Brent Knowles Video Interview – Matt Chat

Brent Knowles, a writer and video game designer who you may know for his work on such BioWare titles like Baldur’s Gate II, Neverwinter Nights, and Dragon Age: Origins, joined Matt Barton for the latest episode of his Matt Chat show. The resulting mega-interview is over two hours long and covers a broad range of topics including the games Brent worked on, plenty of stories from his time at BioWare, a variety of cRPG design issues, and much more. Have a look:

This episode features a mega-interview with Brent Knowles, a 10-year veteran of BioWare and game design expert. In this 2+ hour interview, we cover Brent’s games (Baldur’s Gate II, Neverwinter Nights, and Dragon Age: Origins) and get his insights on a range of CRPG design issues, machine learning, and so much more:

• Why CRPGs should let you control a 6-person party!
• The benefits of small vs. large development teams
• Why CRPGs should be about balance, with no one element (combat, story, characters, etc.) standing out.
• Why AD&D 2nd edition was tough to implement and the advantages of 5e
• Why you might want to reconsider having a voice actor for your player character
• Why Neverwinter Nights Toolset is still better than Unity or other tools for prototyping a modern CRPG
• Are we just getting too old to appreciate modern triple-A CRPGs?