melkathi

That's a cute avatar Your english is fine. There were two tiny mistakes in the text and no typos. Or there were two typos and no mistakes. So don't worry ("an critically acclaimed game" should be "a critically acclaimed game", though you do a and an correclty the whole rest of the blog. Money is singular. So instead of those money it should be this money) Personally I would have changed the structure of the sentence: "What we would get and what will we get" to "What we would get and what we will get" though more likely I would say "What we were to get and what we will get". That's just personal style though... I think I can't promise any ideas on future articles

How would you feel about different levels becomming available at different parts of the main quest? So once you free village xyz from enemy lkj during the main story, the magic backlash causes an earthquake that opens a route to level 9.

Woah. There are pills who's side effect is to turn people into me? Watcher's Keep had all of that and more. It had baatezu and tanar'ri fighting, it had puzzles, included a card game, backstory for every level and NPC, an overarching plot and even morale choice (sort of) at the end, where you had to choose between munchkin's urge to get on with powerful demon, "do the right thing" or even take an evil path and slay quest givers. I was satisfied with Watcher's Keep. But the OP was not. I'd probably be satisfied with a Watcher's Keep. I wouldn't mind seeing them push the concept a little bit further. But for me personaly what matters the most is that the levels make sense, that there is a reason for the creatures to be there and a logical way of them to be there. And I want things to be happening, not just monsters standing around waiting for the day I get to their corner (which in reality they still do... but you know I mean). I agree with you, at least to a certain degree. I don't see a reason why the dungeon should be part of the main quest. On the contrary, I fear it can cheapen the main story experience if every bit of content is attempted to be forced into it. But I do also hoep that the main quest will not put us under time pressure, where exploring a dungeon will kill any hint of imerssion. I do wonder if the game will have a post main quest thing, so that the dungeon can be explored later. I kinda liked how this was handled in Tactics Ogre...

Interesting read, Raithe. Thanks!

You really need to free yourself from the damage the Bioware style story telling with romance and emotional baggage has dealt you. There are more ways to add narrative than that and it is not what anyone who asks for story in the dungeon is asking for. Go back to a previous post of mine and you'll see what I would idealy like. Right now you are just arguing from a very narrow view point that is not making your point. If for example level 2 of the dungeon has a group of treasure hunting bandits occupying the south part and a humanoid tribe the north part, with the two sides at war, then that scenario could add a lot of interesting things gameplay wise. you could have the choice of allying with either or fight both. You could try luring one side into an area where they will be attacked by the other side, while you sneak away with invisibility. Having a story would allow them to try to do interesting things for gameplay in every level of the dungeon. you just need to understand that "story" does not mean that some npc suddnely wants you to be their shrink and then have sex with you.

I hear whispered in dark places that some people actually like game mechanics. Yes, sadly, some actually play games in order to experience and enjoy those mechanics. Shocking! And some of those crazy, deluded individuals... why, they even think that the biggest loss in modern RPGs compared to the old ones has been how game design has gradually morphed from an approach favoring large systems-driven interactions within universal rulesets, to highly scripted, story-driven gameplay. Heretics, burn them alive! People should enjoy game mechanics of the games they play. Otherwise it would suggest they spend their free time doing things they don't enjoy. What the person I replied to expressed was the opinion that story should not be included in the dungeon so that he could test his intelligence through gameplay. That removal of story would make gameplay suddenly challenging. So try to be sarcastic all you want, that does not change the fact that gameplay does not become challenging simply by removing something else. Encounters will be challenging because they were designed to be challenging. If that is done with story or without does not change the challenge level. The two of you believe story equals bioware romance. It just goes to show how narrow your understanding is. If you went back a bit to a previous post of mine in this thread, you would see what I refer to with story-telling in a dungeon. Of course it would require you to be read more than one post to spout your preconception in a reply to.

I just think its very romantic that you married someone with a blurry square head,

So having story = "troubled NPCs demanding to care about their every need and issue" Such a limited view. And mechanicaly going through the motions of combat through 15 levels of a mega dungeon is hardly a test of one's inteligence. Or do you seriously believe that every single corridor and room, every encounter will be crafted to provide a unique and challenging experience, that will challenge you to find new, innovative ways of using the system to overcome them? Also be carefull when you throw around the "dumbed down" games argument. It can come back to bite you. Because let's face it, stories in games (and other media) have been dumbed down so every uncouth gamer can blast through it with the singular thought of proclaiming it as "epic" in the end

I am completly uninterested in the dungeon as it stands. I would be very interested if it had its own sub story. DreamDancer already mentioned some good ideas. I would thoroughly enjoy some faction based conflict in some of the levels. I would also enjoy it if progress in the dungeon had a visible effect: the tribe of cavekitten scavengers you displaced through your exploration building a small camp in caves in a mountain range somewhere on the world map. the magic seal you broke to gain access to level 11 also allowing the undead from that level access to the upper level and the surface until you shatter the magic orb in level 12. And so on.

I'm still waiting for this game to come to PC. Good chance it will never happen. Don't fret, I have a plan. We'll make a PC exclusive game that all those console players will wait for and never get. We'll call it Green Alive Corruption.

With random encounters, idealy the game would remember what encounter you ran away from and add it to subsequent encounter rolls with a runaway count. If this count surpassed a certain value, the enemies would have random names generated for them and npcs in villages and towns would start knowing and gossiping about the player's nemesis. This would result in a diminishing reputation until the player beats the encounter.

On another note. Opened the door of my office, stepped out into the hallway and through the open door of the office on the other side, I saw it rainign outside their window. turned around, it isn't raining outside my window, but I do have a rainbow on my side. Awesome, our building is right where the rain stopped

If Alcatraz is go for tomorrow, you need to post twice as much today, so that post count isn't among the "stuff" you fall behind in as well.

Things would have been very different for the Spartan Coalition if Deidre Skye had shot Santiago on the Unity when she had the chance Did you ever get to read the Journey to Centauri? And agreed on the UN votes.

That and there is always Melisandre.

I played a lot of the original Civ. Probably should have used capital letters for lot... Played Civ 2 once at a friend's place. Then came Alpha Centauri and it just went straight for my gamer-heart I enjoy the backstory. It helps that when the game first launched you could do a personality test on the site which would put you in one of the factions. I am an official Gaian... I feel more allegiance to those than I do to my real life nationality

I half expected this thread to be in the Project Eternity section in form of an obscure petition to include this as a morality grey choice in the game...

Yeah I read about that one. Made a dreary day more fun

Up to that point I thought you were making Doctor Who puns

Dragon Age also had the problem though of reusing doorways too often I am thinking of a warehouse in Denerim in paricular. While I can overlook a certain discrepancy in scale, I do want buildings to make sense. So if I enter a mansion I do want it to have been a mansion on the outside and I do want it to have the layout of a mansion and not be a long linear progression of random corridors and rooms based on the order of encounters the player is supposed to experience and not on what the location is.

I can't play Civ 5. I always get depressed thinking of Alpha Centauri 2.

So for figurines you'd need some pretty good 3D skills, understanding of scale and enough common sense to understand what bits will be too thin and break.

My original degree is in architecture, so I am biased. I much prefer when space is handled in a realistic way,

By "your own figurines" you mean that someone else has made a 3D modell and you just print it, or that you create a 3D model yourself and then print that? (I haven't looked into the 3D printing thing too much yet)