Company News Bethesda starts a blog!

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Bethesda Softworks

Everyone's favorite developer has started a <a href=http://www.bethblog.com/>blog</a> to become an even friendlier company, if that's even possible.
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<blockquote>Welcome to our little blog. We’ve actually been running this thing for a while, but only internally while we got things sorted and got our approvals (Matt’s mom didn’t want to sign the permission slip). This (blog) is something I’ve wanted to do for a while now, but I didn’t have the time to do it on my own with everything else going on (that “Oblivion” thing, for one).
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When I hired Matt to help with community stuff, I put this at the top of his list to help me get started, along with IT guy extraordinaire Rob (”the man” who makes our sites, wiki, and this blog work) and Lindsay (aka ShiftyEyedDog), who came up with a design. And, I pulled in Ashley because: a) he’s been doing a lot of work on his own blog (ashleycheng.com), and b) we’ve been friends for a while now so he’ll pretty much go along with something and help as long as it isn’t completely moronic, which is rare.
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We hope to use this as a way of better communicating with people who play our games, or want to know what we’re up to, and letting folks know what’s going on with our games, communities, or just games in general.
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We already have an outlet for official info on our games, but have been pretty limited on providing info on cool mods that are out, put up a gallery of fan art, do short Q&As with devs from different games, answer questions we get from people in a place where everyone else can see it too, or, I dunno, show off a Fallout 3 paint job someone here did in Forza 2…that kind of thing. Official sites aren’t always a good way to do that sort of thing, and things tend to get lost in our forums fairly quickly. Since gaming is what we do for work and play, hopefully this blog will cover plenty of both.
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If you have ideas or suggestions, drop us an email and let us know.
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Pete</blockquote>Idea: You guys should interview Bethesda developers! Won't that be something?
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Thanks, Stargelman
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[Brother None]

Yay, blog! This must be the new community management they hired Matt Grandstaff for, because obviously you'd need an extra staff member to control such a wide flow of information!

Speaking of flows of information, everyone check out the news on selective copyright enforcement?

 

[Black]

Quote from http://bethblog.com/?p=83

Don’t worry, it’s not a spin off title we’re working on.

Hahaha, really funny bethtards...

 

[Mr Happy]

Drakensang.net staff member

Well, this is completely unrelated, but it looks like there is a lot of new Drakenseng info. Haven't looked at it closely yet, but I'm just guessing it is not very Realms of Arkania (ironically, this is a Fallout 3 topic, so there you go).

edit: I guess they still have map travel in some form, which is most likely more than we can say for fallout 3:

Travelling can be compared to NWN2 (for veterans: Realms of Arkania 1/2), from a regional map you can choose your destination. During travel random encounter can interrupt your passage. That means ambushes or wild animals, something like that.

 

[Vault Dweller]

... I'm just guessing it is not very Realms of Arkania...

It's "BG in 3D".

2. In several interviews you've described Drakensang as "something like Baldur's Gate in 3D". I'm curious, why Baldur's Gate? Why not "another DSA game!" or "something like the well loved and influental Realms of Arkania games"?

Bernd Beyreuther: When we arrived at the description “Baldur’s Gate in 3D”, this was at the end of a long and intensive game design process. At no time, did we think “we’re gonna make a clone of this or that game”. In fact, we spent several months, collecting and reviewing the game design aspects for – what we consider – a *proper* role-playing game. We asked fans and gamers for their opinions and played many different RPGs.

We found a number of features that were – and still are – very important to us: a party, dynamic combat with a round-based ruleset, a certain complexity in skills, strong and memorable characters, dynamic dialogues and a whole bunch more.

The old RoA games were not homogeneous in terms of the gameplay, which was a consequence of the technical restrictions of the time: We moved through 3D-cities that were bereft of people. Everything was displayed from the first-person perspective, but you never got to see your party. For combat, it switched over to a rigid isometric perspective etc.

Therefore our objective can hardly be described as “Realms of Arkania in 3D”. Our project is just better described as a “Baldur’s Gate in 3D”. But this does not mean, that we took more inspiration from one than the other.

http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=16056

 

[Mr Happy]

It's "BG in 3D".

Haha, what the hell

I'll never understand how people consider RTwP "less interrupting" than turn based combat, especially since, ya know, this is a party based game, so you are going to be pausing and switching (I'm guessing) quite a bit.

Anyway, kinda reminds me of the fallout 3 style of doing things. Seemingly very different game play from the originals, and promises of things like a complexity in skills, choices and consequences and travelling, but no examples. WHERE HAVE WE SEEN THIS BEFORE

 

[Brother None]

To continue off topic; yeah, combat is probably the least appealing factor in the Drakensang game. Silly party RTwP isn't my cup of tea. The "we're cutting back dialogue 'cuz people don't want to read too much" isn't sounding too good either.

Apart from that, they're pretty honest about it not being another RoA game (and that sets them apart from Bethesda's lot, they really are old DSA fans, and a lot more honest than Bethesda about what their product *is*), yet they do take some useful cues from RoA, and the story is from professional DSA authors. It won't be another RoA, but it might end up an improved BG in a better setting, which wouldn't be perfect, but it'd be a bit of alright.

 

[obediah]

Yay, blog! This must be the new community management they hired Matt Grandstaff for?

"Community Management"? Is that seriously their terminology? Maybe for a branch of goverment or community watch group. But if an entertainment company has to manage their community, they have failed.

 

[Mr Happy]

I guess you are right about the honesty. I've never played BG, so the comparison doesn't help me, but it might be decent if they play their cards right. All travel systems basically suck compared to RoA, and everybody these days is going "scaled-down world", so this could be a nice opporitunity. With any luck, it will retain some of the detail/survival aspects/party options.

Also, I am hoping for a good skill set. I'm sure it will be a bit smaller than the originals (which basically had the best set of any RPG), but they did mention a "certain complexity in skills' as something they liked. With some synergies thrown in, they could be getting somewhere.

On the other hand, the more I think about it, the more RTwP party based combat irritates me. You basically have to relinquish control of all the characters except one. Sure, you can give orders, but you generally have to rely on AI unless you plan on pausing every few seconds. You lose a lot of strategic movement control as well, because things are happening simultaneusly.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

I guess you are right about the honesty. I've never played BG, so the comparison doesn't help me, but it might be decent if they play their cards right. All travel systems basically suck compared to RoA, and everybody these days is going "scaled-down world", so this could be a nice opporitunity. With any luck, it will retain some of the detail/survival aspects/party options.

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Hehe. Ive just read a few days ago in their forum that your characters don't have to rest during overland travel and will have full HP etc. when arriving at their destination.
So much for that.

I agree with you, the RoA travel system is friggin AWESOME. One of the best aspects of the game, and unfortunatly not copied by many (any?) other RPGs.

 

[stargelman]

Yay, blog! This must be the new community management they hired Matt Grandstaff for?

"Community Management"? Is that seriously their terminology? Maybe for a branch of goverment or community watch group. But if an entertainment company has to manage their community, they have failed.

"Community Management" as in "crowd control".

 

[hiciacit]

... I dunno ...

bah

 

[elander_]

They only want to distract their victim to steal his wallet better.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

• Welcome to Bethesda Blog, the unofficial blog for Bethesda Softworks. The purpose of our blog to create a online space where fans of our games can learn more about us – from what we’re working on to our favorite brands of cereal.

Ermm... Unofficial? From Pete? Righhht...

 

[thesheeep]

Oh, come on, guys. You smell conspiracy behind every door, don't you?...

 

[Claw]

It's just funny that they call a blog their official PR guy posts on unofficial.

Ashley Chang's blog was unofficial. This is like, made by the PR department.

 

[psycojester]

Its not entirely a new concept, Sony are doing one of of these "unofficial" PR department run blogs as well, the fun part is telling the fake P.R responses from the genuinely retarded bethfans.

And whats the best "unhelpful" comments or references to the codex will get deleted from the comments as well.

And finally Stephen Fry explains Petes hype'n'shite http://www.tv-links.co.uk/show.do/1/3377

 

[Texas Red]

These blogs will soon feature ludicrous hype ala Mass Effect. Bioware has a blog on IGN or other some idiotic site and it gets to pick their own questions and answers. The result is so ridiculous that anyone who believes their bullshit should report to the suicide booth.