Editing Stonekeep (section)

===Budget and technology===
The earliest development of ''Stonekeep'' dated back in October 1988, discussed between Brian Fargo and Todd Camasta with the simple title "Dungeon Game".<ref name="SKDev">{{Cite news|url=http://www.interplay.com:80/games/stonekh2.html|title=The History of Stonekeep|access-date=2017-04-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19961220013233/http://www.interplay.com/games/stonekh2.html|archive-date=December 20, 1996|url-status=dead}}</ref> Producer [[Peter Oliphant]] and lead programmer Michael Quarles joined the company in 1990 and 1991, respectively. The game development was planned for a minimum period of nine months and a minimum budget of $50,000. However, because the initial stages of the game looked good, it exceeded nine months, lasting a total of five years.{{citation needed|date=March 2018}} ''Stonekeep''{{'}}s final cost was $5 million; its production crew had grown to 200 members by the time of the game's release.<ref name=retrogamer>{{cite journal | title=Cheap as Chips; ''Stonekeep'' | author=Jones, Darran | journal=[[Retro Gamer]] | issue=111 | date=2013 | page=28 }}</ref> The intro sequence was the most expensive part of the production, costing nearly half a million dollars to produce, which was ten times more than the initial budget for the entire project.

The initial story line was written by Oliphant, who also designed and programmed the graphics and [[artificial intelligence]] engine for the game. The project started out being called ''Brian's Dungeon'' (named after [[Brian Fargo]], the president of Interplay Entertainment at the time). Fargo came up with the final name, ''Stonekeep''.

The production took much longer than expected because of the rapid advancement of [[personal computer hardware]] at the time; specifically, PC [[Central processing unit|CPU]]s advancing from [[Intel 80386|80386]], to [[Intel 80486|80486]], to [[Pentium]]s in the years the game was being developed. Oliphant, who originally designed the game and was lead programmer, left the game as the project passed its fourth year in development. He felt his continued presence was resulting in the constant addition of [[feature creep]] and changes (he was a contractor, and had initially only signed up for a nine-month project). After he left, the design became finalized and the product was shipped one year later. Quarles, who was an Interplay employee, stayed as the game's producer and saw it through to the end.

The initial specification for the game included that it could ''not'' require a [[Hard disk drive|hard drive]] or a mouse, run on an 80286 CPU, use 640K, and run off [[floppy disk]]s. At the project's end, the game had been upgraded to ''requiring'' a mouse, a hard drive, a 386 CPU, and ran off [[CD-ROM]]. As a result, the engine had to be extensively modified throughout the production.

About three years into the project, Oliphant suggested to Fargo that the product be delivered on CD-ROM. Fargo rejected this idea at the time, citing the failure of previous Interplay CD-ROM projects that had gone this route. Oliphant suggested this after Fargo requested him to drop his percentage of [[royalties]] by half due to the high cost of production and goods to create the product, as it was at that time to be shipped on eight floppy disks. The cost of one CD was about the cost of one floppy disk, and the possibilities for eight floppy disks having problems is much greater than a single CD, so the solution seemed obvious to Oliphant. And, in fact, six months later Fargo changed his mind and made the same decision.