I was really fairly disappointed with the Brian Fargo interviews I've read thus far in which he describes this supposed "remake" of The Bard's Tale. My disappointment stems from the fact that the game simply doesn't sound like much of a remake of the game at all, but rather merely an entirely new game which deceitfully seeks to establish itself by trading on the reputation of the original. When I first heard about the game I was immediately very interested because I had no idea Fargo would dare to trade on the original and call it a "remake" when it's clear it is anything but that. I'm keeping an open mind about the game nonetheless, but I am still disappointed and not expecting much. If I am pleasantly surprised, well, that'll be great.
But, it seems in reading Fargo's comments that he's managed to strip the game of everything that I enjoyed about the original--he said in one interview, for instance, that The Bard's Tale (original) "had no plot," as if the game's premise of exploring new territory, bashing in doors that might lead to sewers or dungeons, managing a group of characters and watching them grow more powerful and skilled with experience, accumulating all kinds of interesting inventories and magical items having unusual if not unique properties, fighting your way through hordes of monsters, and the powerful fascination of never knowing what you'd encounter around the next bend that would lead you into new directions and encounters--as if all of that was what was *wrong* with the original Bard's Tale, instead of what was right about it.
It is regrettably true that the computer industry in general sees people and companies who come and go after making great products, shining brightly for a short while, and then imploding to form black holes, rarely to be seen or heard from again. Often what happens is that for some inexplicable reason those people/companies become very successful during their shining period, but since they don't really understand the basis of their success, they find themselves unable to repeat and maintain that success, and they just fade away. But in contrast if you look at companies like ID Software, Epic, Bioware, etc., you'll see that the people there have a very strong handle on why they've become successful and why it is that people like their products, and it's in the knowing of the "why" of their success that these companies can maintain their respective audiences and reputations over long spans of time.
So, I have to wonder at Fargo's true motivation in changing The Bard's Tale so fundamentally. I mean, I have no doubt that he appreciates how popular and successful the original game was, since he's decided to call this game "The Bard's Tale" and literally portray it as a "remake." He'd never, ever do this if he didn't appreciate how successful the original game was, and he didn't know what fond memories of lot of people had for the experience of the game. So....how does it follow then that he thinks stripping the remake of the Bard's Tale of all of the elements that made it a classic might be the correct route to follow? Does he think that the only element in the original that people loved was the name of the game, "The Bard's Tale"? Beats me, it really does, but I have a couple of theories....
The first one that occurs to me is the dreaded "We want to sell to consoles" syndrome. Typically, consoles lack a lot of the hardware resources of PCs, and, I think, are somewhat lacking with respect to gaming control (keyboard + mouse is hard to beat, as far as I am concerned.) Lack of hardware resources contrasted with PC's would also include, but not be limited to, high capacities of permanent storage space, 3d graphics capabilites for much higher resolution displays and SOA 3d hardware feature support, dedicated and large pools of videoram and system ram, much more powerful cpus, etc. Basically, games targeted to provide both PC and console support immediately upon release may well tax the capabilities of consoles and yet be far below the capabilities of the decently equipped, average PC's that gamers typically own. In short, you simply do not have the developmental overhead room with a console that you have with a PC, and cannot do as much with it. I much prefer as a rule, it seems, games which are developed for the PC exclusively and initially relased first as PC-only, which are only then later "ported" [dumbed down] for the console market, which is necessary because of the comparative lack of physical resources consoles provide. (DeusEx2 is a recent example of how this works, I think.)
Second theory here is the "3d game engine" syndrome. Is it really true that Fargo thinks that the group play in the original Bard's Tale is inferior to that of a single character, that he made a mistake in the original game letting players manage a team of characters, and that nobody cared anything about any of the other characters in the game apart from the bard? I really cannot imagine Fargo making such a fundamental mistake, but I have to admit it is barely possible.
What I think is far more likely, however, is that the game is developed as bard-only, with the lame and uninteresting "summon other characters temporarily for fighting" aspect thrown in as a bone to appease players of the original game, simply because the game engine Fargo is using isn't suited to support the kind multi-character RPG management which was so basic to the original game. People like managing groups of characters in RPGs--they just do--and typically this makes such a game far more absorbing and interesting. Linking here with my first theory above, a single-character engine also requires fewer hardware resources to support. (Look at NeverWinterNights, for instance, and consider how many people saw the one-character & sidekick implementation to get boring fairly quickly. Also consider how the latest expansions for NWN have sought to improve upon that apsect in response to the criticism it generated.)
I think the 3d-game engine selected and its inherent limitations, coupled with a desire to tailor the game to the console space, have resulted in many, if not most, of Fargo's basic design strategies relative to what he calls the "remake" of The Bard's Tale. I think it's because of these two decisions that Fargo says things like, paraphrased, "We really found inventory management in the original game to be too complex and time consuming."
That's not really true, I think, as inventory management by the player and routinely finding new and interesting items was one of the original's best features, and Fargo is being less than forthcoming about why the "remake" is really looking more like a parody of the original game than it is an actual attempt to remake the game so that it is presented with current technology while remaining faithful to the epic presentation of the original game. It simply isn't reasonable to consider any other rationale when comes to things like the remake offering "just a few, limited weapons sets" and the really bizarre aspect of automatically turning inventory into gold. In fact, the automatic transmutation of inventory into gold strikes me as flatly illogical. In RPGs it's never "the gold" people really want--it's what the gold can *buy* that is compelling and interesting (just as in real life with real money.) It certainly looks like the remake will provide players with plenty of gold but little or nothing to buy with it. Add in here the game engine's inability to do first-person perspective display as the original game offered and as is not uncommon with many other 3d engines, and you really wind up with a picture of the remake not being a remake at all, but something quite different, possibly being only a parody of the original game, and a game hobbled in structure and design in comparison to the original by an overarching desire to target consoles, and with a 3d-engine suited best for console fare. That's my view, such as it is.
I think what Fargo's doing here is a terrific and poignant example of how many current game developers are going wrong these days. I think it's best to start with a game design and concept and work from there when considering platforms and game engines, as opposed to tailoring your game and concept to the hardware limitations of consoles and the limitations of 3d engines you pick because of their applicability to console support.
It really sounds to me as if Fargo targeted consoles and picked a 3d-engine for that purpose before he ever began fleshing out the basic concept of what he terms is the "remake" of The Bard's Tale. I think that's why we see this concentrated emphasis on "humor" concerning this game--which of course is a great thing for any game, I think. It's just that in this case the "humor" is being emphasized to mask the fact that the remake is simply missing many of the fundamental aspects which made the original a classic game in every respect, aspects of gameplay which made the original as popular as it was and without which none of us would today remember the original Bard's Tale at all. That's the pity of it.
I could be much more sympathetic to Fargo if he had elected to title this game "A Bard's Tale" instead of "The Bard's Tale" and professing it is a "remake" of the original game. Surely he must understand that when he's using the same title and says it's a remake that people will naturally have certain basic expectations for it that are congruent with the original game. That's just simple, ordinary common sense. The fact is he'd have been better off with a new title and to specify the game as a new one which is *not* a remake of the original. But, it's obvious that he's hoping to trade on the reputation of the original game while at the same time only paying lip service to it in the new game. I do not think this will be a successful strategy, and it may well completely backfire, in fact. I mean, by Fargo's own quoted comments in a number of interviews I've read, the one solid conclusion I can make is that this game is not actually a remake of the original at all. I was not happy to reach that conclusion and I actually looked for things in those interviews to undermine it, but I unfortunately couldn't find any thing to dissuade my initial impression that The Bard's Tale is not going to be a remake of The Bard's Tale at all.
As I said at the start of this post, I'm very disappointed. I will, however, endeavor to keep an open mind until the game ships.
Thanks...
