CounterZeroInt:
That sounds like PR and couldn't be further from the truth. First of all, Troika went under not because they were staying true to CRPG, but because the games they made were not good enough to sell well. The main problem was that they failed to produce high quality games.
"Frankly, we've had cyberpunk RPGs that were critically acclaimed and did not do much good for their developers."
such as????? I can't remember any.
He is completley wrong about NWN and NWN2. NWN was the game of the year and sold tons of copies. Not only that, they also are releasing modules online and are highly successful with them. NWN was bought by people who didn't even know what D&D is and the multitude of people bought it because of the single player campaign. Which is why Bioware is selling so many of the online distributed modules. Not only that, it has been so successful that Bioware is STILL releasing patches for it. STILL. In fact, they just released 1.67 which adds new features as well as fixes some bugs. Keep in mind this is something Bethesda and the like would CHARGE for. The patch actually added new content. NWN was very accessible to mainstream audiences and NWN2 developed by Obsidian(no relation to Bioware) will be even more so and still make the D&D audience happy.
"Okay D&D nerds, shut up for a second and hold on for NWN2 while we work on this other stuff which will please the 99% of the world that doesn't include you".
That has to be the most ignorant thing I have read in a long time. This is absent from the reality of what NWN and NWN2 are.
"We wouldn't have Jade Empire, KOTOR, Mass Effect if BioWare hadn't realized how important it is to make games that are accessible by mainstream audiences."
This is incorrect. These games are made to appeal to the console market. Thats why we have them. Bioware realized long before Jade Empire, KOTOR, and Mass Effect that they needed to appeal to a mainstream audience. Thats why they made NWN and it is STILL making them money.
"Shadowrun universe, doesn't that mean they will go out and buy the source books and give FanPro lots of money? Doesn't something like a cartoon become much more plausible, and then even if that doesn't match your vision of the world maybe the Shadowrun novels by folks like Tom Price will actually sell well instead of falling off the shelves as they have."
The problem is, is that the game doesn't correctly represent the Shadowrun universe. It is much more dark. It would be like taking Sin City and making it all "happy happy joy joy". It just doesn't make sense and isn't believable.
"Who knows, maybe FASA will make a sequel soon after this one. You really can't complain too much about them "rewriting the story", it's like a Tolkein maniac complaining that LOTR didn't have Tom Bombadil in it, normal people don't care, they got the atmosphere down so why not support them and let people get excited about this universe which you know is so cool?"
Again another false analogy. The inclusion of Tom Bombadil is not essential to the LOTR universe. The LOTR universe can exist without Tom Bombadil. The story can still be told without Tom Bombadil. If you made a game based on The Return of the King obviously Tom Bombadil wouldn't be in it, would he. To have a correct analogy it would be like making an LOTR game based on Fellowship of the Ring and not including Rivendell or Moria. As well as taking away the whole aspect of a quest as well. In fact, the only reason why the 7 have formed is to join in a Deathmatch against evil to Capture the Flag, err , I mean ring. Do you understand now?
They have such a rich world and they do this. They could have made a game that would have been a serious competitor to Mass Effect or Oblivion. We all know how well those games are going to do (ME) and are doing already (OB). Instead they regurgitated a game in the FPS genre.
aaronspink:
Maybe you could refresh my memory. What is so different about this game? It sounds like either counterstrike, UT2004, or Tribes. Either way you put it, it isn't a unique game. It is the same old stuff we have seen before.
