Ciekawostki fabularne od Daniela Cabuco

Daniel Cabuco był dyrektorem artystycznym soul reaver'ów i defiance, a ostatnio na swojej stronie ujawnił kilka ciekawostek z czasów prac nad legacy of kain.

źródło informacji: [link widoczny dla zalogowanych]

Zacznijmy może od tego co ma do powiedzenia na temat Blood Omena 2.

Cytat:

Well BO2 was a completely different team, and they had a lot of their own ideas about the direction they wanted to go. I had a few friends on that team, so I can only say that I wish we'd worked more closely together and collaborated. But even in the best environments, you'll have people who want to make their own statements and go their own way. There was a lot of people who didn't quite get Soul Reaver at Crystal and Eidos. The higher ups wanted more overtly sexual elements with a simpler story and I think that had a lot of influence on BO2. (Additionally Steve Ross had his own style and that had a heavy influence on BO2.) Marketing guys just wanted an easy, marketable design. (Like Doc Martens on Raziel.. *SHUDDER*) SR was a delicate balance of sensibilities, and it was difficult enough for our team to stay on task, so there was a lot of divergence.

Cytat:

SR didn't have any influence on BO2. They had creative autonomy. I did raise a few facts when talking to their artists and designers (Uh.. hey.. Vorador's dead you know.. why do you have him in the beginning of the game?) But by and large the most we could do was insure consistency with things like the Reaver. I think that the lack of collaboration between teams ultimately hurt us both, and is pretty evident in the final product(s).

Wiedzieliśmy od dawna, że BO2 było robione przez inny zespół niż trylogia Raziela (SR1,SR2,DEF). Zresztą każdy kto zagrał we wszystkie części zauważył różnice stylu, nie tylko w grafice ale i fabule. Teraz dowiadujemy się, że współpracy pomiędzy tymi dwoma zespołami było mniej niż ktokolwiek mógł przypuszczać. Team od BO2 pofolgował sobie zupełnie i miał w głębokim poważaniu pozostałe części sagi. Nie znaczy to że BO2 było jakąś straszną grą, bo musicie przyznać, że miało swoje dobre momenty, ale wszystkie te dziury fabularne i niekonsekwencje w charakterze bohaterów zawdzięczamy właśnie tej części. Kain był cokolwiek niedojrzały i porywczy, nawet w stosunku do BO1, a o SR'ach nie wspominając. Sarafan Lord zaskakująco jednowymiarowy jak na LoK'a. A Vorador nagle stał się dobrym rewolucjonistą, może to śmierć go tak zmieniła. A skoro już jestem przy śmierci Voradora...

Planu widać nie było żadnego. Team od BO2 chciał Voradora, więc go umieścił w grze nie przejmując się, że ten nie żyje. Natomiast pogodzenie tego faktu z przyjętym kanonem zrzucono na barki zespołu od SR'ów.

Cytat:

BO2's contradictions were thrown 'over the fence' for the SR team to figure out. It made a lot of our storyline stuff hard to reconcile. Personally I resented it, but damn if Amy didn't come through and tie it all together. The ending of SR2 with Kain's new memories, the Hylden, etc.. she just did an amazing job considering the huge amount of crap she had to resolve. Defiance was meant to resolve Umah and Vorador. I took it as a personal challenge to make Umah alluring and less.. endowed. Hence my original concept of her with the hoodie and mysterious eyes. (Vorador has a thing for mysterious eyes)

Sprawa Voradora miała być rozwiązana już w Defiance, czego domyślaliśmy się po odkryciach archeologicznych przeprowadzonych w internecie przez Divine Shadow'a i Ben Lincolna'a (The Lost Worlds). Jednak pierwotnie chyba wszyscy myśleliśmy, że to Kain miał dokonać rezurekcji zielonego wampira, tymczasem Daniel Cabuco ujawnia inne plany.

Cytat:

I think when Raziel visits Vorador after he is beheaded, your job is to go to the statute holding his head, retrieve it, and bring it to his body. Much the same as the way Janos was resurrected, Raz would help raise Vorador. Umah was the mission giver and as a reward would be turned into a vampire.
We had to do a lot of reconciliation with BO2... and had to cut it for time. (also, the fact that Raz would rez both Vorador AND Janos seemed.. redundant)

It's important to remember one thing: Defiance was a part of the SR trilogy with Raziel as the hero. It wasn't about giving equal screen time to Kain.. He already stole a ton of spotlight with his few chapters.
I don't think BO2 Kain would have been good because then Vorador would 'owe Kain one' so to speak.
Kain did have a mission in Vorador's mansion but I think it was to meet living Vorador. We wanted to have Kain be able to summon him afterwards with the ring. Vorador seeing how powerful Kain had become would be distrustful.. And would pass that to his clan (ie Umah)

Raziel had to resurrect Vorador to show that A) he had he power of 'jump starting' bodies with his power and B) needed something important from him to find Janos. It was all really to reconcile BO2. (and there was a lot of.. reconciling.. to do)

That said, elder Kain rezzing him would have been cool too. There'd be a cool smackdown talk there.

Czyli, pierwotnie planowano, że to Raziel z pomocą Umah (nie podejmuję się odmieniać jej imienia przez przypadki... Razz

) miał wskrzesić Voradora. Zgadzam się jednak, że było by to trochę powtórzenie wątku z ożywieniem Janosa. Nie mniej było by to lepsze niż nic. Ładnie by również uzupełniło historię Umah i może uczyniło ją ciekawszą postacią.

Uzupełnianie dziur fabularnych po BO2 nie miało się tylko ograniczyć do Defiance. Dowiadujemy się nowych szczegółów skasowanego projektu Dark Prophecy.

Cytat:

We had a ton of reconciliation to do. We were going to put a lot in DP.. but didn't get the chance. The Hylden Lord, having the Soul Reaver for a time, could change history if he could get it in proximity of another Reaver.. or Raziel. Think about that motivation for a second, and you'll see how powerful the Hylden Lord's ambition was. But we didn't get a chance to really explore it further.

Cytat:

Ritual did a great job trying to make Dark Prophecy into a Kain game. They flew myself, Richard Lemarchand, and Jen Fernandez in as consultants. I really liked working with these guys. Ultimately it's hard to know exactly why it didn't go forward.. politics, economics, or what have you. They did take the art style into a more 'heavy metal' direction, with I tried to steer them away from when it came to the original SR time. It was more City of Lost Children/Lost Steampunk kind of a look. Much of the game would have taken place in the Hylden Realm anyway, so their style worked really well for that.

Cytat:

Dark Prophecy would have been cool.. We had a version of Kain that linked BO2 with SR.. The thought was to either play Kain in this Era, or use it as part of his disguise, which would fade in direct sunlight. There was a lot of back and forth on the story but either one would have been cool. I loved this desingn for Kain too.. One thought was to have Elder Kain in the Hylden Realm, and Young Kain in the material realm, playing different chapters... Even having Kain 'help out' his other self from the shadows, taking out heavy foes that would have outmatched his younger self. (And get this.. getting caught in a Moebius time trap that put him on the field facing his younger self from BO1.. He'd have to 'throw the fight' and dissipate.. but it would have been cool to see.. and not before sending some hell Moebius' way before he left) We had things like summoning Vorador, or Jumping between Demon/Hylden realms too.

o Hyldenach:

Cytat:

They would show that even the Hylden weren't as one dimensional as you think. They went through a lot of horrible pain and disfigurement in their dimension. That would be enough to drive the most noble soul mad. But they also committed their share of atrocities.. that's why there was a huge war. (And Murals! Propaganda is important) But in DP we were going to go to the Hylden realm and you could see how it affected them.. and how they were using their magic and glyph technology to keep the influences 'at bay'

o Hylden Realm:

Cytat:

The Hylden Realm is a demonic dimension that warps and distorts reality with chaotic energy. The Hyden tried and succeeded in carving out a niche that left a few of them unaltered. Using the Glyph network, they created order out of Chaos, even subjugating the native creatures there.. but it was very limited and at great cost. Eventually even their great magics would succumb to the demon dimension and warp. The Nexus stone and device were all part of their attempts to come over. The Demon Realm is not a mirror copy of the Material though, it just touches on it in certain 'weak points' like Avernus. It's not like the Spectral Realm.. it has its own areas, too and time passes differently there as well.

Czyli DP miało w dużej mierze rozgrywać się w Hylden Realm. Na pewno rzuciło by to wiele nowego światła na Hyldenów i ich technologię Glyph. A przemieszczanie się między wymiarem materialnym a demonicznym zapewne miało nam wynagrodzić brak Spectral'a spowodowany nieodżałowaną ( Twisted Evil

) stratą Raziela.

Intrygujący jest również pomysł z odtworzeniem walki dwóch Kain'ów z BO1. Nie pamiętam czy było kiedykolwiek wyjaśnione czy ten drugi Kain z tej walki to była tylko jakaś iluzja Moebiusa czy rzeczywiście prawdziwy Kain z innych czasów. Stary Kain zmuszony poddać walkę, chciałbym to zobaczyć (plus bonusowo okazja do ponownego ubicia Moebiusa Twisted Evil

).

To jeszcze trochę informacji z innej beczki.

o zakończeniu Defiance i Elderze:

Cytat:

Hmmm.. I don't think there was anything deleted out of the end of Defiance. It wrapped up the way it was supposed to: Raziel's cycle was complete, Kain was given a chance at hope, and the Elder God, though defeated, was set up to be an adversary in the next game. Except.. there was no next game. LOL. If Kain were to ever defeat the Elder God, I am sure it would require the restoration of the pillars and somehow 'pinning him down' before finishing him off with some Epic use of the Soul Reaver. It could be a level or the intent of a whole game to beat him, involving multiple locations where you track him down and destroy key areas that he dwells in or uses as anchors to keep himself in our world. In any case it shouldn't be a single encounter or small thing to beat him...

Cytat:

The Elder God is a constant. A DemiUrge, or false god, that convinced the Vampires to worship him. I don't think we need to try and lay out his motivations.. that would just make him less epic of an enemy.

Dobrze by było gdybyśmy mieli szansę pozbyć się tej ośmiornicy raz na zawsze. Teraz na to małe szanse.

o przywróceniu równowagi w Nosgoth:

Cytat:

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about Kain going back to SR1. I vaguely remember something about Kain going to the future SR1, using the blade to purify the pillars then going back to Pre-BO1 era time to leave the Soul Reaver at the base of the pillars. (For William the Just or Moebius to find) This was a very loose set of ideas, and we it wasn't so much deleted content as a rough idea we didn't have time to implement. By the time we got to the end of the game, we wanted to leave it open ended so it could help set up the next one. (See how that turned out.. )

Czyli zgodnie z domysłami, to Kain miał zostawić w przeszłości miecz by później mógł on trafić w ręce jego młodszej wersji. Przynajmniej taki był ogólny pomysł.

o Janosie:

Cytat:

Janos was left open to redemption or destruction. We hadn't planned on deciding his fate until next game. A lot of ideas were batted around, but we wanted to introduce new enemies. DP had to do with the Hylden realm so his escape might have been seen into that.

Jestem pewny, że skoro duża część DP miała mieć miejsce w wymiarze demonów, to spotkanie Janosa było nieuniknione.

o Razielu:

Cytat:

As I mentioned earlier, the SR trilogy wrapped up Raziel's story. As much as we all loved him, we wanted to either refocus on Kain, or some new hero. I think we had proved we could make compelling new characters. Wink

We at CD were really happy to wrap up Raziel's story line and focus on someone new. Smile

Even after Amy left, we wanted to preserve that part of the legacy.

sorry fani Raziela, on odszedł i nie wróci... Razz

Mój Boże

Serce się kraje, gdy się to czyta. To mogła być cudowna gra z bardzo ciekawymi mechanizmami rozgrywki. I może w końcu zakończyłaby tę serię w godny sposób. A tak... chlip Sad

Straszne, absolutnie straszne. Tak to jest, gdy pieniądze wchodzą na drogę kreatywności...

Horror. Horror.

Dawno tam nie wchodziłem i trzeba przyznać, że sporo tego przyszło. Aha, Daniel gdzieś wspomniał o subtelnej, empatycznej komunikacji pomiędzy Razielem w mieczu a Kainem. Nie takie typowe gadanie, a bardziej przeczucie. Oprócz tego rzucenie nieco światła na relacje pomiędzy Starożytnymi a Ludźmi (niezbyt przyjazne).

[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]

Nie wiem czy już o tym wspominałem, ale znalazło się też wyjaśnienie tajemnicy Kostura Moebiusa.