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Star Wars Prequels Media Movies

LucasArts and BioWare to Develop New Star Wars RPG 143

Posted by Hemos from the i-just-want-baldur's-gate-ii-darnit dept.
Ant was the first of a number of folks to write about the press release that came out from LucasArts and Bioware. Bioware, you probably remember, has done Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate with their Infinity Engine. Pretty cool stuff - the setting of the game is going to be prior to the Star Wars movies. I don't know whether that means prior to Episode I or Episode IV, but the real-world ship date is supposed to be 2002. So, donna hold your breath.
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LucasArts and BioWare to Develop New Star Wars RPG More

LucasArts and BioWare to Develop New Star Wars RPG

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  • Actually, that was Hemos's comment, not Ant's. Read more carefully before you flame the wrong person. ;)

    ------
  • Noooo, that's about right. Think about it. When was Diablo II announced? When was it released? Games tend to be announced about three years, +/- six months, before they're actually released (that's in real years, not marketing years).

    hymie

  • Thank you, that's good input. If I had mod points today I would give you some ... oh wait you're an AC, anyway.

    Since most of /. audience is American, a sly anti-American post can snag a few suckers. Nothing blatant, of course.

    You haven't been following me too closely, I basically do it all the time. Maybe I'm too blatant, though. Well actually, given how the slightest irony manages to get over the head of a dozen posters usually, I'm not sure subtlety would be such a good idea.

    Drop in a line about the ungrateful Americans, without LaFayette we'd be speaking English instead of American.

    Now that's mind reading or something, as on another forum I used almost this line already. Actually it was quite a good flame, you know I got the usual "if it was'nt for us you'd be speaking German", the post was ridden with spelling errors so I replied saying that if we had'nt help them get rid of the brits, maybe they would spell properly.

    And what is it with America's fear of body scents and hair. You might as well fuck a silicon Barbie doll, hairless and descented, if you're going to fuck a dispassionate American woman, moot point for an American geek, though.

    I don't know, after all I'd rather fuck a real doll than an american chicks those days, at least they would'nt play the victim all day long and start crying for mummy every time they don't get what they want.

  • If you've ever played planescape torment, you'd see that Bioware was capable and willing to do storylines that engross, freak out, and completely surprise their players, so far they havent done a game yet that was not extremely appealing to an adult audience.
  • New Star Wars RPG? Quick, get the tents! The sleeping bags! The MREs and survival gear!

    2002 is a long way off, but I can make it!

    This will be the best line ever!
  • OK, your party of six characters (the Jedi, the Wookiee, the Smuggler, the Princess, the Yappy Droid, and the Short Droid) walks into a 10" x 10" room.

    How on Earth (or Alderran) would six characters fit into a 10" by 10" room? The thing's less than a cubic foot!

    Then again, I guess it makes sense if the game is being played on (in?) a G4 cube (or a Cobalt qube, if they port it to linux).

    Suddenly my mind is full of analogies from the G4 cube to the Borg cube to the death star to... a perfectly spherical desktop computer, with a divot on one side for stability?

    Kevin Fox
  • I also had a helluva lot of fun kicking the crap out of my friends with Vader's light saber in "Masters of Teras Kasi"
  • I have to say I haven't really been pulled into the genre. last rpg I played was Baldurs gate and the one before that would have to have been a mud, but I know enough people who have played it and still have lifes..... your just wishing you had one right? :)
  • they made the best game ever : maniac mansion (parts I & II), closely followed by the secret of monkey island, but since then I never saw anything like that ever again, which is sad ...
  • Often it seems that much of the technology in Star Wars matches much of the technology that seemed possible at the time; biotechnology (cloning, gene manipulation) wasn't really a going concern in '75, but computers and holograms were within-grasp technologies that seemed to have a lot of future to them. (Where are we at with holograms, anyway?)

    What? IANASWBE (I am not a Star Wars biotechnology expert), but what do you think the the mentions of the clone wars in EP4 were all about? What do you think EP2 or 3 will be about? Why do you think battle droids were replaced by more reliable (cloned) stormtroopers? Biotech is old (failed) news in the Star Wars universe.
  • Warning to those who don't want to read about Christian theology.

    What is the matter with On the Origin of Species? Darwin was actually a Christian man. I assume that you are speaking from the stand point of a Christian person. There seems to be two factions of Christians these days. Those like me who say that evolution might have happened (in fact I believe that it did) and that it doesn't matter anyway as long as you believe that it was God's hand that directed the creation. And then there are those who stick to a strict adherence to the Genesis account of creation even though many of the leading Christian scholars feel that it is not historically accurate(I suggest getting a hold of some of Dr. Tasjian's work). In fact Darwin only proposed micro evolution not mega. Do you even know anything about evolution? That is one thing that really concerns me is that if more Christians actually learned about what they were criticizing that they would be less likely to do so. I suggest that you study some of the current theologians out there today and see what their thoughts are on this. By the way, don't read anything by Dobson. He is a moron and many in the more learned of the Christian community feel that his teachings are not based on the Bible but his own opinions.

    Again sorry to everyone else for the religious discussion here but I wanted to clear something up.
    Molog

    So Linus, what are we doing tonight?

  • I'm sure that a wink wink nudge nudge suggestion to beta test it will have rabid linux geeks knocking down the doors to test it. Hell, I walked out of my one and only game testing job from how shitty a job it is, and I'd be willing to do it.
    --
  • Just like you read all the previous comments which said exactly the same thing as you just did?
  • "For the game, LucasArts and BioWare are creating an entirely original storyline set some four thousand years before Star Wars: Episode I. The ancient era is dominated by an epic struggle between the Jedi and the evil Sith."

    Wow... I mean. Our "human civilization" is only about 5k years old from relative stupidity to now. Is this game even going to have vehicles with spaceflight? Or is it going to be something like sword-wielding jedi? Note... sword _not_ lightsaber... :)

    All things being equal and relative, to say our civilization won't have ships that rival Star Wars in 3,000 years would be madness. Which means that the setting should be somewhere around the year 1,000.

    If they _do_ have spaceships 4,000 years prior to Ep 1, then they'd better have a darn good excuse- like an older race in the area or something.

    :)

    D

  • The thought also occures, is it going to be Jedi v. Sith, or will it be many races and the ability to explore many worlds and space. You could do a space sim and a world-based system. Sound cool? lets lobby Lucasarts to do this.
  • We might finally have another decent LucasArts game. Has anyone else noticed that after [i think it was] jedi knight that it went down the evil, insidious path of console gaming. Once upon a time LucasArts made quality stuff, and while there are Pod racer fans, I miss the in depth games of X-wing [and clones], as well as Jedi Knight and a few others. They were quality man.

    So now we have this to look forward to. Please don't fsck this one up LA! Please, I'm begging you. Use the force, take id's stance of "ready when it's ready," just please please give me another star wars game I can play until I fail out of school again [now college - hehe higher stakes].

  • Has there been any historical mention of what was happening 4000 years before the films? How long did the Old Republic last?

    -B
  • Remember what Slashdot is here for? They post topics, and we yap about them.

    I make mistakes, you make mistakes, Hemos and Taco make mistakes, instead if ripping each other's heads out, let's just bite the bullet and do what we're here to do: yap about the topic. Please?
  • and the infinity engine they created for Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale is a great piece of work. In a good portion of the gaming community, Bioware has quickly become a very respected game-maker, I've heard them compared to Blizzard by reviewers. (Personally I like Bioware more than I like Blizzard, but that's just me). The Dev teams at Bioware are also very responsive to their fans. The dev team for Baldur's Gate 2 maintains a strong presence on the Interplay message boards for that game, and they take a lot of feedback from the users of the board into account during the development cycle.

    Neverwinter Nights is being developed by Bioware, and it will be very similar to a MMORPG, except that individuals will be able to run their own servers on which they can set up persistant worlds they have created. It's feasible that Bioware could be doing something like this (a MMORPG) with the Star Wars RPG.

    On a side note, check out www.teambg.com to see some people who have done wonderful things hacking the Infinity Engine. They've managed to release their own expansion pack for Baldur's Gate, without access to any of the development tools that Bioware has. TeamBG created their tools using a lot of hex editting, and VB (don't laugh, their programs are very good). Go take a look at it, very cool.

    Moller
  • It's actually somewhat irrelevant. Episode I and II are about 30 - 50 years apart. So it's either 4000 years before Episode I or 4030 - 4050 years before. Nitpick all you want, but I don't distinguish much between 2000 BC and 1950 BC.
  • I'm glad you decided to get a dog from the pound. Pet stores don't just cost more, they keep puppy mills in business and promote irresponsible pet ownership. I'm also glad to hear about someone taking a chance on an older dog. Its natural to want the excited little puppy, and people sometimes assume an older dog must have had "something wrong with it" to end up in a shelter. More often it was the owners that had something wrong with them.

    Good luck with both your pets, I hope the one with cancer isn't in pain. I used to be a vet tech and have done some writing on animal death and euthanasia, so if you need to talk about anything, let me know.

    -Kahuna Burger

  • GameMaster: *Rolling a d20 die, checking the result* Why, you DO sense a disturbance in the Force!

    I'd like to GM one of these games, if only to say those lines.

  • Gamespot have just put up a short preview of this game here [zdnet.com], amongst other stuff it is claiming this game will be released on PS2, Dreamcast and Mac along with the PC.
  • I don't know whether that means prior to Episode I or Episode IV...

    maybe if hemos would read the articles before commenting on them ...

    For the game, LucasArts and BioWare are creating an entirely original storyline set some four thousand years before Star Wars: Episode I.

  • What? IANASWBE (I am not a Star Wars biotechnology expert), but what do you think the the mentions of the clone wars in EP4 were all about?

    Er, a throwaway line?

    Perhaps some of the books talk more about clone wars, or the stormtroopers being clones, (are SW books cannonical?) but everything I recal of the actual movies supports the idea that biotech was not a concern. Come on, even when Luke lost his hand, he built a robotic one to replace it, even though it reminded him of Vader's transformation and scared him. Why not just grow a new one?

    And even if you assume the same tech level, the same social structures lasting for millenia? Its their universe, they can say that if they want to, but why not be believable instead? What would they be losing?

    -Kahuna Burger

  • That kinda sucks. I'd test it for free. Course they would probably have some issues with that, but there must be something that could be done. Neverwinter Nights sounds like it could be an incredible game. It would be tragic if it wasn't released for Linux as well.

  • AD&D Rules? (Score:3)

    by Antipop ( 180137 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @09:07AM (#906502) Homepage
    Will the game use the AD&D rules like Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, etc.? That would be extremely cool if it does. I want a +2 Lightsaber!
    -Antipop
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • +2 Lightsaber?!?

    Surely a lightsaber would rate better than that, like a +5 vorpal blade (90% chance of cutting off a body part with every successful hit).

  • Two years for a cookie-cutter RPG? You're kidding right?

    The engine's there, graphically I'm sure LucasArts has digitized art laying around - what more needs to be done?

  • ---
    ...and boned up one your reading skills...
    ---

    'one'?

    The irony is killing me.


    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
  • So, donna hold your breath.

    Who's Donna and why should she hold her breath?

  • I know that a troll started this, but I've thought about creationism vs evolution a lot, and here is my conclusion:

    The bible says "When I was a child, I spake as a child. Now that I have grown, I put away childish things." The bible has a very simple (childlike) explanation of how the world came into existence. We now have a more detailed theory that does not deny the existence of God (grown). There is no reason to think that now, with our understanding of genetics and mutations, that we can't understand some of the methods that God used. The bible didn't elaborate on those methods because none of the people of the time could have understood them.

    My random thoughts.
  • Hopefully this will just be a much better done version of the episode 1 game. Imagine a Final fantasy style Star Wars RPG!!!!!! first post?
  • I thought that Verant, makers of EverCamp [everquest.com], were supposed to make the Startwars MMRPG?
  • This RPG is entirlely sepearte from the MMORPG in development with Verant, you can see the LucasArts press release here [lucasarts.com] (since they don't seem to link to it themselves anymore), you can find more info about it on my webpage about SW On-line [swgamer.com].

    Meanwhile the Star Wars Combine [swcombine.com] is creating a totally free Star Wars on-line RPG, it's well worth a look.
  • I heard they are redesigning the main character. His name is Luke "Troubled Soul" Lionhart and he will use a light saber that is the size of a giant meat cleaver. Also they are using a completely different magic system that sucks where you are forced to spend too much time drawing "the force" from bad guys, and then are filling in the games' gaps with hours upon hours of slow, boring cg scenes where you are forced to sit and do absolutely nothing for a long time. Also, the nemesis will a knockoff of the last game they had, but he will suck even more. Oh wait... this isn't Star Wars I am taking about. I got this confused with the new Final Fantasy
  • I like my sarcasm and cynicism as subtle as the next guy, but how veiled is this? jeez...i thought i was going to have to cut&paste my standard "you're a redneck piker and you should be raped by a huge convict" speech, but then i noticed that it was funny. i dont know why i replied to this.
    "They think its sexist"

  • This rules (Score:3)

    by Enoch Root ( 57473 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @09:24AM (#906514)
    BioWare have proven time and again that they are masters at creative and compelling storylines, filled with character interaction and depth. Baldur's Gate stomped Diablo into the ground in that regard, and for the freedom it allowed. Planescape: Torment, likewise, had the most engrossing storyline I have seen in a RPG in a while. I haven't played Icewind Dale yet, but I bet it'll be more of the same excellence.

    As such, if indeed BioWare is responsible for a SW RPG, I would be willing to bet that it will make Lucas' own storytelling endeavors suck in comparison. Screw SW Ep. 2... THIS is the SW fix we have been waiting for.

    Plus, we can hope they put Jar Jar in the game, cause in that case, we'll probably be able to chop his head off and cackle in glee.

  • I remember reading in a Wizard (comic guide) news article that there would be three new Star Wars movies, one released in 1996, the second 1998, the third 2000. And that the next three would follow 2002, 2004, 2006.

    That was in '93, though.
    So we'll see this game in.. um.. 2010.. when computers are obsolete.

    --
  • Information on that time period has been covered by Dark Horse Comics in their 'Tales of the Jedi' comic book series. That's about all we have from that period to work with. (Yes, I am a Star Wars geek.)
    ----
  • Perhaps this game is, as the movies are, geared towards children. Just look at Yoda's Quest.

    I guess the good part would be playing as Jar-Jar and then finding new ways to commit suicide.

  • I wonder if this effects the deal LucasArts made with Sony/Verant, makers of EverQueer, to do something similar. Here's the press release. [verant.com]
  • I'm sure there were several Jedi vs. Sith epic war-thingies in the several hundred generations before TPM. It would be fun to take over teh galaxy as Darth Axel ok bye.

    loev,

  • . . .versus the number of people who are gonna go Sith? I, for one, will doubtless be Sith.

    I've even got my name picked out already. Heh heh.

  • if romero helped, the game would cost millions of dollars, be delayed for 8 years, have 600 rounds of employees leaving, tons of publicity, and a final product that sucks more than mister jar jar himself
  • where's that lucasarts we used to know, the one that produced TIE fighter? if this is an episode one game, it better not be as bad as the other ones...this is just the type of star wars games we've been waiting for (although if it was more action/rpg than item/points management it would be cool, but I've never played baldur's gate so I'm not sure of the format). lucasarts arguably hasn't had a really good game in a few years...here's their chance
  • I hope they'll allow you to build up your midi-clorian levels to invincible proportions the way you can build up your characters in diablo or Final Fantasy type games so you can go around throwing guys by waving your hands.
  • Well I've fucked a few american chicks lately and they were really fucked up, in a consistent way: victimized, and they expected to deserve everything.
  • Friend, Baldurs gate game out years after Diablo was released. Frankly, it is often touted that Diablo CREATED the 'action-rpg' and thus brought
    BioWare the market in which to create their games!

    By stating "Baldurs Gate stomped Diablo into the ground" is rather misleading. IMHO it would be more accurate to say "Bioware infused the action-RPG genere with ingenuity"

    Aside from all this, Bioware is still a great company and should prove to make an Excellent Star Wars RPG that fans will be proud of.

  • tHESE R TEH WORDZ TAHT TEH ANOYNMUS CWOARD ROTE I PUT TAHEM IN TEH ITALCIS SO TATH YOU KNOWS THAY R tEH quOTERZ

    do you know jeff k?

    No, not at all. Is he one of your friends or associates? I understand that today, in the new digital age, boundaries evaporate and distances seem shorter, making it entirely likely that I could know him as well, but why do you ask?

    loev,

  • And, like other MUDs, you only get out of it what you put into it. if you spend all your time sitting around, complaining about this MOB not spawning, do you really think you're going to enjoy yourself?
    or, on the other hand, you can attempt to meet people - go adventuring - and explore the game that was created for you. just like MUDs, you only get to see what the programmers thought was really cool by spending some time at exploring. and just like MUDs, they can quickly get boring if you don't interact (or don't enjoy interacting) with other human beings.

    out of curiosity, what do you consider to be a "very good MUD"?

    -lw
  • After the game comes out and people start modifying it. How about adding a 'hot grits' item so that all the people who love to talk about it on here can actually go live out their greatest fantasies through this game instead of posting about it.
  • And, as i've noted before, you only get out of any game what you put into it. if you expect to be wowed and amazed sitting around - get real.

    as for the quests, many of them are incredibly done, especially the long Kunark ones. "little or no information"? they tell you what they want - do you really expect the quest to be a shopping list, detailed down to letter? how would that be any fun, if you didn't need to *quest* for a thing?

    as for game bugs, they are few and far between. i've been playing for nearly a year now, and i've never had any experiences like the first you detailed above. zone crashes don't cause loss of equipment - you probably died when the zone crashed, and you corpse had all of your equipment. GMs can't do anything about "general loss of equipment", because once it leaves your person, they have no idea wether you sold it, dropped it, or destroyed it. and yeah, they could go by your world - but then they'd have to go by everyone's word, and most people just aren't that honest.

    yeah, EQ has some bugs. no game is perfect. if you get hung up on the small stuff, you'll never enjoy yourself.

    As for Episode I, after being a hardcore star wars fan since I saw the original trillogy, i am greatly saddened by the fact that episode I was aimed at 6 year olds.

    -mike
  • Qel-Droma will win
    Death from a +3 saber
    RPGs are cool
  • ahh, but i didn't pretend to have read any of the previous comments, but the poster pretended to have read the article.
  • You mean to say that you are conceding the possibility of it taking 3970 years for Anakin Skywalker to become an 8 year old boy? I guess that means that his mom has been around for at least that long as well... And since he said he's been a slave for most or all of his life, man, that's got to suck. Living on Tatooine for almost 4000 years as a slave! No wonder he wanted to get out of there so fast...
  • Wow. I'm really sorry to hear about Elvis's cancer. I've never had a chronically ill pet. The part about the Dachsie was pretty sad too. I'm glad you found a good companion for Elvis, though. Separation anxiety can really make a mess of a good animal.

    Hope you enjoy your family member.

    And, just so you can go away feeling better, Petrified Linux-Port Natalie Grit Cluster.
  • ``We are honored to be working with the extremely talented folks at LucasArts, developing a role playing game based upon one of the most high-profile licenses in the world,'' added Dr. Ray Muzyka, joint CEO of BioWare.

    Eeeagh! A role-playing game based on Microsoft's click-wrap licenses! Quick, roll a save versus crushing monopoly!

  • It's actually somewhat irrelevant. Episode I and II are about 30 - 50 years apart. So it's either 4000 years before Episode I or 4030 - 4050 years before. Nitpick all you want, but I don't distinguish much between 2000 BC and 1950 BC.

    No, the question was: is it before both episodes, or is it only before Episode IV (i.e. between I and IV). As you say, the difference between 4000 and 4350 years is pretty irrelevant, so it clearly is before both episodes, so Hemos (not Ant, my apologies) obviously hadn't read the press release before posting that question.

  • Bring out your ports! And SW:TRPG (Score:3)

    by doorbot.com ( 184378 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @09:29AM (#906536) Journal
    Well, they sure have enough time to work on it... Hopefully they'll work on the Mac/"other" OS ports concurrently. It'd be nice if they were all released at the same time.

    Hopefully they'll take a lot of the story/lore from the Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game books... those were very cool, and were excellent reading.

    The Tales Of The Jedi stories were cool, I liked the comics... that will make for some excellent game play.

    A Star Wars timeline [swdatabase.com]
  • personally, i'm excited (though not horribly) by the idea of a not massivly multiplayer star wars RPG (the one being made by verant is MM). i for one used to enjoy playing the old PnP Star Wars RPG from west end games. i think it is much more likely that this game will use a custom designed ruleset than relying on AD&D 3rd Ed. ad&d wasn't designed for that kind of thing. if bioware makes the game, it should undeniably rock. they have yet to make a bad game, and they are masterful at making both the technology (Infinity Engine/ the beautiful MDK2 engine/ the revolutionaty Neverwinter Nights engine) and the content to make great games. on a side not, Bioware did not make Icewind Dale. Interplay's Black Isle Studios (even better RPG developers in my opinion) did.
  • Lukas probably played Everquest, saw how boring it was, how bad the administration treats the players and came to the conclusion that going with Verant would ruin his good name. Kudos for George. Yes I am biased. I played EQ for a while and I got so fed up with everything that I moved on.
    Molog

    So Linus, what are we doing tonight?

  • Actually, that was Hemos's comment, not Ant's. Read more carefully before you flame the wrong person. ;)

    D'oh. Apologies to Ant, and a particularly big "you suck" to Hemos, then, who really should have known better :-)

  • sorry but for some of us English is a second language... but as some other people noticed you seem to have the same ability to have typos....
  • But, IIRC West End Games already has role playing system based on the Star Wars universe.

    West End Games has gone bankrupt, and while it is trying to reorganize, Wizards of the Coast really does now own the rights to Star Wars. [wizards.com]
  • The Old Republic and the Jedi are separate entities as far as I know, so Obi-wan's statement does not cover the OR. The Jedi Council does not seem to have any direct authority over the senate, nor does the opposite seem to be the case

    As for the game stretching into Episode I... A game covering 4000 years?? Must be the sequel to Civilization or something? :P

    -17028
  • There has been a lot of threads on various boards concerning what the RPG might be like and whether it will be follow certain aspects found in Bioware's AD&D games. There has also been quite a bit of discussion as whether the D20 system is really appropriate to a Star Wars RPG as opposed to a D6 system which was used in WEG before WotC stepped into the picture. This is basically commentary to address such subject matter.

    Bioware, The History
    First off, let's take a look at Bioware: Bioware was the brain child of two Alberta doctors who decided for a variety of reasons to go after a dream founding the game development company we now know. Originally, Dr. Greg Zeschuk and Dr. Ray Muzyka intended on designing a fairly detailed encompassing RPG which had absolutely no relation to AD&D but still held a fantasy like aura. Later, when Black Isle and Interplay became associated with Bioware, the developers suddenly had access to Interplay's aging AD&D licences which had not been used to develop a title of wide success. From this was born the new Infinity Engine and their second title: Baldur's Gate. However, by this time Bioware had already aquired a sizable and strong development team which had experience as a cohesive unit from the development of Shattered Steel. Furthermore they had already established an annimation division which gave Bioware a specialized resource: talented exclusive annimators and modellers. Baldur's Gate was released as their first major title earning them much acclaim and respect as developers. This in term earned them the rights to MDK producing the Omen engine and the suceeding title, MDK 2.

    What can be drawn from this is that Bioware is not a single title and single technology company. They are versatile and quite capable of producing a wide variety of games in many differing styles and genres. Baldur's Gate started as a non-AD&D RPG not using a D20 system. While it is indeed a AD&D game and was widely influced by the developer's experiences with pen and paper AD&D 2nd ed. the product should not be taken as the direct result of the AD&D franchise. Furthermore, they proved their ability to produce specific game engines for a widely differing genres with the creation of Shattered Steel, Infinity and Omen. These engines share very little in common but are all well done solid packages. If anything, Bioware's experience with franchises demonstrates an ability to comprehend their subject matter and produce original material which follows in not only the tradition of the franchise, but also with the concept and principles: they know what the point of their subject matter is. In this, one can trust that Bioware will produce a title fitting of Star Wars. Their Star Wars title will be a Star Wars game to the core.

    Bioware, Preferences of Design
    Bioware also has shown a definite preference for design spaces without too many constraints. In Baldur's Gate they choose the least defined area they could find in TSR's Forgotten Realms which allowed them to create as much original material as possible. With MDK 2, the plot only holds basic restrictions in terms of design without any specific problems such as well defined areas (this place must look like this, etc). This holds true with the new SW RPG -- set in the distant past Bioware has a lot of room to move around in. In a way this also helps alleviate any presure to have a title that falls to stigmas... not all Dwarves hate Elves, Elves don't have to be wizards or rangers, not everyone in the Battletech universe is a Mechwarrior and in Star Wars not everyone uses the Force. It is a fair assumption that the title will not be the Jedi versus the non-Jedi Force wielding bad guys -- but such is enivitable to some extent.

    Bioware also tends to develop highly personalized titles. By this I mean that their titles have always been from a close perspective in terms of game narration -- Baldur's Gate was a small party of 6 or less, MDK 2 was played as one of the three protagonists and Shattered Steel was first person in all respects. I doubt they were choosen to develop an MMPOG or any similar system. Even Neverwinter Nights is a party based experience even though it has a target of approximately 64 players per server. At the core all of their games are personal stories of greate proportions. This is what their SW title will almost definitely be like... it's also a reason why their is limited competition between Verant's SW RPG and Bioware's: they are targetted at different audiences.

    The Engine
    It was announced that this product will be using a new engine. When Bioware announced Neverwinter Nights it was said to be using the Omen engine which was very heavily modified from MDK 2. Subsequently this will not be an Omen derivative as some have conjectured. With the experience of Omen under the belt as well as an RPG adaptation of the engine, it is fairly certain that the engine will be 3D with a more freeform nature than in Neverwinter Nights (you cannot look up or follow from odd perspectives, etc).

    Addressing the cross-platform release of the game (console, PC, Mac), I do not believe there should be any doubt that they will deliver. With the simulataneous parallel development of Neverwinter Nights and the previous development of MDK 2, it should be fairly obvious that they are more than capable of developing on all the mentioned platform proficiently.

    D20 and RPGs
    Just to have it clear at the beginning: it is not certain whether or not Bioware will be using WotC D20 system as seen in their version of the Star Wars RPG or a new statistics system.

    Many state that D20 isn't really suited for RPGs and fast paced RPGs because it is tends to involve quite a great more dice rolls and general statistics than a D6 system. However, this does not hold true for computer games at all -- computing a D20 combat sequence is arbitrary. Furthermore, the user can be completely abstracted from the entire statistics systems. AD&D was designed as a highly versatile statistical system which was easily understood primarily based upon 5 percent segments. In AD&D 3rd edition which is very similar to D20, the system has been further generalized providing specifics on handling non-RP situations which was not associated with the fantasy genre. Basically the D20 system provides a set of combat, action and skill rules which can be applied to anything which can be reasonably segmented into 5 percent slice with results having the acompanying degree of error.

    It seems ridiculous to consider a +5 light sabre or a 48D8 Sith lord, but it is similarly odd to consider the same situation in terms of statistics. All things being considered, it is just a finite segmented manner of representing statistics rather than developing an overly complex smoothly progressing system in terms of the base units.

    Many of the restrictions which are associated with AD&D and the D20 system do not really exist in the computer world. In pen and paper a lot of situations and environments where non-RP elements came into play were very difficult to represent for an unassisted DM. It was not that the rule set did not allow certain actions or environments to look like a certain fashion, it was more that the DM was either not imaginative or capable of generating, tracking and handling the required information.

    Consider the timeframe, effort and resources availible to a D20 computer game versus a pen and paper version. A developer spends 2 to 5 years developing a single title which encompasses what is relatively a short timeframe in terms of play time. This same developer has a whole host of designers, artists, developers and SQA working on the project as well as the direct creative assistance of the developers of the original system. A DM, on the other hand has himself and the rule books. It's no particular surprize that many DMs fell into the simple way out in creating almost out of box situations. Without the lengthy combat roles and statistics checks as arbitrary and the time and man hours to create a vibrant environment, I find that the D20 completely acceptable.

    Game Play
    Currently the game is being developed as a single player RPG, but it is fairly certain that a multiplayer element will enter in upon the game. given the shorter development cycle than Neverwinter Nights and the stipulation of a new engine, it is doubted that the RPG will be of the versatile scale of Neverwinter Nights. It is not particularly hard to add in a party like element such as in Baldur's Gate or even cooperative DOOM.

    Just as an offhand note, the game play doesn't neccesarily have to be at a slow pace or have an abstracted method of control as in AD&D and many other RPGs. It could just as well involve much more action whether using a high level approach with general commands or a low level approach with more fine control in terms of actions. Even if they decided to use D20 this could be implemented...

    As for everything else, who knows? Here's a bit of reference material where you can get more information:
    Bioware Corp [bioware.com]
    Press Release (Bioware [bioware.com]) (Lucasarts [lucasarts.com])
    The Making of a Monster: Creating Baldur's Gate (CGDC 2000 Presentation [bioware.com])
    Shadow's of Amen Message Board [interplaygames.com]
    Icewind Dale Message Board [interplaygames.com]
    Neverwinter Nights Message Board [interplaygames.com]
    Slashdot on D20 [slashdot.org]
    Open Gaming Foundation [opengamingfoundation.org]
    Ryan Dancey Interview [rpgplanet.com]
    WotC Interview with Ryan Dancey [wizards.com]
    WotC Star Wars RPG [wizards.com]
    Eric Noah's Unofficial AD&D 3rd Edition News [rpgplanet.com]

    Basic Clarifications

    This product is being developed by Bioware: not Lucasarts or Black Isle or Interplay

    It will feature a new engine not based on Omen

    The game is currently being developed as single player

    It is unconfirmed whether or not the game will use D20 or not, D20 is currently being used in the yet to be released Star Wars RPG from WotC

  • Thank you =) I couldn't have said it better myself.
    Molog

    So Linus, what are we doing tonight?

  • The Star Wars universe is stuck in a kind of technological plateau - not much new technology gets invented, and many actual objects are very very old (eg. the Falcon!) simply because they did not become obsolete. This would also be one of the reasons there's so much "cruft" technology in the SW universe. Based on this, there could very well have been a technologically advanced galactic civilization 4000 years before the movies. It might have been somewhat less advanced (eg. slower hyperdrives, no bacta, etc.) but it could easily be spacefaring.

    Read David Brin's Uplift books to see how something like this might work.

  • Now THERE's a conspiracy theory. And look, you made the 'karma mafia' junk stop, too.

  • Re:Verant doing this already? (Score:3)

    by Lightwarrior ( 73124 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @10:48AM (#906547) Journal
    If you read the other posts, you might have noticed the wise person stating Lucas Arts' deal with Verant was to create a MMORPG - like Everquest. This deal is with BioWare - the folks who produced Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale.

    Um... I'm sorry you don't like EQ, and you had bad experiences with their Guides / GMs. I've had nothing but good interaction between them. And frankly, I think EQ is one of the best games out there. Lucas Arts - and probably George Lucas - agrees with me enough that they are allowing Verant to develop under the rather closely guarded Star Wars liscense.

    As for 'ruining his good name', I guess you don't remember Episode I, or the tens of thousands dissapointed Star Wars fans.

    -lw
  • IANASWF - I am not a star wars fanatic, however, your assumption on timelines and technological development is flawed. One of the tenets of the star wars universe is that the Old Republic has been around for several millenia. It has faded from its golden age and is rotting from within. This is what enables Senator Palpatine to manipulate the senate. Considering that this is a decaying culture, they would not be discovering new technologies or growing. In fact, this republic very well may have had more advanced technology as it was expanding around the galaxy than what exists during ep 1. 4 millenium previous may in fact have been the Republics Golden Age.

  • Re:as long as Jar Jar misses the mix (Score:5)

    by ucblockhead ( 63650 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @09:30AM (#906550) Homepage Journal
    Rumor has it that John Romero is helping with the story line. Apparently, Jar Jar starts out as a member of your party, and if he dies, you lose the game.

  • "So, donna hold your breath."

    Isn't it obvious? Hemos is scottish, and is using voice recognition software!
    --

  • Hemos, shame on you. (Score:4)

    by Malor ( 3658 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @09:48AM (#906552) Journal
    Don't you actually read the articles you post about? It spells out as clear as day that the new game will be set before Episode 1.

    I would expect this sort of goof from a junior staffer, not one of the senior people. Shame on you! I don't think it's too much to ask that you read and really understand an article before you post a synopsis/blurb about it.

    This isn't a major crime, but it is sloppy as hell and symptomatic of what is ailing /. -- lack of attention from the senior people. You can't expect quality journalism from your staff if you don't even take the time to do it yourself. :(
  • It will be a new engine. Bioware, or Interplay, or Black Isle Studios, or someone involved with the Infinity Engine has stated that Baldur's Gate II will be the last game to use the current engine. I believe they are using a brand new engine to power Neverwinter Nights, although I'm sure it will be similar to the Infinity Engine. It's just that the Infinity Engine has been patched and tweaked so much since Baldur's Gate that it's time to start afresh.

    And in case anybody's wondering, Icewind Dale is far better than Diablo II :).

  • Thanks for clearing this up. If BioWare's storytelling talents are to be judged on the strength of Baldur's Gate alone, then I still have faith in whatever they intend to put out. Black Isle, however, takes the crown for being the most innovative design studio out there.

  • Re:Verant doing this already? (Score:3)

    by Golias ( 176380 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @09:52AM (#906558)
    I'm also an ex-player of Everquest. I stuck with it for a few months because I knew a lot of people that played, but finally gave up on it ever being that interesting.

    Paying $10 a month to log on to over-taxed and buggy servers is a joke as it is, but then when they finally made a tiny expansion to the game world like they promised back during the initial release, they had the gall to charge their regular customers, who already shelled out $60 plus monthly fees for what is really just a MUD with pictures.

    Screw EQ. Go Worldforge team!

  • Of course they have ships and technology that far back. Anyone that has seen Star Wars or read any of the books would know that. The jedi have been gaurdians of the galaxy for thousands of generations. Just because we have only been around for around 6 thousand years doesn't mean that the races in Star Wars haven't. They could of been around for millions of years. Remember, this is fiction it has nothin to do with the real world.
  • ...posted by Gamespot [zdnet.com]. It supposedly will be using a brand new 3D engine and will be designed for the PC with possible conversions for the Mac, the Dreamcast and the PlayStation 2. It's also supposed to be, at least as it stands now, a single-player game.
    ----------
  • Just thought I'd clear up some confusion amongst a lot of people. Icewind Dale is not a Bioware game. It, and Planescape: Torment, were produced by Black Isle Studios with the Bioware Infinity engine. However, Baldur's Gate 1-2, and NeverWinter Nights are indeed games produced under the now famous label. Sorry about the tangent, just wanted to clear that up.
  • You: I don't know whether that means prior to Episode I or Episode IV

    Them: For the game, LucasArts and BioWare are creating an entirely original storyline set some four thousand years before Star Wars: Episode I. The ancient era is dominated by an epic struggle between the Jedi and the evil Sith.

    I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say they're talking way before the current batch of movies, unless ol Darth of the original trilogy is really old...



  • You walk into a 10x10" room... (Score:5)

    by scowling ( 215030 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @09:38AM (#906572) Homepage
    Star Wars meets Infinity Engine, huh?

    OK, your party of six characters (the Jedi, the Wookiee, the Smuggler, the Princess, the Yappy Droid, and the Short Droid) walks into a 10" x 10" room. In the room are six Stormtroopers. Roll for initiative.

    Ten minutes later...

    Through clever strategy and a great deal of space-bar-pausing, you have defeated the Stormtroopers. After searching the bodies, you find a Blaster +1, a Green Key, and 87 gold pieces. Your party turns the corner and are surprised by two Wampas. Roll for initiative.


    --

  • Your trolling is nice, I have to admit it, though a bit repeatitive if I'm allowed to form such a (mild) critic. However, I have to admit I am somewhat sad that no one ever follows me on every thread where I nonchalantly display my hard earned +1 bonus. Sure, there's sometimes those nice "french people stink" or "french people are rude" flamelings, but they're not personal enough to suit my . Will anybody ever raise a shrine, or at least a crappy Geocities page in my honour? Look at me, me too I've got karma to spare! Even with the rudest anti-american trollflames, it does'nt go down! Am I being forgotten? Or am I just insignificant enough? Hell look at my user id: #4727! That's quite low! It's even lower than Enoch Root's! That's got to mean something, doesn't it?

  • Hey I agree with that, it's so fucking boring. On top of that, they justify all their bugs in the funniest/saddest way. Though Microsoft invented "it's not a bug it's a feature"? Well, wait for this one: if you hit ALT TAB while inside that fucking game, you get back to the Winblows desktop, but you don't have any mouse or keyboard control ... and you can't get back to the game either! So you have to kill the Everquest process with a three fingers salute.

    So you think it's bloody bug, right? Wait!!! They claim it's done on purpose to forbid the use of third party cheating progs! ROFL! And needless to say, there's countless of trainers out there which accomodate this "feature" without any kind of problem ....

  • Excuse me but what do you mean by moral families? I think I know where you are coming from but you write this as if to say "I am moral and all of you are not!" I know this is a troll and I shouldn't respond but really now. Let me guess. Tolkien's books were filled with magic so they were bad. How about C. S. Lewis? Copious nudity? Where? I guess I need to watch that again. Impudence of a boy refusing to go to bed? Gee, that never happens in real life. First of all I think your kids are a little bit more exposed to the dark side of humanity then you give them credit for if they are in the public school system. The most dark days of my life where when I was in school. You can only protect your children for so long before they have to make their own choices. Protecting them too much now can actually harm them later down the line. In the end they will be the person they choose to be not you.
    Molog

    So Linus, what are we doing tonight?

  • Alright, Everybody calm down... (Score:3)

    by Danse ( 1026 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @11:29AM (#906584)

    Jeez.. aside from the last 2 paragraphs, the whole thing was ripped almost directly from a real review [capalert.com] of Episode I by an extremely conservative religious group [capalert.com].

    I'm not sure where the rest of it came from, or if he just made it up, but since this is obviously either an attempt at humor or an attempt at trolling, we should all just read it, and either snicker or shake our heads and be on our way.

  • As another person noted, your day is spent waiting for an enemy to spawn so that you can raise your level just one more time. Or you can do a frivolous quest, in which you are given little or no information on what to do or a hint of what to do and then if you do complete it, there is no pay off. Maybe some xp, or some items but it is really done just to hear the noise after completing the quest. No story line, nothing to do. Then if a game bug does show up, like for example I was playing one time when the zone crashed and when I came back my inventory was empty and I had some great items like a ghoulsbane. The GMs told me that they couldn't do anything even if it was a game bug. They also treat you with contempt. I was attacked through a stone wall by a frog one time and reported it as a bug. They told me that it wasn't a bug. I asked them if this was expected behavior for the game and the designers wanted it that way and they said no so I told them it was a bug. Ok now I'm just angry and in rant mode. Either way Verant has lost me for ever and ever. Episode I was not too bad in my opinion. It could have been aimed at a more mature audience but I didn't hate it either.
    Molog

    So Linus, what are we doing tonight?

  • I wonder if it will be a new engine or.. (Score:4)

    by GauteL ( 29207 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @09:11AM (#906588)
    ..perhaps the Neverwinter Nights -engine.
    If so, the chances of a Linuxport would be rather
    high, as Neverwinter Nights is developed for Linux as well as windows.

    It has always seemed to me that a lot of work go
    to waste creating 3d-engines. Only a few gets
    reused.

  • Give Credit Where Credit is due (Score:3)

    by Upsilon ( 21920 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @09:43AM (#906594)
    While I loved Baldur's Gate, Torment was much better. It just doesn't seem fair to me that you're giving Bioware all the credit when they didn't make Torment. Sure, Torment was based on the same engine (although heavily modified), but that's it. Torment was a product of Interplay's own Black Isle Studios (makers of Fallout). Baldur's Gate was also published under the Black Isle Studios label, but it was made by Bioware while Torment was an internal Black Isle product. BTW, so is Icewind Dale (which just doesn't look as promising to me). Bioware made Baldur's Gate and then went on to make MDK2 (Yeah, that's right, it's not an RPG!), the engine of which is also being used for Neverwinter Nights, another Bioware product. Their next game out should be Baldur's Gate II, which will be released sometime this fall. Neverwinter Nights will be out sometime in 2001.

    I forgive you for being confused, Siggy.

  • I didn't post that comment :). Hemos did.

  • The Neverwinter Nights engine is nothing like
    the infinity engine.
    The infinity engine is 2d, while the engine
    for NN is fully 3d. It is as I've managed to figure out based on the MDK2 engine,
    which is about as far from the infinity engine as possible.

  • Try reading the press release (Score:3)

    by gwernol ( 167574 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @09:14AM (#906605)

    Ummm, Ant asks: "the setting of the game is going to be prior to the Star Wars movies. I don't know whether that means prior to Episode I or Episode IV". Its not hard, Ant. According to the press release that you linked to:

    LucasArts and BioWare are creating an entirely original storyline set some four thousand years before Star Wars: Episode I.

    I think that answers your question.

    Is it really too much to expect people who submit stories to actually read the links they are submitting? I guess it is...

  • No, not AD&D--D20, the "engine" that's behind the new 3rd edition of "Dungeons and Dragons" that's out next month, and the new Star Wars game (Yes, WotC got the license after WEG lost it) that's out in November.

    To learn more about 3e, you could go to the offical WotC site at http://www.wizards.com/ or go to the "rumors" page at the following link.

    http://www.rpgplanet.com/dnd3e/

    There's also a "Star Wars Rumors Page" at

    http://dkphoenix.freeservers.com/starwars/

    but it's not all that inclusive yet.
  • What surprises me is how little biotech there is in Star Wars -- they can travel at faster-than-light speeds but they can't do the biotechnology that would obsolete 'droids? Why do spacetravel at all when they could do some kind of supercool VR with bio-engineered semi-autonomous beings that would do the travel for you.

    Often it seems that much of the technology in Star Wars matches much of the technology that seemed possible at the time; biotechnology (cloning, gene manipulation) wasn't really a going concern in '75, but computers and holograms were within-grasp technologies that seemed to have a lot of future to them. (Where are we at with holograms, anyway?)

    I'd like to hear an explanation as to why technological development would stop and at such a strange place (political explanations are pretty much invalid -- I don't think you can say "the empire is fsck'd, science stopped" since they were able to design and build the Death Star, a major engineering effort).
  • Well there were mostly germans inside, AFAIK, so the old "why are street of Paris lined with trees" won't work here. We could even claim that we did it on purpose. No, I want something more personal. Any idea?

  • Some clarifications: (Score:3)

    by KaiShin ( 209552 ) on Tuesday July 25, 2000 @09:19AM (#906617)


    The press release states that the game will take place some 4,000 years before Episode 1, in an era dominated by Jedi vs. Sith warfare.


    This Gamespot report [zdnet.com] also has some more info, and Bioware has stated that it will use a modified version of the Neverwinter Nights engine.


    The MMORPG that Verant is developing is certain to be very different from Bioware's game. They'll probably be about as different as... Everquest and Baldur's Gate.

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