PrimeJunta

You're still not getting it, Sacred_Path. Downgrading internal consistency as a writing goal gives you more freedom to explore other stuff. Blade Runner would have been a much worse movie if they had cut out the Voight-Kampff tests even though Deckard didn't actually need them to hunt down the replicants, and wouldn't have needed them in any case because he had complete files on them including perfect 3D portraits. That's because the test is a kind of reductio ad absurdum of the notion that there's some fundamental difference between replicants and humans. It's there to point out that any difference that requires an hour-long test of iris dilation responses to tease out isn't much of a difference at all. I'm also a fairly serious Wagner enthusiast, and his operas aren't particularly strong on internal consistency either. They are extremely strong on deep exporation of themes of profound human importance, through a combination of text, music, acting, and stagecraft. Internal consistency isn't the point. Ditching it lets Wagner do **** that he wouldn't be able to do otherwise. Same for Blade Runner -- or PS:T. What do you mean by "hipster," by the way? If you mean someone who finds most mainstream entertainment dull, then hell yes I'm a hipster. But if you mean someone who stops liking something if it suddenly becomes popular or cool, then... nah, that doesn't fit. I like what I like, some of which is thoroughly mainstream, some of which is not.

There's a cost to everything, Sacred_Path, including internal consistency. In this case, it would have constrained the writers' flights of fancy. I'm pretty sure I would've enjoyed the game a great deal less had the writers made internal consistency a high priority. You're right about the reasons for enjoying it, though -- I would probably have enjoyed it even more had the "gamey" aspects been even more stripped down. For example, your ability scores should have been nailed down, with minor shifts when you change classes. This is because there's a narrow optimum to them, and you can only know what that is through metagame knowledge -- and if you're outside that optimum, the game is much less enjoyable. Being able to nudge them by swapping tattoos in and out would have been enough, especially with the addition of a tattoo or two that let you, say, trade CHA for CON or vice versa. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." (R.W. Emerson)

Very interesting points, Razsius. And yeah, :brofist: -- I put in enough to get my name on a tombstone at least. And I'll offer some counterpoints. First, I'll demonstrate that raging inconsistency in the "this does not make sense" level is not always a problem, if a story is told in a different way. Second, I'll argue that usual conventions of narrative do not apply in a game. This is going to be a bit long, so I hope you have the patience for it. Case study: Blade Runner. Blade Runner is justly considered one of the best sci-fi films ever made. Yet its narrative is full of holes you can drive that Goodyear blimp through. For example: why is Holden even adminsitering the Voight-Kampff test on Leon -- let alone being completely off his guard -- when the cops have complete files on the replicants, including perfectly lit, detailed 3D portraits of them? Why does Deckard bother doing that "enhance" sequence on the photo of Zhora, and then going through the elaborate charade in the backroom of the club, when he must already know exactly who he's dealing with, for the same reason? How is Roy able to just waltz into Sheldon Tyrell's bedroom, even with JF Sebastian offering an excuse for it? Where's the security? And so on and so forth. There's a simple reason for all of this: it's because the film never was about offering a coherent and logical story. It was about exploring themes like what it means to be human, and doing that through a narrative that combines character, atmosphere, and music. The purpose of the story is to keep the movie flowing and let the audience gradually discover the tragedy of the replicants and the blade runners, and of course Deckard himself who is both, through sound, image, expression, phrases, words, scenes. The fact that it makes no kind of logical sense is completely irrelevant. It's the same thing with that famously derpy question about The Lord of the Rings -- if Gandalf was BFF with the eagles, why not just fly the damn ring to Mordor -- or hey, even over the Misty Mountains -- instead of having to do all that tedious trekking? Same question, same answer. Planescape: Torment and Blade Runner are thematically very similar. So the fact that things don't make sense and aren't internally consistent doesn't matter either. It's not based on everyday logic. It's based on dream logic; the kind of logic where a bartender has been keeping your eye in a jar for you for fifteen years, and plucking yours out and replacing it, or tearing out tattoos and sticking on others, is as natural as putting on a shirt or changing your shoes. It was totally crucial that TNO did not wear armor, or that the only swords in the game were so integral to their owners that they could not be separated from them. Bringing daytime logic into that context would've shattered the dream logic, and the whole game would have collapsed. Now, the second part. About narrative logic and games. The difference between games and linear narratives like books or films is that games are about discovery and exploration, where you are the agent. It's more like putting together a jigsaw puzzle where you don't know the picture, and less like reading a detective story or watching a film. There can be a narrative arc, of course, but it can and should shift and meander according to your whims and interests; there can and should be many ways to discover bits and pieces of that puzzle. Like having different people around who can tell you the same thing. The only thing that matters is that all the time there's something that grabs and holds your interest and keeps you going. The sandbox games I don't like don't have that. They just dump you into the world and go "Here, have fun," and leave you to figure out why even bother. Planescape: Torment managed to maintain that sense of urgency, the drive, that kept me going through the whole game, even as the focus shifted when you discovered who you were. The first time I played, I felt truly driven to find out who, or what, this part of me that Ravel had cut off was; to meet it, speak with it, discover it. Bottom line? If you try to play Planescape: Torment like other role-playing games -- focusing on the mechanics, applying everyday logic, lawnmowing, and so on -- you will hate it. Just like you did. But if you allow yourself to be swept away by its dream logic which allows for chaste succubi, godless clerics using divine power, removable tattoos and no allowed armor, it's a whole different experience. By the way, when I returned to it this time, I played with a self-imposed "no scumming" discipline. I.e., I only kept quicksaves and one save file that I updated after every session. I only departed from this discipline twice; once when I painted myself into a corner that would have been really tedious to dig out of (stuck in the Whispering Alley with very low HP, no healing, no hammer, and no crowbar, and the Chaosmen at full strength and angry), and for a second time in the Modron Maze -- which was specifically designed as a comment on computer games and was the most fun to play by grinding, rest-spamming and savegame abuse. And yeah, it was awesome. So Razsius... let go. Let go of that everyday logic. Fly. Be free. And dream.

@Razsius: do I even like sandbox games? As I said, I'm pretty much agnostic about genre and style; what really snags me is content -- what a game is about as it were. Sandbox games are really tough to pull off well IMO, and yes, I do find most of the ones I've played rather disappointing. Nevertheless, there are a few I did enjoy tremendously: Fallout 1 (a true classic and IMO still unequalled in its type) Gothic 2 Morrowind (despite those !!#@$☭⚒☠☢⎈⍟ cliff racers) Make of that what you will. As self-analysis I'd say that FO1 and Morrowind have in common a deep yet quirky setting; in both cases, that's what snagged me. I would certainly have liked them just as much in hub-and-spoke format -- and in fact I would probably have liked Fallout 2 a lot better that way, as it would've brought the egregious balance issues under control, so there would've been more constantly enjoyable challenge instead of sudden flips from instadeath to falling asleep on the keyboard. With Gothic 2, what got me was the way it hit a balance between perils of exploration and freedom, the way you yourself pushed the borders of your world as you gained in power. This IMO is the one thing sandbox games can do that a more restricted hub-and-spoke structure can't. It's very tough to pull off though. You need to have areas with varying difficulty, you need to constantly communicate that difficulty to the player so he can make intelligent decisions about where to go and what risks to take, and you need to populate the world with stuff that's genuinely worth discovering. Bottom line? It all depends on what kind of game you want to make, but most of the time IMO a sandbox format just isn't worth the trade-offs, and usually they end up falling on their face for any of a number of reasons. More story-driven, structured formats tend to fail less as they're much easier to design. On the other hand, if you do manage to pull it off, sandbox games can be uniquely engaging. FWIW, I'm mildly hyped by CDProjekt Red's talking up of Witcher 3. If they really can pull off what they say they're doing, that could be the sandbox game for my tastes.

@Raszius, yeah, I guess we do have fundamentally different preferences about what makes a good game. I think it's a pretty good demonstration of the flexibility of the IE -- and the strength of the more general concept on which it's based. I hope you don't consider my dislike of BG as a personal affront. You're a seriously good egg, even if you have terrible taste in games.

@Malekith: can't argue with that. I'm generally fairly agnostic regarding the style of a game or the engine with which it's made. I enjoy twitch just as much as turn-based, as long as it's well done. Twitcher 2 was good twitch; Twitcher 1 was tolerable twitch, and Bloodlines was headdeskingly bad twitch, so much that it seriously detracted from the game. KOTOR 2 was tolerable RTwP IMO. It would've been better in isometric format as the party aspect of it was pretty much lost in the over-the-shoulder perspective. The NWN2 camera was a real beast to tame, but I have to agree with Kissamies (moro, Suomi hyvin edustettuna täällä näköjään) that it's not so bad once you find the settings that work for you. The real problem is the amount of headdesking needed to get to that point -- more so because it's totally unnecessary since a fixed camera would've gotten the job done with much les fuss.

"Every modern RPG is below the IE games? Hell yes." I disagree, sort of. PS:T is in a class of its own, yes, but there are several (more) modern cRPG's that I'd rank higher than the next-best IE game (BG2). Both Witchers, VtM: Bloodlines, and Mask of the Betrayer to name three. As to PS:T, the strengths of it are in the imagination, the story, and the way it constantly surprises, delights, and amazes you. That has nothing to do with the IE as such. Its wine would have been just as heady in a completely different skin.

Right, "everything modern is excrement." Now who's the hipster?

+1 on PS:T. It was the game that made me sit up and take notice that computer games could one day become a serious art form, comparable to film or opera for example. And yeah, since then pretty much a whole lotta nuthin', in that department. MCA, are you listening?

"Antagonist" = the main baddie. "Supporting characters" = companions, Gorion, that wizard dude that keeps following me around, and so on. The music, yes, check, that's pretty dopey music. Like Wal-Mart Grieg. PS:T's music, OTOH, was superb. IWD vs BG combat: the big difference is in the environment. IWD's maps are full of features like corridors and chokepoints that you can make use oftactically. BG's maps are mostly open, or you get dumped in the middle of a fight on the pretext that you were ambushed, or you open a door and are in the middle of a hand-to-hand melee. Huge difference to the gameplay. I did like BG 2 a quite a lot, as I've repeatedly said. The characters were a lot less dopey in it. And there were some completely new characters who weren't dopey at all, or were only tolerably dopey. Either the writer took some very good after-school writing classes (in which case I want to know who the teacher was 'cuz she did a seriously good job), or they got better writers.

"One or two things," huh? I didn't like - the antagonist - the supporting characters - the companions - the dialog - the visuals - the music - the quests - the combat - the voice acting - the "humor" - the AD&D game system In short, I didn't like a damn thing about it that isn't inherent to the Infinity Engine, which I do like. Clear? I'm not finding Icewind Dale particularly hard so far. I mean yes, you do need to play tactically a bit instead of just wading in and hoping, but it's certainly no harder than BG. (At Core Rules difficulty.) Of course you can compare them. They're characters. They're written and, to an extent, acted. They can be written well, or poorly, whether they're comic, tragic, dramatic, or something else. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is a dopey comic character that's written extremely well. Minsc... not so much.

But I didn't like it before it was cool!

I've gone on something of a slow-motion IE game binge lately. I really only got on the D&D cRPG train with Neverwinter Nights, and had only played Baldur's Gate 2 and Planescape: Torment. Now I've re-played PS:T and finally gotten around to the original Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. Only starting with the latter at this point, but still. Impressions. Not including digressions on AD&D and its viability as a game system here; that would be another topic. Baldur's Gate is the biggest disappointment since The Phantom Menace. There's literally nothing I like about it. The combat is a repetitive, slogging chore, the dialog with its godawful pseudo-medievalese feels like it was written by a somewhat dim 14-year-old, the humor would only be funny if you were that 14-year-old's stoner friend, the characters are irritating and dopey, the voice acting is uninspired, the music irritating and forgettable, the scenery is repetitive, generic, and unimaginative, and the quests are generic. The gameplay overall feels like neverending busywork, do-this, do-that, but mostly just trek around and save and load a lot. Yech. Awful. I hope P:E takes nothing at all from that turd. I mean seriously people, this, a classic FFS? And yeah, I do remember Baldur's Gate 2 being much, much better. Perhaps I'll return to it eventually. Planescape: Torment on the other hand is even better than I remembered it. Perhaps because this time I remembered enough to be able to roll up a character set up to make the most of it, and then could just let go and enjoy the ride. It's constantly surprising, delighting, and amazing me. It does the exact opposite of what you'd expect, all the time. Every item, character, and location feels hand-crafted with attention and love. Music that's haunting, atmospheric, And the story! Gods below, the story! Walls of text, yes, and perhaps there are better ways of telling that story in a visual medium than just making you read a lot, but wow. And the combat wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered, either, although definitely not a high point of the game either. (Un)balance issues aside, its greatest failing is the lead-up to the endgame -- Sigil is truly inspired from start to finish, but from Curst onward it starts to fall flat. The final scenes int the game are a wonderful finale, but getting there becomes a slog again. What would I have P:E take home from PS:T? That inspired feel. I don't know if that's even possible, but that. The feeling that the people who made it are constantly bursting with new cool things to do to, and with, the player. Icewind Dale: Now this is a surprise. I had heard it described as one big extended D&D dungeon crawl, which sounded like it didn't really appeal to my tastes, but hey, I'm really liking it. It is one big extended dungeon crawl, so far at least, but it's one hell of a fun one. And it's a really beautiful game. Even at low levels -- where I am now -- the combat has a degree of variety, things have been tweaked so that it is actually possible to play tactically, even if the tactics are fairly rudimentary like setting up a simple ambush and luring the beasties into it, and... yeah, that feeling of inspiration that's so sorely lacking in BG but is present in PS:T is back. I did not really expect to like this much, but it's actually really good. Once I finish this, perhaps I'll try ToEE -- that's another one I haven't played because it's "just a dungeon crawl" but if IWD is this much fun, that ought to be too. What should P:E take from IWD? A great deal. The consistent, hand-made, sufficiently original, and beautiful visuals. The tactically interesting combat that isn't a chore. Basically take a modernized version of IWD, add a plot hook that's a little bit deeper than "you're sitting around in a bar dreaming of the future when the mayor offers you a job," and make it a leetle less of a corridor, with some hub-and-spoke areas rather than a straight sequence (it is a straight sequence, right? or does it open up later?), and we're good. Summary? It's striking how different these games are, even though they're all in the same engine and all use the same basic ruleset and the basic system is so similar between them that you can easily jump from one to another. That, I think, is the real strength of the Infinity Engine -- it's a platform that just takes care of a lot of the boring computer stuff and lets the gamemakers focus on snagging the player's imagination instead, in whatever way you see fit. If the gamemakers have the skills, talent, vision, and passion for that, marvelous things emerge; if not, there will be boredom. The most promising thing about P:E is that Obsidian wants to make it. That bodes well.

Whoo, degenerashun again. I really don't get it: why do some people WANT breakable, exploitable mechanics? Makes no sense to me. But then some people love classic British sports cars and I'm assured a big part of the appeal is that it's a challenge to get the oil pressure, temperature, and electrical system all working, at the same time. Just seems kind of perverse to me. Anyway. I think this, like so many other things, depends on the context. If gold is very powerful in the game -- e.g., it buys the most powerful items, or buys powerful items much earlier than you could find similarly-powerful items by adventuring -- then having unlimited quantities of it available will make the game more difficult to balance, so it makes sense to limit it in some way. On the other hand, if gold is only moderately useful, limiting it will only be perceived as an annoyance. And finally, you can build up entire systems around gold and trading, which can be fun and rewarding in and of themselves. Systems will inevitably mean mechanics, and mechanics mean limitations. For example, different prices at different traders and different locations, some traders only buying some goods some of the time, prices changing over time, limited inventories, loot disappearing (=being scavenged by someone else) if you don't pick it up quickly, and so on. I'm against limitations and complexity for their own sake. I'm for limitations and complexity used to create systems which make for challenging and engaging gameplay. In my opinion it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to talk about a specific mechanic -- such as limited gold -- outside the context of the system in which it's supposed to operate.

Also, I am going to have to make a combat mage who specializes in debuffs, and name him Barkley. Because he jams and slams.

Oh yes. Very much yes. We are actually going to see melee fighters who are able to control space and block movement. This thing alone will make combat leaps and bounds better than any tactical cRPG so far. Favorite update so far.

I'm afraid I can't really be more specific, because there isn't anything specific I dislike about it, other than the wonky proportions/anatomy that I already mentioned. It just felt pedestrian and unimaginative, especially compared to some of the P:E concept art that's already out -- I really liked Orlock Holmes and Sagani, to name two. How would I have done it? Dunno, I haven't really given it much thought. Maybe I'd either have gone for way more over the top, or much subtler. Think Elric of Melniboné, or Mazikeen from the Lucifer comics, or something like that. But whatever it is, that ain't it.

Interesting update. Liked the technical stuff. On the critique side, the godlike concept doesn't do it for me. The proportions and anatomy seem just... off, rather than alien or godlike. Also maybe a bit too much tiefling-aasimar-genasi for my blood; I was expecting something a hair more original. Perhaps it'll turn out better as things get fleshed out though.

This inspired me to give Arcanum another go. This time as a nearly pure diplomat (just spamming Harm for XP), a gnome named Arsène Lutin, Charlatan's Protegé. And... meh. I like the little guy in his smoking jacket and top hat and all, but I still can't get engaged with the game. There must be something wrong with me, because I should like everything about it (except the combat which is atrocious), but I just ... don't. The place feels empty, lackluster. I just can't give a spit about the characters and quests and objectives. So, once again, I let it drop somewhere between levels 10 and 15. It just doesn't do it for me. I was getting worried that maybe I'm just jaded about gaming itself. So I started Planescape: Torment, for the first time in, what, ten years or so. And I'm hooked from the moment I get off that slab. I've forgotten most of the details by now so I can enjoy it almost as if it was fresh, but still remember some tricks of making it enjoyable. And with the widescreen mod, I'm really impressed by the visuals -- I thought they were a bit meh the first time I played, but that was clearly just because I couldn't properly see them. The combat isn't nearly as awful as I remembered either, or perhaps the sheer horror of Arcanum's made me feel better about it. Go figure. I hope MCA gets more out of it than I do. He certainly pushed my buttons with PS:T.

/me checks in This thread still going? /me flips through a couple of pages Oh. Carry on... PS. Raszius is a class act. That avi is unfair, though. Who's gonna argue with Keldorn? PPS. Ceterum censeo, delendam sunt pugna punctorum experientiae.

@MuseBreaks, good thing for you the great majority of games cater to your tastes then.

What do I think has changed most in programming over the past 30 years? Tools. In 1983, toolkits and libraries with high-level prepackaged things were just starting to emerge. So whatever you were doing, you'd have to start from very basic things. You'd be re-inventing wheels every time you go. This has changed completely. Nowadays by far the most code is written against high-level libraries that package very complex things behind simple-to-use interfaces. So if you're designing a user interface, you won't have to start by designing a "menu" or "input field." You'll just pick the one you want -- say, a date input field with a dropdown calendar which formats the date according to the locale and lets you set or get the value as a Date object -- from the framework you're using. You'll only resort to low-level "old-school" programming where it's absolutely needed, for example to open up bottlenecks that slow down your program, or in specialized teams that do work close to the hardware -- drivers, kernels, some embedded systems and such. The principles and practices are still the same, though. Almost all of Alan J. Perlis's epigrams are just as applicable now as they were when he wrote them.

A road to deeper immersion. If the option of going back to a previous save isn't there, I don't think about it. Less metagame thinking -> better experience. Always assuming the game isn't so difficult that going ironman is not practically feasible on a first playthrough.

@Wirdjos, nope, not sarcasm. I was being serious. I'm only objecting to the very common and very lazy game design where there's no way to know how to win against an enemy or a particular encounter except through trial and error, by playing it through multiple times.

@Alexjh, no, there's a third way, and you and @Wirdjos just described it -- give the player enough information that if he's paying attention he won't innocently get himself killed. Players who aren't paying attention have it coming, of course.