Falkon Swiftblade

This is an interesting and relevant topic for my game I'm currently working on. It's still too early in development to decide if the player will get to choose his/her own avatar, but I specifically wanted to tell at least 3 perspectives of the same story, and admittedly initially my main protagonist was a young child who would change through the story line, in a 3 act story arc where a lot of time had occurred. However I've been having reservations on doing that, because it limits the story's I can tell with him, and shows his mortality and makes me nervous that I may be treading on dangerous ground. However lots of games have gone back and forth with the hero's age like Link in the Zelda games for example. Usually they purposefully try to keep the hero as unchanging as they can like Mario. Also even though in my games current state one of the side kicks is much more mature than the main protagonist, I face a similar issue of if I make him perceived old, then the connotation is he may be less useful than someone else, unless I use some type of magic mechanic and make him like a Gandalf type of NPC, which I feel is a little bit too cliche'd by this point. My goal is to mix up encounters and game play mechanics, but to try and avoid too many cliche's or stereotypes. I've never played a game like what I'm making exactly, so it's kind of fun to experiment, but it comes down to am I designing a game for you to be the hero, or sharing space in my world and inviting you to come along and witness someone else's story. I certainly have a story I want to tell, but do I want to present it like a Commander Shepherd or Batman, or as someone you create... I think both are appropriate, but not needed in every type of game.

My current project is using more of a visual cue to character growth. However it's not in a blingy type of way, but it does change game play mechanics. I'm sure similar methods have been used in other games, but my hope is it feels like a reward and like a real sense of accomplishment. The challenge I'm currently facing is progression, because If someone rushes through in 1/4th the time I'm aiming for in the design, will it still have the same impact as if it was a gradual change over a long time? I also hope to have visual cue's for systems such as if I were to use a dexterity mechanic for example. If someone had a low dexterity I'd like to have additional animations showing how clumsy they are, in contrast, a high dexterity may show smoother animation and graceful movements. My voice actors I want to have different ways of delivering their lines too, maybe they stutter a little bit, maybe they're a little ****y or confidant depending on how the stats are. Similarly, a person with low strength may look like Rockem Sockem Robots, but someone with high strength would have much more follow through and enemy's would react more.

I don't mind reading, but I'm really not wanting to be standing in the same screen space for 30 minutes at a time reading. I would prefer a system that even if there's a lot of reading the game scripts stuff in the scene so players interact with the environment. Maybe they pour themselves a drink, eats a meal, pets a horse, sharpens his weapons, etc. I just don't want to stare at a wall of text. If I wanted to read a book, I'd read a book. Make the environments interactive to some degree is all I'm asking.

I want a really big world to explore. Exploration is my favorite RPG trope, it doesn't have to be like 25 miles big, but it can just be 5 with a crap ton to discover. Like even if there is specific content during certain days or nights in game. Such as the spirit of an NPC that comes out on nights of a full moon... That's not specifically a bigger zone, but its additional content that you may miss out on if you aren't in the right place at the right time. I want everything to have a purpose, and I'm hoping there is a story about each area and not just them saying, you know what would be cool?! Tree Village People! Even if it's a cool idea, I still want it to fit in context of the world. Like I would love sea battles and merchant ships since there's 2 cities and so much water, but I don't know if it would fit with their story. As far as things like Dungeons, I would like them to feel big and like it was really worth your time to explore. I don't like anything that waste's my time that isn't helping me in some way. I'm not talking about things like Fishing, if I just want to fish for food that's one thing, but to send me into a dungeon for 15 minutes to get a book and fight 3 monsters would make me a little frustrated.

I think it's poor game design if a character can not solve a quest. There should always be at least one method to complete a task, whether through diplomatic means, fighting, presenting a token or barter of some kind, etc. Just because they're the wrong class, or lack a proficiency shouldn't exclude them immediately from achieving the task at hand. They may have to find another solution, but the character(s) should always be able to avance.

I had another idea regarding crafting that they could really spend time on to make crafting more viable. They could use crafting as a game play mechanic in the storyline. As you progress into regions of the game, have an economy based upon the materiels. Early on maybe it's animal skins for leather skins and another region may be harvesting steel or iron that's not as common in other regions. The PE guys could introduce within the lore bits about the different materiels and different hero's who wore X item found in y region, slowly dropping hints of what's the most valuable or rarest materiels. In some ways, it kind of reminds me of the guild quests in Skyrim, specifically the mage guild exploring the tomb and the idea that a quest may be about studying the architecture of a dungeon and we come upon some of the resources in limited quantity's and we may not know what we found initially. It's fun discovering new minerals or materiels in games. I remember the first time I played the original Final Fantasy was one of the first RPG's I played, and it was really cool there was armor that was different than the standard leather, steel, silk, etc. I think they used platinum and diamond armor which a lot of games have used since then, but initially it was new for its time and was really neat. The trick here is the game should make the materiels tied into the lore and world. So if you're specializing in animal armor for example it feels like a real victory to beat the Beholder to collect it's eye to craft into a special head piece, and it's not just iron armor for example for the sake of RPG trope #42 of must have leather armor, iron armor, etc. If the materiels and items have some story built into it, I think it makes the reward more viable, even if it's nothing super special. In a perfect world, I would really like the spawning regions for some components to be random over time. So that maybe for example I need gas as a component to build ammo for my revolver, but there are different flavors of gas I could collect, and within that, maybe gas in region A is also in region F, but the stats on F are slightly more combustible than the stuff in A even though its the same kind of gas. Also these spawns are only available for short periods, you would just get lucky sometimes by stumbling upon a patch of a component that you may or may not need. You could farm all the stuff as you came upon it to sell, or just go get a little bit as ya need it. I personally like the exploration and scavenger hunt aspect of RPGS. The thing is spawn points expire and change. Some will be much rarer than others. If it was a MMO I could see it breaking the economy, but for a single player game I think it would be fine, and they could limit the drop rate.

i think this topic is just another reasons why games are so great. Not everyone has the same goals. Some people don't like crafting because it feels like the easy button or a chore, because it's too complicated. I think more than anything, I appreciate that it's there, but you don't have to use the system if you don't want to, but if they're spending hundreds of thousands of $ on this system, I expect it to be well thought out. They will likely use a combination of smiths, merchants and player crafting. I know they are fans of schematics and formulas from previous games. I like those systems generally. I mentioned previously that i was a survival instructor. They could just as easily turn that into a crafting profession, because there are 8 "ingredients" found in any part of the world to survive off of. In a similar manner, i don't mind going on a scavenger hunt looking for a list of items to collect. Whether or not i'm the one crafting it, or it's the smithy depends on the context of how I'm RPing my hero, or the context of the story. If the game is very task driven and my mechanics at my disposal is magic focused maybe smithing is not a priority, but if I want to be the best smithy ever, i would like the game play mechanics to encourage that playstyle so that maybe I'm not the best or strongest hero, but i can supplement my lack of ability with being able to craft better gear for my party, or having someone in my party who can. Although, I can think of since there's 2 big city's in game, i would expect lots of merchants or places to craft at. I really won't form a strong opinion on this matter until i understand what the game is about more. We lack a lot of context, and if healing is as rare as they say, having a system that promotes more damage or armor mitigation is a system I wonder how and why it's being used. In some ways I hope they have some of the mechanics from Reckoning, so you may have 5 of the same chest pieces, but they could all have different stats depending on how you built it. I just hope there's better visual cues of crafted gear with it's property's. I don't want my uber breastplate to look like the one that dropped 12 levels ago.

I understand what your saying here, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't also be good at something else. Your perspective makes it sound like someone who plays the piano can't do anything else well. What if that guys also an accountant or successful day trader? What if he also is a gifted singer? It's not like you're starting off as a champion, the more you work at something the better you get at it. There's only so many math books you need to go through in order to be a math wiz. Given you have a desire to learn, it doesn't take 3 years to master division for example. and even simple math can be used in many ways. Neither does it seem that unreasonable to me that over a course of an epic game that with proper resources, books, or materiels that your hero comes upon, he should be able to read the instructions and craft something great if he has some level of training or skill. Maybe it's not the very best item in game, but certainly if he has quality components it should be reasonable to assume he could craft a really nice item. I used to be a survival instructor and we were very creative with using anything we came upon to make all kinds of things. I once found over 20 unique items a guy had on his person to use for fire starting materiel. I didn't learn how to do that in some school. It was just life experience that I gathered along the way. Similarly it's crazy what you can make with just eggs, milk, sugar, and flour. There is a level understanding one must have to understand fundamentals, but with a little guidance a person can accomplish anything. As a Survival instructor often times I created something to fullfil a temporary need. Shelters were a daily thing. If I was traveling 50 miles, I needed to have something I could build quickly and abandon in a hurry if being attacked by a bear or wolves for example, but if I knew I was going to be put for a few weeks or months I would continue to improve upon my design. I think a weapon smith or most crafting professions would be similar.

It dawned on me today that Sony has already made mention that the PS4 will support 4k resolution and will likely come out in 2014 when this game comes out. This suddenly became a much bigger deal to me. If a Console system is going to support much higher resolution than this game, I do wonder what they're gonna do... here's one of a dozen such links. http://www.tgdaily.com/games-and-entertainment-features/65631-report-sonys-ps4-will-support-4k-resolution

I saw this article several months ago, this guys a frikken genius! He makes this whole scene with one texture map! http://www.3dworldmag.com/2012/04/02/one-texture-environment-created-with-udk/

I'm sure there would be some challenge to it, but I would love it if enemy's had a wide area they traversed, so you might primarily have like the standard bear region in the beginning of the game for example, but I'd like it if they traversed the whole forested area in addition to designed spawn points. I just don't like mob's that stay there waiting for you to kite without any skill. IE Skyrim when you sneak shot the big skeletons' laying down and 1 shot them every time with your bow, even at low levels.

i really liked how BG and IWD handled the loot with lore and having hidden items. I especially liked named NPC's like Drizzt you could kill. I'm pretty sure they fixed the bug keeping you from looting his gear in the upcoming Enhanced version. I also agree that I don't want useless loot, and i'd much prefer an item limit over encumbrance, it's my least favorite rpg trope.

I don't know how to choose, but I think Iconography is important, Red and Green colors are good complementary colors that stand out against each other, however they are also the 2 colors most color blind people can't see, so I would opt for a more identifiable shape and icon than a specific color combination. Personally id like an interactive preview animation like a floating fireball, but I guess it depends on how much combat there is. I could see potentially that becoming distracting for busy fights. TOEE had some improvements to the system compared to games like BG in that your ui stemmed from the character, which saved you from clicking all over your screen like a blindfolded kid whacking a pinata, but you sacrificed screen space covered up by all the fly out windows. That could be immersive breaking. I'd almost prefer a context sensitive ui in that as I click on the target I can choose skills to use on him, and similar on my hero, except I think I'd rather have icons, with tool tips that pop up if you hover over the icon for a few seconds if you need more info. My only real beef with games like BG was i wish the skill bar and the player icon were closer together so i could stay immersed more.

exactly my thoughts. Wow a whole thread of trolls for someone who doesn't objectify women sexually and you guys crucify the guys plea. Maybe he was ignorant of the search feature, but chill out. It's true that men and women have a warped perspective of what's sexy or macho, but just because it's a popular belief doesn't mean it's the right belief. I was told for a dozen years by my parents I'd never be able to drive a car, or do a lot of things that normal people can do because I had seizures and a stroke. I had Dr.'s, my parents, and all kinds of people who were experts tell me I couldn't or would never be able to do a laundry list of things and they were all wrong. Their 10-30 yrs of experience didn't mean a thing. I've done everything they told me I'd never do for almost 15 yrs now. No one ever would know I had a stroke or seizures for about half of my life unless I told them. In fact I'm a successful artist now and the cool thing about my work is a result of the stroke was I have permanent nerve damage and lost the feeling in my drawing hand, but no one knows by looking at my work I can't feel the brush or keys on the keyboard. This is all 2d, no 3d. Sometimes people lose their identity and feel like they are somebody when they choose to be the heman or seductress types of characters, but it's just a shallow impression of what's real, and I promise you you are much more interesting and cooler of a person than something someone else can conjure up if you believe in yourself. People who choose those types of characters are either lusting for the sexy pixel tata's, or they have a low self esteem.

Good Lord....The door is over there -----> I'm not angry or trolling, I'm just saying if I wanted to read a book, then I'd read a book. If I'm playing a game, then I want to play. I know what these games are, I've been playing them since the 90's, there's just better ways of story telling these days.

OP I've never played AP, but have you ever played any of the Uncharted games or Diablo 3? I would like more of those types of encounters in game so I can still adventure while getting exposition without having to stand still for 15 minutes clicking next, next, next, to advance. I'd also like some contextual dialog so I can respond angry, or cautiously, etc depending on language or speech skills.

I personally would like an option to turn off anything with brutality. I'd prefer implied destruction, such as a giant flash of light and afterwards a pile of ashes for a big spell, and maybe realistic sound fx of a bunch of smashing or stabbing, but without the gore on screen. When it goes beyond that it seems like overkill and not only cheapens the impact they're trying to create, it desensitizes you and can cause you to objectify acts of violence. I watched the entire DBZ saga and even as a guy in my 20's I felt like the damage and fights were just as brutal as a crazy HS massacre, but without the shock value included. And it was still believable to some degree because they were always training and perfecting their technique. I'd like Environmental damage though, maybe if I hit something really hard there's a crater around where they were standing, or walls that crash on top of them, etc.

I would appreciate a good replay value if it's tied into the narrative. I'm creating a game right now and I'm purposefully designing it so there are 3 perspectives of the same story and initially you only get to play 1-2 levels of other characters, but I want to create it so after the story is beaten, the player can start a whole new adventure as one of the npc's and see things from their perspective, and then they may eventually get to recruit my hero as a companion for a quest or two. In these types of games I'd like it if I get special perks for being from x faction or race, and have access to content unavailable the first play through, like maybe now I have access to the kings armory since I'm the prince of Y.... etc.

I agree with this completely. Time is quickly becoming my most limited resource, and thus I want to eek the most enjoyment out of each and every moment I spend playing. I will take better and shorter over longer any day, particularly in an RPG. With how much replayability you can get in an RPG, I'd much rather have a great 20-hour game that I can replay 2-4 times than a good 40-80 hour game that I only play once. I can relate! I finally quit WoW vanilla about 10 yrs ago because I had to sit at least 3-6 hrs in a session to accomplish anything which was a major chore. Not to mention I may not even succeed, lag kills, wipes, etc really can be discouraging. At least in these games you usually have journals that keep your goals highlighted, and you can always quick save along the way to manage your adventure.

I agree Lady, I love exploring and building stuff in games. I just appreciate it more when it's done in a way that enhances the game play. For example if I have to collect 12 wolf pellets, lets use them to craft some clothes to sell, or the more you help someone in game, maybe over time when you return his farm is gone, or expanded and things change and his business grew over time. Sometimes we need those quick tasks to do to move us along too, but as long they aren't rinse and repeat and too samey then I'm cool.

I def favor quality over quantity, but I don't want each class to play the same, or have the same animations for everything just reskinned. I'd much rather a balanced longer fight with fewer monsters that had great ai, animations, and each member in my party having unique viable options of how to contribute, than 27 choices and like 3 of them never get used the entire game, but they make you purchase that skill in order to get the one you do want. I want everything to serve a purpose. My one caveat is that if enemy's are limited for example, I want them to be intelligent and have a personality and not mindless meat puppets waiting for me to slaughter them.

we're approaching a reasonable dungeon experience. I hope it's not recycled materiel though, especially since they're making it from scratch and can be super creative with the content.

I'm pretty sure Tim said that your not just going to get xp for combat, but for non combat skills as well. Maybe it will be for properly identifying a magical item, for crafting an item, for discovering a new dungeon, etc.? I don't like grinding in games, but like the option to if I want. I would prefer combat xp to be one of those ways to grind, but there may be other ways, such as how Skyrim did it where you get a little bit of lvl xp, and skill xp as you use the skill.

I want a mixture of enemy types in each encounter. Preferably with some respectable AI. I really liked how Reckoning scripted some of their encounters so that you may be fighting a bear, and suddenly a pack of wolves come by and attack the same bear, and other creatures seemed to have some type of animal faction system going on so sometimes they fought each other. I just wish they were not so stationary, and wandered the environment a little more. Kind of like Skyrim. I would love it if battles had a good mixture of fast creatures that maybe by themselves are pretty weak, but a pack of like 6 would make you feel overwhelmed, while also having a big tanky type of creature in the mix that you had to move around so you weren't squashed. Mobility is important to me. I would prefer to always be moving my heros around the encounter and give me options of how to take them out. I would prefer battles to not just be a pack of 2-3 of the same creatures or one on one battles. Truthfully, if they had to choose between having 25 monsters that were one on one, versus 10 enemy groups made up of a triforce of attacks or strategic battles I would prefer more variety. Really I'd rather have way more than 25 monsters or enemy's in game, but I also don't want the same creature with different colored skin texture dictating he's the tougher version we fought earlier. That's laziness. Maybe they decide to just make 10-25 really interesting and intelligent encounters, but I sure hope it's not a ton of recycled materiel.

really depends on the context of game play. If we're gonna be fightings swarms of baddies then I think limited ammo is lame. If it's fewer battles, I think it should be limited.