Desslock's News
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and
Game Coverage
Anachronox
Anarchy Online
Arcanum
Asheron's Call
Baldur's Gate
Baldur's Gate II
BG II Ex-pack
Crusaders of M&M
Deus Ex
Diablo II
Diablo II Ex-Pack
Dungeon Siege
EverQuest
Exile/Nethergate
Fallout
Fallout 2
Gothic
Icewind Dale
Icewind Dale Exp.
Lands of Lore II
Lands of Lore III
Legends of M&M
Might & Magic VI
Might & Magic VII
Might & Magic VIII
Neverwinter Nts
Nox
Planescape
Pool of Radiance
Rage of Mages
Return to Krondor
Sea Dogs
System Shock 2
Throne of Drkness
Ultima: Ascension
Ultima Online
UWO: Origin
UO Lawsuit
Vampire
Wizardry VIII
Wiz's & Warriors
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Friday, November 23, 2001
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Desslock's Ramblings - Wizardry 8 Arrives, Kinda; RPG Sales Stats Updated
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[ Desslock ] |
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After trying, and failing, to find a third party North American publisher for over a year, the Sirtech Canada shareholders entered into an agreement with Electronics Boutique to distribute Wizardry 8. Wizardry 8 will likely be both the final game in the series and the final game produced by Sirtech, one of the oldest computer game developers and publishers, unless the licence or company are acquired by another publisher/developer. In spite of losing its parent publisher, Sirtech Software, several years ago - developer Sirtech Canada, based in the often frigid Canadian capital city of Ottawa, managed to produce Jagged Alliance 2 (and an expansion pack) and the final chapter in the Wizardry series. Jagged Alliance 2 is one of my favourite games to be released over the past five years, and Wizardry 8 is getting an amazing reception from RPG fans as well. A small team of dedicated developer!
s have created two games that appear to have not only completely satisfied dedicated fans to their respective series, but also new players. Yet we may never see another game in either series. Frustrating.
Currently, Wizardry 8 is only available through Electronics Boutique, or its online store. It may be available more broadly after a 30-day EB exclusive period expires, but given Sirtech's limited resources, it may never be widely available in North America. I was originally assigned to review the game for GameSpot, but since EB has limited presence in Canada (again, where the game was made) - there's no EBs in downtown Toronto, for instance, I had to pass on the review since it would take me a few days to get one by mail (Andrew Park stepped in to do the review). But another gaming editor at a major publication told me that the game is so good that it has a good shot at "RPG of the Year", out of nowhere. A number of you have written me with similar comments, and the usenet buzz on the game is very positive.
While there's no doubt that Wizardry 8 is a hardcore RPG, which likely wouldn't appeal to as many gamers as more accessible RPGs, it's still a shame that the game isn't more widely available. This has been a great year for RPGs - both Arcanum and Pool of Radiance sold very well when initially released (more on that in a moment), and Dark Age of Camelot, the Diablo 2 expansion and the BG2 expansion all sold well too - there's probably never been a larger demand for RPGs, and someone is losing a lot of money by not having Wizardry 8 more broadly available.
For months now, I've heard rumours (or direct statements from publishers) that the only reason that it took so long for Jagged Alliance 2 and Wizardry 8 to get published was because Robert Sirotek would only accept a non-industry standard deal, which would give him (and the other Sirtech stakeholders) a larger percentage of the game's sales than a developer in comparable circumstances would normally accept and/or that any deal had to provide for the future financing of additional projects. Alternatively, the publishing market may be so centralized now that companies are unwilling to publish any product that is likely to sell less than 150,000 copies, on the grounds that it's a waste of their resources and distribution channel. Whatever the case, whether the money would have gone to a publisher or to Sirtech (or both), the game could have made a lot more money if it was both made available earlier (it's been done for months) and available at more retail st!
ores.
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How well have RPGs done this year? Talking about sales stats is one of my favourite topics, so let me pass on some more detailed information concerning this year's RPGs. Almost every new RPG has spent some time on PC Data's Top 10 list, at least during the first couple of weeks after release, but they haven't stayed on the sales charts for very long. Pool of Radiance 2, for instance, sold extremely well during its first few weeks, but bad word of mouth and reviews crippled future sales - stores such as Future Shop (a Canadian chain of stores similar to, and just purchase by, Best Buy) were actually placing "warning signs" on their Pool of Radiance copies, warning potential purchasers that there were some egregious bugs. Caveat Emptor.
Arcanum also sold well for a few weeks, but then faded. Dark Age of Camelot has sold extremely well during the first few weeks of its release, and looks to be a significantly larger success than the other massively multiplayer RPG released this year, Anarchy Online. Both of the significant expansion packs, Diablo 2 - Lords of Destruction and Baldur's Gate 2 - Throne of Bhaal sold well and continue to do so (as do their underlying games). EverQuest sold well early in the year, but sales evaporated during the course of the summer, especially after the release of Camelot.
Here's a breakdown of some of the sales:
Since February (or the release date for the game) to November 7th:
Diablo 2: Lords of Destruction 576,143 copies
Diablo 2 306,422 copies
Dark Age of Camelot 115,894
Baldur's Gate 2 103,144
EverQuest Kunark 92,172
Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal 85,451
Baldur's Gate 1 83,208
Arcanum 69,522
Pool of Radiance - Ruins of MD 55,211
EverQuest Velious 66,496
Anarchy Online 47,356
Note that this information is from PC Data, which is the best sampling of U.S. sales (only) - most of the major chains, other than some regional chains such as Frys, and excluding independent software stores. A good rule of thumb is to double the sales figures to get world-wide estimates (more for non-North American developers, which may mean that Anarchy Online fared better than the woeful numbers above suggest).
Interesting.
Desslock
Next ramblings: More numbers; Back to Camelot.
Link of the Week: EB world, where you can order Wizardry 8 online.
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Friday, November 16, 2001
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Desslock's Ramblings - Interplay Update; Online RPG Update
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[ Desslock ] |
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Completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from you guys after my last editorial ramblings - fellow gaming writers, industry folk, people I've exchanged messages with for years, fellow lawyers, people from countries on four different continents and even U.S. marines - great messages that meant a lot to me. Thanks to everyone who wrote or who just stops by to occasionally read some ramblings.
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Interplay
There's no doubt that Interplay's Black Isle Studios has been the best friend of RPG fans over the past several years. For each of the past 4 years, there's been little doubt that the best RPG of the year was either developed or published by Black Isle Studios (97 - Fallout; 98 - Baldur's Gate, Fallout 2; 99 - Planescape Torment; 2000 - Baldur's Gate 2, Icewind Dale). That's a streak that will end this year, unless the BG2 expansion pack collects some accolades, as the gaming media will likely elect Dark Age of Camelot, Arcanum, or even Wizardry 8 as the best RPG of the year.
This year Black Isle Studios has primarily been in the "gaming news" in connection with developments that have disappointed RPG fans: the cancellation of Black Isle Studios' Torn; the postponement of Neverwinter Nights until 2002; the acquisition of control of Interplay by French publisher Titus, giving the company an uncertain future; the postponement, again, of development of Fallout 3; and most recently, in connection with its lawsuit with BioWare and the transfer of the Neverwinter Nights message boards from Interplay's site to developer BioWare'. I've provided what good news there has been coming from the company - such as the work that's been done on "Icewind Dale 2", but even that title hasn't been officially announced and faces an uncertain future.
To help address some of the concerns that have been expressed by RPG fans, President Feargus Urquhart, recently provided an informative post at the Interplay message boards:
I've noticed that there have been a number of posts about a few things over the course of the last month. I will try to give you all as much information about these things that I can. Unfortunately due to Interplay being a public company and some of these things having to do with legal matters, it is hard for me to explain everything.
1) TORN being cancelled. I have heard that a lot of people felt that this was done by a flippant "corporate" decision. So you all know, it was ultimately my decision to cancel TORN. This was approved by others at Interplay, but if it had not been a decision I was happy with, then TORN would not have been cancelled. To be somewhat frank with all of you, the development of the project was not going well. I am not talking about only a few things going badly on the project - I am talking about almost nothing going right on the project. I felt that the best decision was to get people off of it and onto other things. A lot of very talented people who work for BIS were working on TORN and I felt that a lot of them would have left or got burnt out if the project continued. The best way I can explain it is that, while you may wish as hard as you can for something - it doesn't always work out.
2) The Neverwinter Boards. Unfortunately I can not discuss the Neverwinter Boards coming down. I can say that Black Isle is still 100% behind Bioware and Neverwinter Nights, and will do whatever we can do to help with the project. Ultimately the Neverwinter boards would have been hosted by Bioware - this just happened on a faster timeline.
3) Project Announcements. I know people are worried about us not having announced anything recently. To at least put some of people's fears to rest - we are working on things - a lot of which are very cool. However, either due to project timelines or approvals we are not in a position to talk about any of them yet. Believe me, as soon as we can talk about them, you will all hear all about them.
Good summary.
Online RPGs
There's been a number of new developments in online RPGS as well. I'm still very addicted right now to Dark Age of Camelot, which may be the best game of its type yet released (with Star Wars Galaxies and World of WarCraft threatening to unseat it next year..or the following year). Buzz from Blizzard is that World of WarCraft is well into its development, and was over a year ago, but given Blizzard's past record with missing target release dates, the game was announced much later in its development than prior Blizzard games. As a result, it seems that the 2002 target release date is very realistic, for once, which should really help to expand the appeal and prominence of online RPGs.
In other developments, Anarchy Online has finally commenced its ongoing, overall storyline - the developers have always stated that they planned to offer a world even more dynamic than the one offered by Asheron's Call (the current champion in the genre in that regard). Funcom, perhaps motivated to lure gamers away from new kid Camelot, is also offering a free trial period for newbies:
We have been spreading seeds about things to come for quite a while now, starting with a surprising announcement by Omni-Tek: Omni-Tek is
now offering all clan members an unconditional amnesty. This indicates
that all clan members are invited to join the different Omni-Tek areas of the world, and does no longer have to consider Omni-Tek their enemy. This is a radical turn of events that could drastically alter the political climate of Rubi-Ka. Read more about it here:
http://community.anarchy-online.com/articles/1075L.
Not only has the Amnesty been announced, but reliable sources report sightings of strange monsters never before spotted on the planet. Wonder what this might be? Well, by watching the first cinematic episode of the AO-story today, you might find some answers. The video is about 15 minutes long, and you will get to know some of the most prominent characters on Rubi-Ka such as Eleena Oak, Henry Radiman, Joshua Kahn and Philip Ross. You can find the video here:
http://community.anarchy-online.com/content/story/episodes
New content is being added to the game on a regular basis. You may want to try to visit the new night clubs, spot the latest Miiir fashion line or walk the Steps of Madness. You find the latest content message here:
http://community.anarchy-online.com/content/general/pipeline/test/
If you don't yet have the game, you might want to use our Try-before-You-buy offer, where you can play the game for seven days without charge. Visit http://www.anarchy-online.com/news/bigNews/download2.html for further details!
Finally, NCSoft, the Korean company that purchased Richard "Lord British" Garriott's new venture, Destination Games, has announced the relaunch of its flagship game, Lineage, in North America. While, in many ways, the game is very derivative of Ultima Online (and arguably looks more dated), NC Soft is hoping to attract UO fans by incorporating the Lord British character into the gaming world starting next week:
NCsoft Launches North American Version of Lineage: The Blood Pledge
AUSTIN, Texas, October 25, 2001 - NCsoft(TM) Corporation, the world's largest independent online game company, announces the launch of Lineage: The Blood Pledge to North American customers. With more than three-million ubscribers and 250-thousand concurrent users, Lineage is the leading worldwidesubscriptions-based online game.
Having already captured the imaginations of millions of gamers in Asia, lineage is now rolling out its unique set of features to North American players. Gamers will soon notice a familiar face in Lineage. One of the most well-known names in computer games, Lord British(TM), will soon be making his entree into Lineage. The pseudonym of legendary game designer Richard Garriott, Lord British is back to venture forth into Lineage's fictional world of Aden, participating in a four-week long special event to commemorate the occasion beginning November 26. The event will culminate in a castle siege as Lord
British assists Blood Pledges in their ongoing battle to protect the castle thrones of Lineage.
"I'm thrilled that Lord British has found a new home," says Garriott, now an executive producer at NCsoft's Austin, Texas office. "And I'm happy that home is Lineage. Players in North America are about to find out why Lineage is so incredibly popular in other parts of the world. Its unique features offer something that people here have never before experienced."
And unlike other subscription-based games, Lineage offers FREE updates that expand the game world to exotic new lands filled with fierce creatures. Lineage is distributed via FREE download from the Internet at the new Lineage web site, http://www.lineage-us.com. Lineage CDs can also be ordered from the web site and mailed to customers for a shipping and handling fee. Subscribed customers will receive future CDs free as part of the service. The web site has helpful information about playing Lineage and also includes online manuals, account management tools, news, game support areas and community message boards.
Lineage comes with a 30-day free trial. After the trial period, players are charged US$15 per month. Players can save money by purchasing four months at a rate of US$11.25 per month. An Internet connection is required to play Lineage. Starting in November, players can also purchase Lineage CDs through retail outlets exclusively at Electronics Boutique (EB) stores in the United States and Canada for US$2.99. Players who purchase Lineage from EB stores will receive an extra 15 days of free game time. The Lineage game CDs also will soon be bundled with the top PC game magazines in the industry
Next ramblings: Wizardry 8 has arrived…
Desslock
Link of the Day: Notwithstanding any negative feeling you may have towards Phantom Menace, the next Star Wars movie is looking very promising, at least judging by the trailers for the movie (which will be released 6 months from today). A new trailer was released last night, and you can download all 3 trailers (including the one only otherwise accessible through the Episode 1 DVD) from this location http://www.movie-list.com/s/starwars2.shtml . You'll have to register your name with the official Star Wars site to get the most recent trailer from that location.
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Desslock's Ramblings - Site Update; Dark Age of Camelot Impressions
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[ Desslock ] |
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Once again, I'm debating the future of this page, given my inability to maintain it as consistently as I have in the past. I'm surprised by the number of messages I get from readers indicating that they're disappointed that I just stopped posting daily updates - I'm sorry too, but I guess I have to add that since it's been over a year since I made that switch, if you're only just noticing now that we're not updating daily, it's safe to say you haven't really missed it. Anyway, from now on, for the immediate future at least, I'll post editorials once a week, on Fridays. If I can't prepare the editorial in time to post it on Friday, I'll do so sometime during the weekend.
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Enter the Dark Age
The massively multiplayer RPG genre was really launched in earnest with Ultima Online's release in September, 1997. There were similar games released previously, such as the original Neverwinter Nights, Dark Sun Online, The Realm and, most notably, Meridian 59 (in addition to countless non-graphical MUDs - multi-user dungeons), but it was really Ultima Online that showed the genre's potential. The initial release of the game also showed the problems developers faced:
- tremendously difficult technical issues had to be overcome to allow thousands of players to concurrently adventure in the same gaming world without "lag" burdening every step they took;
- designing around the fact that when given the freedom to do what they want, players will quickly create a "Lord of the Flies" world and ruthlessly kill other characters instead of playing the game as the developers anticipated; and
- making a large gaming world seem interesting, in spite of the fact that each player won't be able to be the single "hero" that saves the day, and it'll be difficult for the world to dynamically change in any meaningful way in response to actions of the players.
Ultima Online initially failed, miserably, to address these concerns, but its development team eventually patched together workable solutions. EverQuest's launch in 1999 went much quite smoothly by comparison - although there were initially some capacity issues as Verant rolled out servers, EQ's rollout was technically smooth and the game was better designed than UO from the outset to deliver an addictive hack & slashing RPG experience. EQ is still the king of the genre, and the developers hope to retain the title by releasing the Luclin expansion pack, which will significantly improve the game's graphics and polish various aspects of its gameplay.
But can EQ hold on as the most popular massively multiplayer RPG? People (often developers and game writers, in addition to genre fans) often make two "accepted" statements, which I think are incorrect:
- That every online RPG has a shaky launch, essentially requiring early adopters to complete the beta-testing of the product; and
- That no online RPG has taken away, or caused a reduction in, the number of subscribers to any previously released online RPG (i.e. the market for the genre just grows).
I think the release of Dark Age of Camelot shows that both of those statements are no longer correct (to the extent they ever were). Asheron's Call helped prove the first statement incorrect, since it's launch went extremely smoothly, even compared to EQ's launch earlier the same year. In fact, it wasn't until Anarchy Online and World War II Online were released earlier this year that fans of the genre got another opportunity to "enjoy" a launch as bungled as Ultima Online's. Regardless of past experiences (and some gamers will argue that EQ's launch was more problematic that I've suggested), it's certainly clear that Dark Age of Camelot works extremely well, out of the box, in almost exactly the manner its developers intended. For that reason alone, developer Mythic deserves some accolades, since in spite of having greater resources available, several other companies have failed to eff!
ectively deliver their product when they started charging for it.
While there are a lot of inherent complexities associated with creating a massively multiplayer game, Dark Age of Camelot is a relatively simple game - and the developers ensured that the basics worked effectively before adding in complexity. Although Asheron's Call and Anarchy Online have tried to deliver involving, dynamic storylines, the game worlds offered by these games are generally very static --- gameplay essentially consists of traveling to an area by yourself or with friends and "hunting" creatures that spawn near there, in order to gain experience and develop your characters to fight larger creatures - these games may have more in common with the hack & slash gameplay of Diablo than the more involving RPG worlds offered by games like Fallout.
Dark Age of Camelot's development system seems both well balanced and involved - characters can specialize in a variety of skills, so that even characters of the same class can have significantly different capabilities. Fighter characters get additional abilities as they develop, just as spell-casters get additional spells, giving melee combat additional depth that is lacking in EverQuest (where fighters just click a button and "initiate combat" and then stand back and await the results). There's advantages to working in groups, but you're more able to adventure on your own than you are in EverQuest. There's less downtime in getting to combat and waiting to recover from battles. In many ways, Dark Age of Camelot is like a version of EverQuest that has been modified to address the concerns of EverQuest players (even EverQuest's otherwise unique system of spell "buffs", "debuff", "rooting" - which is completely different than the types of standard spells used by conventi!
onal RPGs, is ported intact to Dark Age of Camelot) - which is why it's difficult to believe that Dark Age of Camelot won't still away a lot of current EQ subscribers.
Already, Dark Age of Camelot is a tremendous commercial success - apparently there are over 100,000 subscribers already, a figure that Ultima Online took several months to reach. As players developer their characters, the focus of the game gradually focuses more and more on "realm vs. realm" combat - essentially teams of players vs. each other and NPC, and less on monster stomping, but the additional gameplay variety should give Dark Age of Camelot additional longevity (although I've already heard some addicted players complain that it gets very difficult to advance in levels by focusing on monster hunting at higher levels, since there's few worthwhile hunting grounds, although that should change).
The bottom line is that Dark Age of Camelot represents the state of the art of the genre, regardless of whether you're an addicted fan of another game in the genre or you (like myself) haven't played many games in the genre but have been looking for an opportunity to try out a(nother) game in the genre - Dark Age of Camelot is worth your attention.
Desslock
Link of the Week: The most comprehensive review ever written by GameSpot - Greg Kasavin's review of Dark Age of Camelot
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Wednesday, October 17, 2001
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Desslock's Ramblings - BioWare vs. Interplay, Round 2; More on Pool of Radiance
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[ Desslock ] |
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We have been unable to regain our ability to directly update this page, so this update is once again being made with the help of Greg Kasavin. Until we restore access, updates may be more sporadic than (even) normally.
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The acrimony between BioWare and Interplay appears to be growing.
Earlier this week, Interplay took its official Neverwinter Nights message boards down, and removed the "official status" of BioWare representatives posting on Interplay's boards, offering only this explanation from Interplay's message board administrator: "I took the forums down for reasons I cannot discuss. Sorry". BioWare is developing Neverwinter Nights and Interplay has been scheduled to publish it.
BioWare has taken ownership of the Neverwinter Nights boards, as you can read the press release. The release suggests that the plan to "nationalize" the boards has been in the works for a while, since BioWare apparently hired a new "community manager" a month ago. A number of you have written to me to express concern about the future of Neverwinter Nights, and I wouldn't give claims that the game is cancelled any credence - these developments are far more likely just reflects BioWare's ongoing desire to distance itself from the publisher it has become most associated with, as well as some acrimony between the companies because BioWare is suing Interplay for selling the European publishing rights for BioWare's games without BioWare's consent. I wrote last month the companies are currently in litigation against each other, wh!
ich has likely created (and is evidence of the) acrimony, so you're unlikely to see the companies cooperating with each until their litigation is resolved.
Last year, Infogrames acquired the rights to publish D&D; games, but the company hasn't announced any intention to publish its own D&D; games (and, in fact, the company cancelled development of the "D&D; Online" game it inherited as part of its acquisition of the D&D; rights). Interplay and SSI/Ubisoft (Pool of Radiance) were granted the rights to publish D&D; games prior to Infogrames acquiring the licence, but their ability to publish future D&D; games is in question, because of Infogrames' rights. Interplay's licence to publish D&D; games is scheduled to expire in the near future (perhaps prior to the current target date for Neverwinter Nights), although the licence can be renewed with consent "not to be unreasonably withheld". Interplay has been operating on the assumption that that consent is a rubber stamp -- uh, but it certainly would be reasonable for Infogrames to withhold publishing rights to a fellow!
French publisher, Titus (which now controls Interplay). That all said, I suspect even if Infogrames threatened to pull the plug on Neverwinter Nights, Interplay could likely just negotiate a deal and give Infogrames a cut of the game's proceeds. As I indicated at the beginning of this editorial, I think it's highly unlikely that the removal of the NWN boards from Black Isle's official site represents anything other than posturing by the companies because of their lawsuit. Neverwinter Nights is definitely still on track.
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Several weeks after the release of Pool of Radiance - Ruins of Myth Drannor, my review is still the only available review of the game - in spite of the fact that it's probably worthwhile holding off purchasing the game until those problems are worked out, the game was the best selling game in the U.S. last week. C'mon, people.
The game's official forums are full of posts from gamers having a great deal of problems getting the game to run as intended. Frankly, Pool of Radiance is the buggiest RPG to be released since Ultima IX: Ascension. Ubisoft/Stormfront haven't effectively responded to complaints yet. A first patch has been released, although it only provides a makeshift (extremely) fix for the "install in any directory" bug, and doesn't even attempt to repair any other bugs. A second patch to fix the egregious "invisibility/blinking" bug and a few other problems is scheduled for later this week, while a further, even more substantial patch is scheduled to be released in "several weeks", to fix the slowdown problems and various other significant bugs. What a mess.
One thing I wanted to clarify from my last ramblings - I did not intend to put the blame for the technical problems on the game's actual QA team. They may be to blame, but I suspect that almost every time a game (or any software product) is released with technical problems, it's because the QA team was either not listened to, or the team wasn't given sufficient opportunity to thoroughly QA the product.
Robert Mayer of CGO has published a great interview with Garrett Graham, the game's final producer, discussing the game's significant technical problems. For those of you who suggested that I was "too harsh" on the technical problems in my review, here's a pretty telling response from Graham:
CGO: So how did this veritable disaster slip through testing?
"We're kind of looking into that right now," says Graham. "The one thing I can say is that it is not a conspiracy. We didn't deliberately do these things. It just looks really bad but certainly it's not something we did on purpose."
Keep on kinda looking ...
Desslock
Link of the Day: The CGO interview with the Pool of Radiance Producer
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Thursday, October 11, 2001
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Technical &$%*#@! Difficulties - Please Stand By
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[ Iolo ] |
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Desslock's News is experiencing temporary technical difficulties due to a move of the Gamespot office. Sorry for the long delay, but Last Friday's news is now available below, and we will have more soon.
Thanks to Greg Kasavin for posting this one.
Iolo
Link of the Day: Maps of Afghanistan and surrounding region.
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Desslock's Ramblings - Pool of Radiance Ruins of Myth Drannor Review; Throne of Darkness Available; Wizardry 8 Update
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[ Desslock ] |
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Earlier this week GameSpot put online my review of Pool of Radiance Ruins of Myth Drannor . I gave the game a "fair" overall rating, of 6.3/10, and wrote what I believe is the lengthiest review every published by GameSpot. Reader reactions have been overwhelming since the review went live on Monday, with almost a thousand readers responding with their own ratings (the average overall score 5.0/10, considerably harsher than my rating).
Since my review was so lengthy, I'm not going to bother reiterating my thoughts on the game here, other than to state that notwithstanding the review rating (and the technical problems), I did enjoy the game. Gameplay is almost entirely combat, and I generally enjoyed the battles in the game, even though the game has a lot of problems. Some of the technical problems are inexplicable:
- how can any gaming company produce a game that runs ineffectively on Nvidia Geforce cards, when they're currently the dominant choice among gamers?
- How could the QA department miss the fact that the game will only install to the c:/program files directory (and, even worse, if certain applications interrupt the installation, subsequently uninstalling the program may wipe the C: drive)?
- How could the QA department miss the fact that saving the game while a party member is invisible or blinking will instantly destroy your ability to resave the game? Almost everyone I know who has played the game has encountered this bug.
Ubisoft has been unable to consistently keep its forums online, to provide gamers with the assistance they need in order to resolve disputes. Some readers have angrily written me suggesting that Ubisoft took down the official boards in order to wipe out all of the negative comments directed at the game, but even if we give Ubisoft the benefit of the doubt - that the boards have periodically been down because of the volume of requests - that's evidence enough that many purchasers needed help with the game. Ubisoft has published an official explanation for their actions, apologizing to purchasers who are experiencing problems. No news yet on when a patch will be made available.
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Like POR, Throne of Darkness (also known as "Diablo goes to medieval Japan") has been in the works for years, and it's finally arrived as well. I've experimented with a beta build of the game, which Chris Nahr previewed for us just over a year ago, but I haven't played with the retail release of the game. Greg Kasavin has posted GameSpot's review , which gives the game an overall rating of 7.1/10 (and the limited number of reader reviews received to date are even more favourable).
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Linda Currie, one of the designers at Sirtech Canada that worked on Wizardry 8, has indicated that a North American publisher for the game will finally be announced within the next couple of weeks. The game is currently being released in Eastern Europe.
Desslock
Link of the Day: Dark Majesty, the expansion pack/re-release for Turbine/Microsoft's massively multiplayer RPG, Asheron's Call, has also been completed and should be available soon
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Friday, September 28, 2001
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Desslock's Ramblings - Interplay vs. BioWare; Pool of Radiance and Wizardry 8 Updates
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[ Desslock ] |
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…Not Wednesday, but I'm back and rambling. First off, thanks for the overwhelming (literally) amount of positive feedback on my Monday's, personal ramblings on last week's terrorist attacks. I knew that many of you would find Adam Mayblum's personal account as engaging as I did. I'll add a few comments at the end of this message, but I first I want to get back to gaming…
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Interplay vs. BioWare
…well, sort of, at least news involving the gaming industry. I'm sure a lot of gamers will be surprised to learn that yesterday BioWare, developer of the Baldur's Gate games, sued Interplay for damages arising out of alleged breaches by Interplay of the contract(s) between the two companies. According to BioWare, Interplay sublicensed the distribution of BioWare games without the consent of the developer, in breach of Interplay's contractual obligations to BioWare. The actions likely arose out of the actions Interplay took (sublicensing distribution) immediately after French publisher Titus acquired control of a majority of the voting shares of Interplay. It's unclear whether the decision by Interplay to sublicense its distribution was made in accordance with Titus's directions or in order to thwart Titus from actually benefiting from its acquisition of control before Titus could force a shareholders' m!
eeting (and replace management at that meeting). Parallax (developer of the Descent games, and a sister company to Volition, developer of Summoner and the FreeSpace series) has commenced a similar action and has named Titus as a defendant, which suggests that Interplay's actions were taken on behalf of Titus.
Regardless of Interplay's motivations, it's clear that the decision hurt the company's relationship with one of its most profitable developers, BioWare. I'm savvy enough to not even bother to ask Interplay or BioWare to comment on the lawsuit (and frankly, I wouldn't print any comments given to me by representatives of either company, since they might be unaware of the consequences of such indiscretions). Companies should never comment on ongoing litigation other than through their legal counsel - and anything they'd prudently release wouldn't be very interesting in any event. The lawsuit should have minimal impact on gamers in the short run, since the companies are still collectively working on Neverwinter Nights, but if the relationship becomes acrimonious it'll obviously be less likely that we'll see additional BioWare developed RPGs for Interplay's Black Isle Studios. That would be a real loss for gamers, although both companies al!
so have their own projects in development (BioWare is also working on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which will naturally be published by LucasArts, while Interplay is working on a number of projects that haven't been officially announced).
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Pool of Radiance and Wizardry 8
Look for my first impressions of Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor in next week's ramblings, but GameSpot's Andrew Park has already prepared some early impressions based upon the build of the game which should shortly be in my possession. Now I'll definitely also be reviewing the game for GameSpot's main site, so I'll have lots of coverage of the game in the near future.
A lot of you have recently asked for a status update on Wizardry 8, so here's the latest information I have. The game is done, and has a decent possibility of being made available by the end of this year. That said, no North American publisher has been announced (although several weeks ago, it appeared as though an announcement was pending) and Russian publisher Buka Entertainment has moved its planned distribution date into 2002 (although that may just be due to translation delays). Frustrating, for fans of the series, and I'm sure for the developers as well, especially since Sirtech recently announced that it would be unable to continue development of the Wizardry and Jagged Alliance series (leading to the departure of Ian Currie, producer of Jagged Alliance 2). But Wizardry 8 will be released, in some way, and hopefully later this year.
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To answer the question several of you asked regarding my last ramblings , my friend who was killed by the terrorist bomb that destroyed Air India Flight 182 in June, 1985, was named Deven Nadkarni. We were born on the exact same day, and were best friends since we were children. He, and his brother Rahul, were Canadians (among the 329 people killed on the flight) while on their way to India to visit their parent's homeland and relatives they had never met. If it wasn't for my friend (an incredibly academic and athlete), I probably would never have been motivated to go to law school. Rest in peace, my friend.
Links of the Day: The full transcript of U.S. President George Bush Jr.'s September 20, 2001 speech
The first article to reveal new information on Might and Magic IX in some time, courtesy of Gamers Press
Footage of Star Wars Galaxies , the massively multiplayer RPG that dazzled the gaming press (and winner of the best game of the show in the Game Critics' Awards).
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Monday, September 17, 2001
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Desslock's Ramblings Editorial - The Update
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[ Desslock ] |
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I'll be back to regular ramblings on Wednesday, but I wanted to make this unscheduled update both because I've missed a few Wednesday and Friday editorials (last week deliberately) and because I wanted to provide a non-gaming update on last week's events. There's a bunch of genre news that I'll cover in more detail on Wednesday, most notably the fact that Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor has been completed, and should be available at the end of the month (it's scheduled to arrive starting September 25th, although since air transportation isn't exactly working normally, there may be some understandable delays). I will review the game (likely for GameSpot's main site), and will try to run some first impressions prior to the game hitting shelves, but I haven't been able to receive a copy of the game yet because of the transportation delays.
In other gaming news, Nintendo's Game Cube was released in Japan last week, and reactions to the launch from Japanese consumers have been more subdued than expected , although those early reactions may be more of an indication that people weren't thinking much about games last week than the console's commercial strength. This paragraph represents my semi-annual coverage of gaming consoles. Back to PC gaming on Wednesday.
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Over the past couple of weeks I've been host to a number of other gaming writers: Ron Dulin, former Executive Editor of GameSpot's main site; Erik Wolpaw, mad mastermind behind Old Man Murray ; and Bruce Geryk, freelance writer for a variety of publications/sites, including Computer Gaming World and GameSpot --- who were all in my home town of Toronto, Ontario Canada for the Toronto Film Festival, and who were trapped away from their home and native land when all North American airports closed. Aside from the fact that even before last Tuesday's events I was busy playing dutiful host, I just couldn't bring myself to update this page last week, after the terrorist attacks in New York that killed over 5,000 people. It just seemed inappropriate to do so.
The gravity of those events made the idea of focusing attention on computer gaming extremely difficult, for me personally, and would have effectively demonstrated a ludicrous lack of perspective. Some gaming sites carried on, business as usual, which I thought was understandable for the larger commercial sites. But for more personal sites, such as this one, it just seemed inappropriate to try to divert attention from what was happening in New York. Even more inappropriate, in my opinion, were the sites that attempted to provide their own "coverage" of the terrorist attacks, instead of just linking to CNN or another actual news provider. I'm not criticizing sites such as www.bluesnews.com and other daily gaming news sites, which just attempted last Tuesday to provide a more accessible location for readers to access information since the major news sites like CNN were facing overwhelming demand - but gaming sites that attempted to actually provide their own "news articles!
", during the course of the week, which were naturally just cribbed from actual news sites. Embarrassing.
So I'm certainly not going to attempt to provide any insight into last week's events, try to interpret their significance or recommend any course of action to the U.S. government and allies. But I am going to post some personal thoughts, since doing so is consistent with the nature of this page, as well as pass on a first-hand account. You may have already read the account, since it's currently circulating by e-mail, but I thought it was so well written and compelling that I wanted to try to give it additional exposure in case readers don't receive it directly.
My best friend was killed in another act of terrorism - the destruction of Air India Flight 182 in June, 1985 by a Sikh extremist faction (a few members of which are currently facing trial in Canada). As a corporate securities lawyer for almost a decade, I also have many friends and acquaintances working in New York City and the World Trade Center towers. I worked on a significant corporate transaction for two years with Lehman Brothers, one of the investment banking firms that had offices in the towers, and I worked many times with investment bankers from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, which was the biggest tenant of the WTC. One of my friends in Toronto received a call from a woman trapped on the 40th floor of one of the towers, shortly before the towers collapsed. Horrific.
Many of you, like myself, have probably been consumed with learning more about last week's events, the motivations of the people involved and the possible consequences. But nothing I've read over the past week has had more of an effect on me than this personal account written by someone trapped in the World Trade Center. Fifty years from now, when Hollywood makes a bad Ben Affleck movie about these events, I hope the following account is well represented:
THE PRICE WE PAY:
My name is Adam Mayblum. I am alive today. I am committing this to "paper" so I never forget. SO WE NEVER FORGET. I am sure that this is one of thousands of stories that will emerge over the next several days and weeks.
I arrived as usual a little before 8am. My office was on the 87th floor of 1 World Trade Center, AKA: Tower 1, AKA: the North Tower. Most of my associates were in by 8:30m. We were standing around, joking around, eating breakfast, checking emails, and getting set for the day when the first plane hit just a few stories above us. I must stress that we did not know that it was a plane. The building lurched violently and shook as if it were an earthquake. People screamed. I watched out my window as the building seemed to move 10 to 20 feet in each direction. It rumbled and shook long enough for me to get my wits about myself and grab a co-worker and seek shelter under a doorway. Light fixtures and parts of the ceiling collapsed. The kitchen was destroyed. We were certain that it was a bomb. We looked out the windows. Reams of paper were flying everywhere, like a ticker tape parade. I looked down at the street. I could see people in Battery Park City looking up. Smoke started b!
illowing in through the holes in the ceiling. I believe that there were 13 of us.
We did not panic. I can only assume that we thought that the worst was over. The building was standing and we were shaken but alive. We checked the halls. The smoke was thick and white and did not smell like I imagined smoke should smell. Not like your BBQ or your fireplace or even a bonfire. The phones were working. My wife had taken our 9 month old for his check up. I called my nanny at home and told her to page my wife, tell her that a bomb went off, I was ok, and on my way out. I grabbed my laptop. Took off my tee shirt and ripped it into 3 pieces. Soaked it in water. Gave 2 pieces to my friends. Tied my piece around my face to act as an air filter. And we all started moving to the staircase.
One of my dearest friends said that he was staying until the police or firemen came to get him. In the halls there were tiny fires and sparks. The ceiling had collapsed in the men's bathroom. It was gone along with anyone who may have been in there. We did not go in to look. We missed the staircase on the first run and had to double back. Once in the staircase we picked up fire extinguishers just in case. On the 85th floor a brave associate of mine and I headed back up to our office to drag out my partner who stayed behind. There was no air, just white smoke. We made the rounds through the office calling his name. No response. He must have succumbed to the smoke. We left defeated in our efforts and made our way back to the stairwell. We proceeded to the 78th floor where we had to change over to a different stairwell. 78 is the main junction to switch to the upper floors. I expected to see more people. There were some 50 to 60 more. Not enough. Wires and fires all over the !
place. Smoke too. A brave man was fighting a fire with the emergency hose. I stopped with to friends to make sure that everyone from our office was accounted for. We ushered them and confused people into the stairwell. In retrospect, I recall seeing Harry, my head trader, doing the same several yards behind me. I am only 35. I have known him for over 14 years. I headed into the stairwell with 2 friends.
We were moving down very orderly in Stair Case A very slowly. No panic. At least not overt panic. My legs could not stop shaking. My heart was pounding. Some nervous jokes and laughter. I made a crack about ruining a brand new pair of Merrells. Even still, they were right, my feet felt great. We all laughed. We checked our cell phones. Surprisingly, there was a very good signal, but the Sprint network was jammed. I heard that the Blackberry 2 way email devices worked perfectly. On the phones, 1 out of 20 dial attempts got through. I knew I could not reach my wife so I called my parents. I told them what happened and that we were all okay and on the way down. Soon, my sister in law reached me. I told her we were fine and moving down. I believe that was about the 65th floor. We were bored and nervous. I called my friend Angel in San Francisco. I knew he would be watching. He was amazed I was on the phone. He told me to get out that there was another plane on its way. I did n!
ot know what he was talking about. By now the second plane had struck Tower 2. We were so deep into the middle of our building that we did not hear or feel anything. We had no idea what was really going on. We kept making way for wounded to go down ahead of us. Not many of them, just a few. No one seemed seriously wounded. Just some cuts and scrapes. Everyone cooperated. Everyone was a hero yesterday. No questions asked. I had co-workers in another office on the 77th floor. I tried dozens of times to get them on their cell phones or office lines. It was futile. Later I found that they were alive. One of the many miracles on a day of tragedy.
On the 53rd floor we came across a very heavyset man sitting on the stairs. I asked if he needed help or was he just resting. He needed help. I knew I would have trouble carrying him because I have a very bad back. But my friend and I offered anyway. We told him he could lean on us. He hesitated, I don't know why. I said do you want to come or do you want us to send help for you. He chose for help. I told him he was on the 53rd floor in Stairwell A and that's what I would tell the rescue workers. He said okay and we left.
On the 44th floor my phone rang again. It was my parents. They were hysterical. I said relax, I'm fine. My father said get out, there is third plane coming. I still did not understand. I was kind of angry. What did my parents think? Like I needed some other reason to get going? I couldn't move the thousand people in front of me any faster. I know they love me, but no one inside understood what the situation really was. My parents did. Starting around this floor the firemen, policemen, WTC K-9 units without the dogs, anyone with a badge, started coming up as we were heading down. I stopped a lot of them and told them about the man on 53 and my friend on 87. I later felt terrible about this. They headed up to find those people and met death instead.
On the 33rd floor I spoke with a man who somehow [knew] most of the details. He said 2 small planes hit the building. Now we all started talking about which terrorist group it was. Was it an internal organization or an external one? The overwhelming but uninformed opinion was Islamic Fanatics. Regardless, we now knew that it was not a bomb and there were potentially more planes coming. We understood.
On the 3r floor the lights went out and we heard & felt this rumbling coming towards us from above. I thought the staircase was collapsing upon itself. It was 10am now and that was Tower 2 collapsing next door. We did not know that. Someone had a flashlight. We passed it forward and left the stairwell and headed down a dark and cramped corridor to an exit. We could not see at all. I recommended that everyone place a hand on the shoulder of the person in front of them and call out if they hit an obstacle so others would know to avoid it. They did. It worked perfectly.
We reached another stairwell and saw a female officer emerge soaking wet and covered in soot. She said we could not go that way it was blocked. Go up to 4 and use the other exit. Just as we started up she said it was ok to go down instead. There was water everywhere. I called out for hands on shoulders again and she said that was a great idea. She stayed behind instructing people to do that. I do not know what happened toher.
We emerged into an enormous room. It was light but filled with smoke. I commented to a friend that it must be under construction. Then we realized where we were. It was the second floor. The one that overlooks the lobby. We were ushered out into the courtyard, the one where the fountain used to be. My first thought was of a TV movie I saw once about nuclear winter and fallout. I could not understand where all of the debris came from. There was at least five inches of this gray pasty dusty drywall soot on the ground as well as a thickness of it in the air. Twisted steel and wires. I heard there were bodies and body parts as well, but I did not look. It was bad enough. We hid under the remaining overhangs and moved out to the street. We were told to keep walking towards Houston Street. The odd thing is that there were very few rescue workers around. Less than five. They all must have been trapped under the debris when Tower 2 fell. We did not know that and could not understan!
d where all of that debris came from. It was just my friend Kern and I now. We were hugging but sad. We felt certain that most of our friends ahead of us died and we knew no one behind us.
We came upon a post office several blocks away. We stopped and looked up. Our building, exactly where our office is (was), was engulfed in flame and smoke. A postal worker said that Tower 2 had fallen down. I looked again and sure enough it was gone. My heart was racing. We kept trying to call our families. I could not get in touch with my wife. Finally I got through to my parents. Relived is not the word to explain their feelings. They got through to my wife, thank G-d and let her know I was alive. We sat down. A girl on a bike offered us some water. Just as she took the cap off her bottle we heard a rumble. We looked up and our building, Tower 1 collapsed. I did not note the time but I am told it was 10:30am. We had been out less than 15 minutes.
We were mourning our lost friends, particularly the one who stayed in the office as we were now sure that he had perished. We started walking towards Union Square. I was going to Beth Israel Medical Center to be looked at. We stopped to hear the President speaking on the radio. My phone rang. It was my wife. I think I fell to my knees crying when I heard her voice. Then she told me the most incredible thing. My partner who had stayed behind called her. He was alive and well. I guess we just lost him in the commotion. We started jumping and hugging and shouting. I told my wife that my brother had arranged for a hotel in midtown. He can be very resourceful in that way. I told her I would call her from there. My brother and I managed to get a gypsy cab to take us home to Westchester instead. I cried on my son and held my wife until I fell asleep.
As it turns out my partner, the one who I thought had stayed behind was behind us with Harry Ramos, our head trader. This is now second hand information. They came upon Victor, the heavyset man on the 53rd floor. They helped him. He could barely move. My partner bravely/stupidly tested the elevator on the 52nd floor. He rode it down to the sky lobby on 44. The doors opened, it was fine. He rode it back up and got Harry and Victor. I don't yet know if anyone else joined them. Once on 44 they made their way back into the stairwell. Someplace around the 39th to 36th floors they felt the same rumble I felt on the 3rd floor. It was 10am and Tower 2 was coming down. They had about 30 minutes to get out. Victor said he could no longer move. They offered to have him lead on them. He said he couldn't do it. My partner hollered at him to sit on his butt and schooch down the steps. He said he was not capable of doing it. Harry told my partner to go ahead of them. Harry had once had a !
heart attack and was worried about this mans heart. It was his nature to be this way. He was/is one of the kindest people I know. He would not leave a man behind. My partner went ahead and made it out. He said he was out maybe 10 minutes before the building came down. This means that Harry had maybe 25 minutes to move Victor 36 floors. I guess they moved 1 floor every 1.5 minutes. Just a guess. This means Harry [was] around the 20th floor when the building collapsed. As of now 12 of 13 people are accounted for. As of 6pm yesterday his wife had not heard from him. I fear that Harry is lost. However, a short while ago I heard that he may be alive. Apparently there is a web site with survivor names on it and his name appears there. Unfortunately, Ramos is not an uncommon name in New York. Pray for him and all those like him.
With regards to the firemen heading upstairs, I realize that they were going up anyway. But, it hurts to know that I may have made them move quicker to find my friend. Rationally, I know this is not true and that I am not the responsible one. The responsible ones are in hiding somewhere on this planet and damn them for making me feel like this. But they should know that they failed in terrorizing us. We were calm. Those men and women that went up were heroes in the face of it all. They must have known what was going on and they did their jobs. Ordinary people were heroes too.
Today the images that people around the world equate with power and democracy are gone but "America" is not an image it is a concept. That concept is only strengthened by our pulling together as a team. If you want to kill us, leave us alone because we will do it by ourselves. If you want to make us stronger, attack and we unite. This is the ultimate failure of terrorism against The United States and the ultimate price we pay to be free, to decide where we want to work, what we want to eat, and when & where we want to go on vacation. The very moment the first plane was hijacked, democracy won.
One of the most amazing things I've ever read.
Desslock
Link of the Day: http://www.worldtradecenter.com
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Wednesday, August 29, 2001
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Desslock's Ramblings: Desslock's thoughts on Arcanum; Independence War 2 Review Online
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[ Desslock ] |
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Apologies for missing my two editorials last week, but I was working on my extremely lengthy review for Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos for GameSpot's main site. It's now online , and it's actually the longest, and hopefully one of the most thorough, reviews I've written. Although it's not RPG-related, I'm flagging the review, partially to act on a whim to engage in some blatant self-promotion, but also to justify missing last week's editorials - which prompted one reader to write in and let me know he was deleting his bookmark to my site, heh. Oops.
My plans for the site remain to write editorials on Wednesday and Friday, and supplement them with Chris's Quicklinks (and accompanying comments) which are generally posted on Monday or Tuesday. If I can't prepare an editorial on Wednesday or Friday, I won't post one until the following Wednesday/Friday, so those are your best bests to check for updates. I've also been posting pretty regularly lately to the message boards at Quarter to Three (a gaming site run by fellow freelance writers Mark Asher and Tom Chick) if you want to drop by to chat.
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Arcanum Reaction
I've received a lot of e-mail asking for additional comments on Arcanum, especially after the reviews "embargo" ended last week and sites such as GameSpot posted their reviews. Although GameSpot's review was primarily positive, and the game received a "good" recommendation under GameSpot's rating scheme, a lot of you seemed surprised, and disappointed, that the game's 7.3 /10 rating wasn't as high as the ratings previously given to the Fallout or Baldur's Gate games and other notable RPGs. Most of the other reviews for Arcanum at major gaming sites were stocked full of mostly unqualified praise:
So what do I think of Arcanum? I've been a huge supporter of Arcanum almost from the initial announcement of the game, and I became particularly excited about the game after the 2000 E3, when I gave Arcanum the "RPG of the Show" (although I couldn't persuade the other E3 judges to give the game the Game Critics' RPG Award). I also thought the game held up well enough to once again place in my top 5 RPGs of the show at this year's E3 (although behind Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights). So I was surprised when I received a lot of mail from readers who thought that I was panning the game in my last editorial, or from readers who thought I had been "fired" from GameSpot because Greg Kasavin wrote the main site's review. Heh, still here, and Greg is definitely well qualified to write RPG reviews (and over the past couple of years sinc!
e the release of Planescape Torment, he has written almost all of GameSpot's RPG reviews) - it's his favourite genre.
Although I have been playing around with the retail release of Arcanum for the past couple of months, I haven't completed the game (largely because of my work on my Guide to Throne of Bhaal ). So I'm not going to post a review (yet), but I do think that the GameSpot review raises some valid criticisms that have been overlooked in most of the other reviews. My impressions of the game haven't really changed since I posted some thoughts back in April in this "ramblings" . I can't overstate how fond I am of the game's setting and general concept. I've long been an advocate of RPGs set in non-Tolkien-esque settings (although I also love D&D; games). I also think that the character generation and development systems are fantastic, and make the game tremendously replayable, if you enjoy the core gameplay. Most que!
sts in RPGs are easily categorized as either: kill something; go pick up something or go deliver something - both Fallout and Arcanum provide a more interesting variety of quests, which is difficult to do in a computer RPG. The open-ended design of Arcanum (both in terms of character development and solving quests) is admirable and serves as a great example of what computer RPGs should strive to be.
Although I haven't played tabletop RPGs for years (17!), the great appeal of those games to me was their freeform nature. A good "role-playing game", in my opinion, inherently involves giving players the ability to role-play the characters of their choosing, with as few limitations as possible. For that reason, games such as Fallout and Arcanum are certainly much closer to capturing the freedom to "role-play" that pen and paper RPGs offer than the Baldur's Gate series. Linear, story-driven console-style RPGs like the Final Fantasy series may be great games, but they're not great "role-playing games", because they impose severe restrictions on a player's ability to play a role of his or her choosing. Similarly, action-oriented hybrids like the Diablo games aren't great role-playing games (although they're definitely great games), because they provide limited opportunities to actually meaningfully role-play characters. While some gamers !
view "gaining levels, acquiring equipment and raising attributes" as mandatory or even defining elements of a role-playing game, I think they're ancillary, or even unnecessary, aspects for a great role-playing game. For those reasons, I think Arcanum is a great role-playing game, because it provides tremendous freedom to role-play a personalized alter-ego.
I'll save my thoughts on whether or not Arcanum is a great "game" until I've played through it, but I generally stand by the thoughts I previously posted in my impressions piece. I think the graphics are undeniably dated (and drab), but even worse than the graphics are the animations, which are often awkward-looking and occasionally make the game look goofy. There are so many different options to customize in character development that the game offers tremendous replayability, but there also seem to be a lot of "dead end" development choices that make the game much more difficult to play than other choices. There's nothing wrong with having easier and more difficult development paths - obviously it was much more difficult to play through Fallout as a non-violent diplomat than as a sniper, but the different choices were one of the reasons that game was so interesting - but I think there's a number of choices in Arcanum that are so unhelpful that they make the game too dif!
ficult to be enjoyable to most players -- and those choices aren't as intuitive as they were in Fallout. Guns are a lot weaker than they were in an earlier build of the game, which I don't think works as well, even though the developers thought the change was necessary for balance reasons. I also think that the sheer number character development of choices creates the illusion that the game has more depth than it actually has - still, the character development system is definitely a strength of the game.
While the game may be playable in real-time mode as a melee fighter, more complex characters (such as spell-casters) aren't as playable in that mode. There's some goofy quirks to the action point system used in turn-based mode as well, which I think GameSpot's review identified better than other reviews - such as the ability of a character with a lot of action points to backstab a whole group of characters, with an axe, in a single round. That example just exemplifies my belief that some aspects of the game just don't seem as balanced as they should be, or as they were in Fallout. I also think the interface unduly obscures the gaming world, and is a bit cumbersome, but fortunately those issues are going to be addressed a patch that will create a "full-screen" mode. That patch should be available any day now at the game's official site , where you can also read a list of the fixes contemplated by the patch.
That's a pretty lengthy "impressions" commentary, so I'll stop there. Some readers wrote in upset about the GameSpot review, and indicated that RPG fans should support Arcanum "even if it's not perfect", because there are very few games like it. Aside from the fact that those statements unfairly sell Arcanum's merits short, and are unreasonable criticisms of GameSpot's review since the primary role of that review is to help gamers with more general interests (not hardcore RPG fans) to make informed purchasing decisions, I do think that RPG fans should support games with designs they like - which is why I made a point of writing that I think Arcanum is a great RPG, even if it's premature for me to properly judge its merits as a "game". And I'm definitely pleased to see that copies of Arcanum have sold out at retail stores near me. Troika's development team has a lot of design ideas that I strongly support, so I hope that the team gets the opportunity to!
develop many similarly designed games in the future.
Desslock
Link of the Day: Uh, after all that Arcanum rambling, I'm still going to once again promote my Independence War 2 Review. Lots of Arcanum links above as well.
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Tuesday, August 21st, 2001
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Quicklink Tuesday
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Chris ] |
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It has been awhile since we did the "Quicklinks" here to let you know what
exactly is going on with the RPG scene on the net. Today I believe you will be
able to find Arcanum on shelves, but as
always call ahead before making any special trips.
Well with that said, lets get on with the news.
Link(s) of the Day
-
It appears that Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor is going to be
released on September 25th, and you can find out more about it at GameSpot
along with a new movie of the game in action. Well worth a look, and this is
the next RPG I'm looking forward too.
Mac Gamers should celebrate because it appears that Baldur's Gate II: Shadows
of Amn has indeed gone
gold. You should be able to find the game early next month.
Official Site Updates
- Verant Interactive has updated the official
site for Star Wars
Galaxies with an updated FAQ, team comments, and more.
- Blizzard Entertainment has updated the official
site for Warcraft III with some
information on a few more units in the game and a new screenshot as well.
Patches
Previews
Reviews
Interviews/Designer Diaries
- Aidan Scanlan, Designer at BioWare on
Neverwinter Nights at Neverwinter
Vault.
- Marc Taro Holmes, Art Director at
BioWare on Neverwinter Nights at Neverwinter
Vault.
- Bill Roper, Senoir Producer at Blizzard
Entertainment on Warcraft III at War3.Com.
Miscellaneous / Editorials
- Disciples II Units -- Healers & Ranged
Attackers, information on just that at GameSpy.
- "Development Tool" for Freedom Force at
IGN PC. Basically new screens
and information on how you can create your own superhero with the games
editor.
- Trent Oster, Lead Producer at BioWare on
Neverwinter Nights doing a top 10 along with a few new screenshots at Voodoo
Extreme.
- Neverwinter Nights Adventure Creation Guide: Part
IV at GameSpy.
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Desslock's Ramblings: Dungeon Siege Delayed; Control of Interplay Acquired by Titus
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[ Desslock ] |
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While 2001 certainly hasn't been a bad year for RPGs, since a couple excellent expansion packs have already been released (BG2: Throne of Bhaal, D2: Lord of Destruction), along with the supplements to Icewind Dale, one pleasant surprise (Anachronox), and the first massively multiplayer RPG to be released in over two years (Anarchy Online). But there really hasn't been an outstanding stand-alone RPG released yet - at least not of the caliber of the following outstanding games:
- BG2, D2 (2000);
- Planescape Torment (1999);
- Fallout 2, Baldur's Gate, Might and Magic VI - The Mandate of Heaven (1998);
- Fallout (1997); and
- Daggerfall, Diablo (1996).
That's a pretty amazing five year streak of at least one outstanding RPG, which may now be broken by the announcement that Dungeon Siege will be delayed until 2002.
There's still hope for 2001: if Morrowind makes it out, it stands a good chance of being a worthy RPG of the year, but I'm highly dubious that the game will be released this year. I haven't written off Pool of Radiance - Ruins of Myth Drannor either, although that game has endured such a disruptive development (including a change of Producer and Publisher) that it's difficult to still be optimistic about the game - although it looked good when I saw it at the E3 a couple of months ago. Arcanum will finally be released next week (August 21st), so you'll see a lot of reviews go online as of that date (comments are officially embargoed until then), but I will say that, in spite of Arcanum's outstanding concept and many intriguing design ideas, I think many gamers will not group Arcanum with the selection of classic games listed above (although I've also heard rumours that at least one gaming magazine will). Neverwi!
nter Nights has no chance of being released this year, so cross that one off your X-mas shopping list. So that left Dungeon Siege.
I haven't written as much about Dungeon Siege as the title's promise warrants, although I did select it as one of the most promising RPGs at the E3 this year. I have tremendous respect for Chris "Total Annihilation" Taylor's talent, and Dungeon Siege is shaping up to be a huge hit. Featuring outstanding 3D graphics, a polished interface and plenty of style, the game was already a lot of fun to play when I tried it out at the E3. It's definitely an action-oriented game like Diablo, but it has its own feel, since it uses a skill-based system instead of character classes.
So it's disappointing that Gas Powered Games announced yesterday that the game would be delayed until "2002" - Chris Taylor explained the delay (and otherwise mocked suggestions that the delay was a "Microsoft conspiracy" designed to ensure gamers were focused on the X-box release later this year) in this post on the Planet Dungeon Siege forums:
First, we decided to make a 3D game, and to make it really interesting, we wanted a huge continuous 3D world with no loading screens. Seemed like an easy enough thing to do... ha!! I am so amazed at the engineering team, and what they have been able to achieve... they actually did it! The technical details to make this work will simply blow your mind, the math routines, the multiple-threads, the pathfinding, lighting systems, editors, it literally goes on and on. And it runs on four different versions of windows, including XP.
Second, we wanted to have a multi-character party, but we didn't want to force people to have to play with all eight if they didn't want to, we wanted to give the players a choice to be able to play the game anyway they wanted to. We are in the process of tuning and balancing this... it means we have to play the game with one character all the way through to the end, and then with another skill, and then with two, and then with all eight... mixing and matching the combinations making sure that we cover most of the cases to our satisfaction. Almost an impossible task in and of itself (I am sure one of you guys can run the numbers). And the world is huge!!!
Third, this naughty little feature called Multiplayer! Yikes, this game is not played in little 'areas' or on fixed tilesets that we can load into memory, it's completely 100 percent dynamic and can have all eight players running around anywhere in the world. The Host computer has to keep track of it all, and loading up to eight player's "frustums" on the fly, to insure that each person has the same seamless experience that they would have if they were playing the single player game. Yes, setting up the code to get this working is one thing, but getting it optimized and debugged is another. It only takes one glitch and we have to set up all the machines in the multiplayer test lab to duplicate the problem. Testing and fixing these is time consuming to say the least.
The next thing is we built a single player world because we wanted to tell a story, but this world wasn't going to be the ideal world to play a multiplayer game in, or so we thought. So we set out to build an additional world, just to support the multiplayer game. You can still play the single player world in mutiplayer, and it's a blast, but it's a different style of game. We wanted to have both of those worlds available to play right out of the box, and this is no small feat, as you can imagine. More testing (in the case of our game, double), more play balancing, more of everything. Doh! Who's idea was this?!! :)
When we started Gas Powered Games we shot for the moon. Ironically we never actually got all the things into the game that we wanted, far from it, but we got the real important stuff in and now we are trying to finish it all, and it's a huge task, much bigger than anything that any one of us could have imagined. Around the office I joke by saying, who's idea was this? They should be shot! I am actually glad we are doing an RPG, especially now that we are past all the hard stuff. Our days are spent fixing bugs, playing the game, talking about little things that we could do to make the game better. Studying playtest reports to see what confused people, or got them lost, or anything at all that interfered with them having a fun time, and then set to work to get those changes incorporated into the game for the next build. It's really the best time of the project, it's just taking way longer than we thought.
Lastly, and this is the part that has most people scratching their heads... Why did we slip the game and not provide a specific date? First, it's because we don't want to release another date and then change it again. We are sure that we need to come up with the final date and stick to it. In reality this is very hard to do despite the fact that the concept is simple. While we are cranking away fixing bugs, tuning and balancing, and doing all the usual stuff each day, we are compiling all of our bug data to figure this new date out. Press releases are usually short and don't go into this detail, so it probably worked out better in the end that I talked about it here.
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French gaming company Titus Interactive announced yesterday that it had completed its acquisition of control of Interplay . As I indicated in an editorial a couple of weeks ago , a major transaction such as this one has been anticipated for some time, as Interplay continued to struggle in the difficult market for software companies (and gaming companies in particular). Titus may not actually assume control of the company until the Annual Shareholders' Meeting of Interplay, which is scheduled to occur in September, at which time Titus will likely remove the current board of directors (and at least some management) of the company, and appoint its own nominees.
Interplay's been struggling lately - essentially being carved down to Black Isle Studios and Shiny studios (the latter group developers weren't even affected by the recently announced layoffs at Interplay) - so hopefully the increased involvement of Titus (which was already a significant shareholder) will provide Interplay with the additional funding it needs to maintain its operations. But it's hard to be entirely optimistic about this development, since Titus has such an abysmal record in the gaming industry. Titus's booth at the E3 contained a selection of dreck that can only be collectively described as embarrassing.
The jury's definitely still out on whether or not this development is good or bad news for fans of Interplay's games.
Desslock
Link of the Day: Link of the Day: The Dungeon Siege forum at GameSpy's Planet Dungeon Siege: for additional comments from Chris Taylor and other members of the game's development team.
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Wednesday, August 15, 2001
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Desslock's Ramblings - Desslock's Guide to Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal; Icewind Dale 2 Follow-up
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[ Desslock ] |
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My comprehensive strategy guide to Baldur's Gate 2 - Throne of Bhaal is now available, both online and in downloadable (free) color pdf format.
The guide contains:
- Comprehensive descriptions of each of the areas in the game, including the
locations of all of the magic items as well as encounters in the area (monsters, NPCs);
- Strategy tips for every encounter;
- Exact locations for, and charts detailing the capabilities of, every magic item in the game (weapons, armor, potions, miscellaneous magic), including the items you can make using Cespenar's recipes;
- Complete stats on all of the monsters in the game;
- A comprehensive general strategy section, including combat and
spell-casting tips;
- Tons of other detailed information from the game, including all of the
combinations for Lum's Machine; all of the Deck of Many Things cards; an
explanation of the Wish spells and possible results, etc.
If you enjoyed my guides to Baldur's Gate and to Tales of the Sword Coast, you'll be sure to enjoy this one -- it's at least as comprehensive: 138 pages, and over 42,000 words. The downloadable pdf version is more convenient and has a table of contents, but the online version has additional screenshots.
Let me know what you think of the guide
--
I've received a lot of e-mail in response to my last ramblings , in which I confirmed that Icewind Dale 2 was in development at Black Isle Studios. Other sites have either dismissed the report or characterized it as an "unconfirmed rumour". It'll continue to be unconfirmed, of course, until the game is officially announced - which could never happen, if the company elects to kill the project - but as of right now, consider it confirmed that Interplay is developing Icewind Dale 2.
Companies often have games in development that never see the light of day. For literally years, Interplay was developing Stonekeep 2 (complete with a new, proprietary 3D engine), but ultimately pulled the plug on the project. Blizzard has pulled the plug on, or significantly amended, its plans for several projects in the past including, of course, WarCraft Adventures and WarCraft 3, but also including some other projects that were never announced. New World Computing changed the nature of Legends of Might and Magic several times during the development of the game (which was originally much more of a role-playing game). Still, most often projects are killed or changed because the developers realize, during the course of development, that their design either won't work very well because of incompatible technology or difficulties in creating what they envisioned, or becaus!
e they realize that the game they are creating just isn't working out to be entertaining. Since Icewind Dale 2 will use proven technology, and the developers will likely be able to create the game relatively quickly, the project is less likely to be abandoned during development. More details as they become available.
Desslock
Link of the Day: One of my favourite gaming sites is also one of the very first gaming sites: Blue's News (originally Blue's Quake Rag). I used to visit Blues way back prior to the release of the original Quake (along with hitting spots like http://www.stomped.com and the long defunct Mr. Wolf's Quake page). Blue's News as one of the first fan sites to go "professional", and it's still my favourite site for gaming news - so it was kind of a drag to read today in Blue's "out of the blue" editorial that long-time contributor loonyboi was shifting over to http://www.shacknews.com, likely because of the problems the UGO network has had both selling ads and adhering to its contractual commitments.
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Friday, August 10th, 2001
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Desslock's Ramblings - Icewind Dale 2 in Development; More Gaming Company Woes - Sierra and G.O.D. Meltdown
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More woes for gaming companies. Aside from the problems gaming magazines and sites are having, as I've mentioned in my past few ramblings, game developers and publishers have also been experiencing problems getting funding and continuing operations without significant cutbacks. I've independently heard from a variety of "insiders" that the rumours circulating at various sites (starting with www.fuckedcompany.com) that Sierra Studios is going to announce major layoffs next week are true, and that Sierra's Dynamix Studios (which has gone through a few transformations in recent years, originally being known primarily for flight sims such as Red Baron and more recently being responsible for the Tribes games) division is being closed down.
While Sierra has been directly or indirectly sold several times over the past few years (originally to CUC/Cendant, then to French publisher Havas, and most recently to Universal), the company has gradually been reducing its capacity (and desire) to develop games internally and focus on publishing games by external developers (such as Half Life by Valve, Homeworld by Relic, and the upcoming RPG, Arcanum, by Troika Games). While Sierra was once most known for its internally developed graphical adventure games (King's Quest, Police Quest, etc.), and also for putting out unpolished, buggy games, the quality of the games the company has published has notably improved in recent years. Hopefully Sierra will at least continue in that role, and not just abandon the PC gaming industry (which their new parent company isn't familiar wit!
h).
Gathering of Developers is also dissolving, at least from a practical standpoint, with the closure of its primary offices and the departure of founder Mike Wilson (formerly a founder of Ion Storm). GameSpot has a thorough story on the closure of GOD online, which includes comments from Mike Wilson and other insiders on the future of most of the GOD employees as well as the history of the company. On top of the closure/moth-balling of Sirtech Canada earlier in the month, and the layoffs at Interplay, it's been a particularly bad month for PC gaming companies. It'll likely only get worse in the near future, with a lot of attention being focused on the upcoming video game consoles. There'll be a big meltdown in that industry as well.
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While it hasn't been officially announced yet, Interplay is working on Icewind Dale 2, another BioWare Infinity engine game. While I've hinted in past ramblings that we may not have seen the end of the Infinity engine, and that Interplay was considering other Dungeons & Dragons products (in addition to Neverwinter Nights), I can now confirm that Icewind Dale 2 is in the works (and it's not necessarily the only new D&D; game that is being contemplated).
Details on what you can expect from Icewind Dale 2 will have to wait until the game is officially announced, but the game will use the same engine used by the original game and its expansion pack, with possible minor improvements, and likely won't be as ambitious a game as BG2, given Interplay's aggressive target release date (rumoured to be the end of this year, according to a Fatbabies rumour than ran today , although I hadn't thought the schedule was that ambitious). I suspect that a lot of gamers are tired of the Infinity engine after an almost constant flow of new products using the engine since Icewind Dale was released over a year ago (and Planescape Torment and the original Baldur's Gate used the engine prior to that), but given the commercial success of Icewind Dale and BG2, there's probably still enough gamers interested in just having new areas to explore and creatures to fight (and Interplay will alre!
ady have access to a tremendous library of creatures and items created for the prior games) to justify the creation of another game.
Since the backgrounds used by the engine have to be hand-drawn (as opposed to created using tiles, which Neverwinter Nights will use), it's unlikely that we'll ever see an Infinity engine "D&D; Construction Kit", like SSI released at the end of its line of Gold Box D&D; games, but the creation of additional D&D; adventure "modules" like Icewind Dale 2 should at least be appreciated by D&D; fans. There's also not a lot of single player RPGs in the works for the next 12 months (Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind and Dungeon Siege being the only real highlights, with Arcanum and Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor on the verge of being released).
In a way, I feel like I'm justifying a "guilty pleasure", because the Infinity engine is getting a bit tired, but I'm pretty happy to know there's another D&D; game coming out in the near future.
Desslock
Link of the Day: The GameSpot story online, which on the virtual collapse of Gathering of Developers, which had the ambitious goal of being the "United Artists" of gaming, enhancing the rewards and control retained by the people who actually make games.
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Thursday, August 9th, 2001
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Desslock's Ramblings - Chris's Guide to Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction; The Globe Collapses
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While I've been toiling away with the Baldur's Gate 2 expansion, Chris has been carefully scrutinizing the Diablo 2 expansion pack. We recently posted his review , and now I'm pleased to unveil his expansive Assassin's Guide and walkthrough.
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More bad news for gamers: on Friday one-time Internet darling, the Globe, indicated that it was winding up its business. The Globe owns Computer Games Magazine (formerly Computer Games Strategy Plus) and the Computer Games Online, Happy Puppy and Games Domain websites. While the Globe has announced that it will continue to maintain Computer Games Magazine, but will "significantly scale down" its online games operations.
I suspect it'll be very difficult for the Globe to find a purchaser for Computer Games Magazine, since that industry is generally suffering from a decline in advertising revenue, unless the company resorts to a fire sale to one of the other gaming magazines which would essentially just be purchasing the subscription base (and would close down the magazine). Happy Puppy and Games Domain have essentially been mothballed, although apparently the Globe is on the verge of selling Games Domain, at least, likely along with its Kids Domain affiliated site. Happy Puppy was one of the very first online gaming sites, predating sites such as GameSpot and Gamecenter which eventually surpassed it (in every way). With Snowball/IGN, the Future Network and UGO all experiencing great difficulty (and CNET/GameSpot recently announcing a 15% cut in its workforce), the future is looking gloomy for gaming magazines and sites, especially those dedicated to covering PC gaming.
Desslock
Link of the Day: Our expanded coverage of Diablo 2 expansion pack, courtesy of Chris. GameSpot has also put online its strategy guide to the Diablo 2 expansion pack.
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Quicklink Thursday
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Chris ] |
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Hello again, and I guess it's time I got these "Quicklinks" up again. I've also
updated the release date section and wrote
a few articles that I've sent to Desslock to look over and post. Look for them
soon.
Well with that said, lets get on with the news.
Link(s) of the Day
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If you're curious to see what's new with Neverwinter Nights then check
out these screenshots and wallpapers at
RPGPlanet, or
head over to the
NWVault to
check out their
coverage of Neverwinter during Gen Con. They have a very lengthy video of the
game being shown. There is also a site
called NWNOnline.Net
that went to GenCon and had a chance to ask Associate Producer Derek French some
questions among other BioWare employees.
GameSpot
chimes in with their report on
Neverwinter at Gencon as well. Finally, the official site for
the game has a lengthy development update written by the games Producer, Trent
Oster.
Official Site Updates
- Verant Interactive has updated the official
site for EverQuest: Shadows of Luclin
with several new screenshots. The link will send you to the EverQuest home
page. Just find the link on the left hand menu. Direct links on the Station
don't work for most browsers, security violations.
- Verant Interactive has updated the official
site for Star Wars Galaxies
with an updated FAQ, team comments, and more.
- Blizzard Entertainment has updated the official
site for Warcraft
III with some information on the Ghoul unit in the game.
Previews
Reviews
Interviews/Designer Diaries
- Travis Doggett, formerly an Artist with the now
defunct ION Storm Dallas team on Anachronox at Planet
Anachronox.
- Raphael Beaupre, Creative Director from
Strategy First on Disciples II at GameSpot.
- Swen Vincke, Lead Producer from Larian
Studios on Divine Divinity at Voodoo
Extreme.
- Chris Taylor, Head Man at Gas Powered
Games on Dungeon Siege at GameSpy.
- Sarah Boulian, Level Designer at Gas Powered
Games on Dungeon Siege at GameSpy.
Miscellaneous / Editorials
- Game Guide for Anarchy Online at GameSpot.
- Chat Log with Richard Garriott, aka Lord
British, on his new company Destination Games at IANStorm.
- Gameplay Footage for Dungeon Siege at GameSpot.
- Unofficial Enhancements for Baldur's Gate
II: Throne of Bhaal at Planet Baldur's
Gate. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and these were made by the
games lead designer. These changes are not supported by either BioWare or
Interplay, use at your own risk.
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Desslock's Ramblings - Interplay (Torn, Icewind Dale Additional Expansion)
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Interplay's company slogan is, or at least used to be, "by gamers, for gamers". I think that's a fair, and flattering, description of the company. Which is not to say that the company is perfectly run - far from it. Interplay publishes a lot of games, and a lot of bad games. Historically, the company has had a problem maintaining a reasonable level of quality control, and produced dreck like Invictus, Blood and Magic, Dragon Dice and Descent to Undermountain. Company management has been unable to run the company as efficiently or as profitably as some of company's competitors. Still, a lot of promising "small", almost artistic projects got green lighted and were well supported, when they would have been unlikely to have been undertaken by other, more "commercially"-oriented companies.
It's somewhat ridiculous to think of Interplay as not being commercially-oriented - after all, every company, especially a public company, is primarily interested in being profitable. Yet Interplay has consistently been willing to publish products that have little chance of being commercial blockbusters, while companies such as Electronic Arts won't consider publishing anything other what it believes will be a top 10 best-seller. Interplay doesn't always go for "home runs". Occasionally, it's o.k. to go for singles and doubles, provided that you budget accordingly.
So we've seen a lot of excellent, "small" games from Interplay, such as Planescape Torment and Fallout. Unfortunately, we've also seen a lot of excellent games that should have been bigger commercial successes, but never found their target audiences, such as: FreeSpace 2; Starfleet Command 2; Giants - Citizen Kabuto and Sacrifice. Three of the best games released in 2000 were published by Interplay: Giants, Sacrifice and Baldur's Gate II, and yet only BG2 enjoyed significant commercial success. Interplay has struggled financially as a result.
Last week Interplay laid off 55 employees, including veterans such as Chris Taylor, one of the members of the Fallout development team. Interplay's Black Isle Studios was relatively unscathed, losing "only" five employees. But the company also decided to stop development of their most recently announced RPG - Black Isle's Torn. I'll have additional thoughts to post on Torn in the future (in fact, I may do a significant "post-mortem" feature on the game), but in general I don't think the game was shaping up well. I didn't select it as one of my favourite RPGs of the E3, and I don't think that the Lithtech engine was going to be able to incorporate Interplay's complex RPG systems particularly well (hopefully New World Computing will have better luck using Lithtech on Might and Magic 9).
Some of the official screenshots for the game - which are released to proudly demonstrate the capabilities of the game's engine - were, frankly, pathetic. Take a look at this one. If the company can't even make the game engine look good in its own promotional material, er, the engine has some problems. Those problems were self-evident at the E3 as well, when the engine's shadowing system was limited to producing crude effects.
Still, it's disappointing to think that RPG fans could have been denied what ultimately may have been another great game (Black Isle has been on an incredible roll since 97 - Fallout, Fallout 2, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale, and publishing and contributing to the Baldur's Gate games) because of the financial problems Interplay has been experiencing, as evidenced by the concurrently announced layoffs. Interplay, and Black Isle in particular, continues to produce some outstanding games and seems genuinely responsive to the interests of its fans and customers (above and beyond normal business practices). Probably the best evidence of that last trait is the brand new "expansion to the expansion" Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter: Trials of the Luremaster product. A completely free 72 MB download (you need to have purchased the Heart of Winter expansion), Luremaster addresses the principal comp!
laint directed at the expansion pack - its duration - by adding new areas, creatures and items to the game.
A great tribute to fans, from a company that more than occasionally lives up to its motto.
Desslock
Link of the Day: The bad, bad year for gaming magazines and online sites continues:
Rumours continue to circulate that Future Network, the U.K. owner and publisher of Imagine magazines such as PC Gamer, has been attempting to find a purchaser of its properties.
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Wednesday, August 1, 2001
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Desslock's Ramblings - Desslock's Guide to Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal; Throne of Bhaal vs. the Diablo 2 Expansion; Future of the Infinity Engine
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[ Desslock ] |
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Last Thursday I finally completed my latest strategy guide, Desslock's Guide to Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. It's another massive guide - over 40,000 words long - and it'll provide you with the most comprehensive analysis of the latest, and perhaps the most difficult, product in the BG series yet. The guide contains the following:
- Comprehensive descriptions of each of the areas in the games, including the NPCs, enemy types, traps and magic items in that area;
- strategies for fighting each of the major encounters;
- descriptions and locations of all of the magic items in the game, including Cespenar's recipes for the most powerful items;
- tons of additional information that'll be of interest to hardcore fans of the series -- curious about how the Wish spells work and the possible results you can obtain? How about the possible cards you can draw from the Deck of Many things? How do you operate Lum's Machine. All explained in the guide.
It's my most comprehensive guide yet, and it'll be available for free, both online and for download in .pdf format, at GameGuides.com, as soon as production is finished (which will likely take a couple of weeks). Why spend so much time and effort on a guide to an expansion pack? Partially because I wasn't able to do one for Baldur's Gate II, and since there's a lot of overlap between the products, this guide was my opportunity to give insights to Baldur's Gate II as well. It contains far more information than the average player will need or read, but I love making such comprehensive products.
So many strategy guides just contain a basic walk-through and a few rudimentary strategy tips (along with replicating large sections of material from the game manual) - I've always wanted to read strategy guides that are so comprehensive that they're of interest even to players who have completed the game, because the guides contain information that most players will have missed or not kept track of when casually playing the game.
I'll post a link when the guide is online. I may also write up a formal review of the game when I get the opportunity. But rest assured that I liked Throne of Bhaal a lot. Throne of Bhaal and the Diablo 2 expansion are the only two RPG expansion packs that I've ever really been satisfied with - in part because they add a lot of value, which is atypical for an RPG expansion; in part because they continue the stories of their predecessors, as opposed to just "adding -in" additional territory that effectively unbalances gameplay in the original game; but largely because they are both such polished products. The Diablo 2 expansion adds more to the original product, but the BG 2 expansion provides an epic finale to a great storyline.
Both Interplay and BioWare have said that the Baldur's Gate engine will be retired after Throne of Bhaal. I think they're reconsidering that decision, in light of the ongoing commercial success of its progeny. About 18 months ago, in anticipation of the release of Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate II, I wrote how there'd never be a replacement for the "gold box" series of AD&D; games (which produced 9 core games and several spin-offs). In hindsight, I don't think that conclusion is necessarily correct. I'd very much like to see several more Infinity engine games - from the original BG, to Planescape Torment and Icewind Dale, to BG II, the engine has evolved into a versatile, powerful engine, more than capable of still producing a state of the art RPG.
Desslock
Link of the Day: The Gen Con site: at which the latest version of Neverwinter Nights and several other RPGs will be demonstrated.
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