Betrayal at Krondor - Krondor Confidential - Part I

[HiddenX]

Learn more about the development of Betrayal at Krondor at Neal Hallfords blog:

“Are you into dogs?”

My boss, John Cutter, had asked the question in total innocence, looking as he always did, a young father with with twinkling eyes and a winning smile. He always had this wholesome vibe, like at any minute he’d jump up to run out into the parking lot to throw around a baseball with a kid…didn’t matter whose. Any kid. It just seemed like that’s who he was born to be, some fellow who would never, never grow up. Peter Pan come to life. Like me, he was a sentimental soul, with a love of Ray Bradbury and an idealized vision of the past. He liked to tinker, and even had a robot in his office. Seated across from him, I sniggered at his question because my brain almost always wanders to the dirtiest possible interpretation to anything anyone says, and this was no exception. In comparison, John always seemed like Ward Cleaver to my Zaphod Beeblebrox.

The question he’d asked had been sparked because we’d discovered that we were both fans of the novels of Dean Koontz, and we talking about how there was almost always a dog in his fiction because he was a dog-lover himself. As am I. I don’t know how John feels about it, but I’ve always thought that people who have and love their dogs are by far much more trustworthy than others. It can be an excellent barometer about character, and it told me a lot about John.

At the time, both John and I were employees at New World Computing in Woodland Hills, California, a far cry from the tiny mountain town of Eugene, Oregon where we’d begin production on Betrayal at Krondor six months later. Neither of us had a relocation on our radars (or at least I didn’t), and the contract with Raymond E. Feist was a long way away, but for me I’ve always regarded that conversation in John’s office that day as the point at which development on Betrayal at Krondor actually began. While the story and game rules would play a critical role in it’s popularity, the real secret of the success of that project lay in John and I’s absolute trust in each other’s judgements and skills. [...]

More information.

 

[joxer]

This game needs a remake to make it popular again (read: among newcomers into games), not development analysis.

 

[DarNoor]

My favorite RPG of all time.

 

[JDR13]

I'd be much more interested in reading about an HD remake.

 

[Carnifex]

Re-played this about a year ago, still utterly fantastic. Lots of current designers could learn a lot from this one, from a tactical point of view to the exploration aspects.

 

[Pladio]

I tried playing this a few times but the regular gameworld and UI are horrible in my opinion so I couldn't get into it.

 

[anc45]

Nostalgia

Wish they would come out with another Krondor game, it's a very rich universe and has Feist's storytelling to back it up. I'm a little confused, though, didn't Sierra On-Line do BAK, not NWC?

 

[DarNoor]

Wish they would come out with another Krondor game, it's a very rich universe and has Feist's storytelling to back it up. I'm a little confused, though, didn't Sierra On-Line do BAK, not NWC?

Dynamix, which was owned by Sierra, made BAK. NWC did Might and Magic.

 

[Zephyr]

One of the first games I bought. Loved it.

 

[wiretripped]

This game needs a remake to make it popular again (read: among newcomers into games), not development analysis.

I couldn't agree more.

 

[wolfing]

Back when actual riddles were important in games.
It's sad to me that, in this day and age where you can lookup the solution to a riddle in Google in 2 seconds, they all but disappeared from games. I love riddles.

 

[Swann]

Riddles don´t dissapear from newspapers even when the solution was upside down in the same page. So, I don´t think Google is the reason.

 

[wolfing]

Riddles don´t dissapear from newspapers even when the solution was upside down in the same page. So, I don´t think Google is the reason.

No I didn't say Google was the reason, quite the contrary. Even though people can look for the solution in seconds if they get stuck by a riddle, games still stopped using them.

 

[Swann]

No I didn't say Google was the reason, quite the contrary. Even though people can look for the solution in seconds if they get stuck by a riddle, games still stopped using them.

Ah, ok. Sorry for my misunderstanding.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

A beautiful and charming game with heart. Sad it was all downhill from there. The more recent RPG stories don't do it for me because since Baldur's Gate they always take themselves so seriously.

 

[Hastar]

A beautiful and charming game with heart. Sad it was all downhill from there. The more recent RPG stories don't do it for me because since Baldur's Gate they always take themselves so seriously.

The last Divinity game did not take itself too seriously.

 

[Sacred_Path]

D:OS isn't a lighthearted game. It's a humoristic one. Not my cup of tea tbh

 

[Acleacius]

What is the visual perspective called, in Return to Krondor? Played it years ago and the 'constantly shifting' (?) visual perspective always annoyed me. Iirc it was also in Grim Fandango and also a game with a knight fighting demons (maybe the name chalice in the title).

Thanks

 

[GothicGothicness]

A new game in the series would be great.... the first game was just so wonderful, and that music... the music was just WOW, I can still hear the tune in my head. Combat was fun, and the characters were good, the story was also a lot of fun, so were the riddles, one of the few games which did not have almost any parts which were deeply flawed.

Return to Krondor was actually quite good, but compared to the original it was still nowhere near as good.

 

[wolfsrain]

And i feel kind of sad now….I remembered about all the research that Flamestryke put in the Return to Krondor before she passed away. She had that marvelous site that was the place to go for the Might and Magic VII-IX, with nicely compiled information and accurate maps.

And, yeah, a new game or at least HD remakes would be nice.