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Rebecca Heineman and Bard's Tale IV

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When will nostalgiafags leave CRPGs alone FFS
 

Broseph

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The trans shaming in this thread is really disgusting. :roguey:

An inXile-produced Bard's Tale IV would be cool if it was a blobber, assuming its production values would be higher than the Russian shovelware-levels of WL2. I love my blobbers. :avatard:

When will nostalgiafags leave CRPGs alone FFS
Indeed. Why does it matter what it's called as long as it's good? That goes both ways, I don't see anything inherently wrong with making nostalgia-fueled sequels to old franchises as long as they respect their heritage/are fun to play.
 

octavius

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I'd pay for a new Bard's Tale with updated combat mechanics (using AC as THAC0 was just so primitive), and a random encounter frequency more in the Might&Magic and Wizardry vein. Also more variable and less predictable dungeon level sizes.
But keep all the fun stuff, like spinners, darkness zones, anti-magic zones, and monsters with all kinds of nasty special attacks.
 

Lockkaliber

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if Burger Becky wants to make a true Bard's Tale Style game, then perhaps it is time to assemble a team of programmers

If you were to listen to Heineman speak about her own prowess as a programmer, you'd think she would be able to do this thing on her own over a weekend.
 

HiddenX

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http://www.burgerbecky.com/becky.htm
Who am I? I'm a 47 year old woman, computer programmer, game designer, writer, engineer, pilot, nurse, pastry chef, markswoman, loving mother of 5 even though my kids have grown up and moved on.
You can find me on ICQ at #15317363, AIM and Yahoo at Burgerbecky7 or find me on MSN Messenger at becky@burgerbecky.com.

I was born and raised in Whittier California, a suburb of Los Angeles. I was the National Space Invaders Champion in 1980 which springboarded my career in the video game industry.

I'm responsible for games such as The Bard's Tale III: The Thief of Fate, Dragon Wars, Tass Times in ToneTown, Borrowed Time, Mindshadow, The Tracer Sanction and dozens of Macintosh and Apple IIgs conversions.

Here is an interview that Digital Press did with me click here to read it.

In 1983, I've helped found Interplay Productions and was with the company when it was just four people on a porch all the way to a 600+ employee publicly traded company. Also in 1995, I co-founded Logicware Inc. and published Macintosh titles under that brand. I founded on my own game company, Contraband Entertainment in 1999 and it still runs to this day. I was at Electronic Arts, Boone Corporation, Mumbo Jumbo Games, Barking Lizards Technologies, Sensory Sweep Studios, and working on Xbox 360 technology at Microsoft's Xbox division. I've contributed code to over 200 video game titles for every video game platform. I'm currently working on Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita technology at Sony Computer Entertainment's Research and Development division.

My main hobby is writing fiction, based on some of my favorite animes such as Ranma 1/2 and Sailor Moon. I write a daily webcomic called The Adventures of Sailor Ranko, and I write numerous novels; both fan fiction and original fiction.

I'm also known for baking very fattening cakes with "Death by Chocolate" being my favorite. Yum Yum!

Programming is also a hobby of mine where Burgerlib is result of over 17 years of work.I have a whiny cat named Amaya and I live in Foster City, California.
 

shihonage

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I'm far more inclined to belief the nerd "burger" than the smooth-talking jock "Fargo".

It's obvious he was a bitter wreck when the subject of Bard's Tale credits came up in the video interview. Obviously we're talking about a very unstable individual.
The whole "sex change" delusion should be enough of a clue.

17744.jpg


Your avatar is all wrong.
 

dryan

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Gregz

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Battle Chess was gay, Bard's Tale was serious beezkneez.

Another would be cool, just scaled back to the size of the original, with better art and sound.
 

FeelTheRads

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When will nostalgiafags leave CRPGs alone FFS

Better question is when will people who don't like RPGs leave RPGs alone. As in, take Roguey, Obsidian, Bioware, Bethesda and pretty much 90% of the current developers and players away and then we'll talk about nostalgiafags.
 

Jack Of Owls

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If Dragon Wars (my first cRPG, played on the C64, and still in my all-time Top 5) is any indication of Burger Heineman's talents as a game designer, I would totally support a new Bard's Tale entry. I am worried about her fascination for the Sailor Moon franchise though, but I suppose it's a harmless geeky pleasure. We all have them.
 

Explorerbc

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Someone call kotaku , this is clearly an attempt of the patriarchy to suppress women's freedom of speech in the industry through intimidation :smug:
 
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My question is what would be the distinctive attributes of a modern BT game (say, as opposed to Wizardry), and how could they be updated without losing the point of the whole thing.

A few things come to mind:
- the caster multiclassing system - casters moving from base classes to prestige classes to another lot of prestige classes, with variations in build at each point (straight Mage all the way through, or Mage-> Chronomancer, or going for an eventual Archmage, etc). In the originals, this was better in concept than in application, as the variety wasn't nearly as intricate as it looked. A lot of room for improving on this, especially if you were to make some of the prestige caster sets 'utility spells' rather than combat.
- the open world with dungeons in it. Again, better in concept than in application, but I'd take BT3's multiple dimensions, crossing between fantasy, sci-fi and 'real-world' dimensions (from memory, one section of BT3 was supposed to be in Nazi Germany, not that it made much difference in the game).
- large party. Thinking 6 + 2 summons.
- illusionists and summoners - sort of ties into the caster diversity mentioned above, but the illusionists in particular were one of the few truly unique aspects of BT that were well implemented by the time you got to 3. The idea was that an illusionist had access to seriously overpowered summons (e.g. a motherfucking dragon really early on, with high hp, a breath attack that hits all enemies, sticks around until you leave the dungeon, and easily recast) but you only needed one enemy to see through the illusion and it's insta-gibbed (and it's much easier for enemies to see through it if cast during combat). Summoners (forgotten their in-game name) could only access summons of roughly the same level as the party, but no risk of being seen through.

There's enough to work with to make it distinct from Wiz 8. Obviously if you're going to do BT, there's not much point if you aren't going to keep some version of the blobber gameplay, but writing this out it occurs to me that those casting mechanics (especially the illusionist) would be really neat in an isometric party-based game. BT was very shonky in its mechanics, but it had a lot of spell types that didn't boil down to the 'damage / AoE damage / save-or-die / stun / root / buff' that dominates later games.
 

Crooked Bee

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- the open world with dungeons in it.

I'd say this is the most important aspect. Also multiple ways of achieving objectives/solving puzzles (aka "freedom"). A new BT could easily be the new Might and Magic-like, except with deeper combat and more complex dungeons (both MM's weak spots).

And yeah, summons of course (hello Shin Megami Tensei).
 

octavius

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To me the main differences between Wizardry and BT was:

BT had far superior audiovisuals. Even 1985 BT looked better than 1990 Wiz 6.

BT had an insane encounter frequency, while it was just right in the Wizardry (and M&M) games.
The encounter frequency is the one thing I would definitely not want to see in a modern version.

Encounter design. Wizardry was more "realistic", while BT was totally random (except for fixed encounters). Since the games already were pretty abstract I actually prefer the random encounter design. The Wizardry approach often led to too many samey battles, especially notable in Wiz 7.

Character development. Wiz 6-7 was an accountant's dream game juggling all those numbers.

Wizardry was overall more unforgiving, with regards to resurrecting dead characters and parties, and losing stats and XP.

BT had the added features of illusions, summons, dissention in the ranks (Doppelgangers being far deadlier than their Wizardry colleagues) and (from BT2) weapons having range they could reach and monsters having a range in which they appeared.

All in all I don't think the basic gameplay was that different that a modern version of BT would be that different from a modern version of Wizardry. The most important difference would probably be the character development.
 
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Jack Of Owls

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Checking out the Burger Becky interviews on youtube I was surprised to learn that Dragon Wars had SIX ways to leave Purgatory, the starting Prison Slum, which leads to as many different side quests. Wow, to think I just brute forced my way out the front gate. When I played the game as a teenager, I don't think I used a single skill to make the game easier or discover all the goodies & easter eggs. I don't think i even saw the Underworld. Hey, it was my first RPG, and I was clueless. Looks like it's time for a re-play. But I did finish the game using the Paragraphs in the manual, which had many dubious/fake passages just in case someone tried to use it as a free hint book instead of buying the official clue books or, if you were truly desperate & pathetic enough, calling a $.50/min 900 number provided by the developers. haha. What surprises me most about Rebecca was how could someone make a game as bad as BT3 make something as superior as DW immediately after?
 
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Bard's Tale IV is Dragon Wars and it's a masterpiece, best blobber ever: sandbox, multiple ways to solve quests, skill usage, one of the first decent automap, sumerian mythology (we need more of those, Sumer is the cradle of humanity, much more than ancient Greece or ancient Egypt). It can't be beat. Except for a remake with the Apple II GS graphics and onscreen paragraphs. It's perfect as it is and cruelly underrated.

Ok, you also have SMT Strange Journey, which is as great, but it's different, it's much more akin to BT 2 and relying on masochistic tools such as spinners and other assorted Uukrul/Werdna twisted stuff that only Crooked Bee can love. Then it also has a great atmosphere. But Dragon Wars is better (totally subjective claim but I stand by it).

For Dragon Wars, long live Heineman (and yes Broseph, people who spit on her game design skills because of her sex change: fuck you, burn in Hell shitheads).
 
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