ogrezilla
-
Posts
882 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
1
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Everything posted by ogrezilla
-
Nostalgia. I am curious if this will feel like a 2014 game paying homage to games from 2000, or if it will feel like a game from 2000. -
or because I am somewhere in the middle of the two points. Personally, I like timed quests. But if they aren't there, so be it. My bigger concern is that I really feel like immersion is lost when the game tells me I have to hurry but does nothing at all to enforce it. I really don't care if they fix it by adding timed quests or by writing the story to fit the game design.
-
That's NOT what I SAID. Well, 1 is pretty accurate. But 2 is just not what I said. I actually used the word flaw in my post. I guess the lack of timed quests isn't the issue as much as the writing that implies a critical time component to quests that is never enforced. I just want the storytelling and gameplay to be on the same page. seriously though, whats with the CAPS? edit: you may not have been responding to mine. if not, my bad.
-
its not necessary. It just adds more possible outcomes to a scenario. it can also improve the connection between storytelling and gameplay. and as a whole, the old IE games are certainly not inferior products. But there are plenty of times when I felt like immersion was sacrificed because the imminent threats never actually felt remotely imminent. I knew I could wander around town all day if I wanted to. It wasn't enough to make them bad games certainly. But it is something I would consider a flaw.
-
if the game is written so you don't have obvious situations where its a problem, I'm fine if they aren't there. But I don't want to hear about impending doom that will never actually happen. Don't let these urgent situations come up in the storytelling and then refuse to include the gameplay mechanics to support them. Its so bad for immersion to hear how much you need to hurry only to then have the time to dilly dally around town and do whatever you want. Let the gameplay mechanics and the storytelling work together.
-
indeed. and they should have different consequences. that's pretty much our point.
-
The risk of failure if you waste too much time instead of dealing with it when you hear about it. As opposed to the risk of failure if you do the quest wrong, or aren't careful during a violent rescue attempt. Yeah, not a very notable difference in the grand scheme of things. I'll take the latter, as it can delve into moral choice-consequence, which I rank significantly higher than simplistic time management issues. How isn't it a moral choice? I can make decisions without having a dialogue box to choose options. Choosing to go shopping for potions and drinking at the pub are both choices you made. That's essentially you choosing "Meh, she can wait."
-
it brings the possibility of outcomes that you just can't come to through direct narrative. The bandits could have already sold her to someone else. You wanted to save her, but failed to because she is already gone.
-
waiting around becomes much worse when you know its happening though. At least as far as my immersion goes. And I don't see how controversial or unimaginitive game mechanics are any worse than controversial or unimaginitive storytelling. personally, I don't really want many timed quests that come from quest givers in town either. That is likely to feel like forcing the urgency. I want it to be used in situations where you stumble into a problem already in action.
-
And What problem is that? I cited the possibility of failure at every step of the questline, including the very first step, which involves caving to greed, instead of "oops! I overslept and missed my appointment!" The problem is that, firstly, "caving to greed" isn't failure unless you're in the habit of basing your dialog options on a coin flip, and secondly, It is literally quest failure, since your mission was to rescue the princess, not strike a deal with bandits and let them kill her. its a failure to the guy who gave me the quest, but not to me. Its me changing what quest I am doing. A failure is me not getting what I want. Failure isn't something I should ever explicitly choose. The example of them killing her during the fight is a good one. That's a failure.
-
And What problem is that? I cited the possibility of failure at every step of the questline, including the very first step, which involves caving to greed, instead of "oops! I overslept and missed my appointment!" that the world is very transparently centered around my character. Assuming I have already had the chance to act (help her or walk back to town), the bandits shouldn't put their plans on hold while they wait for me.
-
I don't want that either. I don't want lots of pressured time situations all the time. You are describing a problem with quest design more than a problem with the mechanics of timed quests themselves. I think they should be relatively rare and they should still be decision based (help her or walk away?) as opposed to action based (I have 5 minutes to kill this gauntlet of bandits and save her.)
-
Failure can easily be incorporated during the battle itself. One of the bandits, could, if you're not alert during combat, start taking shots at the elven maiden...killing her. Or you can kill the bandits, rescue the princess, but then refuse to escort her home when she asks, thus she dies from a goblin attack on the way home. Or, you could rescue the princess, decide to escort her home, but on the way, one of your companions decides to engage her in an argument, which you fail to defuse, which turns into a fight , and she gets killed. Still no timer needed. the main problem is still there. Nothing in this world happens without my input. I'm not saying I wouldn't play the game you are describing. I would and I'd like it a lot. But I would prefer the world feel more alive around me. Choosing to walk back to town instead of saving someone is a decision even if I didn't make it in a dialogue box. I still had my input into the situation. But the bandits didn't wait for me to decide what to do with their prisoner because why would they?
-
Says who? What kind of lousy story writing sees someone kidnapping such a high profile target (heir to the throne!) and just assassinating her a.s.a.p, instead of holding out for countless blackmaling possibilities? And it doesn't matter "nick of time" isn't needed for the entire quest, branches, choice, consequence and all to play out. my problem with your example is that it seems like it eliminates failure as an option. Unless I'm missing something.
-
Yeah but why should the game reward people who like that sort of gameplay and punish those who like to explore. which is why I think those kinds of events should be rare. They shouldn't stop you from exploring most of the time. But its a roleplaying game. If I'm roleplaying the hero and I see a woman being dragged off by bandits, I would go save her right then. If I choose to go pick some flowers, maybe stop off for a beer at the pub and rest for 8 hours to get my spells back, that's a decision I made. I shouldn't be able to go back to find them still dragging her through the woods. It just completely ruins immersion for me when the world is obviously waiting for me to do anything at all. After you save her (assuming you want to save her), go explore. And its not like you'd lose the game if you don't save her. You'd just deal with the consequences. There could be plenty of examples where taking your time and exploring might uncover information that proves more valuable than rushing in. Maybe while you explore, you find her diary where she describes her plan to pretend to be abducted by bandits so she can live out her days with her bandit lover. So there would be parts of the game where the person rushing in would be rewarded and there would be parts where the person meticulously exploring would be rewarded.
-
This is all straining the limits of logic. if I need to save the maiden before she gets killed by the bandits, as long as I'm actively working towards that goal, I could be fine. So if I am moving through the forest towards her, I shouldn't be watching a clock in the corner tell me I need to be killing these wolves faster. But if I choose to go back to town, I could trigger her being killed.
-
Oh, Is the assassination supposed to fail because the player said "Yes, I'll prevent it" and get there, only to find out they arrived too late anyway? LOL Ok, Lets walk through this scenario. 1)Elven king's princess daughter gets kidnapped. 2)Elven king Hires you to free her. Marks the bandit group's hideout on your map 3)You go to the bandit hideout. 4)Bandit leader approaches you, tries to talk you into allowing them to assassinate her in exchange for [insert incentive/reward here] 5)You now have a choice. Side with the bandits and Allow the Elven princess to be assassinated -or- Side with the King and say NO and wipe out the entire bandit gang. The quest then branches out according to the choice you made in #5. No timer needed. and that leads to a very unrealistic world where everything is bending to your whim. I want the possibility of siding with the king but she still gets assassinated. Not for every quest because there can't be unlimited options, but failure should be possible sometimes.
-
I would be happy to learn about the world, but I don't want to know about the actual story I will be playing through in the world. Anything my character will know when the game starts, I'd be happy to know.
-
timed quests definitely aren't needed to allow branching like that. I just think it makes everything flow more naturally. Again, I don't want timed quests to be the norm. But I think they have their merit if used correctly. I'm still not completely sold on a literal clock (even invisible) as opposed to in game triggers.
-
And thus, she dies. Or maybe she escapes. Or maybe she's sold into slavery. If you character didn't care enough about the elven maiden, there's no reason to care now that something happened. Or the alternative: You took a few minutes to run to the shop to buy some arrows, and thus missed the stated deadline to save her by a few minutes. Alternatively, the game isn't so anal about timing that restocking your supplies is enough to put you over, so running to the shop to buy some arrows just makes you more likely to succeed. Besides, there's no reason that the elven maiden being sold into slavery should mean you can no longer save her. You just need to find out who she was sold to. And that quest likely isn't going to be very time-sensitive, since slaves tend to stay in one place. Ya, I don't think all time sensitive things would literally need to be on a clock.
-
you wouldn't "miss" anything. You would just experience different things. Oh the maiden got sold to a slaver. Now I have a quest to go find her. Then the person who saved her in the woods is the one "missing" content.
- 188 replies
-
- 1
-
-
- urgency
- consequences
- (and 5 more)
-
And thus, she dies. Or maybe she escapes. Or maybe she's sold into slavery. If you character didn't care enough about the elven maiden, there's no reason to care now that something happened. Or the alternative: You took a few minutes to run to the shop to buy some arrows, and thus missed the stated deadline to save her by a few minutes. Yeah, no thanks. Again, that reeks of a clock game. I think it should be situational. If I get the news from a poster in town that there is a maiden that needs saving, I should have the time to go get supplies first. If I'm in the woods and see bandits dragging the maiden to their hide out, I should not be able to go back to town, get supplies and then come back to find them still dragging her in the woods.
-
and that's fine. but the elven maiden should be able to be killed because of it. Or whatever consequences the writers decide to implement.
-
in your opinion. Every bad thing in the world waiting for my say so to actually happen could kill the entire game. In my opinion. again, if they never show you a clock, how will you know? Nobody is promoting timed quests that result in game over. A group of barbarians is on their way to town. The townfolk ask you for help. Please find us materials to make bows and arrows. please help us fortify the walls. Please go find the hunting party out in the woods and tell them to return. Instead you go pick flowers in the fields. You come back to town and its burned to the ground. The game doesn't stop. Or maybe you do two of the quests and save the town with a handful of dead. Or you do all three and scare the barbarians away without a drop of blood. In any case, the story would continue with you dealing with whatever consequences arise from your specific set of actions.
-
That, coupled with what is called a 'degenerate rest system' were flaws of design, true. But let me point out that there was the occasional urgency in BG: Jaheira and Khalid might quit on you prior to Nashkel. Likewise with Xzar and Montaron. A lot of people don't know that, I believe, because many recent tweak mods remove that feature. There's also the "Poisoned!" quest in chapter 5. And that dwarf who will leave your party if you don't flood the cloakwood mines. And Edwin will leave your party if you don't hunt down Dynahier. But lets be honest here, that's not really what we've been debating in these last 2 threads. It's not "urgency" when you're given a game month (or 2 game months) to do something. what about the example of the woman being taken by bandits? You can choose to follow them and save her, or go about your business and come back later. At that point, some sort of consequence would have happened. You don't "fail" the quest line, you just fail to save her outright. The questline could be completely different depending on your urgency. Save her right away and her family rewards you for her safe return. Don't save her and you find posters in town about a missing woman. You can then talk to the family who send you to investigate and rescue her if possible. You could even have the PC force the family to pay you for what information you know.
