Preview Rise of the Argonauts Preview

[JarlFrank]

Tags: Codemasters; Rise of the Argonauts

Gamespot previewed the upcoming RPG Rise of the Argonauts <A HREF="http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/riseoftheargonauts/news.html?sid=6189924&tag=nl.e579">here.</A>
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<blockquote>The mythology of the ancient world is a rich source of fantastic stories, and a fantastic story is a great start for a role-playing game. The story of Jason and the golden fleece is the basis of Rise of the Argonauts, the upcoming action RPG from Codemasters and Liquid Entertainment. The game will retell this classic tale with heavy-duty action game elements and an emphasis on storytelling and choices with consequences. We had an opportunity to take an updated look at the game and have much to report.</blockquote>
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A stroy with choice and consequence? That does sound interesting. But after Bethesda made "CHOICE AND CONSAHQUENCE" the new buzzword for Fallout 3, it could just be that those guys are jumping on the bandwagon.
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<blockquote>We had a chance to see a few of the game's early areas in action, including the island of Mycenae, which is ruled by Jason's embittered father-in-law. Apparently, Jason's journey will take place across multiple well-known Greek kingdoms, which he can approach in any order, though Mycenae seems to have a good mix of role-playing and action elements. The denizens of the island loved their princess, and they blame Jason for her death--you'll see people on the street spit on him while dogs growl angrily. Liquid Entertainment's Charley Price explains that each area will have a different theme and inhabitants that will act differently toward Jason and his crew.</blockquote>
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NPCs in different places reacting differently to your character? That's nice, but I hope it won't just be a scripted reaction for specific areas, but much rather depending on your deeds. Like, help the people of that kingdom out, and they react better to you than before.
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<blockquote>In the streets of Mycenae, we had our first encounter with some Ionian thugs who had little respect for royalty and were itching to pick a fight. This gave us a chance to see the game's dialogue system, which generally offers four dialogue options in most conversations, each one assigned to one of four gods that Jason can follow: Athena, the goddess of wisdom, whose attitude is reasonable; Ares, the god of war, who tends to be more belligerent; Hermes, the god of trickery, who tends to be more deceitful; and Apollo, the god of the sun, who tends to be more sympathetic. Your devotion to each of these gods will define how Jason develops as a character;</blockquote>
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Sounds interesting enough, and the setting is still fresh. Haven't had an Ancient RPG for quite some time [except Titan Quest, which was a Diablo clone].
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.gamespot.com/">Gamespot</A>

 

[slipgate_angel]

Cool beans, looks pretty intresting. I think Liquid entertainment also did a few RTS games like Lord of the rings: war of the ring, and Battle realms...they also did a Desperate housewives game.

Maybe this game might set them on the map to greater things?

 

[Morgoth]

I'm intrigued. Battle Realms was a very innovative RTS that brought fresh air into the genre. It's just disappointing that the following games were mediocre at best. But I trust Liquid to bring some fresh air into the RPG genre as well.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

A stroy with choice and consequence? That does sound interesting. But after Bethesda made "CHOICE AND CONSAHQUENCE" the new buzzword for Fallout 3, it could just be that those guys are jumping on the bandwagon.

Or after The Witcher sold 600,000 copies after hyping nothing but choices and consequences.

 

[BrainSquirmingLikeAToad]

hello world

 

[Jaesun]

Apollo, the god of the sun, who tends to be more sympathetic.

I always thought the bringer of plagues was a really nice and caring guy, too.

Isn't that actually Artemis?

 

[OSK]

No, that was Apollo.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

And then there was that nasty little accident with Marsyas. Forgiveness is Apollo's second name.

 

[Shannow]

Bringer of plagues is misleading. He sent the plague into the greek camp in the trojan wars because they enslaved the daughter of one of his priests. Apart from multiple acts of vengeance he was quite a nice guy^^

 

[Gragt]

Yeah just try to not get on the bad side of a god and you'll be fine.

 

[Section8]

Don't get too excited.

 

[Kingston]

Oh my, it looks retarded.

The PR guy is overexcited.

 

[Gragt]

"Removed the unecessary complexity of rpg such as inventory"?

 

[denizsi]

One of the things we decided to do is, number 1: no more text choices. We've gone for the graphical interface for the dialogue so that it's more expressive of your emotion and less you're reading a line and saying a line <etc> we just found that flat and although a lot of RPGs do it, we just find there is a lot more spice in not knowing what Jason is gonna say until he says it but instead kind of picking his mental disposition

Mind-boggles at what they find flat and the solution they come up with. Goddamn motherfucking hippie-punks and their new-age emo faggotry. All that we needed was emoticon mini-games. Fuck that shit.

 

[Texas Red]

One of the things we decided to do is, number 1: no more text choices. We've gone for the graphical interface for the dialogue so that it's more expressive of your emotion and less you're reading a line and saying a line <etc> we just found that flat and although a lot of RPGs do it, we just find there is a lot more spice in not knowing what Jason is gonna say until he says it but instead kind of picking his mental disposition

All that we needed was emoticon mini-games. Fuck that shit.

We already have that, its called Alpha Protocol.

 

[denizsi]

Oh right, I've really forgotten about it. Well, then "goddamn motherfucking hippie-punks and their new-age lying-faggotry! Emotional and all-rewarding choices, nothing new!"

Still, completely doing away with the text, is that what AP will do? Although I'm not sure which would be worse, mystery lines vs. mystery emoticons.

 

[Durwyn]

Don't get too excited.

Interest -50

 

[BrainSquirmingLikeAToad]

hello world

 

[Jedi_Learner]

"Removed the unecessary complexity of rpg such as inventory"?

Yeah, thats when I clicked the close button.

 

[Joe Krow]

hope the controls will be good as the sound of the game's story

 

[Tychus Findlay]

"Removed the unecessary complexity of rpg such as inventory"?

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Doesn't seem as dumb as it sounds.

What do you usually put in your inventory?

Quest items you'll eventually give away, junk you want sell to convert into numerical currency, junk you'll examine/read first, then sell, junk you'll eventually combine after collecting the requisite pokemons to turn into a potion or magic weapon, or alternative weapons that bestow different properties.

Alternative weapons you can keep in different weapon slots instead of your inventory storage. Whenever you get a weapon that does more damage than your current one or armor that protects better, you're going to replace your current one either dropping it or saving it to sell anyways.

With junk you can have some way of automatically converting into currency or just having foes drop currency instead of loot, books/lore you can read you can implement as ingame useable objects or added to your journal log. Quest items which you can also just add to your journal as having obtained.

"Crafting" seems to be the only thing left that's tied to inventory.

Sure, I'd rather have one since it gives you more practical options ("complexity") but I don't see a problem with not having one.</s>

Fuck it. I was trying to think up an inventory-less RPG design, and I can't think of an elegant one aside from inventory-like substitutes.

As an aside, the game looks like ass. The smelly kind.

 

[Erzherzog]

Damn.

I was actually quite interested in this game, too.

 

[FeelTheRads]

"Removed the unecessary complexity of rpg such as inventory"?

I like totally saw that coming. Brilliant gems of innovation such as Bard's Male and The Bitcher with their basically useless inventory (why bother changing armors and weapons - let the game think for you) paved the way to this brave new world.

Still it happened earlier than I predicted... much earlier.

 

[Texas Red]

The Bitcher

Please give this man a "Win" tag.

 

[Ivy Mike]

Did you people even listen to the part where he talks about the choices and consequences of dialogue?

Every choice you make is going to be equally rewarding but to a different god.
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Typically in a RPG conversations have no impact on the growth of your character. Conversations are just there as gates to slow you down and make you jump through hoops before you move on to the next part of the game.
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In our game conversations actually evolve your character. So for example, you're going to be able to have a conversation with Artemis. And you can choose to be arrogant, in which case you will make Aries happy and Artemis unhappy. Or you can choose to be supplicant in which case you'll make Artemis happy but you'll make Aries unhappy. And this kind of choice will affect your skill tree, what kind of moves you get, what abilities you get. It will have a dramatic impact on how you evolve as a character

Doesn't sound too bad. I like the idea that you evolve your character not by increasing stats after gaining enough XP, but through how you interact with the world. Whether it works or not, and if the player still feels like he has authorship over his character remains to be seen though. The question of what other C&C there is seems to be an open question, such as if you can affect the outcome of the story etc.

If they manage to create a good AcRPG with C&C I couldn't give a damn about the inventory. It's not like the inventory is something essential within the realm of AcRPGs anyway, is it? The usefulness of an inventory is based solely on the design of the game. If Rise of the Argonauts doesn't have five million different kind of swords, armors, axes or whatever, no shops, no loot and no crafting what's the use? It doesn't seem to have any of these, so an inventory would be superfluous.