowind's system, as well as that in many traditional RPGs, and I'll never call any of them as streamlined as Fallout's.
The only time that Fallout's system is complex is at character creation, but even then, you don't have many things to deal with: Seven (mostly) fixed stats, three main skills, and up to two additional optional traits, but just looking at the descriptions, Gifted is a win-win trait, and besides that, you just pick the one most associated with the weapons or items you want to use (pistols, meelee, drugs, etc). The rest of the choices (age, sex, name) mean very little, although sex has a greater use in Fallout 2.
Each levelup, you get a set number of points to put towards raising skills, and every third (or fourth, if you picked the Skilled trait) you get to pick a perk, which is about the most complex part of the game, but after the first three, if you through the list, you can find out pretty quickly which ones are most powerful (100% critical hit rate, lower AP usage, etc are no-brainers).
Morrowind's system, you have to pick your race, birthsign, and sex, all of which effect skills, spells, stats, and NPC reactions to various extents. Given time and work (many hours of work), you can correct for almost any shortcomming in character creation, but it drastically effects your startout. In Fallout, all the wildly different characters I've tried, the only thing that can break a new character off-the-bat is crappy perception. Then you have to pick a primary stat, ten major skills, ten minor skills, and a combat style (combat, stealth, magic), which can have anywhere from -5 to +45 effect on your skills. The class selection is pretty much like taking the pre-made characters in Fallout, and you generally get characters that are too one-sided to be effective (even moreso than in Fallout, since it's much harder to make up for shortcommings once a character is started).
You have to plan which skills you level to make sure you get the benefit in the areas you want most before each level up, or you end up making nearly no advancement. It makes the difference between finishing the game easily with a level 15 character and barely squeaking through with a level 50.
In Fallout, jumping right in without reading the manual, I made a character and progressed through the main quests and just took what looked cool at each level up as I went, and had very little problem with the game as a whole, and only restarted once five minutes in when I decided low perception probably wasn't good. You tailor your progress to the game, not to the character system. Weapons not hitting well, put the next couple levels into my gun skill.
In Morrowind, after two failed character attempts, I painfully learned that the character system comes first, and the game necessities come second. Sure, I need better armor skills or I'm going to get my ass haned to me in a can, but when I do that, I end up getting two levelups with no help in any areas except endurance, which I really don't need now that I have so much better armor. So now it takes longer for my ass to get packaged up, but I'm still dead.
Yes, Fallout's is a better system than Morrowind's in my experience, but it has far less aspects to track, and those that it does have are less important to track, and the whole thing is much more straightforward, so you can pay attention to fragging mutants and not watching numbers. I never once kept notes on a character's stats in Fallout, but I ended up using a freaking spreadsheet to make sure my Morrowind character stayed where I wanted him.
\ 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 Fallout
\ 1 and 2 did), and later when they wanted to make the combat
\ real-time.
Have you played Fallout BOS for xbox? Its 3D is nothing like one
would expect, not isometric, but top down. Why did they not do
it more isometric, something akin to Warcraft 3.
As per combat real time? Why? One of the great things that
Fallout shines at is its combat system. The great thing about
Fallout was that not only was it a great RPG, but also its combat
was strategic and not a click fest. Heck, there is even Fallout
BOS (Tactics) game that is a Squad Strategy Game.
Now, does this mean that game should not be done 3D? I think to
make better faster game one needs to use 3D, just do it properly.
Dont make camera a burden in the game (again, in warcraft 3 you
never play with camera).
Similiarly, lets talk about real time combat, such combat has
tottaly different dynamics than a turn based. Better? Worse?
For online play real time is better as your opponents/friends
do not slow you down. For control and complexity and thinking
about your move turn based is the only way to go?
but I agree, Fallout 3 should really be called the Wasteland 2
just to make sure that Fallout fans enjoy it, know its fallout
related, but dont lament that its not Fallout as they played it
(and maybe some fans will play Wasteland 1 (for c64 no less) and
then appreciate where we are)
--
/apz, I want sequel to Wasteland, not fallout