Gaming Sunday
Dungeon Lords
All it takes is one spectacularly bad game to ruin even the best of reputations. And the best of reputations is exactly what D.W. Bradley had. The creative force behind Wizardry VI and Wizardry VII—thought by many CRPG purists to be the height of old school gaming goodness—has tossed his good name and the name of his development company, Heuristic Park, into the trash.
Bradley’s new and widely-anticipated game, Dungeon Lords, was released earlier this month. It became apparent within hours, in this age of the Internet, that the game was released both untried and unready. In the words of the Gamer’s Hell reviewer:
A forum member on Dungeon Lord's official website posted a subject “I have only one suggestion for the game” that when clicked on gave the message “Finish it before shipping it.” So simple, yet so true. Dungeon Lords is probably the least finished game to ever be shipped for PC, excepting Battlecruiser 3000 AD, a title that will probably hold the honour for as long as PC gaming exists. Very few features in Dungeon Lords work, and the few that do, work poorly. It's quite sad, too, because underneath the ancient technology, thousands of bugs, flawed combat system, long load times, pathetic AI, poor performance, dated graphics, promised features that have gone missing, and a complete, total, and savage disregard for PC gamers as a group, there is a fun game in here, simply because it's an RPG designed by someone who loves a good dungeon crawl. I'll give him one thing: D.W. Bradley's games have been consistent. They've been consistently buggy headache machines built on dated tech that possess great character customization and tons of extended dungeon crawling for the dice tossing dragon slayer. Dungeon Lords is no different, it's just got better character customization, more dungeon crawling, and more bugs and missing features than you've ever seen in your life. I'm a huge fan of Bradley's past work, but this is just too much: After this travesty, his reputation is gone.
What is going on here? Nothing less than a dynamic that threatens to kill computer gaming if business as usual continues like this. Publishers sign contracts with developers for delivery of a game by a certain date. Due to the demands of their business, the publisher has got to have that game. Due to the uncertainty of development, and a nasty tendency to underestimate how long it will take to finish a product in today’s intensely high-tech environment, that delivery date is always a bit fuzzy. But, at some point, the publisher demands the game and, apparently, everyone seems to think that patching is some magic solution.
One simply cannot sell at retail an unfinished product and hope to survive in today’s competitive environment. Troika—a repeat offender at the above syndrome—shut down due to this, and now it looks like Heuristic Park will be the next victim.
We also noted wryly this morning that publisher DreamCatcher’s Dungeon Lords forum is down, for “maintenance,” and this after it had been wiped of content a few times. That’s not going to stop the word getting out, guys. Here’s hoping both suffer a well-deserved financial disaster, if only to provide a cautionary tale to the others.
E3
Good gamers everywhere know that this is E3 season, where just about everyone who is everyone in the industry goes to Los Angeles to preview their upcoming titles. Here is a quick run-through of the titles that have caught our eye this year:
-- Lord of the Rings Online: Formerly known as Middle Earth Online (a name we vastly preferred, though we understand the marketing strategy behind the name change), this MMORPG will be set (at least to start) in the region around Bree in a time before the decisive struggle of the Third Age. Turbine, the driving force behind Asheron’s Call, is the developer and so far, so good. We have a feeling this game is going to be pure gold, and we only wish Turbine’s stock was publicly traded. Expect an opportunity to run through the hills of Bree as a Ranger or an Elven warrior sometime later this year or early 2006.
-- Oblivion: Bethesda Softwork’s much-anticipated next step in the classic Elder Scrolls series (Daggerfall, Morrowind) looks like a marriage between Morrowind and the latest technology. Bethesda has quietly become one of the most successful development houses in the modern era and there is no reason to expect that this title won’t continue that trend. And speaking of Bethesda, they are also showcasing….
-- Fallout 3: Need we say more?
We Finally Say Something Good About Germans
They gave us both Gothic and Gothic II, which we've been re-exploring lately. All current CRPG developers should be forced to play both of these and try to figure out why they are so stunningly popular despite the unfamiliar controls and the aged graphics.
Here's a hint: story, character development, and a realistic-looking world.
Come to think of it, it appears George Lucas could have used the same lesson a few years back.
All it takes is one spectacularly bad game to ruin even the best of reputations. And the best of reputations is exactly what D.W. Bradley had. The creative force behind Wizardry VI and Wizardry VII—thought by many CRPG purists to be the height of old school gaming goodness—has tossed his good name and the name of his development company, Heuristic Park, into the trash.
Bradley’s new and widely-anticipated game, Dungeon Lords, was released earlier this month. It became apparent within hours, in this age of the Internet, that the game was released both untried and unready. In the words of the Gamer’s Hell reviewer:
A forum member on Dungeon Lord's official website posted a subject “I have only one suggestion for the game” that when clicked on gave the message “Finish it before shipping it.” So simple, yet so true. Dungeon Lords is probably the least finished game to ever be shipped for PC, excepting Battlecruiser 3000 AD, a title that will probably hold the honour for as long as PC gaming exists. Very few features in Dungeon Lords work, and the few that do, work poorly. It's quite sad, too, because underneath the ancient technology, thousands of bugs, flawed combat system, long load times, pathetic AI, poor performance, dated graphics, promised features that have gone missing, and a complete, total, and savage disregard for PC gamers as a group, there is a fun game in here, simply because it's an RPG designed by someone who loves a good dungeon crawl. I'll give him one thing: D.W. Bradley's games have been consistent. They've been consistently buggy headache machines built on dated tech that possess great character customization and tons of extended dungeon crawling for the dice tossing dragon slayer. Dungeon Lords is no different, it's just got better character customization, more dungeon crawling, and more bugs and missing features than you've ever seen in your life. I'm a huge fan of Bradley's past work, but this is just too much: After this travesty, his reputation is gone.
What is going on here? Nothing less than a dynamic that threatens to kill computer gaming if business as usual continues like this. Publishers sign contracts with developers for delivery of a game by a certain date. Due to the demands of their business, the publisher has got to have that game. Due to the uncertainty of development, and a nasty tendency to underestimate how long it will take to finish a product in today’s intensely high-tech environment, that delivery date is always a bit fuzzy. But, at some point, the publisher demands the game and, apparently, everyone seems to think that patching is some magic solution.
One simply cannot sell at retail an unfinished product and hope to survive in today’s competitive environment. Troika—a repeat offender at the above syndrome—shut down due to this, and now it looks like Heuristic Park will be the next victim.
We also noted wryly this morning that publisher DreamCatcher’s Dungeon Lords forum is down, for “maintenance,” and this after it had been wiped of content a few times. That’s not going to stop the word getting out, guys. Here’s hoping both suffer a well-deserved financial disaster, if only to provide a cautionary tale to the others.
E3
Good gamers everywhere know that this is E3 season, where just about everyone who is everyone in the industry goes to Los Angeles to preview their upcoming titles. Here is a quick run-through of the titles that have caught our eye this year:
-- Lord of the Rings Online: Formerly known as Middle Earth Online (a name we vastly preferred, though we understand the marketing strategy behind the name change), this MMORPG will be set (at least to start) in the region around Bree in a time before the decisive struggle of the Third Age. Turbine, the driving force behind Asheron’s Call, is the developer and so far, so good. We have a feeling this game is going to be pure gold, and we only wish Turbine’s stock was publicly traded. Expect an opportunity to run through the hills of Bree as a Ranger or an Elven warrior sometime later this year or early 2006.
-- Oblivion: Bethesda Softwork’s much-anticipated next step in the classic Elder Scrolls series (Daggerfall, Morrowind) looks like a marriage between Morrowind and the latest technology. Bethesda has quietly become one of the most successful development houses in the modern era and there is no reason to expect that this title won’t continue that trend. And speaking of Bethesda, they are also showcasing….
-- Fallout 3: Need we say more?
We Finally Say Something Good About Germans
They gave us both Gothic and Gothic II, which we've been re-exploring lately. All current CRPG developers should be forced to play both of these and try to figure out why they are so stunningly popular despite the unfamiliar controls and the aged graphics.
Here's a hint: story, character development, and a realistic-looking world.
Come to think of it, it appears George Lucas could have used the same lesson a few years back.
