Gromnir

I don't understand why the narration for IWD 1 sucks. I thought it was great. I also liked the narration for the BG games as well. the narration for iwd were excellent. as we noted above, iwd and the david ogden stiers narration managed to avoid much o' the tedious character exposition you see in other games. a few minutes o' narration at start of game, between chapters and for epilogue... well-drawn storybook slides were added to enhance the narration. done. simple and stream-lined and no expensive animation. we prefer even less narration, but am understanding the urge to provide context. folks unfamiliar with d&d and the forgotten realms could be mighty confused when playing a game such as bg or iwd. writers know to minimize, but is difficult to do so. HA! Good Fun! ps we see more straw man from panda. really. what is point of the hobbit example? tell us what is bad from a movie and say it happens in games... not any games we is talking about, and is no suggestion that such an approach would occur in pillars as there is no protagonist such as bilbo in pillars... we can't have such a defined protagonist in a crpg such as pillars. nevertheless, you say that how they did in hobbit was bad and future hobbits will be bad too. okie dokie. why you wanna beat the stuffing outta bilbo?

oh come now, you don't really wanna suggest that the limited iwd or iwd2 narration requires anything substantial... and surely not an omnipresent or omniscient. from iwd you got some background info at start. then chapter filler to explain what happened on Long journeys between locations. epilogue. we linked fallout narrator. even less, and more meorable 'cause folks is such big fans o perlman. how "tricky" were that to implement? *shrug* we got some little experience with writing as well. is not near as complicated as you suggest. in most situations, the "trick" is to do as little exposition and narration as is necessary. HA! Good Fun!

the real tragedy of all of this-- what happens to Ukraine's got Talent if this regional conflict continues? https://www.google.com/search?q=ukraine%27s+got+talente&rlz=1C1KMZB_enUS560US560&oq=ukraine%27s+got+talente&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.7540j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&sei=E2VPU7yqKpOnyAS3vYHICA&gbv=2#gbv=2&q=ukraine's+got+talent&spell=1 am not certain we could live in a world without Ukraine reality TV. HA! Good Fun!

*chuckle* the 9th level group fighting vampires has a chance. the party that a minute into combat is now the equivalent o' 4th level is pretty much doomed. level disparity is too great. if we got a reload option, chances are we don't wait for the inevitable wipe. epic battle becomes a slightly annoying reload moment. HA! Good Fun!

your examples and points is not analogous. is a game, not short story or novel. just as our lifted narration from joyce has no place in a crpg, the narrators you describe is largely unnecessary. the omnipresent narrator is Not a requirement in a crpg, 'cause the player/protagonist is gonna be experiencing the story themselves. jakk were swift to recognize that the crpg narrator need only "sum up or skim over events." the annoying and unwieldy exposition that authors believe is necessary to tell their tale, gets vomited forth by a narrator 'stead o' having the local blacksmith inexplicably describe the geopolitical situation of middle-earth and the most pressing and important current events in gondor. and why on earth did sam the knacker feels the need to remind us that we is an orphan who lost our family to a goblin raid some 5 years ago? the laundress who told us to bring the cleaned union-suit to our foster father, I'xparian The Wizard (the apostrophe makes exotic) were compelled to remind us that today were our 17th name day, and... etc. such exposition is ugly and awkward. a brief bit o' narration may make more palatable. in any event, a game doesn't need omniscience, omnipresence or any other ence worth mentioning. HA! Good Fun!

tomb of horrors were the classic sucker punch adveture. a popular module for d&d fans, but am not understanding why. the module is a series of insta-kill traps and monster encounters and it is not as if a clever party has some particular advantage over a foolish party. many groups has gotten through pnp tomb o' horrors with nothing save luck and the liberal use of the PMD approach to dungeon clearing. using summoned critters and/or low-level characters to set-off and/or test traps is effective if crude. the thing is, a computer version o' tomb o' horrors would be almost pointless. oh, so there is sphere of annihilation in that hole? okie dokie, reload. tomb o' horrors, as ridiculous as it were, cannot survive the computer reload. as an aside, our personal fave for the jerk dm/gm is level drain undead... particularly when such undead has access to polymorph. d&d vampires got loads of special weakness, none of which is useful if you do not know you is being attacked by vampires. a polymorphed or disguised vampire is gonna get in amongst your party and after you waste spells protecting against the wrong kinda foe, you sudden realize that you is facing vampires. fun? not really. negative plane protection were effective against vampire level drain, but it had a ridiculous short duration in d&d 2e. death ward were a better option in d20, but a smart vampire who waits til party spells is depleted before attacking is gonna have a field day. and in any event, chances are you only get 1 player protected by death ward before the vampires is turning your party from a very capable 9th level group into the equivalent o' a bunch o' 4th level n00bs. unlike the gotcha monsters such as rust monsters and disenchanters, vampires is a staple. if a dm plays vampires as smart as they is 'posed to be, virtual any level appropriate party is gonna get serious sucker punched by vampires. in a computer game, reload. everybody suddenly gets protected by deathward and has vampire killing weapons at the ready. etc. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

up until mass effect 3, Gromnir purchased bio games contemporaneous with the first patching. this were no criticism of bioware as there were no pc games we would purchase earlier than a first patching. the thing is, we waited a bit over a year to finally play me3 and our anticipation for that game were 'bout the same as we have for da:i. ... a game wherein we play an inquisitor has some unique appeal, for as much as enoch wants to punch riddlemeisters, Gromnir has always wanted to be able to say. "today, i smote heretics and ate apple pie." the fact that heretics is necessarily people and we find most forms o' violence to be barbaric does not change the fact that the idea of smiting with righteous indignation is on our bucket list... am thinking it is the word "smite" more than anything else. after all, when does one get the chance to well and truly smite nowadays? unfortunately, bioware releases has become something we look forward to with the same verve as we does a michael bay film . is not as if we is gonna go to a cineplex and see a transformers or die hard movie on day 1, but if is on tv and it not happen to be conflicting with reruns o' mash or barney miller or a shamwow infomercial, we will take a peek. perhaps. HA! Good Fun!

nobody will ever doppelganger vol. first, am suspecting that nobody would wish to, but second, am not sure how one could do so. if Gromnir attempts to be random like vol, we would string together gibberish and then pretend that it makes sense. "And so he says to me, you want to be a bad guy? and I say Yeah Baby! I want to be bad! I says Churchill space ponies I'm making gravy without the lumps! Ah ha ha ha ha haaaaa!!!!!" -- The Evil Midnight Bomber what Bombs at Midnight the thing is, you can tell that vol ain't trying to be random by design, and there is little fragments o' coherence mixed in with the doggerel that is distinctly vol. some small part o' us questions whether or not vol is an act, but what would be the point? is an enigma. not a particularly compelling enigma, but a mystery nonetheless. HA! Good Fun!

"offer" is exact word we were looking for... obsidian offers to do X if fans contribute Y additional dollars. is nothing mysterious about it, particularly when one looks at the previous stretch goals. it would appear, based on the vague nature o' the final goal that obsidian simply ran outta gas-- they didn't plan ahead for a $4 mil stretch goal, but they sure as heck weren't gonna turn away free money. HA! Good Fun!

we noted already that reality is a bane of fun. am recalling a treatise we read 'bout armoured combat-- duels in full plate. now, don't get us wrong, full plate is great protection a horseback, and perhaps when storming a fixed fortification wherein your foe has gotta stand and fight you, but it ain't really dueling garb. the typical armored combat were looking little different than a couple o' 8 year olds with with buckets on their heads and broom handles for swords... save for the ugly end. the combatants would beat on each other, ineffectually, hoping to concuss their foe or find a weak spot in armour... finding weak spots were made all that much more difficult as the combatants were wearing plate armour. now in spite o' the romanticism 'bout articulated plate armour and how youtube videos show that it is possible to do cartwheels whilst wearing such protection, it were still relative cumbersome. so armour guy 1 and 2 would swing at each other till they got fatigued or somebody inevitably slipped... in point o' fact, wrestling moves became far more important in armoured duels than were swordsmanship. one brave knight would wrestle the other champion o' justice to the ground and then drive a weapon through the prone foe's visor. very romantic. am doubting we see such stuff in pillars. am not a fan o' reality in our fantasy games, but the katana mythology has always irritated us. HA! Good Fun!

have always been a sucker for contradictions. morricone is probable most familiar to folks via the spaghetti westerns. but then you listen to The Mission soundtrack or parts of Once Upon a Time in America and you get whole different perspective. we like the Fist Full of Dollars theme as much as The Mission (well almost) but on a complete different level. modern Movie composers is tough 'cause it seems as if there is only a handful of guys that gets all the work (hyperbole) and as much as we like some o' their work, we actual dislike other scores. would be a complete different movie w/o hans zimmer, but we is complete hit & miss on zimmer. if we take his entire body o' work, we is ambivalent. kinda like jerry goldsmith... hard to believe that the guy who did Patton & Chinatown also did Gremlins 2: The New Batch. really. HA! Good Fun! ps that is not a common rita hayworth image, but most rita is good rita.

very good. give that man a prize. conversely, "I do think having the narrator be a person who really exists in the gameworld can help with immersion, and having it be the player character can be a little too much putting words into the player's mouth." josh and Gromnir disagree on much but we both cringe at the overuse o' "immersion." is fluid, vague, and for all intents and purposes, meaningless. we will return to iwd for a moment. there were no single and identifiable protagonist in iwd. this will, we believe, be handled similarly in pillars-- no defined protagonist. so, by necessity, any narrator that exists as a character, no matter how fleeting or limited, would gets the npc label. that being said, we doubts one would label belhifet, iwd's ultimate antagonist, as being an auxiliary npc. see, npc is a Game term and can apply to any character other than the protagonist, which reduces the definition to meaninglessness... similar to "immersion." the nameless storyteller who, sitting next to a campfire, begins a tale of magic and high adventure is also an npc. 'course, the fallout narrator were not only nameless but faceless. nevertheless, am gonna suggest that the fallout narration worked very well. we will also suggest that exposition is no better when delivered from the mouth/pen/whatever o' an npc as from the protagonist. to have belihifet do narration had value not 'cause it were less "off-putting" than protagonist narration. the revelation that the narrator was indeed the antagonist made it more memorable, but that alone would not constitute quality narration. is also nothing 'bout the belhifet reveal that is essential to a "auxiliary npc" narrator. is our contention that auxiliary npc distinction is without merit, and we not see Inherent additional value 'o using a narrator who is part o' the action as 'posed to merely a conduit for retelling events. am gonna suggest that good game narration is dependent on 2 factors... and only 1 such factor is essential. 1) quality voice acting is tough to argue that voice acting doesn't make a difference when delivering otherwise tedious exposition. ron perlman can deliver lines that would sound ridiculous if Gromnir tried to narrate the same text. morgan freeman can talk about freaking penguins fro 90 minutes and people give him buckets filled with awards. get a good narrator. 2) keep narration to a minimum. as jarr recognized, narration in games is exposition. "show, don't tell." is axiomatic in the writer's craft, but frequently forgotten. narration, as it is meant to, "sum up or skim over (essential) events," represents those important aspects o' story that cannot be told effectively by character actions. if your storyteller is relying on narration to a significant degree, then he is failing at the aforementioned axiom. is not rocket science. HA! Good Fun!

good stuff. am partial to ennio moricone for movie soundtracks/themes we can be a bit cynical at times, but is tough to be complete jaded when you hear something so beautiful. that being said, we thinks that jon brion is one o' the most under-appreciated composers doing movie themes today HA! Good Fun!

the $4 million stretch goal is nothing more than an admission that they were ill-prepared and did not anticipate the need for a $4 million stretch goal. hypothetical conversation: "four million? are you kidding me? i was crossing my fingers that we would reach the one million mark. what do we offer them now?" "how about pets? like a dog or something." "i prefer cats. meow." "justin, shuttup." "how about laser weapons? we already have firearms, so why not do a 'barrier peaks' homage and throw in ray guns at $4 mil?" "ray guns? really? somebody gag justin until we are finished." "well, what is your great idea, smart guy." ... "tell them that we will make a better game." "what? for a stretch goal? what does that even mean, 'make a better game'?" "it doesn't mean anything, that is why it should work as a final stretch goal." "huh?" etc. HA! Good Fun!

addendum: placing the katana at the top o' the sword-chain is a bit like placing the chinchilla at the top o' the animal kingdom food-chain. tiger>polar bear> crocodile> chinchilla? seriously. a short, fat, draw-cut weapon that were useless against armour? am understanding that obsidian is making a game, so reality not need match game content. heck, as you increase realism you invariably decrease fun when dealing with these kinda games, but that being said, am kinda tired o' game developers perpetuating katana myths. the katana deserves a place 'bout equal with fire-hardened pointy stick on the ">" list... and if the stick is long enough, we would probably give the advantage to the stick. HA! Good Fun! that is what we get for posting in wee hours... *sigh* tiger<polar bear<crocodile< chinchilla regardless, the katana were not even a particularly effective weapon in its historical and geographical context, so to place it up against and ahead of superior weapons is what we rail against. HA! Good Fun!

sadly, while the prohibition 'gainst criticism directed at specific, individual game developers may (or may not) have been in existence for a long time, its application is a relatively new phenomenon. as with all board rules, it is applied in an ad hoc fashion that beggars attempts to predict. *shrug* is rules, not laws. ultimately, regardless o' what is stated in posted board rules, obsidian may prohibit or allow as they choose. HA! Good Fun!

Yes and yes. Also, please speak for yourself as per courtesy. where did Gromnir speak for you? we posed questions. though we will admit that courtesy has nothing to do with why we choose not to speak for you. diablo 2? *snort* HA! Good Fun! Is this some kind of forum roleplaying thing for you? 5/10 Somebody obviously doesn't know who Gromnir is. oh, that is typical... have to go through this kinda thing every once in awhile. what actually is deserving a 5/10 is genesis poster's mashing together o' storytelling and narration w/o any seeming concern for context. am gonna assume, for the nonce, that we is speaking only o' narration. given that tenuous starting point, one would suggest that the genesis poster should consider the purpose o' narration in a crpg. is different medium than short story or novel, "A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." is beautiful, but in a visual medium that also is including music, we doubt such narration is useful. in point o' fact, ps:t taught the developers that long blocks of written text were anathema to gamers, regardless of the quality o' the writting. detective/mystery novels has obvious reasoning using first-person narration, but am not aware that pillars is gonna follow traditional detective route. so, we ask-- in spite o' the genesis poster's seeming reluctance to answer question-- what is the purpose o' narration in a crpg? and don't say, "to tell the story" or some other silly nonsense. every bit o' dialogue and character development (visual and written) as well as music and a dozen other elements is contributing to telling of game story. HA! Good Fun! ps is more amusing when they don't know Gromnir

Yes and yes. Also, please speak for yourself as per courtesy. where did Gromnir speak for you? we posed questions. though we will admit that courtesy has nothing to do with why we choose not to speak for you. diablo 2? *snort* HA! Good Fun!

best game music we ever heard is from the iwd games. jeremey soule were fantastic for iwd, and there weren't no drop-off for iwd2... at least as far as music is concerned. inon zur matched soule, which at the time we would not have thought possible. HA! Good Fun!

is this really the dichotomy you want to present? "auxiliary NPC" v. anything else? and is diablo 2 the kinda benchmark for storytelling you wanna use to illustrate your point? oddly enough, is our opinion that the best narration (not same as storytelling) in a black isle/obsidian game thus far has been iwd. the narrator, vo'd by david ogden steirs, is revealed to be the game's ultimate antagonist. is not even a close competition for best narration in a black isle/obsidian game. HA! Good Fun!

addendum: placing the katana at the top o' the sword-chain is a bit like placing the chinchilla at the top o' the animal kingdom food-chain. tiger>polar bear> crocodile> chinchilla? seriously. a short, fat, draw-cut weapon that were useless against armour? am understanding that obsidian is making a game, so reality not need match game content. heck, as you increase realism you invariably decrease fun when dealing with these kinda games, but that being said, am kinda tired o' game developers perpetuating katana myths. the katana deserves a place 'bout equal with fire-hardened pointy stick on the ">" list... and if the stick is long enough, we would probably give the advantage to the stick. HA! Good Fun!

am not certain we would personally describe lara croft as looking "too perfect"... particularly her earlier incarnations. that being said, the game avatar were clear designed to appeal to the prurient interests of male purchasers o' games. is little different than bikini car washes and similar enterprises. the girls might be the best darn washers o' cars in the whole, wide world, but we find such overt pandering to be insulting. we tend to be less intrigued by such endeavors rather than more. HA! Good Fun! ps we do not envy your world if you see every sarcastic comment as an attack.

No Gromnir I'm not attacking you I am just not 100% sure I understand your point we didn't think you were attacking, but we thought sarcasm were possible. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/pander now, given the game avatar in tomb raider looks like... https://www.google.com/search?q=lara+croft&rlz=1C1KMZB_enUS560US560&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=GAlOU4LfBZKryAS7jIKoCg&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=979 we suspect that bruce should recognize what we considers unnecessary pandering... or not. am trying with breadcrumbs... really big and obvious breadcrumbs. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

... am gonna do a sarcasm check first. is possible you is being sardonic and Gromnir is missing. HA! Good Fun!

is odd, but we have never played a tomb raider game. am thinking the avatar turned us off 'cause it seemed too ridiculous... unnecessary pandering. am gonna concede the inherent hypocrisy as we did play games with "comic book type badass" toons who, male or female, were drawn no less provocative or silly. am actually not certain why superheroes is ok for us, but final fantasy Giant swords, lineage 2 warrior girls in stiletto heels, and lara croft b00b avatar sets our teeth on edge. that being said, is not as if we is ok with all superhero stuff-- is still a fuzzy line which we has difficulty crossing. odd. HA! Good Fun!