D. Gaider - from writing games to writing novels

[Hamster]

seventy beautiful maidens would be even better

Hmm, thats actually a good idea.
A book/game about a guy with 70 beautiful warrior maidens promised to him since birth, now thats a story.

Once again, as soon as stupid idea of game developers is brought to codex, within first few pages somebody comes up with simple solution how to change this developer's idea to somethig awesome.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

A book/game about a guy with 70 beautiful warrior maidens promised to him since birth, now thats a story.

allahu ackbar muhammad jihad

 

[Lurkar]

This book IS Bioware in every aspect.

 

[Pastel]

damn, I'd like to have a beautiful warrior maiden promised to me from birth hmm

your mom

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

After his mother, the beloved Rebel Queen, is betrayed and murdered by her own faithless lords, young Maric becomes the leader of a rebel army attempting to free his nation from the control of a powerful necromancer.

See what I did?

 

[bat_boro]

After his mother, the beloved Rebel Queen, is betrayed and murdered by her own faithless lords, young Maric becomes the leader of a rebel army attempting to free his nation from the control of a powerful necromancer.

See what I did?

Now that's pure JRRM awesomnes right there!

 

[Shoelip]

That kind of reminded me of Suikoden V. Except in that game his only allies are his large breasted aunt and a beautiful warrior maiden who's also his bodyguard and a ninja/assassin.

 

[Worm King]

Looks like they're trying to cash in on the Twilight/Harry Potter/Eragon with juvenile fantasy/wishful thinking.

 

[Lesifoere]

Wait, wait.

The thrilling prequel to Dragon Age: Origins, the hit role-playing video game from award-winning developer BioWare!

Dragon Age is already out and a hit? Gosh.

Somebody, find a way to get hold of sample chapters or whatever. From the blog entries:

As for the second obstacle… that was a bit trickier. I had to list the elements I needed to touch on. Religion. Elves. Dwarves. Darkspawn. Magic. Ferelden.

Thrilling stuff!

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I could imagine a great writer actually making a good novel out of this basic concept.

That would have to be a pretty epic writer.

I mean, taking traditional fantasy cliches and turning them on their head is great and all.

 

[Brother None]

Actually, the description of the 'allies' sounds a lot like one of the greatest film artistic masterpieces of all time....Conan the Barbarian (with Arnie as Conan)! Ahh...the great dialogue in that film - 'Hello, I'm [forgotten the name], a thief!'

Subotai.

And Conan the Barbarian is a great film for what it is.The setting is actually pretty well thought-out by the film-makers, too bad they decided to pay no mind to the source material.

But why that certain self-righteous, in seeing that this is only and the best way of doing it?

It's just the way the game industry thinks these days and Gaider is way too embroiled in it to separate himself from it. Turn-based is dead. Fixed protagonists aren't RPGs. Too much number-crunching is boring. First-person is immersive. All games should be immersive.

Nevermind that tastes differ, there's this kind of unforgiving Borg-like attitude to it. Resistance is futile, they will stomp all over your tastes for their monolithic design.

I mean, it's kind of pathetic when you think about it - BioWare has been basically recreating the same plotline with roughly the same mechanics and the same approach to storytelling in every game since Baldur's Gate. Bethesda is even worse, even when they get a license that is different from their approach in almost every way they wrestle it down and make it a FP RTwP game.

And these guys make it in the top list of most progressive game developers

Seriously, if the game industry becomes any more self-centred and self-congratulatory, I'm pretty sure arms will start to break from all that patting their own backs they're doing.

 

[MetalCraze]

I believe you wanted to say since BG1.

"After his father, the beloved Gorion, is murdered by Sarevok, young Chosen One becomes the leader of a rebel army attempting to free his nation from the control of a foreign tyrant"

 

[Wyrmlord]

Nevermind that tastes differ, there's this kind of unforgiving Borg-like attitude to it. Resistance is futile, they will stomp all over your tastes for their monolithic design.

Yeah, and now the RPGs that have been there for years before BG even came out are shot down. "Those are NOT RPGs."

Why do gamers have this stubborn dogma? Why do they think "create your own party" is a bad thing? Why is dialogue, an adventure game element, suddenly considered the core of RPGs? Why do gamers think that self-indulgent drama is all that there is to a RPG, and that combat,.etc is a detraction?

In short, why do they want to stamp out all variety from gaming, and just narrow and narrow the scope of the kind of games that can come out, simply because of their misplaced ideas of "tradition"?

 

[Gragt]

Actually, the description of the 'allies' sounds a lot like one of the greatest film artistic masterpieces of all time....Conan the Barbarian (with Arnie as Conan)! Ahh...the great dialogue in that film - 'Hello, I'm [forgotten the name], a thief!'

Subotai.

"I am Subotai, thief and archer!" even.

And Conan the Barbarian is a great film for what it is.The setting is actually pretty well thought-out by the film-makers, too bad they decided to pay no mind to the source material.

It's not really a bad thing, the story is tighter this way with no filler content. The source material is pulp stories for most the part and Milius wanted to leave this behind while keeping the whole idea of the setting being a forgotten age of our own history. He also gave a nitzschean feel to the whole story and included his own warrior code in it, it made things interesting, especially for the scenes where Conan confronts Thulsa Doom.

Too bad the sequel was not directed by Milius and was a wretched movie. Milius' plan was to make a trilogy, the first part being the forging of the sword (the movie opens on a scene of that kind but of course the sword is not only an object but Conan himself who is "forged" during the movie), the second the mastering, and the third the consequences. Instead we got Conan the Destroyer, a movie that failed everywhere Conan the Barbarian succeeded and I guess it's the reason why the latter got such a bad reputation now.

Seriously, if the game industry becomes any more self-centred and self-congratulatory, I'm pretty sure arms will start to break from all that patting their own backs they're doing.

I prefer to use the term self-fellating.

In short, why do they want to stamp out all variety from gaming, and just narrow and narrow the scope of the kind of games that can come out, simply because of their misplaced ideas of "tradition"?

Because most people do not develop any kind of critical sense and just believe what the media keep repeating. It's typical "keep telling a lie and people will believe it's true" attitude, see what it did for Oblivion for exemple.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Once again, as soon as stupid idea of game developers is brought to codex, within first few pages somebody comes up with simple solution how to change this developer's idea to somethig awesome.

You just have to agree with this.

 

[hiver]

Arnold as Conan is righteous. All the kids know it. He even knocks down camels and gets spat upon by one. Legendary.

And everybody has to admit that having Grace Jones was a funky wicked thing to have in that role

Anyway,... yeah i had those original Conan comics in small Marvels when i was a kid, that was good.
That episode on an island with those tall black demons killing everyone that was a cool one.

 

[Wyrmlord]

The best thing about Conan the Barbarian was the scene in which Thulsa Doom confronts Conan's mother in that village. There is no dialogue in the scene, just Doom quietly hypnotizing the mother and then decapacitating her with the sword made by Conan's father, while young Conan just watches. All of this, whilst under some superbly composed music.

It is then followed by another amazing scene in which we see Conan grow up through years of toil on the Wheel Of Pain.

This movie was written by the same man who wrote Apocalypse Now. Occasionally, CtB has that strange bleak ambience that Apocalypse Now has. There is also a similiarity in them, being that in the end, a man murders a local religious leader, and shocks his followers by showing them that he was not a god that he showed himself to be.

 

[yarpen]

I just hope that story in game won't be exactly same as in the novel. After all, it was supposed to be something original and different from typical high fantasy stuff... And here we have:
- young orphan hero with great legacy,
- powerful villain,
- beautiful maiden
At least he simply have to gather army and fight and not throw ring in fire or obtain Sword of Something.

 

[MetalCraze]

Why are you so sure?

 

[Gragt]

Wyrmlord > The Atlantean tomb and the sword is also a very nice scene, beautiful use of shadows, wonderfully filmed too with Conan slowly approaching the dead king on the throne, taking the sword with a feeling of awe... If that movie was done today, it would take only five seconds and Conan would say a one-line as he takes the sword.

Actually Conan was first written by Oliver Stone and the script was full of mutants, demons and magic. Milius rewrote the script, trying to remove supernatural elements as much as possible so when they actually appeared they would have a stronger impact than if they were common practice. It makes Thulsa Doom a very effective vilain.

yarpen > he might be able to turn clichés over but that requires a lot of skill and understanding of how they work. So far Bioware games showed they'd rather embrace clichés than counter them, so yes, it's not very positive so far.

 

[Brother None]

The best thing about Conan the Barbarian was the scene in which Thulsa Doom confronts Conan's mother in that village. There is no dialogue in the scene, just Doom quietly hypnotizing the mother and then decapacitating her with the sword made by Conan's father, while young Conan just watches. All of this, whilst under some superbly composed music.

I still have the Conan the Barbarian OST by Basil Poledouris somewhere. It's a masterful piece.

Thulsa Doom is something anyway. The hefty, bass-voiced James Earl Jones, but with his hair straightened and eyes blued, a simple mechanic but effective to give him that feel that he is not of this world - that he is the last of a race we know not of.

EDIT: man, I just realised I was initially interested in Dragon Age, but boy has the PR campaign done a good job of souring any positive feelings I harbour towards the game.

 

[Spectacle]

Oh my fucking god this sounds like failure of the truly Epic kind! Has Bioware truly spent the last five years or so to write up a teenage power-wank fantasy to serve as the setting for their latest game?

I've been anticipating Dragon Age, but it seems like bioware's marketing department are doing their best to convince me it's not worth playing. I'd like to believe that it's just the marketing angle and doesn't reflect on the actual game, but I've been burned too many times.

Good combat and character customization can still save the game though, even if the story and setting is shallow, derivative crap. It remains to be seen if Bioware can deliver that...

 

[made]

should Dave G still be considered a good writer after this?

Can you give some examples of his "good writing"? I'm genuinely curious.

 

[Jora]

Can you give some examples of his "good writing"? I'm genuinely curious.

HK-47 is a fun character.

 

[Jaesun]

The Conan books are much much better than the films. Though the film version are not *that* bad.