anubite
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Keeping Heather as your ghoul gets you the best armor in the game.
Wait, what? I always kept Heather around until... well, you know -
she was murdered
- and I didn't get any special kind of armor from her.
The best armor I ever found was the 4th tier heavy leather armor that you could buy in Chinatown. Did you have to do something special to get the 5th tier armor from her?
Give her some kind of command? Or is it possible that it was part of a mod, like Camarilla Edition, or something? Or only available to certain clans?
Off-topic, I know. Sorry! As you were...
You get body armor if Heather stays your ghoul after you trigger the Hell Hotel (or whatever it's called) event. If you send her away, you get +1 humanity. I believe it's the best armor in the game, without exception, though depending upon what patch you play with the game, there maybe another way to get the armor, or armor better than it.
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Well, I agree that good/evil aren't absolutes, but don't make absolutive statements like "morality is gray". That in itself is self-defeating. A gray understanding of morality is not to say that it's gray, but that, "there... (maybe) is no absolute choice". To say that it is gray implies that there cannot be a purely good or purely bad action for a situation - which is... a reasonably wrong thing to say. All actions have the potential to fall under grey areas, but to say absolute areas cannot exist implies a kind of dogma a grey morality system is trying to avoid.
This is of course the problem with a "grey" system - you can't make absolutes, so you can't even absolutely say it's true. Which is fine, from my perspective, though I hesitate to agree with people who so readily say that absolutism morality systems can be "wrong" or are even necessarily bad. Because that in and of itself is anti-grey.
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Good/evil might be "relative" but faction relationship isn't. Reputation isn't. And many people have narrow modes of thought. Expanding or changing those views can be construed as corruption or redemption. I'm not trying to imply a biblical system of morality or some kind of karmic force system. You don't need such mechanical things to basically "invert" a person - to spin them on their head, which is what I'm implying with redemption/corruption - it's fun to interact with a character one way, then for them to change so drastically in relation to what they were - and for that relationship to persist, and not be broken off because you suddenly need to kill them or something.
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(dark side path for Brianna mod)
Viconia, Bastila, and a few others, are notable for their alignment shifts. I think we had a topic on this before, but I felt like making another just in-case a certain Obsidian employee missed it.
In a game where souls will be a large mechanic, I'd like to see corruption/redemption play a role? Certainly, party alignment is a tricky mechanic. On one hand, in BG2, nearly everybody kept their reputation at 18 so they could conduct trade at the highest rate while pleasing all of their evil/neutral characters (going 19+ would make them leave).
I'd like to see this mechanic expanded upon and made deeper, where you can corrupt/redeem some companions so that they tolerate higher levels of "goodliness" or "badliness" and are less prone to leaving when you maintain a high or low reputation. I'd also like to see a stronger purpose for reputation overall - there isn't really any point in having a low reputation in BG2, everybody refuses to do business with you.
I think corruption/redemption worked really well in KOTOR2 because everyone sort of became you "student" which was a nice twist. I'd like to see a large student/master relationship of some kind between a companion character and your PC.
A character like Nalia in BG2 had a lot of potential for such a role, with her being extremely optimistic and naive. She grew a little in BG2, but didn't have the kind of arc you might wish for - where her optimism grows into something more mature, or whether it gets twisted and makes Nalia into some kind of jaded tyrant or noblewoman.
Of course, having some 'immutable' characters is also fine, but having alignment shifts for many party members does invite some interesting roleplay aspect.
Or even, well, it would be rather cool if one of your party members presented a chance for redemption or corruption. I liked Neeshka as she sort of presented this mischevious character who might tempt you a good natured character to get carried away with themselves. It might also be interesting to have a pious companion trying to convert the PC to their religion, trying to become their guardian if they are more devilish in nature, or somesuch. Anyway, I think the dynamic is simple and effect, would like to see it in the game if possible.
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Umm, do you just always play as the good guy or something? I've played a lot of games as evil characters. Even bad RPGs reward bad guys more often.
Dragon Age 2: Being evil gives you free attribute/passive points and a lot more money (like, twice as much gold), there are instances where being nice does nothing. You can donate 10 gold to some orphans and NOTHING comes out as a result. You just give money for story satisfaction.
Dragon Age Origins: Being evil gets certain story-central characters (Morrigan) to like you, resulting in stat increases. Also, lots more gold here too.
Baldur's Gate 2: Being evil preserves your main character's stats in hell. You can also basically steal everything from everyone you meet and have everything you'll ever need ever.
Fallout 1/2: Being evil lets you side with various factions and obtain a lot more resources than being good. Being good only gets you access to a few unique pieces of gear that I don't think are very notable.
VTMB: Siding with the Anarchs gets you next to nothing all game long. Keeping Heather as your ghoul gets you the best armor in the game.
KOTOR/KOTOR2: Generally more credits, though I'd say these games are pretty even about rewarding light vs dark choices.
Fallout 3: Being evil gets you pretty rich, pretty quick, although morality is broken in the game, in a bad way.
FONV: I dunno, I don't feel like being good or evil here empowers you either way, though my memory is fuzzy here.
RPGs do selfish actions really well, they reward you pretty consistently compared to picking selfless choices, which only ocassionally give you rare items in return. I'd say good-sided players tend to get the short stick, though they obviously get rewarded with more "pleasant" conversation.
Anyway, given FO:NV's direction, I doubt PE will be a good vs evil system, it will likely be a self vs others and a faction vs faction set-up. You can side with X, who might probably do bad things (and some good things usually), and get reward Y, or you can side with Z (who are going to do bad things, but maybe under good pretenses or intentions) and get reward W. Hopefully, there will be few choices that involve around you pointlessly murdering everyone in sight, stealing something for the sake of it, or helping some evil guy for the sake of it.
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Just make it so grapple only works on bipedal humanoid targets of the Monk's size. A basic grapple would simply be grabbing the attacker's arms and holding the attacker in place with brute strength (although obviously not a skillful grapple, I think it would be enough of an animation). Then, when making your monster/player models, put attachment points on the monster's wrists so the Monk knows where to attach his hands when he gets in melee range. It might look a little silly, but I think it would work out fine and most players could suspend their disbelief a little over what's really happening when the Monk grapples.
I think too many people are expecting Holywood polish from games these days, it's fine to let players imagine a little. Grapple is certainly possible when you restrict it to a logical set of enemies (you could grapple a tiger, but it would take some pretty specific animal training to do so, grapples are focused mainly on humans, so just restrict it to those kinds of enemies) and make the animation simple and concise.
To be fair, of course, Obsidian's game will PROBABLY be fine without a grapple spell. I think it's a little unfair to ask very specific things like this, since it may not really be worth the effort. I'm sure Obsidian could come up with lots of diverse, complex, cool abilities that are cheap to make, rather than spend a lot of labor on attachment point systems and grapple coding... just for that one move and probably that one move alone.
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Dragon Age 2.
Yes, that game.
It didn't work as an RPG. And I don't mean from the visceral, integer number game stuff (which it did fail also at), but from the roleplaying perspective.
I think it's important to point out why.
Kirkwall isn't immersive.
It isn't immersive, because it lacks three integral things that make immersiveness work.
PLAUSIBILITY
CONVEYANCE
CONSISTENCY
Plausibility is the contract between your viewership and the world. Fantasy settings are socratic experiments. They're a "What if, the world was really flat? And it was inhabited by elf people. And human societies developed in this environment."
They are elaborate exercises in thoughts. Giant "what if" questions.
A "what if" doesn't work if it isn't plausible. Good RPG worlds provide:
DETAIL.
They inform you what kind of bacon most people eat in the morning. In this fantasy city, I mean. Whether they eat bacon at all. They tell you what kind of people inhabit this fantasy land. How they came about. Why they chose to survive in a crazy flat world with elves
Dragon Age 2 does none of this. Kirkwall was a city built by slaves... but that fact is never discussed or explored at all. All of the NPCs in Dragon Age 2 are either static set pieces, or wandering mindless sheep, who don't even run away from battles that happen between you and bandits standing out in the open (they boldly walk through a firefight like good AI drones).
Kirkwall is not plausible because there is no detail. You cannot understand the city or care about it, or even believe that it can even exist, because there's nothing to draw you in.
CONVEYANCE is basically symbolism. This matters less in a 3d game, but it's still so important. Dwarf Fortress has conveyance. Those vague ascii shapes MEAN something. They convey a meaning, a window to interact with this fantasy world. Dragon Age 2 has no conveyance. There are golden eagle statues in the capital, giant golden slave statues in the gallows. What does any of that mean? They come alive during the final fight - cool - but what does that symbolize?
What does the landscape symbolize? You go through 7 oddly similar caves and 7 oddly similar beach-coves, staring at the road ahead of you... but there are no landmarks. No symbols. No gods. No statues. No trophies. Nothing. Not even natural wonders. There is no conveyance. The world feels artificial. I'm not getting a mood. A feeling. Vampire the Masquerade has conveyance - you can feel it in the sound of the car alarm that goes off inside your apartment, the busy front desk at the blood bank, that pair of eyes watching you in the distance that disappears as you near them. In the great gargoyles surrounding that massive building out by where the Taxi lets you off. Where graffiti hangs on the walls. This is also detail, but it's of the passive, graphical kind.
Dragon Age 2 has slums. It's a dusty ground with a tree surrounding some sandstone hovels. What does any of that mean? Do the poor really build their houses out of sandy stone? Stand around in city and you hear nothing. For being packed with refugees, the city is oddly silent. Like a ghost town.
CONSISTENCY means that conveyance, detail and plausibility are upheld consistently, under some broader theme. It means nothing is being violated. When you encounter slavers in a fantasy world, you expect them to know about slaves, to keep slaves --- and if you help slavers, you'll be branded as a bad person. That is a part of this contract between the viewer and the person asking the question - that there is internal logic to this world, that this hypothetical world follows the same logic as OUR world, unless specificly specifed at the beginning of the question. You just cannot say, "Mages swing their staves around like ninjas to attack." Because that wasn't happening in the last game, it's never addressed why all mages attack this way, or why it's done. It's not consistent with the serious behavior of a given mage... all mages just do it. Why are all the mages in Kirkwall evil? Because... blood magic? But I didn't think that's how it worked. Why is the game telling me to help these innocent mages, when they aren't innocent at all? What is Anders talking about? Anders himself isn't consistent at all, he's Jesus helping the sick when you meet him... then he's upset when you don't admit to having a crush on him... then when you do become his lover, he never tells you he's a terrorist bent on killing hundreds of innocent people to start a war so that mages can live under his idea of freedom. There is no consistency in character behavior OR the world, this is why plot and characters matter in an RPG, but they are not CORE to making a good RPG. The CORE is making a good world which spawns a plot and characters. The CORE is making sure these three aspects are upheld at all times during the course of the narrative.
I hope PE can follow by these three guidelines.
But there is one suggestion I have.
It's called simulation.
Simulation is a powerful tool to making your RPG seem real. SIMULATE things. Simulate economics, behaviors, etc.
Dragon Age 2 has no simulation - when you fight bandits in a city, NPCs don't react at all. There are no systems in place to DA2 that inform NPCs "hey, there's danger here, run!". That's simulation.
Unfortunately, Baldur's Gate has little simulation.
These are static worlds.
A game like Mount and Blade: Warband has emergent simulation. OTHER kingdoms fight each other around you. It convinces you that the world is real. YOU can have an impact on global economy (which should, but unfortunately doesn't effect other kingdoms) by what you buy and sell at a market.
Although we can't expect a small budget game to simulate all that much, having small systems in place (like base NPC behavior) is integral to maintaining and growing immersion.
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I think this is a bad topic. You won't find consensus. You're also not showing how you've reached these conclusions (the threads you're taking these intepretations from).
If you want to simplify work for the developers, just make a thread which links to all the popular threads and summarize their talking points or highlight well-thought-out posts about design.
A few more numerical people agreeing to a certain idea or not does not make it something "wanted". I could just as easily make 10 fake accounts and bump some thread with massive praise if I wished to. This is the internet and a forum only a specific population post on. You can't make such conclusive statements as "we want something" because 4 or 5 people agreed with somebody about a particular turn of phrase.
Finally, this is not a popularity contest. The developers may wish to implement something which may not be popular, but could be more fun ot worthwhile than these armchair developers request.
In short, a post like yours only creates misconceptions and isn't useful to anybody. Developers benefit from raw discussion and points, not blanket statements about what people want - there are ten different ways to implement what people want and details are so much more necessary as a developer looking for ideas.
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It's perfectly fine to kill furries. We're down with that.
It's being asked to talk to them. Or rather, being asked to do anything with them that begins with the letters "rel".
I do not want to relate, relation, relay, relax, release, rely, relieve, relinquish, relish, or relationship/relative furies (yes nouns are verbs now). Ever. I want them out of my sight or dead.
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Classes exist as broad umbrellas. Sure, I think there's going to be overlap between the traditional class idea of a "ranger" and a rogue who's simply using a bow. But the way classes should probably work is:
Ranger is better with bow physical damage.
Rogue with bow has utility (stealth/pick pocket/diplomacy/lock pick) and possibly unique bow-rogue skills that offer support, and maybe even the Rogue has superior poison damage with a bow, compared to a Ranger. Maybe the Ranger is better with traps and pets, the Rogue can actually switch out his Bow to a melee weapon in melee combat (perhaps he has a high parry/weapon block rate) to survive (and let's imagine in PE that standing there and taking it as a ranger sucks).
The point being, you can pick a ranger with a bow if you want physical bow damage at its maximum - which may be vital to your group if the rest of your party sucks against a certain type of monster which is weak to physical projectile/piercing damage. You may want a bow-rogue if you need poison damage to take out poison-vulnerable foes, for instance.
Classes are broad umbrellas, specialization takes a class and gives it a very narrow role in group play. If a ranger and a bow-rogue are virtually indistinguishable then there is probably something wrong with said game's class or combat system. If there is no overlap at all... well I'd say that's pretty unusual, but maybe it's not a bad thing.
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They showed more than Obsidian, that's for sure. But they completely failed to market this game.
And yes, we get it - 5 employees. Cool, but, see... if you're going to do a kickstarter, you need to get like 100 energy drinks, you need to make provocative interviews with media, you need to show tech and you need to promise, promise, promise. Even if you can't deliver. Ask for apologies later, down the road.
They didn't market their product and they'll be lucky to stumble over the finish line in 5 days. In their shoes, I would have made 10 really profound interviews about RPGs, ARPGs, etc. whatever, said that they're being casualified and I'm going to stop that with my game! And see, that creates controversy and interest.
They got very defensive in a few updates too - no need for that at all. I think that really hurt them. You need to be offensive when you run out the gate with a KS.
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Furries ruin everything, etc. please no thanks you guys are already getting a MLP fighting game just stay away from RPGs Skyrim was creepy enough with dinosaur/cat people.
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Itemization I agree is going to be a BIG, BIG thing for Obsidian to get right.
We are going to need robes for monks that are interesting and viable and tactically powerful.
Robes that allow monks to utilize some amount of evasion/dodge
Robes that allow monks to utilize some amount of counter-attack/parry
Robes that improve physical damage and support/utility
Robes that allow monks to absorb damage like a chain mail/plate fighter, in some capacity
etc
So that monks can be built in a variety of defensive ways to suit their designated role in combat.
Monks should also be able to specialize in staves, which would greatly improve upon their possible itemization. We will also of course want items which improve Monk unarmed damage, such as wristbands or rings. No need to make Monks entirely non-gear dependent. I don't see why Monks should be the only class that can go unarmed and have viable damage. Fighters/Rogues should probably have a more narrow scope for unarmed specialization, but it should be possible, nevertheless.
Although this is probably outside the scope of Project Eternity, in theory, monks would also be suitable for any kind of 'unusual' marital weapon. If unarmed is going to be too hard to balance/design, you could just introduce nun-chucks, dan bong, bokken, escrima, scythe + chain, sai - and make one or two of those the default monk weapon. Actually, all of those weapons serve rather unique purposes which would definitely give the Monk a unique role in combat.
nun-chuck - high stun rate vs enemies? brutal bashing damage with high attack rate
dan bong - very, very fast short melee weapon, excellent for locking up joints, countering and hard very fast strikes, would be great as a utility weapon
escrima - excellent for controlling/countering one-handed weapons
scythe + chain - long reach, ability to disarm opponents
sai - excellent parrying/defensive weapon
Of course, most Western viewers might feel a little silly using them, believing these weapons work, but they do. Even though most are wooden, they are very effective against all kinds of targets. Even in heavy armor, it's hard to prevent yourself from being stunned by these weapons, which are very cheap and easy to disguise on your person (most were originally farming tools, which is their origin).
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Here's how I would do it.
Classes are "broad umbrellas". Inside a given class contained are "specialization umbrellas" which contain a collection of active skills and feats.
At character generation, you can pick 5 active skils from ANY of these specialization umbrellas. You can pick 8 passive skills.
Monk example:
-Monks start out with specific starting attribute bonuses.
-Monks start out with a special combat feat that no other class gets.
-Monks start out with a special robe that gives them a unique early game benefit.
These three traits define a pure Monk class at the beginning of the game. They help to give identity to the class, making them seem special, even if the difference between an early game monk and rogue might be largely superficial.
Here are the roles you can potentially pick as a monk:
Unarmed Fighter
Staff Fighter
Throwing Fighter (throwing weapons)
Block-based Tank
Light-armor Tank
Dodge Tank
Buff Spells
Debuff Spells
Utility - Persuasion/Diplomacy
You also have access to off-class specialization umbrellas at character generation and can purchase them for some bonus cost to your character. But after you've generated your character, you can only pick passive and active skills from these feat/active umbrellas. Umbrellas are mostly interchangeable between classes (the "unarmed" specialization might contain one or two unique monk active/passive skills though, similarly other speicalizations might have a few class-restricted areas, but should be relatively uncommon).
The monk class is "special" because it has the easiest access to picking these active and passive abilities. It is ALSO special because there SHOULD be ways that these specializations interact with each other. For instance specializing in staffs SHOULD have some feats which give you bonus buff/debuff duration while using a staff, or a bonus to blocking while wielding a staff. The block specialization might have a passive which lets you get a critical strike counter attack after blocking an attack, and if Staves have increased critical damage multiplier passives - suddenly there's a synergy between specializing in staves and blocking while playing a monk.
Feats/passives should be broad, inviting synergy, experimentation and exploitation. Exploitation shouldn't be a bad word here, when you're exploiting a mechanic, you're coming up with a strategy. Feats/passive skills should be designed such that classes can take advantage of them to create functional combinations. Active skills should enable varied builds, though I don't want to go into deep specifics here, active skills should also be an integral way to define your character's role, feats/passives further specializing them.
If I learned anything from playing WOW for a year, it's that having TOO MANY ACTIVE SKILLS IS A BAD THING. It really hurts specialization and just overall makes things confusing. A class should have a limited number of active skills so that players know what to focus on. There should be a wide array of active skills to choose from -- a decently sized pool of active skills - but you should not be able to have a majority of them. For instance, an attack-based active skill... like "Slam" lets say (a skill that can be used while unarmed or with a staff, let's say) should be picked if you want to knock your opponents away from you with an attack. And an active attack skill like "Furious Blow" (a skill that interrupts a spell being cast, let's say) should be picked if you want to have a way to deal with spellcasters that chant powerful spells for a time. Both of these skills should have some overlap (they both deal decent damage) both of these spells should be special (they do more than damage; they have unique effects) and both of these spells could be exploited in different ways (maybe unarmed passive feat gives you a bonus to your knockback distance, maybe a staff feat/passive lets you do physical damage if you knockback targets into their allies) to create a highly specialized role in a party. But the point is, you probably SHOULD NOT have both skills, because maybe you can only have 8 or 9 active skills at max, and there are other support/defensive skills you need more than another attack/utility skill.
So um, to try and summarize my points:
-Classes are broad strokes, they overlap in many ways with each other and are flexible
-Classes can specialize and can do so to a point so that at level 15, my Monk differs from your Monk AS WELL as differs from any given Rogue; it should be rare that two Monks play exactly the same and fill the same role
-Classes are not locked into particular roles and can have some freedom
-Classes ARE RESTRICTED; they cannot do "anything or everything" - or if they can, it must be at the cost of giving up something valuable
-Classes ARE NOT RESTRICTED; A Monk could play very similar to a Druid (both could be staff fighters, perhaps if they share the same staff feats) but a Monk should have access to some different staff active skills compared to a Druid, or at least, different feats/passives to influence how staves are used in combat (this could be done perhaps, if Druid spell specialization interacts with staves in a unique way)
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From my experience with Path of Exile, which literally lets you make any class from any class, just about... classes can be defined under these following rules:
Classes have a defined role to play in and out of combat.
However, this definition is rather vague and too restrictive.
Classes have many defined roles to play in and out of combat.
However, this definition is too open. It doesn't explain anything.
Classes have a finite number of defined roles to play in and out of combat.
This is a good starting place, but it doesn't really tell us what a good class system is. From my experience, a good class system has a finite number of roles - and these roles do not overlap much. Rogues can be DPS rogues or tank rogues, but a tank rogue should not play like a tank warrior. A dps rogue should not play like a dps warrior. A dps rogue should have things only a dps rogue can do. So... one good definition of a good class system might be:
Classes are a role in a game that have a finite number of subclasses that specialize a role so that it is unique and useful.
A rogue should be able to specialize in magic like a mage, in theory anyway, but a rogue with a mage subclass should be different from mages that aren't rogues and rouges that aren't mages. They should perform functions which give them a clearly defined tactical and strategic purpose.
Now, don't get me wrong here. Subclasses don't have to actually be classes. A "subclass" can simply be a "specialization". If I pick feats/passive skills to give my rogue +100% more movement speed, he should fulfill the role of a scout, in theory, without there being a narrowly defined "scout class". In fact, I find games fun when they let me build my own subclasses from feats/passive skills/pieces of major classes.
I think it's important to stress the idea of complexity here. A good class-based system is complex - if gives you many major and minor classes to mix and match with, allowing for a degree of class overlap, while still allowing classes to fulfill niches. Class-based systems should not become too restrictive, or it feels like you're forced to play a role you do not want to play. If a the system is too loose, then roles have absolutely no meaning and a degree of arbitrariness is introduced into the game.
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Love alignment changes. There won't need to be an alignment system, of course, but that does make the mechanic more visible, if there were.
Viconia/Bastila were fun as a result of it, though I swear Juhani could be Dark Side or Light Side at the end of the game, but maybe that was with a mod I was playing. There was a mod I found that let you corrupt Brianna in KOTOR2. But besides that, I've not encountered much alignment changing, which is a shame.
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It's interesting. The number of backers I don't think exceeds much what PE had, yet it has sooooo much more money. Must be some wealthy wing commander fans.
Some of the stuff that's planned sounds cool. But I haven't pledged because it sounds sketchy to me. Fully sized carriers in single player? Where you can board them? Hundreds of NPC personnel aboard? Seems out of scope even for 5.5mil
And how the hell are you going to fly a carrier? I doubt it will be like EVE, with everything just works.
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Chances are Sony is working on a Demons Souls 2 with some other developer while From Software/Namco are working on Dark Souls 2 or a spiritual successor (new King's Field please?). The chances of the latter getting a PC port is slim, but there.
Huh? Where did you get any of that information? How could Sony work on a Demon's Souls 2? Dark Souls and DS should be property of From, even if Demon's Souls was signed to be PS3 exclusive.
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"Demand" was a necessary evil. I can't have a topic title that says, "W-well Obsidian, I... kinda sorta, maybe, just a teeny bit don't want tutorials." Because nobody from Obsidian is going to read such a weakly-worded topic
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KOTOR2 has an okay tutorial, but the first zone is such a pain to playthrough. I don't know why, but it really hurts my desire to replay the game.
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It's "In medias res". This is a narrative technique which has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not there is an opening cinematic sequence. You can have games that start you out in medias res via cinematics. This is all about delivery of story exposition and not about whether you can control your character right away, in fact, just setting the player down with direct control over their character tends to militate AGAINST this approach because it will not be a simple matter to deliver a stream of unexplained uncontextual exposition to someone who is still figuring out how to get from one side of the room to the other. It virtually guarantees that there will be a slow progression of initial exposition as the player fumbles their way from one point of interest to the next.
It's a narrative technique, and wouldn't it be "en media res" in latin? I figured it was a latin phrase. But yes it's narrative technique. So what? We can apply it to the concept of video games. It means starting the game in the thick of things. We are assuming that players can figure out how to play the game by playing it. Nobody needs to be thrown to the wolves in the first 5 minutes but they needn't be explicitly told what everything does either.
Cutscenes do matter. I suppose my title is misleading, since it says 'i demand no tutorial' - but its purpose was to engender discussion, not to keep the topic entirely narrow.
What I'm talking about is the flow of the game. If you haven't played Zelda, maybe you don't understand where I'm coming from, but I think PE - a game which should be highly replayable - should not have any bumps or idle moments at the beginning, because that engenders a lack of interest in replaying the game.
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Do you want to play Zelda: Wind Waker that umpteenth time? No? How about Twilight Princess? No? Skyward Sword? ...No?
All three of these games, love them or hate them, have pretty much a forced 30+ minute opening segment of cutscenes and nonsense before you finally get your sword. This hurts replayability and it also makes your first experience with the game kind of... "unintense".
Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask either have skippable cutscenes, or you can quickly get your sword and get on with it. You only need 40 rupees to "start the game" for Ocarina of Time and although one might find being deku form annoying for the beginning of MM, you still get to play. That's something.
I am utterly tired of "cinematic" games.
I don't mind if you guys implement a how-to or a tutorial of some kind, but it should be completely optional.
I also think it would greatly benefit the game if you could start it out "en media res". Don't start out PE with some long cutscene - just start the game. Get us into the thick of the story from the start. Don't make us sit through a chore. And don't say, "Well, you can skip it!" I don't want to skip the story. But I also want to play the game.
Make the story interactive. If you want to give us exposition as soon as the game starts, have the player discover the exposition. Have them seek it out. Don't make us the passive observer.
I'm not making this post under the influence of this video, but it pretty much points out partially what I'm trying to say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM
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I do agree that games should cut out the bull**** so you can sit down and just play the thing when you want to.
Want to play Zelda: Skyward Sword? Zelda: TP? Zelda: Wind Waker? Better not, there's like 30+ minutes of forced tutorial and cinema before you get your bloody sword.
Want to play OoT or Majora's Mask? Sure, you're already playing the game after the first, relatively short cutscene that is usually skippable.
This is what's wrong with "cinematic" games.
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The main problem is that RPGs are a wide genre which could more appropriately be divided into ARPGs, Action games, beat-em-ups, CHYOAs, adventure games, roguelikes, et cetera.
Of the kind of RPGs BioWare's games used to be long in, long-term choice did matter. Ninety-nine percent is an exaggeration. But Volourn isn't completely wrong, for once. Many RPGs have short-term consequences for actions, DA2 has one or two quests like this where short term consequences do change, but DA2 hardly even has that. The difference between most quest outcomes is superificial (basically, the difference is that character X dies or lives, but the actual outcome of the quest is still the same, because character X's role in the story is terminated at that pont anyway). What we like about PnP-style cRPGs is that a gamemaster would probably utilize NPCs for more than one scene and your actions would have consequences on the outcome of the story. cRPGs were moving in the direction of this kind of thing happening much more often and to much greater degrees, but BioWare is one of many companies that has shored up on the complexity of their game in order to please the casual marketplace.
how to make your rpg work
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted · Edited by anubite
It's not a rant about DA2. It mentions about what it did wrong and I learned from what it did wrong.
What I've demonstrated applies to ALL RPGs, or should, if they are to be called RPGs. RPGs are ABOUT their worlds more than anything else, DA2's world was not convincing - it wasn't plausible, consistent or conveyed.
What DA2 does wrong is very important. But it's not my focus of this topic - it's to remind Obsidian to focus on conveying the images, the sounds, the feelings of PE's world - as well as a logical consistency to its world and people. Perhaps I'm preaching to the choir, but eh, why not. It's the internet. Perhaps I want validation, or my points disproved, which I don't see you doing.
I mean, if you don't have it permanently installed on your computer, go dl VTMB. Go walk into the clinic outside your apartment. Now, it's not an amazing level. I mean, you have one interactable NPC at the front desk who has just a little bit to say to you, just some set-dressing NPCs standing around like in DA2, but the sound effects, the atmosphere, the other characters, the little tidbits about the doctors' private lives stored on the computers - it's these kind of things that create an effective RPG. Furthermore, it has amazing level design - there are TWO ENTRANCES TO THIS LEVEL. Holy hell, not a single building in DA2 has more than one entrance to it. TWO ENTRANCES TO A BUILDING REWARD EXPLORATION OUTSIDE OF IT. It also makes deciding how to approach the building so much more interesting. If you're nosferatu, you can infiltrate the area without ever being seen by anybody but Jeanette's ghoul. It also means that when the police are after you, you have an alternate exit out of the building. Not enough RPGs have dungeons with multiple entrances/exits.
When games ONLY focus on the big picture, you get games like Call of Duty - where you're running through generic hallway #7 and there's an explosion and **** - Ramirez, get to Burger Town! Ramirez, get to the chopper! RPGs can be no different in this way, when we use DA2 as an example of a lack of focus to detail and logical consistency (you can ofc have an RPG where a setting deliberately isn't consistent, but this needs strong execution to be pulled off and will probably be quite silly/humorous).