Nathaniel Chapman

We will have more media out before too long that will give you guys a better look at the visual quality of the game. I would hold out your judgement until you've seen the game in motion!

You mean use the setting or make a FF Tactics-esque game? I'd love to do either. On an handheld maybe? I'd love to see a game that focuses on the meat (tactical gameplay) instead of super shiny graphics. I think that, while turn based tactical games are easier to sell to publishers on handhelds, turn based tactical gameplay actually works fine on consoles. See: FF Tactics My personal platform preference for a game like FF:T would be the iPad. I think touchscreens provide the most natural, relaxing input scheme for point-and-click style games (at least, ones that don't require rapid input, like RTSes). But, I think that playing a deeply tactical RPG with the corresponding breadth of gameplay options on a smaller touchscreen like the iPhone or DS could be a bit fatiguing. I think they're also great on the PC, but I do like the sense of not being restricted to my desk when I play games, so the iPad is nice in that regard. On the other hand, if I was using the setting, I'd love to make an open-world C&C driven RPG set in the FF: Tactics universe, dealing with similar themes. FF:T (particularly the re-translated War of the Lions version) has one of my favorite JRPG stories.

You mean use the setting or make a FF Tactics-esque game? I'd love to do either.

A game being a sequel has less to do with the creative constraints on it than factors like the composition of the team, the publisher, the interaction between creative design and the rest of the team, etc. Really, honestly, a sequel will only be derivative if the intent in developing it is to create a derivative sequel.

The best answer I can give is that whereas most of the artists and designers are concerned with what we are going to do, and then implementing the actual content, the tech guys are generally focused on figuring out how we do it, including finding the best implementation from a performance and functionality perspective.

I'd rather we have our sequels stand on their own Not to say that working on original IP isn't fun, but there's no reason a sequel can't be a great game on its own.

We would like to use Onyx for future projects. However, when it makes overwhelming sense to use an engine already in existence (see: F:NV) we're not going to unreasonably insist on using Onyx. Also, while it's true that experience with an engine is valuable, good game developers need to be able to shift from one engine to another pretty much at a whim. Assuming you ever work at more than one studio, for instance, it's pretty important that your skills are not restricted to a particular engine. I wouldn't have too many concerns with a developer from F:NV starting on a new Onyx project, for instance.

the article didn't mention that I said FF Tactics too ><

I hope there's nobody who works here and doesn't use toilet paper.

I hope you mean like Kobe and not George Tenet...

I'll add Borderlands to that mix, which was even more Diablo-like than Kotor. 1st person hacknslash with guns, haha. It worked with 2-4 people quite well, although it WAS annoying at times not being able to see the other player except when they were right in front of you. They used dots on the mini-map to let you know where they were, but it isn't the same as actually being able to see them...you easily lost track. Edit: Also, Summoner was 3rd person (with a very wide view) with a campaign party+MP & it worked most of the time (there were some camera issues in some areas). That said, while other viewpoints can/do work, for this type of game I do definitely prefer the top-down type of view or at least a wide 3rd person view ala Kotor. We have three camera zoom levels, from closest to furthest away: 1) Vanity Cam - This is very close, think of something like the character select screen in World of Warcraft. This is not intended for actually actively playing the game, instead it's for checking out your gear and looking at things up really close if you want to see the highest detail. 2) Medium Zoom - This is our default camera, and is like KotoR, but a little more pulled back, and wider (because of the 16:9 aspect ratio). 3) Far Zoom - This is our furthest zoomed out camera, and is the camera used in co-op (it is still selectable in SP, but is the only camera for co-op). This is closest to the classic BG:DA style camera.

... Looks like I know who to go to when I need to update my resume!

Are there any other co-op action RPGs (or even non co-op) that you have liked that stand out in your memory? It depends what you mean by action RPGs. I liked the Diablo games a lot, but to me they felt less like co-op and more like "playing beside other people." Thats less a fault of the game and more the people I ended up playing with, though I also think that it's a little weird lumping point and click RPGs in with games like BG:DA because they play so differently. I guess, because I play a lot of action and fighting games as well as hardcore RPGs, I tend to be a little harsh on games that feel like incomplete action games or incomplete RPGs. You need to have the good parts of both for it to really work.

Because we have the opportunity to make an ARPG on PC and Console, with a combination of great story, great combat mechanics and great art, with actually enjoyable co-op, in a universe where we can take the opportunity to flesh the lore out pretty much as we like (with positive, constructive feedback from GPG), supported by a great publisher, all while continuing to develop the Onyx engine, which will serve us for some time to come. I haven't actually really enjoyed a co-op ARPG since BG:DA, and before that basically since Secret of Mana. I think people are looking for a really good one (I know I am), and we want to be the ones to make it.

We've focused a lot on making control of your character more direct than it is in a game like Dragon Age (or NWN2 for that matter!). This goes along with bringing the game to the consoles, where players expect crisper, more responsive controls - lag between hitting a button and your character animating is just not cool for a console ARPG. Along with all of that we're making sure we don't take the player's control away while their character does some kind of finishing blow. So, I'd say we probably aren't going to have longer sequences where your character finishes off enemies - instead, we'll just focus on making our enemies death animations as awesome and epic as possible, and use ragdoll where appropriate so you can get some awesome finishes from physics. Actually, we had a little mini-game going at e3 among the presenters where we tried to use a special dashing sword attack to lob one of the enemies from one cliff to another. That kind of stuff is always fun with ragdoll deaths.

That (choice and consequence) is actually something I've talked with Josh and Feargus about a lot - I think we're all in agreement that choice and consequence is a core element of our RPGs. As is a good balance between side content quests and critical story quests. Not to speak for Josh and Fearg too, but I think it's safe to say that those are things that we feel should be pretty much universal to RPGs.

This sounds like the design direction Bioware took for Dragon Age. To be honest, I thought you may have come up with more interesting ideas but we know it works, at least. I'd like to say that this is a "game design theory" discussion at this point. Don't take what I've said in the thread as anything more than an indication of my inclinations when it comes to epic fantasy RPG design. None of this is DS3 specific information. Mostly I just find the discussion of ammo actually pretty interesting because I think it's something that is such a core part of people's experience with RPGs even though it's something that's glossed over frequently in discussions of fantasy RPG systems.

While I understand the reasoning behind it doesn

I don't really agree that the basic, normal ammo that you carry around and gets consumed with each shot feels as good as using a special ability or magical spell. Generally I feel it's one of several things that's lost in the noise of general RPG upkeep. I don't find purchasing ammo every time I get back to town to be a particularly fun or engaging activity. Ultimately it's just a choice of what flavor you're going for with your gameplay. If fiddling with ammo fits in with the spirit of the game, it's good as long as you build interesting mechanics to support it. If it doesn't fit with the spirit of the game, it can feel a little mundane and overly tweaky.

Take Icewind Dale as an example, Nathaniel. Would you suggest it should have unlimited ammo? To my mind the ideal scenario in that game would be unlimited basic ammo (mundane bullets, bolts, arrows, darts) but LIMITED magic ammo (e.g. fire arrows, dispelling arrows, etc). How will you handle it in Dungeon Siege? Will you add different ammo types? That would be cool! It would add a fun new dimension to the otherwise slightly boring archer class. I think IWD is a tricky case. Players may have built in expectations coming from D&D and so free, unlimited basic ammo might be a tough sell. I do think that in games like IWD ammo should stack higher per inventory slot. I think from a pure mechanics perspective, D&D aside, for a game like IWD, I agree with you that unlimited basic ammo and limited magic ammo is one good way to go, especially if the ammo is not +1/+2 type ammo but rather special effect ammo (like dispelling arrows, as you mentioned). I think ammo selection can be pretty finnicky though in a party based game. In a single character game like Fallout, switching around ammo types is a lot less fiddly, and gets in the way of combat less (even in FO3/NV where combat is real time). Also, in Fallout almost every character will want to carry at least one or two types of ammo, so it's not like in fantasy games where ammo requirements only affect one or two classes or character types. I think a good route to go for games that are not trying to be super realistic would be to eliminate ammo entirely as something the player manages, and instead give the player special skills or abilities with guns that are on cooldown or consume from some resource pool. I think that has advantages in that 1) it avoids forcing ammo using characters into spending inventory space on ammo when other characters do not and 2) it makes game balance more unified, which tends to mean classes are balanced better. Finally, I think an important thing to consider is the player's expectation of the game as a simulation. Some games, like Fallout and D&D, tend to build the expectation of slightly more "sim-ey" combat, and unlimited ammo can violate those expectations. I think other games (like WoW for instance) have less of an expectation of sim-ey combat, so they can get away with abstracting out ammo.

I like the learn-by-doing system in theory, but in practice it's almost always too grindy, or encourages grinding too much. I'd like a hybrid system. You invest your skill points on level ups, but you also get discounts on skills you used most in the least level. If there's, for example, 10 skills, you could get discounts for 3 most used skills. Darklands had my personal favorite learn-by-doing system, because you had discrete gameplay chunks that you earned points at the end of, and the rewards weren't directly related to the amount of times you did them if I recall. Either way, making basic stuff like Jumping part of a learn by doing system isn't good for gameplay, IMO, unless you are very careful about it. Also, I'm wondering why you speculate 1) that we have classes 2) that, if we did, they wouldn't be fun classes?

My opinion on infinite vs. restricted ammo (for guns or bows or whatever) is that it's a good thing when it makes for interesting decisions. For example, take a 9mm SMG vs a 9mm pistol in a theoretical game. Both do the same damage per bullet in this game, but the SMG has a much higher rate of fire and is less accurate than the 9mm pistol. I think restricted ammo could make this an interesting decision, because it adds a 2nd way of rating the quality of weapons. With infinite ammo, you're just asking "what is the most efficient way to defeat an enemy in terms of damage per second (a.k.a damage efficiency)" whereas with restricted ammo you're asking "what is the best balance between damage per bullet (i.e. cost efficiency) and damage efficiency". In some cases, it might be worth it to use the pistol in close range because you can't afford to lose the cost of the bullets that would miss even if the firing rate made up for the damage that would be lost by the missed bullets. If this doesn't make sense I can clarify. But I think a lot of games have limited ammo because "that's what games do" and there's nothing really interesting about it. For instance, I think limited ammo in a lot of dungeon crawl ARPGs are unnecessary. They act mostly as a time limit on your adventuring because you don't generally have different ammo types, they only affect certain classes, and you already have plenty of things in these games that limit your adventuring time. Like, depending on the game, health potions, limited inventory, etc. I think New Vegas is doing a good job with this. Limited ammo matters a lot in that game because ammo is (in general) kind of scarce, ammo types are strongly differentiated, and so saving and being smart about how you "spend" your ammo is something you have to do.

Clearly this game is in the hands of a madman! Barrels better... no way. Crates are just so... warehouse level. But barrels? Barrels could be filled with mead, ale or some other festive fantasy beverage. Or gold coins and a breastplate. Don't ask me why. Mead... have you ever had mead? It makes you understand why the Vikings were awesome incarnate. Actually I haven't, but I've had Barenjager and it's a similar idea. It's really good!

When I was working on SoZ I always thought of it as a spiritual successor to the Gold Box games.