Dhruin

Majesco went awfully close to going under. Whether their financial problems preceeded the quality issues or vice versa, once any company is staring at ruin, patches and support will often be among the first things to go. It's a shame -- but you'll never, ever, ever change this. It's particularly a pity because it is actually original (or at least "different") games such as Psychonauts that near killed them. Except they won't ever make their own Arcanum. Not as such. I'm not disagreeing that Obsidian is smarter from a business perspective (and I'm not trying to denigrate them) but their first IP (whatever it is) will tread a very careful path with plenty of elements to appeal to a wider audience. I understand this necessity but Arcanum was pretty unashamably aimed at a more hardcore audience than I think Obsidian will shoot for. For all the flaws of Arcanum, I think the gaming world is richer for it having been made than not.

In two or three or whatever years time, I'll be adding a newsbit to RPGDot that reads "EA closes Mythic studio, handful of staff offered positions at Redmond". And then "Ex-Mythic staffers found new indepedent studio". 'Tis the cycle of massive modern development.

The topic has already turned but I think this is way off base. You're some sort of game development student, aren't you? You honestly believe these two games have similar underlying philiosophies but Gothic failed? Explain.

You're wrong on every point except the story. If you add The Night of the Raven, the story from that is pretty damn good. You've made up your mind, though...why waste time explaining further?

Good luck to them. I'll stick with supporting Bioshock. Edit: now if they just got Doug Church and Randy Smith to move over from that Spielberg title...

Which is fair enough. You'd have to acknowledge the market sees it differently. WoW sales > GW. WoW sales > any other PC game since it's launch (that I am aware of). Bear in mind that GW's aggressive expansion pack release schedule (or whatever you want to call their standalone additions) is intended as a direct replacement for subscription revenue. I'm not criticising ArenaNet and this model offers a welcome choice, but they are simply trying to pull regular, ongoing revenue in a different way. @Karka, when you say "old-fashioned", what about the old CompuServe titles like the original Pool of Radiance. What was it...$4 / hour?

It's part of Microsoft's "optimised for Vista" campaign (whatever that means, exactly) but it's not Vista-exclusive.

Their website does a pretty good job of providing info but we have the first interview if anyone would like to read more. Click me.

We have a pretty comprehensive interview here, along with one new screenshot (sorry - only one). There's a pretty good description of the magic, as well.

We talked about this previously, Shadowstrider, and when I pointed out videos that showed more than Oblivion's we-faked-setting-a-dog-on-fire, you just hadn't looked at them. Not exactly their fault. They are talking about combat now but they have spent much of their previous efforts showing off different quest solutions and multiple paths. On the controls, there is full keyboard control including (remappable) WASD control, although I'm unclear how targeting would work.

It's not quite that big a stretch. I think he is probably wrong but there are signs that could be interpreted as the development struggling - and don't discount Atari's role. A big part of the ToEE debacle was the state at release. Will Atari extend the development time if it is needed? Doesn't seem likely. Has Atari pushed incomplete games out the door in desperation before? You bet. Has this developer had a game forced out incomplete by a publisher before? Arguably. Is the development ahead of schedule? Doesn't seem likely - in fact, there has been a string of PR issues with little good news. Each of them is pretty minor - probably blown way out of proportion by the community - but from Baudoin leaving suddenly, to Sawyer immediately announcing several things had been cut, to arguments about length, to the debacle with the DM client. And what whizz-bang stuff was released at E3 to counter all this? Mmmm...best I can think of is a press release out of France on some NPCs. He may be wrong, but he isn't pulling it entirely out of thin air.

Nonsense. People can be swayed to buy by hype, marketing, license...all sorrts of things not related to the quality.

Too much to reply to so I'll just simply say, I think it's a shame many of you think it's fine to pull support on a game that isn't costing Atari anything (as far as we know, BioWare is shouldering everything), potentially out of fear instead of seeing it as a positive marketing force for the new title. Many people do enjoy the PMs and this doesn't benefit gamers at all, so I don't really understand why some want to rush off to defend Atari. It's bad for at least some gamers - how is it good for any gamers? And before commenting on DLA's humility or amateur status, go read Zoeller's comments in the thread Volourn linked. On one title saving Atari, they have been in this position several times before. The one that comes to immediate mind is Driv3r, where they bet the farm and just pulled through. IIRC, they pre-shipped 4 million copies of that, so NWN2 isn't likely to help as much. Still, this is what Atari does.

Some of the positions call for FPS experience and artists with scifi/mech experience, so I think the chances it is BG3 are zippo. I'll reiterate my belief that there is no BG3. If it were RPG-related, I'd guess maybe Deus Ex...but there's more chance it's just a straight FPS franchise.

I guess we don't know the details of the contracts, but ultimately, I'd be surprised if the contract didn't give the licensor full ultimate control. Remember when Troika used to say they couldn't release patches (either ToEE or VtM) without approval from the licensor because it was their property? And how any D&D game needs to get everything approved by WoTC? Even the latest Infinite Dungeons module apparently had a boss pulled because of Eberron/FR crossover.

Is it a big deal? Well, yes and no. No, if you aren't interested in Premium Modules or the new content in patches. The game works perfectly well but each patch usually adds new features or base monsters. It's "yes" if you look at the bigger picture of a licensor interfering with a very successful community. I'm not a huge BioWare fan but they deserve credit for their ongoing support of NWN and we shouldn't be pleased when a licensor (apparently) stops that. How do gamers win from that?

You replied as I was typing. I have to learn to type faster.

In brief, DLA is the team that were working on bringing DragonLance Adventures to NWN. They were so good, they were hired by BioWare for their content to be used in official Premium Modules. If you go here, you'll see 7x of the bosses plus tilesets and more in the latest Infinite Dungeons official Premium Mod come from DLA. They are no longer working on DragonLance but have become a semi-professional game art house. According to Steel_Wind (the DLA team lead), Atari won't let BioWare release any more patches or official modules for NWN1, because they are wary of the sales impact on NWN2. The veracity of the claim is unproven, but Steel-Wind isn't any random fool and as you can see, has worked on BioWare's latest NWN stuff.

Good heavens, no.

Agreed. I'm still not convinced this will work in its current form. Time will tell.

True. It's not so clear to me that this option will gain mainstream support, as opposed to nVidia's solution, something else, or nothing altogether. The Voodoo was preceeded by the Rendition Verite...and that didn't last. I would suggest the Rendition was more compelling (for its handful of titles) than a card that offers prettier explosions at the potential cost of poorer performance. We'll see.

That's a pretty awful list. Is anyone honestly impressed with those titles?

I don't want to get too carried away over what I think is probably a small issue, but for me personally, it's another sign they are struggling with the schedule. I might be wrong, but I'm going to be cautious come release.

End of conversation for me. 'Bye.

If you understood the fundamental point, you wouldn't ask this. The masses won't suddenly buy these titles. But because there are higher margins with DD, you can sell less copies and still be viable. The current system requires mass sales, hence less diversity.