RPG Codex's Year in Review
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Five years later not only are Interplay still alive, they even re-launched their website this year. In the category of "I never thought I'd see that happen", Interplay not only managed to survive impending bankruptcy by handing over the D&D licenses to Atari, they also managed to find a mystery buyer (Company names don't get anymore more vague than "Financial Planning and Development S.A."). Apparently a simple concept like "lack of funds" doesn't stop Interplay. They've now seemingly managed to acquire enough funds to not only make a game, but a $75 Million MMO of all things.
While the MMO was first announced in 2006, 2008 saw them hire staff and open offices in Orange County, California. Somehow or another, Herve Caen (Interplay CEO and one of the men responsible for running the company further into the ground in the first place) magic'd up some cash and convinced people to work for him. Among those people are former Fallout creator Chris Taylor (not the Gas Powered Games one, the other one) who got the plum job of "Lead System Designer" for the Fallout MMO, codenamed "Project V13". He joines former Troika lad Jason D. Anderson along with "other original Fallout team members". For all we know at the moment, that could include the janitor.
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While Interplay were doing their best at playing Lazarus with a triple-bypass, others were busy laying off employees. 2008 had a few shutdowns and lay-offs in the gaming world. EA announced they'd cut 10% of their staff by merging a few studios together in order to "focus on hit games with higher margin opportunities". I guess that means more sports. Meanwhile Flagship Studios, makers of Hellgate London, died in July, 2008. It would seem the MMO market was too tough for even a bunch of former Blizzard employees (maybe they should've stayed around a bit longer and learnt something?). Hellgate: London's servers will go offline on 31 January 2009.
Iron Lore, creators of Titan Quest (a rather mediocre Diablo clone), also fell over this year when they failed to secure funding for their projects. That didn't stop them blaming piracy though ("Piracy. Yeah, that's right, I said it"). And the complexities of actually making software ("Trying to make a game for PC is a freaking nightmare"). And gamers ("There's a lot of stupid people out there."). And reviewers ("And while I'm at it, I don't want to spare the reviewers either"). And pretty much just about anyone other than themselves for making a mediocre product. Really, if making games is that hard for you, you shouldn't be making them. It doesn't get any simpler than that. Go make coffee machines or wireless toasters or something. Sadly, their stupidity didn't end with the closure of their studio. Somehow or another, they did manage to get funding and were able to be reborn earlier this month. Their project? Bringing Titan Quest to consoles, of course.
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In 2007 CD Projekt released The Witcher. In 2008 CD Projekt released The Witcher again. In 2009, CD Projekt will be releasing The Witcher once more only that time it'll be for consoles. So what was the 2008 release? Well, 2008 saw the birth of the "Enhanced Edition". Back in 2005 we gave CD Projekt "hype of the year" for talking up the original. Unfortunately the Enhanced Edition saw them go into hype over-drive.
Here's a trick you can try at home. Make something and release it to the world at large. When people complain about obscene loading times that give you enough time to circumnavigate the world, make a cup of tea and read War and Peace three times over before you get into the next area, a translation that isn't too bad but is missing out on extra Dwarf cock and the fact you've built a city full of clones, just re-release the exact same thing only with a fancy bit after the title that makes it sound like you did something to improve it. That about sums up The Witcher: Enhanced Edition.
So what was the Enhanced Edition supposed to fix? Well, for starters loading times that literally took upwards of two minutes somehow or another got passed testing and into a final released product. They solved that in one of the early patches by (wait for it, it's good) realising they didn't need to reload an entire area you just left and were about to walk back into. See, The Witcher uses the Aurora engine which is that God awful piece of crap designed by BioWare for Neverwinter Nights. The Aurora engine is classic for having large open outside areas (like a village) but then everytime you click on a door to enter someone's house, it spends an awful long time loading 4 walls and a roof. Then when you walk back outside (having spent 1+ minute loading and all of 15 seconds enjoying said 4 walls), it would have to re-load the entire village again.
