It’s been a while since I checked in with Warhorse Studios…I actually don’t recall if I’ve mentioned them at all here on the Ultima Codex, in fact. Be that as it may, the upstart European RPG developers have been in the gaming press lately, concerning a pair of blog posts published on the studio’s website. The two posts — one dealing with cartography and world design and the other with design overkill — were both penned by Dan Vavra, the studio’s creative director. And both are marked by his very frank wit.

A taste:

You visit the emperor, who sits alone in the throne hall, and he assigns you with an quest. The land is terrorised by an evil dragon from hell and Lojza is powerless. He has sent an entire imperial army against it, but the monster has killed all five soldiers. Now, he needs a hero like you! You have to find and climb the mystical mountain, Lohen, on which no human has ever set foot, and behead the dragon.

You accept the quest and set out from the town gate. The mystic mountain Lohen is precisely 150 metres from the gate and is about 50 metres high. All of the inhabitants of the city are either retarded, blind or crippled if they have not managed to notice it for centuries. After an approximately 30-metre walk to the mountain, you come to ‘no man’s land’ and are attacked by bandits. During another 120m walk to the peak, you also notice an ancient fortress Rumloch, a secret dungeon of doom and a bandit hideout. At the peak of the mountain, you kill a one-hundred-metre dragon by beating its foot with a rusty sword and drinking potions. Then, you rob the corpses of the imperial army (all five) and on the way back to the castle are killed by a wild boar.

Welcome to an average RPG.

The world design post features a lengthy analysis of the game worlds of various other notable titles, including ARMA and a few The Elder Scrolls games, and will be of interest to anyone who wants a bit of an inside look at the world development process. The second post discusses the level of intricacy that Vavra would, ideally, like the company’s as-yet-unannounced game to include, though whether it can deliver on his lofty ambitions of course remains to be seen.

What is known, at least, is that the game will not start orcs and elves; it will be built around actual medieval history.

Almost Human’s Petri Häkkinen posted an joined Crate Entertainment, joining two other “survivors” of the former MMORPG studio.

Runic Games’ Max Schaefer was interviewed by GamesLiving about Torchlight 2, in which he briefly discussed the various post-Torchlight 2 plans the studio has been considering. Travis Baldree, meanwhile, has continued posting not-a-blogs on the Runic forums, keeping everyone appraised of what progress is being made as the game nears its release.

A couple of key members of the BioShock Infinite team have left Irrational Games, it seems, including its art director.

And news has come out that the Enhanced Edition of Baldur’s Gate that Overhaul Games will be releasing soon will support cross-platform co-op multiplayer. It’s not just Ultima Forever that’s going to let tablet-based and PC-based players meet up and play together online! (And I, for one, am glad to see this trend emerging.)