E3 2001: The RPGs
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As computer conventions go, E3 is a relatively recent development, less than a decade old. It sprang out of dissatisfaction with the management of CES, the annual Consumer Electronics Show in the United States, which used to display both electronic gear and games each fall in Las Vegas. The balance between gear and games was questionable, and some people found the allotment of prime display space highly biased. As a former president of one major game company put it, (When exhibitors have to walk half-a-mile to a separate building to see our products while some guy selling telephones shaped like Mickey Mouse's head has his booth in the entrance of the convention's main hall, something seriously needs changing.) With a powerful impetus from game producers and developers, and over the protests of CES management, E3 was born.
This year's E3 was in Los Angeles' Convention Center. (Traditionally, the show caravans between Los Angeles and Atlanta, Georgia. The 2001 E3 was the first to stay in the same city for two consecutive years, encouraging Asian-American business connections.) The amount of floorspace devoted to PC games was significantly smaller than in the past-one major hall was given over entirely to console products, while the other sported large, bare patches where no game company flourished. However, many of us noticed that a few major PC-based companies had moved off the public floors for the first time-Interplay and Bethesda Softworks, for example-occupying suites where they could display their wares to maximum advantage. (It's been a regular complaint of E3 since the very first year that most people displaying Exhibitor badges were nothing of the sort, but game addicts who had relatives in the gaming industry. While that's undoubtedly an exaggeration, you have to wonder exactly what game-related profession is represented by a bunch of gawking guys in fetishwear with blank spaces on their badges where everybody else had company names. Baldur's Gate Leatherworks, Specializing in Stud Collars for Drowfolk, perhaps?)
Sad to relate, some important game development/production houses were missing for the first time this year; and you could almost see the edges of their booths ghosting around areas they once faithfully occupied during each exposition. Last year, SSI/Mindscape had a large floor booth where the company displayed a big screen trailer of Myst III; but they also showed with some pride an early build of their intriguing new RPG, Pool of Radiance. Frustratingly, SSI/Mindscape was the victim of some bad administrative decisions up top, at a level where expertise in making and selling games doesn't count for anything. They were eventually acquired by Ubi-Soft, seemingly only for Pool of Radiance. Someone at Ubi-Soft clearly recognized Another Potential Baldur's Gate Sales Explosion in the Making. The rest of the team that produced such brilliant strategy and RPG titles over the years is gone.
So, too, was Microprose, although that venerable distributor/developer had fallen victim to a number of internal problems several years ago. New World Computing was invisible, to all intents and purposes. Talonsoft, which suddenly lurched into view a year or two ago with some excellent acquisitions, just as suddenly faded back into the recesses of Take2 Interactive. Monolith, which had distributed such RPGs as Septerra Core and Odium, has nearly ceased development, and was off the floor. Origin Systems.? Sunk, without a trace-though it's hard to say whether the monumental mistake that was Ultima IX killed it, or the decision to forego RPGs for first-person action titles (which were called RPGs), or the deal that landed the company in the financial grasp of Electronic Arts. OS' Richard Garriott has resurfaced, but in a company developing multiplayer online games. They were not on the E3 floor, but it would be too early in their development cycle to expect that.
Other game producers are working nowadays on mixed platforms, without extensive expectations for PC-based releases in the immediate future. Not that anybody is fearful of poor sales on the PC side; it's just that many companies are greedy for a piece of the expected console action which has yet to materialize. Companies like Sony, Sega, and Microsoft are battling it out for control, not only of the software market, but of the hardware and peripherals markets, as well. Game producers are blithely (or nervously, depending upon the individual) ignoring the fact that nobody really needs a separate games computer, when a PC already provides great resolution, on-line access, portability, excellent sound, and tons of peripherals, applications, and games. Meanwhile, some PC-based development firms with excellent success records are growing frustrated at the lack of interest from producers who now see gold only in console products. Frog City (Imperialism I & II) has a great RPG/strategy title on hold for precisely this reason.
Thus far, this report may have given the impression that the PC market is dying away, but that's not accurate. While some companies, like Lucasarts and Activision, are putting a lot of attention these days into console games, quite a few companies are still producing PC titles. And while a fair number of products are the usual ripoffs of game concepts that were popular two-to-three years ago (Quake, Age of Empires and Diablo (action/rpg) clones currently lead that pack), there were also some very striking titles of quality RPG programming on display at E3.
By the luck of the draw, Arcanum was the first I saw. This is the latest child of some of the members of the same team that gave us Fallout and Fallout II. It features an intriguing premise: what if your average pseudo-medieval fantasy world, complete with elves, dwarves, humans and orcs, suddenly developed mid-19th century industrial technology? (Happens all the time, right? Look, just suspend your disbelief for a while.) Now, go a step further. What if spells and magical artifacts didn't work for or against scientific types, while scientific items (everything from patented healing potions to guns) couldn't touch, for better or worse, magic-users? You fall into this world where magic and science are at each other's throats, quite literally-the result of dive bombing orcs setting fire to your airborne zeppelin.
Gamers who enjoyed the highly configurable character of Fallout (where you could win as either good or evil, and find solutions to problems that emphasized combat, stealth, or charisma and intellect) will take delight in Arcanum. You can study up to sixteen different spell schools with a total of ninety spells, and seven technological disciplines with several dozen schematics for making valuable items. Spells and disciplines are learned by gaining experience, but sixteen separate skills for fighting, thieving and other activities are improved, Might & Magic fashion, by satisfying a series of quest-giving trainers.
Arcanum's engine is much the same as Fallout's, so if you're looking for fantastic visuals, look elsewhere. But the storyline is rich, the game balance excellent, and the product filled with interesting characters and non-linear challenges. Target release date on Arcanum is September, this year, though the product is already finished. (They don't want to release it in the US now, and wait three to four months to hit Europe and Asia. You know the pirates would make far more out of such a delay than the developers and publishers.)
There is a class of game that combines strategy and RPG elements; and hopefully nobody minds a brief mention of these on our RPG site. The one that particularly grabbed my interest was Master of Orion III, with part of Microprose's old MOO II team now safely ensconced within the protective economic field of Infogrammes. They've found an elegant solution to the old micro-management problem involving control of dozens of planets: a management system based on available points that lets you step in over AI-driven planetary governors, and make changes in production queues. The trick is that your points don't increase along with your empire's growth, so that you really need to focus on optimizing just a few of your planets by mid-game, while leaving the rest to develop on their own. Of course, this puts a considerable emphasis on AI, since planetary governors will be doing most of your production-and your diplomacy, too. You have to work through a bureaucracy to get things done. Building a militant empire will draw very able officers into your ranks; a peaceful, charismatic bunch of traders will get bureaucratic talent that mirrors these qualities. Sounds interesting, and it's due out the first part of 2002.
(By the way, the same team is very enthusiastic about the possibility of doing a Master of Magic II. We spoke for a long time about what a great, highly configurable, fun game it was, and how much more could be done for it with modern technology. Let's hope MOO III does well, so we have a shot at MOM II.)
On that same strategy/RPG front, Triumph Studios displayed bits and pieces of its forthcoming Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne. The graphics are superb, and the movement of players into six categories based on magical affiliation (light, dark, earth, fire, water, air) definitely customizes the RPG feel to a greater extent than the blended magic of the current version (where a player could mix light with fire, for example). A scenario editor is also promised, something that was sorely missed in AoW I. This is expected to be a Spring 2002 release.
Elixir Studios continues its work on Republic, one of the most innovative strategy/RPG titles I've seen in years. (It was first displayed in backrooms at E3, last year, to the press.) You're the leader of a small faction in Novostrania, a euphemism for the post-breakup Soviet Union. You lead a small faction customized to fit one of the major social groupings with a chance at government (military, criminal, religious leaders, etc) Over time, you attempt to convince other citizens to join your faction, then use their skills in turn to affect still larger numbers of people-eventually moving from city to city, as you attempt to spread the message while your opponents are doing the same.
What makes Republic unique is not so much the idea, as its working out. You don't simply point a character with a sniper skill at an opponent's spokesperson and watch for an indication of the result; rather, you give your sniper a task, and it looks for a good location in a particular 3D city to hide and perform it, after first observing the chosen target's schedule. Then the sniper waits for a good moment-or will instantly fire, assuming you take over and insist. Otherwise, she'll use good AI judgment. There are more than one hundred cities in Novostrania, and thousands of individually skilled people who maintain their own schedules for specific work and leisure activities. Impressive? You bet. Republic's still a ways off, but it's already winning awards for its premise and development-in-progress. It's nice to see a game this distinctive and ambitious not get sidelined by corporate shakedowns or leeches. Elixir Studios has a vision, and they're clearly bent on pursuing it: more power to .m.
Through a combination of circumstances, Interplay and Bioware have worked themselves into commanding positions for the RPG market akin to that which SSI possessed back in the early 1990's. There are significant differences, however. For one thing, SSI didn't bother upgrading their RPG game engine until they'd already driven away a significant amount of their audience with endless retreads; for another, most of those RPGs were relentlessly linear and poorly written. By contrast, Bioware, working for Interplay, has rightly tweaked and improved the original 2D Infinity engine and effects. Interplay's various development teamshave moved to a couple of good 3D engines, in NWN and Torn, to keep abreast with the latest video card and CPU improvements. And they've kept several teams of talented programmers and designers busy as the same time, creating uniquely flavored RPGs that would please different kinds of gamers. There's also a sense of maintained contact and genuine interaction between Interplay's various RPG programming divisions and partners and their target audiences, which results in products that cater specifically to what those audiences want. (This last may sound easy to achieve, but consider the tangled interface of Wizards & Warriors as an example of how public input was ignored.)
Throne of Bhaal is a case in point. What could have been an add-on with just some additional dungeons has become, instead, a second game: hundreds of new spells, skills, weapons, and artifacts, experience limits that have been more than doubled, a new, intriguing class (the Wild Mage), and a new party NPC whose interactions will be anything but ordinary: Sarevok, the deranged villain of BG1.
In true form, he died, but apparently got better. This could have been made a short, comical matter, but the BG2 team has woven his resurrection into your character's story most convincingly, and even brought back a figure of power from your past who would take strong exception to Saverok's presence in your party (assuming you add him, of course). I won't give away the contents of that confrontation; suffice to say, having seen it, the thing is great theater, and another instance showing that RPG developers are taking the complexities of moral alignment more seriously nowadays.
In short, ToB isn't simply an add-on; it's a module that turns BG2 into a fresh experience. Sure, the story essentially remains the same, but so many of the parameters have been changed in the mid- and late game that it might as well be a fresh purchase-even if you've played it (as I have) several times, before.
Neverwinter Nights has been written to death, several times, and there's nothing new to add at this point. Suffice to say, it's looking great, and should spawn a series of player-designed standalone and multiplayer modules shortly after its release. I have one overriding concern, having spent sometime observing and playing the game-in-progress at E3: your character can't pause the world while viewing inventory, swapping items, or evaluating spells. RPG strategists who enjoy finding the best way around problems by examining issues from all sides will not be pleased; twitch players will. And this applies to all modules developed by the developers and players, alike, multiplayer or standalone. My guess is that a pause-and-make-choices function will be the most demanded game feature once NWN releases; whether it shows up in a patch (like Vampire: The Masquerade) right after release remains to be seen.
Interplay has had its problems licensing pre-built fantasy worlds and combat systems-they're expensive and grow more so over time, and some of the licensing parties are apt to be rather arbitrary (a comment that could never be made about Interplay's chief officer, Brian Fargo, of course). So it wasn't surprising that with their new RPG, Torn, the company (under the aegis of their RPG development team, Black Isle Studios) has designed its own fantasy franchise. It was a smart move, particularly since the team devoted to the project includes some of the same fine people who developed both Fallout 2 and Planescape: Torment. (The latter title, regrettably, just didn't sell enough units to get the nod from Interplay for a sequel. Damn.) They're also using the LithTech 3.0 engine, which means a great 3D physics model, 24-bit lightmapping, and a level of visual detail that should make all RPGers drool with anticipation.
As a rule, I tend to avoid relating RPG plots, because they provide no true flavor of gameplay, and because they're usually hokey as hell. Torn's plot, however, delves somewhat deeper (for a computer game), calling to mind Ultima VI and VII, and BIS' own Planescape: Torment. In brief: you begin your journeys as a mysterious, if talented vagabond, a wanderer who apparently bears a curse; for wherever you go, disaster strikes those around you. And there's a legend in the kingdom of Orislane, the location of your current travels, concerning a great Hero opposing a terrifying Doombringer. It would be comforting to believe you're the first, but given your unnatural knack for causing misery on a large scale, it just may be possible that you're the latter-or something else, again Where does good intent leave off, and evil actions begin to determine a person's moral proclivities? Ah, moral ambiguity, the stuff of life.
Torn uses an advancement system that's skill-based and strong on personal configuration-as might be expected from members of the original Fallout team. Main characters will not only have statistics and a host of skills to improve, but over-arching motivations that determine how they interact with the world around them: making a huge sum of money, protecting one's clan, destroying evil wherever it is found, etc. You will find multiple solutions to any given quest, depending upon your main character's configuration, increasing replay value; and, of course, plenty of NPCs to consider for your party who bring their own agendas, relationships, and quests. (If this sounds like déjà vu after reading about Arcanum, above, that's good: you're keeping up. Some of the Fallout folks left BIS to work on Arcanum, so there are similar mindsets involved.) Think of Torn as combining BG2's apparent non-linearity and self-driven NPCs with Fallout's detailed personal configuration system, and you'll get a sense of how very much you can tailor each play-through to bear your personal stamp.
While Torn isn't an AD&D product, that shouldn't cause problems for any serious RPGer. (After all, good novels are usually derived from worlds created by their authors, not out of those licensed from large corporations.) Its world is (original)-in other words, a mix of familiar stuff, like dwarves and elves, with some races and creatures that use the same stats, but appear (new.) The magic system produces many of the same results we've gotten out of all these games (blasting, summoning, healing, etc), but it feels unique, and that's what counts in the end. There are four major (magical realms) of Summoning, Order, Chaos, and Alchemy, in turn influencing the Five Elements of Air, Fire, Water, Earth and Time. The Alchemical Realm, for instance, is used to identify and repair items, imbue a target with elemental affinities (making a person fire-resistant, or giving a sword a flame attack), and build powerful compound potions. A character who has the Artisan skill and Alchemical ability will be able to enchant items with Chaos or Order magic. Remember how in the Fallout games, the more good and evil actions you committed, the higher your positive or negative karma, and the stronger the bonuses you derived? Well, with alchemical magic, a neutral karma actually helps, so that a high level alchemist who has a gray soul will actually be more powerful than a zealous do-gooder or a cackling sociopath.
I hope to do a more thorough preview on this game in the near future. In any case, we'll all be able to see how Torn fares by year's end.
Pool of Radiance is another RPG about which so much has been written over the last year. It's more linear and less character-rich than BG2, but given everything else that looks good in this game, the sales are certain to be high. And that's precisely why Ubi-Soft, a company which doesn't (do) RPGs, purchased it when SSI/Mindscape folded. Rumor has it that another AD&D game is in the works, but don't expect to hear much about this until after PoR hits the retail shelves in September.
Bethesda Softworks first came to prominence in 1994. The company offered cheap wages to its programmers in exchange for a degree of creative control over the product, and the first results were Elder Scrolls: Arena. This RPG, like its 1996 successor, ES: Daggerfall, was notable for its first person realtime RPG action, character configuration, largely non-linear world, on-the-fly random dungeon formation, and epic scope. It also let you create enchanted items, configure new spells, and work up the pathway of a variety of guilds, though the graphical engine was seriously aging by Daggerfall's release. The major drawback to both games were their lack of detail. True, you could join a particular faction or guild in any province, but aside from the repetitive quests, there was no inter-factional politics; and despite the differences in appearances between cities, they were alike beneath the skins. The balance among guilds, factions and races was static, and the only thing that truly changed over time was you, yourself.
It's been a long time coming, but ES: Morrowind's release is nearly at hand (Note: The screenshots on the right are E3 visuals from Morrowind). The game is expected to release in the last quarter. It finally provides all the detail that ES players have sought. Your actions and allegiances among three factions and up to ten guilds (with another nine guilds you can't join, but can interact with) determine how Morrowind's citizens feel about you-and each other. It will be possible to win the game in various ways for a variety of factions, utilizing dozens of skills. There are thirty cities, and hundreds of wilderness sites and dungeons, each of which has been personally designed (thus preventing the (this seems familiar) feeling which crept up on dungeoncrawlers in the earlier games).
Morrowind will also be released with an Elder Scrolls Construction Set, the same tool that has been used to construct the game, itself. You'll be able to modify Morrowind in any way you see fit-enabling new dungeons, creating new items, changing skills and missions.
