djkillingspree

As a QA Tester, I can say that I would rather Obsidian NOT make a handheld game, heh. Testing on one of those things is a real experience in pain. However, as far as the game itself would be concerned, handhelds I think are a great fit for deep RPGs. Especially both of the newer handhelds. I can imagine doing really cool things interface-wise on the DS, and the screen on the PSP is just fantastic.

Why would a company founded specifically for the purpose of developing a Star Wars game be called Senatus Populus que Romanus?

AFAIK game developers simply do not interact with the system at that level, but learning to program generally is definitely a good thing. You can learn your game specific skills a lot faster than you can learn the basic foundational techniques of being a good programmer.

Abort, abort! Go to a regular school and learn game design in your spare time, you'll be happier in 40 years when the game industry has tanked and they are extracting the brains of modellers to power the normal mapping calculations for Halo XVIII models

While I understand that your style is an intentional schtick, I must say there is a minor aura of irony surrounding your post

The AIM software itself is pretty poor but the protocol is just fine.

I don't know whether or not a degree helps you a huge deal when applying for a game development job; I've heard people going both ways. However, being an educated person is a huge boon to creativity I think and so if you get a Liberal Arts or Science degree that prepares you to think analytically it seems to me you would be a much more effective designer/programmer/whatever. Sure, you could learn that stuff on your own but it takes a lot more discipline and there is really a value to having direct access to be able to talk to researchers and build relationships with them. For instance, if I was doing a game on espionage, I know I could call up one of my history professors who specialized in espionage and ask him, "Hey, what are some good sources on espionage in WW2?". That's something that I think would be tougher for someone who hadn't gone to college.

Sadly or not, depending on your perspective on things, many games are extensively focus-tested these days. While it's not my cup of tea it definitely reflects the influence of marketing folks on developers.

When writing my cover letter, who should I address it to? Who will be reading it? "To Whom it May Concern" or "Dear Sir/Madam" sounds so lame!

Actually, I think there are some smart ways to involve character's pasts in a CRPG while allowing the player a lot of personal choice. If you've played Mechwarrior 3rd Edition (the P&P game, not the PC game) or the old PC RPG Darklands, what I'm saying will sound familiar. But, essentially, you have a player select from some early childhood, late childhood, adolescence and adult childhood occupations, with either some player chosen or randomly determined variations. Then, you have the game reference your upbringing when appropriate. For instance, in a Star Wars game, you might select: Poor Family->Petty Thief->Pod Racer->Smuggler, and then maybe have three or four gurps-style Traits (from which you'd pick one) for each selection. Then you'd have a basic background that the game could call on and work with throughout the game. Also, there could be some really cool quests derived from the system. For instance, maybe one of the traits you could pick as a Smuggler would be "Backstabber", where you start off with a lot more wealth but have made an important enemy, who will appear in a sidequest later in the game. Essentially, the goal is to provide something that allows the player to express the backstory they have made for their character within the game world and to provide the designer with a way to deal, in-game, with a variety of backstories.

Put very simply if someone isnt interested in playing the character you have created for the game then they wont buy the game. Thats a pretty big gamble to take. In the case of PST one that didnt pay off. On the other hand you give them the tools to create a character from their imagination and they will. All those millions of people playing BG and NWN must be seeing something in the ability to create their own characters that you are missing. All games need a start point being a member of the republic fleet was nothing more than that.No different from having to start in a vault, or in Candlekeep. Inherently it wasnt restrictive. Where as the character being Darth Revan was because it would overwrite your previous character with a new identity. Though in the case of KOTOR as I said above the character who Revan had become trying to come to terms with who he had been was rather a high point of the game for me. A predefined character is one you dont create yourself. Tidus from FFX is a pre defined character. Yuna from FFX-2 is a pre defined character. TNO from PST is a pre defined character. The only difference is that in TNO's case they yanked his memory for you to find in the course of the game but hes very much pre defined as who he is. And if you dont have any interest in the characrter then you have no interest in the game. What is the advantage of allowing the player to define their own character if they aren't really provided any meaningful ways to enact their definition of that character within the game's narrative? By that definition, by not providing any first person narrative, DOOM gave you a lot of freedom to "role-play". The fact is, that within the context of the game's narrative, PS:T gave the player more freedom to express his/her definition of who this incarnation of TNO was than, say, BG did to really describe the personality of the Bhallspawn.

Your not really defining a character though your simply choosing the next pre defined page. The character has already been written to the n'th degree by someone else. Your simply playing one of the possible permitations. On the other hand the designer has had absolutely no influence on my character aside from my having to accept the destiny of being a Bhaal Spawn. That it works isnt really in dispute. What is in dispute is unless you removed TNO's memories you wouldnt be able to play him in the first place. Quite what the game logic reason for him not continuining to lose his memory on death after you start the game Im not sure. But its a rather glaring inconsistancy wouldnt you say? To your first point, in reality BG offerred very little in terms of opportunities to define your character's morality in a complex and meaningful way. Generally, your choices in quests were always lawful good (I'll do this quest for you, for free!), neutral evil/chaotic neutral (I'll do this quest for you, but I want some cash!), or chaotic evil (quest? More like "I'll kill you".) Planescape let you make a variety of moral decisions and also did a very nice job defining the space between the role-player and the designer in terms of control of the character. As to your second point, is isn't an inconsistancy at all. TNO only loses his memory when TTO kills him, either by proxy with the Shadows or in person. That is why there are only three incarnations. TTO has only got to TNO three times. It is specifically TTO's goal to make TNO forget, which is why he only blacks out when TTO kills him.

Why does every choice have to be reflected as a change in the ending? The fact is, the individual quests in Torment could often be solved in interesting and character defining ways, whereas in BG the quests tended to be more stereotypically good/evil. What BG did not do was make the choice of gender, race and class significant outside of combat. Characters in the game very rarely reacted in any substantial way to your choice of gender, race or class. In that case, the ability of a player to select these has practically nothing to do with his or her role within the narrative of the game, which if I'm not mistaken is the whole purpose of role-playing. On the other hand, in Torment some of your choices made a huge difference throughout the game and in the ending. There are quite a few ways that the last encounter can be approached, and many ways it can be solved. As for the ultimate ending, that was the destiny of the Nameless One regardless of how you played him. What that ending meant, though, changed significantly based on how you played the game. Which, I think, is a lot more interesting from a role-playing perspective than any choice BG offered me. Essentially, all BG offered were the sterotypical roles of "I am good, so I will vanquish the evil!" and "I am evil, so I want the power that the evil people have!". PS:T let you choose a variety of motives for your character and provided a variety of factions you could choose to ally yourself with. Clearly, though, a choice that affects the rule system of a game but doesn't affect the player's role within the narrative is not a role-playing choice. BG's narrative did not change in any substantive way, whether you were a man, woman, elf, dwarf, cleric or fighter. PS:T's moral decisions, on the other hand, allowed the player to have a much more complex way to express their alignment (through the dynamic alignment system and through the use of actions that were independently lawful/neutral/chaotic and good/neutral/evil) and often did change aspects of the narrative, in addition to what the ultimate message of the narrative was.

Well, clearly there is a difference. In Baldur's Gate, for instance, you can create a character that "roll-plays" differently, whereas in Torment you have more opportunities to "role-play" differently. Essentially, what I mean is that Torment offers you much more freedom in terms of defining your characters moral role within the story, whereas Baldur's Gate generally lets you choose between getting +1 to hit with swords or getting a bonus to fighting giants. Your choice of race made, as far as I could tell, absolutely no difference to narrative content (either designed or emergent) in Baldur's Gate. And, generally, the moral choices in Baldur's Gate were far more black and white. Torment really let you define the moral position of your character very precisely, through actions. And, those actions had an effect on the sub-narratives of the individual quests you would solve. Some even had an effect on the main narrative of the game. Honestly, I don't see how anyone can site Baldur's Gate as an example of a strong game in terms of player choice. There is relatively little freedom to express the vision you have of your character in that game as compared to games like Fallout and Torment. And, if we're dealing with a player's freedom within the technical aspects of the RPG rule system, IWD2 or Fallout are much better examples, and at least IWD2 was much better balanced for all sorts of wacky party configurations.

I think you can err too much in the direction of trying to make a comptuer RPG simulate the table-top experience. Until we have a dynamic story generation engine that is capable of generating a story comparable to what a human could author (which seems pretty unlikely to me), we're going to have to make do with giving players a defined starting location within the context of the world we're trying to create. Even a relatively open-ended game like Fallout firmly grounded the character within the role of a Vault Dweller. If you wanted to play a tribal, or a raider, you were out of luck. Ultimately, giving the PC a minimal background is a great way to tether the player both to his character and to the game world. A good example of a game without any serious PC characterization would be Darklands. You could choose your class, the occupations your character had, and everything. Unfortunately, while Darklands is a great game, it probably wasn't feasible to implement in-game effects to your occupation choices, so ultimately your occupation/class choices have no effect beyond character creation. This doesn't really provide a satisfying way to ground the player within the game world, though Darklands made up for it by being a very fun game to play. I don't even feel that it is desirable for a developer to abdicate the responsibility of creating a thorough backstory for the PC. Like I said before, ultiamtely giving the PC a motivation that the player can understand and empathize with (saving the vault in FO is a good example) will act to ground that player in the environment and help them empathize with their avatar. And, if our goal is to immerse the player within the game world, it is crucially important that they empathize with their avatar. I honestly wonder what the problem with TNO is Torment was, in terms of what you wanted from the game. Clearly, if you want a completely freeform experience, you should look for a P&P game. PS:T allowed you to act with a pretty good degree of autonomy within the context of TNO's background. Also, it had the most dynamic and reactive alignment system of any of the IE games, which tended to be important as you were given a good degree of free reign over your characters decisions.