Llyranor

Romances, meh. Heh, in BG2, I was playing a wild mage - which I suspect had something to do with it. For some unknown reason, I was having a romance with Jaheira. Harper quests, etc. At some point during the game, she stopped pestering me \o/ *Eventually*, I noticed that my avatar looked a bit weird, so I checked my character sheet.... female??? It was a permanent effect that lasted until the end of TOB, and NOT something I had done deliberately. Never touched that gender-bender belt, either. Jaheira stopped talking to me Just a quick side-story. I haven't been impressed at all by romances in games. That being said, it has more to do with how they've been written. Poor writing will destroy any romance. There is a potential for good in-game romance, but I'm not seeing it so far. One of the female she-dudes in my NWN2 team tried to convince me to allow PC romances in the mod we're working on. Her full-time job for the mod would be to focus solely on romance stuff. It sounded like a good idea, and I had enough confidence in her to think she would do a good job. However: http://swforums.bioware.com/viewtopic.html...353916&forum=76 http://www.petalsandthorns.com/thorns/viewtopic.php?t=199 Crap like that quickly changed my mind. And thus the PC was turned into an asexual being with no libido. I'm having her work on romances for NPCs, that way fanpeople can dream all they want and I'll say "Yes, NPC X is so cool, too bad s/he hates you, BWAHAHAHAHAHA" We WILL have full-fledged PC romances, but the only recipient we'll cater to is a freaking rock. Yes, you can romance a freaking rock. "Oh rock, how wonderful it is to cuddle you, your soft and smooth texture reminds me of my homeland..... Unlike sand, which is so coarse and rough." "Oh rock, I love you..... Erm, no, I love you more..... Oh, don't be silly." "Of course this dress doesn't make you look fat, it's an optical illusion created by erosion.... I mean, of course you're not fat!" [Cuddle the rock.] [Fondle the rock.]

DMed NWN sessions = win.

I dare you guys to make this thread reach 10 pages before it gets locked

The only RTS games I'm looking forward to are Supreme Commander and Company of Heroes. This sounds like it might be a good title - just not my thing.

Meaningful consequences for your actions is a good thing. And fleshing out the ending is a VERY good thing. I've had enough of crappy endings. They leave dissatisfied and make you wonder what the point of playing the game was. Definitely flesh it out. A dying PC might work, but make it plausible - the last thing you want is to force it just because it's 'original'. In terms of story, we've come up with a general outline of it. We've spent the last 6 months working on that, scrapping it numerous times, but I think we're pretty happy with what we have right now. The ending in particular we hope will have a big impact on the player. I won't go into detail, but let's just see pretty much everything you do, every word you say in the entire mod can come back to bite you. The littlest thing you thought was of absolutely no consequence might come back to haunt you. We want to stimulate thought, have the player think 'Maybe I shouldn't have done that' or 'Why *did* I do that?' This works well with the journal system I talked about earlier in this thread, where the PC learns different things from different events, and these lessons have an influence on the ending. It'll be a pretty long ending.

That sounds pretty cool. So, a 2-dude project, eh? Ah, you've been doing more mechanics-planning than story so far. I say, the more gaming conventions you leave behind, the better off you are. That is the advantage of being a fan projects. No rules being imposed by the publishers or ther higher-ups, no catering to the lowest common denominator in order to have better sales, no having to follow commercially-proven formulas. Screw gaming conventions, stick with what would make sense instead of what's been done over and over again for no logical reason. I'll be actually having the party members play a PnP tabletop RPG named 'The Chosen One Must Choose'. There will eventually be LARPing as well, and the PC might participate.

Should be fixed. BTW, alandude, what's your mod about?

Heh. I'm in no rush to get anything done. I'll be surprised if we're done by 2010. For the avatar: don't ask

Unrelated story. There might be some cameos, but nothing more than that.

<3 Rukia \o/

Ah, so basically the same conveyed information and options as the current dialogue tree format, but with an improved interface to make it less cumbersome. That's not a bad idea, actually. And with NWN2 having a GUI that can be edited, this might actually go somewhere. I'll keep this mind - we'll see if it ever goes anywhere.

You're right. Simply having more feats isn't the solution, and I wasn't implying as such. The problem is how to have them implemented. This is just a personal design decision, but I don't even plan on having a specific 'diplomacy' skill, as I would otherwise be implementing it constantly in virtuall all aspects of dialogue in the game, in a consistent fashion - and NOT as a one-choice option which is right whereas the other options are wrong. It would be too much of a bias towards diplomatic characters, when comparing to other skills. But that's just me focusing on heavy dialogue in my game, just a personal design decision. Persuasion wouldn't be a skill or a feat, it'd be an active process in which you try to persuade the NPC that your way of seeing things is correct, and you do that by convincing them through a logical choice of dialogue, not by having X skills. Something like that. I wouldn't go as far as make it a 'minigame', though. That just makes it a game. I wouldn't have all options be available to the player in every given situation, and have the player 'play the minigame' of figuring out the proper sequence in order to 'win'. Each offered solution should be something unique specifically crafted by the developer. If a choice is there, I'd want it to be there because choosing it will lead to something unique. Making a minigame out of this wouldn't work in terms of what I'm trying to convey. Not a bad idea, though. Again, just my personal design philosophy. The minigame idea sorts of reminds me of the speech 'battles' in one of the threads a while ago, that some MMORPG was implementing --> which had its merits, but again, my problem with it would be that it wouldn take away from the storytelling aspects of having real dialogue crafted specifically by the developer.

.... You're welcome <_<

Yeah, too bad the industry as a whole doesn't share those views.

If you've already played BG2, BG1 will be a pretty big step back. IWD2 is pretty much H&S. Go for it if you're looking for ample combat. NWN's official campaign = avoid. KOTOR2 would definitely be my pick among those, though I have yet to play JE.

Do you hate fun? Do awesome games make you mad? Do you despise activities that have a point? If yes, then you should stick with WoW.

That shouldn't really be an issue. Discussions go on tangents all the time, you shouldn't be worrying about narrowing down the focus.

Wouldn't you be 'ignoring' the same proportion of my posts whether I split them into multiple posts or not?

OMG YOU SPOILED WOW FOR ME

Not creepy. As I said, though, I feel that promoting roleplaying just for the the sake of roleplaying isn't the way I want to approach design (Morrowind = fun!), hence why people may disagree with my way of thinking. Everything being done would be for the purpose of driving the story forward (if that's the direction the story is going). In that sense, storytelling > roleplaying, but storytelling + roleplaying > storytelling. In a sense, maybe I'm emphasizing depth of roleplaying over breadth. Instead of throwing the player in a world where s/he's free to explore everything at will, with 100+ quests available, all of which offer the combat/stealth/diplomacy triad of options, I'm focusing more on making it story-based and story-RELEVANT. I think roleplaying should be pertaining to the actual ACTIONS the PC is allowed in any given situation, and thus I also want FLESHED-OUT situations. I doubt quests that can be over in 10 minutes are very thought-provoking, and I'm sure how much roleplaying is really involved ("Okay, I engage the enemy in combat!" "Okay, I sneak to my objective!" "Okay, I choose the more intelligent-sounding dialogue choice!" "Quest complete!") - could feel a bit automated. This does nothing in terms of progressing the story. And if it IS the story, then it's a pretty poor story when it can be resolved so easily. 'Roleplaying' should consist of more than just choosing which 'path' amongst those three to take. Having the power of 'persuasion' shouldn't just be a matter of choosing ONE dialogue that's vastly superior to the others. Conversation should more dynamic, and shouldn't be only an issue of you trying to convince the NPC. Conversation should be more free-flowing, and FEEL natural. An instance where the story suffers because of roleplaying is when such conversations feel so segmented and don't make sense. Just choosing the more persuasive choice shouldn't make you the winner. Persuading people shouldn't be easy. In a sense, I blame the RPG systems being implemented in many of those I'm faulting here. Having one 'Speech' or 'Persuade' skill usually amounts to only one correct diplomatic option being made available, even though this shouldn't be the case. Worse thing is that it's basically a 1v1 battle between you and the NPC. Party members don't exist! I feel the same way about stealth. In games as is, it's just a gameplay mechanic. Activate sneak, maneuver around NPCs, quest complete! Stealth should be implemented in a storytelling manner. "You hide behind the crate. You hear footsteps approaching in your general direction" "I remain silent, hoping nothing happens." "I remove my clothes and dance." "I draw my sword and reveal myself." "I throw a small rock at the far side of the room, in a direction in which the NPC wouldn't see me if he checked there." "Magical Volo, draw his attention, while I try to sneak behind him." Your actual real DECISIONS should be more important than the number next to your sneak skill. Relying on numbers is 'roleplaying' (if at all) for its own sake. Roleplaying through making meaningful decisions is what matters to me. Again, combat suffers from the same thing. It shouldn't just be a matter of attacking. There should be ample tactical decisions you should be able to make to give yourself the advantage before the battle ever starts. It would make sense to want to avoid battle if at all possible as well, given the potential lethal outcome. Even the mightiest of warriors should think twice before jumping into a fight. I don't want to make it feel like a game - where combat is something trivial. A fight with just one NPC should be a big deal. Killing that NPC should be an even bigger deal, just like it is in RL. I'm generalizing by talking about these three paths, but anyway. Bottom line is that going through a single two-roomed building with one or two guards should have PLENTY of roleplaying opportunities. Roleplaying DEPTH. One may argue about the outcome 'being the same', but I feel roleplaying lies in the details. You choose your character's options. On the other hand, if the building and its two rooms are not pertinent to the story, it shouldn't be presented in the game. I'm not going to add countless dungeons or areas that are ultimately irrelevant to further gameplay to the detriment of story. I repeat myself, but roleplaying in a storytelling setting. In the setting I'm doing for the character (him/her being a new recruit for the military), I'm allowing it so that quests feel more natural than just some random adventurer accepting random quests. "You, go patrol the streets with NPC X" "Fine, JERK." This allows you to both flesh out character development with NPC X ("I hate patrol duty. It feels my talent is put to waste." "Look on the bright side, we're being paid to do nothing." blah blah), and allows quests to feel natural. A burglary in the making, a damsel crying in distress. You're patrolling, you're supposed to investigate these events. Otherwise, you could get assigned missions. Thievery, murder investigations, hostage situations, protecting political figures, etc. All these would be opportunities for the PC to learn more about his comrades as well.

And what a topic it is!

Hmm. Well.

I think what helps with my project is that all the team members are buddies, so the relationship isn't simply limited to the project. It can make a big difference in terms of getting things done. You would also benefit from a better source of communication than just email or a board. IM or even a chatroom would be more effective in keeping updated.

I think the problem was that the recruitment phase started off on this board. Not a very good screening tool, as anyone can post. Likeminded individuals are really a must. One bad team member is all it takes to break the team morale. Showing your authority when necessary is definitely a must, since you're the one who has to compile everything together. I'm an absolute tyrant with my team at times - but they love me for it, or so I tell myself

You were the 'lead designer', Ender?