Fallout: New Vegas

[RPGmasterBoo]

Its mix of role-playing and first-person shooting game elements, as well as its elaborate and expansive story, earned Fallout 3 critical praise and several game-of-the-year awards. The game has sold about 4 million copies.

Was I playing the pre-alpha version? Mine had a crappy short copy/paste story.

 

I was just waiting for someone to mention this.

[Wombat]

J. E. Sawyer - Icewind Dale II, Baldur's Gate: The Black Hound (canceled), Van Buren (canceled Fallout 3), Neverwinter Nights 2, Aliens: Crucible (canceled)

How could you forget about Heart of Winter expansion for IWD? I think the story was not bad at all. However, I wonder if he needs to include crazy woman in his works...

[Niten_Ryu]

Didn't Avellone also work on Thorn? And Sawyer did writing and design for Gauntlet. Iirc, they ended up cutting a lot of his stuff out of the game though. I also think Sawyer did some work for IWD1.

 

I'm sure that someone in here remember who worked on that unfortunate project named Torn. Nine years seem to be eternity in the intrawebs so I couldn't even find my own posts about it in various (mostly defunct) boards.

[Flouride]

Didn't Avellone also work on Thorn? And Sawyer did writing and design for Gauntlet. Iirc, they ended up cutting a lot of his stuff out of the game though. I also think Sawyer did some work for IWD1.

 

I'm sure that someone in here remember who worked on that unfortunate project named Torn. Nine years seem to be eternity in the intrawebs so I couldn't even find my own posts about it in various (mostly defunct) boards.

 

I remember Scott Warner (worked on IWD, later moved on to make Call of Duty?) and Dave Maldonado working on it.

[Enoch]

Didn't Avellone also work on Thorn? And Sawyer did writing and design for Gauntlet. Iirc, they ended up cutting a lot of his stuff out of the game though. I also think Sawyer did some work for IWD1.

 

I'm sure that someone in here remember who worked on that unfortunate project named Torn. Nine years seem to be eternity in the intrawebs so I couldn't even find my own posts about it in various (mostly defunct) boards.

The first name that my memory drags up as associated with the ill-fated Torn project is Dave Maldonado.

[Ausir]

LOL, another world exclusive!

[RPGmasterBoo]

LOL, its on the cover despite the competition being the DA expansion and Crysis 2!

 

This game is either going to make Obsidian rich, or ruin them completely.

Edited February 17, 2010 by RPGmasterBoo

[J.E. Sawyer]

How could you forget about Heart of Winter expansion for IWD?

It's something that many of us try, but few succeed at.

[vault_overseer]

Josh, so what's this about a joke?

[Oner]

How could you forget about Heart of Winter expansion for IWD?

It's something that many of us try, but few succeed at.

You don't like HoW?

[Wombat]

How could you forget about Heart of Winter expansion for IWD?

It's something that many of us try, but few succeed at.

You don't like HoW?

I don't feel much love to IWD series even from ex-BIS designers especially compared with that to Fallout and Planescape:Torment. Also, they are not considered as success either in terms of commercial one and one as independent works. However, personally, I don't think they are totally bad since it tries to introduce some legends/myths which are not so familiar with AD&D players. Probably, historical/religious knowledge of the members played a certain role. Talking of it, we all know even the basic concept of The Black Hounds are based on the story of Irish hero. I liked the arts direction of them, too.

 

Although the above is just my personal opinion, while quite many people seem to have forgotten, you cannot ignore the impact of the music on the later works. Where do you find Zur or Soule, before this series?

 

Of course, compared with FO and PS:T, they are not as good as they are but are they really just garbage?

[Slowtrain]

IWD was my favorite IE game by far.

 

IWD2 though not so much.

[J.E. Sawyer]

The IWD series was actually quite commercially successful for Interplay. Certainly Interplay had much more profitable titles (e.g. the BG games), but the ROI percentage for IWD games was very high.

 

IWD was a workhorse series for Interplay. The games had short, high-pressure development cycles. They were fun games to work on, but PS:T had received such critical acclaim and so many of us (as I recall) wanted to work on Fallout 3 at the time that continuing work on the IWD series eventually became disheartening for some of us (me). Even if you can look at a game you've made and objectively say, "Yeah I guess that's pretty good," few people get into the industry with aspirations to make "pretty good" games.

[Slowtrain]

I thought the first section of IWD2 was more than pretty good. The combat was fun, the environments were interesting, the 3E rules were a nice change of pace, but starting with the Ice Palace it all began to fall apart into the thankless hell of pointless repetitve combat. Granted IWD certainly had its share of grindy bits, such as the last couple levels of Dragon's Eye, but somehow it managed to keep things interesting in a way that IWD 2 never did.

[Enoch]

I played about 70% of HoW. Then I was entering one of the map areas, sent my stealthed thief ahead to scout out what I'd be facing, saw how many packs of similar enemies I'd have to grind through to continue, and had the epiphany that I had better things to do with my time.

 

At that point, all the complaints about HoW's brevity brought to mind the old "The food here is terrible" "Yeah, and the portions are too small" joke. IWD2 had its flaws, but it had the advantage of a higher "interesting setpiece battle" to "oh look another pack of wights to kill" ratio.

 

 

To bring us back to the topic, erm, F:NV should avoid long dungeons full of repetitive grindy combat without any interesting setpieces the break the monotony.

Edited February 18, 2010 by Enoch

[bhlaab]

The Icewind Dales are in my backlog but I couldn't even finish Baldur's Gate 2 so maybe i should just forget it...

[Oner]

How could you forget about Heart of Winter expansion for IWD?

It's something that many of us try, but few succeed at.

You don't like HoW?

I don't feel much love to IWD series even from ex-BIS designers especially compared with that to Fallout and Planescape:Torment. Also, they are not considered as success either in terms of commercial one and one as independent works. However, personally, I don't think they are totally bad since it tries to introduce some legends/myths which are not so familiar with AD&D players. Probably, historical/religious knowledge of the members played a certain role. Talking of it, we all know even the basic concept of The Black Hounds are based on the story of Irish hero. I liked the arts direction of them, too.

 

Although the above is just my personal opinion, while quite many people seem to have forgotten, you cannot ignore the impact of the music on the later works. Where do you find Zur or Soule, before this series?

 

Of course, compared with FO and PS:T, they are not as good as they are but are they really just garbage?

Personally I loved IWD (after I learned the rules system that is). I didn't find anything I didn't like in it bar the back-and-forth loot-lugging. _{And a game with Michael Bell is awesome by default.}

 

 

The IWD series was actually quite commercially successful for Interplay. Certainly Interplay had much more profitable titles (e.g. the BG games), but the ROI percentage for IWD games was very high.

 

IWD was a workhorse series for Interplay. The games had short, high-pressure development cycles. They were fun games to work on, but PS:T had received such critical acclaim and so many of us (as I recall) wanted to work on Fallout 3 at the time that continuing work on the IWD series eventually became disheartening for some of us (me). Even if you can look at a game you've made and objectively say, "Yeah I guess that's pretty good," few people get into the industry with aspirations to make "pretty good" games.

I see.

[RPGmasterBoo]

I loved IWD as well. Don't remember HoW though I probably finished it. Never finished IWD2 because of the grind in the Ice Palace, mentioned by Slowtrain.\

 

I think IWD's visual design was at times superior to all other IE games, it really set the mood.

[Enoch]

F:NV inquiry that might have been mentioned in the magazine features but that I don't recall hearing about: What is the generic name that the gameworld will use for the player character? "The Courier" sounds pretty lame.

[Wombat]

The IWD series was actually quite commercially successful for Interplay. Certainly Interplay had much more profitable titles (e.g. the BG games), but the ROI percentage for IWD games was very high.

Then, my misunderstanding about the commercial part. I think a member of BIS wrote something like IWD2 managed to keep the company float back then. So, I thought the income was not that good but, considering the condition of Interplay at that time, there must have been much money needed just to keep the ball rolling... A heavily indebted company feels like a black hole, which sucks everything.

 

I thought the first section of IWD2 was more than pretty good. The combat was fun, the environments were interesting, the 3E rules were a nice change of pace, but starting with the Ice Palace it all began to fall apart into the thankless hell of pointless repetitve combat. Granted IWD certainly had its share of grindy bits, such as the last couple levels of Dragon's Eye, but somehow it managed to keep things interesting in a way that IWD 2 never did.

As for the repetitive game-play, the combat focused game-play probably comes from D&D ruleset. While IWD series tried to make combat game-play itself interesting with various settings, Bioware tends to put mini games and riddles in the game. It seems that the latter turns out to be more successful.

 

Also, I guess the unbalanced quality of IWD2 reflects the condition of BIS at that time, to some extent. There are some good parts but, unfortunately, they ended up with emphasizing worse parts. The prologue part by Chris Avellone was memorable, for example, but, probably, the whole work didn't justify the human resource in BIS as Sawyer pointed out. IMO, the mercenary setting also had its hit and miss. It made the game unique compared with typical FR campaign but, at the same time, it didn't feel right in the context of tactical combats: A small party manages to single-handedly defeat an organized militant group felt rather ridiculous. The whole scenario would have been more suitable to a strategy game. It worked in the prologue, where it was just for defending a small village, giving the feel of seven samurai, though.

 

I loved IWD as well. Don't remember HoW though I probably finished it. Never finished IWD2 because of the grind in the Ice Palace, mentioned by Slowtrain.\

 

I think IWD's visual design was at times superior to all other IE games, it really set the mood.

Talking of the mood, I think that of Mask of the Betrayer, which is probably the best work in all NWN2 series and Obsidian works so far, reminds me of that of IWD series. However, to come up with the world with original feel is one thing and to sharpen it to an independent work is another. While IWD series established/tried to establish its own original feel to the world out of the rather unimpressive Forgotten Realm setting, basically, the players cannot do anything with it outside of combat, which significantly differentiate the series from FO and PS: T. The art design, music and the mythology are good but they were just "wallpapers." Jefferson or The Black Hound seems to address the "issue" but it was canceled. Since it was not out, I guess I have to talk about completed works. Mask of the Betrayer is what we were finally able to play under a setting with more or less similar feel.

 

Mabybe, my appreciation to IWD series simply shows how I am tired of stereotypical North American fantasy setting. For example, I think the Witcher is another work, which managed to establish a fairly original fantasy world through Slavic folklore, although its setting is probably best remembered as the hybrid between fantasy and hard-boiled factors. By letting the players allow reasonably change the fates of some characters, I think, it was successful in both keeping the dark atmosphere and offering the meaningful choices to the players. For, if the protagonist were able to just anything in the dark setting, it would make the setting, itself, a joke. I don't think it was successful in revolutionizing RPG genre as the designers, or, rather the PRs claim, but it was a fresh change of air to the rather tired setting and, IMO, it was successful in keeping the mood from the start to the end.

 

Thinking about it, I seem to be favor of original and atmospheric settings and possible story development in them. This probably explains why I haven't played FO3 since I don't think Bethesda is able to give these factors justice. Nobody needs to be overly authentic to the lore but I'd like the setting to be through rather than it to be apologetic to what people expect to their typical RPGs. Even if it is imaginary world, it should be respected. I don't need knights in shimmering armor in the crazy post-apocalyptic world, at least without any humor or parody touch. However, judging form what I gathered so far about FO: NV, I don't think I need to worry about such thing, at least. Rather, I guess I should hope Obsidian will manage to nanny Embryo for every platform in time.

 

F:NV inquiry that might have been mentioned in the magazine features but that I don't recall hearing about: What is the generic name that the gameworld will use for the player character? "The Courier" sounds pretty lame.

Of course, I don't like it implies tons of repetitive Fedex quests but, my understanding is that, it's a good position to alienate the PC while keeping him/her accessible to/from different political powers or factions. I think the PC in Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines took a similar approach.

[Majek]

I love IWD as well, HoW too, Totl as well I'll have to replay it all one of these days.

 

I have hopes for F:NV as well, since things will actually work now.

[Nightshape]

The IWD series was actually quite commercially successful for Interplay. Certainly Interplay had much more profitable titles (e.g. the BG games), but the ROI percentage for IWD games was very high.

 

IWD was a workhorse series for Interplay. The games had short, high-pressure development cycles. They were fun games to work on, but PS:T had received such critical acclaim and so many of us (as I recall) wanted to work on Fallout 3 at the time that continuing work on the IWD series eventually became disheartening for some of us (me). Even if you can look at a game you've made and objectively say, "Yeah I guess that's pretty good," few people get into the industry with aspirations to make "pretty good" games.

 

Objectively looking at a game you've worked on and saying it's pretty good, isn't that like wearing a dress you've been raped in?

[RPGmasterBoo]

It was quite clear what he meant to say

 

I just remembered Heart of Winter. Yeah, it sucked.

 

Tried to install ID2, but couldn't get it to work with the widescreen mod.

[Wombat]

[Off Topic]

I'll post again about the off topic issue just to avoid giving a wrong signal as a player. I liked the atmosphere of IWD, which is composed of the usage of mythology and the art direction. As some people pointed out, it was rather surprising that the designer managed to keep things interesting in a game which is intensely focused on combat. However, of course, if BIS had been able to make something like FO or PS: T, using the same amount of time, I'd rather forget about all the IWD series. The problem here is that the players cannot judge the works which are not released.

 

That said, I'm another who is looking forward to FO: V. I hope it can compensate ex-BIS members for the hard time of their suppressed ambition.

[RPGmasterBoo]