Gromnir

"Same with the setting of Sigil, and how it was executed. Maybe it wasn't popular, but it was one of the reasons for why PS:T became so critically acclaimed. " ... who cares about critical acclaim? in the grand scheme of game development, all the accolades mean nothing if people do not buy your game. sounds like you is a fan of planescape setting. great. unfortunately, many people was turned off by the setting... period. is not really a debatable point. there is this perception of ps:t that doesn't really match reality. the writing of ps:t was, at times, fantastic. the story as a whole was pretty average, but various encounters and characters were/are unmatched. example: ravel, in all her incarnations, was absolutely incredible... and is still unique as far as complexity and depth o' character in a crpg goes. unfortunately much of ps:t were simply coming 'cross as narcissistic bellybutton contemplation and childishly oversimplified philosophizing. kotr managed to explore many of the same themes and characters w/o all the pretension and hackneyed writing. *chuckle* the funny thing is that what some ps:t fans laud in their favorite game, they despised in kotor2. some of the same kinda crappy over-the-top and lugubrious dialogues showed up in kotor2 and such stuff made people wince. no doubt some of the bis/obsidian developers were surprised by the different reception their fantastic writing got. and yeah, we is selective in noting the parallels

wait what <{POST_SNAPBACK}> josh ain't a slow guy, so we thinks he is playing dumb for effect. ps:t had some really terrible writing in places, and a setting that did not appeal to mot gamers, and individual dialogues that were too long and there were not enough combat. however, those things that ps:t fans claimed that were so great, including the highly developed character interaction, were things that kotor managed to do as well... and kotor were succesful. like it or not, bioware essentially remade ps:t in a more popular setting and simply added more appealing combats and shorter individual dialogues... and they made lots of money doing it. HA! Good Fun!

kinda funny that fergie is more concerned with rpg codex opinions than your or Gromnir's, eh? HA! Good Fun!

given: ps:t was a commercial failure is some clowns that will argue this, but they is just doing the denial thing to a ridiculous degree. however, looks at kotor and compare to ps:t and see just how many similarities the games had... including lame combat. similarities in character development and havings a single identifiable protagonist and similarities of themes and even the dammed amnesia thing. kotor were successful or no? would kotor have been less successful if the combat had been improved or the rule-system were made more robust? maybe, but we ain't convinced. ps:t + good combat = commercial failure bs the bis developers and the ps:t fans has been lying to themselves and making excuses for years. HA! Good Fun!

plano should take a look at what the biowarians claim to be doing for da. in any event, while we recognize that multiple potential antagonists got resource costs (though you seems to be confused as to where the cost would be,) such an approach would also result in a considerable savings of resources that would otherwise be devoted to achieving the impossible twin aim of making a compelling protagonist character/story & maximization of player freedom. developers waste so much effort on antagonistic goals related to protagonist development. is kinda insane really. HA! Good Fun!

in pnp we needs just 'nuff strength and coordination to be able to lift and toss a handful of dice. while a single-player crpg is NOT pnp gaming and should not treated as identical, we choose to believe that arcade control combat ain't necessary to be making games fun. yeah, we know that a true melding of squad-based tactical combat aspects from a game like ja2 and the character interaction and story development of a game like ps:t is probably too much to ask for... but that is what we is asking for. ... regardless, a crpg that tests the manual dexterity of our character is ok, but one that tests Gromnir's physical attributes is... annoying. am too old and grumpy for such things. HA! Good Fun!

I thought we were only nominating people we could have in our party. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> sure don't seem that way from a number of the lists put forth... and keep in mind that the "npc" term applies to joinables and non-joinables alike. HA! Good Fun!

rare is it that Gromnir is genuinely surprised when reading message boards for games... but for not a single person on the Obsidian boards to be advocating ravel puzzlewell is disturbing and unexpected. oh well. HA! Good Fun!

btw, we is all in favor of josh's factions notions... but the complexity increases with each faction added, and while that complexity affords more possible gameplay choices, it does make for writing compelling stories/characters more difficult... 'specially as you got multiple writers working on games. HA! Good Fun!

we were ambiguous 'nuff that your mistake were understandable. as such you gets a pass... this time. HA! Good Fun!

*sigh* we get that nwn scripting is relatively user friendly. however, that link that the swede showed us... weren't. HA! Good Fun!

call us crazy, but wouldn't a goal of a moddable game marketed to the masses (i.e. nwn) be to offer something relatively user friendly? HA! Good Fun!

lord knows that we generally loathe viewsonic... but the g90fb is a very good and very affordable monitor... one of the best dollar:quality 19" gaming crts we has seen. on the other hand, di might keep in mind that a 19" lcd actually got more viewable area than a 19" crt. if size matters. ... disturbing. not immediately disagreeing with sargy feels... wrong. however, as this is technical advice maybe we can bear the realization. HA! Good Fun!

which again completely ignores the story building strengths of crpg villains compared to crpg protagonists. is the static nature of villains and other npcs that is allowing a writer to makes them compelling. a stark raving madman villain is NOT really mad. the writer ain't mad. the writer knows exactly what the madman is gonna say, and there is reasons for the madman's speakings... otherwise you gets nothing but gibberish, and in spite of the ridiculous ss example of the madman villain, a truely unpredictable mad man character would be 'bout as fun to interact with as would vis is on the boards. sometimes developers get so caught up in trying to makes kewl features that they forget that story offers the actual raison deter. choice for the sake of choice is rather cold and stale. morrowind had lots of choices

"The reason I'm not as fond as having a "murky" antagonist that gets defined somewhere along the way is that I don't feel the player is necessarily making an informed choice. Having different gameplay experiences is cool, but unknowingly making very important choices doesn't necessarily seem great to me" understood. however, consider kotor2. that game offered some early dialogues to "fix" whether or not revan were male v. female or good v. evil. weren't really murky at all. not need be shy 'bout clubbing folks over the head with the choice. as it stands now, you get no choice at all. an albeit somewhat murky choice v. no choice? HA! Good Fun!

no offense, but we think you ain't looking at this from a writer's perspective. predictability is exactly why villains in crpgs can be developed to a much greater degree... they is static. you cannot write a compelling character that is unknown to the writer. come up with all kinds o' wacky randomness and then tell somebody else to write good dialogues to match the situations... and advance a story that is meant to capture the imagination of the player. HA! end up with 4 very different villains who signifficantly alter the choke point encounters and the ultimate resolution of game? is a bad thing? HA! Good Fun!

is no real different than any other crpg. kotor/kotor2 light v. dark quests gets triggered by what? toee opening vignettes were even worse. those were based simply on character generation choices... and yielded no real divergence anyways. *shrug* compared to the typical manner in which limited crpg bifurcation takes place, 20 minutes to an hour of initial gameplay to be resulting in games which affords at least some meaningful reason to try replaying seems a vast improvement. HA! Good Fun!

seems much harder to pull off, but it sounds great to Gromnir. am all for being able to choose an appropriate faction as part of gameplay and story development choice. little bit harder for Gromnir to envision writing appropriate compelling dialogues in josh's suggestion as you still seems to have a more fluid and dynamic story resolution process goings on, but benefits to gameplay might outweigh problems for story development. *shrug* regardless, change focus of development from trying to make a vague and indefinite protagonist more compelling, to creating multiple possible villains/factions seems like a good direction in which to be heading. protagonists is 0 sum, 'cause the more you develop, the more freedom you takes away from player. HA! Good Fun!

its only needing to be a real secret for the first 20 minutes of gameplay... after a player chooses an antagonist through his actions, then there ain't no need for keeping faceless... unless you want a sauron thing. if josh is thinking of a single villain that changes as the player changes, then so be it... but that seems far more difficult to achieve than what Gromnir suggests. run into that same vagueness problem you gets with a mutable protagonist... which is exactly what Gromnir is trying to correct. pope seems to be getting the idea. HA! Good Fun!

"The other problem is that with several villains, all content in the beginning and middle of the story will have to be independant of the general story or "clean slates" to make it possible to fit it with the end of the game." untrue. see above. much of a crpg story is not happening along the main story arc anyway. got loads of sub-quests, right? but regardless, you still not need four or five completely different story arcs. stop the horde. 1) go to goblin fortress and discover try to discover plans 2) now that you has learned plans and possibly killed lieutenant, you gotta accomplish 2 of 5 goals to slowdown/ prevent (or for evil folks: subvert horde to your will) invasion a) block ice fang pass b) subvert the alliance 'tween the red dog clan and the howler tribe c) etc. is typical crpg stuff, no? if a Sauron evil guy is behind the invasion then you is gonna learn something slightly different at the goblin fortress than you would with a Noble villain. the lieutenant at the goblin fortress in sauron situation would talk 'bout a new age of darkness and his dark master's plans... yadda yadda. on the other hand, the lieutenant of the Noble villain would express regret at having to elimintae such a worthy adversary as yourself. add more differences as you progress through game, but the choke points is gonna be in same places. drop in some villain specific journals... add a few timed encounters tied directly to one choice of villain or another... at a few key points you can has some change made to game. am not envisioning a game that completely diverges from point A into 4 unique games. is not feasible. however, you can has a macbeth and a sauron and other villains, each with very different motivations and dialogues w/o substantially changing 90% of a game. HA! Good Fun!

why would there need be a shift? no clear antagonist is set until player interacts with environment for a brief time, then antagonist is solidified for remainder of game. sure, if you wanna does a 180 personality switch after the first 20 minutes o' gameplay then you is gonna be maybe stuck combating a Noble villain rather than a Sinister one, but so what? is still gonna be a viable antagonist, maybe not ideally appropriate, but compared to the single UBG option how is that any different? if developers wanna keep simple and resource

for Gromnir, playing evil is... lame. tried to play evil in kotor2 and other games, but what we ended up being were a bully and a murderer rather than any sorta evil character that Gromnir might be willing to consider. push somebody down just 'cause you can? is evil? probably, but it is a petty kinda evil. find some way to plays an honorable and evil or sneaky evil might be worth trying, but so far all the evil options we has encountered has just been kinda lame.

? not see how you get to "exponential" growth from our suggestion. obviously you simply cannot have limitless or even dozens o' potential UBG (Ultimate Bad Guy) possibilties, but 3 or 4? most of his/her minions can be left unchanged, but change the UBG can make big difference to story and game as a whole. HA! Good Fun!

what the heck is dragonbait? is it some kinda fr monstrous pr0n? that letch who keeps making elminster books/crap finally lost all self control and made the old wizard into toril

weren't our idea, but we wish it were. as is so