I copied (parts of) my comment about imrovements from the blog (directly addressing Swen's post):
"I think you've already mentioned the core "flaws" of DOS in your blog yourself so there is little to add here for now. It's instead good to see that you've clearly identified what should be improved while at the same time you stick to your well working formula. DOS was a niche game after all and that's part of the reason why it was so great - for its core audience. If I had one free wish I would ask you to never sacrifice that core audience dedication for a bigger mass market appeal. We already have Bioware for that kind of RPGs. Stay like you are. Make the games you want to play yourselves. I think you've already proven that your taste fuc..... rocks and that you know exactly what people want and expect in this very niche of old-school RPGs. Please just don't fall for the trap of instant rewards everywhere that plagues huge parts of modern gaming.
My personal wish list for future RPGs of the kinds of DOS is pretty big, to be honest. I would for example like extended writing and more emotional and morally grey decisions with deep choice and consequence (without of course sacrificing the typcial Larian humour which would even work better as comedic relief). Macbeth is an awesome writer but he's just one man. I would like Larian to employ three or more of his kind for future RPGs, significantly improving the writing and narrative design workforce without compromising quality. And more and even deeper companions would be cool. Despite all the critique the fleshed out companions are still one of Bioware's RPGs' biggest appeal for a reason. It's something that is very unique to RPGs in that depth. And there is a lot of stories and characters to explore, not necessarily in the way Bioware does it with their latest strategy of total inclusiveness. More voice overs would be cool as well although that might be a bit in conflict with my wish for extended writing. I guess a good compromise has to be found here, maybe with a little bit more voice acting than present in DOS. Gameplay is imo rock solid although you already identified the weaknesses later in the character progression. I guess that's one of the most difficult problems since it's at least partly based on the big amount of freedom you grant the players. It depends a lot of how the game plays in later stages whether you uses all the possibliities to improve your gear and your character the game offers or not. It's hard to improve that formular but I hope you find ways to do so.
Oh and one last thing you should think about for future games of the kind of DOS. Don't make the entry point too tedious or too uimpressive. It's the first one or two hours which decide whether a lot of players want to continue to play your game or not. I think you've lost a lot of potential fans of the game - even people who never thought they would like a game like that - just because they didn't get "into it" in the first one or two hours of playing. So please, give some special care and thought how you start your new games, both from a narrative and a gameplay perspective. I don't think DOS was actually bad here but I think it could still be improved for future games. ;)"
Last edited by LordCrash; 19/12/14 04:30 PM.
