Interview Arx I and II interview at RPGDot

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Arkane Studios; Arx Fatalis

<a href="http://www.rpgdot.com/">RPGDot</a> has posted a <a href="http://www.rpgdot.com/index.php?hsaction=10053&ID=550">groovy interview</a> with <b>Raphael Colantonio</b> on some design merits of <A href="http://www.arxfatalis-online.com">Arx Fatalis</a> and the new project they're also working on. Here's one fun bit:
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<blockquote>Dagon: Reassure me... Will there be sequences based on dexterity? I cursed your name whenever there were platform jumps over lava in the Dwarf mines!
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Raphael Colantonio:</b> In fact... The reason why people cursed us in the lava sequence was because it wasn't properly made. Here's what we realized by reading the reviews: the game being rather big and having few moments of action or role or adventure, the players didn't all take it the same way. Some tried to compare us to Morrowind or other hardcore RPGs with lots of stats everywhere, without action and lots of dialogues, etc... Those players blamed the lack of weapon, armor and sub-quests variety, etc... Knowing that we really didn't want to make a game like Morrowind, it's a little bit like if someone would have blamed the lack of variety of cars compared with Ridge Racer... It kind of bothered us a little.</blockquote>
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Jump puzzles in a CRPG are like having to stop for bathroom breaks in a racing game, just not a good idea!

 

[HanoverF]

I have to wonder what kind of game they were trying to make, Ok they gave it bad rpg dressing, because they didn't want to make an rpg in the first place (?), but the other elements weren't so hot either. I cant believe anyone who played Thief was impressed with Arx.

On the positive side it did have revolutionary pie making aspects...

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

That argument of his kind of bothered me as well. I think he misses the point of the comparason to Morrowind, because Morrowind provided a lot more of what people wanted, and Arx didn't, naturally people are going to say that Morrowind is better. When they started calling Arx a CRPG, they openned the door for those comparasons.

 

[Flarnet]

Yeah this guy is just trying to squirm his way out of the fact that Arx was crap in many ways, mediocre in many ways, good in many ways and excellent in no way at all.
I'm no die hard fan of Morrowind, but I do know that this guy would make much less of a fool out of himself if he just didn't mention Morrowind. At all.

Most of the things I didn't like about Morrowind were due to concious design decisions (decisions I don't agree with and fail to see how anyone can find preferable, but I still respect them as someone's deliberate vision). Subsequently there are a large number of people who think that Morrowind is close to perfect.
Arx Fatalis on the other hand is broken or sub-standard in a huge number of ways, not due to concious design, but due to lack of design or plain old poor design.

So please. Mr Arx dude. Don't try to make us think that people have issues with your game due to the fact that it differs by design from other popular games (of vastly higher quality).
People have issues with your game because of the the horrible dialog, the horrible collision, the horrible cutscene camera paths, the horrible inventory interface, the horrible lack of warrior/wizard/thief balancing, the horrible lack of an intelligent end battle/solution, the horrible un-planned and un-tested non-linearity that enabled the player to fuck up the game beyond repair in a number of ways.

I truly enjoyed post-patch Arx. It's memorable, and I recommended it to many people, especially those who liked old-school crpgs like Ultima Underworld and Eye of the beholder. But I was also careful to point out that unlike other games that I recommend, this game is not an 8 or 9 out of ten game, but more of a 5 or 6 out of ten game. The thing that warrants the recommendation is the fresh change.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I think that's the point that he's missing. They're not so much comparing Morrowind to Arx, at least not intentionally. They're comparing qualities of Morrowind to Arx. Morrowind isn't without it's faults, like the dialogue browser and the combat, but Morrowind had a lot that made up for that as well.

The point is that Morrowind did do some things very well, and Arx followed in the wake of that game. Saying that the good stuff in Morrowind isn't intended in the design of Arx Fatalis isn't going to make people who expect something as good or better instantly think Arx Fatalis is now better.