Re: The Passing of the Mad Overlord

On Tue, 3 Sep 2024 12:33:49 +0200, Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/2/2024 7:58 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>

Undeniably "Bards Tale" looked better. But it's not really a fair
comparison; the first three "Wizardry" games all came out _years_
before the first "Bards Tale" was released.
 
Of course, this defense breaks down with "Wizardry IV", which came out
in 1987 and still looked a lot like its 1981 predecessor ;-)
 

>
There was some idealism in the scene back then. The graphics don't
matter! It's the gameplay that counts!
>
Of course Wizardry IV was punishing with that as well. As much as some
people might have liked the style of the game and didn't care about the
graphics, most people wouldn't have.
>
But that was a belief back in the day, just remember how Infocom really
thought they could keep being as successful as they were without
introducing graphics, and then half-heartedly adding static pictures.

I think that's a bit idealistic. I think people very much cared about
the visuals back then, same as today. Certainly by the time of
Wizardry IV, we were well into the console-wars --"Genesis does what
Nintendon't!" and all that-- and that was all about graphics. Sure,
there has always been a contingent that have ardently declared "It's
all about the gameplay" but the public at large has almost always
rewarded the better looking games.

Infocom was incredibly late to the party with adding visuals. By the
time they finally started -with games like "Arthur: Quest for
Excalibur", "Quarterstaff", "Journey, "Shogun" and "Zork Zero" -- the
text-based Interactive Fiction genre was all but dead. There were a
few hold-outs --Legend and Magnetic Scrolls kept at it for a few more
years-- but they'd had graphics in their games from the start. 

Infocom did better with its non-text games ("The Crescent Hawks
Revenge", "Mines of Titan") but it was obviously genres they were not
skilled in, and their games always felt dated in comparison to their
contemporaries. That, combined with their lack of focus on games
(Infocom was betting big on creating a relational database) and their
ongoing financial issues (because people didn't want to buy games
without pretty graphics) pretty much sealed their fate.