Preview New Bard's Tale revealed

[BrianF]

Wasteland clips from above...

LOl... so much for the candid conversations on Yaho.

 

[Ares Draxis]

Re: The new Bard's Tale...

I felt the need to comment after reading some of the concerns on the board here. I've produced quite a number of RPG's in the past and there is no reason why a great RPG cannot exist on console also.

The last console CRPG, at least what I consider as a real CRPG, was for the Sega Master System called Dungeons and Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun.

A great RPG is molded from great writing, depth, strategy of gameplay, characters, multiple solutions, tone etc etc not from having a keyboard. Witness the success of KOTOR on the Xbox.

I have played KotOR and not impressed by it.

I think Bioware did an excellent job of bringing the depth of a great RPG to console and my guess is that PC owners will like that game also when it comes to PC. The new Bard's Tale is a very fresh approach and the old school RPG's will get a kick out of it.

Whats so fresh and innovative about a hack and slash action adventure. Been there, done that. Got really really bored.

I hope you can keep an objective attitude so that the game can be played for what it is. I remember taking similar criticism when we announced that Wasteland would be a top down perspective when people were expecting a Bard's Tale perspective. But in the end we created something totally original. I'm certain the same will happen here.

Wasteleand was a different game therefore warranted the change in engine and visual display. This is supposed to be a Bard's Tale game or a is it supposed to be one in name only? By the pics it looks like its Bard's Tale in name only, just like FOOS and BGDA. Sorry, games like that are crap by default.

Brian Fargo

Ares Draxis

 

[Briosafreak]

So it is you on the yahoo group, right?

Edit: nevermind i just saw the reply thanks :D

 

[Ares Draxis]

So it is a set character instead of creating our own. BORING

Thanks Mr. Fargo, but this old school role player don't play games like that.

Seeya.

 

[Psilon]

Love the poster, and I agree about the sanitation departments. Sometimes I can't even get bullet holes to stay around.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Re: The new Bard's Tale...

The last console CRPG, at least what I consider as a real CRPG, was for the Sega Master System called Dungeons and Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun.

Which came after, the Master System or the Intellivision? Im asking because i remember a D&D: Dungeons of Tamriel for the Intellivision (or was it Colecovision?), which as far as i remember was a console.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Re: The new Bard's Tale...

I can think of a lot of reasons they can't exist on the console. The controller for one makes an interface rather difficult. Let's face it, you're going from a 101-key keyboard/two button+scroll wheel mouse down to an eight button, eight direction joystick. That pretty much makes a lot of things that are easy to do with an interface rather difficult. Imagine something like Fallout or Temple of Elemental Evil, games with a huge amount of combat options, using a standard console controller. Gosh, now that'd suck.

I have to agree with most of that Saint, but somethings, when trying to make a CRPG work in a platform with limited I/O functionality, could be done. You are definetely right on the interface and control, but i think some things could be made.

For instance movement on non-combat situations could be handled by the analogic stick, or directional buttons. A system that acted with a set of key bindings for non-combat settings, and changed the keys for combat actions, could be implemented. Pressing shoulder buttons could page trough character sheets, inventory, spell selection, map and journal. In combat, pressing one main button to activate a menu, than using the shoulder buttons then could activate combat options (or a combination of directional and shoulder for options), and using other standard buttons for confirmation/cancelation of choices.

Or we could just go with either one of these beasts

http://www.lanparty.com/articles/tacticalboard/

or

http://www.capcom.com/SB/

But i still think that there isn't near enough control for proper dynamic interfaces, to say the truth. A Skilldex menu, activated with a button, could pause the game, and present a cursor to select a skill and point to an object/NPC to interact with it, but even if it could be implemented, would probably still be detrimental to the overall pace of the game. Increasing downtimes to navigate interfaces isn't very well accepted.

But also to tell the truth, designing interfaces for console RPGs is in the very least interesting. Just the amount of limitations that have to be circumvented can be fun.

Another fun problem is the save game format. The PS2 has about 8MBs of storage space on it's little cards, doesn't it? Most CRPGs with any sort of depth have save game files of around a half a meg all the way up through 20MB or so these days. How persistant of an environment can you make when you're only limited to 8MB?

This one pretty much cuts any attempts at me being smug :wink: But with future, larger hard disk for consoles, more memory could be allocated. One can only hope, at least. The XBox already has what, a 10 GB hard disk with a 8 MB memory card?

 

[Deathy]

XBox comes with an 8GB hard drive, but that can be swapped out for something a bit more respectable, I've heard.

 

[olaf]

I agree that console RPGs generally suck. I especially dislike the vast majority of japanese CRPGs.

That being said, I loved KOTOR, I bought an Xbox for it and got my money's worth for sure. The voice acting is the best ever in any game I've played. The story is very good. The NPCs have personality, moreso than the NPC party members of BG2, which I thought was one of the strengths of that game. The combat, while not the tactical equivalent of something like TToEE, is an improvement on what they did with NWN and it didnt ever feel like my characters were doing shit I didnt tell them to do, which is my biggest complaint with the IE and NWN combat engines.

Its very much what I consider to be an RPG in the PC RPG vein. Its a lot more like BG2 than NWN. If you didnt like BG2, you wont like KOTOR though, I dont think. Personally I did not like BG, loved BG2, didnt finish TOB, and didnt like or finish NWN.

Anyway, back on topic. I loved the old Bards Tale games. It was the C-64s Wizardry and then some. This game looks like it will be to BT what BOS is to Fallout, in other words, not looking good. It sounds *nothing* like the Bards Tale games I remember, so that begs the question, why license the name?

olaf

 

[Greenskin13]

I especially dislike the vast majority of japanese CRPGs.

Yes, I really have a hard time understanding why so many people are addicted to them. It seems to me that once you cut out the fancy graphics, you're left with a sometimes incoherant, sometimes cliche, linear plot and the most painful combat system ever built. The worst part is that they're all the same. The plot progresses by the character going from point A to point B and between the two points, a bunch of monsters attack him. That's the meat of the game. And no, it's not because I'm an impatient American, completly unable to wait for my turn as some "otakus" would say(my favorite games ARE Fallout and Jagged Alliance....), it's because the combat is so damn redious and frequent. And they put such an emphisis on leveling... I hate it. Though I think that the Japanese RPGs have a more epic feel in general, I can't tolerate their unispiring combat system.

But I'm derailing.

Anyway, to Mr. Fargo: I'm going to say that if you can pull off this new flavor of Bard's Tale, hats off to you. But uhm... maybe I'm a small minority here, but if you are going to do something with your Wasteland title, I really think it would please fans of the genre more if you did the game in a style that would be more loyal to our old-school favorite.

 

[udarnik]

I was trying to think of what made the original Bard's Tales so compelling for me when I was a kid... I remembered getting slaughtered constantly in BT1 (children don't generally have the best tactical sense in the world) and how frightening it was even to walk down the street. I remember shock at seeing Skara Brae in ruins in BT3 and that first dungeon where you had to give the codeword...'tarjon' was it? Dungeons were frightening in the BTs because they were dark and you couldn't see far, and if your light went out and you hadn't graphed out the dungeon you were toast. I remember one stressful time when my torch went out and I was sprinting around in the dark stumbling into monsters, sure I was going to die, and just by luck managed to run into the stairs. What relief I felt! I remember the towers and exploring different planes....

I guess that's what the BTs had: exploration and leveling. Seeing your characters become obscenely powerful and wandering around what seemed at the time to be a bewilderingly large world. I doesn't look like a new Bards Tale would have either of those traits, and that probably says something about the difference between Fargo and me. I'm old enough to be nostalgic but loyal to the BTs memory whereas Fargo is, evidentally, old enough to be utterly sick of the CRPG conventions that the Bards Tales helped build. I don't begrudge him that, after all, it's not as if I had been waiting for BT4 to be made, I just hope his game does honor to its noble name.

 

[dipdipdip]

Its very much what I consider to be an RPG in the PC RPG vein. Its a lot more like BG2 than NWN. If you didnt like BG2, you wont like KOTOR though, I dont think. Personally I did not like BG, loved BG2, didnt finish TOB, and didnt like or finish NWN.

I've learned that both games are pretty similar. Although I've never played Baldur's Gate 2 extensively, any desire I had to do so was squashed on the "why was Baldur's Gate 2 supbar?" thread when nearly every criticism lobbed at BG2 was a criticism I had of KotOR.

 

[crpgnut]

I think I'm agreeing with others on here. This doesn't sound like the Bards Tale game at all.
It sounds like an adventure game. You can't create your character, no stats or leveling are mentioned, no skill trees, etc. Your dialogue choices are polite or teeny bopper-ish. I will just purchase Devils Whiskey and skip the King's Quest meets Leisure Suit Larry game. If there is an rpg in this game somewhere Brian hasn't mentioned any of those aspects yet. Everything, so far, is geared towards adolescents playing the game. If I was Brian I'd redraw the main character to look 15 and have spikey hair. Rename the game to the Bard's Son. Why do I feel the need to say Ultima 8: Pagan???

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I'm not too happy with the choices of Friendly or Snarky, either, crpgnut. It's almost like:

• King: Will you save my daughter, brave Bard?
  • I'd be honored!
  • Sure thing, you pompous air biscuit! Ho! Ho! Ho!

Really, what's the point when the only choices basically do the same thing?

That said, I'm much more interested in what he's planning for Wasteland.. So long as it's nothing.. nothing like what it sounds like he's doing to Bard's Tale.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Unless he manages to pull that satirical angle off, you know, what he said about the bard being a guy who played too many console games himself and such. I like tongue-in-cheek movies, a well made tongue-in-cheeck game might be a good idea. In that case he might get away with limited and meaningless choices.

Edit:

Really, what's the point when the only choices basically do the same thing?

I re-read the preview, and noted that "Each answer spawns a different dialogue branch. Fargo said the idea was to keep in simple, since many games will offer you several choices, but all leading to the same result or response. This way, a friendly or snarky response has an immediate impact on the way the dialogue tree progresses". I hope that means that there won't any one answer phrased differently, although the only way I'll play if it's a PC game.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

To be fair Brian mentioned each response led to other dialogue trees... i'm hoping they'll mix and combine, not scatter redundantly and coverge to the same.

 

[Chadeo]

The old lucas arts adventure games were a blast, and it sounds like at least part of that style is attempting to be recreated here.

Still they are adventure games. Calling them roleplaying games will just annoy most of us here.

As SP points out, a dialog tree needs to have multiple results, not just multiple ways of saying the same thing, to be seen as a roleplaying game (at least by most of us here, some still think BG is a roleplaying game).

Having never played any bards tale game though I have no opinion on how this game will relate to them. However I still remain extremely skeptical as to the real nature of this game.

 

[Voss]

Vault Dweller... the satirical angle.
While it can be funny for an hour & a half movie... can it remain funny for 30-40 hours of game play? Or are players going to just be rolling their eyes and sighing after hour three?


Of course, thinking about it... The nostalgia factor is there, but dialogue? In a Bard's Tale game? Thats rather new and different...

And I don't remember getting much use out of the bard in the originals... dumped it for a combat line of warriors (well, not line, per say, but the front of the party thing) and the uber-killer spellcasters. (Especially in the later games...)
Always figured the title Bard's Tale was supposed to imply medieval-esque fantasy, not a focus on the class, which was just kinda bleh.

 

[urgrue]

wait and see

wow, some people have some pretty strong opinions, which is funny considering we know very very little about the game.

you simply cannot judge something on the paltry amount of information we have so far. ugh, its not party-based, IT HAS TO SUCK! seriously, lets try to exercise some intelligence here. we've all seen extremely good games in every genre, and absolutely crap games. yes, there are even <GASP> crap party-based old-school rpg's, can it BE???

the quality of a game is more than the sum of a bunch of ultimately minor details like 'do you get to create the character'. if you dont agree then you probably havent played many games, as it doesnt take much experience to realize that some of the best games are ones you might consider least likely to be interesting to you personally. and likewise some of the worst might sound the best on paper.

i think morrowind is the BEST GAME IN THE UNIVERSE...on paper. too bad i happen to find it boring. likewise half-life is a game i should absolutely LOATHE just like i loathe all 3d shooters, but strangely i really enjoyed it.

furthermore, considering fargo's track record, dont you think maybe he deserves a little benefit of the doubt? it's not like its steve balmer talking. if fargo says its not an old-school game, but that he believes its gonna be great and that we'll love it, then i'm willing to give him a chance to prove it. he if anyone deserves that chance.

finally, and this is imho the most important point, from the description of the game it sounds like fargo wants to do something new and different, to take this dull linear action/rpg console genre into a new direction and give it some of the depth and quality we old school elitist snobs demand. and wanting to try something new/better is something that should always be applauded and encouraged, always. taking a crap genre and saying "im gonna try something new here, to make this genre good" is GOOD THING.

bashing a game just cause of its not for your platform of choice, or because it uses a Blobbo as a controller instead of a Shloppo, is like saying movie XYZ is an absolute piece of crap because its filmed in england instead of the US.
like, HOW CAN a film be good if it takes place only in a phone booth? it must suck!

all im saying is lets try to keep an open mind. yeah, it's not an old-school rpg, that's clear right from the start of the gamespy article. yes, i too was hoping for an old-school "bards tale IV". but that doesnt mean that this bards tale isnt going to be good. it could even be great. hell, it could be better than what my imaginary BT4 is/was.

we dont know, and WONT know, until its done!

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Re: wait and see

wow, some people have some pretty strong opinions, which is funny considering we know very very little about the game.

you simply cannot judge something on the paltry amount of information we have so far. ugh, its not party-based, IT HAS TO SUCK!

Where is it saying it sucks because it doesn't have party-based gameplay? Even if it was true, it was a key element in the older games.

seriously, lets try to exercise some intelligence here.

...Hmm. Beer.

we've all seen extremely good games in every genre, and absolutely crap games. yes, there are even <GASP> crap party-based old-school rpg's, can it BE???

Why, yes it can! What a small world!

the quality of a game is more than the sum of a bunch of ultimately minor details like 'do you get to create the character'.

Thats true, but then again, a "minor" detail like character creation is the essence of a roleplaying game. I play them to play my character, not someone else's character.

if you dont agree then you probably havent played many games, as it doesnt take much experience to realize that some of the best games are ones you might consider least likely to be interesting to you personally. and likewise some of the worst might sound the best on paper.

And some of the best games where you don't play your character aren't RPGs! What a coincidence.

i think morrowind is the BEST GAME IN THE UNIVERSE...on paper. too bad i happen to find it boring. likewise half-life is a game i should absolutely LOATHE just like i loathe all 3d shooters, but strangely i really enjoyed it.

Whoa.

furthermore, considering fargo's track record, dont you think maybe he deserves a little benefit of the doubt?

I give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I also give everyone a chance.

if fargo says its not an old-school game, but that he believes its gonna be great and that we'll love it, then i'm willing to give him a chance to prove it. he if anyone deserves that chance.

Gaider also stated the same with his products. Are you a bad enough dude to tell hype from reality?

finally, and this is imho the most important point, from the description of the game it sounds like fargo wants to do something new and different, to take this dull linear action/rpg console genre into a new direction and give it some of the depth and quality we old school elitist snobs demand.

That may be so, but the only difference is that the title until now seems to be a dull linear action/rpg... on console. Thats definetely new. Looks can be deceiving, granted. But picking up a franchise and port it over to a console, in fact, will eventually downgrade the game. The pros and cons of console game development are usually simple to understand, so i'm sure you can figure out the problem with picking up a detailed, party-based CRPG, and turning it into (yet another) single-player action/rpg. On console.

and wanting to try something new/better is something that should always be applauded and encouraged, always. taking a crap genre and saying "im gonna try something new here, to make this genre good" is GOOD THING.

But if the intended project doesn't initially convince that such a change will make the game good, there isn't a point to stating otherwise. After all we don't want another NWN hype. And i'm not the one who will start it.

bashing a game just cause of its not for your platform of choice, or because it uses a Blobbo as a controller instead of a Shloppo, is like saying movie XYZ is an absolute piece of crap because its filmed in england instead of the US.

Of course, when one platform has to castrate the games in it, both memory-wise and control-wise, to make it run, and be accepted, i think i know why i dislike this. Look at that Shloppo go-go!

 

[urgrue]

Re: wait and see

But if the intended project doesn't initially convince that such a change will make the game good, there isn't a point to stating otherwise. After all we don't want another NWN hype. And i'm not the one who will start it.

what is hype? excess optimism over a product that doesnt exist.
what are we seeing in this thread? excess pessimism over a product that doesnt exist.

what im seeing in this thread is just as condemnable as the NWN hype was.
any form of judgment one way or the other is seriously premature at this point, thats all im saying.

Of course, when one platform has to castrate the games in it, both memory-wise and control-wise, to make it run, and be accepted, i think i know why i dislike this. Look at that Shloppo go-go!

i've played better RPG's in 64k of memory with a friggin one-button joystick than some ive played on my current 2.6ghz computer with mice/keyb/joy/etc.
quality comes from somewhere other than technical details. fallout would still be great on an NES or commodore 64. (there would be a lot of disk-swapping though, lol!)

 

[Jiles]

Re: wait and see

i've played better RPG's in 64k of memory with a friggin one-button joystick than some ive played on my current 2.6ghz computer with mice/keyb/joy/etc.
quality comes from somewhere other than technical details. fallout would still be great on an NES or commodore 64. (there would be a lot of disk-swapping though, lol!)

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Re: wait and see

what is hype? excess optimism over a product that doesnt exist.
what are we seeing in this thread? excess pessimism over a product that doesnt exist.

what im seeing in this thread is just as condemnable as the NWN hype was.
any form of judgment one way or the other is seriously premature at this point, thats all im saying.

But it seemed to me that, when confronted with our unfounded bashing of the game, you wanted us to adopt more of an unfounded optimism.

i've played better RPG's in 64k of memory with a friggin one-button joystick than some ive played on my current 2.6ghz computer with mice/keyb/joy/etc.
quality comes from somewhere other than technical details. fallout would still be great on an NES or commodore 64. (there would be a lot of disk-swapping though, lol!)

But what you forget is that those RPGs in 64m of memory were made to work with that amount of limitations in the day. Fallout would be great in a NES "if" it worked (i'm about 99,7% percent it wouldn't be able to, but those missing 0,03% are a hefty percentage still).

It boils down to the possibility of doing a good implementation, really. You have a game with X characteristics and Y gameplay. Then you want to create a followup of the old implementation. But the problem is that instead of trying to implement it on a platform where X characteristics and Y gameplay can be fully implemented, you decided to put it into a platform that can only sell games if they have half of those X characteristics, and only allows for a third of Y gameplay.

 

[urgrue]

Re: wait and see

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

hands up anyone who thinks ultima 9 is better than, say, phantasie 1. anyone? didnt think so.
ok so ultima 9 is below the belt, i admit.
but really, take phantasie 3 for example. its still a great game, nostalgia or not. it holds up just fine against most modern rpg's.

 

[Pseudospawn]

Re: wait and see

It boils down to the possibility of doing a good implementation, really. You have a game with X characteristics and Y gameplay. Then you want to create a followup of the old implementation. But the problem is that instead of trying to implement it on a platform where X characteristics and Y gameplay can be fully implemented, you decided to put it into a platform that can only sell games if they have half of those X characteristics, and only allows for a third of Y gameplay.

Surely with today's consoles (with mouse, keyboard attachments) are more than capable of handling exports from other platforms. Most cutbacks in x characteristics and y gameplay are more a result of developer 'laziness' than out of genuine restriction.