Interview More Puuk interviewage at Winterwind

[Volourn]

"Yeah you're right you were just the child of a god who was the fulcrum of a prophecy."

You were *a* Child of Bhaal. Not *the* Child of Bhaal. Completely, and utterly different. You weren't destined for anything; but what you chose.


"Hmmm.. have you forgetten about the entire town populatated by Bhaalspawn?"

Whya re you lying? An entire town of Bhaalspawn? That's bullshit. Did you even play TOB? As I recall, the Chidlren of Bhaal in town were very small comapred to the entire popualtion of the town. What an idiot. Play the game first before criticizing.


"This wasn't just the "end game" as you contend, it was the whole freakin expansion."

Thanks for agreeing with me. The expansion WAS the End Game, dumbass. Yes, all of it except for Watcher's Keep and oh the existenc eof which proves once again how moronic you are since there were no Bhaalspawn found in Watcher's Keep which was a sizeable amount of TOB.

What a doofus.

 

[Fez]

Well, Throne of Bhaal was a high level D&D adventure and you're really supposed to run into all sorts of ridiculous shit like that in high level D&D. Basically, if it's not epic, world-shattering occurences involving a great deal of very powerful people, why the hell are my quasi-divine (in terms of being powerful, not just the Bhaal essence thing) PCs bothering with this shit?

That's one reason the high level stuff can end up less fun.

Combat aside, I enjoyed more of the BG 1 and early BG 2 stuff than the later ToB, because you could see the trouble they had coming up with a story to keep you challenged. When you think of Sarevok was supposed to be an incredibly powerful leader with aspirations to leading huge armies and becoming a god through it in the first BG, and then later on you are meeting grunts round every corner that could wipe him out, it made it seem silly. I can end up with a party that could wipe out an army and some merchant is still trash talking me, despite my apparent reputation for evil. They couldn't have done the sequels in any other way and still let you use the same parties, but it still bothered me.

It does point out another flaw in importing characters into sequels, the power treadmill gets more preposterous the more you go on, unless you cap the levels, but then players complain about that too.

 

[Seven]

"Yeah you're right you were just the child of a god who was the fulcrum of a prophecy."

You were *a* Child of Bhaal. Not *the* Child of Bhaal. Completely, and utterly different. You weren't destined for anything; but what you chose.


"Hmmm.. have you forgetten about the entire town populatated by Bhaalspawn?"

Whya re you lying? An entire town of Bhaalspawn? That's bullshit. Did you even play TOB? As I recall, the Chidlren of Bhaal in town were very small comapred to the entire popualtion of the town. What an idiot. Play the game first before criticizing.


"This wasn't just the "end game" as you contend, it was the whole freakin expansion."

Thanks for agreeing with me. The expansion WAS the End Game, dumbass. Yes, all of it except for Watcher's Keep and oh the existenc eof which proves once again how moronic you are since there were no Bhaalspawn found in Watcher's Keep which was a sizeable amount of TOB.

What a doofus.

Yeah, you're right being a part of a prophecy doesn't make you destined for anything, who's the dumbass now?

It wasn't a small monority by any stretch. You go back and play the game, maybe this time around you migth want to pay attention to the NPC's and the dialogue.

Oh wow, now you're going to argue over what and end game is? First off we're dealing with two separate games with with expansions, so which end game are you referring to? Perhaps you were referring to the entire Bhaal saga. In which case you'd be the moron for not being able to construct a coherant sentence.

 

[Elwro]

I guess the whole game is the endgame :D .

 

[NeverwinterKnight]

two of his ideas/comments that im particularly hoping to see a lot more of in future rpg games:

Repercussions for action AND inactions: Everything in life has a repercussion of some sort, in RPG’s it’s just more pronounced. Help one person out; you might piss someone else off. Burn down the local Alchemy shop; you have a horde of bummed out druids hot on your tail. Help the magistrates with their financial woes; discover that the local townships have now hit a financial backlash that threatens to ruin the local economy. Find out that the local wannabe warrior has been imprisoned by the evil Sir Toppem Foozle and the Duke wants you to rescue him, but you forget about the quest and do something else; discover later that this wannabe warrior had the special ability to perform something that could be really useful to you in a situation, but now you’re hosed and have to think of something else – not to mention the Duke really hates you and the wannabe warrior is now the main villain in the sequel. In a nutshell, have the side quests have meaning and influence, however small, on the overarching character development and story of the game.


and

Reputation: Falling into a similar category as my repercussions example above, I want to have a reputation for deeds done. I want to develop influence with a town as well as with my NPC companions, be it for good or ill, through my actions and inactions throughout the game.

 

[Fez]

Good words, lets hope he puts them into practice when it counts.

 

[Spazmo]

Yeah, I think that's what frustrates me the most about the whole BIS closure deal. Jefferson and Van Buren, from what is known about them, had a lot of potential to be really great RPGs. The boys at Black Isle seemed to have some really cool and fresh ideas about things to do in RPGs. I'd sometimes worry while reading interviews done by Troika guys for Bloodlines that they were essentially still holding themselves up to the same design standards as they had for Fallout. Now, that's already real good and quite ambitious given that nobody's topped Fallout yet, but the mark needs to be set higher. The little bits of ideas and concepts that were being elaborated for introduction into Black Isle's two final, abortive projects just sounded like something really new and refreshing for RPGs to me. Naturally, you can't be sure that they would have worked out as well as anyone might hope in the final product, but it was good to see that kind of ambitiousness in the design.

Now that Black Isle is gone, all you're left with is BioWare and Bethesda who, quality of games aside, really aren't doing anything new, insane Russian and central/eastern European developers who are on more hallucinogens than is healthy and Obsidian who, while they seem to have some neat ideas (influence in KOTOR2), are still doing doubly old stuff since they're stuck with BioWare sequels. And maybe Troika, assuming they're still around, doing whatever they can get. Doesn't promise much innovation.

 

[NeverwinterKnight]

Obsidian who, while they seem to have some neat ideas (influence in KOTOR2), are still doing doubly old stuff since they're stuck with BioWare sequels.

perhaps its just wishful thinking on my part, but ive seen enough in kotor2 to think that, had lucasarts not been asshats and rushed the game for a christmas release, the game had immense potential to be that next "great" crpg. i think the ideas obsidian had for kotor2 were exactly what was needed to be inovative in the crpg genre, but the ideas were either incomplete or not fleshed out enough due to time constraints.

obviously its just heresay, and perhaps unwarranted optimistic speculation, but i believe that had lucasarts stuck to the original release date, or even a couple of months more (ie. an april or may release), kotor2 could have been that new inovative game.