Storms of Zehir interview @ Iron Tower
Storms of Zehir interview @ Iron Tower
Interview - posted by DarkUnderlord on Tue 13 January 2009, 01:51:26
Tags: Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of ZehirVince D. Weller (thankfully, not his real name) has interviewed Tony Evans and Kevin Saunders about Storm of Zehir:
2. The design of the game is very close to PnP DnD games, which, ironically, is very different from computer DnD games where everything is epic, every temple is a Taj Mahal, and every dungeon is bigger than the Undermountain. Naturally, that led to some disappointments. What are you thoughts on that?
Tony Evans: Storm of Zehir is a very polarizing game. Many people seem to either love it or hate it. I think we could have done a better job of making sure people knew what to expect (or what not to expect) with Storm of Zehir. Despite all the interviews, previews and forum posts where we talked about the ways in which Storm of Zehir is very different from Neverwinter Nights 2 and Mask of the Betrayer, a lot of fans were surprised at how Storm of Zehir turned out. Many were pleasantly surprised and thought Storm of Zehir was refreshing and original, but others were disappointed because of all the ways in which it was not like Neverwinter Nights 2 or Mask of the Betrayer.
Kevin Saunders: My thought on it is that Tony made a decision to make Storm of Zehir more like traditional D&D and I think it was a good decision for this game.
7. The game has a LOT of skill checks in dialogues, much more than one would expect from an exploration/combat/trading game. The trade off is that many are flavor-only. It seems that if you want to talk tough, you invest into Intimidate. If you want to sound like a reasonable guy, you invest into Diplomacy. In other words, you invest into developing a personality. Is it a new thing Obsidian is playing with? Any thoughts on SoZ skill checks?
Tony Evans: In the past, we’ve had to keep player responses as generic and homogenized as possible to avoid alienating players by giving them choices that they don’t want to choose. In Storm of Zehir, we opted to concentrate on providing a lot more responses based on skill, class, race, gender, deity, and ability scores so that players felt rewarded for customizing their party members. That approach allowed us to add more personality to certain special responses. For instance, if you are a Half-Orc Barbarian with an Intelligence of 8, we can assume that you will sometimes have something stupid to say.
Kevin Saunders: All I have to say is that I ordered Tony and the designers to not have deity checks (I felt there are too many deities and it would create too much work) and they brazenly ignored me. George ignored my same demand for Mask of the Betrayer. Bastards.Bastards indeed.
Thanks Vault Dweller!
2. The design of the game is very close to PnP DnD games, which, ironically, is very different from computer DnD games where everything is epic, every temple is a Taj Mahal, and every dungeon is bigger than the Undermountain. Naturally, that led to some disappointments. What are you thoughts on that?
Tony Evans: Storm of Zehir is a very polarizing game. Many people seem to either love it or hate it. I think we could have done a better job of making sure people knew what to expect (or what not to expect) with Storm of Zehir. Despite all the interviews, previews and forum posts where we talked about the ways in which Storm of Zehir is very different from Neverwinter Nights 2 and Mask of the Betrayer, a lot of fans were surprised at how Storm of Zehir turned out. Many were pleasantly surprised and thought Storm of Zehir was refreshing and original, but others were disappointed because of all the ways in which it was not like Neverwinter Nights 2 or Mask of the Betrayer.
Kevin Saunders: My thought on it is that Tony made a decision to make Storm of Zehir more like traditional D&D and I think it was a good decision for this game.
7. The game has a LOT of skill checks in dialogues, much more than one would expect from an exploration/combat/trading game. The trade off is that many are flavor-only. It seems that if you want to talk tough, you invest into Intimidate. If you want to sound like a reasonable guy, you invest into Diplomacy. In other words, you invest into developing a personality. Is it a new thing Obsidian is playing with? Any thoughts on SoZ skill checks?
Tony Evans: In the past, we’ve had to keep player responses as generic and homogenized as possible to avoid alienating players by giving them choices that they don’t want to choose. In Storm of Zehir, we opted to concentrate on providing a lot more responses based on skill, class, race, gender, deity, and ability scores so that players felt rewarded for customizing their party members. That approach allowed us to add more personality to certain special responses. For instance, if you are a Half-Orc Barbarian with an Intelligence of 8, we can assume that you will sometimes have something stupid to say.
Kevin Saunders: All I have to say is that I ordered Tony and the designers to not have deity checks (I felt there are too many deities and it would create too much work) and they brazenly ignored me. George ignored my same demand for Mask of the Betrayer. Bastards.
Thanks Vault Dweller!
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