Fallout retrospective Q&A at NMA
Fallout retrospective Q&A at NMA
Interview - posted by Vault Dweller on Wed 10 October 2007, 14:38:04
Tags: FalloutNMA has posted an interview with several Fallout developers: Leonard Boyarsky, Chris Taylor, Feargus Urquhart, Chris Avellone, and J.E. Sawyer.
Any idea why there were almost no more turn-based cRPGs after Fallout?
Leonard Boyarsky: I’m sure people were intimidated by its enormous financial success. Seriously, though - marketing, PR and even execs in the game industry are convinced that you can’t make big money with a turn based game, so no one tries. Now, I don’t know whether you could actually go huge with a turn based game (on the PC) anymore, but, unless someone actually puts out a good one with proper marketing and PR support we’ll never know, will we?
J.E. Sawyer: I think a lot of it has to do with the perceived acceptability of certain play modes among PC gamers and retailers. Games like Darklands showed that real-time with pause RPGs could be pretty fun. The Baldur's Gate series was such a huge financial success that it must have seemed like real-time with pause was the inescapable evolution of RPG combat.
I think ToEE was the last strong showing of any turn-based PC CRPG, but it was plagued by two problems: it was pretty buggy, and low-level D&D combat in a CRPG is incredibly dull. After patching, learning the D&D rules, and getting to about 4th level, it was great fun. Still, I doubt it made a lot of random shmoe gamers jump up and declare that turn-based combat was the most rad thing they had ever experienced.
To be honest, I don't think most gamers actually care a whole lot about whether combat in a CRPG is turn-based or real-time. They just want it to be fun and interesting. I think that convincing retailers that you can have fun and interesting turn-based combat is more difficult than convincing the mythical average gamer. Retailers and publishers get locked in cycles of self-fulfilling prophecies about the viability of certain game elements.It's a great interview, so go to NMA and read the entire thing.
Any idea why there were almost no more turn-based cRPGs after Fallout?
Leonard Boyarsky: I’m sure people were intimidated by its enormous financial success. Seriously, though - marketing, PR and even execs in the game industry are convinced that you can’t make big money with a turn based game, so no one tries. Now, I don’t know whether you could actually go huge with a turn based game (on the PC) anymore, but, unless someone actually puts out a good one with proper marketing and PR support we’ll never know, will we?
J.E. Sawyer: I think a lot of it has to do with the perceived acceptability of certain play modes among PC gamers and retailers. Games like Darklands showed that real-time with pause RPGs could be pretty fun. The Baldur's Gate series was such a huge financial success that it must have seemed like real-time with pause was the inescapable evolution of RPG combat.
I think ToEE was the last strong showing of any turn-based PC CRPG, but it was plagued by two problems: it was pretty buggy, and low-level D&D combat in a CRPG is incredibly dull. After patching, learning the D&D rules, and getting to about 4th level, it was great fun. Still, I doubt it made a lot of random shmoe gamers jump up and declare that turn-based combat was the most rad thing they had ever experienced.
To be honest, I don't think most gamers actually care a whole lot about whether combat in a CRPG is turn-based or real-time. They just want it to be fun and interesting. I think that convincing retailers that you can have fun and interesting turn-based combat is more difficult than convincing the mythical average gamer. Retailers and publishers get locked in cycles of self-fulfilling prophecies about the viability of certain game elements.
