Bard's Tale The Bard's Tale IV Pre-Release Thread [RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

Yeah, will be an interesting test of his PR skills and maxed out charisma stats... Grimrock 2 was everything a Real-time blobber fan could hope for, yet it clearly sold less than Grimrock 1.

I talked about this some time ago; by looking at Steam achievements and how little people played the game, it seems like the casual players were tricked into buying it by the gorgeous graphics. But that didn't work the second time, since now they knew what "dungeon crawler" meant...

 

Exactly that, towns with NPC to talk and a good amount of dialogs, improving the blobber formula like the last wizardries did.

 

IIRC, out of 600,000 copies as of the end of 2012 they sold 400-450,000 via the bundles.

Plus, LoG is a DM-clone (no towns, no npcs, non-combat stuff is limited to solving puzzles and admiring the scenery). A proper TB or PB blobber with places to go and people to see might attract more attention.

 

Why can't we have a Wizardry 9 kickstarter

 

I'm more curious if he's going to try to get the "old-school" fans again.

The nephew of dungeon crawlers is back.

I suspect not if he'll continue with the Hearthstone nonsense. Maybe he's more interested in the lol bard's tale fans.

 

My perception is that RT is generally more popular than TB. I know a lot of people who wouldn't touch a TB RPG, few who would, and I'm the only person in my circle who prefers TB.

I think the combat in BG2 is liked outside of this forum if not acclaimed. Most forums outside of the Codex don't discuss combat in crpgs to the same level as the codex.

Infinitron wrote that 'after the success of Divinity: Original Sin, the latter (TB) may be a definite advantage'. IMO, the vote indicates that not to be the case for the success of a kickstarter.

I'm sure a lot of people, probably most, assumed that TToN would be RTwP.

You don't think they consciously or sub-consciously assume that the game will play how they imagine it will, based on previous experiences playing similar games? I was under the impression PoE was facing some outcry with combat not being BG-like enough during the backer beta. Would you consider that a telling sign?

Obsidian used the 'BG successor' line. I think there's still an opportunity to drop BG/BG2 as a major influence into a kickstarter. That's what I meant by doing an Obsidian.

Actually, Athelas, I have to admit that tackling your points has given me more clarity. Infinitron's right:

To relive good experiences.

 

I have hope that it'll be a TB blobber if only because that's a niche that Obsidian and InXile aren't currently covering. Maybe they'll think there's too much overlap if everything they do is top down.

 

We did.

 

Fixed it for you...

 

Grimoire is properly Wizardry 7.5, really. Wizardry 9 would probably be more like Wizardry 8:mrfussy:

 

I guess they thought Grimrock 1 was an interactive movie, like 90% of all games nowaday...

 

I know what I am saying now is banal, but if sales numbers were a public knowledge, our market analyses would be deeply improved.

 

I would add Realms of Arkania 2 to that list.

If you get past the first 10% or so of MMX it becomes really good later on. Xulima is also on my list.

Because D.W. Bradley has lost his mind (Dungeon Lords) and Andrew Greenberg stopped making games a long time ago. And Brenda Garneau or whats-her-name - I won't even go there. Cleve is our only hope. And Fargo, maybe.

 

As far as I know it hasn't been confirmed to be a first person blobber, correct me if it has. As to why I was reading this thread, easy, I like CRPGs, I like Inxile, so Inxile kickstarting a new CRPG interests me.

Obviously Inxile updating W2 to an overhead view is evidence that games like Bard's tale and Wasteland only played the way they did due to technical limitations.

 

I hope Fargo's team can deliver. It's too early to get overly excited without knowing exact features and how they will be implemented. Is he sincere to old school sensibilities, or will he slip into snakeoil salesman mode?

In Gygax We Trust, and the developers at TSI. Fargo, have to keep an eye on.

 

I was actually going to say ...

This talk about TB, PB, RTwP made me remember ... Wizardry 8, best blobber combat ever imo ... and it had two modes. Standard phase-based, and 'continuous' phase-based. Since mechanically they were almost identical, it was easy enough to include both and allow the player to switch back and forth on the fly. That would absolutely be my ideal system, unless Fargo has an idea that is legitimately even better.

Also Wiz8 had 360° movement. Frankly, I'm over the blobber grid.

You had me going for a second there.

 

Yes, please God don't let the "wiggly corridor team" in charge of making a fucking dungeon.

 

The blobber grid is a good abstraction and makes exploration and navigation more straight-forward. Alternatively, something like in Realms of Arkania 2 can be done where people could choose either step movement or free movement. I think that is the best of both worlds.

 

Uhm, this might come as a shock, but buildings usually have corridors in them.

Maybe they could introduce a subplot that explains the dungeons have terrible level design because the villain had to rely on shitty architects that can't land legit work.

 

Eh. Wiz8's navigation wasn't difficult or devious, was it?

Never played RoA2 (for long anyway), but that sounds fine with me.

 

Yeah but good dungeon crawler design shouldn't be that hard that only a handful of developers are capable of doing it (trust me, I know these things since I've never worked in game development). Nocturne (and Labyrinth of 2hu2 and Elimnage from what I've read on the codex) was great and I'm pretty sure it was developed by people who've never played D&D. Same thing for some of the bosses and dungeons in Etrian Odyssey. Though those Japanese developers were inspired by Wizardry and other games which were made by old Western developers who were experienced in D&D.

With some imagination and moden hardware you could do a lot than just Etrian Odyssey boss gimmicks. You'd think that with grid based movement and turn based combat things would be easy implement and you could easily make very complex levels and bosses.

I'd love to see another game like Wizardry 8, but no grid movement=no mapping (or it becomes very cumbersome when you can't measure distance (Ultima 7), or something like Ultima Underworld where you have the dungeon layout and just add notes to it). A game with out mapping could be perfectly enjoyable though as long as is as good/better than Wizardry 8, with a lot of party customization options, great combat etc.

 

Yeah. Speaking for myself, I don't even have graph paper in my house. Haven't for 20 years. Don't want it.

Right on.

 

This is funny if you think about it.
"Dungeons" with structure typical for dungeon crawlers would be natural things like caves, things build ad-hoc(catacombs) or without clear lead(pre-industrial era mines). Fortress or its dungeon theoretically shouldn't be a labyrinth of tunnels with traps and shit, because it would make it hard for inhabitants to cope.

I mean imagine evil, evil guy. He comes to you on a horse fucks you up and tells you - "I am the evilist evil to ever be evil, now I'll leave you and come back to my evil fortress called Evil Fortress of Evil to continue my evil plan of decline destruction!". You're just a whimp, but whatever - you're finding a party of other whimps and go to the Evil Fortress of Evil.

What's more plausible?
Well designed redoubt which allows Evil Guy's servants to quickly reinforce key positions and fuck up any invaders?

Or piece of spaghetti dungeon that will make reinforcing front lines impossible, and traps that will cause your henchmen to fear leaving their quarters?

The Evil Guy I've pictured will surely prefer spaghetti dungeon but real evil guy wouldn't. Which isn't wrong by itself - dungeon crawling gives you many opportunities that will make the game more interesting, but it's plain stupid if you apply real life logic(same case with stats, health points, experience system, difficulty curve and many many others).