Bards Tale IV announced

So, yeah, Brian Fargo announced yet another return of a classic that I spent countless hours playing - BARDS TALE! As someone on another board wrote "I hope that means Dragon Wars 2 is just around the corner.

I feel we are living in a golden age of videogaming these days!

Anyone else spent a big chunk of their childhood in streets of Skara Brae? I remember Bards Tale 3 was a bit tough, gun toting nazis every other step, but man the Chronomancer class was awesome!

“This project has always been really personal to me,” Fargo told IGN. “It was a game that put both me and Interplay on the map, back in the day. And it’s also the franchise that launched inXile.”

I am totally onboard, they earned my goodwill with Wasteland 2. Plus, I really liked that Bard’s Tale ARPG they did a few years back, that was more fun than it had to be. But yeah, I bet I still have all my graph paper maps stashed away somewhere at my mother’s house. Spent too many hours on those to just toss them out.

I never played the first three Bard’s Tale (or the recent ARPG). Did they have the same quality writing and mechanics as more modern RPGs like Fallout, Planescape, etc?

They had more in common with games like Dungeon Master, that in they were true stat and loot and level driven RPG’s, instead of story based. Actually, Might & Magic the series are pretty much what they were like.

I was on the attic last night, getting my RPG games out and amongst it, were all my notes for Bards Tale, Gold Box games and of course, Ultima 5 were I translated the damn language on my own since I didn’t have manual. I still consider that one of my greatest gaming achievements. It was amazing the amount of time we spent with graph paper back then.

Oh man.

99 Berserkers
99 Berserkers
99 Berserkers
99 Berserkers

I think that was II, but still…flashbacks.

The ARPG is pretty funny, but the original Bard’s Tale games are almost devoid of story and are straight up (brutal) dungeon crawl type affairs. I honestly can’t understand what anyone saw in them.

They weren’t my favorites, either, but I’m sure that Fargo will add a lot more depth and purpose to them in this iteration. I’ll be backing the Kickstarter for sure. And if this part ever comes to pass:

I hope they contact the poster here who goes by the handle corsair and helped make Dragon Wars so good.

Nope, that’s in I. As was the old man, and “fifteen doors east and thou art there, on souls they feed in the dark one’s lair”. And the Jabberwocky.

They came out in the early to mid 80s (III came out in 1991). Such things had not evolved yet.

They came out between 1985-1991. The genre hadn’t evolved that far yet.

Keep in mind that the only other competition was Wizardry 1. They had the same sort of appeal that Roguelikes do today. They’re straight combat experiences, and it was about improving the power / equipment of your characters to meet greater and greater challenges. I knew people who ran pen-and-paper D&D sessions like that, using the random encounter tables straight, and delving into dungeons that had no reason for existing other than to be homes for monsters and loot. I remember playing a Paladin for the first time in such a game, and we encountered a band of dinosaurs on the road. Dinosaurs! In a medieval setting! Because it was on the random encounter table.

Writing and non-D&D mechanics hadn’t evolved yet. RPGs were in the state FPSs were in before Half Life. The games were about killing stuff, never mind why.

I am pretty sure I have carefully drawn maps on graph paper with annotations for those annoying mazes with the teleporting, spinner, etc. squares. All diligently done with objects dropped all over the place. It was a pain in the ass, but that was what we called depth of play back then.

They were nothing like those games. They were Wizardry clones, if you ever played any of those games (or the Might & Magic games).

The action-RPG has nothing in common with the others - it was one of many, many games that used the Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance engine, one of the better Diablo clone engines.

There were tons of competitors - they came out during the golden age for the genre.

I’m happy to see Inxile working on another RPG, since they over-delivered with Wasteland 2, but the IP has no value to me, and I hope they don’t feel constrained by it and feel that they have to make a 1st person perspective game just out of nostalgia. I’d much rather see another isometric perspective RPG, which may be easier for a smaller studio to pull off well (although MMX and the Blackrock games suggest that’s not necessarily the case, i guess)>

I thought the ARPG was just awful. Unfun game mechanics, terrible loading problems with going in and out of houses, snide puerile story, everything meta and drearily making fun of itself.

The first Bard’s Tale game came out in 1985. 1985 is the year that Ultima IV, Doomdark’s Revenge, Alternate Reality - The City, and Autoduel came out. The first three Wizardries were already out. So was Rogue, and Hack. There was plenty of competition, both in terms of straight dungeon crawls (which I think the Wizardries and Rogue/Hack do more interestingly) and in terms of evolving the genre beyond that.

Same. Hated it.

I played the first three, liked them a lot. I had a C64 so no Wizardry for me. BT was my Wizardry and I loved it. Fun anecdote for those that remember the game: I did not find the Mad God’s Temple entrance in the Catacombs. I went straight from Catacombs to Harkyn’s Castle. The game was especially brutal for me.

Hey, auto mapping for BT III - you didn’t need to draw maps (my stealth campaign tipped the scales in that). I was just talking with my co-designer on BT III moments ago - Heineman is apparently planning on doing a sequel to what should have been BT IV (if we could have only used the name), Dragon Wars.

Dragon Wars was intensely awesome, but I never thought of it as a Bard’s Tale game. It had a lot more personality, a deeper world, and felt much more meaningful.