Titan Quest - Developer Comments

[Drithius]

So, *that's* why I've failed to complete the game three times now out of sheer boredom...

 

[Acleacius]

Seems we overestimated thq's intelligence.

 

[fatBastard()]

If this is indeed true then why the hell wasn't this information brought to light sooner? Now, it is nothing but anecdotal information whereas it might have made a difference back when Iron Lore still existed.

This smells fishy to me

 

[chamr]

Hmm... I have to side with the skeptics here. As rune points out, the characterization of THQ management is totally incongruous with the fact that they released CoH and DoW in close to the same or earlier time period. Either TQ got accidentally stuck in the Casual Gaming division of THQ, or something's just not right about this expose...

 

[fadedc]

Put it into the context of Blizzard - or of any other action-RPG at all.
There are only few of them which have human enemies.
This is almost as if this was one of the "definition pieces" of what defines an action-RPG …

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. Every Blizzard game, including both diablos, has involved the mass slaughter of human enemies. Well perhaps not Lost Vikings…..

And yeah I'm a little skeptical too. I'm sure there was mismanaging that happened, but this reeks of emotional exageration. But who knows.

 

[blackcanopus]

I remember Ken Levine once told one of the influential people in THQ forced him to change the ending of BioShock.

 

[aries100]

Do you remember Temple of Elemental Evil - I do. And I also remember that either while it was being developed or some time after it was finished, the developers stated that the publisher Atari 8and (and Hasbro) did not want certain things in the game e.g. being able to kill children, torture children. I think they, the publishers, also mentioned that they wanted the player to lock npcs in a tower? and then set them afire. Very evil - yes. But what's the point of choosing to play as a evil character in D&D if you don't do evil acts.
In Icewind Dale, you can actually, as an evil choice choose not to free the children...in any of the quests obviously.

I do belive there's some truth in what the devs. from Titan Quest are saying, simply because there's a difference between a fantasy game like Titan Quest and a game like Stalker. A game like Stalker is build to be a mature game in which you kill people; there's a reason for this. A game like Titan Quest which is a fantasy game build in the land of Greek Mythology is probably seen by most publishers as a - sorry to to this here - kid's game. And then the publishers need a T rating for this game, not a M rating.

As why this info hasn't been available before now? There's a little matter of of NDA-agreements in which devs. agree to not spill any info at all, even after the game is finished. Often untill a certain period has passed e.g maybe 2 or even 3 years - or more.

 

[blackcanopus]

Limbo has a lot of graphic violence. The main character (who dies in the most gruesome ways) is a little boy. There are a lot of bizarre enemies and obstacles, including huge and hideous arachnids in the game. And the games is what you call a kid's game, it's T rated.

Seriously, you can't compare super evil acts like torturing children with this shit:

Of course, I was told we couldn't have snow on the summit because people might not realize it snowed in Greece

The point is, the changes which THQ forced the developer to make to TQ had nothing to do with T rating. Some publishers are micromanaging, over zealous, self righteous control freaks and it appears THQ is one of them. I wonder what they have done with Warhmmer40K series.

 

[DArtagnan]

This is actually worse than I generally imagine publisher-interference to be.

That's saying something, considering how sceptical and jaded I am

It actually makes me feel like an optimist.

 

[DoctorNarrative]

Deus Ex Invisible War you can kill kids and throw them in dumpsters. Pretty sure that was the most recent RPG with child killing, though I could be wrong.

 

[dbaum]

Very interesting to see why TQ ended up how it did. There were just so many baffling missed opportunities. Good to see that it wasn't due to developer incompetence — sounds like they did what they could within the bounds they were given. Stupid bounds.

Oh, I'm sure we've all had jobs like that in one form or another.

(And this is exactly the sort of reason why Gaslamp is not interested in taking any publisher or venture capital money: You get money-men without appreciation for games making design decisions, then you get your own project turned against you; what a nightmare.)

 

[GothicGothicness]

It is good to get it on paper that a lot of publishers target dumb gamers on purpose. No wounder we get dumbed down games in that case.

It is actually a lot easier to target a dumb target audience if you target a smart one you have to make a good game that is also smart enough to stimulate the brain. This would take 10 times the effort but not sell more.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. Every Blizzard game, including both diablos, has involved the mass slaughter of human enemies. Well perhaps not Lost Vikings…..

Okay, but even the "humans" from D2 were called "corrupt" in a way … So they weren't entirel "human" anymore …

Or so I have it in my memory.

The Lost Vikings was actually one of my very first games, by the way !

Loved the comment on "Croutonian Security Service" ! :lol:

 

[fadedc]

Okay, but even the "humans" from D2 were called "corrupt" in a way … So they weren't entirel "human" anymore …

Or so I have it in my memory.

The Lost Vikings was actually one of my very first games, by the way !

Loved the comment on "Croutonian Security Service" ! :lol:

Well there were plenty of evil cultists who we had had no reason to think were not human. There were also humans who were called things like corrupted rogues, but it was never really clear what corrupted really meant.

 

[curious]

bioshock was published by 2K not THQ...

 

[Falchor]

It is good to get it on paper that a lot of publishers target dumb gamers on purpose. No wounder we get dumbed down games in that case.

It is actually a lot easier to target a dumb target audience if you target a smart one you have to make a good game that is also smart enough to stimulate the brain. This would take 10 times the effort but not sell more.

Yeah, falls into the "art" vs. "product" discussion… which I won't get into right now, as it has been hashed and rehashed ad nauseum… but obviously some of the management at THQ were heavily favoring the product side of that argument. Yet another justification for developers to go indie.

 

[rune_74]

Limbo has a lot of graphic violence. The main character (who dies in the most gruesome ways) is a little boy. There are a lot of bizarre enemies and obstacles, including huge and hideous arachnids in the game. And the games is what you call a kid's game, it's T rated.

Seriously, you can't compare super evil acts like torturing children with this shit:


The point is, the changes which THQ forced the developer to make to TQ had nothing to do with T rating. Some publishers are micromanaging, over zealous, self righteous control freaks and it appears THQ is one of them. I wonder what they have done with Warhmmer40K series.

THQ did have their hands on warhammer 40k, dawn of war. It's ridiculus how easily some of you take this as the gospel truth, it sort of feeds into your mentality that the game world is out to dumb down everything.

 

[Lemonhead]

I'm not surprised at all. I work in a creative field and have to compromise my creative vision every day because "suits" interfere och poke their dirty little fingers into everything they can. They have to validate why they are paid massive salaries after all. And most of them really have no real skill or talent but want to feel like their opinion matters. So they make lots of decisions about things of which they have no real education, talent or experience.

What I also find is that "they" always talk about their target audience in derogatory terms. "They aren't smart enough to understand this ""concept"". Make it so simple that an idiot could use it." I can't count how many times I've heard that.