300: Adventuring in the World of Mundane Magic

[Andy Chalk]

I have to take issue with this. It exerted a bigger influence than you might think. Maybe not in the realm of world building, but mechanically and design wise it was an influence on two major series. The combat was real time tactical that could be paused with the space bar to issue new commands without worrying about the party being killed. That system was later included in Baldur's Gate. Also Todd Howard of The Elder Scrolls fame, cited it as an influence on the first game: Arena. And from the open world direction and choose your own path nature of the game you can see how it influenced the direction of that game. Both of these games would go on to dictate the direction for the majority of the western RPGs.

Where did Howard say this? All I've been able to dig up (in an admittedly half-assed couple minutes of searching) are two identical, unattributed lines on Wiki and Answers.com. I'm honestly curious because I'd like to see just much credit he gives it. The only obvious design link between Darklands and Arena I can see is the sandbox environment, which I would say is more of a similarity than an influence.

Same thing with Baldur's Gate, really. If Darklands had been a truly influential title, it wouldn't have taken six years for another well-known RPG with a similar combat mechanic to crop up. I think more likely what you're seeing are similarities here and there that are naturally going to happen in games of the same genre, and even if I'm wrong and somebody at Bethsoft/BioWare said, "Hey, you guys remember that awesome Darklands game? Let's use that!" the "influence" I was talking about was more thematic than mechanical. History is packed with so many eras that could be "fantasized" and made into great RPGs, so why hasn't it happened? Why are we stuck in the rut of familiar (and generic) fantasy realms for our games? Darklands could have, and if there was any justice in the universe would have, had an impact on that attitude, but it didn't, except maybe to convince designers that "realistic" RPGs aren't the way to go.

 

[Andy Chalk]

I don't think the game was played enough by this or other reviewers, as only at the start is it really mostly fed-ex quests.

Oh, I played my fair share, believe me. And it's been awhile, but repetition in both quests and combat encounters were, as far as I'm concerned, one of the game's biggest failings. It's an inherent risk in any game that relies on procedurally-generated content; Daggerfall suffered from the same issue.

I was a big Microprose fan back in the day too, although primarily for sims. Put a lot of hours into Gunship and F19. It was a sad day when it finally folded.

You'll be pleased to hear a team is being put together to make a Darklands style game called "The Darklands" by using the Oblivion construction set and doing a complete conversion. Most of the team are steeped in Darklands Lore, so I have strong hopes for it. Just go to TheDarklands.com to see the latest and leave a note of encouragement!

This does please me, very much. The fact that there have been two status updates since February 2010, on the other hand, is not-so-encouraging.

 

[TheGameCritique]

For Elder Scrolls: Arena influence
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/01/13/road-to-skyrim-the-todd-howard-interview.aspx

second video clip around the 50 second mark he starts listing the games that influenced it once it shed the gladiator combat genre and became an RPG.

As for Baldur's Gate, I will admit that it is conjecture, but from what little I've been able to gather in some research I was conducting for an article. The six year span between the two games was a dead era for the CRPG. A glut of bad games and old franchises taking so long to come out with their next installment(Wizardry/Ultima)caused a lot of people to call the genre dead. It wasn't until Diablo and then a year later with Fallout did people start to think differently. Baldur's Gate was the final nail in coffin for that kind of talk.

There is very little literature about BG or PC RPGs at that time, but what I found was the hint that Black Isle consulted a wide variety of RPGs that had come before it to help shape their direction. Darklands is the only example of pause/tactical gameplay prior to Baldur's Gate I could find. You call it similarities, but it's too much of coincidence they didn't come across it at some point during their research.

And yes I understand you were referring to the world building aspects of the game as being more influential and not mechanical. I think that has to do with Microprose shying away from the RPG genre after that. Their company had an ethos of historical research that most other companies don't have. They'd rather make up something that meticulously research a time period for inspiration. I think it's the time and willingness to do the research that is the biggest barrier. Also, people make what they know and more people know fantasy rather than history.