Interview Brian Sullivan: I'll invigorate the RPG genre

Tags: Iron Lore

<a href=http://www.homelanfed.com>HomeLan</a> has posted an <a href=http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=24882>interview</a> with <b>Brian Sullivan</b> of the <b>Age of Empires</b> fame, who has formed <a href=http://www.ironlore.com/>Iron Lore</a> and is currently working on the unknown RPG that will "invigorate the genre". Hold on to your panties, girls, it's an action game, heavy on multiplayer. The website claims it's already a blockbuster title "that expertly blends the best of the action, RPG, and adventure genres".
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<blockquote><b>Because of your background at Ensemble, some people might expect Iron Lore’s first title to be a RTS title. Why was the decision made to make the game an action-RPG?</b>
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Partly because I was burned-out on RTSs. I had been playing RTS games almost every day since WarCraft 2 was released, and after five plus years I needed a break. The main reason, though, was because I also love RPG games and I thought I could bring a lot of what I learned on Age of Empires to the RPG genre.</blockquote>
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Base building and rush tactics in RPGs will certainly invigorate the genre.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.rpgdot.com">RPG Dot</A>

 

Push it back is more likely. Didn't D&D evolve from historic wargames?

 

OMG! U r teh n00b! Everyone knows there are two kind of new games: evolutionary and revolutionary. There is only thing that's pushing the genre back: TB combat, which is not the case here. So, the game is clearly evolushanary!

 

What was that title that was a real-time chess game?

 

Good Lord, this will probably suck.

 

It'd still be better than Morrowind-with-Guns. At least Age of Empires was a GOOD game.

 

Hordes of enemies,

stats,

and point and click.


We're set!

 

No offense to whomever they are, and their offices seem nice, but how is it already a blockbuster?

Seriously...huh?


Cheers

 

Maybe they have seen ....TEH FUTARE!

 

Well, at least there's no lack of self confidence in the industry.

 

I've been playing Gothic 2 alot lately, whatever those clowns make will definately not be able to hold a candle to Gothic 2.

Like he could make anything good, he's been playing RTS games for all those years right? So why is every RTS game he's put out BEEN EXACTLY THE SAME FUCKING THING OVER AND OVER?

'burned out', maybe if he tried to do new things with the genre instead of copying and pasting features.

Also, he has bad taste.

 

So Diablo 2? Hey, why not?

 

I never liked Age of Empires. It was basically Warcraft/Starcraft with heaps more micromanagement. Having to periodically replant farms just to get food resources was seriously annoying. I don't know why I couldn't just tell my little farmer bastards to be farmers and where to farm and be done with it forever.

 

Wasn't there some form of "auto-plant" feature enabled in one of the sequels, or am I thinking of Rise of Nations? Anyway, can't say that I'm excited about this game, sounds like another Dungeon Siege in the making.

 

Dungeon Siege had no micromanagement at all.. In fact, it had no MANAGEMENT at all, really. Chris Taylor of Gas Powered Games basically invented the RTS with little micromanagement, so I can halfway see where Dungeon Siege came from. Unfortunately, it was just pitifully boring.

That said, I can see the opposite coming from Brian Sullivan, given the tedious amount of micromanagement in Age of Empires. Starcraft and Warcraft had a lot of micromanagement, and Age of Empires basically took the management from those games and elevated it to a whole new level of town babysitting.

So, basically, what I'm trying to say is, I don't think we can expect another Dungeon Siege from this guy.

 

Could it be possible that he creates an rpg with too much character development and stats. Would such a thing be spossible. Also if you extend his love of "strategy" I don't see him using real time combat in an rpg setting, he would have to realise how manic and shit such systems unerringly prove to be. Hopefully he will go with turnbased and not pause-turn-round-and-round-again-based.

 

When someone says "action rpg", "Diablo" is written between the lines.

 

Maybe you'll live to see the day when "classic RPG" means "Diablo clone".

 

The worst part is that someone likely thinks like this already.

 

I'm pretty sure someone did call Diablo classic in a piece quoted in a news article here.

 

Well.. Whether you like it or not, Diablo is basically a classic...

 

In Age of Empires II there was an "auto-plant" queueing system if you built a granary/mill next to every town center, but you could only queue 11 or 12 replants, which gets used up quickly when you have a half dozen farms per town center. I thought Age of Empires II was okay, aside from the tedious micro-managing, but the first one was awful by comparison. Rise of Nations is light years ahead in terms of managing your resources because once you plant a farm it's persistant throughout the entire battle unless destroyed, and the same is true for all other resources. Personally I haven't heard of a better RTS model in all the years they've been around. As much as I've liked the Command & Conquer setting, Rise of Nations is far superior in terms of gameplay.

-Reklar
(a Fallout/RPG fan)

 

That brings up an irritating trend I first noticed a few years ago, the labeling of movies, music, and games that haven't been around for more than a couple of years as "classic". Movies such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (Errol Flynn) or Casablanca (Humphrey Bogart) are classics, but movies such as Rush Hour (Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker), no matter how much I like it, is not a classic. Games such as Diablo and Baldur's Gate are not classics, but Sid Meier's Pirates! and Ultima I are classics. These are things that have been around for a lot longer than ten years and still retain the strong sense of what makes them something great and memorable. While Diablo is most likely mentioned as the first in the genre of "action RPGs", it doesn't evoke a sense of nostalgia that older, more time-tested games do. Maybe in another five years or so Diablo can claim the title of classic, but until then it's just another popular game from a few years ago.

-Reklar
(a Fallout/RPG fan)

 

Ahh, you'd have a point but now we'd have to agree what the cut off date before a game could even be considered for the label of clasic. Is it 5 years? 10? 20? 50? 100? That's the dilemma. Or betetr yet, to save us the toruble, we can simply lable top games like Diablo and Baldur's Gate as instant classics.

 

Bah, instant classics. You've been watching too much TNT haven't you?

-Reklar
(a Fallout/RPG fan)