Jackalmonkey

I'm not sure what you mean by context here - what precisely contextualizes gameplay? And in RPGs, isn't gameplay the context for player decisions? It seems that you're putting the cart before the horse. For instance, if you're playing Mass Effect, you can't decide that you want to sneak up on enemies and incapacitate them one by one in a bloodless fashion a la Thief or Batman:AA. (Well, I suppose you can decide to try, but be prepared for a perpetuity of failure and very long reloading screens.) The core gameplay mechanics won't allow for this approach. To put it another way, the context of ME's gameplay (which consists of combat, dialogue, a [terrible] hacking minigame, and exploration), determines which player decisions are permitted. Within this context, one could describe the game as player-driven, but the player is driving on the roads that the designers have created for them. Ain't no off-roading. Then again, I suspect that this business about context is simply confusion derived from a language barrier, in which case, never mind!

Great read; it's nice to see the rationale behind F:NV's Hardcore mode explained in clear and meaningful terms (i.e. the distinction between core gameplay and challenges). In the context of an RPG, it looks like you're arguing for player-skill scaling (more or better resource allocation, tactics, "twitch") over character-skill scaling (+/- hit points, damage, or other attributes). So would if be fair to say that difficulty scaling as you envision it necessarily defies conventional player attempts to min/max or otherwise "game" the system? You also mention how increasing difficulty scaling has traditionally limited gameplay-- reducing tactical depth, for instance. Your system seems to be the inverse: more difficulty really seems like an expansion of gameplay and gameplay considerations. It's a truly welcome paradigm shift, though it makes me wonder: if hard modes are "more game," then are easy modes just "less game"?

Point well taken; I think it's to be expected that some dialogue has necessarily trivial outcomes. It's only conversation, after all. And sometimes it's great to be able to pursue tangents without real consequences: I remember a long dialogue string with Renesco "The Rocket Man" in Fallout 2, in which the Chosen One excitedly describes his village and his quest with the blunt naivete of a backwater tribal. It had no real consequences--you could thereafter interact with Renesco as though the string hadn't occurred--which was nice; absent the potential cost of information or further entertainment, the player could just enjoy the dialogue as a fun diversion.

The reason that I love this blog is because it consistently demonstrates the level of critical thinking that can (and probably should) underlie game design. What a good read. I felt a few pangs of geeky gratefulness reading the above list, and I especially like the "no false options" principle, though it makes me wonder what the criteria are for "the same result." For instance, Bioware's older games typically (and perhaps irritatingly) have a good/lawful option, a neutral/mercenary option, and an evil/insane option. These options yield different replies from an npc which are nonetheless functionally identical. If you're in a Bioware game and find yourself seated before a Shaolin master, and the master asks why you've come to his temple for training, your answer doesn't really matter. You pick the good response, and he approves of your generous nature; you pick the evil option and he decides that you need the discipline that only Kung Fu will provide. Either way, you get the same result: you'll receive the training required to advance the Bioware storyline (and maybe a training montage!). Mass (and KOTOR before it) attempted to improve this system by inserting a point value behind each dialogue choice which affects one or two linear scales (i.e., dark/light, renegade/paragon). The "good" and "evil" responses may produce the same outcome, but you get the sense that even if you're not changing the storyline, you're incrementally changing your character. And these small character changes may aggregate toward real implications for the storyline somewhere further down the road. I suppose I could nitpick that even this second system is shallow, but given very understandable design constraints, perhaps it's currently the best compromise toward multiple results. Pardon my meandering; I really just mean to ask: what do you reckon qualifies as different/same results?

'Scuse, I'm just here to make it like I was made to and then I'll be on my merry way. Mmmph. That was great. Nothing like a bit've the old either/or and A equals A to get me skywise. Who's the Rational Animal? Jack is! Jack is! Anybody got a cigarette?

Yes. Yes I have. It was fate, I tell you. Fate!

You know Eldar, if you'd just become a regular at Missy's you wouldn't have to worry about "losing" (because many people might or might not say something more along the lines of "ridding myself of") the oh-so-creature-ly comforts of our pestilent presence.

Crap. I forgot my watch at the massage parlor again. This is a cry for help. Help plz.

Yeah, stay on topic, you guys. Getting back on track: I'd like to "subtle innuendo" all've you people until you're raw and sore.

SLOWTRAIN?!

Be confused no more. It was a morsel of facetious evidence designed to corroborate with my supposed status as a whiny anti-Interplay naysayer, and nothing more. Of course it doesn't seem right; none of the things I am are even mentioned in your post. Hey, let's rant. Ranting is fun. Points to keep in mind: 1. I don't role-play in fora that aren't for the specific purpose of roleplaying, 2. I don't post "in character" (excepting a persona that is close enough to 'me' that the differences are negligible), 3. I don't use gimmicks (outside of a anticipatory self-deprecating defense mechanism), and 4. I don't have a fricking catch phrase. Were I to engage in such tedious idiocy, I imagine my posts would look something like this:

I don't know whether those comments were intended to compliment me or insult Visceris, but either way, everybody wins. Except Visceris. Ha ha.

Slowtrain? Me too. But then it's near the back end of my lunch and I need my Nappy Time. If I don't get my Nappy Time I end up all sour and squinty-eyed and it gets hard to write anything-at-all. I would, but I'm busy right now. I've got to get Nappy out from under the refrigerator. Times like this I wish somebody'd make a genuinely escape-proof hamster cage. Good day!

I am more hardcore than any of you. Allow me to demonstrate why and how: 1) I've always wanted them to die. Because I always knew that eventually they'd STICK IT TO US. Because in the end they always stick it to you. That's why I never date a girl more than two months and throw bacon away weeks before the expiration date. You let either hang around long enough and they just STICK IT TO YOU. Yeah, sticking it to the fans! You're evil, Interplay! You're bad dirty oh so naughty, Interplay! For shame! Shame, I repeat yet again, for no particular reason except that I'm bored and can't think of anything for point number 2) I always knew they would die. In fact, I'VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR YEARS. Before they cancelled FO3, before they killed YOP and the community fora, before they put the ki-bosh on BG3, I was there, saying something along the lines of "Interplay will, at some point in the near or distant future, cease to exist as Interplay qua Interplay." Then Arvax helpfully pointed out that Interplay did not in fact exist, and that my belief in the existence of "Interplay" was in fact nothing more than an interpretation of sensory data that could in fact be interpreted any number of ways, and then I was all, "objective theory of reality!" and he came back with "unprovable assumption!" and then I was like, "incoherent refutation!", and then he was so totally "limitations of language!" Then we exchanged high fives and shared a banana shake and our loving longing gazes were so powerful that our enraptured expressions were etched into the formica drugstore countertops by our very reflections. Plus Doomsayer is my alt. It's true and if you don't believe me, consider the following: I am Doomsayer. Thank you that is all. I will now spend the next forty-five minutes staring at the 404 error page I get everytime I type in "http://www.mistresslair.net/phpBB2/index.php".

Oi! She corrupted me! I was just another blushing violet until I met Aurie. At that minute, I bloomed into looming rosy wretchedness and my shy schoolboy demeanor was chucked into some lonely ditch off've a Nevada turnpike. She was all cigarettes and teddy bear stuffing and rough scabby edges, wearing a tattered bridal dress she'd torn off've the last person she'd killed. Self-defense, she said, and I believed her. Still do. She smelled like Listerine but there was something in her eyes that just seemed to say, "I am a member of the female sex who actually acknowledges your existence." From that moment, I was hers. Nowadays, we Harley-hurtle down the highway at a crooked 90 mph, me huddled against her back like some raggedy gutterslut, all melting mascara and torn stockings, and she's tall in the saddle and spits bugs when she talks. Oh sure, now and again I have to do terrible terrible things for gas money at whatever truck stop we're holed up in, but it's all for her, gosh damn it. You people have no respect for Romance.

"PenguinCave" is the kinkiest double entendre I've heard all year, sweetie, but it remains that I've been there for at least the last half hour. I suppose it's telling that you haven't even noticed yet, but then I'm shameless that way. Somebody pass the mayo, please.

*Writhes in delicious agony as his most tender bits (nose, eyebrows, spinal fluid) are basted in spicy mayonnaise. "Strike three for Jesus!" he screams, in the throes of senseless ecstasy.*

*Sibars right back. With GUSTO. Because everything's better with GUSTO

Oh thank God. Missy's is the last bastion of civilization in an otherwise feculant wasteland of internetty inspidness. I need my home back. I need my home back. I'm so anxious my skin is falling off've me in pieces. It keeps my fish fed but tomorrow night hold on now deep breath IT'S LADIES NIGHT and Jack ain't gonna get no ladies outside've a Peruvian brothel with this peeling flapjack face.

thx will b here all wk. Come to think of it: no, I will most certainly not be here all week. See, I only stopped by because severxsever helpfully mentioned that this place is a retard warren, and now and again I like posting in a forum where I have absolutely nothing to lose. For instance, watch me now as I blatantly insult a moderator: HEY FIONAVAR. NICE FACE. I'LL BET YOU SOMETIMES EAT FOOD WITH IT. AND THAT WHEN YOU DO, YOU BECOME FULL AFTER A CERTAIN PERIOD OF TIME. AND THEN NO LONGER WISH TO EAT ANY MORE FOOD. HAHAHA. Okay, so I'm not good at insulting people. This is really beside the point, which is: I don't intend to be here for any significant period of time, but thanks for the welcome anyway.

I am both cute and graphic. I am also covered from head to toe in a garment of chocolate pudding skins stitched together with human hair. Therefore I am also delicious. Verily I am a walking fusion of eclectic sensory delights.

help plz.

I like this thread. It reminds me of that old thread. The one on the BIS forums. The one with the people. Arguing. GOOD TIMES. Now and again I look up at the sky and it occurs to me that the universe is all a little too perfectly ordered to be any kind of mistake. And that's when I remember the message inherent in the HOLY PENTAGON and it takes me right back to the day Mr. Knudson taught us all how to make a hockey puck out've shoe polish and five pounds of basic human inadequacy. GOOD TIMES.