RPGWatch Feature - Bob McCabe Interview

like I said, the point was brought up to them many times, including as user made Pay to Play MMOG machine, and it was clear their concern was getting sued and having problems caused by less than reputable users. They did get a few of those and they had a big problem with copyrighted material they could barely police (ie why the CEP wasn't official).

I noticed this interview came up as the second thing with google for the Watch right now under Codex. Boy do those guys read a lot into this - like me asking the same question twice and getting two different answers? As I said, some of these questions were filled in after as part of the conversation.

Basically I confirmed Bio had a better story but rather than getting "screwed" or interfered with they simply couldn't use it.

What some people can't get out of the interview was that I was trying to confirm that it was meant to be just a toolset without a story. What I learned I think was that just a backup plan they were feeding the public until they got one in.

And then there's the popular bias against MP games that didn't exist in 2002. In fact, it was the MP in BG and the popular modding that was going on that was one of the inspirations for the design. PS:T's lack of MP was considered one of its failures at the time.

but I digress…
 
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What some people can't get out of the interview was that I was trying to confirm that it was meant to be just a toolset without a story. What I learned I think was that just a backup plan they were feeding the public until they got one in.

That doesn't really make sense, considering they were plugging it in the original Baldur's Gate. I suppose it's possible they were planning to make and sell a GM toolkit sans any modules for it, four years ahead of time and before their first game even shipped, but if so their plugs were highly misleading because I think they clearly gave the impression they were talking about a game.

And then there's the popular bias against MP games that didn't exist in 2002. In fact, it was the MP in BG and the popular modding that was going on that was one of the inspirations for the design. PS:T's lack of MP was considered one of its failures at the time.

I can't recall anyone even mentioning multiplayer with BGI or BGII on usenet or the forums back when those games were new. I certainly never ran into anyone who was playing either of those games with other people. And I can't recollect anyone complaining about lack of Multiplayer with Torment, either. Can you document/clarify?

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned NWN was a wrong turn for Bioware. It's a damn shame they didn't come out with the "spiritual successor" to Baldur's Gate II way back then, instead. The story in NWN was just so damn subpar for Bioware that it was depressing. To this day I remember nothing about it except that NPC babbling about watadayveean creatures. I damn near passed on KOTOR because NWN soured me on Bioware so much. Takes a major brainfart to alienate fans to that extent. I hope whatever new fans they picked up was worth it to them.
 
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What some people can't get out of the interview was that I was trying to confirm that it was meant to be just a toolset without a story. What I learned I think was that just a backup plan they were feeding the public until they got one in.

That doesn't really make sense, considering they were plugging it in the original Baldur's Gate. I suppose it's possible they were planning to make and sell a GM toolkit sans any modules for it, four years ahead of time and before their first game even shipped, but if so their plugs were highly misleading because I think they clearly gave the impression they were talking about a game.

they indeed were plugging (it as) a game during BG. But what you seem to have missed back then, and in the article here, is that during the interval between losing Interplay as a publisher and getting picked up by Infogrames (Atari/Hasbro) Bioware lost their rights to a lot of their own assets.

Interplay kept them including the original story which got leaked many years later. This is why they hinted at no story for so long.

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=community_news.Detail&id=2700

And then there's the popular bias against MP games that didn't exist in 2002. In fact, it was the MP in BG and the popular modding that was going on that was one of the inspirations for the design. PS:T's lack of MP was considered one of its failures at the time.

I can't recall anyone even mentioning multiplayer with BGI or BGII on usenet or the forums back when those games were new. I certainly never ran into anyone who was playing either of those games with other people.

I can't speak for your experience. I can speak for mine however and my buddies and I played MP with BG all the time.

And I can't recollect anyone complaining about lack of Multiplayer with Torment, either. Can you document/clarify?

I can later maybe. There were many post mortems after PS:T explaining that lack of multiplayer was several features that caused BG to be a success and PS:T to fail. However, this opinion has changed as it has been learned how long a shelf life RPG's have compared to other types of games.

It would be difficult however, as most of those articles will be archived if they still exist at all. RPGDot reported many of them.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned NWN was a wrong turn for Bioware. It's a damn shame they didn't come out with the "spiritual successor" to Baldur's Gate II way back then, instead. The story in NWN was just so damn subpar for Bioware that it was depressing. To this day I remember nothing about it except that NPC babbling about watadayveean creatures. I damn near passed on KOTOR because NWN soured me on Bioware so much. Takes a major brainfart to alienate fans to that extent. I hope whatever new fans they picked up was worth it to them.

well that's you. I want a real NWN3 not this Neverwinter thing. I'd also love a another BG.
 
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Maybe we have different recollections of that time period. Blogs weren't around yet, nor was there any such thing as social media. And forums like this were around but as far as I can recall they were pretty sparsely populated compared to usenet. Hell, even online game sites were few and experimental back then, and people still read paper magazines. I remember even Ray Muzyka himself was semi-regular in the usenet RPG group. I think there were a couple of other Bioware people there too, before Baldur's Gate shipped. I first heard of Baldur's Gate from Ray pitching it on usenet :)
 
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I never played NWN multi-player. I played lot of the single player modules released on the vault and some of them are really amazing. I'd say that a few of them are some of the most well written video games that I've ever played. Unfortunately a lot of them are parts of planned series that were never finished.

I'd love to see more CRPGs released with "toolsets". I am hopeful that Shadowrun Returns editor will really take off the way NWN's toolset did. There's a lot of potential there and IMO some big advantages over NWN: i.e., turn-based combat with fully controllable party members > real time w/ pause combat and henchman. Sure, there's no multi-player feature but personally I'm glad; the concept of multi-player CRPGs never really appealed to me. Besides Shadowrun Online is coming out soon for people who want multi-player.
 
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