Interview Troika veteran Chad Moore talks Arcanum, Bloodlines and more at GameBanshee

[oscar]

Arcanum had probably my favourite cast of party NPCs. One of the few games I genuinely wanted to hear more not less from my party members who had genuinely interesting backstories and personal involvements in quests (including betrayals, beefing with other party members, interrupting and altering the outcomes of dialogues). Their voice acting was top notch too.

 

[MrBuzzKill]

If we finally give up the notion that "veteran" devs are still capable of producing games worthy of their old achievements, we can finally relax and seek out games from relatively unknown developers who "get" what made old games good better than the original devs do - such as Stygian software, Iron Tower, ATOM team, Whalenought, etc.

 

[4too]

Call for: "The Office Of Historical Corrections"


Might never have played ARCANUM without this very Codex touting the fan patch, correct Droog?

While brewing buzz for new dev's to learn old tricks', who will groom the heroes that make faulty games playable?



4too

 

[jac8awol]

Now, you might say this is just how the game was made, it is not its responsibility to cater to any kind of build the players want. Well, to a point, I suppose, but the issue is that the game is really happy in letting you get ahead early on without focusing much in combat. Many of the early quests have easy workarounds for people who focused in other abilities; and with a tiny bit of sneaking, it is easy and even sometimes fun to avoid enemies. About half-way in, this design philosophy changes completely.

That's just how all badly managed RPGs turn out, plenty of branching and C&C at the start, the game letting you pursue a wide variety of builds and then towards the end the devs don't have the time and money to maintain that so they just throw enemies at you since that is the cheapest way to pad out the game at that point. Bloodlines still did the branching thing at the end, but it couldn't keep all builds equally valid. That renaissance Fallout clone, Lionheart, is a much more extreme example of this. The budget ran out completely in the middle of the project and so after a certain point the game turns into pure slaughter.

Consistency is the best thing here, if you can't offer a wide variety of playstyles for an entire RPG you should either scrap some of them or just cut the game down until you can. If Bloodlines had been more combat focused from the start it wouldn't have been so annoying when the change happens and the devs could have focused on polishing the combat rather than wasting their time on all that juicy good stuff at the start.

It's not even purely a money issue, I've played some Neverwinter Nights modules that did similar things, going for a combat grind towards the end. So I think there is some design issues involved too, that you have to write the game scenarios to fit with that gameplay variety too. Alpha Protocol did this with the bosses too, that suddenly weren't stealth-able, or in the Deus Ex reboot where the bosses also suddenly broke a stealth run for no good reason because there needed to be an epic fight scene all of a sudden. That couldn't have been due to budget reasons.

Arcanum is actually completely consistent from start to end, throwing some combat at you, but letting talky players survive those thanks to more followers and even letting you persuade the final boss. Minor playstyle alterations like taking up gambling or haggling is useful at points, but is never established as something that you will be able to depend on entirely and since you get XP from killing things that is explicitly a goal.

Jesus, I still have nightmares about that Lionheart game. Never finished it, I don't think it's possible to. That's how they should train astronauts, exercises in pure bloody-minded tenacity. That game was the great granddad of poor management, and we still get the little shit descendant project failures all over the place today. Awful legacy.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Call for: "The Office Of Historical Corrections"


Might never have played ARCANUM without this very Codex touting the fan patch, correct Droog?

While brewing buzz for new dev's to learn old tricks', who will groom the heroes that make faulty games playable?



4too

I love that you've been here since 2004 and have so few posts.

 

[Sitra Achara]

GB: An individual by the name of Edward R. G. Mortimer is credited as the game’s main writer. From what I can tell, he was an editor and contributor to Judges Guild, a pen and paper RPG publisher from way back in the day, but very little is known about him. Can you shed some light on who Mr. Mortimer really was and what he did for Arcanum?
​

​

Hey, I remember that guy, he dropped by the Co8 a few years ago. Wanted to make a small mod even.

https://co8.org/community/threads/gnome-mod.10962

Last post he made said he went homeless...

 

[Bara]

Last post he made said he went homeless...

While that was his last post he made on Co8 forums he made another post on his profile page few months later asking about where to download a portrait pack.

I don't know how it works on the forums there though. It says he was last seen on Oct 24 2014 when he made his post about being homeless but that post onto his own profile page was made Jan 16 2015.

So he's probably okay. At least that's what I choose to believe.

 

[Fireblade]

Last post he made said he went homeless...

While that was his last post he made on Co8 forums he made another post on his profile page few months later asking about where to download a portrait pack.

I don't know how it works on the forums there though. It says he was last seen on Oct 24 2014 when he made his post about being homeless but that post onto his own profile page was made Jan 16 2015.

So he's probably okay. At least that's what I choose to believe.

I bet this is him: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edmortimer/

On the Co8 forums his forum tag was "Occupy Wall Street" and the LinkedIn resume there says he worked for "Occupy Wall Street" as a "Street Medic" from 2011-2013. Also, the LinkedIn resume shows his job as manager of a homeless shelter ending on Sep 2014, and then "Nov 2015 - present" as "Various temporary employments to keep a roof over my head", which all seems to line up reasonably well with when he said he became homeless on the Co8 forums.

The resume skips over the time period during which he would have been working on Arcanum, and doesn't go back far enough for the stuff he wrote for Judges Guild. But in his profile pic, he looks old enough to have been the person who wrote the Judges Guild stuff in the early 80's.

Also, there is 1 old picture of the Ed Mortimer from Judges Guild here: https://www.acaeum.com/jg/Employees.html
Pretty terrible quality, but it looks compatible with his LinkedIn profile pic...

 

[Fireblade]

A little more on that... Pretty sure this is the Facebook page that goes with that LinkedIn profile: https://www.facebook.com/ed.mortimer.58

If you look at the photos and posts it quickly becomes clear it's likely the same guy. Lots of references to "Occupy" movements, and other similar political leanings. Also take note of the "58" in the Facebook URL - probably born in '58, meaning he was writing for Judges Guild in his early/mid 20s.

Most of the FB profile is locked down, but if you bring up his Friends list (which you can't see), then scroll down to see his Likes, and keep hitting the "See All" button to scroll down through pages and pages of likes, there's more evidence. Many references to Chicago, IL (which is set as his current location in the LinkedIn profile), and also some references to Decatur, IL (which is where Judges Guild was located back in the day). Once you scroll down far enough, you will find that one of his Likes is actually the Judges Guild Game Company.

Anyway, on this Facebook profile he has a new post as recently as 11 minutes ago. So, Edward R.G. Mortimer confirmed alive, and also a leftist radical?

 

[Don Peste]

Edward R.G. Mortimer Considered Harmful.

 

[Bara]

Radical leftist or not I'm just happy to know one of the guys who made one of my favorite games and world didn't just disapear off the face of the earth from homelessness.

Terrible way to go.

 

[Gordian Nutt]

Call for: "The Office Of Historical Corrections"


Might never have played ARCANUM without this very Codex touting the fan patch, correct Droog?

While brewing buzz for new dev's to learn old tricks', who will groom the heroes that make faulty games playable?



4too

I love that you've been here since 2004 and have so few posts.

Also, use of 'groom' not a good choice anymore

 

[good fucking shit happen]

On the Co8 forums his forum tag was "Occupy Wall Street" and the LinkedIn resume there says he worked for "Occupy Wall Street" as a "Street Medic" from 2011-2013.

Based, even if they didn't accomplish anything.

 

[Jedi Exile]

'An Unfortunate Affair' is quite excellent. I remember how I tried to google it, found on Grog's website (I think) and started reading, it felt like really delving into the world of Arcanum.