Frayed Knights – Bug of the Week
Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 22, 2011
Well, my big “release candidate” build has some bugs in it, apparently. So in addition to finishing the manual, I’m working on a few more bugs than I expected, and we’ve had some amusing ones. The latest one to get fixed is the “nude bug” where characters can’t wear any clothing. Armor is fine, but plain ol’ clothing isn’t working.
This particular bug, caught by Cowgod in the previous build, is one of my favorites. I wish to preface this by saying that Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon does not have an invisibility spell:
Cool, huh?
As I was digging into this one trying to figure out what the heck was going on, I stumbled into a logic / gameplay problem that reminded me of the early days of playing Magic: The Gathering. The key was in the scrolling text window. What it looks like is that the tomb skeleton casts a bless on himself, and then goes invisible.
One of the side-effects of the Blessing spell is that your health increases by a small amount. Health is based on physical stats, Blessing gives your physical stats a small kick, therefore health is increased from Blessing. I should note that the game tracks damage, rather than “current health,” though it displays this as current health. Your current health is your maximum health minus your damage. If damage > max health, you die. This was a problem at one point when a spell like Blessing wears off – I had to make sure creatures died properly when spells wore off if it left them with less health than their current damage.
Then we get into some logic issues of what happens if you “stack” like spells. If you already have a spell of one kind on you (duration-based), and get hit with another spell of the same type, the game only “keeps” the one with the longest duration. In this case, the skeleton already had a Blessing that was about to wear off.
Do you see what happened now?
Internally, the game saw the new incoming Blessing spell, compared it to the old one, and decided to supersede the old Blessing effect with the new one. Fine. So it removed the old Blessing effect. But in that split-second between deleting the old Blessing and adding the new one, the monster fell to zero health – death! That triggered some death code. But it was then immediately “healed” by the incoming spell, which caused the follow-up code – which checks to see if the monster is dead – not to fire.
So the monster was only mostly dead. Which is still partly alive.
Well, okay, it’s a skeleton, so it’s undead, but you see what I mean.
And you see what I mean about how coding up an RPG can be a bit more challenging than many other genres? I wouldn’t think twice about something like that in a pen-and-paper RPG. But it can get a little trickier when all that exception-based gameplay makes its way into code.
Many thanks to Cowgod for his testing efforts, and especially for his recording of a bunch of issues like this. I don’t know if I would have figured it out without the video!
Filed Under: Frayed Knights - Comments: 4 Comments to Read
FrayedKnights.com – New and Improved!
Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 21, 2011
FrayedKnights.com has had a facelift! And new content!
It just redirects to http://rampantgames.com/frayedknights, and you may need to refresh your browser to see the new and improved version if you have been there recently, but there you go! With the trailer and a screenshot page and everything!
Okay, no, it’s not going to clean your dishes for you or anything. But the old one was looking pretty darn stale.
Filed Under: Frayed Knights - Comments: Read the First Comment
Telepath RPG: Servants of God Pre-Order Sale Ends Next Week
Posted by Rampant Coyote on
Here’s your last chance to get in on the pre-order pricing for Telepath RPG: Servants of God.
Bottom line: On Tuesday, September 27, the price goes up from $19.95 to $24.95.
And to make things even more tempting, the beta available for all pre-orderers (is that a word?) to play has just been updated.
Filed Under: Game Announcements - Comments: 2 Comments to Read
Gamers Solve Virus Protein Problem in Three Weeks that had Eluded Researchers for a Decade
Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 20, 2011
Okay… I understand the headline somewhat overstates the case.
But it’s still frickin’ cool.
FoldIt Players Outperform Computer Models on Viral Protein Problem
I have no clue as to how much of a milestone this is in the hunt for a cure to AIDS. But every baby step counts.
And I don’t know if this can be considered a big success for gamers, or just a big success for crowdsourcing. I don’t know that I really care that much. It’s cool. You hear so much crap in the news that’s so full of angst and negativity and threat, and then you see something like this and remember that we are living in a pretty amazing age, full of awesome.
When a lot of us work together and don’t care who gets the credit, we can do remarkable things.
Filed Under: Geek Life - Comments: 6 Comments to Read
Arrr! More Frayed Knights Morsels for Ye Salty Sea-Dogs!
Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 19, 2011
Ahoy! Splice the mainbrace and enjoy a pair o’ hearty articles about me upcoming indie game, Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon on this 19th day of September…
The first volley comes from GamePro – a quick note about the FK:TSoSD trailer and a brief interview:
GamePro – Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon Trailer
The second is a longer interview with me from Bits ‘n Bytes Gaming. I get a bit informal and “loose in the stays” with this one instead of parleying like a scurvy marketer, but I think it makes for more interestin’ plunder.
Bits ‘n Bytes Gaming: Interview with Frayed Knights‘ Developer Jay Barnson
Enjoy! Arrr!
Filed Under: Frayed Knights - Comments: 3 Comments to Read
Single-Player RPGs Do It Better When…
Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 16, 2011
In his excellent book, “Dungeons & Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games,” Matt Barton makes a comment I somewhat disagreed about considering the future of the genre. In it, he makes a contention echoed by a commenter yesterday that the a lot of the traditional, mechanical combat-oriented gameplay of those old-school RPGs are being done best in Massively Multiplayer Online RPGs.
They aren’t wrong.
But this doesn’t leave the single-player RPG a dinosaur. In the book, Matt seems to contend that the answer lies in more story and character focus. In single-player games, you really can be the hero and focus of the adventure, while in MMORPGs, by definition you really aren’t. Earlier this week, he clarified that position a little bit in the comments for his podcast that he’s not really talking about jRPG-style linear stories which have kinda taken over on the single-player front: the big slickly-produced voice-acted dramas that railroad you into a narrow range of actions. Rather, he and I see much more eye to eye about how things “should” be… where the game rather builds a narrative line around your actions.
Sort of like directing a reality show, maybe?
It’s one of those beautiful things in concept, but having taken a couple of stabs at it, I think it’s a tall order in practice. Maybe someday we’ll get there. But I think that in the meantime, I’ll be happy just seeing more baby steps in that direction. We’ve already seen some progress on that front with games like Fallout. More recently, some really interesting things have been done with dynamic quests and narratives in Soldak’s Depths of Peril and Din’s Curse. I have high expectations for upcoming indie titles Dead State and Age of Decadence, and Soldak’s newly announced Drox Operative as well. This kind of dynamic-narrative gameplay is harder to pull off (but maybe not as expensive) as the “Hollywood wannabe” approach, and it may not be quite what Matt has in mind. But it feels to me like steps in the right direction. Or at least interesting new directions.
I recently read through the CRPG Addict’s commentary on Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny. It’s been a long time since I played the game, but his commentary hits on so many things the game did right. And not much of that is the sort of thing that’s easily replicable in an MMO.
If you are talking about an RPG experience that features repetitive, mechanical combat where you play a single character, I concur that MMOs are a clear winner. They are terribly addictive in that respect, too – especially with good friends to share the experience. But even for solo adventuring, many MMOs provide a pretty good experience. These are good times, and this is the kind of gaming awesomeness I was dreaming of since I first read Henry Melton’s short story, “Catacomb,” in Dragon Magazine in 1985.
But what can single-player games do so much better than the MMOs?
- Really make you feel like the hero of your own story.
- Play a group of adventurers
- Turn based & tactical combat. Sure, this is possible in an MMO, but even fans of turn-based lose patience waiting for others to finish their turns. Tactics are possible in MMOs, particularly if you are raiding, but are pretty uncommon on a smaller scale. And the tactics are often not much more complicated than planning who is going to DoT and who is going to spam heals.
- Puzzles! Particularly of the adventure-game-ish variety. Actually any kind of single-use content. In an MMO, designers must usually avoid any kind of content that can be “solved” once and ignored forever after that. It’s a terrible waste of resources.
- Interactivity: The player can make a serious, lasting impacts on the world.
- Shorter, more intense experiences. Yes, I’m calling this a good thing. Not that I don’t love epic huge games. But in an MMO, the game NEEDS to command the player’s participation for as long as possible, to maximize revenue over the long haul. So they HAVE to kick things out into a big, long grind with massive time-sinks to keep people progressing (slowly). Single-player games can instead be shorter, more intense games that don’t have to be padded out with grinding and filler.
- Game-Breaking Imbalanced FUN! In Ultima V, acquisition of the magic carpet really “broke” the challenge of much of the game. I think that was deliberate. You aren’t competing with other players, and don’t have to worry about “fairness,” so what if something breaks the pattern of the game? In an MMO, this is a cardinal sin. In a single-player game, it can be key. It’s important to shake up the gameplay once in a while and change (some of) the rules … especially to the player’s advantage.
All of these are possible in an MMO. I mean, theoretically an MMO could be a single-player title played remotely with a multiplayer chat running on top of it. But I think these – and more – are some advantages inherent in single-player RPG design that are a poor fit for the constraints and demands of most MMOs.
What are some more? What are the strengths of single-player RPGs over multiplayer?
Filed Under: Design - Comments: 13 Comments to Read
The Rampant Coyote Wizardry 8 Commentary Archive
Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 15, 2011
A reader – let’s call him “Jeff” (since that’s his name), emailed me asking my opinion on Wizardry 8. He was curious about my thoughts since I called it an “Awesome but flawed game” in my interview at IndieRPGs.com.
Poor guy. Little did he know I had a boatload of commentary. It was how I thought I’d “save time” or something. Or rather, justify all the time I was spending playing the game.
In the interest of being lazy, I figured I’d semi-recycle those articles for the benefit of those who never read them almost three years ago when I was writing them. In short – I loved the game, but the length of the combats (even with the speed-up patch) really, really bugged me. I suspect that the game had it’s own version of auto-scaling to the player’s current level, and I managed to get myself up to a high enough level that it was sending me hard-to-kill Rapax by the dozens.
So here you go: The Complete Rampant Coyote Wizardry 8 Commentary Archive:
Part I: So a Samuari, a Valkyrie, and a Bishop Walk Into a Bar…
Part II: Running the Gauntlet
Part III: Vi Domina Tricks
Part IV: Arnika Bank – No Safer Than Under the Mattress
Part V: In Fear of Little Naked Winged Women
Part VI: Old-School Goes Old-School
Part VII: Ratts!
Part VIII: Dances With Rhinos
Part IX: My Duplicity Has a Price
Part X: Missing Men and Mutant Frogs
Part XI: Swimming With the Psi-Sharks
Part XII: Desperately Seeking Marten
Part XIII: Lucky Thirteen, Unlucky Rapax
Part XIV: Storming the Castle
Part XV: Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Part XVI: The Return of the Demon Goddess
Part XVII: Luke, I Am Your Daughter
Part XVIII: Wizardry 8 Parting Shots
While I’d wished I’d played this game when it was new, going back and playing it three years ago was like getting a nice drink of ice water after a desert march. It was surprising even to me how much I’d missed this style of RPG, even in the midst of creating such a game. Fortunately, indies are doing what they can to fill in the gap, though production quality may be just a tad behind the modern AAA standard… 😉
I would love to see this whole series released on GOG.COM. I paid more than retail price for Wizardry 8 on E-Bay, and it still didn’t come with a manual. Or the original box. I don’t know if I’d have the patience to persevere through the first four games, but I never played Wizardry 5, only barely played 6, and would like a cleaner way to play Wizardry 7 than I have now.
Filed Under: Retro - Comments: 9 Comments to Read
Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon Trailer
Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 14, 2011
And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for… has a trailer to announce it!
Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon Trailer!
Those static screenshots were just not cutting it anymore. I recommend setting it to 480p to watch, for readability. Frayed Knights has some occasional text. 🙂
I think the testers will agree that this is a pretty fair representation of the game. I naturally couldn’t show everything I felt was significant… like the drama star system. Or even a fraction of the environments & monsters. But I think it’s a good taste.
And the game’s release is… very soon now. But the next couple of weeks are going to be friggin’ crazy.
Now is the part where I desperately need your help. I’m one guy, making my game (with some help from friends from time to time, thank you!!!) on my own dime. I can use help on the marketing side. I really need to get the word out. I know many of you folks are plugged into the various gaming / RPG websites and forums way better than I am, and have great networks of friends. Please help spread the word. Point to this website, the video, or FrayedKnights.com (which should be getting a small overhaul before the end of the week). Just let people know about it. And the trailer gives you something to show.
I appreciate it!
Filed Under: Frayed Knights - Comments: 12 Comments to Read
In the Future, All Games Will Be First-Person Shooters
Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 13, 2011
Matt Barton joins the dogpile onto beloved franchises that are being remade as plain ol’ shooters:
Matt Barton Podcast #2 – Absolutely Reticulous!
With word that Syndicate is joining X-Com in reincarnation as an FPS, old-school fans are left wondering what’s worse: that classic games that they loved aren’t being made anymore, or that they are getting borged into FPS titles.
You’ve heard me complain about this enough already. Matt gives it a fresh perspective.
The question is, what are you going to do about it?
I don’t know that just refusing to buy these games doesn’t do much. Plenty of others probably will. And if they didn’t, the noble and wise bean-counters in bow-ties will interpret this as meaning, “The PC games industry is dying or dead, just as we predicted. Why, they won’t even buy the absolute BEST braindead made-for-console port we have to offer!”
You know what’s got these guys in a tizzy? Minecraft. Not just Minecraft, but the whole indie game movement, but Minecraft has definitely done more than it’s fair share of taking indie gaming out from under the radar and planted a big ol’ voxel foot in the butt in the mainstream games biz. I don’t think it’s overstating things to say that it’s this era’s Doom. If anything, it may be understating things.
I know it’s going to come off as sounding terribly self-serving, but it’s true: The answer is indie. Every dollar that’s spent on these games are seen as a dollar not spent on the mainstream releases, and the mainstream guys are right frickin’ now asking, “Why?” They are probably coming up with the wrong answers. I suspect I am, too. I don’t know what magic makes one game a hit and another one of equal quality a failure.
With indies, games are being made that address the weird niches. Yeah, they don’t look as good, as Matt points out. And if only a small niche wants to play a game in the style of the original X-Com games, that’s as good as they’ll ever look. They have to fit the budget to the potential sales. But the big question is how big that niche really is. Steam has proven, if nothing else, that if you have a big enough audience to expose to quality indie games, and if said games are priced well within impulse-buy range, the market is a lot larger than many expected. It’s just that nobody knew about these games.
But I’m totally with Matt here. When I have time to play games, I’m playing retro, I’m playing indie, or I’m playing some of those more weird B-grade stuff. And if I don’t demand Crysis / Call of Duty graphics, I’m more thrilled with the quality of PC gaming now than I’ve been in a decade. There’s an incredible wealth of games out there – including a few of those first-person-shooters…
Filed Under: Biz, Retro - Comments: 17 Comments to Read
And Another Frayed Knights Interview
Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 12, 2011
This one featuring the pic of me playing Captain Kirk at that space simulator…
Interview with me at about Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon at IndieRPGs.com
This one is a bit more designer / developer focused. Craig Stern throws some more challenging questions my way, which were a lot of fun to answer.
He takes the opportunity to question me about my blog responses to mainstream designers about creating more “accessible” RPGs (which, in spite of protests to the contrary, too often feels like a euphemism for “dumbed down.”) Also, he asks about the endurance / exhaustion system, and the different kinds of encounters. Meaty stuff to argue over!
And then there’s… this…
Uh, yeah. Read the interview to find out.
Filed Under: Frayed Knights, Interviews - Comments: Comments are off for this article
Thoughts on Ultima: The Second Trilogy
Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 9, 2011
That’s pretty much motherload-quality as far as I am concerned. Well, okay, they need both Ultima 7 games and expansions (via Exult or whatever) on modern systems, I guess. But this is epic.
I’ve already mentioned Ultima IV – it was IMO that finally transcended the artificial barriers of the genre of more “primitive” (but still fun!) games, and introduced gamers to a preview of what CRPGs could be. It’s still a prototype, and somewhat clunky at that, but it’s like the Wright Flyer: Awesome in what it accomplished, maybe not a practical option in today’s world, but it would still be a kick in the pants to fly. Ultima IV still held to a lot of the conventions of the genre borrowed from its pen-and-paper roots, but went a new direction with the main quest, gave your individual actions real consequences, and (something many modern games still don’t “get”) gave you lots of small choices for which there was rarely a clear-cut “best” answer. Show mercy on a fleeing foe, or deliver justice and possibly save others from falling victim to them? Both are good answers, and you had to strike the right balance.
Ultima V always strikes me as the final (and, I guess, “Ultimate”) installment of the classic Ultima look & feel. The story concept is strong, a fantastic twist on the ‘quest of virtue’ from the previous game. It hits a chord that resonates strongly with me, illustrating what happens when ideals of virtue become mandated by force of law: corruption and woe usually result. The player is thrust suddenly from being a world-wide role model and champion to being an underground resistance fighter and outlaw. Amusingly enough, in some ways he is fighting against himself – or at least the corrupted image of himself that has been subverted by the government. This is a kind of story that was pretty much unheard of at the time, and still fairly rare today.
Ultima VI broke the “style” of the series in a lot of ways, but that’s not a bad thing. It perhaps erred too heavily on the simulationist side of things (something I tend to do in my own design and pen-and-paper game-mastering), but it really took the increased realism of the previous titles and compounded them. The world is vastly detailed and interactive, to a degree that only the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series attempt today. The game lags a bit (for me) in the middle, so I’ve never actually finished it. Maybe I’ll give it another shot soon.
Filed Under: Retro - Comments: 5 Comments to Read
Frayed Knights Interview at RPGWatch
Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 8, 2011
I imagine most of the information from this interview is familiar to long-time followers of this blog, but hopefully you’ll find it interesting regardless:
Jay ‘Rampant Coyote’ Barnson Interview at RPGWatch
I feel really weird cutting out an excerpt from my own interview to tease you into reading it. But, putting on my shameless marketing hat for a minute, here’s a tiny one:
RPGWatch: How has your initial vision changed over the development cycle?
JB: Well, let’s see… I had a vision of releasing a full-fledged RPG in only two years of part-time development! That goal’s been blown all to hell for a couple of years now.
I don’t know if my core vision for the game has changed all that much, but the details really have. Limitations in the engine dictated that my areas are a bit more sparse than originally intended, and the dungeons a little smaller. Realities of budget and manpower meant I can’t get quite the production quality I always said I didn’t care about, but secretly envisioned. And I’ve had a few corny ideas – like the movement system that was in the pilot – just not survive feedback from testers.
Perhaps the biggest change was realizing that even what I thought was a pretty small scope for an RPG was way too huge for a single game. I had three separate “acts” that took place in three different regions, and I thought that the acts might only be around six hours of gameplay each. Right now the first act is clocking in at around five times that, on the average. Breaking the acts out into three different games was definitely the right idea, though it did require some significant changes to the story and quests to make all three fully stand-alone games.
If interested, please go over there and check it out, and even post comments ‘n stuff if you feel inclined.
This whole summer has been pretty much a blur of Frayed Knights development. I’m kind of embarrassed these days because my life has been so focused that I haven’t had much else to talk about. It’s like… the day job, and the night job. I get embarrassed talking to people these days because I’m so out of the loop on anything else. But it is nice to spend some time unreservedly talking about the one subject I know anything about these days.
Filed Under: Frayed Knights, Interviews - Comments: 10 Comments to Read
Why Mainstream Developers are Going Indie, Redux
Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 7, 2011
Funny how this seems to be a topic of interest lately. Why are all these veterans of the mainstream games industry chucking the apparent safety of their jobs and going indie?
Two words:
The second highest reason, sharing ideas with the world, pretty much speaks to the same thing. Game developers are creative folks, and many have some great game ideas inside of them that they’d really love to make reality and see how it flies with others. Also, getting better working hours, being sick of working on sequels / licenses, and the chance … however remote… of getting more than just a salary and bonus for working on a best-selling game seemed like popular choices.
In his analysis of the (unscientific) survey, the survey’s author, Daniel Fedor, suggests that studios give their employees more creative freedom to avoid having their top talent leave and go indie. I wish I could say I see that happening, but that really runs counter to the trend. The trend’s been going on for longer than my professional career, and I don’t see how that is going to stop.
First of all, many of the top brass in the industry would dearly love to see their companies turn into factories that can churn out reliable sellers quarter after quarter. They want to see it reduced to formula as much as possible. That’s not an environment that encourages a lot of creative freedom. Creative freedom sounds wonderful and all, but it also more often than not leads to failure. That’s just how it works. The risk of failure may be daunting to anybody going indie, but it’s much more of a potential career-ended to executives answering to stockholders.
Secondly, the trend has been towards bigger projects with larger teams. The larger the team, the less room there is for individual members to have much creative control over the project. Back when teams of 3-7 people were the norm, pretty much everybody – including the intern – felt they had significant creative input into the project, and a lot of personal ownership. While I see the rate of team growth slowing quite a bit even for AAA projects, I don’t see it reverting.
Indie isn’t a magical unicorn-fairyland filled with riches for creative expression. It’s a world filled with plenty of disappointments, failure, and loss. But it’s also a wild and as yet untamed frontier with lots of potential. And as a gamer, for me it’s the place where most of the more interesting things are happening. And this migration of former big-studio talent to the field only makes things more interesting.
Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 3 Comments to Read
Matt Barton on Frayed Knights
Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 6, 2011
Matt Barton, author of “Dungeons and Desktops: The History of Computer Role-playing Games
Matt’s Podcast #1: Human Revolution, Elite, Copy Protection, and Pack-Ins
While it didn’t make the title, he does talk a little about Frayed Knights right after the segment on Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Matt has helped with the latest round of beta testing, and was lucky enough to experience the rare (but not rare enough!) graphics glitch that I’m having a hell of a time trying to track down. While he doesn’t say much about it, it sounds like the graphics problems didn’t entirely turn him off to the game. Whew!
Anyway, it’s a fun, very casual little podcast that amounts to him shooting the breeze about games. Enjoy.
Filed Under: Frayed Knights - Comments: 7 Comments to Read
Mugging Guards Makes It Easy…
Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 5, 2011
So really, it just takes making regular trips to the dungeon north of Lord British’s castle to the two treasure chambers and healing fountain on level 3… easily reached by having the cleric and the wizard cast spells to automatically go down a level — and back up again, when you are done. You get enough money to buy better equipment in Dawn, then enough to take your first trip to Ambrosia and buff up enough to kill groups of guards – often with a single spell. At that point, you can go from level 10 to level 25 (the max level that offers any hit point benefits) in less than an hour. One more trip to Ambrosia with your ill-gotten gains, and it’s off to the end game.
Ah, yeah. The days when there were no consequences for being evil… nay, not just that, when the designers encouraged you to be evil. Forsooth!
I’m kind of amazed at how quickly Ultima III can be played if you allow yourself to cheat with maps ‘n stuff. And to be evil. Sure, there’s more to the game – collecting all the marks, finding the exotic weapons and armor, etc. I remember it taking months when I was a kid… mapping out dungeon level after dungeon level, taking copious notes of things the NPCs say, worried that I could be missing a single clue. But apparently it can be won in only a few hours, playing (usually) about 15-20 minutes at a time.
Filed Under: Retro - Comments: 4 Comments to Read
Ken Rolston on RPG Design
Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 2, 2011
This is one of the better, more thoughtful interviews with a mainstream, AAA RPG designer that I have heard in a long time.
Ken Rolston Interview at AusGamers
While he’s firmly in the big-money, big-production, mass-market RPG camp and happy to be there, he also notes appreciation for smaller RPGs that might not make “assloads of money” but have great things in them that “are eminently stealable from, many delicious things.” He also notes the ease in which it’s possible to enjoy older classic titles from places like GOG.COM.
So he’s a mainstream, big-budget RPG developer who is respectful of past classics and lower-end games. That makes him pretty rare animal these days. He also speaks a little wistfully about his “closet drama” design ideas that he knows will never get made in the current environment. He’s a realist about making those kinds of games in today’s market without losing his idealism. And I especially appreciated what he thought was the worst thing to happen to CRPGs:
“…Let’s talk in the abstract about the worst thing that ever happened to role-playing games is recorded audio for dialogue. I happen to believe that was the death of my joy. Because that limits… that causes production things… the content has to be nailed down at a certain point.
“So [voiced] text is not easily revisable. As I play, text is easily revisable; audio isn’t. As I play, I want to make tiny little changes to the tone, to the feel of things, but you can’t do that when you have all this audio — oh my god, all the audio that we have to record! So what I’m going to say is: for what the audience wants, we are forced to create these things that are very brittle, that cannot be revised.
“Whereas in the happy old days of Baldurs Gate and things like that, I thought you had the best of both worlds. You could have a little snippet of dialogue that would give character, but then you would get in text trees which you could easily scan and click through. For page, that’s the important thing; dialogue pace. In a good old-fashioned role-playing game, the user controls the pace, where unfortunately in both video and recorded audio, you can’t scan it and you can’t backtrack in it. “
I was also amused at his reaction to the interviewer’s belief that with enough money and polish you could simply create enough voice recording to cover all of the player’s inputs: “Gosh, what a refreshing and naive impression that is that you have. I bet you’ve never made a role-playing game. ”
I’m not sure what to say about his desire for faster-paced role-playing games. He’s careful about his words, so faster pacing of the storyline is probably something I can get behind. Faster pacing of action sequences, not so much, as they seem plenty fast already.
I recommend watching the video if you can – the transcript available at the site doesn’t do the conversation justice. It’s a really valuable look at RPG design from the perspective of a guy who’s a long-term veteran of both the mainstream CRPG and the pen-and-paper industry.
Filed Under: Interviews - Comments: 7 Comments to Read
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