Interview of Julian Egelstaff (cont')

RG: It's interesting that you bring that up. There has been a rumour of Lone Wolf being transferred to the PC world. Do you think this is a good idea?

JE: Yes, absolutely. No, terrible idea. Well, a bit of both. :)

RG: How so?

JE: There are aspects of the story telling in the Lone Wolf books that rely on the fact it's told in book form. The prose medium is integral to the experience. But it's not the sole defining feature of the experience. So, if you translated, say, book one, into an adventure style first person computer game with RPG elements (à la Thief), then you'd obviously lose some of what makes the books we love what they are. However, I don't think you'd lose the whole thing, you wouldn't be throwing the baby out with the bath water. Although some folks would probably cry blasphemy--some always do--I think there would a ton to be gained through a PC conversion.

When I first played Thief: The Dark Project on the first level, I was prowling around, avoiding guards and trying to get up to the second level of the mansion to steal a sceptre. At one point, I came upon this open courtyard area, with balconies. Now, you have to understand that Thief is not your standard first person shooter game; it's the closest thing to a first person RPG I've ever seen. The entire game world in Thief is interactive, so wood will burn, heavy objects sink in water, other types of objects float. Arrows stick into wood, break when they hit stone, etc. The AI of the guards is excellent too, and they'll react appropriately if they find bodies you've hidden, and if they've heard you or seen you, and they run into other guards, they'll spread the word. The environment is really alive. It's incredibly cool.

So here I am in this courtyard, and I look up to the balconies and I see that the roof of one of the balconies is wooden. So I pull out a trusty rope arrow (an arrow which has a rope that unravels behind it) and I first shoot it up to the roof of the balcony, and the rope falls down and I'm able to climb to the second floor. VERY cool. So I'm sitting there in this game world, and I realize, this is just like being in a Lone Wolf book. It was just so amazing: there was a mission to accomplish, a fair bit of sneaking about and thought that had to go into achieving the objectives. Not a matter of just go in a blow everyone away, like Quake or some such game. It was a totally immersive interactive experience, where the world responded to my unique actions.

If that kind of responsive environment were created for a Lone Wolf PC game, then we could actually go to Holmgard or Varetta or Kazan-Oud or Helgedad and do all those crazy things we've wanted to all these years! It would be incredible. If the attention to detail were there in making the maps and levels and environments, then it would be a real renaissance--not just for Lone Wolf but for computer RPG's in general.

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