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Bard's Tale The Bard's Tale IV Pre-Release Thread [RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

Zombra

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Speaking of character swapping, I noticed in that Shacknews video that Rogers said something about swapping out characters - like if your party doesn't have the tools to meet a certain challenge, you can come back with a different combination, something like that. Factor in what Fargo said above about swapping out your first character and it sounds like they might have an honest-to-god Adventurers' Guild where you can create new characters and "stable" existing ones. If so, that is kind of a big deal.
 
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Some fucking idiot in that video next to Fargo trying to describe turn-based combat and party management while flailing his arms very excitedly:

"IT'S LIKE A WESTERN JRPG, YOU GET TO MANAGE YOUR ENTIRE PARTY"

What the fuck? Where do these people even come from?:deathclaw:
 

Zombra

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Rogers' flailing "nerd charisma" doesn't bother me - fly the flag high, Dave! :salute: - but it is disappointing how much he kinda doesn't get it.

He greatly enjoys his "Save the world!!" joke (he did it for Shacknews too) ... but if it's funny, it's only funny because "save the world" is such an abysmally tired cliché. You're Creative Director, man; don't draw attention to the fact that your team couldn't come up with an original idea.
 
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Sacred82

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They're doing the companion introduction tweet thing now:



fucking generic as fuck, Jesus Christ

she basically looks like the PC from Torment. Like... both of them in fact.

:flamesaw:


edit: it actually took me a few more seconds to pick up on the whole 'womang who fights for justice' thing. I must be getting old.

:hero:
 

Cadmus

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This is some next level Prosper shit.
Looks like a 100% mobile game, too. Mobile prosper.
Splendid.

I also noticed the Constitution tree perk being a "+2 constitution".

Fargo is a motherfucking loser.
 
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Sacred82

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btw, can anyone see the 'fire and passion' in her face? If I saw a girl like that IRL I'd think she's looking extremely downtrodden and needs someone to drag her out of her misery.


I fucking hope this is not a sign of the rest of the character concepts to come.
 

LESS T_T

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"What am I doing here? What am I doing with my life?"
 
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theSavant

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Btw. I noticed they have updated the main website of Bards Tale 4 with some new screenshots. I think these are new:

BT4_screen_03_.jpg

BT4_screen_04_.jpg
BT4_screen_06_.jpg
BT4_screen_08_.jpg
BT4_screen_09_.jpg
BT4_screen_10_.jpg
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://venturebeat.com/2018/06/25/the-bards-tale-iv-barrows-deep-spinning-a-tune/

The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep — spinning a tune
JASON WILSON@JASON_WILSON JUNE 25, 2018 2:46 PM

InExile-Entertainment-David-Rogers.jpg

Above: The Bard's Tale IV lead designer David Rogers shows off InExile's latest game.


Music has always been secret weapon for The Bard’s Tale. And tunes are still one of the core competencies of the revival, as creative director and lead designer David Rogers showed me during a demo I did a few months back.

This is why InXile Entertainment is turning to accomplished musicians such as Ged Grimes, the bassist for the rock band Simple Minds and an accomplished composer and singer of Gaelic music. Rogers also said that many of the voice actors are from Scotland, and you can hear the development studio’s attention to detail in the music and characters of The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep, which is coming to PC later this year.

InXile abandoned the traditional publisher model for making games for crowdfunding years ago with a pair of role-playing projects that lit up Kickstarter: Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera. Both games show that studios with strong visions and communication with fans could make crowdfunding work. InXile raised $1,519,680 from 33,741 backers for The Bard’s Tale IV, which brings the old turn-based RPG mechanics of the 1980s classic series and builds upon them with voiced characters, more classes and subclasses, and improved presentation.

You can hear the improvements for yourself on the title screen:



“It’s all original music,” said Rogers, who was also the lead designer for InXile’s VR RPG, The Mage’s Tale. “We have Julie Fowlis, who is one of the main singers on the movie Brave.” (She sang the songs “Touch the Sky” and “Into the Open Air.”)

“It’s a ‘Who’s Who’ of Gaelic singing talent in Scotland.”

This applies to the voicework as well. Voice actors perform all of the lines for each of the characters you encounter (you can still make your own party, if you want a more traditional Bard’s Tale experience), and in addition to the narrative dialogue, they chime in from time to time, similar to how characters add flavor in other RPGs by commenting on their locations, their feelings, etc.

As as fan-supported project, The Bard’s Tale IV has plenty of references to the old games. You’ve got spells like Warstrike and songs such as Falkentyne’s Fury and Wayland’s Watch. InXile turned to the original MIDI recordings of the songs as it prepared its orchestrations.

“We took the old MIDI tracks and we brought them forward and orchestrated them, had our sound designers pour their love into it,” Rogers said. He went on to note that the games (they were on Apple II, Apple II GS, MS-DOS, Amiga, Commodore 64, and other formats) had different MIDI tracks, so the best depended on what platform you played on. He wasn’t sure what versions they used, but an InXile rep said over email that “some are from the GS and some from the Amiga. We picked and chose our fav[orite] ones.”

Sound design is just as important to The Bard’s Tale IV as its music. One spell shrinks your enemies, and when they curse at you while tiny, it’s in a high-pitched voice. It’s a touch that sound designer Brian DiDomenico added.



Spinnin’ wheel does not got to go ’round
Spinner traps, like music, are a mainstay of the older Bard Tales games. These are squares that would spin your party around, and they were frequent hazards in the grid-based RPG designs of the 1980s. But these are not coming back — they just don’t work when your dungeons or mazes just don’t look like the same square every time you move.

“Spinners worked really well in the old Bard’s Tale because it was so tile-based. When you spun, you might not know you’ve spun because the tile you’re looking at might look like the one you were looking previously at. But with our visual fidelity and amount of landmarks we have, if we spin you around, you know immediately, and you reorient yourself, and you’re on your way,” Rogers said.

Magic Mouths — mouths that would appear in walls and speak to you — do return, as do teleport traps. He also alluded to one of my favorite dungeons from the first game — Kylerean’s Tower, a puzzle- and trap-filled maze that’s home to a good archmage. This new Skara Brae sits upon the ruins of the old city from the original series. I’ll find out more of what Rogers means by his Kylerean mention later this year.

Disclosure: I am a backer of The Bard’s Tale IV on Kickstarter.
 
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Sacred82

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“Spinners worked really well in the old Bard’s Tale because it was so tile-based. When you spun, you might not know you’ve spun because the tile you’re looking at might look like the one you were looking previously at. But with our visual fidelity and amount of landmarks we have, if we spin you around, you know immediately, and you reorient yourself, and you’re on your way,” Rogers said.

not knowing you've spun is one thing, and immediately recognizing which way you came and where to go is another. Might we ask what the point is?
 

Shackleton

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“Spinners worked really well in the old Bard’s Tale because it was so tile-based. When you spun, you might not know you’ve spun because the tile you’re looking at might look like the one you were looking previously at. But with our visual fidelity and amount of landmarks we have, if we spin you around, you know immediately, and you reorient yourself, and you’re on your way,” Rogers said.

not knowing you've spun is one thing, and immediately recognizing which way you came and where to go is another. Might we ask what the point is?

Well that's what they're saying- there is no point and that's why they've dropped them.

The only time spinners work in modern blobbers is if they're combined with temporary withdrawal of any auto-map and are in sections of the dungeon that purposely look similar, and you could argue that even if that's the case they're annoying rather than challenging. I remember playing an obscure Wiz clone (Wiz Chronicle) that combined no map zones, dark zones, spinners and pit traps to very good effect on one floor, but it's delusional to expect InXile to put that level of difficulty in.
 
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Sacred82

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“Spinners worked really well in the old Bard’s Tale because it was so tile-based. When you spun, you might not know you’ve spun because the tile you’re looking at might look like the one you were looking previously at. But with our visual fidelity and amount of landmarks we have, if we spin you around, you know immediately, and you reorient yourself, and you’re on your way,” Rogers said.

not knowing you've spun is one thing, and immediately recognizing which way you came and where to go is another. Might we ask what the point is?

Well that's what they're saying- there is no point and that's why they've dropped them.

The only time spinners work in modern blobbers is if they're combined with temporary withdrawal of any auto-map and are in sections of the dungeon that purposely look similar, and you could argue that even if that's the case they're annoying rather than challenging. I remember playing an obscure Wiz clone (Wiz Chronicle) that combined no map zones, dark zones, spinners and pit traps to very good effect on one floor, but it's delusional to expect InXile to put that level of difficulty in.

woops, my bad. I only really read what he was saying there. Sounded like he's explaining why their spinning traps are so much better.

Still though; isn't the mazelike feeling part of blobbers? Not that I'm an oldfag in this regard, but automap notwithstanding, the feeling of getting lost seems kind of vital. Otherwise it's just a hiking simulator in a dungeon.

I guess teleportation traps would be pretty effective in this environment though; if you have memorable landmarks, that just makes the whole thing feel that much more frustrating.
 

Strange Fellow

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Does anyone know the status of those remasters of the originals? I remember them being way behind schedule a while ago, and haven't heard anything since. Is it dead?
 

Strange Fellow

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Does anyone know the status of those remasters of the originals? I remember them being way behind schedule a while ago, and haven't heard anything since. Is it dead?

I guess you missed this last month: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...trilogy-remastered.103577/page-6#post-5620442
Thanks, didn't know there was a separate thread. Didn't like Wasteland: Comic Sans Edition, and this looks to be on the same path. At least the enhancements were optional.
 
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aweigh

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Wiz Chronicle was fucking punishing. I've yet to finish that one.
 

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