Tigranes

I'd have plopped down for Imperium Romanum if it weren't for the fact that I have no credit card, and I haven't read up about the game yet. Mass Effect is also tempting me, but, well, I probably will regret the $.

It was a pretty good year in terms of how much ambition there was and how many games were released... at least, good, if you are realistic. I'm just happy that we got an Obsidian release (SOZ); we also got a lot of info on Diablo III, Dragon Age and the like. Just got to say, the amount of slobbering World of Goo is getting from RPS and the like is ridiculous, it was a delightful game and a wonderful achievement for an indie game, but it's nothing you can go back to and I think they've just got carried away. Full credit to the creators though, for a great game nonetheless. And I'm curious as to why LittleBigPlanet got so little praise, not having tried it myself. Was it mediocre?

I like the Gods' relationship to the world, that's an easily understandable 'setting hook' - very reminiscent of some Oriental traditions as well. Mixes very well with the low-combat low-magic approach as well. Anyway, haemorrhaging my work productivity, here's a little synopsis for what I'm thinking of: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In Brief -> A world where small, isolated pockets of civilisation exist surrounded by a hostile wilderness, developing wildly different societies -> Gameplay focus on a small number of tactical, set-piece combat, 'rogue' quests (recon, assassination, sabotage...) and some classic dungeoneering -> A wanderer making his/her way in the world and interacting with different societies, rather than an epic save-the-world story Setting Nature is a harsh mistress, and civilisation has developed as small, isolated settlements, each one strongly and uniquely defined by its local conditions in that isolation, and always in conflict and interaction with the wilderness surrounding it. Sort of like the Greek peninsula of ancient times on drugs, the harsh, unpredictable terrain, the scarcity of arable land or open spaces and a proliferation of wild animals and hostile creatures have prevented the development of nations (or even interconnected regions) or permanent trade/communuication in most areas of the world. A settlement is typically small-to-medium sized, quite extensively developed in wildly different ways - having only infrequent and vague contact with each other. Such a setting is designed to explore how societies can develop very different social norms, and how human(oid) attempts to push back the boundaries and transcend their predicament is ultimately futile (no environmentalist commentary, though). In other ways, the setting can be understood as "FR Except For...". Some classes and races are represented; the others are modified or condensed; a few are cut altogether. Orcs, significantly, are very much modified to be less an indulgent and nonsensical "GRAGH HATE KILL" and more of a practical race who are short-sighted but sharp in judgment, reasonably articulate and skilled at engineering, and quite scheming. They are the 'other' civilised race, apart from the humans. Gameplay Gameplay, as you can guess, is split between wilderness exploration and urbaneering (gonna keep using that ). The first module I will try and keep small, with just one town and a few outlying areas, just so I get something done. The 'main story' is not really the big deal - it's just enough to push you into the world and then encourage you to look around, a la FO / TES. The player will generally encounter investigation / sabotage / assassination / types of quests inside the town, while the wilderness areas will often offer a small number of 'dungeons' and 'places of interest'. Combat... basically, five pre-arranged battles that makes sense rather than a hundred "spawn 5 CR-2 creatures here". The emphasis is on making enemy parties and groups think and behave in ways the player would. E.g. ambushed by a band of mercenaries? It makes sense that some archers would hide in the bushes, as opposed to just spawning in front of you with the rest of the group. Two spellcasters? One specialises in Hold spells, the other on Direct Damage, and work together (no fancy scripting required, either). You are hunting down a rogue? Odds are that he's set up lots of traps and tricks for you, rather than waiting in a room at the end of a dungeon. Also, trying to make sure that each enemy type has a specific distinguishing feature; a wolf is not just a fast melee thing, its bite also wounds and bleeds, etc. Other differences include limiting the all-pervasive power of magic to temporary and direct effect spells (so no divination, no resurrection, and very few enchanted items of any sort); potions created by collecting herbs and having a druidic healer mix them, which, in the absence of clerics (no religion), take greater prominence; possibly some Fallout-y 'silent companions' who don't blab blab all day, but just follow and fight. So what's in the actual module? So the player, broke and uncommitted, reaches the brilliant provisional name of Alpha Town. Alpha Town is situated on the top of a cliff overlooking the sea, on the land-sided surrounded by thick forests that rise up onto foreboding mountain valleys. Without getting too verbose, it is characterised by a fledgling textile "industry" (only a few artisans and 'foragers' who collect the required material), courtsey of the variety of natural resources around it. So the 'merchant' sense is strong; the town's aesthetics is defined by textile works; and the player can get some nice rogue-ish quests from the rivalry. There's also an incentive to investigate the recent increase in goblin numbers in the area, leading to the previously unknown ruins of an earlier version of the settlement, and later efforts by the town to overcome its natural limit on development by colonising the wilderness. For now, though, its just a town and some outlying areas and quests, to show off the world and the concept. At the moment: It's very much a fledgling idea, only a few days old, so I think everything is rather liquid and gooey, its potential underutilised. I fear that for others there might not be much of a 'hook' to draw them into the setting, but I won't know until you guys have a look. I love people stabbing daggers in my tender heart, so fire away with crap that doesn't make sense.

No.1 source of PK'ing in Guild Wars: morons who won't vote to skip the crap cutscenes, and you need 100% vote to skip. Hey, hang on. You can't stereotype me! I'm a human! I have feelings-

Did more writing last night and got a concept outline for a small town. I'm still not really sure about the main quest, though, since the point isn't really having a big epic main story. I need to go to work soon, but I'll probably be able to work on it there and hopefully post something about the setting for GD and the like. Right now it's just pages and pages and I need a marketable summary thing. In terms of resource management, I'm promising myself no fancy cutscenes, no new art assets, no advanced scripting. Just a lot of toolset work and conversation writing, and a judicious use of already released hak pak assets. Story? Tell us. I'm going to do something like this, with a very short opening narrative (involving you, uh, being robbed and dumped in at sea by less than reputable sailors). People get something thorny up their rear if you try to shoehorn anyway, so why go for a headache and do a super fancy opening? Let them get into the game. Oh, not to worry. You're my sort, in that we start with a single cave and end up with a nearby town, a hidden fortress and sixteen wilderness areas. That's true, though I think if you could deal with NWN1 toolset, you can deal with NWN2, given time. They are different in some ways, but you learn to appreciate the power NWN2 gives you once you get past some of its silliness. Strangely, I've never found NWN2 toolset that bad. Corrupt files always kills you, as does the toolset programme itself on a bad computer, but it always made a lot of sense to me, and the scripting help is nice for people like me. edit: GD > *. I'll check them out one by one at work in a few hours.

Kinda of in-between Hurlshot. I agree with you that we're seeing some good games come out these days and we could well be looking at another great period of CRPGs. But I hardly think it's fair to say that it's simple nostalgia that sets the BIS days as 'golden'. They were really golden, in that we were seeing 2D at its peak and lots of beautiful hand-drawn environments; it also provided another dimension to the kind of games Ultima and Wizardry were; and they did have great story, great delivery, great presentation, great quality/quantity balance of content and great memorable moments. MOTB, and to a lesser extent NWN2 vanilla, are the big hits that made me really excited about new RPG releases again. Say what you like about the orc caves, the current public acrimony against NWN2 OC is a massive ret-con IMO, and it was a solid, if flawed, campaign packed full of the good stuff. If anything, it showed that we didn't have to continue down the track of Cinematic RPG-Lites that characterised the KOTOR/JE franchises.

I agree with Hurlshot. The entire ending sequence was crying out wannabe-hollywood and I think they were just mesmerised by the prospect of having the game end so 'dramatically'. And if the story made sense, it would have been fine, too.

Y'know, I always thought it was a pity we didn't have one of these. Lot of us have dabbled with NWN2 modding at some point, and I know Guard Dog, Volourn (?) and possibly others are actively building. And I'm about to have a crack again now I have a bit of time. Thought it'd be nice if we could post stuff about what we're up to, ask questions, post screenshots, etc, etc. If you're currently building or considering a mod talk about it here, and I'll build up a simple list on the main post with links if relevant. We've got a nice bunch of people here and I'm surprised we haven't got a mod coming out of the ranks yet, to be honest. So who's actually opened up the toolset in the past few months? I'm still fiddling around with the basic ideas for mine, but will post about it soon (probably prematurely, knowing me). You can leave the fondue on your way out. It's for a good cause. Some NWN2 Modding Links:

It is indeed, and this time I'm just going with "FR Derivative", so that I (and the player) can assume FRness, except for specific points in which it differs. I think that's the best way for me - I have no talent with art assets either so I can just use stock NWN2 stuff, but I don't have to read up on lore. I'm thinking I need to wait until my copy of SOZ gets here, which might be a while. Playing a couple of recent Hall of Fame mods to see what's out there. Christmas is pretty much over for me now, had a decent day with lots of people. No fancy stuff. I think my one gift is a kettle.

Yeah, I noticed over the years that we had a quite strong Korean connection here. Of course, I was about five months old during the Olympics, and stuck in NZ during the World Cup. So much for national identity. Everyone thinks I'm old.

The thing is, you can't continue after the main quest finishes. So you might as well.

Heh. Ended up writing 5,000 words of notes... not much incentive to work when it's Christmas Eve and people ar ethrowing candy all over the place, if they haven't left already. I'll post some stuff for you guys to devour when it's all a bit better organised. From my past abortive attempts I know that I often plan too many elaborate and complicated things when I'm a coding newb, so probably have to wield the axe a lot here. GD & DR - reading up on what you guys've been doing is what's rekindled me fire again, good on y'all. Unfortunately I'm not going to use FR (it's too hard to work with lore when you're so blind on it... and I use a very different conception of Orcs), but it will be fantasy. Just came back home on the stroke of midnight (Christmas here already, folks) and writing the parents' card. Woop.

Bump-mapped crates

It's Christmas Eve, my bosses are on holiday and so are my colleagues. So I'm spending the day writing notes for a possible NWN2 mod. (Yes, another abortive attempt 4tw. )

You caveman, my stepdad did the same thing last night In my translating jobs I see a fair amount of 'top brass' government folks who get issued temporary phones by the embassy while they're visiting. The thing is, Korean phones are basically the best in the world. They're basically friendly smiling little internet-enabled computers. Then they come here (NZ), and we give them little bricks with everything in English. Lots of phone troubles. These technologies seem to be on the rise, and I think soon we'll start seeing thesauruses and other things integrated into email, word, etc. It's going to lead to an interesting breakdown / streamlining of language use when you have twelve year olds who start picking words off a list to write their homework, and in normal use resort to an even more extreme sort of text language than now.

Annie left because Obsidian wouldn't let her put in the Crate Adventure minigames.

It should indeed be the case where you can pick up a highly acclaimed game off the shelf and be able to play it without being tempted to slaughter the devs. Not much pleasure in telling people that is not the case, really. We'll see how well they fix it up eventually, eh? Rhomal, you say a 38mb patch, but that's tiny by today's standards now (again, what the hell has happened here?). Blast those 500mb patches and all.

Fair enough. I think part of the reason we get so hung up about polish is that we've seen quite a few "nearly" greats in the last few years, where brilliance was just crying out for polish. Besides, I have little reason to suspect Obsidian traffics in crap just yet.

Looked around and I might have to settle for that new Button film. It makes me uneasy that Brad Pitt is in it, but the early bits with the old kid looked pretty nice. I assume not many have seen it yet, though, being unreleased.

Sent off a lot of envelopes for my grad school applications. Really has me on tenterhooks because the process is (as expected) so convoluted, and because it'll take so long for the stuff to get to US/Canada from here, I don't have a lot of second chances. Wouldn't it be nice if the whole thing screwed up because I forgot to seal something or whatnot. No time, no money, and nothing was right to get parents a proper christmas thingie, so I thought maybe I'll just have them go watch a movie and have a nice dinner together or something. But in this blasted city even the cinemas close down on the 25th (not that there's anything good out there).

I played through to the ending just to see what happened. It easily takes the cake for the worst ending sequence in my memory in any media form. They could have cut KOTOR2 before your final talk with Kreia and had a bunch of flying monkey aliens come and shoot up the place as an ending and it would still not be as *facepalm*. It's not even that it doesn't make sense. They tried to be 'epic', 'emotional' and 'cinematic', but the script is nonsense, the scene direction / pacing is horrible and the delivery is simply amateur. I thought I had stumbled onto a bad mod. Glug glug. I also feel sorry for Ron Perlman, even his voice can't save the day when the script is that bad. Loaded to a spot before that final sequence, and just wandering around to see what I've missed, but now I can wear Power Armour and am over level 15, it's not like I really need anything I find in the Wasteland, or the XP, and the combat ends in one-shot kills. I'll probably spend another couple of hours then hang this one up. Didn't keep hold of me anywhere as long as Oblivion (40 v. 60), but probably becasue it's smaller. It is a very much superior game (no Oblivion gates!), and there's a lot more scope for good modding to ramp up replayability here, IMO. Every settlement needs to be expanded a lot to make it more than two houses and a pea**** on the roadside, and I'm sure somebody out there will fix up that main quest. Right now it couldn't win a kindergarden fiction contest. Oh... and the 3D guys, when you're done, we can talk about "What is an RPG"!

Uh... so wouldn't it be even better if its primary flaw was addressed?

Why not imagine you are selling this to a publisher, and make a small 'test module'? Don't choose the very first bit of your campaign, because then you'll be tempted to put in all the exposition or fancy opening sequences or whatever. Your undead city, for instance, appears to require the least amount of complicated scripting (involved in, say, cities phasing out); why not make a prototype of that, just to see if you can get all the scripts working, write all the dialogue, make it look the way you want, and then have it actually play out inside the game. I never did finish a module (and I regret it now that I have much less time than in undergrad years), but I got the farthest when I stopped writing at a certain point and got down and said "i'll just make a couple of rooms". Man, I miss my orcs. The concept was that these orcs in a relatively barren area of (wherever) were actually quite well armed and decent with that kind of handiwork; they weren't "intelligent" per se on a smart-stupid slider, but while they were still illterate, violent and stupid, were quite articulate and knowledgible in their own way... with their own morals and logics that were somewhat along the archetypes of 'practical' or even 'Machiavellian', but not completely so. Meh. But yeah. You always did have a lot of good ideas, imo. Why not just make a room? It's actually really fun. If you go and make the whole thiing you'll probably end up remaking your earliest levels, to integrate what you've learnt throughout the process, so not too much pressure ot make it awesome now, either.

What's wrong with telling another story in an xpack?

That would make the "Doesn't look next gen enough" complaint almost lethal - Summer should be as far back as they can possibly push it.