Company News Gygax Games partner with Fig to publish a game based on Gary Gygax's unpublished "personal campaign"

[Heretic]

So he's the ultimate idea guy - "a great idea" (not even his own) but no experience with creating anything whatsoever.

This has mismanagement and failure written all over it.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Maybe Goldenera Games can save this enterprise.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

True.

 

[taxalot]

If not Obsidian, then inXile.
If not inXile, then Larian.

If not Larian, well, I guess there's still Beamdog, or Bethesda.

 

[mindx2]

Has there even been an actually good posthumous work by an author who was successful in his lifetime? Usually the stuff was unpublished because it wasn't that good to begin with.

I think Christopher Tolkien has done a very good job with his father's writing. Not only does he have his own academia background but he's always taken an extreme minimalist approach to changing or adding anything to the original work. The Chrildren of Hurin read as a JRR Tolkien story. Beren & Luthien was even more "minimalist" in it's approach. It felt and read more like Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle-Earth type examination of his father's writings than a complete novel.

 

[Don Peste]

A Battle Royale multiplatform title developed by Russians or Hungarians.

 

[thesheeep]

Only if you die an hero

I do plan to die alone (or with waifu, at max) at home, while playing my favourite games.
Pretty sure that fulfills the requirement for this kind of valhalla heroism.

 

[Van-d-all]

A Battle Royale multiplatform title developed by Russians or Hungarians.

Only if it also has pirates and naval combat.

 

[Darkzone]

TL;DR: It's all owned by Wizards of the Coast, so unless they're backing this, they can't make a Greyhawk game without getting sued. I mean, you know how Pillars of Eternity was billed as the Baldur'sGateIceWindDalePlanescapeTorment game, but it kind of ended up being its own thing? That's what this is gonna be, except instead of being 'like" those games, it's like David Gaider launching a kickstarter to re-make Baldur's Gate 1 with the "original notes" and none of the trademarks from BG. I expect a lot of disappointment.

The name "Greyhawk" is owned by WotC, but not the castle Zagyg and Yggsburgh and neither Gygax. And if there are 50 levels of the castle and some scetches of Yggsburgh then this could be quite the cRPG.
I see rather the problem in the brand recognition of Gygax, because besides the hardcore of the 40-50 year old RPG players this name is rather obscure the most of the younger players.

 

[LeStryfe79]

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Delterius]

I'm also wondering how much cache Gygax's name has in computer game circles. People playing P&P RPGs likely heard of him, not sure the same is true for CRPGs though

It's not really known, especially if players have only been avid with one medium, Garriott is barely recognised - and he started a lot of design trends the best CRPGs have tried to follow. There is enough in-fighting over I.P rights at the P&P level, by the time RPG rulesets extend to video gaming the mastermind behind it all gets a bit lost.

I wouldn't go so far. felipepepe gave talks in 'game dev schools' where 'elder scrolls fans' legit never heard of anything pre-Oblivion.

 

[Dorateen]

Maybe Goldenera Games can save this enterprise.

Gary Gygax is listed among the dedications in Grimoire.

 

[Fenix]

ghostwrite

Little offtop.

Spoiler

In Russaia, they called "literary Negro".
Is this "ghostwriter" some kind of tolerant newspeak, how ald that name?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I'm also wondering how much cache Gygax's name has in computer game circles. People playing P&P RPGs likely heard of him, not sure the same is true for CRPGs though

It's not really known, especially if players have only been avid with one medium, Garriott is barely recognised - and he started a lot of design trends the best CRPGs have tried to follow. There is enough in-fighting over I.P rights at the P&P level, by the time RPG rulesets extend to video gaming the mastermind behind it all gets a bit lost.

I wouldn't go so far. felipepepe gave talks in 'game dev schools' where 'elder scrolls fans' legit never heard of anything pre-Oblivion.

baud look up felipepepe's articles on Gamasutra.

 

[felipepepe]

I'm also wondering how much cache Gygax's name has in computer game circles. People playing P&P RPGs likely heard of him, not sure the same is true for CRPGs though

It's not really known, especially if players have only been avid with one medium, Garriott is barely recognised - and he started a lot of design trends the best CRPGs have tried to follow. There is enough in-fighting over I.P rights at the P&P level, by the time RPG rulesets extend to video gaming the mastermind behind it all gets a bit lost.

I wouldn't go so far. felipepepe gave talks in 'game dev schools' where 'elder scrolls fans' legit never heard of anything pre-Oblivion.

baud look up felipepepe's articles on Gamasutra.

BTW, the vast majority of them know nothing about Richard Garriott either and never had to curiosity to even TRY to play pre-90s PC games.

 

[Naveen]

"As my dad was creating Dungeons & Dragons, like a lot of games you need playtesters to work out the kinks and make a better game," Alex said. "So he started his own local group at home with some friends and family members. As he was creating the game, he had his personal story and it started growing and growing. It went from a tower in a town to a 10-level dungeon to a multi-level one that went all the way down to the depths of hell."
​

The article seems to imply it's some super-secret setting, but this just looks like Greyhawk to me. I doubt he bothered creating much backstory or "lore"either; it's probably just a lot of dungeon levels and nasty corridors filled with ecologically-sound combination of monsters like Gelatinous Cubes, Kobolds, exploding zombies, and a few ankle-slicing traps and orbs of disintegration to spice up the encounter. Also, it probably follows an old D&D rules system (1st AD&D or something,) and those are hard to translate into computer games (as played by Gygax et al. at least)​

 

[ERYFKRAD]

BTW, the vast majority of them know nothing about Richard Garriott either and never had to curiosity to even TRY to play pre-90s PC games.

Why would they? Assuming they are in their teens now they wouldn't have even heard of this stuff, particularly if they do not have easy access to games in the first place.

 

[felipepepe]

BTW, the vast majority of them know nothing about Richard Garriott either and never had to curiosity to even TRY to play pre-90s PC games.

Why would they? Assuming they are in their teens now they wouldn't have even heard of this stuff, particularly if they do not have easy access to games in the first place.

Because they're betting their future on a career in games, so one would expect they have SOME curiosity about its history?

I was a video editor for almost 10 years, I worked with a lot of young & aspiring movie directors, producers and editors and they all had a deep respect for the medium and its history. I just don't see that in video games, and that's extremely sad.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I just don't see that in video games, and that's extremely sad.

I do not disagree, I just think that it's natural to have difficulty in hating knowledge about video games, compared to movies and such. Definitely a sad thing, however.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I'm also wondering how much cache Gygax's name has in computer game circles. People playing P&P RPGs likely heard of him, not sure the same is true for CRPGs though

It's not really known, especially if players have only been avid with one medium, Garriott is barely recognised - and he started a lot of design trends the best CRPGs have tried to follow. There is enough in-fighting over I.P rights at the P&P level, by the time RPG rulesets extend to video gaming the mastermind behind it all gets a bit lost.

I wouldn't go so far. felipepepe gave talks in 'game dev schools' where 'elder scrolls fans' legit never heard of anything pre-Oblivion.

baud look up felipepepe's articles on Gamasutra.

BTW, the vast majority of them know nothing about Richard Garriott either and never had to curiosity to even TRY to play pre-90s PC games.

And how they reacted when you pointed that out?

 

[Big Wrangle]

I'm gonna assume surprise and confusion as to why would such a figure not be talked about then.

 

[Junmarko]

And how they reacted when you pointed that out

Show them the Black Gate :

"...but the graphics are so dated"

 

[Deuce Traveler]

This is interesting, but any developer that picks this up hopefully understands that Lejendary Advenures and the Hall of Many Panes are both quite different than anything one would expect from a D&D-based video game. The classes and races of Lejendary Adventures are very much it's own thing, such as how the kobold is a playable race more akin to an elven fae character than a short, draconic humanoid. Melee combat is a lot more deadly, but magic is both more specific to types and reduced in how often it can be employed. In true Gygax fashion, character advancement is also not combat-based. I know this may seem a surprise to many of you, but originally D&D advancement was based on treasure won and less on enemies defeated, as every GP of treasure equalled 1 XP, so a thief character could do well in a sneaking-based campaign, like a tabletop version of the Thief video game series, or a magic-user could win a bunch of XP by charming a monster and convincing it to give up its loot.

As for the Hall of Many Panes, it doesn't take itself very seriously, with each mini-dimension (of each pane) being its own crazy, small romp. One such mini-adventure transforms the players into a bunch of walking acorns that need to pass a small piece of squirrel-filled forest in order to reach the MacGuffin. Anyway, I own LA and the Hall of Many Panes and really enjoyed playing both. I believe it is still played at GaryCon each year at Lake Geneva. But it is more than a little obscure.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

as every GP of treasure equalled 1 XP

Wasn't there some rule that xp gains it's based on treasure spent,rather than treasure accumulated?