Gromnir

preach to the choir. Gromnir have been posting for years that easy and obvious choices kills drama... but you would be surprised by how much resistance we sees. is multiple threads at DA board over at bio debating what constitutes the "darker" setting bio developers has suggested that DA would be. many people not want grim. many people not want hard choices. many. take a looksee. is more than a couple threads that address moral ambiguity and heroism. Gromnir suggests that inherent in our modern notions o' heroism is sacrifice... has gotta be some willing payment for character to be genuine heroic. sadly, many peoples balk at notion o' heroic sacrifice in game. re-load means that simple abbandon o' personal safety is an illusory sacrifice, so to make Player feel sacrifice you gotta do in other ways. is unfortunate that as soon as you suggest that player might not always has a clear and beneficial game option open to them, they gets mighty worried. josh and others may thinks that it is obvious that game would be better if there were costs linked to choics... makes those choices more meaningful and memorable and dramatic, but if you implement you better do so w/o telling fans ahead a time, 'cause they will whine and moan and cry as if you were trying to take their favorite toy away from 'em. sometimes what will makes a game better is the opposite o' what fans ask for. you keep giving fans what they ask for and they will hate you for it, 'cause then you is unoriginal and boring. Gromnir agrees with josh on this issue if not others, but you will see more resistance than maybe you might expect. CRPG = Fantasy Fullfillment... seems to be opinion of many developers and fans. those fans and developers not eally thinks that tough choices full o' potential regret and gnashing o' teeth is appropriate material for a crpg. HA! Good Fun! ps our "r" key seems to be sticking... so you notice a missed r or two and is not that we has sudden turned into vol.

Well, if you take NWN2 as an example, the player would have the power to either heal, or resurrect that chick companion tho dies at her uncle's hands. This would effectively change the storyline from then on. Player freedom, though within the narrative. Best if both worlds for almost everyone here. This does take extra coding on the part of developers, but its all a juggling act of what aspects of games are most important to the RPG player. you is still thinking too limited. why take nwn2 narrative as an example? try to gets out of box. we will give 1 example, from there you can probably thinks o' dozen approaches that is cinematic and allow high freedom. heck, since you is so enamored with nwn2 example, we will use an aspect o

is lot o' assumptions being made... for nonce we will only address one small aspect. am gonna stay mostly on sidelines, 'cause not want this to become 'bout Gromnir. that being said, we would like some folks who has determined that a "cinematic" approach to narrative in a crpg is a bad thing, to simply consider what happens if focus of the narrative is removed from the pc. still have all those so-called cinematic aspects, but consider how the somewhat fuzzy notion o' rp freedom changes. HA! Good Fun!

"Its no more contrived than anything else on television right now." ... okie dokie. well now dallas and bsg got something in common... ain't that grand? HA! Good Fun!

*sigh* is like talking to a wall. fact that cylons don't really die means that emotional impact o' their dying is pretty much zero. kinda a good deal o' effort went into starbuck's death scene. were the first compelling bsg moment since ty kills his wife back on new caprica. oh yeah, another death scene... which woulda' been equally cheesy if they had brought ty's wife back two episodes later. as for the resurrection o' jason todd... HA! exactly our point. bsg has jumped shark... is now no better than comic book's worst aspect. HA! Good Fun!

makes worse, not better. is the kinda crap you sees all the time in comic books... is a running joke that only robin has ever managed to stay dead (though a bit of an overstatement, if only barely.) the fact that bsg writers not get that they was part of a bad joke makes worse, not better. HA! Good Fun! The second Robin? Didn't he eventually come back as some criminal mastermind, or am I thinking Elseworlds here? I dropped out of buying comics regularly and have lost track of Batman continuity - only going by with rumors and heresay... Death and sacrifice in comics seem to last as long as XBox exclusives. you is asking the wrong guy. the bit 'bout only robin staying dead is an old comic book cliche... am thinking that it is the one that fans got to vote for or 'gainst, but our knowledge o' comic books post 1990ish is terrible. if they brought jason todd back, we is unaware of it... 'course, our observation works better if some yutz did bring even robin back. and sand still not get. if starbuck weren't dead, then it were simply a trick... which again makes worse, not better. HA! Good Fun!

you just don't get it. death has value. death gots an emotional impact. death gots all kinda meanings for peoples, but is universal. ever wonder why kids books seems so preoccupied with death? charlotte

makes worse, not better. is the kinda crap you sees all the time in comic books... is a running joke that only robin has ever managed to stay dead (though a bit of an overstatement, if only barely.) the fact that bsg writers not get that they was part of a bad joke makes worse, not better. HA! Good Fun!

just 'bout anything is plausible in a sci-fi or fantasy show. is not 'bout plausibility, but rather stoopidity. resurrecting characters is... lame. once this trick is used, then you can never go back. heck, princess bride did as a joke... made fun of bit in which hero is only "mostly dead." we all chuckled and laughed. did you laugh when starbuck were resurrected? no? well then, it weren't very funny, were it? is simply an unfunny joke. HA! Good Fun!

am all in favor o' giving the other great apes Human rights, but we want 'em subject to human law too. if in california, chimp A steals a woobie from chimp B, then charge chimp A with petty theft... 'less the woobie is worth more than $400, or is an avacado. gorillas shoulds be made to wear appropriate clothing lest they find selves violating those pesky indecent exposure laws... please, think of the children. if Gromnir visits a zoo in sacramento, and a baboon throws poop at Gromnir, we want the baboon (the baboon not named Gromnir) charged with crime(s.) HA! Good Fun!

sssssooooooooo... ... been a couple o' weeks, no? *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

future trivia question: when did the new bsg jump the shark? answer: ______________ *shrug* no doubt many here don't think that the show has jumped, but we suspect that after the series is over, lots o' former fans will looks back at the final episode o' this year and admit that shark were jumped. sure, the whole season post new-caprica rescue were under whelming, but we thinks that this last episode were the one that sealed bsg's fate. and those o' you fans who did not groan in anguish as they sees starbuck resurrected from seeming death should maybe be a bit ashamed. HA! Good Fun!

where X is a game development issue or feature, the appropriate first question is and alwasy shall be: how close does X correspond to the way TIM CAIN made FALLOUT? forget that fallout ain't what codex represents, and that tim cain weren't the CREATOR of it, but... ... btw, Gromnir fully concedes that the above is a hasty and unfair overgeneralization... just seems accurate most times. HA! Good Fun!

If a madman says that 2+2=4, it's no less true because the speaker is mad. true enough... which is why Gromnir don't dismiss all vol posts out of hand. however, from a practical pov, if a person don't know what is total of 2+2, and vol claims answer is 4, but josh or eldar or some random sane person claims answer is 5, then we can understand why maybe some people would rely 'pon josh or eldar or sane person answer, the wrong answer. again, the problem with codex madness is that there is codex dogma. spend 15 minutes reading codex editorials or news bites and you gots a pretty good notion o' what is codex dogma. ever listen to religious experts makes scientific arguments 'gainst evolution? is same kinda madness you see from codex, 'cause 'stead o' coming to conclusion based on evidence, the worshiper o' dogma starts with a conclusion, then works backwards... highlighting only those bits o' evidence that woulds possibly seem to undermine evolution's viability. heck, Gromnir even concedes the possibility that evolution is flawed, but the way a dogma inspired disciple gets to that conclusion makes Gromnir wanna knee-jerk to opposite conclusion... much as it is easy to knee-jerk opposite o' vol and codex and other mad peoples. HA! Good Fun!

is room 'nuff for lots o' different pov. difference is that josh has, on more than one occasion, gone Critical Bill on fans that make demands or criticisms o' developers w/o a corresponding offering o' practical alternatives. Gromnir were simply amused that a fellow obsidian developer would makes observations 'bout a game that seemed to come up woefully short o' josh's minimum standards... though we assume that bullock/bulock won't be so amused next time josh goes Critical on some unsuspecting fan and Gromnir points him in jb's direction. *shrug* 'course, as you and can't/eldar/or-whatever-he-is-calling-self-this-week seems to wanna takes a short trips off-topic, we will respond with extreme and uncharacteristic brevity. to a certain degree we agrees with can't. freedom is all well and good in a crpg, but that freedom is mostly an illusion, and it comes at a cost as well. not even josh would argue that every dialogue choice in game should have multiple meaningful results. the myth that is the endlessly bifurcating dialogue tree would become reality, which is in practice, impossible. josh has made obvious that he cares less 'bout story than he does 'bout freedom, but is simply impossible to write engaging dialogues and characters if you needs necessarily comes up with dialogue trees that can survive bifurcation past a very limited number o' significant branching. is an illusion

am aware that rp is feeling picked 'pon at the moment, so we gives some help. define story is not so easy as rp assumes. plot= story? no writer is gonna assume such a thing. use websters not gonna help you on this one. flawed definition leads to understandable busted notion o' narrative. if story is simply the straightforward chronological revealing o' plot to audience throughs a chosen narrator, then is easy to see how a limited notion o' narrative results. something to consider... ever heard o' the thieves world books? back in the 80s and 90s numerous publishers o' fantasy lit released collections o' short stories. a dozen authors would write short stories that all were set in roughly same universe. thieves world were most successful o' the bunch. dozens o' authors contributed to multiple thieves world books. there were sharing of characters and events 'tween writers. heck, there were even a kinda rough unified plot being advanced in a chronological manner, 'cause there were specific plot events and characters that were seemingly sacrosanct to all contributors. were nothing actually experimental 'bout thieves world... nothing wacky or far-fetched. maybe you get some notions how thieves world model might translate to a video game in which developers were focused on storytelling. heck, sounds kinda familiar. *shrug* tangent: we does suggest reading the liavek collections. a very diverse group o

codex is always good for a chuckle. not everything from codex is terrible, but their pov is so extreme, and they is so darn certain of their conclusions (in spite of often bad logic or horrible reasoning,) that debate is largely pointless. codexian staff likes to start with an initially flawed premise, which they assume is unassailable and undeniable, then they simply run with it... extrapolate out to some ridiculous conclusion which they then declare Proved.

is tough to draw conclusions 'bout entire dialogue system based 'pon a single screenie. that being said, one wonders why gamespy or bio or whomever chose that particular screenie to shows to potential future purchasers. *shrug* me confuses Gromnir. based on feedback from bio and from articles we gots so little interest in me that we might even concludes that we gots more interest in obsidian's aliens project. however, every person we knows who has actually seen and or played some portion o' me seems to rave 'bout it. not makes sense. oh well. oh, and we thinks that josh would be disappointed with bullock

but we all lose. "Ah. Well, good luck then. I'm a games journalist. I review games, I don't report the news. All I have is a (somewhat educated) opinion which I try to convey as objectively as possible to the readers of our site." review games gets special qualification? is too bad. that being said, is not like mkreku is alone in incompetence and is not as if games is only class o' reviews that has such a poor group o' technical writers. is music and books reviewed better than games? maybe, but the gap is getting smaller. there is still a ny times book review, but what is music equivalent... Rolling Stone? and what 'bout movie reviews? is thousands o' movie review sites on internet and every major newspaper gots a dedicated movie reviewer. how many o' those reviewers do you thinks is excellent at their craft? sure, you may find a reviewer who gots some similar taste as you, you may even find a reviewer who is entertaining, but how many reviews has you actually read that you would you rely 'pon if you not knew the track record o

I'd love to see them try to pioneer in the dialog as much as they are trying to pioneer with the system. RPG dialog is tricky, but I'm sure they could switch it up a bit, and if nothing else, hopefully make the "evil" options a bit less psychotic and a bit more subtle than their previous titles. josh always complains when people not offer plausible alternatives. you not wanna cheese off josh, do you? evil options that not gonna break quests/critical path needs be insular. so, how you makes mature evil options that not gots impact beyond the immediate quest, and still seem evil 'nuff to be recognized as evil w/o resorting to thuggish kinda crap? in traditional stories the mature evil stuff typical involves the Evil Plan, which requires stringing together multiple actions that in and of self probably not seems overt evil. is at least as much effort as a typical romance to put together something like an Evil Plan.... and there is some obvious obstacles even so. Gromnir made some suggestions 'bout integrating an evil plan sequence o' dialogues into a bio crpg, and developers not seem to thinks it were worth effort. so, what is bullocks ideas... mature evil that not break the otherwise heroic critical path, and at same time not seem petty or small. don't make josh angry. HA! Good Fun!

slightly disappointed. kotor 2 had some inexplicably terrible characters and dialogues, and the ending were horrible. mostly a good game, but obsidian/bis has a bit o' a problem with conclusions. iwd might be only bis game we weren't disappointed with conclusion and it seems like obsidian ain't learned much in the intervening years, 'cause kotor2 and nwn2 both had mostly terrible conclusions. nwn2

*chuckle* persians v. greeks? miller's new comic book? seems like most o' the folks seeing a political angle (including azar) is seeing w/o actually considering STORY o' 300. people is seeing what they wish to. if you ignore the movie itself, and focus instead on details, you can see whatever you want to in 300... just as people can see the virgin mary in a grilled cheese lunch food. HA! Good Fun!

Its all the same to me. Bias, preference, opinion, reasonable or unreasonable. *nods* is exactly why we said your pov is screwy. HA! Good Fun!

what a screwy pov. bias ain't same as preference. bias is an unreasoned preference, so no, an opinion does not always have a bias. The biggest problem with reviewers that Gromnir has is not that they gots preferences or tastes that is different than Gromnir

am not a fan o' moderation... multiple meanings intended. regardless, we doubt Gromnir ever gets a Christmas card from fergie... not his biggest supporter. oh, and oblivion is kinda like all-you-can-eat cafeteria food. sure, there were lots o' oblivion, many hours o' game play, but Gromnir were full after the first few hours o' gameplay. can only stomach so much mystery meat... fact that there were a seemingly endless supply o' crap not somehow make it more palatable . however, please note that Gromnir were happier to see oblivion do well than we were 'bout any other game in past 5 years. virtually every developer since bg2 has been telling us that games of such scale as bg2 were no longer possible. bio developers and obsidian developers and pandemic, irrattional, troika and others all claimed BIG and 3d were mutual exclusive. is oblivion success that helped put a stop to fergie 20 hour nonsense? maybe. heck, if toee had been as big a hit as oblivion, then we would have seen bunch o' tb crpgs. oblivion helped slow trend in favor o' ever shorter crpgs, and for that alone we is thankful. HA! Good Fun!