THQ and Big Huge Games Team For RPG

GameDaily Biz is reporting on the project that Ken Rolston moved to Big Huge Games to do. The RPG project will be helmed by the former Oblivion designer, developed by BHG, and (it's now been announced) will be published by THQ. Slated for the 360, PS3, and PC platforms, few other details are available about the project. Just the same, the article contains an interview with Tim Campbell, VP of Business Development, THQ, and Big Huge Games' Tim Train and Rolston. "BIZ: Ken Rolston, you're a legend in the RPG field, both electronic and paper-and-pencil. Where would you like to take the genre next? What innovations can we expect? Rolston: I'm actually a pretty conservative variety of visionary. In addition to our brilliant but secret central premise, and the addition of four or five original amazing major features and implementations we can't Wait to Reveal at a Later Date, I just want to make everything... story, characters, exploration, themes, setting, interactivity, entertainment, world class whacking and looting... just a little more perfect in every way."

Comments

Uhh

[daeg]

How is this newsworthy yet? I mean, sure, it'll be interesting when they actually tell us WHAT they are designing, but "Look at how many cool names we have working for us! What are we working on, you ask? We can't tell, neener neener neener!' just pisses me off. I hope it wasn't as big of a disappointment as Oblivion (sans user mods).

Re:Uhh

[Aladrin]

Why it's on Slashdot? Paid advertising, maybe.

Why it's 'news'? Because the market has proven that if you get the big names and spend a ton of money, your product will sell very, very well. Regardless of how good the actual product is.

Oblivion, by the way, was excellent by a lot of peoples' standards. I've played WELL over 100 hours on that game, and I almost always get less than 40 hours out of a game, and usually more like 10 or 20 before I get bored and move on to the next game. This is without addons, official or otherwise. I've got another 20 or so hours with the official add-ons, and other than improving little things like automatic herb picking, I didn't see much use in the user mods. (Yes, I tried quite a few, including OOO, which was slightly useful, but not enough better than the original for me to really care, and certainly not enough to get me to play it over again.)

Re:Uhh

[daeg]

My major beef with Oblivion was the leveling of mobs. The gameplay was excellent, the graphics were awesome... but reaching the upper levels made mere brigands start carrying a king's ransom worth of armor and reduced monster diversity. I liked Morrowind where some areas were impossible until you reached higher levels, and beginning areas always remained easy by comparison.

Re:Uhh

[Shinsei]

With a slight chance of sounding on the offside here, I'd like to point out the fact that Bethesda did a good job with Oblivion if the user mods made the game more enjoyable. I am one of them who enjoyed Oblivion with user mods a lot more than the vanilla game myself, and I thought it was great after you got some modifications to the various game systems!

When you consider how many people play games now compared to how many people played games in the time of old Daggerfall, it sort of makes sense that user modifications of the games are very important to the game developers now. A game that is developed with options for advanced user modding will necessarily have a larger audience than the ones without user modding. Some people even buy games just because they are moddable - ie. they find the art of modding the games more fun than playing the game itself.

So - I'd say Oblivion was not at all the great disappointment many people try to point it out as. :-)

Re:Uhh

[ArsonSmith]

This reminds me of a fake commercial I saw on an old spoof show form HBO called "Not Necessarily the News." It had the movie announcer voice list through 6-8 Big name stars in his dramatic way. Then says, "Wouldn't it be great if they all made a movie together?"

Re:Uhh

[UnlimitedAccess]

The development team is more important to me than the end result. I enjoy watching a developer grow professionally and artistically through their subsequent releases. Just like some film makers, certain developers for me have earned a place where I wish to experience everything they produce good or bad.

Big Huge Games?

[Cheezymadman]

As in, the company behind Rise Of Nations?

Awesome.

Sounds great, but that's not saying much

[vethia]

The names are big, they're obviously pleased with their ideas, and they give every indication that they think they're going to make a great game. At this point, though, that's not saying much. I'll wait on getting excited until at least some aspect of the game is up for discussion; as for now, all the article says is that some people who've made good games in the past are teaming up to make a game in the RPG genre, and they want to make it a good one. Allow me a moment to rearrange my face into a suitable expression of shock.

Wait... a minute more...

OK, there. Got it. *SHOCK*

Carry on.

Less than nothing

[Nazlfrag]

There were tiny hints as to what this RPG will be like..

Mark Nelson, my colleague at Bethsoft, and lead designer of Oblivion's Shivering Isles expansion, has joined the Big Huge team, and I'll be looking to him to do all the Real Work while I Mentor him and deliver Sage Pronouncements.

So he won't actually be doing any Real Work on this title anyway, it'll be the guy who did the Oblivion expansion. Yet we do find out it will be a Tolkienesque world.. well I can only think of a handful of RPG's NOT in a Tolkienesque world. This is almost as vague as an MS product announcement. In fact I can't think of any point to this interview at all, if they don't want to say anything of substance.

I know what it is!

[Anonymous Coward]

New game = RPG + BGH.
BGH = Brian Reynolds + his SMAC team from Firaxis.

Therefore the new game is an RPG where I get to slay mindworms while riding in an impact rover and making love to Deirdre as I hunt down Chairman Yang! And I know I'm right because MY WORDS ARE BACKED BY NUClEAR WEAPONS!

Why is that a troll?

[Travoltus]

Games are often made nowadays for the 360 when they are made multi platform.

The 360 tops out at ~7 gigs of content on a single disc, which means it's the weakest link.

Games for the PC can have a 1 zillion DVD game if they need it, and the PS3 has Blu-Ray, which is what... 25 GB per disc?

Let's put this in real world terms. The Sims 2 and all its games take up about 7 gigs. If The Sims 2 comes out with a few more expansion packs it'll be well over 7 gigs. EA can release, in the future, the entire Sims 2 Uber Collection for the PC on a few dual layer DVDs or one Blu-Ray DVD for BR-owners. EA could release it on the PS3 on 25gb Blu-Ray because the PS3 has Blu-Ray built in. The 360? Tough cookies for them.

So yeah, the 360 is the weakest link. Making this RPG for the 360 will limit the amount of content that it can provide, unless the developers intend on releasing a truncated version for the 360. On topic fact, not flamebait or troll.

Re:Why is that a troll?

[vonPoonBurGer]

Making this RPG for the 360 will limit the amount of content that it can provide

Seriously now, this whole argument falls apart under the slightest amount of inspection. Where to begin...
- console developers can easily code for a "please insert disc 2" prompt, same as they do with PC games, same as they did with numerous previous console titles
- content is measured in terms of hours of enjoyable gameplay, it's not measured in terms of how many megabytes the textures take up
- a title that takes up 10 GB installed on a PC could easily take up less space on the Xbox 360 disc by using somewhat more compressed textures/audio/movies

I could go on, but I think that's sufficient.

Re:Why is that a troll?

[Travoltus]

Yeah and how many console titles out there have the "insert disc 2" prompt? Many of those games are already compressed content to begin with.

Console gamers aren't so friendly with the whole insert disc 2 crap. Like I said, how many games do you see that have that? Not many, eh?

Re:Why is that a troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yeah and how many console titles out there have the "insert disc 2" prompt? Many of those games are already compressed content to begin with.

Console gamers aren't so friendly with the whole insert disc 2 crap. Like I said, how many games do you see that have that? Not many, eh?"

not many because 1 DVD is plenty enough space. Of course history will repeat itself. CDs were once thought to be plenty but long before the end of the PS1 games were comming out on multiple CDs... honestly to thsi date you are the first person I have ever heard of that had a problem switching DVDs. Is it really that hard to get off your fat arse once during the entire 100 hour game to change discs?

Re:Why is that a troll?

[Travoltus]

Ummm what was that again?

Rolston gone mad?

[soccerisgod]

Rolston: Usability. I was shocked to discover how difficult getting started in Oblivion was for some casual gamers, and even for some experienced fans of the genre.

W..T..F? I think now he's finally lost it. He was never on my list of favorite games designers, mainly for his obsession with everything having to be a metaphor for something, and his complete refusal of ever having an NPC betray the player, but this really sounds like a very very very bad joke to me. Difficult? This dumbed down hackfest? You have got to be kidding me!

For reference, here's a snippet from an interview with former TES designer Doug Goodall:

Sinder Velvin:

Can you remember any other rules that Ken Rolston had?

Douglas Goodall:

There were quite a few of them, but since I didn't understand most of them, this is something you ought to ask Ken if you get the chance. The only ones I'm sure I understood were "no betrayal" and "everything must be a metaphor/everything must be based on something."

"No betrayal" meant that key NPCs couldn't turn on the player, lie to the player if they were honest in the past, nor could an NPC steal an item from the player, etc. This is good as a general rule, but it's the kind of rule that begs for exceptions.

"Everything must be a metaphor" is how the quirky Cyrodiil of Daggerfall and the alien Cyrodiil of the Pocket Guide became the Roman Empire, how the Bretons got French names, etc. I felt Tamriel had been moving away from generic fantasy and medieval history with every game until Morrowind. I wanted this trend to continue and resented having to squeeze a Hermaeus Mora-shaped Vvardenfell into a Roman Province-shaped space. I think Ken uses historical examples to make the world more believable. If you just make stuff up, there's a good chance you'll make something wrong and break suspension of disbelief. That's true, but I'd argue that if you use an inappropriate or easily recognized metaphor, you have the same risk. Besides, making stuff up is more fun for both the creators and consumers. Did I mention I enjoy arguing?

Ludicrosity

[ShakaUVM]

Ah, now we know who to blame for the ludicrosity of the autolevel system of Oblivion.

I'll avoid this game (whatever it is), at all costs.

Before you get excited...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ken, what kind of feedback have you gotten on Oblivion that you can apply to help make a better RPG with Big Huge Games and THQ?

Usability. I was shocked to discover how difficult getting started in Oblivion was for some casual gamers, and even for some experienced fans of the genre. And the interface is an amazing triumph in many ways, but still requires way too many clicks and too much of a lifetime spent in 'Menuland.'"

Does NOT bode well for a true RPG, especially if he actually believes that considering how dumbed down Oblivious was.