Bard's Tale The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep - Director's Cut

Overly complex? In what world?

 

I am wondering how will this end. Will they abandon the game early (before making the game bug-free and optimized) just like Ubisoft abandoned MMX, or will they make the game enjoyable before they say fck it? It's obvious they are not gonna get their money back...

 

Because some of the best cRPG used that system or variations of it.
Only a rare few good games used other good systems (Fallout and Gurps)

 

Finally got out of boring act 1 into forest, fps dropped to 20, tried changing settings, game annihilated itself by going into 320 on 240 resolution and stuck in some pixel madness. Re-installing, if saves are there ok, if not bye.

 

Peak concurrent players yesterday: 2,058

 

Usually peak players times 10 is a relatively accurate indicator of games sales at launch. I'd place it at less than 40k total. As an example, Elex and PoE2 both had aroundabout 20k peak and they sold 250k and 200k respectively, if I recall correctly.

 

I humbly present the first review of BT4, formed (almost) entirely by quotes from our own forums.

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You all just did.



Bonus Impressions!

 

Remember, anime ALWAYS wins.

 

Played some more, finished d0rf party member's quest.

I have to admit, as a casual murderhobo simulator, it's actually pretty fun. Also they did a great job with the musix.

"Casual" is the biggest keyword here though.

 

Brian Fargo right now.


The poor guy had to bury his dream of selling 2 million copies. He is so stunned that he even stopped tweeting. RIP Inxile Louisiana.

Well, I own the game so I guess I'll play it. It looks like a turd and has performance problems, but maybe the gameplay is at least decent.

 

Game stopped working, re-install did not help. Goodbye and good riddance I guess. Pathfinder comes out in a week anyway.

Maybe will play again in a year or two. But probably not, ever.

 

guess i'll take a break and wait for patches lol

 

One of many, but The Bard's Tale outsold most of the titles from that era. It certainly outsold the early Gold Box and Might & Magic games. Maybe Ultima IV sold a similar number of units. It was huge hit in its brief heyday, but I imagine most people had forgotten about it by 1998 let alone 2018. If I was an investor I certainly wouldn't have bet the farm on The Bard's Tale brand having any selling power in 2018. Brian Fargo reminds me of middle aged guy who keeps trying to relive his glory years as a high school football jock. The sales figures of the original Bard's Tale was his "four touchdowns in one game" moment.

 

No one deserves to have their dreams crushed, EVEN IF they are assholes, and Fargo does not seem like an asshole at all.

Just like Norman Sirotek needed super-geniuses like Andrew Greenberg/Robert Woodhead and D.W. Bradley to make his games for him, Fargo needed a crackerjack programmer/designer akin to Michael Cranford or Rebecca Heineman this time around, too. Sadly, he either didn't realize it or wasn't able to make it happen.

Having said that, Fargo has made and lost and then made back more money than I will ever see in my life, so I'm sure he'll survive this.

 

It could have been fun if it was at least competently made,

if game actually looked like Unreal
if there was more good music instead of strange mix of it and deafening silence
if character system casual as it is at least made some sense and was consistent (like the example with weapon proficiencies, highlighted things in abilities and your actual ability to shoot arrows without having a bow at all)
if plot was about something from intro, as for now it's about nothing
if first act was not set in boring as fuck brown slums and grey corridors where you will push many grey blocks
if it was just better presented, paced and designed.

as for now it's garbage, and worst InXile release I have seen. and you are all witness that I tried to play and tried to like it.

now sorry, that reave raider in path of exile will not level to 90 lvl by herself. we shall meet again in Kingmaker thread to see how much Moscow will fuck up their own release. Somehow I bet with our potato wages they would still deliver at least a playable BG clone. I hope.

 

So now, we know what went wrong ...

The backer's money was probably spent in cocaine and prostitutes ...

 

they dont seem to have a clue about their target audience. If i play a blobber i want grid based movement and complex systems, i dont care about gfx or music. Wtf is that about the weapon skills Felipe posted?! That must be a bug right. I saw somewhere that when you master a weapon skill you get the special abilities on every weapon or something like that. I have no time to play it now so cant check it out.

Again compare this to Golden Era and Cleveland Blakemore. For more than 20 years they knew exactly who their prestigious prospects were and kept a razor sharp focus on delivering the goods. To all 3500 of us. Now thats how you make an oldschool blobber.

 

It's very immersive and fun at least

 

Weren't there also rumors about half the stats/skills in Grimoire not affecting anything?

 

Another head-scratching decision they made was to make all signs like they were in Morrowind - hover for text. Rather than just put the sign's text on the texture, you hover and get a bubble. I get it for notes that go into your inventory, but why for signs and things posted?

 

Some minor things were left to be included in V2, which basically makes it a whole new game. It even has crafting believe it or not. The current V1 is already superior to BT4. For one it has about 1000 hours of content. Roughly.

 

Or even just take a look at M&MX. That game has many shortcomings, and it's weird that it would go back to step-based movement after full 3D of M&M 6-9, but a fan of M&M would play M&M10 and think, okay, this at least seems familiar. Even though the itemization is mostly shit, the dungeons are boring, and it's got fixed encounters gating you along the linear story, it's "close enough" that you can forgive its shortcomings and enjoy it as a blobber (albeit a very light one).