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Brian Fargo: "The golden era of computer RPGs is yet to come" (interview @ Polygamia.pl)

Suchy

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http://polygamia.pl/Polygamia/1,112...__The_golden_era_of_computer_RPGs_is_yet.html

(...)
In the mid-90 Interplay was home for biggest RPG franchises - Stonekeep, Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, Fallout. Do you think it was a golden age for the computer RPGs?
I think you are about to see the golden age of RPGs come rushing back in the next few years, with what I'm seeing from Obsidian, CD Projekt and of course what we are working on. But most certainly there was a purity to the development of RPGs in the 90's in which we were very attuned to our players. You could not make nearly the money on a game back then as you can today, and the budgets were a fraction of today's big spends. The risk factors changed greatly as we left the 90's and the pressure ramped up and created a lot of craziness. But I honestly see that purity and being in sync with the RPG players coming back full circle -- in fact it is even stronger than ever.

(...)

What is you favorite element of Wasteland 2? How are you going do redefine the genre?
That is a tough question to answer, but we are trying hard to take the reactivity and mood to another level with Wasteland 2. One of the hardest things to do in making this game is creating tons of content that you know half the people won't see unless they play the game again, and while painful creatively it makes for a more realistic world. You can have some simple NPC join you in the game and there will quite a few fantastic sequences attributed to him through the entire game that players would never see if they didn't keep this seemingly unimportant figure. The writing is really first rate on the game and clearly comes from an adult perspective and experience. Layering on such a deep tactical combat experience over so much storyline combines elements that I have always wanted. And I have to say the radio chatter and its reactivity is going to bring the world to life in a strong way. We have a lot of pressure to deliver a classic.

Do you try to achieve in Torment: ToN the same quality of narration like in Planescape Torment? With book-like experience in dialogues and telling the story?
We know that one thing that people loved about PS:T was the focus on storytelling and using the conversation system to manage the world. Our crew of writers on T:TON are incredible, so people who love a literary vibe in an RPG will love it.

How modern video games can affect Torment experience? I mean checkpoints, lowered difficulty, radar, arrows showing where to go etc.
I think we have been very clear that the experiences we are creating have more in common with the old school games but take advantage of modern elements like configurable UI. The handholding aspects of some modern games are exactly what our backers don't want to see, so people shouldn't expect much help there. Discovery is a large part of the experience with these kinds of RPGs and too much sign posting can ruin that aspect.

(...)
 

groke

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Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera BattleTech I'm very into cock and ball torture
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I wanna believe...
 

eric__s

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Maybe one should come out first before we all hail the new paradigm.

Do you really think any of the big Kickstarter games will be exceptionally good, as good as games made with five times the budgets and staff 15 years ago? I don't think so. The reason Kickstarter is important is that it proves there's still a large audience for RPGs and that there are alternative ways to fund them than big publishers. This generation of Kickstarter RPGs is the first stepping stone in getting RPGs back on track and mainstream again, but I don't think we can realistically expect the first round of Kickstarter RPGs to produce a golden age, or anything other than solid, enjoyable RPGs. It's the things that come after this that are exciting.
 

Infinitron

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Do you really think any of the big Kickstarter games will be exceptionally good, as good as games made with five times the budgets and staff 15 years ago?

You might want to verify what the budget and staff size of Fallout 1 were before making such statements
 

marooned

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It's either Fargo doing his thing or he's starting to lose his marbles like the other old farts.
 

evdk

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Codex 2012 Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
It's either Fargo doing his thing or he's starting to lose his marbles like the other old farts.
I have to say I prefer Fargo's brand of insanity (believing himself to be old school cRPG messiah bringing with him the promise of gaming renaissance) to that of the other legends in the biz. At least his has some chance to bring something other then streamlined QTE infested cinematic experience. Bring on the lunacy!
 

Zarniwoop

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It's either Fargo doing his thing or he's starting to lose his marbles like the other old farts.

Call me naive, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. He's made some strange statements, sure, but he's still below the Molyneux-Garriot Batshit Coefficient Curve for now.
 

LeStryfe79

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Maybe one should come out first before we all hail the new paradigm.

Do you really think any of the big Kickstarter games will be exceptionally good, as good as games made with five times the budgets and staff 15 years ago? I don't think so. The reason Kickstarter is important is that it proves there's still a large audience for RPGs and that there are alternative ways to fund them than big publishers. This generation of Kickstarter RPGs is the first stepping stone in getting RPGs back on track and mainstream again, but I don't think we can realistically expect the first round of Kickstarter RPGs to produce a golden age, or anything other than solid, enjoyable RPGs. It's the things that come after this that are exciting.

I expect P:E to be better than BG. By all accounts, it should have better character models, party development, and UI. It will probably have better mechanics, setting, and writing as well. It also has a huge dungeon. I'm not sure about W2 or Tides yet, but I'm optimistic. I don't necessarily believe these games will be innovative, but there comes a time in various mediums where innovation takes a backseat to quality. For example, color and sound were good innovations to cinema, but 3d is not. As long as the game play, presentation, and value are good, it's a win in my opinion. Everyone has said that avoiding publishers, box costs, and making engines from scratch is huge, and cuts the costs of production considerably. You're a developer, Chef, is it BS? I personally don't think hardcore/old school/ innovative RPG's will ever be truly mainstream again. It's like the way quality HBO shows like GoT might be popular, but not nearly as big as The Voice or whatever. The mainstream always follows the path of least resistance, and I don't think our hobby will ever be more than 2 to 3 times as popular as it is now. Still, I think Fargo doesn't understand the term "Golden Age". Clearly the early - mid 80's were the Golden age and the late 90's or there abouts was the silver age. We are in the modern age now. This is definitely not the golden age of RPG's by it's very definition.
 

coffeetable

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Maybe one should come out first before we all hail the new paradigm.

Do you really think any of the big Kickstarter games will be exceptionally good, as good as games made with five times the budgets and staff 15 years ago? I don't think so. The reason Kickstarter is important is that it proves there's still a large audience for RPGs and that there are alternative ways to fund them than big publishers. This generation of Kickstarter RPGs is the first stepping stone in getting RPGs back on track and mainstream again, but I don't think we can realistically expect the first round of Kickstarter RPGs to produce a golden age, or anything other than solid, enjoyable RPGs. It's the things that come after this that are exciting.


The Baldur's Gate II postmortem claimed that Baldur's Gate I took 90 man-years of work, which at today's prices is $10-$15m. Thing is, with BG1 they were a new studio developing a new engine for a game that broke new ground in terms of gameplay, all the while working within 1998 hardware constraints. More, literally no-one on the team had released a computer game before - they were using stone-age software engineering techniques like bug tracking on whiteboards in the hallway. All in all, I reckon the ~$4m that an experience studio like Obsidian have to play with will likely get more done than people think.

inXile though I'm less confident about.
 

Jashiin

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And lack of publisher milestones should speed up development time and conserve resources. Also more then ever I would think all the people involved will be a lot more motivated making a game for their fans and investors, instead of a bunch of suits ripping you off and choking you creatively all the way.
 

DalekFlay

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Do you really think any of the big Kickstarter games will be exceptionally good, as good as games made with five times the budgets and staff 15 years ago?


Probably some of them, yes. Do I think the average Codexer will say that? No.
 

Grunker

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Do you really think any of the big Kickstarter games will be exceptionally good, as good as games made with five times the budgets and staff 15 years ago?

You might want to verify what the budget and staff size of Fallout 1 were before making such statements


I was just about to say this. Staff-wise these teams are sometimes way bigger than some of the games on the RPG Codex All Time list. Budget-wise as well. Dunno about Fallout though.
 

Infinitron

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Do you really think any of the big Kickstarter games will be exceptionally good, as good as games made with five times the budgets and staff 15 years ago?

You might want to verify what the budget and staff size of Fallout 1 were before making such statements


I was just about to say this. Staff-wise these teams are sometimes way bigger than some of the games on the RPG Codex All Time list. Budget-wise as well. Dunno about Fallout though.

Fallout had a similar budget to Wasteland 2, and that included 3D pre-rendered cutscenes, celebrity voice acting and developing an engine from scratch.
 

LeStryfe79

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Chef is a quality poster of the highest order though. I blame rats for his current delusions.

:bro:
 

Grunker

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Do you really think any of the big Kickstarter games will be exceptionally good, as good as games made with five times the budgets and staff 15 years ago?

You might want to verify what the budget and staff size of Fallout 1 were before making such statements


I was just about to say this. Staff-wise these teams are sometimes way bigger than some of the games on the RPG Codex All Time list. Budget-wise as well. Dunno about Fallout though.

Fallout had a similar budget to Wasteland 2, and that included 3D pre-rendered cutscenes, celebrity voice acting and developing an engine from scratch.


Does this account for inflation? I reckon it doesn't ;)

But still.
 

coffeetable

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Does this account for inflation? I reckon it doesn't ;)

But still.


If it was a $3 million budget at the start of development in 1995, it'd be $4.6 million now. Probably a bit less, since I think the average US wage has risen slower than inflation.
 

tuluse

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I think Fargo doesn't understand the term "Golden Age". Clearly the early - mid 80's were the Golden age and the late 90's or there abouts was the silver age. We are in the modern age now. This is definitely not the golden age of RPG's by it's very definition.
There are other contexts of golden age than comics (or TV I suppose). In soccer it's common to refer to a golden age when a nation is at it's best in terms of talent. Following your analogy, shouldn't this be the bronze age of RPGs anyways?
 

tuluse

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If it was a $3 million budget at the start of development in 1995, it'd be $4.6 million now. Probably a bit less, since I think the average US wage has risen slower than inflation.
Programmer wages probably kept pace better than the average wage.
 

KithKanan

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If it was a $3 million budget at the start of development in 1995, it'd be $4.6 million now. Probably a bit less, since I think the average US wage has risen slower than inflation.
Programmer wages probably kept pace better than the average wage.

Particularly full time employee costs -- health insurance has FAR outpaced inflation, and while the employee doesn't see it in wages, the employer certainly sees it in budget.
 

Grunker

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^ tuluse: I wouldn't be so sure. Gaming programmers are among the most underpaid workers relative to their education.

Does this account for inflation? I reckon it doesn't ;)

But still.


If it was a $3 million budget at the start of development in 1995, it'd be $4.6 million now. Probably a bit less, since I think the average US wage has risen slower than inflation.


Sounds about right, but the process is probably much more efficient now. Using Unity also saves them a ton.
 

shihonage

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I'm spending about $8000 on basic human graphics for Shelter. Of course there's a lot more to buy, foreshadowing my future life on the street, using public library computers to code while mumbling something about Cleve's dreams.
 

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