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Game News Footage from a 1998 Bard's Tale IV prototype revealed for the first time

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Brayko

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I have the extended Conan the Barbarian soundtrack on my taskbar at all times whenever I wanna simply click-to-play. :)
 
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Blobbers don't work when they try to transition them to levels where there is positioning and the combat isn't an abstraction, it just isn't the same. That's why I am skeptical that W2's combat will be good, none of the blobber abstractions (and reliance on imagination), limited options due to setting, and combat not lethal enough to get close to the tactical depth of X-Com or Jagged Alliance.

For that matter, I doubt Brian Fargo, who expressed his interest in reviving the Bard's Tale, would keep it a blobber too, not to limit the commercial appeal. For these reasons I doubt he is the savior of old school gaming.
 

Luzur

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I'd be more interested to learn what happened to this BT4 from '92:

9FSItHY.jpg

hey i remember reading about that in Datormagazin!
 

ghostdog

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To be fair, knowing full well that game's never gonna be a Codex favorite, at least he didn't call it Bard's Tale IV, and was explicit about it not being a Bard's Tale sequel or anything much like the Bard's Tale (though you can question if that's a good decision or not).

inXile might still do the Bard's Tale IV at some point in the future, and it wouldn't be...this.

I hear you. I actually enjoyed the last Bard's Tale for its humor, even though it had almost no other redeeming qualities.
 

Xavier0889

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Wow. It's...it's...pretty shitty, actually. But what the heck is this game and why is there footage of it in a Mythic archive?

We know that Mythic Entertainment are the caretakers of Ultima Online and the entire Ultima legacy at EA. As such, they have inherited materials that originally belonged to Origin before that company's final shutdown in 2004. We also know that back in 1998, Brian Fargo had not yet recovered the rights to Bard's Tale, which he eventually used to make his own modern take on the series, 2004's The Bard's Tale.


EA distributed the original Bard's Tale. That somehow explains why you could import your Ultima 3 characters into it. But you could do the same with your Wizardry ones, which sounds quite strange to me.
 

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Wow. It's...it's...pretty shitty, actually. But what the heck is this game and why is there footage of it in a Mythic archive?

We know that Mythic Entertainment are the caretakers of Ultima Online and the entire Ultima legacy at EA. As such, they have inherited materials that originally belonged to Origin before that company's final shutdown in 2004. We also know that back in 1998, Brian Fargo had not yet recovered the rights to Bard's Tale, which he eventually used to make his own modern take on the series, 2004's The Bard's Tale.


EA distributed the original Bard's Tale. That somehow explains why you could import your Ultima 3 characters into it. But you could do the same with your Wizardry ones, which sounds quite strange to me.

The 80s, man. :love:
 

MicoSelva

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After watching the video, I am kind of glad this game never saw the light of day. Also, I am doubly glad that particular era in 3d graphics is over. Games were either nice looking or 3D back then.
 

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Another mention of the 1998 BT4 prototype: http://www.cheek.org/bard/btiv.htm

Date: October 15, 1999
Name: Burger
E-Mail address: $mail:burger@logicware.com$

Actually, here is how it works...

Interplay designed and created the Bard's Tale series. 1 and 2 was designed by Mike Cranford and 3 was designed by Bill Heineman.

Electronic Arts was the publisher and sold the games under the EA banner.

So...

Electronic Arts owns the name "Bard's Tale", all trademarks and images associated with the title. They own the name Bard's Tale IV and any other variations on the theme and name.

Interplay Productions owns the actual code, technology and art that went into the making the game but does not have the right to sell the title under that name. Hence Interplay came out with Dragon Wars in 1988 as an informal Bard's Tale IV but it did not have anything linking it to the Bard's Tale storyline since it was owned by EA.

Time passes...

Interplay bought the rights to create a Bard's Tale contruction set which was sold under the Interplay banner. Also a year back, Interplay bought the rights to sell the Bard's Tale series (I, II and III) as part of a RPG compilation. These rights are the rights to use the name for these properties only.

Present day...

For Bard's Tale IV to come to pass. One of two things must occur. Either EA decides they wish to publish Bard's Tale IV, in this case it will be developed internally or externally through a developer and will be brought to the market under the EA banner. In this case, I heard that EA has to pay some sort of royalty to Interplay.

Second case, EA chooses not to publish Bard's Tale IV and is willing to let someone else do it. Interplay is very interested in doing BT IV but they need EA to be willing to license the rights to them.

One of the above must occur to move forward. Currently EA is deciding if it is prudent to bring the Bard's Tale series back. The roadblock is the titles age and the royalty for Interplay. The last Bard's Tale game that shipped was Bard's Tale Construction set in 1989-1990. Over 9 years ago. Ancient history as far as games go. Also how will Bard's Tale compete against Ultima Online and other RPG titles from EA. Will Bard's Tale hold up against Might & Magic? Will it hold up against Final Fantasy VIII?

Contraband (My company) has a Bard's Tale IV proposal that we're really excited about but EA must first make a decision. It's a slow process and it MUST MAKE MONEY for EA or EA will not pursue it.

I've been waiting 10 years to do another Bard's Tale game.

Burger

It's weird how he/she mentions Might & Magic and FF8 but not Baldur's Gate.
 

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Weird, that site also mentions ORIGIN being contracted to do a Bard's Tale game back in 1990(!)

In 1989 or 90 Bill Fawcett brokered a book package deal with Mercedes Lackey and three other authors: Me, Ru Emerson, Josepha Sherman. Originally Holly Lisle was going to do the Prison of Souls volume with Mercedes Lackey. Holly's schedule wouldn't allow it, so they made me the offer (which I graciously accepted).

Bard's Tale IV was in the works at Origins, and was going to be released some time after 1990. For whatever reason (and they didn't tell me) the project was never finished. There was a lot of speculation and rumors about "cashing in" on the popularity of the first three, and I sure do see why it would look like that. But as far as I know, that was not the marketing stragegy. The only people who could answer that question would be Bill Fawcett or Jim Baen, and whoever was our liaison at Origins (I never dealt with him directly, and I don't recall his name.)

We did not receive any advanced copies of the computer game (which I don't think ever existed, particularly in any releaseable form).

They did however send me four computer games, which were called:

Ultima The Second Trilogy IV V Vi
Ultima Underworld The Stygian Abyss
Ultima Underworld Labyrinth of Worlds
Ultima The Black Gate.

But I never used them as background material for the novels.

But UW2 was released in 1993. That can't be right.
 

mondblut

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Blobbers don't work when they try to transition them to levels where there is positioning and the combat isn't an abstraction, it just isn't the same.

That's why the Goldbox series, Realms of Arkania and Betrayal at Krondor top the first-person RPG lists of any reasonably competent person.
 

mindx2

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To be fair, knowing full well that game's never gonna be a Codex favorite, at least he didn't call it Bard's Tale IV, and was explicit about it not being a Bard's Tale sequel or anything much like the Bard's Tale (though you can question if that's a good decision or not).

inXile might still do the Bard's Tale IV at some point in the future, and it wouldn't be...this.

Already at work with the PR spin, eh Brother None? :troll:
 

DemonKing

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Not sure what the demo has to do with the Bard's Tale games I played back in the day...but then it's not like Inxile's game of that name did either!
 

octavius

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What I'd like to see is Michael Cranford make a new Bard's Tale. He had an an evil streak to his dungeon design that "Burger" Heineman lacked.
 

Larendav

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I wonder how they're going to kickstart The Bard's Tale IV when people have seen this video. :troll:
 

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