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RUNE response
by Marcus Yam, Jul 05, 1999 5:56pm PDTHey looks like our new comment system caught the eye of Mike Werckle of Human Head, currently working on Rune. He made a .plan update in regards to this post that I made the other day all about their goals for Rune.
There are companies out there that take a popular game and remake it with only cosmetic changes. Human Head is *not* one of those companies. With RUNE we are trying to push the envelope by exploring new modes of gameplay and expanding in new directions. Personally I liked Tomb Raider and Heretic2, but their major flaw was that the weapons were mostly ranged or area effects. I know that a lot of people, myself included, played Heretic2 using only the melee staff, which was uprgraded several times through the game. There was something very satisfying about running up to a creature and spinning around and slicing them into chunks. For me, the great lesson of Heretic2 is that First Person games are better for aiming ranged weapons, and Third Person games are better for Hand to Hand combat. It is with this wisdom that we are creating RUNE. We want to take that awesome feeling of power that we all experienced with the staff in Heretic2 and expand it into a robust combat system with many different kinds of weapons. In RUNE, the Viking RAGNAR *is* the weapon: Each weapon he picks up will have it's own special attack that will be refelcted in RAGNAR'S animation. RUNE isn't a "poke and run" type of game. The combat will contain a great deal of complexity, through a very simple set of controls.
Comments
I don\'t think you are talking out of your ass. It *is* a risk to make a 3D 3rd person game these days. A few have tried it in the past with marginal success, the obvious exception being Tomb Raider-- and no doubt that PSX sales helped that. But I am convinced that the poor sales in the past are not necessarily a result of a flaw in 3rd person games in general, but rather poor design choices, limited technology or resources, and/or poor marketing of specific games.
It may not seem this way to the public, but making games is very difficult. And companies like Core and Raven should be applauded for having the balls to push the envelope. With RUNE we are simply following in their footsteps, hoping to refine the genre a bit more and discover the combination of elements that will make it fun, marketable and sellable all at the same time.
We aren\'t going to back down just because others have failed in the past. And of course this is just all talk. RUNE will speak for itself when it is done... Thanks for your input!
-->Mike Werckle
Lead Animator
Human Head Studios
I don\'t think you are talking out of your ass. It *is* a risk to make a 3D 3rd person game these days. A few have tried it in the past with marginal success, the obvious exception being Tomb Raider-- and no doubt that PSX sales helped that. But I am convinced that the poor sales in the past are not necessarily a result of a flaw in 3rd person games in general, but rather poor design choices, limited technology or resources, and/or poor marketing of specific games.
It may not seem this way to the public, but making games is very difficult. And companies like Core and Raven should be applauded for having the balls to push the envelope. With RUNE we are simply following in their footsteps, hoping to refine the genre a bit more and discover the combination of elements that will make it fun, marketable and sellable all at the same time.
We aren\'t going to back down just because others have failed in the past. And of course this is just all talk. RUNE will speak for itself when it is done... Thanks for your input!
-->Mike Werckle
Lead Animator
Human Head Studios
So, was it 1st person? hmmm?
I honestly like the sound of RUNE, but PLEASE put in first person, at least as an option of viewing modes.
Maybe it\'s just me and I\'m talkin\' outta my ass here ;) I dunno, all I know is it seems as though 3rd person games historically don\'t perform as well (long term) as FPS games. Again, I might be talkin\' outta my ass here, so take with a hefty grain of salt.
- Z
Rune sounds like it will be a really cool game, IMHO any game that lets you
use a severed limb as a weapon has gotta be good :) If you guys can pull it off,
I guarantee that I\'ll buy the game :) Who is publishing the game?
As for finishing moves, the animations will change depending on what weapon you have, but if you were to do a jump and then attack with a certain axe for example, then that would change RAGNAR\'S attack into a more lethal blow.
Also, it\'s not a sure thing yet, but we are talking about having RAGNAR be able to stomp on corpse\'s skulls to crush them in death match...
-->Werckle
The control system will actually be simpler than HERETIC2 because we don\'t have any inventory aside from weapons, or any spells, etc. Other than basic movement and weapons management, we have attack, defend, use, and walk. And that\'s pretry much it.
We are designing what I like to call a \"context sensitive\" control system. What that means is that there will only be a standard set of buttons like UNREAL or HERETIC2, but that the character\'s motion will change intuitively based on the situation he is in. Pressing \"up\" will make the character jump when on land, swim up in the water, climb up a wall or a rope, etc. This isn\'t really a new concept, but rest assured that we are making every effort to keep it simple. The complexity will come from the intuitive combination of all the keys. \"Easy to learn, difficult to master.\"
As for the animations, all I can give you is my word that they will be 100% BAD ASS. My partner Jeff Dewitt actually animated a lot of the attacks for Corvus in HERETIC2 when he worked at Raven. And I animated a lot of the creatures and all of the bosses in HEXEN2, if you thought those were any good... ;)
Mike Werckle
Lead Animator
\"RUNE\"
Human Head Studios
mwerckle@humanhead.com
I\'ve always wanted a 3rd person game where you play a samuri type character with a bad ass sword, this game
sounds kinda close to that. words of advice (if any developers read this), the controls will make or break the game,
if you can\'t pull of a control system as good as or better than Heretic2\'s then don\'t bother releasing the game.
Another thing which I\'m sure is common sense, the player character is gonna be the focus of attention so the
animations on it better be 100% BAD ASS.