Gromnir

How so ? Unless your refering to availability anyone who wants the game that much will still go to the store and get it. Your still directly competing with whatever ever else is being released at the same time too. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> direct online sales, whenever such thing becomes viable, will change the dynamic forever. why is developers at mercy of publishers? developers spends years of effort to makes a game and then in a week the publisher manufactures and distributes and takes the lion's share of profits. why? obsidian not got manufacturing facilities and they sure as hell not gots distibution resources needed to gets hudreds of thousands or millions of units to stores 'cross the world. obsidian, and other independent developers not got the capital needed to be real publishers. people act likes bioware is big, but they not got near 'nuff resources to honestly create their own manufacturing and distribution facillities... which is why they is trying so hard to push their downloadable nwn modules, 'cause such things is the forerunners of direct online game sales. direct online sales of gaming software is gonna forever change the face of the industry... and we ain't being hyperbolic in the least. HA! Good Fun!

nope. ps:t set somewheres other than planescape would not be the same. planescape, the setting, were at least as important as any single character in the game. all kinds of little details that were unique to planescape would not have worked nowhere else. (in large part due to copyright laws.) nevertheless, in spite of evidence to contrary, we has confidence that the obsidian folks could come up with an original setting that appeased the masses and were a bit darker and more introspective than the typical forgotten realms game. would it be same as planescape? would it have dustmen and lady of pain and the pillar of bones? no... but maybe it would be better. HA! Good Fun!

but what about a siberian tiger v. a grizzly bear? ... goofs. HA! Good Fun!

toee were a great game to be throwing in the faces of troika fans... previous to toee release Gromnir and vol and maybe 2 other folks on the atari boards noted that toee were a pretty lame hack 'n slash module and that maybe toee weren't the best source material. not only does they choose an existing module so that Gromnir already knows where everything is and who all the characters are, but they manage to choose a crappy module on top of everything else they done wrong. the troika fan reply were near universal: the old tsr modules are simply a framework. troika is the dm and they will flesh it out as any good dm should. Gromnir reply: after reading the dialogues from arcanum, we is convinced that the troika writers couldn't author a recipe for toast w/o screwing it up beyond all reason. as expected, Gromnir

"Game over!" well that portion, at the very least, is an accurate depiction o' troika. HA! Good Fun!

ain't got nothing to do with being a yank. park avenue real estate makes most of greater london looks cheap. buy some boggy bit o land in northern england for more or less than what it cost to buy on chicago's gold coast? maybe you is one of the handful of mainlanders that managed to own a shack on kuai...see how much that costs. HA! Good Fun!

convincing a publisher to make your game is not same as doing okie dokie on some high school debate team issue. sure, an argument can be made that there is lots/lost more ps:t fans out there than the initial 2 quarter sales numbers is showing. so what? you got a dead property that wotc does not wanna support and you gotta somehow overcome the crappy all-important first 2 quarter sales numbers that ps:t had if you is gonna convince a publisher to invest millions in your game. those is some big hurdles. ... is tough enough to get publishers to makes the next clone of the current IN title. how much more work it take to gets somebody to make ps:t2? btw, a common complaint from folks on the bis/interplay boards 'bout ps:t were simply that they didn't like the setting. as much as some folks LOVED the setting, it sure seemed like one of the great obstacles to ps:t success were simply that folks did not embrace planescape. so if a developer wanna do a planescape kinda game with planescape kinda characters and planescape kinda themes and the same crappy planescape kinda combat, wouldn't you at least set your planescape kinda game somewheres other than planescape? publishers is idiots, but they ain't as dumb as some folks seems to thinks. HA! Good Fun!

somebody expects to learn something 'bout Gromnir from his desktop? probably not, but if you if you is, you is bound to be left unfulfilled. HA! Good Fun!

proof, as if needed, that the world is not fair. women who is more intelligent or better looking than the average wh0re can becomes a pr0n star. women who is slightly more intelligent or more attractive than the average pr0n star can becomes a trophy wife. nevertheless, there is serious stigma attached to being or being with a wh0re as 'posed to being or being with a trophy wife... in spite of fact that so little distances the wh0re from the trophy wife. HA! Good Fun!

ok, add another to list... ai control of party... 'cause there has not yet been ai control that caused anything save frustration. no matter how good the ai we always ends up wishing bloody murder 'pon the developers... or simply dump party mates. HA! Good Fun!

return to sigil and talk with mebbeth after you has already encountered ravel in maze. *shrug* is culmination of work that went into a wonderfully crafted character... best in a crpg. HA! Good Fun!

From what I've seen (on forums and such) VO is less costly than you'd think. I don't have any numbers, but I've read that it's actually a pretty marginal cost, which is why so many games does it. Personally I love full VO, it adds so much athmosphere. And theoretically it should improve the writing as well (when your dialgoue is actually spoken you have to take more care), although ToEE proved that this does not have to be the case. That's a game that would have benefited from NO voiceacting. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> if it is cheap, then strike it from our list. HA! Good Fun!

we is the sum total of our experiences... so we guess that everything we has seen/heard/experienced has changed us whether we recognize or not. sound like a cheap dodge? a few books from high school and university years: "the hero with a thousand faces" joseph campbell "the third wave" alvin toffler "dubliners" james joyce "the art of fiction" john gardner "chaos in classical and quantum mechanics" martin gutzwiller "richard iii" bill shakespeare "beowulf" "pale fire" vladimir nabokov "the dark knight returns" frank miller bible, the HA! Good Fun!

1) older d&d games that had random hps or attributes. dumb. ... dumb, dumb, dumb. the crazy thing is that we still sees support for it. 2) the seeming pre-req for having full vo. ok, this is a beef we gots that might be complete bunk. we is simply assuming that full vo is pretty expensive. we hate to see so many development dollars spent on something that adds some small 'mount of flavor... and can sometimes help prop-up otherwise crappy dialogues with a good vo performance. more content and less vo. 3) the bug that made the kotor2 workbench pointless.... and similar things in other games. yeah, 'cause who needs/wants balance. 4) modern fairytale endings. as 'posed to russian fairytale endings. we not need or want everybody to die or be miserable, but the need for everybody to be hale and happy by closing credits irritates us. is hardly a complete list. HA! Good Fun!

threads like these serve one valuable purpose: we get to find out who the wack jobs is. example: if you had only seen battlewookie's kotor posts you never woulda' known what a foam-at-the-mouth rabid anti-american he were... one of the types who refuse to consider any reasonable argument simply 'cause he were sure that usa and the military were Evil.... or somesuch nonsense. heck, Gromnir has spent most of his adult life fighting The Man, but some of you folks take it to a crazy-insane level that makes teddy kaczynski thinks you is going overboard. so keep posting. Gromnir will take notes. HA! Good Fun!

so you is saying that the first one sucked? HA! Good Fun! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> again, we wish to know if bulock is stating, for the record, that the first nwn sucked. am most curious. HA! Good Fun!

"EDIT: Also, development costs are sometimes lower because a lot of technology from the first title provides a solid base for moving forward." yeah, now how would this help a ps:t remake? what sorta pre turn of century infinity engine tech is gonna be useful in any resurrection of ps:t? btw, in case folks isn't aware, prince of persia were an ip with numerous titles. there had been numerous succesful prince of persia games released previous to warrior within. how many winner ps:t games has there been? so, in spite of sawyer's non analogous example, why on earth would any developer in their right mind go through the effort o' trying to sell ps:t when the folks who is going to have to publish it thought it were a loser. start with 0 expected support from wotc as they use crpgs to sell their print material and they consider planescape dead. start with perception/reality that ps:t were a financial looser. why start out fighting an uphill battle, and as tough as game development racket seems to be... what developer in their right mind would do so? 'cept maybe josh. HA! Good Fun!

so you is saying that the first one sucked? HA! Good Fun!

remake a game that didn't sell the first time? seems like a great way for a developer to be spending their time and resources. no doubt bunches o' publishers will be scrambling to get a chance to be doing another planescape game real soon. HA! Good Fun!

I'm curious...how do you define "police state" in your book? Despite having local yocals from Houston spouting off about Camaera's in homes, the overwhelming majority of Americans, including our politicians, would never allow that to happen. As a nation we have our shortcomings, as does every nation, but to say we're anywhere near a "police state" or a "true totaliterian" state is ridiculus. I also find it interesting that the comments of a local Police Chief somehow become represenative of the federal governments feelings on the issue. That's like assuming how I feel about the death penalty if indicative of how the Governor of the state of Maryland feels about it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> now don't go and get all reasonable in the middle of a rant thread... that just won't be tolerated. HA! Good Fun!

am wondering if you is simply trying to get somebody to call bs. troika never had no concept of the necessity to be developing character. in a crpg you gotta develop characters through cutscenes and some narration, but mostly through dialogues... and troika writers never learned how to makes dialogues compelling. troika dialogues were almost universally akward and stilted and dull, even on the rare occasions when there were some glimmer o' thematic originality that mighta' captured a player's interest. is writing crpg dialogues tedious and difficult? sure it is. give numerous options leading to seemingly endless bifurcation of dialogues is making crpg writing problematic. troika additionally appeared to be much more concerned with making sure that dialogue bifurcation would lead to multiple gameplay options as 'posed to focusing on how dialogues would develop characters and story. make sure that each toee npc would give a bluff option and an intimidate option and a diplomacy option. great. unfortunately simply having more options not make for better dialogues. am not sure where nude francis thinks he/she were going with his/her post, but we is calling bs. HA! Good Fun!

make so-called hard-core games ain't what killed troika. looks at initial sales for toee... started out pretty damned good. initial sales of arcanum weren't bad neither. is some folks that wanna repaint troika stoopidity as some kinda noble integrity. rubish. troika games were buggy messes that seemed half-baked. as crappy as were the writing in troika games, stability were even worse... and yet after each incomplete game were released, troika folks went public with their own publisher blame game. stoopid. were stoopid for not having better organizational skills to be choosing what they could accomplish with the resources they possesed. were stoopid for attacking the guys with the money. were stoopid to make those same mistakes over and over again. btw, we don't have to yet again go over how troika messed up identify in toee does we? HA! Good Fun!

"Yeah, he was talking console yet he mentioned DA by name yet not JE even though JE was the one closest to release at the time. rolleyes.gif " ... is vol speaking in tongues again? "Neither EA or Obsidian has all the facts. They have more insider knowledge than we do; but nowhere near as much as BIO or MS does when it comes to JE." and ea and obsidian has far less reason to bs Gromnir 'bout actual sales of je and whether or not it were a goodly seller. nevertheless, vol is willing to simply accept that bio story in spite of fact that other developers is telling him that the bio story sound fishy. is not like bio is saying anything other than "trust us," but vol accepts. and btw, the ps:t situation is pretty damned analogous... and you squeezing eyes shut and shaking head will not change that reality. with both je and ps:t you gots a game that had substantial critical acclaim and a devoted core of fans. you also had a game that failed to meet sales expectations. you had a game where developers from other companies shook their collective noggins with much sadness and expressed their sympathies for the maker of the critically acclaimed game that did not sell so well. and you had some handful of devout fans and proselytizing developers who were insisting 'gainst all reason their game were actually a winner in terms o' sales. btw, Gromnir never stated that je were a disaster in terms of sales. we said sales were mediocre, and we noted that sales undoubtedley failed to meet expectations. you makes national televised commercials for a game and you is no doubt expecting better than mediocre. HA! Good Fun!

what you mean? you can find bugs and bad dialogues in most games. HA! however, we understand what you is getting at. always seemed like troika's biggest obstacle were themselves. too much ego and not enough business accumen to be making commercial success games. HA! Good Fun!

lucas owns star wars. is not same as doing a new ip. HA! Good Fun!