Baldur’s Gate dev: “Games are often dumbed down to Chimp Factor Five”
James Haresign August 30, 2012 - 1:41 pmNews: Discussing their Enhanced Edition, Trent Oster reveals he doesn’t believe in changing the fundamentals of Baldur’s Gate in order to broaden its appeal as “the game industry in general doesn’t give enough credit to gamers.”
There was a rather big AMA (Ask Me Anything) session on Reddit recently, but while everyone was chatting to President Obama, Overhaul Games also opened their doors to any questions people had. During which someone asked if Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition would change any of the game’s mechanics in order to make it friendlier to modern game audience. To which Trent Oster answered with a resounding NO!
Actually he said way more than just a no, he made it quite clear that he felt gamers were underestimated by the industry at large. “I think the game industry in general doesn’t give enough credit to gamers. Games are often dumbed down to ‘Chimp Factor Five’ as a means to broaden the appeal. We’re taking the opposite approach and ‘Showing the math’ as it were. We’re trying to show you how your Armor class is calculated and how your THAC0 (To hit armor class zero) is arrived at. The core mechanics are unchanged and this will somewhat hurt the accessibility of the game.”
He further clarifies that they’ve “added the calculations which are used for AC, HP, THAC0 and weapon damage to the sheet.” and Philip Daigle, producer, adds: “We’re going to try and give the player more information to explain why they can’t equip X or use Y. The information is already present in the game, but just not presented to the player in a cohesive way.”
Trust me, THAC0 is an absolute pain in the arse too.
