Den bedstsælgende forfatter R.A. Salvatore fortæller om sine seneste bøger i Forgotten Realms-serien, deres forbindelser til Neverwinter, og 38 Studios' ulykkelige skæbne.
Vi fangede Salvatore til Neverwinter-festen på PAX East, hvor forfatteren sad i en behagelig lænestol mens gæster og journalister samlede sig i en rundkreds for at høre hvad han havde at sige. Vi holdte os lidt i baggrunden, men trådte til sidst ind og spurgte om vi måtte låne R.A. i ti minutter til et interview. Efter publikum havde spredt sig, dækkede vi en række emner - blandt andet hvordan det gik til, at hans seneste serie af bøger i Forgotten Realms-universet knytter sig til MMORPG'et fra Cryptic Studios.
"We'd really like your books to set the stage for the game, and I said "what does that mean?". And basically what it meant was you know, new game, they want a different look so basically blowing up a city... (laughs) So I finally get to destroy a city in the Forgotten Realms count me in."
Omkring hans samarbejde med 38 Studios og hans tidligere kollegaer der, siger Salvatore blandt andet:
"Curt Schilling gets beat up a lot, but he did something real magical with the people he brought together. He handselected that team and he brought in some of the best people ever and I give him a lot of credit for trying. He put himself, he put his own money on the line - I give him a lot of credit for that so no regrets from me. It is what it is, I'm sorry people got hurt, you know I got hurt, my sons got hurt, but as that fades the good parts come to the forefront."
"A lot of them seem to be landing on their feet with good companies or their own companies, so you know... It's journey right, everything we do here is a journey if you live your whole life think you just have to get to the goal you're not living your life you're just trying to get somewhere. You think you're going to some magic fairy land when you get to that goal. It's the journey, it's not the ending - the ending is death, dude."
"The IP is going to come up for sale. I hope somebody buys it. I hope they contact me and want me to come back and do some work with it. I think it's awesome, and I'm not just saying that cause I wrote it. The parts I wrote - great - but the work the team did... the love they poured into that expanding this hundreds and hundreds of pages in the wiki - just amazing stuff was coming out of that team."