BioWare consists of the most Canadian people I've seen in my life. I've heard it elsewhere, but it's true! This is as much an underhanded compliment as it is an abject observation.
Honestly, I expected something a little different from our meeting. I wanted to talk more extensively with some of the developers, to ask about the whole process of running a company of their specific ilk. Unfortunately, we were hit with yet another dose of scheduling difficulty. I'm not sure what our full treatment might have entailed, had things gone as planned, but what we ended up with was a couple of software demos: Knights of the Old Republic and an expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights.
As with Cthulu, I really hadn't been following the former game. I knew a few details; that it was set some appreciable differential prior to the time period in which Lucas set the movies, that it was an RPG, that it was supposed to be terrific.
The thing is, I'm not all that wild about Star Wars. I never have been. It's a silly series which far too many people take far too seriously. Now even Lucas seems to be lacking an real perspective for his universe.
What's further dared me to care about any game based upon the property is is the take that so many developers seem to... take. I mean. Tie fighters are nice. Endor is pretty. Light sabers are sort of neat. The problem is, none of this is inherently interesting for its own sake. The series has been split into a collection of disjointed iconography, exploited to such an extent that any clear meaning has been drained. It's all so very tiresome.
So. That's whence I come. Your job is to plug this information into my next comment:
This game is good. It looks really interesting. I would play this game. I am interested in investigating it in some thorough measure of detail.
The graphics aren't all that amazing, although there are some swell flourishes and effects. Everything else, however, intrigues me. BioWare, being BioWare, have gone pretty deeply into the logistics of how a world such as the one in Star Wars might function on a personal level.
Immediately, the game seems to resemble a third-person adventure. It really plays more like an enhanced version of Baldur's Gate; combat is all turn-based, with action queues and the ability to pause the action at any point in order to help shape the chaos that is conflict.
Through branching dialogue and more direct action, the player's choices will tend to affect both his or her character and the way that he or she is perceived within the game world. Although for logistical reasons BioWare have decided not to allow the player to up and kill any old NPC (thereby making it difficult or impossible to continue the game, in some instances), there are still a number of options.
If you take the Ultima system of ethics, enhance and polish it, then constrain its effects to an absolute scale, you've pretty much got this game's concept of the Force. You start off at zero; not necessarily a saint, but not all that bad either. As your deeds add up, you'll start to either rise or fall on the forceometer.
At the one end, you begin to shine; you become beautiful; you smell like roses. On the other, your complexion becomes pasty. Weird tattoos begin to appear on your flesh. Smoke and flame begins to frame your character portrait. You begin to look like some kind of a badass from The Matrix.
There are some systems to manage one's light saber; different colours of crystal will imbue the weapon with different unique qualities and strengths. All equipment that a character is wearing will appear in any given cutscene in which the character is depicted.
I imagine that some great deal of the details originate in the tabletop RPG from which the game draws its core system (much as with Baldur's Gate and AD&D 2nd Edition) -- and yet, as usual, they've done a swell job in actualizing this conceptual fog; infusing it with the context of life, so as to illustrate the potential of the underlying system.
Every line of dialogue in the game is fully voiced. Every character speaks in his, her, or its own appropriate language. All of the dialogue has been thoroughly approved by official Lucasarts linguists. This kind of obsessive attention is neither positive nor negative in its own right, however it does tend to illustrate just how much thought that BioWare have put into the portrayal of Lucas' world.
BioWare have made a potentially interesting universe, interesting to me. They're the first ones to follow through, to my experience.
The Neverwinter Nights expansion seemed nice enough, although -- not having a computer powerful enough to play the original game -- I had some difficulty paying as much attention as I might ideally have done.
From what I was able to gather, it seems to be about as much of an upgrade as Tales of the Sword Coast was to Baldur's Gate; there's a bunch of extra stuff in terms of monsters, tiles, items, spells, and classes. There's a new scenario (over to which players can carry their old characters). The interface seems to have been slightly polished (allowing a player to, for instance, fully manage the equipment of any followers he or she might have), and there are a few new options for potential Dungeon Masters in the buying audience.
One feature which struck me, and which I gather is new to this expansion, is the ability to affix various meanings to footprint tiles. Perceptive player characters (such as Rangers) may obtain a bunch of useful information from subtle marks of this sort, to better prepare them for upcoming challenges.
If you can't get enough of Neverwinter Nights, then -- well. Here's more! It seems as well-considered as anything that BioWare puts out, although I suppose it serves no real purpose unless you've already clocked a good number of hours in the core game.
So. There's that.
Now for the conversation.
Although in so doing I was forced to skip meeting up with the fleshier renditions of the Penny Arcade crew, I did -- for a few moments -- manage to grab ahold of the fellow behind the latter presentation. Unfortunately, I never seemed to get his name. I kept peering at his badge through the entire conversation, but it seemed to always be in an awkward position. To add to the frustration, I gave him my card but didn't get one from him. Hrm!
Nonetheless, I'm... pretty sure that he works there, given the circumstances. He seemed reasonably official. So I talked with him for a few minutes. Let's call him The Neverwinter Nights Man (The NNM)!
The videogame industry, right now, is... becoming pretty uncomfortable for small business. Companies are buying companies. People are creating companies with the sole ambition to eventually be bought out by larger companies. For every team so absorbed, they just strengthen the disturbingly few megaconglomerate publishers, making life all the more difficult for independent developers. Unless you partner with the devil, it's getting to the place where you're pretty much a sitting duck in the marketplace. (You might say it's a dog-eat-dog world!)
In the face of all of this nonsense, BioWare is -- to at least me -- a bit of a relief. They've got a personality, intelligence, and wit that not a lot of Western developers share, and they've so far managed to do a good job of fending for themselves.
The NNM admitted that the current scene was pretty disturbing. He's not really sure what to make of the chaos surrounding them at the moment. He did make the comment, however, that one of the things that BioWare prizes -- above all -- is its autonomy. They've made it a point to do what they can to protect themselves. They're a relatively close-knit group, and maintaining their individual personality is what keeps them going. It's part of their whole point, really.
I asked about their location, in Edmonton, and what that meant for business -- or if it had any real effect at all.
Due to the current nature of communication, NNM said that there certainly weren't any particular adverse effects. It's not like they're in the middle of nowhere; there are a number of other businesses of their sort in the area.
Still, NNM admitted that they are pretty much the "king of the roost" where they're camped out. They're not exactly in the thick of things, but rather able to observe from a cautious distance. All of this probably does help a bit in terms of maintaining their independent spirit and sense of unity.
Since BioWare is getting pretty big, and is responsible for not only some of the best, but the most well-received PC games of the last several years, I asked whether they intended to go all the way and begin publishing for themselves, anytime soon.
The answer: Not soon, anyway. They don't consider themselves quite large enough yet. Maybe someday, if the stars align interestingly.
From there, we moved on to software.
While all of these licensed properties are fine -- indeed, BioWare is more skilled than just about anyone at paying due respect to an existing universe while simultaneously infusing the production with their own wit and enthusiasm -- I was relieved to hear, not long ago, that they were beginning work on a wholly original project.
So was NNM, actually. According to him, so were most of the creative staff at BioWare. Even so, I was unable to obtain any solid information on this production aside from the fact that it is indeed going on.
Since MDK2 was -- well damn, was MDK2 -- I suggested that another action game would be a nice change of pace from all of these RPGs (as excellent as they might be).
Although NNM denied that they had any action games going on at the moment, I seemed to get a couple of the staff fired up with the suggestion. The especially-Canadian fellow with the glasses stepped over to grin, nod knowingly, and affirm how much he enjoyed MDK2. It's obvious that they had a good time with that game, and -- judging by the reaction -- they seem not uninterested in following it up at some point. Heck, I could see them light up when I asked. I think I inspired them.
I'll take that as a solid "maybe", then?
I think I will!
And... that was what he had to say.
Conclusions: Knights of the Old Republic looks interesting even to me; Neverwinter Nights has a new expansion that -- well, it looks like it adds a lot; and if you want another action game from BioWare (perhaps an original one!), I don't think they need much prodding. You know what to do.
Eric-Jon Rössel Waugh
is very nearly Canadian. Sort of!
| 
