melkathi

Well, one has to decide whether one is interested to overcome the estrangedness with family. If one just says "we are estranged so any contact is only out of family duty" then of course one will drift further appart. It's really up to each person to decide whether they are happy this way or not. *shrug*

It will be Khan

I was not impressed by the force users' stories or the trooper one. The bounty hunter one I foudn the pasing on the starting planet to be off and completly failed to connect with the story. I had a lot of laughs with my smuggler (not wearing cowboy hats. though you can see most of what Ronja looked liked in this thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=234058 ), though she had a lot of moments where she would facepalm again and again. Sith side I found the agent most agreeable with me to the point I played sith side, as I could play them as someone who does their duty in a state that is messed up.

Or they could polymorph you into a rat and have you learn how to stealthily evade newbie adventurers then stealth kill them from behind. Rename the whole game into Rat's Creed: Rodent Revolution.

I don't care what -mance it is. I don't care for any -mance. Unless it has been given enough work to truly anchor it in the story. Deep relationships between npcs and/or between the player and the npcs can enhance the game experience. Simply outfitting every npc with a romance dialogue tree because the game needs to offer enough virtual relationships for as broad a target audience as possible does not provide what I find worthwhile. Perhaps JRPGs have it easier there by not necessarily having one single player character in the same way that for example Mass Effect does. Thus for example FF7 can spend a lot of time on the Cloud-Tifa or Cloud-Aeris relationship or even the Vincent arc, stories that are strong in the "relationship" department, without turning your party into a soap opera or the shrink's couch (and all the FF charcters definitly need a shrink). I am quite happy in seeing a great love story in the game if the writing team feels they can pull it off and that it will enhance the experience - I by no means feel the need to be the protagonist in it or the object of desire all the npcs fight over.

I sure hope so. I loved the Brotherhood aspect to the war of the four kings.

The differences between the books and the series are more dramatic in the second season, Riverrun, Brynden & Edmure Tully and Meera & Jojen Reed being rather glaring omissions. I hope they don't keep that trend going as the series continues. I realize they sacrificed faithfulness to the book in Arya's story to make Tywin Lannister an actual character rather than just this looming shadow, but it's surprising for HBO to be going to lengths to tone things down and soften them up, considering how Arya deals with Harrenhal in the book, which was more interesting in her development as a character. What a friend and I have been wondering is:

That's part of what ruins Guild Wars 2 personal story missions.

Thanks *nomnom* Going to wait to see what games you write about.

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