THQ and Big Huge Games Team For RPG

GameDaily Biz is reporting on the project that Ken Rolston moved to Big Huge Games to do. The RPG project will be helmed by the former Oblivion designer, developed by BHG, and (it's now been announced) will be published by THQ. Slated for the 360, PS3, and PC platforms, few other details are available about the project. Just the same, the article contains an interview with Tim Campbell, VP of Business Development, THQ, and Big Huge Games' Tim Train and Rolston. "BIZ: Ken Rolston, you're a legend in the RPG field, both electronic and paper-and-pencil. Where would you like to take the genre next? What innovations can we expect? Rolston: I'm actually a pretty conservative variety of visionary. In addition to our brilliant but secret central premise, and the addition of four or five original amazing major features and implementations we can't Wait to Reveal at a Later Date, I just want to make everything... story, characters, exploration, themes, setting, interactivity, entertainment, world class whacking and looting... just a little more perfect in every way."

Re:Uhh

[Shinsei]

With a slight chance of sounding on the offside here, I'd like to point out the fact that Bethesda did a good job with Oblivion if the user mods made the game more enjoyable. I am one of them who enjoyed Oblivion with user mods a lot more than the vanilla game myself, and I thought it was great after you got some modifications to the various game systems!

When you consider how many people play games now compared to how many people played games in the time of old Daggerfall, it sort of makes sense that user modifications of the games are very important to the game developers now. A game that is developed with options for advanced user modding will necessarily have a larger audience than the ones without user modding. Some people even buy games just because they are moddable - ie. they find the art of modding the games more fun than playing the game itself.

So - I'd say Oblivion was not at all the great disappointment many people try to point it out as. :-)

Rolston gone mad?

[soccerisgod]

Rolston: Usability. I was shocked to discover how difficult getting started in Oblivion was for some casual gamers, and even for some experienced fans of the genre.

W..T..F? I think now he's finally lost it. He was never on my list of favorite games designers, mainly for his obsession with everything having to be a metaphor for something, and his complete refusal of ever having an NPC betray the player, but this really sounds like a very very very bad joke to me. Difficult? This dumbed down hackfest? You have got to be kidding me!

For reference, here's a snippet from an interview with former TES designer Doug Goodall:

Sinder Velvin:

Can you remember any other rules that Ken Rolston had?

Douglas Goodall:

There were quite a few of them, but since I didn't understand most of them, this is something you ought to ask Ken if you get the chance. The only ones I'm sure I understood were "no betrayal" and "everything must be a metaphor/everything must be based on something."

"No betrayal" meant that key NPCs couldn't turn on the player, lie to the player if they were honest in the past, nor could an NPC steal an item from the player, etc. This is good as a general rule, but it's the kind of rule that begs for exceptions.

"Everything must be a metaphor" is how the quirky Cyrodiil of Daggerfall and the alien Cyrodiil of the Pocket Guide became the Roman Empire, how the Bretons got French names, etc. I felt Tamriel had been moving away from generic fantasy and medieval history with every game until Morrowind. I wanted this trend to continue and resented having to squeeze a Hermaeus Mora-shaped Vvardenfell into a Roman Province-shaped space. I think Ken uses historical examples to make the world more believable. If you just make stuff up, there's a good chance you'll make something wrong and break suspension of disbelief. That's true, but I'd argue that if you use an inappropriate or easily recognized metaphor, you have the same risk. Besides, making stuff up is more fun for both the creators and consumers. Did I mention I enjoy arguing?