The Bard's Tale IV - The Vision of Brian Fargo

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Eurogamer share with us the vision Brian Fargo has for The Bard's Tale IV.

Fargo will be hoping nostalgia for the series fuels the Kickstarter for The Bard's Tale 4. The Kickstarters for Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera were successful in part because of backers' desire to play new games in series they loved while growing up.

"A lot of people grew up playing The Bard's Tale," Fargo says. "There was a great article recently in Forbes magazine about Notch and how he grew up playing The Bard's Tale. People have a lot of fond memories of it. And it's important for me to make sure that people who are fans of the original trilogy are comfortable and happy with what we're doing."

And, Fargo says, inXile is keen to make fans of the original trilogy happy with the new game.

"When I make these games for me I move onto the next one and onto the next one, but for a lot of these people it's like they finished playing it yesterday," he says.

"You have to recognise that. There are some things you have to do in order to be a true sequel.

"The things that made it work are it's a party-based role-playing game; it's not an action game - you're using your brains not your reflexes; exploration is a big part of that, and being able to map dungeons out square by square.

"And those games were very difficult; in that particular case you couldn't save your game anywhere but we were teleporting you and giving you no magic zones and magic mouths and there were puzzles and riddles, so to me, it's got to be all of those things that made those great.

"But what it's not going to be is where the dungeon is in the upper-left-hand corner and the text is scrolling by. That would be a huge mistake."

The Bard's Tale should not be considered an open-world game, such as Skyrim or Witcher, Fargo insists. It's "a little more tightly contained". Legend of Grimrock is perhaps a better comparison.
Click to expand...
More information.
 
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I like everything he says, except that they will be keeping consoles in mind. I don't care if there are no compromises on the UI and controls, but I hated the UI of Skyrim. Thank god there was a good mod to change it.
 
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The Bard's Tale should not be considered an open-world game, such as Skyrim or Witcher, Fargo insists. It's "a little more tightly contained". Legend of Grimrock is perhaps a better comparison.
Click to expand...

I giggled a little
 
I can't really tell if all the interview articles with Fargo appearing on different sites are separate interviews using the same list of talking points on his part, or they're all based on the same source.
 
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forgottenlor said:
…but I hated the UI of Skyrim. Thank god there was a good mod to change it.
Click to expand...

I agree. SkyUI saved Skyrim for me. Without that mod, I would never have played that game at all. With the mod, I clocked in over 1000 hours.
 
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Never played the original but I saw some screenshots. I'm really curious on what they will do to call it a true sequel.

But for sure it is a must Pledge.
 
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I think Brian gets it. A game that plays like those of old with more modern gui and graphics isy hope. I hope there is an optional automap. I think mapping is fun, but its quite time consuming.
 
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Saxon1974 said:
I think Brian gets it. A game that plays like those of old with more modern gui and graphics isy hope. I hope there is an optional automap. I think mapping is fun, but its quite time consuming.
Click to expand...

I'm a 'me too' on this. I have fond memories mapping wizardry, bards tale, infocom text games, and ultima dungeons (to name just 4 series I enjoyed back in the day), but the idea of mapping now is meh, not so much been there done that.
 
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I'd be down for an optional dungeon where the automap doesn't function -- "The Veiled Caverns" or something -- so you have the nostalgic fun of mapping without being stuck with it for a 40-hour slog.
 
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There is a preview of the backer tiers.
https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=12985&p=150973

Make sure to leave your feedback.

Personally I think they should include digital keys to the physical edition as they otherwise risk a nightmare shipping the stuff in time, receiving bad press from furious players.

Also I think that the entry if digital tiers is too high.
 
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That one is nice for those who did not pledge nor bought Torment yet:

The Tormented Bard - $60
The Bard's Tale IV (Digital)
The Bard's Tale IV Manual (Digital)
Torment: Tides of Numenera (Digital)
Torment: Tides of Numenera Manual (Digital)
Forum badge
 
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I think most of us would have already pledged for Torment; I did.
 
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I'll be mighty curious to hear how they'll make a game in this genre that's leaps and bounds ahead of Legend of Grimrock 2 or Might & Magic X, as Brian seems to promise. The genre has room for growth, sure, but it still seems pretty narrowly constrained relative to, say, "open-world RPGs" or "turn-based strategy".
 
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suibhne said:
I'll be mighty curious to hear how they'll make a game in this genre that's leaps and bounds ahead of Legend of Grimrock 2 or Might & Magic X, as Brian seems to promise. The genre has room for growth, sure, but it still seems pretty narrowly constrained relative to, say, "open-world RPGs" or "turn-based strategy".
Click to expand...

I think their talk of mapping real world objects will really make a difference.

Really if they can bring back the complexity of the mage classes(letting you build higher classes by multi classing for instance) they really would add more to the genre. Both grimrock and MMX were pretty bare bones in character development.

I also don't think they are going for the whimsical look of MMX. These games really need atmosphere, I believe it is one of the most important aspects of these styles.
 
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Guilt Absolution - $33
Have you sailed the pirate's bay? No worries, friend! If you've previously plundered from us, pick this reward tier for a copy of the game, manual, forum badge, and an official letter from our CEO Brian Fargo expressing his forgiveness.

Official forgiveness email from Brian
The Bard's Tale IV (Digital)
The Bard's Tale IV Manual (Digital)
Forum badge
Click to expand...
:lol:
 
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The Physical copies will almost certainly include a single digital key.
 
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Format92 said:
That one is nice for those who did not pledge nor bought Torment yet:

The Tormented Bard - $60
The Bard's Tale IV (Digital)
The Bard's Tale IV Manual (Digital)
Torment: Tides of Numenera (Digital)
Torment: Tides of Numenera Manual (Digital)
Forum badge
Click to expand...
Actually that one is equal to early bird BT4 + TToN pledge through TToN website. Fuck that.
 
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bjon045 said:
The Physical copies will almost certainly include a single digital key.
Click to expand...

If it does, it's a big flaw to not mention it.

Edit: And they added it now :)
Guess you can count me in for the cloth map badge @95$ - if the gameplay shown in the video appeals to me that is.
 
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rune_74 said:
I think their talk of mapping real world objects will really make a difference.

Really if they can bring back the complexity of the mage classes(letting you build higher classes by multi classing for instance) they really would add more to the genre. Both grimrock and MMX were pretty bare bones in character development.

I also don't think they are going for the whimsical look of MMX. These games really need atmosphere, I believe it is one of the most important aspects of these styles.
Click to expand...

The Entire Might and Magic series has always been whimsical, just as Wizardry and the Bard's Tale were more grim and traditional. I actually thought that was nice. I liked all three series because of their different atmospheres.
 
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I loved the Might and Magic series .. esp early on. I even created a PNP game based on Xeen.
 
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