Random Wednesdays
Former 38 Studios developer Steve “Moorgard” Danuser posted a brief retrospective, entitled The Game That Could Have Been, of the ill-fated Project Copernicus on his personal blog, in which he clarifies some of Curt Schilling’s earlier comments about the free-to-play nature of the game:
…Kingdoms of Amalur would have been free to play. The idea was to have no cost for the client and no monthly fee–as few barriers to adoption as possible.
Curt’s “atom bomb” comment was referring to how we planned to market the title. We would have revealed the game, teased its ongoing storyline and world-changing events, demonstrated cool gameplay, and shown off its gorgeous world, characters, and best-in-class animation. Then, when the audience saw how vast and fun the game was, we’d reveal that there was no cost to play it.
It wasn’t going to be crippled. You weren’t going to be kept from certain parts of the world if you didn’t pay. The transactions were intended to enhance your experience, to give you more options (like buying vanity appearances, stuff for your house, pets and mounts, etc.), but would not limit your play of the core game. And there would be a premium membership option, much like a subscription, that gave you perks and currency so you wouldn’t need to fiddle with microtransactions if you didn’t want to.
To illustrate just how gorgeous the world and the game were supposed to be, he released a video on YouTube (available in HD resolutions, by the way) showing off some of the environments crafted for the game, as well as a few glimpses of the concept art that was ultimately transformed into same. Kingdoms of Amalur would have been stunning, Dragons and Dragonettes, and richly colourful besides.
Alas.
Sadly, Danuser doesn’t go into much in the way of detail about the game’s design, or its planned “four-year story arc”. Pity.
On the “not so crappy news” front, however, several former 38 Studios developers are now working with Firefall developer Red 5; at least people were able to land on their feet after the collapse of Curt Schilling’s empire.
Did you all know that BioShock changed quite drastically during its development? As in: were you all aware that it in its original design, it was not supposed to be set underwater? Or that one iteration of its design involved Nazis?
Speaking of Irrational Games, they’re hiring for a few positions right now, including interactive marketing manager, design manager, and QA manager. That’s a fair number of…higher-profile roles that they need filled, if I do say so myself.
Runic Games and Almost Human both posted short updates about their respective games last week: Almost Human blogged about making monsters for Legend of Grimrock, while the team at Runic posted a short round-up of Torchlight 2 news and coverage. Oh, and Beamdog’s Phillip Daigle spoke with TPG about Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition.
A developer diary for Epic Mickey 2 discussing the power of characters was published last week, and Warren Spector spoke about his desire to bring the game to next-gen consoles (and make it available in HD). Apparently, there’s some resistance from Disney on this point. Oh, and speaking of Spector, don’t miss this Deus Ex retrospective at GameInformer.
The big news this week, though, just broke today: Interplay has evidently set up a domain name, Facebook page, and Twitter account for a resurrected Black Isle Studios. The website boldly claims that Black Isle is “back”, and touts the former developer’s history of making top-tier RPGs.
Chris Avellone and Brian Fargo have confirmed that they have no idea what’s going on, and the same is evidently true (as I am informed by Sergorn) of Josh Sawyer. Trent Oster, on the other hand, seems to know something about what’s going on…make of that what you all will.
Yes, that Bioshock was originally supposed to be something completely different has been well-known for years (from before the game was even released)
Nice find with the 8 games that changed mid development. I vividly remember the dissapointment of Bioshock 1 not being an RPG. Then also making the character invincible… although awesome story!
Heh, Interplay, desperate for attention and money. Watch, they’ll put out a poker game, “Classic Black Isle Game play”
Either that or they want Fargo or Avellone to buy the name. Which isn’t likely in my book.
By this point, I’m sure it’s no surprise to hear I have had a distaste for RPGs made in the last decade or so. And this is probably the wrong place to talk JRPG… but…
The Last Story is really impressing me, and it’s setting is heavily inspired by the Victorian era. And you can read books, at times, in order to get a better feel for the back story. Kinda like Ultima right?
OH! It comes in a textured and sturdy cardboard box in the shape of a book! With a soundtrack and an art book!
It has really good voice acting, believable characters and character development. The bad guys aren’t clearly evil super villains but rather have a shade of moral grayness. And the characters are driven by believable ambitions.
The combat is all in real time and is anything BUT mmo styled. Although I haven’t really played any current console RPGs, I’ve never played an RPG with combat like this. It’s fun, fast paced and engaging.
So far, the game has really great pacing and the storyline takes turn after turn in a completely believable manner. I’m only 10 hours in, but I’m starting to get a certain Ultima story arc involvement.
I seriously can’t believe Nintendo wasn’t planning on bringing this to North America. I mean, I really don’t believe it at all, this game is just too good.
That was the same thing with Bioshock’s “spiritual ancestor” System Shock : originally it was a Wing Commander spin off called Alien Commander.
Oh and… Ultima IX should have been on that list. Really.
Interplay, apparently not content to just let things lie and constantly showing just how much of a joke it is now… sad. Someone needs to put it out of its misery.