Bard's Tale The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep - Director's Cut

[V_K]

Overly complex? In what world?

 

[Spiky]

I am wondering how will this end. Will they abandon the game early (before making the game bug-free and optimized) just like Ubisoft abandoned MMX, or will they make the game enjoyable before they say fck it? It's obvious they are not gonna get their money back...

 

[ArchAngel]

Indeed. But what is an RPG?

A game that plays sufficiently like D&D, dummy.

Why does this site fetishize one of the worst tabletop RPGs that's only ""good"" because it's popular?

Because some of the best cRPG used that system or variations of it.
Only a rare few good games used other good systems (Fallout and Gurps)

 

[Shadenuat]

Finally got out of boring act 1 into forest, fps dropped to 20, tried changing settings, game annihilated itself by going into 320 on 240 resolution and stuck in some pixel madness. Re-installing, if saves are there ok, if not bye.

 

[SophosTheWise]

Did they sold 2 millions by now?

Peak concurrent players yesterday: 2,058

 

[unfairlight]

Usually peak players times 10 is a relatively accurate indicator of games sales at launch. I'd place it at less than 40k total. As an example, Elex and PoE2 both had aroundabout 20k peak and they sold 250k and 200k respectively, if I recall correctly.

 

[agris]

I humbly present the first review of BT4, formed (almost) entirely by quotes from our own forums.

[...] Is this game perfect? No. It does a lot of shit I definitely disagree with. But again, after MMX, this is the in all likelihood the last chance of a big budget blobber being made. If you like blobbers in general, you would do well not to kill off the type of games you at least claim to like. And I despise seeing the best crpg makers since Troika get Troika'd by the same retarded idiots who hate crpgs and say utterly retarded nonsense like the retard Urthor above. [...]

Art direction in M&MX was leagues better than this, BT4 faces are Oblivion-level terrible

Honestly, inXile's core problem has always been the lack of talent in, well, making RPGs.

Troika had world class talent for making RPGs, not so much for money and management. Old Obsidian had the talent for writing RPGs, not so much for bugs and managment, etc.... we're used to all that.

The issue with inXile is that they never seemed to have competent programmers, great writers or great systems designers. [...]

So I googled UE4 games - Hellblade, Vampyr, Fortnite, PUBG, Injustice 2 and shitloads of others. Yeah, it does seem the engine isn't the problem here.

I'm guessing California might be. The game looks like something a 5 strong indie team would hammer out in 3 years but I'm reading it cost over 10 mils. [...]

Game isn't a complete disaster for the few hours I've played but the lament of the UE4 engine as it sobs quietly at its complete mishandeling makes me sad.

now imagine if it were unity

thank christ its actually unreal, mishandled as it is

*********************************************

[...] Even if crpgs aren't for you - why all the glee and coordinated effort to tank the last professionally made blobber attempt and consistent crpg producer? Crpgs would be in a much better place if you guys didn't do the same thing to Troika three games in a row that you have done to inXile.

Somebody mentioned sometime back how people in 90's and 80's were actually competent so people like Fargo could afford to be asleep at the wheel. I agree with that wholeheartedly. I fear that all those competent people left a long time back and all we are left with are the incompetent lot that just simply know how to PR themselves into the limelight. This game is not all that bad as people are making it out to be but it is nowhere close to the original BT1-3 and we have all the right to expect an improvement over them after all this time. [...] All I want is a good mechanic and interface and a well-told story. Is that this hard to deliver? I am going to finish this game and see if InExile manages any of that.

[...] why all the glee and coordinated effort to tank the last professionally made blobber attempt [...]

[...] This fixed all of the pop-in and the glitchy shadows for me, as well as ensures that the textures don't change shapes/qualtiy levels. [...]

hobo guy left the party and stole my fucking boots

seems like people have a lot of fun with this for all the wrong reasons

[...] One thing I noticed when I first opened GameUserSettings was that for whatever fucked up reason Textures was set to "1" even though I'd selected High in the game. Changing the numerical value and then setting the file READ-ONLY seems to have made it "stick". [...]

fantadomat you need to set the texture quality to 3 in the gameusersettings.ini and set the file to read-only. using the default option buttons in the game menu is glitched. [...]

*********************************************

[...] And I despise seeing the best crpg makers since Troika [...]

What I actually struggle to understand is how a developer who is well known for their terrible turn based combat, in Wasteland 2 and especially in Torment, was somehow supposed to make a dungeon crawler (blobber?) and make sure it's not a hot pile of steaming shit.[...]

Wasteland 2 DC is not a "quality" game. They had to rework the terrible combat system after realizing they had shuttled all the money into Brian Fargo's offshore tax havens and not into playtesting, and the end result was still a broken mess in which you had no incentive to use weapons that weren't assault rifles to mow down endless trash mob encounters. [...] I cannot comment on the writing, as I cannot remember a single memorable character, line of dialogue, or what the story was even about. To say that Wasteland 2, even with the revamp that was supposed to fix it, is a "quality" game makes me wonder how you maintain the motor functions necessary to type that statement out.

Example of one of later puzzles in first dungeon

To open door you need to put 3 things into lock
one like sun
one like evening sky
one okay basically one red

can be anything right?

near door there are 3 bottles.

and 3 fountains.
1 fountain has red ink.
1 has blue ink.
last has yellow ink.

[...]

[...]

If you’ve just learnt a new song, the part of the dungeon you’re in is going to be all about you using it

I can clearly remember Prime Junta complaining the same thing about Torment Tides of Numenera:

Tides' quests often have multiple resolutions, which sometimes have consequences down the line. The designs, however, are incredibly pat. If you need to find a bucketful of nanocrystal chicken teeth for the Grand Snord of Qweebloth, you can be sure that on the very same map, or at most the one right next to it, you will find a destitute merchant desperate to unload a shipment.

InXile never learns. ¯\_(?)_/¯

Wait, so half of this game is outsourced including combat engine and inXile's job is to put it all together and sell it for profit? [...]

Other gameplay was also contracted, to Puny Human, also from North Carolina. They make puzzle games, so maybe they made the puzzles.

So I've been playing this and just finished the sewers. I gotta say I really don't like the combat, I don't enjoy it, and I don't like the char dev, I don't like the skill trees and I don't like the itemization. The best thing the game offers is the exploration of the environments. I don't think I'll keep playing for now, and instead gonna resume DQ11 playthrough.

I wish I had something more insightful to say other than "I don't enjoy it" but that's all I got, I just don't find the combat satisfying. DQ11 has much, much better combat. It's pretty unbelievable that that sentence is being typed, but there it is. If you want to play a good modern blobber go play one of the Elminage games, preferably Elminage: Gothic.

EDIT: If the game had come out during one of the RPG droughts then it would be a different story. I'll probably play a few more hours just to be able to judge it more accurately. It is enjoyable to explore the "dungeons", and I'll use the grid-based movement update as an excuse to come back and judge it more fully.

Couple things I've noticed about combat that make it a little more fun than I initially thought.

-There are actually % chances of landing and receiving critical hits.
-Enemies (and presumably players?) can deal friendly fire if their allies are in the way of a 2 or 3 grid-line attack.
-There are instances where there will be several consecutive waves of encounters - so you finish a battle, and are immediately thrown into the next one if there are more enemies in the direct vicinity.
-By forcing enemies to move, you are essentially causing them to lose an action.
-Powerful abilities require a period of focus to pull off, which can be interrupted from either side by a mental damage attack as opposed to a physical damage attack.

I can see how some of these factors could make larger scale battles much more interesting.

so who is doing the codex review?

You all just did.



Bonus Impressions!

His last game barely sold 100k, and even Grimrock 1 barely broke 1 million, he knows this is pure bullshit and is just trying to create hype and bait journos into giving him free promotion.

It's what bothers me the most about him recently: I don't feel a single bit of sincerity in anything he says, it's all calculated PR speak. At this point, Todd Howard is more genuine.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Remember, anime ALWAYS wins.

 

[Infinitron]

I am wondering how will this end. Will they abandon the game early (before making the game bug-free and optimized) just like Ubisoft abandoned MMX, or will they make the game enjoyable before they say fck it? It's obvious they are not gonna get their money back...

They're contracted to release the game on console so they'll keep working on it at least until then.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Played some more, finished d0rf party member's quest.

I have to admit, as a casual murderhobo simulator, it's actually pretty fun. Also they did a great job with the musix.

"Casual" is the biggest keyword here though.

 

[imweasel]

Brian Fargo right now.

The poor guy had to bury his dream of selling 2 million copies. He is so stunned that he even stopped tweeting. RIP Inxile Louisiana.

Well, I own the game so I guess I'll play it. It looks like a turd and has performance problems, but maybe the gameplay is at least decent.

 

[Shadenuat]

Game stopped working, re-install did not help. Goodbye and good riddance I guess. Pathfinder comes out in a week anyway.

Maybe will play again in a year or two. But probably not, ever.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Game stopped working, re-install did not help. Goodbye and good riddance I guess. Pathfinder comes out in a week anyway.

Maybe will play again in a year or two. But probably not, ever.

guess i'll take a break and wait for patches lol

 

[muds_animal_friend]

Bard's Tale was just one of many titles/series from that era.

One of many, but The Bard's Tale outsold most of the titles from that era. It certainly outsold the early Gold Box and Might & Magic games. Maybe Ultima IV sold a similar number of units. It was huge hit in its brief heyday, but I imagine most people had forgotten about it by 1998 let alone 2018. If I was an investor I certainly wouldn't have bet the farm on The Bard's Tale brand having any selling power in 2018. Brian Fargo reminds me of middle aged guy who keeps trying to relive his glory years as a high school football jock. The sales figures of the original Bard's Tale was his "four touchdowns in one game" moment.

 

[Revenant]

I certainly wouldn't have bet the farm

 

[newtmonkey]

No one deserves to have their dreams crushed, EVEN IF they are assholes, and Fargo does not seem like an asshole at all.

Just like Norman Sirotek needed super-geniuses like Andrew Greenberg/Robert Woodhead and D.W. Bradley to make his games for him, Fargo needed a crackerjack programmer/designer akin to Michael Cranford or Rebecca Heineman this time around, too. Sadly, he either didn't realize it or wasn't able to make it happen.

Having said that, Fargo has made and lost and then made back more money than I will ever see in my life, so I'm sure he'll survive this.

 

[Shadenuat]

I have to admit, as a casual murderhobo simulator, it's actually pretty fun

It could have been fun if it was at least competently made,

if game actually looked like Unreal
if there was more good music instead of strange mix of it and deafening silence
if character system casual as it is at least made some sense and was consistent (like the example with weapon proficiencies, highlighted things in abilities and your actual ability to shoot arrows without having a bow at all)
if plot was about something from intro, as for now it's about nothing
if first act was not set in boring as fuck brown slums and grey corridors where you will push many grey blocks
if it was just better presented, paced and designed.

as for now it's garbage, and worst InXile release I have seen. and you are all witness that I tried to play and tried to like it.

now sorry, that reave raider in path of exile will not level to 90 lvl by herself. we shall meet again in Kingmaker thread to see how much Moscow will fuck up their own release. Somehow I bet with our potato wages they would still deliver at least a playable BG clone. I hope.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Instead they just shamelessly tried to tap into his massive fanbase

Spoiler

So now, we know what went wrong ...

It could have been fun if it was at least competently made,

[...]

as for now it's garbage, and worst InXile release I have seen.

The backer's money was probably spent in cocaine and prostitutes ...

 

[PhantasmaNL]

they dont seem to have a clue about their target audience. If i play a blobber i want grid based movement and complex systems, i dont care about gfx or music. Wtf is that about the weapon skills Felipe posted?! That must be a bug right. I saw somewhere that when you master a weapon skill you get the special abilities on every weapon or something like that. I have no time to play it now so cant check it out.

Again compare this to Golden Era and Cleveland Blakemore. For more than 20 years they knew exactly who their prestigious prospects were and kept a razor sharp focus on delivering the goods. To all 3500 of us. Now thats how you make an oldschool blobber.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

It's very immersive and fun at least

 

[V_K]

Again compare this to Golden Era and Cleveland Blakemore. For more than 20 years they knew exactly who their prestigious prospects were and kept a razor sharp focus on delivering the goods. To all 3500 of us. Now thats how you make an oldschool blobber.

Weren't there also rumors about half the stats/skills in Grimoire not affecting anything?

 

[agris]

Another head-scratching decision they made was to make all signs like they were in Morrowind - hover for text. Rather than just put the sign's text on the texture, you hover and get a bubble. I get it for notes that go into your inventory, but why for signs and things posted?

 

[PhantasmaNL]

Some minor things were left to be included in V2, which basically makes it a whole new game. It even has crafting believe it or not. The current V1 is already superior to BT4. For one it has about 1000 hours of content. Roughly.

 

[newtmonkey]

Or even just take a look at M&MX. That game has many shortcomings, and it's weird that it would go back to step-based movement after full 3D of M&M 6-9, but a fan of M&M would play M&M10 and think, okay, this at least seems familiar. Even though the itemization is mostly shit, the dungeons are boring, and it's got fixed encounters gating you along the linear story, it's "close enough" that you can forgive its shortcomings and enjoy it as a blobber (albeit a very light one).

 

[V_K]

Some minor things were left to be included in V2, which basically makes it a whole new game. It even has crafting believe it or not. The current V1 is already superior to BT4. For one it has about 1000 hours of content. Roughly.

Just 1000? God, games these days are getting shorter and shorter...