Horizons: Empire of Istaria Peek #6

RPG Vault has released the sixth installment to their ongoing “peek” feature for Tulga Games’ Horizons: Empire of Istaria, this time with author Peter S. Beagle discussing one of the quests he has written for the MMORPG.

This first quest has centered on an entirely domestic matter, an online variation of what used to be called a drawing room comedy – the possibility of an unlikely romantic misalliance between a Half-Giant and a Gnome. I spent a good many nights – and I mean nights – writing 11 different versions of the various NPCs’ dialogue for double sets of every situation, depending on whether the player keeps his word to disrupt the marriage or double-crosses the Half-Giant’s sour-tempered sister, who gave him the quest. It was fun to write, for all the exhaustion involved, but it lacked one crucial factor – at least, it’s crucial to every other game I see at the various conventions I’ve been going to lately. Action.