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IO Interactive (Hitman series) announces "bold new online fantasy RPG"


Commissar SFLUFAN

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And that's just about all the information we have for now.

 

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IOI.DK

IO Interactive

 

Quote

For many, this journey is also a deeply personal one that began long before we started making games for a living – and it started with the fantasy genre. From the “Fighting Fantasy” books compelling you to choose your path, alone, against wizards, lizards, and thief kings. To the togetherness, camaraderie, agony, and delight found around the tabletop. For some it meant taking the role of a game master: Part storyteller, part AI opponent, part guide, part villain. For everyone around that table it meant creativity, imagination, building a world together, and a shared goal in creating a great game experience.

 

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46 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

Still in development, but we've had no further news since the initial announcement.

 

Another one to the list. I remember reading that these announcements help with recruiting so maybe that’s why they are announcing things so early. 

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I'm always down for more online fantasy RPGs, I just hope it plays less rigidly and mechanically (as in, robotically) than the Hitman games. That was my main hangup with them: while the stuff you could pull off was neat and funny, actually controlling your character and performing actions suuuucked.

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I'm an CRPG guy, through and through. Even the mention of "Online" makes me hesitant. Just give us a sprawling world, with loads to do and the ability to develop and manage our character or party as we want. I can live without it looking mind blowing, just give me a rich world of exploration and character development.  Don't do the following:

 

* level scale enemies (but do allow for clever ways to combine skills/Items/environment to punch above my weight)

* "streamline" character development

* Implement treadmill gameplay (this means that the world should have an economy of function that, if I choose to invest time, I can amass stupid levels of power or barrel through, at my own peril and frustration of course) 

* Make bosses gimmick fights, or introduce boss mechanics that invalidate the effort I've put into developing my characters

* Make major plot choices fail to matter (I'll take still shot of multiple endings if that's what it takes to make choices matter)

* Make your story bout a fight for the whole of the world and time itself, its lazy writing at this point. Try instead to write about complex interests in a larger world of struggle.

* Implement system that are conceptually "cool" but are not fun to play

* Fail to Digress! Some of the best stories and scenarios that evoke a sense of adventure and discovery have been side stories, fear not the tangent!  

 

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This is Vic's fault, but I have had all of this mentally in my head for a while. I'm sure it is riddled with mistakes and incoherent sentences.

 

I feel like there aren't any fantasy games that really interest me anymore outside of some large titles. Or like they do things that I just don't like with the characters or endings.

 

Like, first is the genre. I have yet to find a CRPG that I like. It isn't even that they are isometric but that the gamplay is so boring. The gameplay of Lost Ark was really good. Shame it is an MMO. Most CRPGs feel so impersonal when it comes to the combat. I want a character that feels like "yeah that's MY character". When I tried playing Pillars of Eternity, my character felt more like a custom "unit" rather than a character.

 

Oh and the reason I said CRPG is CRPGs always have the settings I want, but not the story or gameplay. I feel like they always have layers of bullshit that I can't wade through. Pillars and tides of numenera both have this issue of too many people to talk to. I have no idea who is even worth talking to and I feel like I need to talk to everyone on the off chance they say something actually important. JRPGs have this same thing, but my god CRPG NPCs just won't just the fuck up. Each and every one of them have a novel's worth of shit to say and it is just so uninteresting. They may provide lore, but I'm not really a lore guy. I just want the story. I feel like that is one of the reasons I like dragon age so much. It has pretty much everything I want without having to read a novel while playing a game. Don't get me wrong, I love reading, but I'm not playing a game to fuckin' read. And it isn't even bad when games have some reading to do, but when it is filled with lore dumps disguised as conversation I just lose interest.

 

Another big issue is that the few CRPGs I have played don't have anything to really hook you into the plot. They just kick you off a cliff, toss some party member in your path asap, and then you are left to talk to the whole fucking town. Dragon's Dogma has your heart getting stolen. Dragon Age has all the origins + becoming a Grey Warden. Mass Effect has the "mysterious ship", the death of a specter, zombies, the beacon, and all of that was just meant to be your specter test.

 

And then there is something like Divinity. Like, listen. There is only one fucking protectionist, me. Maybe it is me as the Grey Warden. Maybe it is me as Link. Maybe it is me as the Chosen Undead. Maybe it is me as Doom guy. But I can't be two people. Do not be having me create a game with two MCs. Fuck right off with that.

 

CRPGs also have this feeling where your custom character, while important, isn't actually a character and that makes me hate my party members. That's one thing I find many AAA games do right. Even in FFXIV your character is number 1. These fuckers wouldn't have done shit if it wasn't for my character. I can't remember which CRPG it was specifically, but I didn't even get why my character was there. They seemed so pointless and the only reason other NPCs flocked to them was because your character had the special power to save the day. I think this was from Baldur's Gate 3 in a video I watched, but it felt like there were like 7 characters all vying for the Main Character spot, and then there was you. Like your character was in the way of all the other better and far more important characters.

 

And then there are the characters and romance and endings. I was reading something for like Pathfinder or something and I was reading different endings and romances with different NPCs and it felt like, well for a lack of a better term, cuckshit. Now, IIRC there wasn't actual cuckolding or anything like that but it felt like the spirit of it written into various ending and romances. Like, there were objectively wrong choices to make. I can't even go into specifics because I just lost interest so fast in whatever game that was. And a game with no romance is far better than a game with a bad romance (Rah, rah-ah-ah-ah). And some of the endings feel worse than a fallout slideshow ending. Like, while the games don't just end, it feels pretty close that. Like a, "that's it" or a "what's next." Or least from what I can tell. I have never beaten a traditional CRPG. There are endings that tell the rest of the MCs story and it is summed up in like 5 lines of text. I want to actually see that ending, not just read about it. And like, where is the game where you become the ruler of the world, through vile actions and upon your death your progeny start a massive war to take your seat because you refused to name a successor. Why is it always, "they were a good king, loved by the people," or , "they returned to the order, to forever lead the war against the realm's foes." Or, if you were bad, you just fuckin' die because being bad is wrong. I don't even want to actually be a bad guy, but I boy do I wish there was a game that did ruthless right.

 

tldr:

I want Dragon's Dogma but with a good story and ending and not some crazy dumb bullshit exactly like Dragon's Dogma.

Or make it like Lost Ark but with a good story and cool NPCs who aren't better than the custom character.

Or Dragon Age: Origins 2.

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@Bacon , first, I LOVE a good bacon rant! :daydream: Second, I agree with many of your points, but I can't opine at length at the moment because I have a charmingly gruff contractor trying to explain why he's actually doing me the favor of trying to charge me twice for work he fucked up... 

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1 hour ago, Bacon said:

They just kick you off a cliff,

lol, I looked up the start of BG3 and it does this. It's like CG cutscene, create character... and you're at the bottom of the cliff (squid space ship)

 

And, I don't want to say that CRPGs don't have hooks, but I feel like they almost make it their mission to hook you at some point after the start of the game whereas I need to be hooked from the get go. That or they have a thousand little hooks when all I want is a big hook.

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The post was framed as a recruitment post.  

 

The subtitle below the A New Adventure Begins is... "Join the party and help us realize our vision for a bold new online fantasy RPG."

 

And it concludes with -  "This is just the start of our journey into this new world we are making. We hope you sense the warmth, the danger, the togetherness, and the heart we put into it… And if you do, we would be honored if you join us."

 

Leading to a Link to their careers page and Meet us at GDC.  So gearing up for full development I'm sure and hiring for the project.

 

Also, this is the game that Jez Corden rumored that Xbox was teaming up with IO Interactive to make.  He recently updated that he's not sure if Xbox is still involved or not as this post didn't mention anything about that.

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