agewisdom

The reason I suggested a childhood friend as a rival is to give some background and to flesh him out in the first place. I understand everyone's concerns here. We all don't want "Here, this is X, your childhood rival because of blah blah blah.... Now Street Fighter style 'Fight!'" I am envisaging that we either: 1. Have a tutorial stage where the PC's and companions (perhaps, possible rival) start out as children in their village etc. During this stage, they might face some mini-quests that children typically face e.g. seeing thieves enter a neighbor's house or facing off against some bullies. During this period, they may have discussions as to what's the best course of actions. The PC's decisions may directly antagonize some of his companions... This seed of discontent will then be explored further during actual gameplay when the PC meets this companion as an adult. 2. Alternatively, we could have flashbacks during the actual course of gameplay, where the PC and companions were kids.... My main idea is that I want rivals that I have a love-hate relationship... someone I actually care about but has taken a very different path. We both want the same things but right now, we're standing in each others way... So, now what? It's not just about fighting and killing him ... but should I actually do so? Am I right or is he? Get what I mean?

Hi Shardbearer, Yes, the dreams in BG2 is something that I'm looking for. You don't have a BIG BAD just waiting twiddling his thumbs. Sure he may be busy with his other nefarious plans, but as soon as it's clear that the PC is going to be a MAJOR THREAT, it's time for him to take actions to remove the PC. It could be a serious of escalating actions that would also add some 'urgency' to the game, as some of the other threads were talking about. The PC can't be traipsing around smelling the flowers when you have a major villain breathing down your neck and trying to turn you into a sheeshkabob...

Hi Continuity, IMHO, the rival adventurers should not be a one-off encounters. Rather each group should have their own philosophies and be faction aligned. In general: 1. You should read or have conversations with NPCs about their exploits and the fame/infamy of their actions... 2. First encounter should not end in battle, rather more about sharing of experiences and discussions. It might end pleasantly with both parties deciding to co-operate to take down a major villain. Or it might end badly, with both parties leaving in a huff... 3. Mid-encounters The parties could meet and clash and/or co-operate from time to time whilst each grows in powers. 4. Final encounter/Debate If the competing philosophies of the two rivalling parties are so diametrically different, it could reach a boiling point where they feel the need to settle these difference once and for all. Either by a battle with weapons or a battle of wits via a debate....

Weighing in on these discussions, could we have a villain that is both intelligent, sinister and has a very real impact on the protagonist's life? These could include: 1. Getting the careless/brash protagonist into real trouble For instance, the villain might feel the protagonist is getting a little troublesome with all his 'ooh... let me help everybody all the time for nothing' quests. So, he gets an NPC to come running to the protagonist asking for help. Help me, there's robbers in my house holding my wife and children hostage. A careful protagonist that probes further may detect the lie but a foolish one will charge right in. Congratulations, you've just arrived at the scene of the crime where an entire family has been butchered using the same type of weapons you're holding. And the door is locked... And the authorities are closing in.... 2. Keeping tabs and raiding PC's stronghold Oooh... so the PC has become more and more powerful. Keeping all the great spells and powerful magic items in your stronghold eh. Have you made sure you have sufficient guards and traps to keep the villain away? No? Ok, time to raid, pillage and plunder. Couple of year's worth of loot just fall right into the villain's hands.... 3. An Intelligent Evil Villain I am hoping the villain is a reactive one... He doesn't just sit there and wait for the PC to come to him.... No, no... as soon as the PC is seen as a credible threat, he takes actions to get rid of these pesky adventurers. This may include sabotage, poison, placing spies in the PC stronghold and all manners of nefarious plots....

Yeah, like some of the earlier comments, I think respawning should be tied with the lore. 1. Wilderness Areas like forests with natural wild life should see respawns of natural monsters like wolves, bears and spiders at a slower rate than the initial encounter. 2. Dungeons / Enemy strongholds There should be no respawns unless this can be explained ingame. If they're taken over by a persistent enemy faction that's hell bent on tacking over the region, then perhaps they decide to use cleared out dungeons as their temporary base of operations. Or low-level bandits have moved in taking over the place.

Like ShadowScythe says, I don't think advanced formations would work too well unless we're talking about in places like dungeons with tight corridors. Reason being, with a party of six, how fancy can formations get? A phalanx or tetsudo would hardly work with 6 adventurers.... Besides with wide open spaces, a phalanx of 3 or 4 persons, can easily be flanked from the sides or rear.

Hi gglorious, ogrezilla and eimatshya. Nice to meet all of you. Good points raised. My clarification: 1. The rivals from the beginning is not meant to start out as a full-blown rivalry. During the tutorial, it's just supposed to establish that you have 2-3 very close friends from your village. However, even at that young age, the two or three of you have very different ideas as to how you think the world should be. This difference of opinion forms the seed, from which a full blown conflict will be born during the course of actual gameplay. If this can't be worked into the tutorial, due to too much permutations on the starting class/race, then perhaps we could meet the childhood friend/rival when the PC is just starting out to establish the relationship. Or like eimatshya suggested "Maybe your rival could be an early companion or associate of yours that parts ways with you at the end of the first act and who ends up developing an increasingly antagonistic relationship with you over the rest of the game." Great idea also! 2. Yes, a group of similar adventurers starting out just like you but with a different way of going about things. Perhaps they are more merciless/ruthless (the end justify the means) but have similar goals e.g. betterment of the world. During initial gameplay, when both parties are justing starting out - you might actually work together to take down more powerful enemies. 3. In terms of scripting, I believe you are referring to scripting such as DA Origins or DA2 ones where.... haha, just walk into my trap without any formations, scouting ahead and get attacked. The examples that I gave above gives alternatives to prevent being trapped in such a manner. For example, your trophy from the Archmage would NOT be stolen if you had high awareness or had a thief, since you would be aware you were shadowed. So long as you are given a chance to overcome the ploy so to speak, I feel it should be ok. Why wouldn't an antagonist take advantage of the fact that it would be best to come into the picture when your party and the archmage are both at a weakened state? But, if you're smart enough to take precautions, then you would be safe. If it's too hard, there could be foreshadowing as to these are the types of tactics that the antagonist typically employs. Of course, this type of scripting should sparingly used to avoid the feeling of being forced into certain situations. 4. As to the main villain, your points on BG1 are correct. I concede that, have forgotten quite a bit since I played. Still, if you see the plot on DA: Origins, the actions of the Archdemon was really nonsensical, don't you agree? I see Loghain as a more interesting antagonist. Even he didn't take any major action even whilst the PC was travelling all over Ferelden undoing his work. Your points are about the villain having his own struggles and problems are great! If this was telegraphed to the player at some points, things would make more sense. 5. The DA2 no big-bad villain is an alternative way of going about it. This would depend on the plot Obsidian has in mind. Still, I would prefer an semi-rival/antagonist. Heck, the final fight with the rival could even be in a court room ala NWN2 where there's a debate and a battle of philosophies, rather than a brawl.

One of the things that has always bugged me about cRPGs is that the main villain(s) or antagonists are usually extremely powerful beings at the apex of their powers, who seemingly do nothing at all whilst the PC gains powers through doing quests, leveling up etc. until ooops... they lose at the final battle. BG1: Sarevok would have overpowered the PC in BG1 had he taken more decisive action earlier. In BG2, Irenicus should have killed off the PC after his success in stealing his soul (if I remember correctly). In DAO, the Archspawn should have done more than sending one measly attack party against the PC as soon as he realized there were 2 Grey Wardens still alive. Now, I don't know what's the plot Obsidian has in mind, but I'm sure since there a factions, the PC will definitely piss a couple of factions with the actions that he takes. If such, could we have a more detailed and progressive antagonist to rival the PC. The following are my ideas for some antagonist(s): 1. Competitive Rival(s) from the Beginning During the tutorial or prologue, introduce a few characters that the PC has known since childhood. They don't need to be particularly cruel but just have very differing views about what sort of actions to be taken to resolve certain actions. For example, they could see a thief sneaking into the Mayor's house whilst he is not in the house. Actions could include: (a) Rushing in and overpowering the thief (Brash, direct, confrontational) (b) Discreetly informing the local police force (or its' equivalent), whilst setting up traps to delay the thief's escape (Discreet, indirect, non-confrontational) © Sneaking in after the thief and knocking him out. Stealing the highest value items with the lowest weight e.g. gold coins etc. that cannot be easily identified. Pawn them off a quickly as possible or hide the loot somewhere for around 2-3 years. Let the thief escape to take the blame. (Intelligent evil approach). Now, each of the PC friends may have their own opinions as to what actions to take. The PC's decision would break the deadlock. 2. Rivals Grow Through Adversity As the PC starts on his quest, his childhood friends will also undergo certain events that cause them to take up the adventuring cause. The PC might hear of their progress and achievements within certain factions. If he sides with the same faction as one of his childhood friend, he may receive assistance and discussions about the path their other friends have taken. The PC may meet these rivals during battle or competing quests. For instance, both Faction A (PC's faction) and Faction B (rival's faction) may be searching for the same item belonging to a powerful archmage. They could meet in several manners (could be randomized): (a) Brash Rival Just before the PC enters the inner sanctum of the archmage to confront him, the brash rival could arrive and challenge the PC for the right to enter. Upon defeating this rival, depending on the degree of success (e.g. no of rounds), this rival might leave in anger or even agree to join in the battle (in return for some pointers on how to improve his battle technique or some cool loot!) (b) Sneaky Rival Let the PC exhaust his resources against the enemy archmage. Whilst PC has is fighting a grueling battle, his party will set up traps, archers will take up strategic positions, mages empower powerful spells. etc. Once the PC wins, the rival will simply step up and demand for right for the item. Unless the PC still has something left in the bag, victory should be impossible. Of course, if the PC has a skilled thief with him, he would realized he was being followed. He could have the option of secretly getting his Faction to send a backup to follow this shadow force. The backup could then act as reinforcement to circumvent the Sneaky Rival when he finally appears. (c ) Intelligent Evil Rival Upon successfully defeating the Archmage, a messenger from Faction A arrives requesting for the item immediately. He carries a legitimate letter from the Faction Leader detailing the urgent need to obtain the item for certain reasons. The PC has the option to query the messenger further. In reality the messenger is the Intelligent Rival masquerading as the messenger to obtain the item on the sly. If the messenger ploy fails, the Intelligent Evil Rival will send another 3 spies acting as a civillian on the path back to Faction A's HQ. These 3 spies will pretend to be injured civillians robbed by bandits. They will request the party to escort them back to their village, which is conveniently on the way to Faction A's HQ. Whilst travelling, they will attempt to poision the PC's party with offers of refreshments and food. They will also volunteer to 'repair' the PC's equipment. Depending on the PC's party skills, they could find out this plot early or foolishly escort the 'civillians' to the said village right into an ambush. The 'poisoned' PCs should feel the effects only upon the Evil Rival using a catalyst. 3. Final Encounter As the game progresses, both the PC and his Rival(s) should have great achievements under their belt. As they grow in power, they will be sent to more battles which would involve a battle of wits between the PC and his rivals. This could set up a stage for final clash. I believe this would make for a more interesting final boss, rather than some nameless antagonist which you only meet near the end ala the Archvillain from DAO. Phew, such a long post. What do you all think?

Hmm... quite a lot of interesting discussions. I think a questionnaire approach should be optional since quite a lot of Jagged Alliance 2 fans disliked some traits being automatically allocated. However, my thoughts on the questionnaires is quite different from what is being discussed here. Let me explain: 1. Present Life In most CRPGs, the character generation is used to fill-in-the-blanks for the present life. This means whatever statistics and/or feats/abilities that is being picked reflects what you have been doing in your current life from age 0 - present. This is fine, in my opinion. 2. Past Lives The soul system as elaborated so far by Oblivion makes for a far more interesting discussion. This is quite similar to the story of the Nameless One and his actions throughout his past incarnations. What I am proposing is to assume that the whatever PC that we are assuming has gone through several past lives/incarnations akin to Planescape Torment. In each of these past lives, he or she has had to make very difficult decisions which has repercussions in his current life. This is more or less similar to the Karmic belief in Buddhism. Based on these questionnaires, certain quests or events may work differently. All this may be tracked via a different statistic system that is quite different from the normal stats that we're talking about. *** For instance: Your beloved husband was once a respected and powerful mage in the Ramayana Order. His ingeniuity and compassion was known throughout the lands. Alas, this courted the jealously and wrath of a powerful necromancer, Azeezal. With his foul arts, he cursed you with a debilitating disease which strickened your mind and caused your flesh to wither and rot. Over the past decade, you have been delirious and often asleep. It is only in the recent months that you have begun to recover. To your horror, you realize that you are alive only due to the efforts of your husband. He has had to drain the life of a young woman every month to concoct an elixir to keep you alive. Azeezal has had his revenge, dragging your husband's soul down to the abyss. Tonight is the night of another sacrifice. You have very little time left to make a decision. Do you: 1. Plead with your husband to stop this insanity, atone for his sins and let you die in peace? 2. Embrace your husband and take up the dark arts with him. Strive to work with him to take revenge on Azeezal. 3. Admonish your husband on his sins and command him to atone for crimes. Commit suicide to any further harm to his soul. 4. Etc... *** A series of mini-questionnaires like this could lead to a few possibilities in role-playing: 1. A mini-quest where you get to actually meet the necromance Azeezal. Imagine if he actually recognizes your past incarnation and makes reference to it. Depending on your decision in the questionnaire above, the quest could turn out differently. If you embraced the dark arts with your husband to take revenge, Azeezal might be even pre-disposed to side with you or allow you to proceed with your quest unhindered. 2. Soul fracturing As the magic system is based on whether your souls are whole or fractured, it makes sense for the PC to have some decision in this. I think this is a much better way to approach it, rather than ticking - soul: complete, partly fractured, completely fractured.... Come on, where's the role play in that? 3. Historical reference There could be some books etc. referencing this as historical fiction etc. This would give weight to your past actions ala PST style. Well, this is just my 2 cents opinion, up for discussion.

Hi! Long time Obsidian fan here. I think character generation should be tied heavily with the lore. There are a few options that I think can be explored: 1. Soul system Since souls play an important role in Project Eternity, perhaps we could have a mini-quiz game ala the Ultima Series by Richard Garriot. In those Ultima series, you were forced to choose between 8 competing virtues to see which is the primary one. My idea is that since whatever characters you generate, it would likely have gone through a number of past lives (per the lore on souls). So, we could have a series of questions based on your past lives which requires you to decide on complex dilemmas. A cliched one could be: (a) You have ascended to the throne as the monarch in the Eastern Kingdom of Aronach, after a bitter political struggle with your rivals. Surrounding you are five smaller kingdoms have co-existed peacefully with your kingdom for centuries. Unfortunately upon your coronation, there is unsettling news that three of the five kingdoms are planning a joint attack to take advantage of your weakened situation. Do you: (i) Marshall your armies for an all out assault; (ii) Send your diplomats out to sue for peace; (iii) etc... These scenarios could be used to (a) determine the initial state of souls your character may have; (b) decide what sorts of perks your character may have. If you were an extremely nasty person, probably you would have an extremely fractured soul. Playing as a mage would require a very different playthrough vs. one which you were a goody two shoes. One could redeem one's soul in-game itself, but it should be difficult. I think this is better than starting on a blank slate in terms the condition of one's characters' soul. 2. Origins scenario ala Dragon Age: Origins I really like the origins scenario in DAO. Since there's 5 classes, perhaps there could be 5 origins or some permutations between race and origins, so that starting scenarios make sense. Just my 2 cents of though...