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Exclusive: Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone Q&A Feature
Derek dela Fuente
04/08/2004
From the creators of The Two Towers, we get the lowdown on Demon Stone…
Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone, which is scheduled for release in late 2004, is set in the popular Dungeons & Dragons world created by Wizards of the Coast and is being developed by Stormfront Studios. In the game the player directs a party of three characters - Fighter, Sorcerer and Rogue - switching control between characters on the fly. It will also feature the extraordinary talents of actors Patrick Stewart and Michael Clarke Duncan, who will lend their voices to two prominent roles in the video game which is already looking and sounding a real gem of a game.
Derek dela Fuente spoke with Don Daglow from Stormfront, who gave some extensive answers and comments to the questions put.
TVG: What were some of the key reasons for placing this game on console and are you not worried that console fans may not be that familiar with the Forgotten Realms brand?
Although D&D was on consoles in ancient times (starting with Intellivision D&D: Treasure of Tarmin in 1982⦠where I was the exec producer!) it has been a long time since a pure high-speed action D&D game was created expressly for console.
The whole idea of creating Demon Stone was to design a true deep-to-the-bone console game that would bring D&D and the Forgotten Realms to a broader audience. Some people will play it because itâs D&D, but others will play it because itâs an exciting, cinematic, engrossing, action game. In the process, weâll redefine their view of D&D.
TVG: For readers not au fait with this franchise / world â“ can you tell us what makes it so compelling and interesting â“ possibly unique?
D&D is a game that lives in the imagination of the player, and Forgotten Realms represents the richest, most developed world in that universe. Like the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings fictional worlds, the Forgotten Realms is a great setting for a wide range of games, from strategy to RPG, RTS to shooter.
The Forgotten Realms world has been around for over 20 years. It was originally created by Ed Greenwood, who built the overall foundation for the Realms and richly developed several of its regions.
Over time, Wizards of the Coast (the company that owns the D&D license) carefully managed the involvement of a wide range of additional game designers and development teams. When we started design work on the original Neverwinter Nights in 1989, we chose Neverwinter because of two things. First, Ed Greenwoodâs original vision of a northern city fed by a mysterious river that flowed with warm water through a cold landscape was a great home base. Secondly, it was one of those areas that neither Greenwood nor other designers had fleshed out in great detail, which meant that we would be the ones to add the richness to the world.
Now take that approach, broaden it and run the system for two decades. A wide range of highly experienced game designers and teams each has developed parts of the Forgotten Realms, all under the supervision of Wizards of the Coast to ensure adherence to the original vision.
The result: the Forgotten Realms is a huge world, incredibly deep and rich, all built on a consistent mythos and cultural roadmap. Thatâs what makes it unique and special⦠and engrossing for so many people whoâve discovered it.
TVG: Could you tell the readers about R.A. Salvatoreâs input into Demon Stone and the team creating the game?
Itâs very appropriate that this is the next question we discuss.
D&D and the Realms started as gaming systems, but from the very beginning of D&D people started writing stories and novels set in these worlds. Over time these books grew in popularity, and brought the Forgotten Realms to a much larger audience. People who might never play role-playing games waited anxiously for every novel in each series set in the Forgotten Realms world.
R.A. Salvatore, more than any other writer, is the person who brought the Realms to that new, broader audience. Heâs sold millions and millions of books set in the Realms, and personally has developed many of the most famous settings and characters in this world.
Like Salvatore, with Demon Stone we were trying to reach a new, broader audience. When Atari and Wizards of the Coast said he might be available, we jumped at the chance to collaborate with him.
I have to admit that we had a certain amount of worry about how that collaboration would work. Weâve worked with many famous athletes, writers, movie stars, etc. over the years. Most are fine people, but some can be egotistical and difficult⦠or speak through agents who are egotistical and difficult for them!
We neednât have worried. R.A. Salvatore is a gamer, and a great guy whoâs a pleasure to work with. In our first face-to-face meeting he didnât recite to us how the game should unfold. Instead he asked the leaders of the various creative crafts what THEIR hopes and dreams for the project were, taking notes about what they said. Only then did he start to select old characters and create new ones to populate our world. Only then did he pick the locations and the ongoing historical threads into which our story would be woven.
In the weeks after that kick-off meeting we often got phone calls from Salvatore that ran something like this: âYou know how you guys felt like you needed something more exciting to make the player want to go to the south to the areas we want to explore there? Well, what if we reverse the order of chapters 5 and 6, cut that whole scene in the desert that wasnât working anyway, and that way theyâll be able to taste the presence of the Demon Stone andâ¦â
You get the idea. Salvatore is a great collaborator, because he is a master of his craft, the creator of our world⦠and someone who involved our creative team fully in every step of the process.
TVG: What is the setting and background story to the game?
At the beginning of the game the three characters donât know each other, and they are three loners randomly thrown together in the midst of a raging battle. If you remember the biggest, most frenetic battle scene we did in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, this one has more enemies, more real estate, more variety, richer sound and music⦠and this is just the first level!
Before long our heroes have accidentally unleashed a great evil upon the world of the Forgotten Realms. They have to scramble and use every bit of their wits, strength and unique skills to halt the evil momentum that quickly builds around them and spreads destruction everywhere they go.
TVG: Turning what is a serious RPG franchise into an action focussed game must be a real challenge, so can you quantify the aspects of the Forgotten Realms that remain constant and how you go about developing the action elements to merge it in with the Universe? (Are there any rules you are working within?)
This was actually not as difficult as it might seem. We follow the D&D 3rd Edition rules, but almost all of the math and statistics are invisible to the player. Wizards of the Coast worked closely with us to make sure we remained faithful to the core gaming system as we did this. And it didnât hurt that weâve been designing both D&D games and high-energy console games for years.
One time we were on the phone with Wizards of the Coast asking permission to handle a complex âcombat mathâ issue a certain way, and they said âNo, absolutely not.â We thought a moment, proposed an alternate treatment, and were again told, âNo. No way.â This was very unlike the Wizards of the Coast weâd been dealing with, and we were a little stunned.
After a moment they said, âOf course, if you did it THIS way it would be easier for you than either of those ideas!â Their idea was cleaner and more direct than our original proposal, and their willingness to playfully âmess with our mindsâ for a minute underscores how comfortable the relationship became.
Although the statistics and math are not readily visible and the action happens in real time, this really is a D&D game. A race car goes 200 miles an hour on the track, but the engine that makes it all happen stays hidden beneath the hood. When you see an army of snake-like Yuan-ti surround the players in a massive battle in Demon Stone, all the math calculations âbelow the hoodâ still derive their balance and consistency from the gameâs D&D roots.
TVG: The player will control 3 characters. How do you switch characters, what are the skills of each, and does strategy play a part in the decision?
You can switch between Rannek the fighter, Illius the sorcerer and Zhai the rogue at virtually any time by pressing up, left or right on the D-Pad. The character you jumped to will instantly be under your control, and the gameâs AI will pick up where you left off with the prior character.
The classic example of a great way to use this continuity is to cast a sleep spell on a group of enemies with Illius. Once he begins his incantations you switch to Rannek or Zhai and wail on the enemies the moment the magic hits them. In some situations where there are shadows, you can use Zhaiâs stealth abilities to take out enemies from behind to thin out the ranks facing Rannek and Illius.
When we were designing the game we thought that people would tend to switch characters routinely to best respond to each game situation. Weâve found thatâs true in some battles, but many players develop a âfavouriteâ early in the game, and feature that character in their play style. They still switch on the fly between characters, but end up coming back to the one who feels most natural for them the first moment it makes sense.
Rannek is a big, beefy fighter, a survivor of the troll massacre at his home town of Nesme that left him scarred psychologically despite his physical strength. He is a loner out for revenge against those who slaughtered his friends and family, and in the game he will use that big sword to hew through anything and anyone who stands in the way of that goal.
Illius is a natural sorcerer born into a famous family of fighters⦠kind of like being the son of a WWE wrestler who comes home one day and tells mom and dad he wants to be a pharmacist. Disavowed by his family, Illius was taken under the wing of Khelben âBlackstaffâ Arunsen, one of the most powerful mages in the Realms, played in the game by Patrick Stewart. He specialises in many different kinds of magic, and is the only one of the three characters who can do a lot of damage to enemies at long range.
Zhai, the rogue, is half wood elf⦠but her other half is Drow, the evil underground elves so prominent in Salvatoreâs novels. Raised in a wood elf village, she is accustomed to being trusted by no one and avoided by everyone, and her cynical attitude means she gives as much as she takes in any encounter. Since she says different things in different game settings depending on who youâre controlling and other factors, you never quite know what sheâll say next⦠even when re-playing a level.
She has the ability to become invisible in shadows and perform sneak attacks, and is the only character in the party who can routinely kill enemies with a single blow. She is also the only one of the characters who can jump (both in combat and in exploration), and everything about her conveys boundless energy and athleticism.
TVG: What are some of the tasks and predominating actions that gamers will experience?
Thereâs a wide range of action in the game, so here are a few examples:
- Fight your way across a battlefield where two huge orc armies are illustrating the term, âwar of attritionâ. Oh, yeah, and thereâs that dragon that likes to char-broil elves.
- Explore a cavernous old dwarven mine whose new tenants arenât exactly abiding by the terms of the lease.
- Visit a lovely elven village where two demonic enemies drop by to play hacky-sack with fireballs.
- In the humid Jungles of Chult lie creatures of indescribable atrocity. They appear to blame you for this condition.
- Zhai has to use her stealth abilities to take out a series of sentries, some of whom are at rest beside a huge gong that they can use to summon high-level enemies in copious quantities.
- Control a gigantic magical Shield Guardian who can sweep the floor with hulking enemies eight guys at a time.
- Did I mention having to defeat the Avatar of an ancient evil god, who is about 50 feet tall, breathes fire, is impregnable to any weapon or spell in your repertoire, and has an army of poisonous Yuan-ti snake-men whose only goal is to turn the party into carpaccio?
TVG: What do you see as the most innovative aspect of the action focus, and would you summarise one event in the game that really captures the ethos and spirit of your vision?
The most conspicuous unique feature in the game is the ability to execute the switch-on-the-fly between the characters, sometimes multiple times within a single battle.
As for one event in the game that captures the spirit of our vision⦠The answer for that has to come from the characters, the story, the talent of the writers and the performances of the actors.
Thereâs a moment in the game when Rannek has the choice to take on the Troll King who destroyed everyone he knew and loved. In game terms itâs a major boss fight.
By the time you reach this part of the game, however, youâve experienced enough with Rannek that you understand WHY this is so important to him, and it becomes important to you, too.
There are no five minute speeches where he tears out his hair and chews on the carpet. We donât scroll sixteen pages of text across the screen describing his angst. But youâve seen one little action here, some snippet of dialogue there, a short cut scene at a crucial moment. You now know Rannek, and it makes the emotional context of that moment much more than just another boss fight.
The gameâs story doesnât hit you over the head, it just works its way into your heart. And that was our vision from the first day we started on this journey.
TVG: How many cast and enemies will the game throw up, and can you name two of the more diverse characters you will confront?
There are about 25 different enemies in the game, and youâll meet famous Realms characters like Khelben âBlackstaffâ Arunsen (whose voice part is performed by Patrick Stewart) and Drizzt DoâUrden, the dark elf who is the famous hero of so many of Salvatoreâs novels. You even get the chance to play Drizzt when he joins the party for a major battle.
Among your enemies are the Slaad Lord Ygorl, with the voice of Michael Clarke Duncan (star of The Green Mile) and the Githyanki General Cireka, performed in the Gith language by B.J. Ward (a cult star for her Klingon language performances in Star Trek.)
Iâve already name-dropped a number of enemies in our discussion, so Iâd summarise by saying some are old D&D favourites, others are new and making their debut. Some are borrowed from Salvatoreâs novels. But it will disappoint purists that we have enemies old, enemies new, enemies borrowed but no enemies that are blue.
TVG: Will Forgotten Realms fans be familiar with some of the settings? Can you tell us about them?
True to D&D, in Demon Stone we have dungeons and we have dragons, but most of the game occurs above ground, not below.
Demon Stone is set primarily in the lands of Vaasa and Damara, in the north-central area of the Forgotten Realms which has often been a setting for Salvatoreâs books.
We also travel to places as diverse as the Jungles of Chult in the southern tropics, the mountain waterfall-edged Temple of the Yuan-ti, and Mithral Hall, the dwarven stronghold of King Bruenor in the snowy north.
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