I noticed that there have been a number of posts about a few things over the course of the last month. I will try to give you all as much information about these things that I can. Unfortunately due to Interplay being a public company and some of these things having to do with legal matters, it is hard for me to explain everything.

1) TORN being canceled. I have heard that a lot of people felt that this was done by a flippant “corporate” decision. So you all know, it was ultimately my decision to cancel TORN. This was approved by others at Interplay, but if it had not been a decision I was happy with, then TORN would not have been cancelled. To be somewhat frank with all of you, the development of the project was not going well. I am not talking about only a few things going badly on the project – I am talking about almost nothing going right on the project. I felt that the best decision was to get people off of it and onto other things. A lot of very talented people who work for BIS were working on TORN and I felt that a lot of them would have left or got burnt out if the project continuued. The best way I can explain it is that, while you may wish as hard as you can for something – it doesn’t always work out.

2) The Neverwinter Boards. Unfortunately I can not discuss the Neverwinter Boards coming down. I can say that Black Isle is still 100% behind Bioware and Neverwinter Nights, and will do whatever we can do to help with the project. Ultimately the Neverwinter boards would have been hosted by Bioware – this just happened on a faster timeline.

3) Project Announcements. I know people are worried about us not having announced anything recently. To at least put some of people’s fears to rest – we are working on things – a lot of which are very cool. However, either due to project timelines or approvals we are not in a position to talk about any of them yet. Believe me, as soon as we can talk about them, you will all hear all about them.

As always, please feel free to ask any further questions.

Why did BIS originally decide to go with TORN as a project? To create a non-branded game with a new engine and a very unusual game setting certainly had a strong element of risk. Return-wise, would it not have been better to stick with established brands such as Fallout or D&D?
You are right that it would probably have been safer to stick with D&D and Fallout. The hope was that we could have created our own Fantasy setting, and would have that as an option instead of D&D. Sometimes the same old thing gets boring to people, and with all the craziness with TSR being bought it seemed like a good plan as well.

Regarding the relationship with Bioware, what is your sense as to its current condition? Can the legal issues be worked out so that BIS and Bioware can continue its great collaborative partnership?
To be honest, I am not a part of what is going on with Bioware and Interplay, and I won’t be a part of whatever negotiations that take place. As for whether they can be worked out – I certainly hope that can, and I think they will.

I know you can’t announce any games yet, but can you give us some info as to their current development state? i.e., early, moderate, or nearly complete. That way, we can at least know when to start saving our bucks.
I would say that we have a project at the moderate stage, and another project at the nearly complete stage. And you’re not going to get anything else out of me on this one.

Why is F.U. only #3?????? Shouln’t he be #1, or at least #2?
Well, I would never presume to have a lower number than the all-powerful Overseer which is #2. Now here’s the spooky thing – there is no User #1.