Fantasy Author R.A. Salvatore Warns "This Is a Brutal Business"

aandrethegiant · August 2012

I'd like to know how Cryptic plans to "use" R.A. Salvatore in Neverwinter, if at all. Why no cross promotion?

Here's a glimpse of a new Wired interview:

Fantasy writer R.A. Salvatore has sold 17 million copies of books. He's written some 50 novels, 24 of which have been New York Times bestsellers.

But the journey from nobody to fantasy fame wasn't easy.

"Anyone out there who wants to be a writer should clearly recognize that this is a brutal business" Salvatore told me on the occasion of this week's release of Charon's Claw, the third book in Salvatore's Neverwinter Saga. He said publishing is a biz "where even incredibly talented people sometimes never make a living."

Read more at link!

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/08/r-a-salvatore/

aandrethegiant · August 2012

Read the top interview first, then this great interview from Diehard Gamefan.

http://diehardgamefan.com/2012/08/08/interview-with-r-a-salvatore-on-charons-claw-gaming-and-opportunites-missed/

Here's the question, and the shocking reply (at least in my book)...

DHGF: Cryptic Studio's Neverwinter game is looking like it's on track for year end release. Did they get you involved to fine tune a few things, or have you change anything in the latest book coming out since it's closer to release now?

RAS: No, no on the latter part, I mean. My work with that, really Gauntlgrym and Neverwinter were much more involved in where the game was gonna go, you know in setting up the area for the game. But they, actually someone at Cryptic, just reached out to me today and was asking, you know, if I'd be willing to go into a quest or do something with it, and I don't know how official that was because it wasn't a person in power, it was a friend of mine who's got a job there. But all that stuff would have to go through Wizards of the Coast and it's funny because that game had actually fallen off my radar.

Oh my God. PW? Cryptic? Marketing suits? Can we get official word on how possibly something like this could happen!? More importantly, what are ya gonna do about it? There is a plan (or at least someone's making phone calls in the marketing department), I hope.

singularitarian · August 2012

I don't follow. Apart from Demon Stone, Salvatore hasn't been involved in Forgotten Realms games. And I'm not sure I see why he ought to be.

aandrethegiant · August 2012

In addition to his novels, Salvatore wrote the story for the PS2, Xbox and PC video game Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone, working with the design team at Stormfront Studios. The game was published by Atari and was nominated for awards by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences and BAFTA.

CDS books commissioned him to edit a four book series based on the interactive online Everquest game.

He also wrote the bot chat lines for the Quake III bots.

R.A. Salvatore worked as Creative Director for 38 Studios, formerly named Green Monster Games, along with pitcher Curt Schilling and Spawn comic creator Todd McFarlane. He was responsible for the story and dialog for the game Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, which received praise for the storyline. On May 24, 2012, 38 Studios laid off all of its employees, including Salvatore, and the company was dissolved.

Sounds like someone who has gotten himself very involved in the literary/storytelling portion of the video game industry to me.

PW/Cryptic could turn the sad 38 Studios story slightly around if they picked up the services of RA and maybe a few other talents that haven't already been vetted by hungrier recruiters from other video game firms.

Not sure why PW/Cryptic should vet RA? Well see there's this little book series he wrote, not sure you've heard of it, called Neverwinter, the latest installment of which that currently sits at the #4 spot on the NY Times best seller list....

~~

Looks like a huge missed opportunity so far, for PW/Cryptic, from my angle... from a PR as well as a creative design perspective.

qumi0 · August 2012

Personally, I'm not a big fan of Salvatore, would prefer to have in NWO Thomas Reid.

aandrethegiant · August 2012

Oh I can agree with that qumi0. Either author would be great in my opinion. Getting someone who's a known, intricate storyteller would be so unique in an MMO and potentially draw the attention of millions, not to mention add authenticity to the various NPCs and story archs we'll see in-game.

astazia · August 2012

aandrethegiant wrote: »

PW/Cryptic could turn the sad 38 Studios story slightly around if they picked up the services of RA and maybe a few other talents that haven't already been vetted by hungrier recruiters from other video game firms.

Too late. See Impossible Studios now under Epic. Already getting ready to release their first game.

ausdoerrt · August 2012

aandrethegiant wrote: »

In addition to his novels, Salvatore wrote the story for the PS2, Xbox and PC video game Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone, working with the design team at Stormfront Studios. The game was published by Atari and was nominated for awards by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences and BAFTA.

I dunno, if there's anything I can say about Demon Stone, it's all negative, including the 'meh' story. And the story of Amalur was also the low point of the game (writing was good, and setting was good, but the story was generic and boring).

stormdrag0n · August 2012

I always liked Salvatore, unlike a lot of authors the guy actually knows what it's like to work for a living and that transposes very well into some of his characters and plot lines. He is correct about it being a brutal business; I have two unpublished novels and a couple proposals that were "well liked" but still got passed over.

The Neverwinter books he has written give a solid foundation to the lore of the game, if the developers use that to their advantage the game should have a very solid believable feel to it.

I hope that PWE/Cryptic brings him in again.

gillrmn · August 2012

I am more into the game' story itself than any reference to ras's novels. The trailer for the official story was quite nice. Though I do agree the references to novels will bring in many fans of those novels, but it doesn't affect me much.

aandrethegiant · August 2012

gillrmn wrote: »

I am more into the game' story itself than any reference to ras's novels. The trailer for the official story was quite nice. Though I do agree the references to novels will bring in many fans of those novels, but it doesn't affect me much.

I'm the exact same way actually. My OP relates more to the marketing aspect rather than my personal wishes.

However, I really feel RA is the right man for the job to work on this project.

Picture R.A. emitting a single comment along the lines of "Imagine not only getting the chance to play in the same world as some of the characters in my books, but get to create new places and stories to relate to them/with them (a Foundry sell)."

That commentary alone could easily carry enough weight to earn a feature in a Sunday newspaper edition of the real print media, lead to interviews on cable/network news programs, etc. Great PR for his books as well as our game.

Sometimes in marketing you have to think out of the box to gain attention and have a smash hit on your hands.

zebular · August 2012

Would be awesome if they could get Ed Greenwood in on some story/quest lore also, since he is after all, the father of the Forgotten Realms. Also, he is my favorite author.

Check this out!

stormdrag0n · August 2012

I would love to see guest Module authors like Salvatore, Greenwood and Golden, having them DM such modules would be too much to ask for but still cool as hell.

aandrethegiant · August 2012

stormdrag0n wrote: »

I would love to see guest Module authors like Salvatore, Greenwood and Golden, having them DM such modules would be too much to ask for but still cool as hell.

Yep, just providing voice overs as a way to honor them, like Turbine made happen for Gary Gygax in Deleras series and Dave Arnesen's VON series in DDO.

singularitarian · August 2012

aandrethegiant wrote: »

In addition to his novels, Salvatore wrote the story for the PS2, Xbox and PC video game Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone, working with the design team at Stormfront Studios. The game was published by Atari and was nominated for awards by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences and BAFTA.

CDS books commissioned him to edit a four book series based on the interactive online Everquest game.

He also wrote the bot chat lines for the Quake III bots.

R.A. Salvatore worked as Creative Director for 38 Studios, formerly named Green Monster Games, along with pitcher Curt Schilling and Spawn comic creator Todd McFarlane. He was responsible for the story and dialog for the game Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, which received praise for the storyline. On May 24, 2012, 38 Studios laid off all of its employees, including Salvatore, and the company was dissolved.

Sounds like someone who has gotten himself very involved in the literary/storytelling portion of the video game industry to me.

PW/Cryptic could turn the sad 38 Studios story slightly around if they picked up the services of RA and maybe a few other talents that haven't already been vetted by hungrier recruiters from other video game firms.

Not sure why PW/Cryptic should vet RA? Well see there's this little book series he wrote, not sure you've heard of it, called Neverwinter, the latest installment of which that currently sits at the #4 spot on the NY Times best seller list.... ~~

Looks like a huge missed opportunity so far, for PW/Cryptic, from my angle... from a PR as well as a creative design perspective.

I, too, have seen his Wikipedia article.

I don't mean to belittle his ability as a writer or to suggest it couldn't extend to writing for games, that wasn't my point. It just seemed like you were treating as a loss something that was never gained.

Also, after the money that was no doubt invested in Star Trek Online's celebrity voice actors to very little effect, I'm admittedly scared of that kind of investment going to waste again. I don't suspect the move from Atari to Perfect World added enough to the budget to justify hiring R.A. Salvatore.

stormdrag0n wrote: »

I would love to see guest Module authors like Salvatore, Greenwood and Golden

That makes a lot more sense to me. Once the game is launched and turning a profit, that seems like a great idea.

aandrethegiant · August 2012

singularitarian wrote: »

Also, after the money that was no doubt invested in Star Trek Online's celebrity voice actors to very little effect, I'm admittedly scared of that kind of investment going to waste again.

LOL!! STO failed for many reasons. Hiring "celebrity voice actors" had nothing to do with it.

Basically this game went through roughly 10 years of being tossed and turned between different developers before release. When it finally got to Cryptic Studios it looked like it was finally going to get developed. Cryptic took their engine from a different game and just finished up work (about 2 years worth.

When the game finally went live it felt incomplete from day one. This is because when the game went live it did so with a PvP system that I cannot for the life of me ever remember being tested with a Klingon faction.

The Klingon faction went live with no missions (quests) at all. Cryptic pretended as if this was intended by constantly telling us that Klingons would level through Player vs Player content.

No end game. Even the end game on Federation felt sort of weak having nothing to do once you level cap other than PvP.

It wasn't until 4 months in that the Klingon content was released. Basically the content patches that came out ended up being content that people actually just expected to be available at launch.

Boring combat. In fantasy MMOs they can keep a combat system interesting by relying on procs, effects, rotations, buffs. debuffs.

STO didn't have that. It had two different combat systems, both of which were horribly boring (one more so than the other).

The most boring of the two was space combat. It was the same brainless button mash over and over. When the name of your title reads: Star Trek Online and the space combat sucks, your DONE. /Game over.

In the end you might say this game failed simply because it was not a very good game. Cryptic was under constant pressure to first, make a good game, and second, to make a game that Trekkies will enjoy. In the end Trekkies looked upon it and frowned as it missed the spirit of Star Trek. Once they lost the Trekkies, game was basically DOA.

I'm hoping Cryptic doesn't make the exact same mistake here.

aandrethegiant · August 2012

singularitarian wrote: »

It just seemed like you were treating as a loss something that was never gained.

Wanted to just focus in on this comment for a moment. Have you read http://kotaku.com/5846622/the-worlds-most-famous-dark-elf-carves-a-path-to-neverwinter

argoylet · August 2012

I think it's understandable that Salvatore is distancing himself from games and that NW hasn't been big in his thoughts. It's barely been two months since he likely discovered that he wouldn't be getting paid by Schilling or 38 studios for his work for them. Man has to pay the bills and the game industry isn't treating him well.

Fantasy Author R.A. Salvatore Warns "This Is a Brutal Business"

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