Why I love Electronic Arts

[calthaer]

The new Bard's Tale is being made by inXile, home to Brian Fargo who was an Interplay exec and helped make the Bard's Tale series (he was the lead on BT3). I also think it's a shame that Cranford wasn't involved in BT3...he never set up shop on his own, though - he left the game industry to get a masters in theology and do Christian ministry. He has a website somewhere out there; I think it was called sundoulos.com - no mention of his game stuff though.

[AB Positive]

Two words: Bard's Tale 8-)

Yes, but what has EA done for us lately? :)

And furthermore - what about Bard's Tale II and III?

HIDDEN CHALLENGE POINT: Calthaer

For reasons that will be disclosed later, calthaer has scored 1 point with this post.

-AG

[Flack]

I bought Bard's Tale Construction Set (actually, I bought 2 copies -- kept one, gave one to a friend). The biggest disappointment of the program was there was basically no way to import graphics. Any graphics used had to be drawn by hand in Deluxe Paint II or something. :/ I really wanted to import some digital pictures of my friends and I into a dungeon!

[Azazel]

Did you ever make anything with it?

[fargus]

EA has been a friend to the Koei tribe by publishing some of our games like Kessen and Samurai Warriors in America. Plus, they're doing some of the best movie-to-game conversions.

[Keir]

Two words: Bard's Tale

Yes, but what has EA done for us lately?

And furthermore - what about Bard's Tale II and III?

I was actually referring to the whole Trilogy, though the first is my favorite. I love all 3, though BT2 was probably the weakest of them.

[calthaer]

You know what: I would agree that the second one is the weakest, but I can't for the life of me figure out or quantify why. The first one was tight - a new game in a new series that combined all the stuff from other dungeon hacks and did it really, really well...day and night sequences, motion when you moved forward, cool things like levitation, trap zap, etc. The second added quite a bit, from multiple cities, casinos, ranged weapons, the archmage class, the timed snares of death - all sorts of stuff.

The third was just cool because of the realm-warping stuff. Going to other worlds was just plain awesome, and the puzzles were even better than BT2's snares of death.

But why was 1 better than 2, and 3 better than 2? I haven't a clue.

I just think it's hilarious that EA has lost the golden opportunity to make a sequel to this game. They ruined the Ultima series, too. Bah.

[Azazel]

I've only lighty played the first one so I can't comment on the other 2 Bard's tale games.

[Mayhem]

Erm... EA had nothing to do with Bard's Tale of course... they just published it. Interplay were actually handling the game under Michael Cranford (go play Maze Master by HES on the C64 and see where he transposed a lot of his ideas from) and Brian Fargo.

[digitalpress]

Two words: Bard's Tale

Yes, but what has EA done for us lately?

And furthermore - what about Bard's Tale II and III?

I was actually referring to the whole Trilogy, though the first is my favorite. I love all 3, though BT2 was probably the weakest of them.

HIDDEN CHALLENGE POINTS: KEIR

For reasons that will be disclosed later, KEIR has scored 2 points with this post.

[Keir]

Erm... EA had nothing to do with Bard's Tale of course... they just published it. Interplay were actually handling the game under Michael Cranford (go play Maze Master by HES on the C64 and see where he transposed a lot of his ideas from) and Brian Fargo.

Yeah, yeah. Details, schmetails. :P

[calthaer]

Erm... EA had nothing to do with Bard's Tale of course... they just published it. Interplay were actually handling the game under Michael Cranford (go play Maze Master by HES on the C64 and see where he transposed a lot of his ideas from) and Brian Fargo.

This may be true, but EA purportedly held (holds?) the rights to the franchise. I believe Fargo had to do something to prove that the Bard's Tale trademark was not in use (seeing that EA hadn't published a game with it in over a decade) so that he could make a game with that name.

[AB Positive]

You know what: I would agree that the second one is the weakest, but I can't for the life of me figure out or quantify why. The first one was tight - a new game in a new series that combined all the stuff from other dungeon hacks and did it really, really well...day and night sequences, motion when you moved forward, cool things like levitation, trap zap, etc. The second added quite a bit, from multiple cities, casinos, ranged weapons, the archmage class, the timed snares of death - all sorts of stuff.

The third was just cool because of the realm-warping stuff. Going to other worlds was just plain awesome, and the puzzles were even better than BT2's snares of death.

But why was 1 better than 2, and 3 better than 2? I haven't a clue.

I just think it's hilarious that EA has lost the golden opportunity to make a sequel to this game. They ruined the Ultima series, too. Bah.

changing avatars made this hard :P

HIDDEN CHALLENGE POINT: calthaer

For reasons that will be disclosed later, calthaer has scored 1 point with this post.

-AG