Arcania - Interview @ XboxMessiah

[Dhruin]

XboxMessiah has an interview with JoWood on Arcania. Much of the conversation is general scene-setting for those unfamiliar with the game but here's more on the chapters:

Q: From what we’ve read, ArcaniA: A Gothic Tale is an open world game. Is there a definite ending to the game or is it one of those games that you can play, and I quote, “for the rest of your natural born life”?
ArcaniA is an epic tale. We have a big opening and a terrific ending. Everything in between will be as open as we can, without putting too many restrictions to the gameplay.
ArcaniA is cut into five regions. Each region is completely open in the way that you can do what you want in the way you want, but you have to go from one region to another and you will not be able to come back either. As we want the game to always be interesting, it makes no sense to leave the first region open when you’ve completed everything and you’re too powerful for the region enemies (we are not going to pop up 35lvl boar just to keep some players active). We don’t think this is really interesting and it might destroy the authentic world which we want to create for ArcaniA. We might reopen regions with some serious story develpment in addons.
The artists have created the world entirely by hand. They have placed each tree and each rock themselves. Nothing is random. The designers have also placed every NPC or monster themselves. They programmed their daily routines and the way they react to the hero. Because of that, we are able to create a very dense atmosphere which leads to a believable, realistic world.

More information.

 

[TheMadGamer]

Was glad to see a news piece on this game today. But it struck me odd how the reviewer was concerned how Arcania stacks up against Oblivion rather than G1 and G2 and to a lesser extent, G3.

 

[txa1265]

It was at an XBOX site, so naturally the frame of reference for them would be Oblivion.

 

[JDR13]

ArcaniA is cut into five regions. Each region is completely open in the way that you can do what you want in the way you want, but you have to go from one region to another and you will not be able to come back either.

….meh. I'm not too enthused about that.

Either is Hitler apparently….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIPwFbh-Opk

 

[txa1265]

….meh. I'm not too enthused about that.

Either is Hitler apparently….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIPwFbh-Opk

That was truly hilarious ...

 

[leth]

Lol that was awesome! To be fair though, WoW lets you go from areas to areas freely, in fact, you can roam around like in Gothic, and like in Gothic, run into mobs that will destroy you.

(Plus, WoW does have a very very good UI, a 3rd person camera that doesn't suck, and animation that actually "feels" realistc, and great art and great amount of details to the world. So if Arcania has all that, plus the Gothic stuff, I am happy! )

 

[JDR13]

(Plus, WoW does have a very very good UI, a 3rd person camera that doesn't suck, and animation that actually "feels" realistc, and great art and great amount of details to the world. So if Arcania has all that, plus the Gothic stuff, I am happy! )

I personally wouldn't praise WoW quite that highly, but I guess it's subjective.

I'm not holding much hope that Arcania is going to be anywhere near as good as its predecessors. That doesn't even really bother me anymore though, because imo that series died with Forsaken Gods.

 

[leth]

Hehe, I have a love/hate relationship with WoW... I am not getting hooked again! Darn it!

Is Forsaken Gods really that bad? Does it fit in the canon? Arcania is being developed by a different team right?

 

[TheMadGamer]

ArcaniA is cut into five regions. Each region is completely open in the way that you can do what you want in the way you want, but you have to go from one region to another and you will not be able to come back either.

This is a pretty significant departure from G1 to G3. They give a few reasons why they do this but in my opinion a large, contiguous world makes for a better RPG. Breaking geography up starts to feel like 'levels' and has a totally different feel.

This isn't to say the game will be bad because of this. But this particular aspect of the game's design I'm not in favor of at all.

 

[JDR13]

This is a pretty significant departure from G1 to G3. They give a few reasons why they do this but in my opinion a large, contiguous world makes for a better RPG. Breaking geography up starts to feel like 'levels' and has a totally different feel.

This isn't to say the game will be bad because of this. But this particular aspect of the game's design I'm not in favor of at all.

I don't think breaking up geography is necessarily bad, it just depends on the game. It was done perfectly in The Witcher, and didn't detract from that game all imo.

I totally agree with you in this situation however, if they wanted to stay true to the Gothic series, then they should have made one large world. I think it's clear that they're going in a different direction here, perhaps to help make Arcania more mainstream.

 

[skavenhorde]

Mainstream like Diablo mainstream? Diablo is broken up into 5 areas as well.

*sarcasm alert*
I would of thought if they wanted to get more customers they would go the Oblivion way. One huge world, sandbox, empty/robotic NPCs, broken leveling system, and skill leveling with every 100,000,000 swings of your sword. You know 'the fun parts of RPG'.

 

[Hindukönig]

I always wonder why games with such parted regions (The Witcher, especially Drakensang, and now ArcaniA) try to be RPGs. Where is the fun in always meeting enemies which match my strength/skills? Why even bother with skills?
One of the strong points of Gothic 1/2 was the great leveldesign with regions where I had to come back later, because it kept the world interesting. The idea of chapters which refilled the world to an extent, this idea was genius (at least I didn't know it before). IMHO.

 

[JDR13]

I always wonder why games with such parted regions (The Witcher, especially Drakensang, and now ArcaniA) try to be RPGs. Where is the fun in always meeting enemies which match my strength/skills? Why even bother with skills?

That doesn't describe The Witcher at all. There were plenty of places in that game where you would get your ass handed to you if you weren't ready for that area. Not every game has to be a sandbox to be good.

 

[DArtagnan]

What a pathetic reasoning for not allowing backtracking. If people have no reason to go back, they'll probably… here it comes… just NOT go back.

This is obviously based on it being technically challenging, or maybe they don't know how to design a region to adapt to a more powerful character. The ability to go back and forth is VITAL to a free-roaming game, and it makes the sensation of being in an actual place that much more real.

The Witcher - being a linear story driven game can be excused, because it didn't give off that particular freeform vibe. Still, it's for technical reasons - not design reasons - and just like NWN/NWN2 - you can't backtrack based on the limitations of the Aurora engine, because it wasn't designed to handle that amount of data/flags in memory or savegames - probably based on how the editor works.

But just be honest about it, and don't give us ridiculous reasons like "we want to ensure the world is authentic" when it's precisely the opposite you achieve by locking out regions.

Sigh…

 

[JDR13]

The Witcher - being a linear story driven game can be excused, because it didn't give off that particular freeform vibe. Still, it's for technical reasons - not design reasons -

I don't know about that, I'm pretty sure the devs had a certain vision in mind when they created The Witcher. If they wanted it to be more freeform, then they would simply have licensed a different engine.

I totally agree about Arcania though, it sounds more like excuses than "reasons" to me...

 

[DArtagnan]

I don't know about that, I'm pretty sure the devs had a certain vision in mind when they created The Witcher. If they wanted it to be more freeform, then they would simply have licensed a different engine.

I totally agree about Arcania though, it sounds more like excuses than "reasons" to me…

I don't really know their inner motivations, and unless we CAN know - it's pretty useless to speculate.

All I know, is that every single Aurora game released thus far has had region lockouts or relatively narrow linear structures - and that tells me it's a question of the engine, so it's unlikely The Witcher could have worked any different - unless they licensed a different engine.

How much of a choice they had in the matter, or how much they felt the engine was fitting with their design goals - we will probably never know. My guess is they looked at what options were available - and picked Aurora based on whatever their priorities were. It's very likely they didn't intend for the game to be freeform, especially considering the heavy-handed story exposition.

Not that it matters, and The Witcher isn't my cup of tea anyhow as has been established by now

But this excuse about Arcania and an authentic world is just bullshit - pure and simple.

 

[Gorath]

What a pathetic reasoning for not allowing backtracking. If people have no reason to go back, they'll probably… here it comes… just NOT go back.

This is obviously based on it being technically challenging, or maybe they don't know how to design a region to adapt to a more powerful character. The ability to go back and forth is VITAL to a free-roaming game, and it makes the sensation of being in an actual place that much more real.

The Witcher - being a linear story driven game can be excused, because it didn't give off that particular freeform vibe. Still, it's for technical reasons - not design reasons - and just like NWN/NWN2 - you can't backtrack based on the limitations of the Aurora engine, because it wasn't designed to handle that amount of data/flags in memory or savegames - probably based on how the editor works.

But just be honest about it, and don't give us ridiculous reasons like "we want to ensure the world is authentic" when it's precisely the opposite you achieve by locking out regions.

Sigh…

What do you expect from an interview with a random marketing guy? He probably doesn't even know the reasons. It was known for quite some time that regions will be closed when you move on. People from Spellbound have explained some time ago that the concept of the game is to always move forward, not slow down and go back. There won't be a reason to go back. The other reason is money. They feel they would have to fill the old regions with at least some new content if they leave it open, and that the budget needed for this is better spent on other things.

And your comment about The Witcher is nonsense. CD Projekt could have licensed a different engine if they needed additional functionality. They made it this way because they wanted to - and that's perfectly fine.

 

[DArtagnan]

What do you expect from an interview with a random marketing guy? He probably doesn't even know the reasons. It was known for quite some time that regions will be closed when you move on. People from Spellbound have explained some time ago that the concept of the game is to always move forward, not slow down and go back. There won't be a reason to go back. The other reason is money. They feel they would have to fill the old regions with at least some new content if they leave it open, and that the budget needed for this is better spent on other things.

Why assume I expect anything? I comment on what's there, based on what's there. I can think of something as less than good without having any expectation whatsoever.

Actually, you can expect utter crap - and get semi-crap, and STILL not be happy about what you get. Because you want something good. See?

And your comment about The Witcher is nonsense. CD Projekt could have licensed a different engine if they needed additional functionality. They made it this way because they wanted to - and that's perfectly fine.

You may well be right, but since neither you or I can know, there's really no point in you pretending that you know for sure.

Maybe the Aurora engine is simply what fit their priorities best, without being 100% perfect and optimal for everything they wanted to do. I don't think any engine can be, unless you develop it from the ground up - and even then you're limited by time and resources.

Maybe they'd have liked to do something more freeform, it just wasn't a big priority. Have you even considered that possibility? But even if that was true, you're not likely to get them to admit they didn't make the game they wanted to make - so it's really totally useless to talk about.

The Aurora engine is limited in this way, so whatever their design intentions were - they couldn't have made it freeform without significant issues. That's all I'm saying, and if I need to phrase it like that to get out of this pedantic debate - then I will do so.

 

[JDR13]

Moving on......



Arcania - I just don't like much of what I've seen so far, it's definitely going to be a "wait and see" before I consider a purchase.

 

[Ausir]

Actually, The Witcher was originally intended to be non-linear, but it changed during the development.