Company News BioWare and Irrational Partner Up For Freedom Force

[Gromnir]

...

bioware got almost no chance of being "full fledge" publisher anytime soon.

bioware is a developer. they got lots of bodies and a building and a bunch o' computers.

publishing includes stuff such as production and packaging and distribution and last time we heard, bioware not got no factory or a fleet o' trucks or any real interest in handling those aspects of the business. sure, bio is in a better position than maybe any other independent developer to do what irrational tried to do... bio can attempt to self-publish, but that is a long way away from being a full-fledged publisher.

we suspect that the reason bio is so involved in attempting to create a market for downloadable software is that if such a thing catches on, they would not need a publisher to do all the mundane and very expensive stuff that publishers generally do.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Sol Invictus]

NCR has a fleet of cars. They can commission Chris Avellone to do the deliveries in post-apocalyptic California.

 

[bryce777]

Publishers dont actually print anything. They hire companies to burn the cds etc.

The only thing they do is handle money and marketing and relations with stores, and destroy games of course.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Gromnir proves his cluelessness by confusing publishers with manufacturers.

 

[bryce777]

You are completely fucking retarded if you think FFvTTR is an RPG on the level of Baldur's Gate.

Is it an RPG at all? I would not think so and they don't even bill it as such.

Everything is mission based. The actual gameplay is tactical arcadelike, though it had fun and humorous acting and writing.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Hell, I'd bill it Real Time Tactical game. RPG Lite, basically - like JA2 and Diablo. They're basically RPGs, since they spawned off the same base genre.

 

[MarFish]

Gromnir, RTFA

The publisher of Freedom Force is Irrational Games, a company rather small compared to BioWare. Their distributor is Vivendi Universal. It is possible to self publish (the link on the Bioware page goes to the Irrational Store, not to the Vivendi Universal Webpage) in addition to having a traditional publisher handling distribution.

Bioware already has a lot of power in areas that are traditionally under publisher control. They have a rather large and "award winning" (http://www.abbusinessawards.ab.ca/news/news.htm) marketing department, they have a dedicated internal QA department, etc. I don't think they'll do without a traditional publisher on any of their upcoming titles but they are obviously building online delivery capacities in addition to the standard to-the-shelf distribution handled by the publisher.

 

[MarFish]

You are completely fucking retarded if you think FFvTTR is an RPG on the level of Baldur's Gate.

Is it an RPG at all?

You are asking the question that makes up the mere existance of the Codex. If certain people could not claim that anything not matching their old school RPG definition is not an RPG, this site would collapse into the abyss.

Is it an "Codex approved" RPG would be the better question to ask.

 

[Gromnir]

exit is a fool... as usual. most of the major publishers handle the manufacturing stuff. the reason why developers is always bent over by publishers is 'cause of the manufacturing and distributing costs that the full fledged publishers cover. the capital required for those tasks is beyond any small developer to handle.

nobody would refer to irrational as a "full-fledged" publisher... a small developer can handle the sound and voice acting and maybe even some of the advertising, but they can't handle the big stuff that the PUBLISHERS do.

irrational weren't able to completely self-publish as they had hoped, but they took a good step in that direction.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[bryce777]

exit is a fool... as usual. most of the major publishers handle the manufacturing stuff. the reason why developers is always bent over by publishers is 'cause of the manufacturing and distributing costs that the full fledged publishers cover. the capital required for those tasks is beyond any small developer to handle.

nobody would refer to irrational as a "full-fledged" publisher... a small developer can handle the sound and voice acting and maybe even some of the advertising, but they can't handle the big stuff that the PUBLISHERS do.

irrational weren't able to completely self-publish as they had hoped, but they took a good step in that direction.

HA! Good Fun!

You can directly deal with the companies that copy the disks and make the boxes and whatnot. A few companies I worked with did just this.

 

[LlamaGod]

You are completely fucking retarded if you think FFvTTR is an RPG on the level of Baldur's Gate.

Is it an RPG at all?

You are asking the question that makes up the mere existance of the Codex. If certain people could not claim that anything not matching their old school RPG definition is not an RPG, this site would collapse into the abyss.

Is it an "Codex approved" RPG would be the better question to ask.

This would be the case with stuff like Dungeon Siege and stuff, but Freedom Force doesnt even have dialog options in the slightest. You have no decisions on how things go and there's not even items and inventory (To sorta weigh this in your mind, Baldur's Gate and Star Wolves have Dialog Options and fucking Dungeon Siege and Diablo atleast have phat lewts).

Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich is an RTS where you can change the stats and abilities of your units, at the end of each mission you alter them and then pick which units you want to take to the mission.

I really like the game, but it's nowhere near being an RPG and people are fooling themselves if they think they do.

So the only thing you the player can do in Freedom Force is:
Change stats and upgrade abilities
Move units around and choose their attacks
Do optional sub-objectives in the mission

Also, I dont know of many RPGs which offer 'Deathmatch' and 'Team Deathmatch' for multiplay options

 

[bryce777]

You are completely fucking retarded if you think FFvTTR is an RPG on the level of Baldur's Gate.

Is it an RPG at all?

You are asking the question that makes up the mere existance of the Codex. If certain people could not claim that anything not matching their old school RPG definition is not an RPG, this site would collapse into the abyss.

Is it an "Codex approved" RPG would be the better question to ask.

I dont see anything in it like an RPG.

I guess you take on a role, but you do that in any game you play.

There is no exploration. There is no puzzle solving(dead in all rpgs anyhow). It is also mission based.

The only rpg elements are that you can advance your skills/powers a little as you go.

Jagged Alliance is more RPG and it is not an RPG. JA 2 qualifies I would think because it has a lot more rpg elements and also a 'personal' character.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

A role-playing game (RPG) is a game in which each participant assumes the role of a character (such as an ogre or a futuristic spaceship captain) that can interact within the game's imaginary world.

Okay. Where in there does it say anything about dialogue choices or stats or phat lewt? Nowhere.

Yes, per this definition, just about any video game out there could be construed as an RPG. But that's not what I'm going for here and certainly not what I mean.

The FF series is RPG-lite, but it's still RPG. I consider JA2 to be RPG as well. Hell, I felt Far Cry did a pretty good job of emulating an RPG simply because of the different ways you could play it.

Sure, without dialogue choices the game becomes pretty linear. Doesn't mean it's not an RPG. Also, the FF series has phat lewt of a sort in the variety of powers and feats you can give your characters. You might say that's stretching it, and maybe it is, but I don't need phat lewt in a game to be able to call it an RPG. Character progression and a good deal of interactivity with the environment is really all it takes to make something an RPG.

Would I consider the FF series RPGs if they didn't have stats? Probably not. But then again, they probably wouldn't be covered here if that were the case.

 

[Volourn]

YAY! By Otaku's defintion, Super Mario Brothers is a role-playing game.


R00fles!

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

If you wish to look at it that way, then yes it could be. Behold the power of pretend.

 

[Astromarine]

don't use retarded definitions to prop up your points. A roleplaying game is not a game where you PLAY a role, it's a game where you in some capacity can *choose* the role you play. Goddamnit, if your whole point is based on a definition so broad that Quake fits in it, then your point just sucks.

 

[Fez]

Oh Lord, not this argument again...

 

[Vault Dweller]

last time we heard, bioware not got no factory ...

What about the Star Forge?

 

[Gromnir]

exit is a fool... as usual. most of the major publishers handle the manufacturing stuff. the reason why developers is always bent over by publishers is 'cause of the manufacturing and distributing costs that the full fledged publishers cover. the capital required for those tasks is beyond any small developer to handle.

nobody would refer to irrational as a "full-fledged" publisher... a small developer can handle the sound and voice acting and maybe even some of the advertising, but they can't handle the big stuff that the PUBLISHERS do.

irrational weren't able to completely self-publish as they had hoped, but they took a good step in that direction.

HA! Good Fun!

You can directly deal with the companies that copy the disks and make the boxes and whatnot. A few companies I worked with did just this.

and the people you deal with to accomplish those things is PUBLISHERS. if you cannot do on your own, you is not considered to be a "full-fledged" publisher. is like the difference 'tween being a writer and a publisher of books. the expensive stuff is not the writing of the book or the editing or even choosing cover art... the reason why writers need publishers is 'cause they cannot do the actual physical stuff related to mass production and distribution of books. is same with music and software and other such stuff.

sheesh.

...and the star forge were destroyed. might have been able to re-tool, but alas...

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Goddamnit, if your whole point is based on a definition so broad that Quake fits in it, then your point just sucks.

And if you can't understand the entire post to know that's not exactly what I was doing, then you suck. :D

 

[dipdipdip]

i dont really think it deserves the review scores its been getting

The game is much more deserving of the scores it's getting than shit like Champions of Norrath and the Dark Alliance games.

I love it, though, so whatever. It's the only pause 'n play game I've ever really liked.

 

[Spazmo]

One thing that bugged me about the Star Forge... okay, it can create starships, droids, equipment, weapons any damn thing from scratch... but where were the Sith getting all the manpower to use all this crap the Star Forge was crapping out? Surely even they couldn't be recruiting that fast?

 

[bryce777]

YAY! By Otaku's defintion, Super Mario Brothers is a role-playing game.


R00fles!

When you sit down at the computer and post here, aren't you taking on a role?

I guess we are all LARPers and didn't know it....

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Okay, for those who missed it, the reason I posted that definition was to point out that dialogue choices and phat lewt were not needed to make an RPG. Simply interaction is needed. If there's NPCs wandering around that you can talk to, isn't that interaction? So what if there's not dialogue choices or phat lewt.

 

[Volourn]

"When you sit down at the computer and post here, aren't you taking on a role?"

No. There's a reason why spend my time posting on the 'net. I am as hateful, mean, cruel, and idiotic in RL as I am here. It's that on the net I fit in with the rest of you losers.