High Octane 881

Dear fluffy lord for the love of everything unholy please yes! I would love music that makes me jump up out of my chair and run around the house in boxers swinging an imaginary sword (this never happened when I first loaded Skyrim. Never.) Friggin Hobbit's "Misty Mountain" has been stuck in my head for 3 days now. Seriously though it's a great touch when dev's manage to create a catchy and powerful theme that *fits* the game well.

Really wish I could catch some of these great threads before they became so long winded. Overall I'm very optimistic with what Sawyer is presenting us with in this case. It will be refreshing to see a game that not only provides you with options for your characters, but also opportunity for all of those options to be utilized. It's an attempt at more diverse paths/solutions rather than more streamlined/generic linearity.

I would prefer that there actually is a manual.

I believe we have begun talking ourselves in a circle.

Why does the game need a preset mood? It doesn't have to be all one or the other. The IE games mostly had a very nuetral temperment.

I agree. But....again only so long as it didn't detract from the rest of the game and managed to effect the overall experience of the player. I'm absolutely on your side that there are generally not enough "side-effects" represented in the NPC population as result of story progression in most games. I'm all for a living, breathing world that properly responds to events.

Lol well at least I think we're all in agreement that the dialogue needs to be deep.

Seems legit.

Well one of the arguably most common reasons that gamers play the games they do is the pursuit of escapism. Wouldn't it stand to reason (as a general whole) that those mundane situations are exactly what we are wanting to avoid? If it can be worked into a game thoroughly where it actually plays a part within the story and is most importantly fun, then I certainly see no harm in it happening. Simply being in there for the sake of novelty is trivial however and ultimately could detriment the rest of the game as time and assets are moved from other parts of the project. I'm curious if you could provide us an example of how YOU believe these "complex social issues in the main plot line" could be properly implemented?

I think where you and I are perhaps reaching a miscommunication is the same systems application as an intention rather than a result. What (it seems) you are implying is I'M BEING PERSUASIVE so there for I am attempting to be persuasive, as opposed to (and why I ultimately would like avoided) I'M BEING PERSUASIVE and therefore because I say I am, it is a fact. I am in fact succesfully being persuasive. Conversations almost never deal in absolutes. Edit:From the AMA. I hope this holds weight because it's very much along the lines of what I would like: Chris Avellone: "We are tying responses to attributes, but what we want to avoid in the mechanics is using attributes as "insta-win" buttons (for example, often in previous RPG titles, using the Skill option often is the instant win for quest solutions). What we'd rather do is have attributes and skills open up a range of new information that allows you to make a more informed decision about a choice rather than gate you to a solution. This may sound complicated, but it's like the Empathy skill in Fallout 1 and 2 - it would only tell you if the person you were talking to would react positively or negatively to your dialogue option, but that didn't mean it was the right option to choose in every situation, and sometimes you wanted to make someone mad to achieve your goal. Hope that makes sense."

I'm a little confused how you came to this conclusion. I don't think anyone said they would have no impact. Significant impact is relative anyhow. They should have an effect but not necessarily a measurable one. A conversation is not a math equation . You can't just say [NPC QUESTION] + [PC ANSWER] x [sPEECH SKILL] = [DESIRED SOLUTION]. Or rather, in most games you can, but you shouldn't be able to.

Touche. I definitely agree that VtM:B did speech options very well, however they were also quite common, and often did not immediately determine a "victorious" conversation. Really that's my larger concern. I don't want an auto-win button for (lack of a better term) speech puzzles. Make me figure out how to reach the most favorable conclusion for ME. On that note, don't have a "winning" situation for most conversations. Make them have varying outcomes that aren't necessarily good or bad. I think the Witcher 2 was trying to do this but it felt...wrong some how IMO. I really can't put my finger on how though.

Long Time Coming: "The wait of eternity"

That's certainly an interesting take on the information we have been provided. A game that discourages you from actually killing ALL the baddies. Then again, if they do decide to remove xp from enemies all together, you may have a very valid argument. As a side note this thread is getting slightly convoluted.

Well....a Mcmanusaur thread that actually has potential for a decent conversation. I think all the things that you're describing are little details that are nice to know they're present but no one really wants to see. Unless it's fits into the story why WOULD the adventurers go trekking through the slums of a city? What would they gain by wandering across some poor farmer's fields? In the words of Sawyer himself, if these everyday mundane (although undeniably important) things were added how would it "affects the ways in which players play the game."? Edit: Also keep in mind this is not a completely open world. The filler is being cut because that's what it is, and in a world this size it would be available in massive quantities.