Pool of Radiance: Info from the Producer

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(Originally posted by Nazgul)

Garrett Graham (Producer, SSI) visited the official Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor message boards and answered a couple questions and interjected some comments:

Hi,
I'm going to try to address most of the points brought up here - hopefully this will be seen as help and won't end up being "gas thrown on the fire." Let me start by saying that, although this is my first post here, I have read every post on this board since late November (when I came on as Producer).

1) "Why aren't Wizards, Bards, Druids or Gnomes in the game?" This has actully been addressed many times on this board over the last year and a half. To recap: adding in those races would have cost a lot of money and made the game ship later. I've noticed that a lot of people seem skeptical of this, but really, first and foremost, we are a business and we don't have unlimited funds. Originally, the game didn't have Paladins, Monks or Halfling (models) either. When we made the decision to add them, it came with a hefty price tag and pushed back the release date. I can assure all of you, we are not deliberately trying to piss anyone off. We are simply trying to make the best game that we can, with a finite budget and timeline. With this in mind, Wizards were dropped because they are only minimally different than Sorcerers and we were trying to highlight the new 3E rules. Bards are are very similar to rogues, with some magical abilities and lots of people based skills (which don't get used much in a wilderness based adventure). A druid's specialities are summoning animals and shapechanging, both of which are very art intensive (art = $$$). We left these out because putting them in would have meant dropping something else from the game. None of these were easy decisions for the team and they knew at the time that there would be some negative reactions, but again, that was the reality they had to deal with. If Pool of Radiance does well, then we'll have lots more cash for any future titles that we do *cough* *hint* *hint*

2) "Do the Producers at SSI (Learning Company, Mattel Interactive, Game Studios) listen to what we're saying?" You betcha! I sit next to Chuck and Jon (when Jon was still here) and in the early days, they were on the board all the time answering questions and getting feedback - some of which they were able to act on. At this point, we can't make any major changes to the game. In fact, we are just about at the point where we lock down all the features and do nothing but bug-fixes. Still, I read everything that gets said here (both positive and negative) and I'll keep it in mind while I work on whatever game I end up on after Pool. Everything that gets said here matters to me and I do everything in my (limited) power to act on it.

3) "The Producers don't seem to spend much time on the boards..." Like I said, Chuck and I read everything that goes up here. When a question comes up that only we can answer, we do. But we don't get too many new questions, instead we get a lot of old ones: "What? no Wizard?!?!" I think the old-timers on the board do a great job of answering those questions (thanks guys!). I understand the pain of looking through old posts for answers, so from now on, when a newcomer asks some of the more common questions, and insists on an answer from the Producer (instead of using one of the excellent FAQs that you guys have made) I will bump this post to the top.

4) "Do you guys even play DnD?" Yep. I play twice a week in campaigns run by Chuck. I'll be starting my own campaign soon. In fact, we hired Chuck specifically to work on this game because of his DnD knowlege.

5) "The graphics in this game suck!" What?!? OK, maybe I'm biased, but IMHO our graphics blow the doors off of BGII (and Diablo II for that matter). This question left me dumbfounded.

In fact, let me say this: I think we are making a damned fine game. Stormfront has done a great job of capturing the feel of the PnP game, the graphics are top notch and I love the turn-based combat. We have a great story and a great setting. I don't believe for a second that we're putting out an inferior game. In case you were wondering, I've played BG, BGII and Icewind Dale and thoroughly enjoyed them all. Pool of Radiance will play differently than those games, but be just as good in my mind.

Nothing that I've written here should be taken in any way, shape or form as a flame or a direct insult to anyone.

Thanks,
Garrett Graham
Producer, Pool of Radiance