Alpha Protocol press conference round-up ( Preview )
posted by DarkUnderlord on Sat 05 July 2008, 06:49:17
More info on Alpha Protocol

Obsidian held a press conference about Alpha Protocol. We weren't invited but here's the round-up from a bunch of different sites. First up, GamaSutra:

Parker admitted that the change from Obsidian's usual fare has been a challenge. "It's been pretty tough for us. Making fantasy games or sci-fi games, you can kind of make whatever you want, and people just buy it, as long as it looks cool. They don't have to be as convincing," he said.

He went on, "When we started making a bunch of realistic stuff, we quickly found out that making realistic stuff is not nearly as easy as making fantasy stuff. And then when you go really, really realistic, people think it's kind of boring. We veered away from that over time - our characters got a little more over the top, to make them more exciting."

There are no set classes to the game, although we understand that there are certain specialisations, possibly used to help you get a better impression of how your skill point allocation is going to affect the way you need to play the game. In allocating skill points to Thorton’s various areas of knowledge, you not only improve his accuracy in firing weapons or speed at hacking computers, but the very way he sees the world around him.

Interactions with different characters will influence which factions ally with you and which oppose you - in particular, the team said you can expect your endgame to be heavily influenced by your actions in the game. The conversation wheel, the team said, resembles Mass Effect's a bit, but with less looping back and more of a real-time feel; it's also possible to choose a single "stance" and carry it through all of your interactions.

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Nothing: What Bethesda learnt from Oblivion ( Interview )
posted by DarkUnderlord on Sat 05 July 2008, 05:19:57
More info on Fallout 3

There's an interview up with Pete Hines over on IGN AU. It's all about learning from Oblivion and how that helps them make Fallout 3:

IGN AU: What did you learn from making Oblivion? What didn't work?

Pete Hines: There's no giant 'we can't ever do that again' stuff.

It's more how do we design quests, what kind of choices do we let the player make, how do we account for things we think the player might try and do and anticipate those? So that they're like 'Oh, I wonder what happens when I do this?' And then there's actually something in the game that acknowledges it and takes it into account. And they go 'that's really cool that I got to finish this quest in a really unique way and the game recognised that and gave me a satisfying response.'

In Oblivion the most extreme example is the bandits, who's armour keeps going up and up as you're playing through the game. Suddenly they've got glass armour and amazing weapons. It was an obvious thing that didn't feel right.

We definitely spent more time on third-person as a real, viable, 'play the whole game in this way' mode. And it is becoming more popular – the third-person, over the shoulder. I definitely think it's a much more playable, viable option than before.

IGN AU: How do the choices you make about whether you play as a good guy or a bad guy affect the game?

Pete Hines: I don't think there are enormous differences.

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Malcolm McDowell plays the bad guy in Fallout 3 ( Development info )
posted by DarkUnderlord on Fri 04 July 2008, 14:39:19
More info on Fallout 3

The BethBlog has released salacious details of the bad guy in Fallout 3:

“You’ll also come across the Enclave; the remains of the US government who have access to incredible technology and broadcast patriotic marching band music. Their President is voiced by Malcolm “A Clockwork Orange” McDowell. He’s a major villain.”

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Diablo 3 vs Fallout 3 - Round 2 :: FIGHT ( Editorial )
posted by DarkUnderlord on Fri 04 July 2008, 14:33:31
More info on Fallout 3

Following up the earlier article about Diablo 3 vs Fallout 3 and making a proper sequel there's now a follow-up part 2 written by the same guy. It's over on some stupid new Blizzard website (like the world needed anymore of those) but here's what he has to say:

I’ll say Blizzard has an advantage when confronted with Bethesda in this issue. The Diablo series has more fans than Fallout, but since the lore was never one of the most important parts of the game, not many of them will counter Blizzard’s changes to the lore, if they exist.

In the Fallout series, the story, the gameworld, is extremely important. In fact, several players keep stating that Bethesda is doing a good job because they’re trying to maintain the storyline, the dialog and the humour of what came before. Trying doesn’t mean succeeding.

...

The irony in all this is that Leonard Boyarsky was one of Fallout’s original developers, leaving Interplay after Fallout 2 to form Troika with Tim Cain and Jason D. Anderson. Now, after Troika failed due to several factors, we find him on the opposite end of the spectrum, behind what is commonly reffered as an Action Roleplaying Game, in fact, THE Action RPG, Diablo, where stats determine only your proficiency in combat, where the focus is how you kill, and not who you chose to help or who you chose to destroy.

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Rise of the Argonauts == Mass Effect ( Preview )
posted by DarkUnderlord on Fri 04 July 2008, 14:26:47
More info on Rise of the Argonauts

... or so say RockPaperShotgun in their latest Q&A with Charley Price, "the lead designer on Codemasters’ new action RPG":

The Gods are integral to how the game plays out - effectively defining how you’ll fight in combat and how your character will develop as the game goes on. Yes, that’s right. This isn’t a God Of War type beat ‘em up, it’s an role-playing game… but what kind of RPG should we expect?

“At Liquid we have always gone out of our way to provide the player with a unique, immersive experience while at the same time planting our flag somewhere new,” said Price. “When we set out to create Rise of the Argonauts, we didn’t start with the intention of creating an action game or creating an RPG – rather, our goal was to recreate the experience of playing a myth. Thus, instead of just grabbing various elements from action games and dropping them into an RPG, we only drew upon those components that served the best interest of our goals and discarded the rest.”

...

Price also had something to say about where is the action-RPG might be going. What would Rise Of The Argonauts’ contribution to the development of this genre be? “I think games in general are moving towards more complete and immersive experiences,” said Price. “At Liquid, we’re fond of saying that movies aren’t advertised with things like ‘We’ve got track cameras, and 18 varieties of guns and 7 different monsters…’, instead they talk about the story and the characters, what the movie is about, not what it is composed of. Games are moving in that direction, where we can stop talking about how many weapons you can collect, and start talking about the experiences that you’ll have.”

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Really pathetic Elvish Sacred 2 trailers ( Game news )
posted by DarkUnderlord on Fri 04 July 2008, 14:22:56
More info on Sacred 2

There are some new trailers up showing the combat arts of Sacred 2's High Elf.

They suck. Ignoring the fact that literally over half the trailer is filled with logo's, they're tiny videos of a bad quality and you don't really see much. The actual combat art display bit only really lasts for 3 or so seconds and then that's it.

Ascaron, fire your publicity guy right the fuck now. God forbid you actually show any real content for any decent amount of time.

Spotted @ BluesNews

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Are modern games fun? ( Editorial )
posted by DarkUnderlord on Thu 03 July 2008, 12:25:20
More info on BioShock

Hooked Gamers has an interesting editorial up about whether or not modern games, with their glitzy graphics and monster cpu requirements, are as fun as games back in the the good old-fashioned times. They ask the question: Are we still having fun with our games?

There is so much to keep track of in a modern game that the player is severely taxed trying to maintain control. Do we really want to work this hard to play our games? When does a game cross the line and change from 'a fun challenge' to 'hard work'? For me the latter group is instantly recognizable by looking at my own behavior. I usually game in sessions that last between two and five hours. A fun and entertaining game will keep me glued behind the screen for the entire session. A great game will pull me back in after I have had a break, keeping me playing for days on end. These games are, almost without fail, games from the (distant) past. Newer games tend to keep me engaged for two to three hours during the first session but the sessions shorten considerably after that. Even a superb game such as Bioshock can't hold my interest for more than two hours at a time. It is not that I am not enjoying the game, it is just that it is taxing my brain, senses and reflexes too much for it to be a relaxing game. Oddly enough, this is in stark contrast to my desire to be challenged by the game that I am playing.

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Emil on Fallout 3's level scaling, combat and armour ( Development info )
posted by DarkUnderlord on Thu 03 July 2008, 04:12:14
More info on Fallout 3

Briosafreak has a run-down of comments made in the official forums by Fallout 3 Lead Designer Emil Pagliarulo:

[Level Scaling] I’d say that:

a.) because of the issues some people had with Oblivion’s leveling
and
b.) the fact that we’ve really been focusing on the importance of overall game balance…

…this is something the dev team has come back to time and time again during our playtests, and is something we’re still tweaking. We’ve finally gotten it to a level that we feel really good about.

So basically, if you do the main quest path and adhere strictly to that, there are some areas that are set up to match your level, so you don’t get your ass handed to you unfairly while just naturally playing the game. But certain paths and locations are more difficult, by design.

It’s also the case that the farther you wander out into the Wasteland, the more you’re taking your life into your own hands if you’re not prepared. I mean, hey, a Deatchlaw’s a Deathclaw. smile.gif

And, um, yeah — no Raiders in Power Armor.

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Fallout 3 difficult to play in 3rd person ( Preview )
posted by DarkUnderlord on Thu 03 July 2008, 04:02:59
More info on Fallout 3

At least, that's according to The Age newspaper in Australia:

Bethesda's Pete Hines says the first-person viewpoint was chosen because "we felt this was the best way to really immerse the player in this world. You can get up close to all these iconic elements from the original game."

You can play in third-person as well, but it will be very difficult. "We have this new over-the-should third-person camera," enthuses Hines, "and it is kinda cool seeing yourself walking around in the vault jumpsuit."

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Eschalon: Book II Question of the Week ( Game news )
posted by DarkUnderlord on Thu 03 July 2008, 03:59:34
More info on Eschalon: Book II

For some reason we've completely missed out on bringing these to you (At least, that's the excuse GameBanshee used and I blame them for not posting about it to remind me, so I think stealing their line is perfectly fair). Anyway, there are two more questions up for Eschalon: Book II:

Question #2: [RezoApio] One question about translation: will B2 be available in other languages ? or will you offer fans the possibility to translate? This also leads to the question of moding B2 btw.

There is definitely more thought being put into translatability this time around. For Book I, much of the game's text was stashed away in proprietary files which made it very hard to give to others for translations. For Book II, we are keeping nearly all of the text in common format files outside the the game where translation will be much easier to do. What we have to work on now is a way to substitute the game's default fonts if the translated text contains Cyrillic characters. I don't believe this will be much of an issue, but it is something that we'll need to experiment with as the framework reaches a more finalized stage.

To more specifically answer your question: Basilisk Games will not handle non-English versions ourselves, but I expect that alternate language packs would probably start appearing a few weeks after release.

As for modifications, Book II is being designed to handle add-on modules correctly (as many people know, Book I was supposed to have an add-on but we could never get it to work properly). As for how easy it may be for players to create their own modules, again it is a little too early to make promises. We realize the benefit that can be gained by having an active mod community, but there are a lot of issues that need to be addressed before we can just release our production tools to the community and let everyone do want they want. It has always been the plan that Book III would be the game that is fully modifiable. Book II's framework will get us closer to that goal and may even allow for minor modifications (such as language packs mentioned above) but I cannot promise that you will be able to design your own adventures (then again, ingenious fans may find a way on their own! :D)


Question #3: [Yeliu] Will we be able to ride horses to move faster and add a charge attack?

No. There will be no horses (or other mounts) in Book II. To be fair, we tried...we spent 3 weeks in February experimenting with adding horses to the engine and it just requires waaaaay too much modification. Things we had to consider: what to do with horses in towns and dungeons, horses in combat, how do traps/disease/poison effect horses, horses in regards to boats and portals, how player encumbrance effects horses (and a horse's carrying capacity in general), food/water requirements (if player needs to eat, shouldn't their horse as well?), not to mention tons of additional animation needed to put horses in the game. Seriously, horses and mounts need to be worked into an engine at the development stage for it to work properly- it's not something that can be easily tossed into an already developed engine.

I do promise that it will be considered for any future game we do outside the original Eschalon trilogy.

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Leonard Boyarsky interviewed at GameSpy on Diablo 3 ( Interview )
posted by DarkUnderlord on Thu 03 July 2008, 03:48:51
More info on Diablo III - More info on Leonard Boyarsky

Lead World Designer Leonard Boyarsky, of original Fallout and Troika fame, has been interviewed by GameSpy "about creating a rich world that many gamers will never see":

"I wasn't a hardcore Diablo fan before joining Blizzard," Boyarsky says as we begin talking. "I played them, of course, and I really liked them, but I usually like a lot more story depth in my games." According to Boyarsky, what drew him to the project was what he sees as the franchise's untapped potential for storytelling. "A lot of people are afraid that we're going to slow the gameplay down by enriching the story parts of the game. We're not doing that at all." The idea is to use some simple cinematic techniques such as dialogue rather than monologue to convey quest information and crafting richer backstories for the main characters that will be reflected in their artwork and the way they view the central action of the story.

....

"I often use other games as examples of why story is important, even in an action game," Boyarsky said. "Sadly few games really love to tell stories." He cites games like Half-Life and Half-Life 2 as examples of games that integrate stories into dialogue and environment without sacrificing any of their fast-paced action. "The word around the office is that Diablo III is 'action with a capital A'," he said. "Lately, though, it seems like people are looking for more story in genres that aren't necessarily known for being story-driven." This is what pushes Boyarsky on. "People are ready for us to take Diablo III to new places rather than make Diablo all over again."

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Diablo 3 'disappointing' according to Bethesda Director ( Editorial )
posted by DarkUnderlord on Thu 03 July 2008, 03:39:04
More info on Diablo III - More info on Bethesda Softworks

What does Ashley Cheng, the Lead Producer of Oblivion and Production Director at Bethesda, think about Diablo 3? According to his latest blog update:

I must say I am disappointed that Blizzard has stayed on the conservative side in terms of design with their updates to Diablo and Starcraft. Diablo will be interesting since World of Warcraft has a lot of Diablo-like qualities. I have no doubt, however, that they will be incredibly fun, addictive and polished games. Blizzard is the top of the class when it comes to game development - nobody does it better.

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Gina wants to wrap her arms around a man, not a robot ( Preview )
posted by DarkUnderlord on Wed 02 July 2008, 12:46:45
More info on Space Siege

GameSpot have previewed Space Siege. That combat game in space where you upgrade yourself thing:

Constantly in your ear is Gina, the ship's communications officer. She's hiding away in a home base, safe from the Kerak, and will update you with mission objectives and drive the storyline in general. She buzzed us to tell us some big news: A second colony ship, the Tachibana, was discovered. Good news for humanity, as well as multiplayer fans. The Tachibana is the setting of a separate campaign that can be played with four players cooperatively, or solo if you're looking for an experience different from the traditional story mode. One caveat: No HR-Vs on the Tachibana. You'll also learn more about the game universe by picking up data pads that are sprinkled around the ship, filled with valuable background information as well as some useless fluff to make you laugh.

It's sort of a slippery slope, this cybernetics business. After several missions, you'll suddenly be offered a new implant that promises strength and reaction bonuses, at the expense of only 10 percent of your humanity. 10 percent? That's nothing. That's a receding hairline. That's a love handle. But as you progress through the game and the Kerak become increasingly difficult, these decisions grow in difficulty, too, until finally your skull is reinforced with titanium and you shoot lasers from your eyeballs. We had only a few minutes with Space Siege, but you can already feel the tension brought on by these decisions. If anything, you at least have a reason to play through the game twice.

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Piranha Bytes create new world - avoid Gothic ( Development info )
posted by DarkUnderlord on Wed 02 July 2008, 12:38:42
More info on Piranha Bytes

Probably because they couldn't get their shit right with the Gothic series, Piranha Bytes are developing a new RPG set in a new world. Go ahead and read the FAQ:

Creating a new universe gives you the chance to introduce new and believable races. Is this opportunity being used?
The newly won freedom is being utilized; a new mythology leaves room for new and original ideas.

Will there be cool and realistic weapons in RPB? Are you designing the swords?
The weapons look very realistic, but there will be a few special weapons. Our “Swordmaster” models them by hand.

Will there be magic?
Naturally! There has been a lot of modification, as far as the system is concerned.

None of the features from Gothic are being used. Does this mean we have to do without fireball or fire rain?
Fireball is the standard attack spell of a magician and in nowhere protected by law. The whole thing is mainly based on familiar characters, music, own monsters, gods etc.

Will there be shields and fighting with two weapons?
But of course!

Will there be flails and explosives?
No.

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Argonauts still Rising, now with more gameplay footage ( Game news )
posted by DarkUnderlord on Wed 02 July 2008, 12:28:57
More info on Rise of the Argonauts

If you're curious about that "Rise of the Argonauts" thing, you can watch some videos with the developers talking about stuff over on ROckPaperShotgun. Here's some text about the stuff they talk about:

Below the cut we have two brief videos from Liquid Entertainment in which they talk about the “Gods” system they’ve implemented in their new action RPG, Rise Of The Argonauts. The way in which you deal with the Greek gods effects how your character develops throughout the game, both in the combat moves he’s able to implement, and in how his experience allows development throughout the game. The trailers contain a mixture of CGI, in-game footage and man-in-T-shirt, so it’s not an entirely misleading glimpse of the game. (Sorry, feeling bitter from so many game-free videos recently.)

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