Sermon

Exactly. Even in games where you only control one character there's quite an amount of micro-management to deal with. The only alternative are Diet-RPG's with a dumbed down interface and simplified controls that do all the micro-managing for you (Dungeon Siege for example), but the problem is that these games can hardly be called RPG's and are IMO not really worth playing.

BG might be better

I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but I felt that BG did have equally as much combat. I do have to say that the bundle IWD+HOW+TOTLM is the IE game I go back to most.

Yes, it sucked to meander across the world map, hoping faintly that I'd bump into some story during my great search for the Big Bad. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I was actually thinking the same when I was playing BG ...

Merely voicing my opinion on the impression I got when he was posting on the old BIS forums. A statement. An opinion. Nothing else. I would hardly call that flaming.

I don't understand where you're trying to go ...

I am not refering to his news post, but I am refering to the way he behaved on the BIS/Lionheart forums. His postings basically made him look like a complete ar*e.

Sadly enough IWD was, like you said, negatively branded as a hack'n slash game. I tried to tell people back then that it's a lot more than hack'n slash. It's a great CRPG gameplaywise in the tradition of the old, classic CRPG's of the eighties and early nineties, HIGHLY enjoyable, with all the elements a great CRPG needs. I actually enjoyed the IWD games a lot more than the BG games and still think that IWD1 has a better and deeper story than BG1, the over-rated "epic".

Exitium? Oh yes, I remember Exitium from the old BIS forum, always behaving like a pompous, self-important ar*e ...

Nah ... Curling would be much more exciting ...

Stronghold 2 looks very promising. I like the mix of castle-building/-management simulation and real-time combat. I'm not a huge RTS fan, but I'll be having a go at that one when it comes out at the end of April.

Actually it was Michael CRANFORD and he worked on both "Bard's Tale - Tales of the Unknown" and on "Bard's Tale 2 - Destiny Knight". Bill Heineman had this to say about Michael Cranford's participation in Bard's Tale: Brian Fargo was the main guy, he and Jay Patel, Troy Worrell and myself were the first 4 people who were Interplay... In 1984, Mike Cranford suggested that Interplay Productions should do a fantasy role playing game (Wizardry was hot at the time). However the game's name was 'Tales of the Unknown'... Mike never 'worked' for Interplay. He was an independent contractor. he was able to do this since he was an old high school buddy of Brian Fargo. Cranford worked in an office at Interplay up until the completion of Bard's Tale I. He did Bard's Tale II from his home. Here's what Michael Cranford has to say about not being involved in BT3: The reason I wasn't involved in BTIII is complicated. Part of it was that I wanted to leave Interplay so that I could go back to school. I was pretty burnt out on D&D game programming . . . and wanted to pursue studies in philosophy and theology. I also thought I didn't need Interplay at that point, and had a falling out with Brian Fargo. It turned out to be a good decision spiritually, though not financially! Yep - the spell list was in the manual and you had to type in the spells, like SOSH or ANMA. Mangar's Mind Blade is actually correct

Hmmm ... the first CRPG I played must have been Ultima 2 on the Commodore 64 back in 1984. The first RPG I ever completed was Bard's Tale 1, also on the Commodore 64 ... bought all the Bard's Tale games again later on the Commodore Amiga because of the nifty graphics ...

I guess you know that it's completely different in tone, atmosphere, genre and content compared to the originals. Anyway, I'm tempted by "Devil Whiskey", the hommage to the Bard's Tale games. I've played the demo and it really plays like the old Bard's Tale games with updated graphics. Does anybody own the full game?

Nah, your memory is playing tricks on you. The games didn't require the manuals for story-progression. That was not common with EA games (all of the Bard's Tale games were released by Electronic Arts and developed by Interplay). As for Dragon Wars, that was released after Bard's Tale 3 (around 1990 if I remember correctly) and supposed to be an unofficial Bard's Tale 4, as EA still hold the rights to the Bard's Tale series and Interplay couldn't use the original Bard's Tale content, so instead of making Bard's Tale 4 they released Dragon Wars.

I doubt that the PC versoin will be any different compared to the X-Box version and I guess that's not such a good sign. The humour seems to be quite lacklustre as well. Here's a review: Bard's Tale review on Gamespot.com Shame really. A great, classic series of games ruined ...

A few corrections

It's very unusual for a developer to open a forum for a game that hasn't been officially announced yet, no matter how strong the rumours are and no matter how much everyone knows it's in production. I'd say we will have to wait until the official announcement before the forum for New Jersey opens.

Well, good to see some familiar faces again! Anyway, more people could still be playing these mods than you think. It could be a hundred people, it could be hundreds of people and it could be thousands of people who still play these mods. It could be even more people than that who are constantly replaying PS:T, the BG- and the IWD-games, people who are just waiting for new games like these to be made. We don't know and you don't know Volourn. Unless you've got some numbers to back up a statement like that, which I doubt.

I couldn't agree more. It's a shame that it didn't work out, but there were a few IE-style games that looked promising. Not really wanting to comment on the overall quality of the game I must say that I liked Troika's "Temple of Elemental Evil" engine, which nicely combined beautifully rendered 2D-backgrounds with 3D-characters and I could definitely have lived with a few more games based on that engine. I can understand the 2D/3D aspect, especially now that 3D games start to come out that really are on par graphics-wise with the quality of good 2D-graphics. Two years ago I really didn't yet see the necessity to go 3D, because 3D didn't look that good back then. That is fortunately changing now. As for the aspect of PC-only-gameplay, I don't see what would be wrong with that, but more on that below. Is there really no market for games like these anymore? I highly doubt it. I, for one, am really getting tired of all these console-ish RPG's that invade the PC market these days. It really pains me to see that all we PC-RPGamers get these days are half-baked conversions of console RPG's and RPG's that are being developed with consoles in mind, with their watered down/dumbed down rulesets and action-oriented, gamepad-friendly gameplay. Especially if you think about what a PC is really capable of. These games aren't really RPG's anymore. They are (in most cases) a dumbed- and watered-down genre mish-mash that tries to appeal to the widest audience possible. In no way am I critizising you guys at Obsidian here, because you catered, in order to survive on the market, to what the market and the publisher demands, but KOTOR2 is to a certain extent really no exception to that trend. Maybe it takes another game like Baldur's Gate (IMO not the best of the IE titles, but definitely the game that breathed life back into a then dead genre) or Fallout to end this console-friendly RPG-trend, something that caters to the hardcore-fans in order to revive the proper CRPG.

Well, the engine definitely showed its age and limitations by the time IWD2 was released and even I, a strong supporter of the IE, think that it shouldn't be used anymore. We got some really great games based on that engine, but it's definitely time to let it rest in peace. And, let's face it, no developer in the world would nowadays go back to a 2D-only engine and design a game with it. I was one of the strongest supporters of the beautifully rendered 2D-backgrounds of the Infinity Engine, but now 3D is definitely on its way of catching up with 2D in terms of graphical details. 2 years ago I was still "2D all the way", as the 3D graphics back then were quality-wise still not on par with a detailled 2D backdrop, but ever since I've seen screenshots of games like "Age of Empires 3" I start to think that finally 3D-graphics are on a level nowadays where it finally makes sense to go for 3D instead of 2D.

Same here, although I am by far not as radical as you are. If I want old CRPG-goodness I go back to my Ultimas, Bard's Tales, Phantasies and Wastelands, but I have learned to also be open for new approaches (partly due to the fact that I have given up hoping that there will ever be CRPG's in the classic, traditional, old-school style) and to enjoy the new "RPG's" as well (excluded from this is of course dreck like "Dungeon Siege").

Depends on your definition of a CRPG, really. To be honest, it's been quite a long time since I've seen a "real" CRPG. Most CRPG's these days are nothing more than action-adventures or first-person-shooters with some RPG-elements thrown into the game. Unless you're continously re-playing all the old, classic CRPG's you won't have much to play these days if you're looking for a true CRPG ... that or re-think your definition of a CRPG. For me Gothic and Gothic 2 are as much CRPG's as all of the other so-called CRPG's that have been released in the last couple of years, not necessarily because they're true to *my* definition of a CRPG, but because of the fact that you don't get anything else anymore these days.