FrankK

What game that can't be named? (*wink* to the trenchcoated men in the corner)

I'll try to remember...this is an off the top of my head list of what I've played since DA2 went off to Sony and MS (back in early October). I've probably missed some stuff, but oh well. PC: Dungeon Siege: LoA NWN: SoU and HotU Battlefield 1942 UT2K4 Demo (generally only at work) Diablo 2 Deus Ex 2 Divine Divinity (couldn't get into it) XBox: Rainbow 6 Freedom Fighters DA2 LotR:RotK Dynasty Warriors 4 Soulcalibre 2 Gladius (best game nobody played =()' True Crime GC: FF:Crystal Chronicle

I'll make some quick comments. Windows development for video games has a some advantages over Linux. DirectX is pretty comprehensive and most importantly, standard among all graphics cards and ports easily to XBox. The downside is the cost of those tools. Both the mac and Linux are OpenGL platforms--if you support one, it's very easy to support the other. The downside is that each graphics card vendor supports OpenGL differently--so you are back to the pre-DirectX days of rewriting certain low-level functions in your code to be card specific. There are tools coming along (very slowly) to give Linux and macs the same kind of ease of programming that DirectX provides. During our interviewing, we've talked to people who have Linux only programming experience and the impression i've gotten is that it is just less game-friendly at the moment than windows. If the tools improve, as they have been, to the point where they can compete with DirectX, there is really no reason to believe that Linux can't be a viable platform. It is probably a few years away, however. I have a feeling that if the market share doesn't top-out (like macs) then the tools will improve as the user base improves and that would lead to good things in the end. Just my opinions on the matter. I would never say never. I'd just say not right now =)

HotU would definately be a recommended buy. Good stuff and more companions that interact with each other (ok you get 2 now--but at least you get larger fights as a result). PS - This thread officially Hijacked, take it to Cuba, boys.

If you are designing a game based on the DnD license, then there's no reason to suspect that it is holding you back by any means. In this case, you are making a DnD game--if you want to do something the d20 system doesn't handle well, you've made a poor choice of licenses. If you aren't doing a d20 license, then you shouldn't be developing a d20 style system. People are smart, you don't need to throw d20-like stuff at them just to sell your own rpg system. So I don't think it is holding up game design in the least.

We've sent proposals for "Deekin's Big Adventure" out, but nobody's biting...yet. The game starts with Deekin and a crate, and a cutscene of the crate...

I think a DnD licensed game would move much smoother if it began production today. Much of the alleged frustration came from the timing of the announcement last year on the new guidelines (aka, when 4 products were all within months of shipping).

It might be the first RPG in which hardcore fans demand more action elements and less dialogue...

Rubber elf ears are cheap.

The alternative to allowing the player to choose from the several 'generic' options is to basically only allow them to respond within a few options based on their alignment. Aribeth: "Pleeze save R NeverWint3rz 4 us" Good: "Of course I will." or "I will do it, and we can discuss the reward later" Evil: "I will do so, if only to prove how weak you are Aribeth" or "Yes, but only if you pay me 1 billion gold pieces" The problem with that is that the player cannot 'choose their path' to good or evil. If the game BEGAN with open options, but later restricted them based on your earlier decisions (aka your alignment would only affect later dialogues) then I think maybe you have the best of both worlds.

that would be an interesting house of ill repute...I don't imagine we'd have problems recruiting researchers.

This is important if you are looking to be a designer. You really need to be well-rounded in all aspects of design. Being able to write a great story is nice, but it doesn't show that you know how many kobolds belong in a room or what items should be in a shop for a 1st level character (etc). You should learn WHY some levels are popular with people and others aren't.

My quick .02 on the issue of 'freedom to kill' in RPGs. Well, that's a can of worms I don't think I wanna get into =) As far as brothels, I'm all for them. In fact, doing a brothel RPG would probably be more fun than you could shake a .... well you get the idea. Sometimes though, you choose to use someone else's intellectual property, and when you do, you are obliged to respect their standards.

I'm sure Feargus or one of my other masters could probably answer better, but I'm pretty sure BG PC rights are owned by Atari as part of the DnD license.

I am a big VO fan. The problem with VO is $$$. You must hire GOOD VO talent (the VO in DA2 is among the best I've ever seen or worked with) and that talent costs X dollars per day. Recording 100,000 lines of dialogue costs a lot of money. What's worse, you may have to cut or add certain lines during the course of the game's development. Dave did a great job on DA2 of 'scaling' the VO so that if certain areas had to be cut, the dialogues would still make sense (alternate stuff was recorded, etc). Dave also went up to LA when they did the VO and oversaw the recording, so the actors had someone on hand to explain the characters. The end result speaks for itself (rather than shipping a script to Siberia and getting canned VO back). You really need to have your dialogues finalized before you can VO and often times, VO is just expensive. However, I will say that just hearing the sound of someone talking adds a whole lot to a game, even if I'm actually reading the text and cutting off the VO.

I was thinking of camera angles over the weekend as I was playing NWN. At least on HotU, you can now page up/down the camera to get a horizon view. This is MUCH more immersive for the style of game. Iso works well in party based games (Dungeon Siege, BG1 and 2), but 3rd person is just much more about making the character the focus. Even in KotOR i find this works out well (despite the party based mechanics). You also have the luxury of adding ceilings to your corridors. So much of NWN is lost when you are stuck in iso view. The detail--especially on later tilesets--is completely wasted with the camera pulled out, yet it's the only way to see what's up ahead in the iso view. Now I realize you can switch to over the shoulder, and that's how I generally play NWN now. In DS, that really wasn't an option because of the frequent elevation changes, etc. The only problem with NWN and a close camera is that the older tilesets weren't designed necessarily with that in mind (compare the SoU and HotU tiles to the original game and note the detail differences). So in the end, I guess it depends on the game and what you are trying to emphasize. When the focus of the game is 'you', I think dropping the camera adds +1 to Immersion checks. I think you need the ability to 'free look' in 3rd person as well, especially if you have frequent height changes. When the focus is the 'party', iso allows you more management of your virtual minions.

The XBox sells well for it's hardware base. Last I checked (been a few months, but i suspect it's still true), the XBox sold more games per hardware unit than the other 2.

Where's the option for side-scroller?

Wrong. Women > everthing You are both right. Women Vikings >>>> Everything.

Would you accept a game with ninja looting instead?

Chris is pretty dead-on. If you have no experience in the industry, no matter how passionate your letters are and no matter how good your writing skills are--you probably won't even get a response if you haven't done at least some work on your own. This is also the first lesson you'll learn about game development--sacrificing your personal time when needed. NWN, Unreal, Quake 3, Dungeon Siege--these tools are all out there. If you are REALLY interested in breaking in, you will be spending as much free time as you can using those tools, sending them out to the mod community and learning the basics of what it means to put together a fun mod/level. The same goes for programmers looking to break in, you should have something to show. Artists can greatly help themselves by not only having a kick-ass demo, but also having imported assets into a game (its one thing to make an orc look good, but to make him look good without damaging frame-rate makes programmers happy people).

We plan to be the first company to announce the project after it's on retail shelves.

While Project X will NOT feature brothels, we are in negotiation with several brothels to feature Project X.

There's definately a thick black line between movies and games when it comes to sequels. A movie can basically REQUIRE the 'user' to rent or watch the previous movie because it's a 3 - 4 dollar expense at Blockbuster. A video game, in most cases is a much larger investment for the end user. So you have to assume the player might not have played the first game and make it accessible enough to them. I think Deus Ex 2, from a story perspective, did the 'recap' rather well. I'd forgotten most of the first game by the time I played the sequel and thought it worked out pretty well. The gameplay is another story =)

Sequels are just like any other game, but with predefined expectations from the end-user. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. It's generally almost never because they are a sequel however. Publishers love sequels/licenses because it's very easy to justify making a sequel to a successful game or based off of a successful license. It is also easier for the average chump in the store to know what to expect. As a hardcore gamer, I can take or leave sequels. I've played some good original games over the last year and some bad ones--the same goes for sequels. I worry more about the game itself than the number of digits after the title.