Interview Darklands Designer joins Matt Chat

[Jason]

Tags: Darklands

<p><a href="http://dwarfstar.brainiac.com/" target="_blank">Dwarfstar</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microprose_Software" target="_blank">MicroProse</a> veteran <a href="http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,978/" target="_blank"><strong>Arnold Hendrick</strong></a> was interviewed for the <a href="http://www.armchairarcade.com/neo/node/3519" target="_blank">latest edition of Matt Chat</a>, primarily to talk about <strong>Darklands</strong>. You're looking at a 45 minute listen that's well worth the time if you have the slightest interest in game design and history. <br /><br /><em>thanks to phanboy_iv</em></p>

 

[space odyssey]

Cool interview, dude sounds like Donald Sutherland with a brutal stutter

 

[Jason]

Wow, good call. He's like Donald Sutherland mixed with my old archaeology professor. But not insane.

 

[SCO]

No wonder he turned game designer.

:honorblade: for realizing you couldn't get laid and going all the way!

 

[SCO]

That part 3 Dragon Age footage is rage inducing.

 

[space odyssey]

Still, the love some of these old designers have MMO's is disheartening, although I can kind of see his point about it coming full circle to pnp role playing experience in theory, though in practice it doesn't feel like that at all.

Matt also does get the goods when it comes to getting interviews, but he's a fairly weak interviewer himself, like when asked by Hendrick what he thought of the real time pause he gave a pretty crappy non answer, could have been good discussion there.

When he(hendrick) connected it back to MMOs getting back closer to pnp, I would say that's technically true in the context he presented it, but even assuming that is the case, CRPGS, in particular the party based tactical combat focused ones have become their own genre worthy of being judged against itself and continued and developed upon on their own merits rather than straight out attempts at mimicking the tabletop.

 

[Trojan_generic]

A. Hendrick was a fucking legend in the good old C64 days, too bad he jumped on the MMO bandwagon. A clear 2nd genius at MicroProse.

 

[Fens]

Cool interview

 

[kris]

Still, the love some of these old designers have MMO's is disheartening, although I can kind of see his point about it coming full circle to pnp role playing experience in theory, though in practice it doesn't feel like that at all.

I also loved MMORPGs. I mean before I played them.

 

[Davaris]

That was an interesting comment he made about RTwP. I never thought of it that way before, but he is right.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Wow, that was fucking awesome. The guy may give blowjobs to old games but he certainly is able to get the devs to talk a lot.

Anyway, I was pretty surprised to learn that Darklands had a 3,000,000$ budget. It's no wonder that it didn't have any successors after it tanked.