Interview Obsidian on the Future of Neverwinter Nights

[Elwro]

An RPG in Dzikie Pola would be super lulz though (y)

Have you played the Devil in the Stone (Diabel w Kamieniu) mod for NWN 1, by J. Komuda et al? It's great.

 

[Shannow]

Neither defending nor criticising Obsidian, but to clarify an implied factual assertion:
- Obsidian's next two major games, Alpha Protocol and the Aliens RPG, are set in the 'real world' and the Aliens universe respectively;
- Neither the 'real world' nor the Aliens universe are DnD settings
- Obviously given that NWN2 is a DnD game, and NWN a DnD franchise, the expansions to NWN2 will also be DnD games, and if a NWN3 game is made that will be a DnD game.

So your point was?

You are right. But my point is that I'm completely uninterested in Alpha Protocol and thus forgot about it. Still waiting on more info on Aliens. At the moment I'm under the impression that it'll be a horror-action RPG without any pretense at being a "normal" RPG (RTwP). So they either do sword & sorcery (which I'm interested in but want to move away from FR and D&D) or something completely different.
"You don't like my cooking? What do you think of my poetry?" So while you are right and my vision was too focussed and my statement wrong it doesn't change any of my criticism.

[EDIT]: Ah, Darth Roxor expressed it better with a lot less words...
The whole section with the cannibal halflings was a reference to other D&D worlds...ah..planes. The Solamnic Knights were from Krynn (Dragonlance). Don't know about the other creatures, though.

 

[Zomg]

Like the ones in BG2?

Those were supposed to be a Dark Sun reference.

Dark Sun would have been much better if they hadn't shoehorned in the typical D&D races (except goofy). Get Brom to make a bunch of new bondage concept art (or just pull a Bethedsa-hack and steal it, hey-o) and re-tool the setting to be less about adhering to the necessities of generic '90s fantasy and it would be good to go.

 

[Spectacle]

One of the points about Dark Sun is that it used to be a standard D&D style fantasy setting, but then environmental collapse destroyed the old civilization and forced the various races to adapt to the desert as best they could.

 

[Ryuken]

Oh, what I wouldn't give for a new Birthright game btw.

I rather liked the Birthright setting but I don't know anything about the Birthright games. What are they like ? Are they good ?

There has only been one (and some mods for NWN I think); Birthright: The Gorgon's Alliance which really was three games into one, much like Total War now, only with a poor 3D adventure/dungeon crawling mode attached to it. It had some bugs, no save during adventures and the RTS combat part felt more like chess than the stuff you see in a Total War game but still, I thought it was a decent game. The main map with political, army recruiting, land spell casting and spying stuff was the most adictive.

The unofficial site is now up here http://www.birthright.net/ , they're trying to convert everything to 4E now for the table-top game. The overland map in SoZ sounds nice, maybe that could be tweaked to mimick the original Birthright game.

 

[ushdugery]

Birthright had some really cool aspects but for me felt too much like wargaming with the armies.

 

[Volourn]

"Halfling cannibals. I win this argument."

Your ignorance shows. DS is not the only setting with 'halfling cannibals'.

 

[Drakron]

One of the points about Dark Sun is that it used to be a standard D&D style fantasy setting, but then environmental collapse destroyed the old civilization and forced the various races to adapt to the desert as best they could.

Sort off but the significant downside is that its a theme park, you can never escape the overall theme of it.

I think that was one of the reasons Dark Sun never catch on ... and the fact Troy Denning did a lot of work on it (THAT cannot be good).

 

[Texas Red]

I'm gonna throw a wild one at you guys. Mysteries of Westgate is the 3rd expansion. It makes sense if you think about it.

 

[Erebus]

Sort off but the significant downside is that its a theme park, you can never escape the overall theme of it.

I think that was one of the reasons Dark Sun never catch on ... and the fact Troy Denning did a lot of work on it (THAT cannot be good).

Really ? I rather like Troy Denning as an author, but I don't know much about the D&D products he worked on.

I agree with the "theme park" thing. It can be interesting at first, but it ends up being limiting rather quickly. The same could be said about Ravenloft, really.

Still, I find it unfortunate the Forgotten Realms have always taken the lion's share as far as D&D computer games are concerned. Many Gold Box games, the BG series, the IWD series, the NWN series and a few others (including the godawful Hillsfar) are set there.

Dragonlance has a few : Champions of Krynn and its two sequels, Heroes of the Lance and the (terrible) Dragons of Flame, plus some sort of dragon-using Flight Simulator.

Dark Sun has, I believe, two games. Birthright has one. Al-Qadim has one. Ravenloft has at least one (and I seem to remember something about a fighting game...). Spelljammer has one (terrible, from what I'm told). Planescape, of course, has one.

 

[Lesifoere]

Sort off but the significant downside is that its a theme park, you can never escape the overall theme of it.

I think that was one of the reasons Dark Sun never catch on ... and the fact Troy Denning did a lot of work on it (THAT cannot be good).

Really ? I rather like Troy Denning as an author, but I don't know much about the D&D products he worked on.

His Forgotten Realms are pretty atrocious. Well, more atrocious than the norm.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

Al-Quadim has a Zelda-esque adventure/RPG if I'm not mistaken.

 

[JarlFrank]

Al-Quadim has a Zelda-esque adventure/RPG if I'm not mistaken.

http://abandonia.com/en/games/333/Al+Qa ... Curse.html

 

[Drakron]

I agree with the "theme park" thing. It can be interesting at first, but it ends up being limiting rather quickly. The same could be said about Ravenloft, really.

Ravenloft was the dumping ground of TSR settings ... you had Dragonlance rubbing shoulders with Greyhawk with Forgotten Realms here and there.

There was some things we could do with it beyond the "Gothic Horror" but TSR always seen it as a dumping ground and WotC really did not wanted to work with it, now it seems they are going to even rape it more on 4th edition.

Then again many people are VERY weary of WotC/Hasbro ... like AEG that fought to gain L5R setting since the only thing WotC was doing with it was raping it to fuel their novel publishing line or what happened with Chaosium and Call of Cthulhu.

Heck we even have BioWare own history about D&D products were they were hold back in certain instances by Atari because of Hasbro disapproval.

Then again d20 is dead because of Hasbro being control freaks jackasses.

 

[inwoker]

I'm gonna throw a wild one at you guys. Mysteries of Westgate is the 3rd expansion. It makes sense if you think about it.

wut?