Cantousent

First time through Athis tonight. Healing it can be a pain, but I do enjoy it. Now that I've made a commando medic, I'm thinking of creating another healer. That leaves off the idea of a Sith Warrior. Maybe I'll go Sith Inquisitor. I think there's a healer spec for that class. I dunno. Just because I like healing doesn't mean I shouldn't try my hand at some dps and even a tank. I really prefer the way crafting and gathering goes in TOR. It's fun.

I get you, bud. It's one of those things where the MVP award goes to someone and you're not sure why. I mean, I've known folks not to get the nod even though they kept a third of the other side tied down solo while the rest of the team took over objectives, carried the flag (or ball or whatever), or performed some other victory condition. I think the MVP vote function is cool, but I value success more than glory. For me, since I'm not a big PVPer, I prefer to win my match, turn in my daily, and go. I've done a lot of PVP, especially in WoW, and it's just not as enteretaining most of the time. Good for a quick daily or to goof around, but not really the main point. The TOR PVP scenarios seem a little primitive compared to WoW, at least at low levels, but they're fun. More important, I don't want to see the PVE game suffer in a never ending quest to balance PVP. I can see what Deathdealer was saying about class imbalances in PVP, but the classes actually seem pretty well balanced for PVE so far, even I personally think some are easier/stronger than others. Of course, my commando is all of level 22 now, so I still can't speak authoritatively on anything. What I can say is that the crewmate mechanic, having my own ship and safe deposit boxes, being able to have one or two people gathering or crafting while I quest, and the surprising quality of the cutscenes has made this game for me. Granted, if I hadn't gotten the good word from Cal about subtitles and skippable dialogue, I think I would have stopped playing, but some of the cutscenes are quite well done. I should have an entirely light side sith warrior just to see how things are from that perspective and, frankly, to see if it makes one bit of difference if I'm the opposite 'alignment' from my faction. EDIT: lol I played that one match where you carry the ball to the other side and I got mixed up and ran it into my side's end zone. hahaha Then I noticed someone was typing WRONG WAY repeated in all caps. lol I deserve the Most Inept Player of the game for that one.

I've been doing the daily pvp and it's a quick xp bump every night for me. It's also gratifying when, after being shaken down, shot, stabbed, and bludgeoned by every Empire mook on the map, I actually get an MPV vote for healing. In WoW, I felt like virtually every bg we won as the Alliance, we clawed, scratched, and dug out of the cold, icy, rock hard earth. In TOR, I've won more than lost as the Republic.

I got my ship last night and just had a chance to do stuff with it this morning. Brilliant! I didn't think I'd like it this much, but it's awesome. I could take or leave the space combat missions, but having my own ship is just the bomb, even if it's really not all that much more useful than going to the fleet. I finally have a couple of companions to mule for me full time. I can have one do missions and make crap while the other helps me smite bad guys.

Still playing TOR when I get the chance. I'm a little irritated because you can sometimes turn in quests in two different places and get different reward on the light side/dark side spectrum. After a few glasses, I tend to forget which ones and go to the nearest triangle just to turn in my set of stacked quests and I miss the chance at an alternate turn in point. Still, I'm actually having a lot of fun. I was leery of a Star Wars MMORPG, but it's actually pretty good. I've done some flashpoints, a lot of battlegrounds, and several heroic group quests. The heroics are pretty easy to do two to four levels higher.

hehe The ranged barbarian and the melee demon hunter. Comedy. I'm going into nightmare with my monk caster. I want to get at least to level 60 to see if maybe the harder hitting monsters and loot are more interesting.

I don't think the proposed system will necessarily draw down to a weak story. I didn't think a robust faction based rep system would lead to a weak story, and that's almost exactly what they used for New Vegas. ...But I also didn't realize that you're basically hitting me from the opposite direction of the 'free-choicers.' Of course, having proposed the system, I have to believe, and could argue, that it would serve both story based *and* choice based gaming better than a lot of folks do, and a lot of teams out there already try to do both. Bioware and Obsidian try to serve story first with a good dose of choice, while Bethsoft tries to serve choice first with some nod to story. I'm not going to make any further arguments, however. I've said my piece and defended it. I enjoy the give and take, but I don't want to be so personally invested that I feel compelled to respond to every point, good and bad. ...And I think you guys have made some strong points.

I think the best thing about your post, Cal, is that I'm not sure whether you support my views or not. lol You kind of argued a little on both sides. ...But, I do think you made important points. First of all, I've never played Suikoden, but I have played some Final Fantasy games. I would say that those games, like Diablo, are by and large action rpgs. They're fun, but the point was never to explore consequence. I mean, in FF(x) or Diablo, your choice is what class you play. After that, you may or may not need to choose a talent tree, which abilities to use, and which gear to wear. The consequence is either you kill the mobs or you die. I love action rpgs, so I don't mind that at all for those games. Other games are all abou choosing between different paths and seeing some representation of the consequences. Sure, the consequences tend to be shallow, but even blurred vision would be a treasure to the blind. You take what you get. I agree entirely that many players (although not as many as you'd think reading this forum) will simply metagame. Fair enough, but many players will still make choices based on character identification even so. I could take examples from my experience, but I'll be sneaky and take one from yours. When we were doing the Flashpoint last night, you wanted to make responses that were dark-side for your smuggler because that's how you conceived your character. There really aren't a whole hell of a lot of benefits in playing light or dark per se. You just have an idea. That's *you,* bud. :Cant's toothy grin icon: (By the way, thanks again. I can't believe almost every drop was a Commando item.) I still get what you're saying, but the reality is, stupid or not, we have spectra in games and players make choices based on them. To wit, both of us among other gamers. Where I entirely agree is that we make the spectrum invisible. I still don't think folks get what I'm saying, and at this point I will take responsibility because, if I couldn't explain it sufficienty by this point, it must be my fault. My point isn't to add the feature as something the players see and can use. My point is that it's in the background giving the design team a way to let the player more chances to define his character. The way choice has worked so far is that you make choices and get a payoff at some point, usually by the immediate response. You might have rep pools with different factions, which is what New Vegas did wonderfully, but those responses to your choices are the payoffs. What I'm saying is, without even mentioning the spectrum, is letting the player move his character somewhere along the line to the sort of person he likes to play. It's entirely dynamic without needing to be intrusive or even apparent. It lets the consquence come on the PC side, not just the NPC side.

I'm going to hop online right now with my Republic Commando. I'll see if I can friend your guys, Super Cal.

I'd like to start with something that will undoubtedly be a waste of breath... or typing as it were. You are *not* more limited by the system I describe. You have the same number of options available as you would, only the design team has more options available from which to choose. I'll keep saying that every post as a sort of disclaimer. :Cant's wink and a smile icon: As to the other points, I will say that the PC *can* craft in Fallout, and yet he is limited by all sorts of things, up to and including the setting. There are limits, no matter what. The question is the limit threshold. So, in dialogue, the design team already decides what you say and, frankly, what it means. Your arguments against the system I describe are the same arguments you could use against virtually every system out there. ...And, since you will never have perfect freedom in computer games, it's a pie in the sky argument to dismiss a system because it doesn't afford the player freedoms he can't really expect from other systems. After all, you're not going to get a system that goes: 1. [imaging your dialogue] start a fight. 2. [imagine your dialogue] run. 3. [imagine your dialogue] negotiate. Even Bioware, which actually does attempt such a system, still writes the dialogue and then has it voiced. ...And, hell, Bioware still manages to get dialogue that I think conflicts with the choice associated with it. I personally think the system I propose grants more freedom in the long run than you've seen in pretty much any RPG I've played. Still, I'm actually not unhappy with the criticism. First of all, I take it in good spirits. Second of all, people have not been as universally negative as I'd thought they'd be. Finally, I actually sympathize with the freedom argument. It's just that I'm in a position of defending my proposal. If I weren't, I'd hope to think of some of the same points. One thing folks haven't really hit that hard, which I think is the biggest roadblock for the system, is that it might be tough to write nine or ten options and only use three or four for each exchange. I can think of counter-arguments, but it's still a legitimate concern.

I removed the rest of your points, solid as they are, because they don't matter. I could have, and have actually on this very forum, written essentially the same thing you did. The fight over alignment has been fought and lost. The vast majority of big rpg titles I can name off-hand, including Fallout, have alignment under some guise or another. Sure, I think the player should have the opportunity to do with the PC what he will, but he's probably going to do it under some sort of alignment system no matter what. Even taking into account that rep is better than alignment, however, one advantage of the system is that it allows for more options. No design team is going to include as many options as I can see making available to the player in every exchange. Under this particular system, you'll still have the option to do whatever you want. You should undoubtedly have that option to save the kitty anyway, no matter where you end up on the spectrum. What the system does for you is allow extra rewards for the player by giving more options without flooding the player with tons of responses at any particular instance, the vast majority of which he won't use anyway. It's a tailor made system. Keep in mind, that the spectrum could be positive/negative rep. Also keep in mind that the player need never really know where the PC resides on the spectrum. If you do it right, the player should be able to play the game without any issue. He'll enjoy dialogue that conforms to his style of play. If he's the same as what I understand the majority of players to be, then he'll play the game once, enjoy it, and then shelve it. If he replays, he'll likely follow mostly the same patterns in terms of behavior, only trying to find side quests and the like. The system will reward him, nonetheless, with a game tailored to him. However, if he's one of those rare players who not only replays but also delves into markedly different behavior, then he'll be rewarded with new dialogue starting almost immediately. Sure, the basic options are still there, but he's unlocked new dialogue. As for complete choice, you I can't have my character in Fallout don neon pink elvish armor and use his watermellon seed spitting ability to take out a deathclaw matriarch at a thousand yards. To be less ridiculous, there are certain dialogue options that come available only if I have certain skills or perks, right? Don't think of the system as stopping the player from making a variety of choices. Just think of it as tailoring those choices. ...And, in the end, the design team can open up decisions anyway. For example, the PC is in a spectrum ranging from crazy to sane. (That would be kind of nice for a Call of Cthulu game.) You've been Mr. sane the whole game and your dialogue reflects that. However, at key moments, where the design team thinks it's make or break for the PC, the player has the extreme choices for both sides and gets a chance for a big move on the spectrum. Tale: I think the point is, in the star wars RPGs I've seen, the light/dark side mechanic is in use, from both KotORs and TOR. I don't know of other star wars games, but the sw rpgs I've seen pretty much exemplify the entire spectrum idea.

I was thinking that we'd get to have more options for dialogue with the system I described, but that also presupposes something I don't think I've expressed very well so far. Essentially, I think the options help define the PC as much as the responses. I think the previous PC choices should have a consequence on everything. If you have a baseline with options ranging from super good to super bad, then I think you're helping the player define the PC not only by the consequence of what others think, but also of what he, the PC, has become. It's like Tig's example, which is also clever in and of itself. You carry the consequence of your past actions in your very skin. I don't know that it has to be that way, just as I've said several times that it doesn't need to be any one sort of spectrum or even a single spectrum altogether. At this point, however, I'm up way later than I should be and I've hade a bottle and a half of wine. I'm going to revisit this stuff in the morning when I can make more cogent arguments. The point is to usher in the consequence idea from the top down instead of from the bottom up, at least to some degree.

ahhh, I see. I need to read these posts in the morning.

Okay, Cal, I haven't seen you, but if I had, I would have expected you to applaud while I stuck my foot up 'Ethics' officer Dreg's ass. He called me a 'squeeler.' If only I could have smacked him around the room for while in order to explain the situation.

I had to reread "[m]y level 60 Barbarian is basically the Greek economy." Then I laughed so loud my wife asked what I was reading. lol I'm going to hop on it now that I have a couple of minutes.

Well, my thinking, which is still kind of running in different directions, presupposes a few things: 1. having a variety of options in dialogue is good, but seeing tons of options for every exchange will get to be tiresome. 2. having a psychotic spread of options actually works against immersion. I mean, when you have 12 options ranging from sacrificing your best maigic weapon in order to save the cat in the tree to burning the tree, the cat, and the little girl who asked for your help, you're not helping to make the player feel immersion. 3. Based on where the PC resides on the the spectrum, you can make the experience more immersive by offering reasonable choices for where the player is in the story. 4. You can keep the system flexible enough to allow the player to move and even ignore the spectrum for key conversations. I don't know that the idea is good or not. I'm just trying to think outside the box. Like Z says, it's not all that crazy. A similar system looks at skills and whatnot. ...And it need not be good and evil. It could be atheist/believer or earth tone/Diabloesque. I'm positive where Monte would fall on that last spectrum. Finally, pretty much every RPG keeps track of these sorts of things. Hell, even Fallout had what amounted to a character alignment. If we're going to have it, we should do something interesting with it. With all that said, I don't mind hearing where I'm wrong. In fact, I'm not even sure I'm right.

Fair enough. ...But then you end up with a ton of decisions for each point, which sounds cool but tons of dialogue options tend to be off-putting to many players in my opinion. It's one of those things where folks say they want one thing, but they end up buying and playing games that do something quite different. On the other hand, I see some options are being available no matter what because those are more or less baseline options to further the story. I'm more interested toward end-spectrum choices. If someone has put his PC steadfastly on the 'good' end, he's not going to miss the option to implicate innocent people with the sole purpose to get them killed. No matter what, I know there're good arguments against my position and I appreciate hearing them. :Cant's wry grin icon:

I was thinking about choice and consequence in games recently. I've long railed against alignment in games, but I've always enjoyed having real choices leading to meaningful consequences. I don't want to rehash all that, but I was thinking of the design approach. In most games the player is faced with what amounts to three real choices. I could add a fourth being filler dialogue that furthers the story but is not intended (and does not pretend) to have any CnC value. What that means is that you can be evil (or dark, etc), middle of the road, or good (or light, etc). Sometimes the middle is intentionally meant to be 'neutral' in the Dungeons and Dragons sense, which makes it a true CnC decision. Other times, there is no real value judgment in the middle and often there is no CnC value in any of the choices for a specific exchange. The design teams often use these choices to move the PC over a spectrum ranging from 'good' to 'evil.' As the player makes a choice, he moves the PC over in the spectrum. For example, the player character is faced with a non-player character threatening to kill another NPC: "Go ahead and kill him, I want to watch." (evil) "You must have your reason to kill him." (neutral) "Don't kill him! [stand in front of the victim]" (good) "What's are you doing?" (either postpones the CnC decision or ignores it altogether) ...As opposed to, the PC has a conversation with an NPC about the dreaded Bad Guys: "Where do these BGs live?" (no CnC value) "Do you think I can make it past these BGs?" (no CnC value) "I have to through that territory, BGs or not." (no CnC value) First of all, 'spectrum' need not mean the whole DnD alignment nonsense. The spectrum could represent a whole variety of choices which may or may not entail good and evil. It could just as easily revolve around order/chaos, corporate/consumer, funny/serious, or any number of things. Instead of static responses that move the PC over the spectrum, however, why not have the spectrum narrow down dialogue options? So, for instance, there might be seven or eight theoretical choices for one interaction, but the player only gets three or four choices depending on where he has placed himself in the spectrum. The first few dialogues are more directed in order to set the PC somewhere in the spectrum. At first, the player moves more quickly towards a place on the spectrum, but later the moves become more and more gradual. Most players will undoubtedly fluctuate in one place on the spectrum, but they may move back and forth on the spectrum as they continue to make choices. This might sound like it would make tons more work for the design team, but I think it makes less. You have to write out more possible PC options for very specific places, but you only need to use three or four at a time. Meanwhile, some of the NPC responses will be the same for some of those choices. It doesn't add much work on the NPC side, but it leads to much more granularity in defining the PC. ...And that granularity could end up helping define not just the game experience, but the end game wrap up as well. I know that the idea of moving folks back and forth on a spectrum isn't anything new. What I was thinking is having that have a direct and profound impact on PC dialogue options. For example: In the scenario above, the PC sees a possible murder. If he goes the evil route, he then has moved towards the evil end of the spectrum. The next choice is whether or not to kill a Bad Guy he has defeated in combat. If he kills the BG, then the BG tribe will attack and kill a bunch of the innocent villagers. If he lets the BG live, then the BG can go back to the BG tribe and regroup for another attempt on the PC's life. ...But there could be any number of possibilities. A. The PC not only kills the BG, but takes the time to leave false clues to implicate the Innocent Village. (big move towards evil) B. The PC kills the BG. (small move towards evil) C. The PC lets the BG live, but maims him so he's no longer a threat. (No further move if already on the evil side) D. The PC attempts to reason with the BG. (Small move towards good) On the other hand, using the same scenario, assuming the PC chose the good option in the beginning: A. The PC kills the BG. (Small move towards evil) B . The PC lets the BG, but maims him so he's no longer a threat to the Innocent Villagers. (small move towards the center if on the good side) C. The PC attempts to reason with the BG. (small move towards good) D. The PC takes the BG captive in order to try to rehabilitate him. (big move towards good) And the design team isn't constrained to follow that formula every time. A lot of dialogue is simply meant for flavor. It progresses the story and lets the player define the PC without real consequence. Other times, the design team might want to have specific options regardless of where the PC falls on the spectrum, such as those big moments where the PC has a choice to reaffirm his place in the spectrum or, by some epiphany, change his philosophy. These examples are intentionally simple in order to make the point clearer. Even then, I'm afraid I'm not explaining the idea very well. At any rate, I think the spectrum idea, if done right, could mean just a little more work for a lot more CnC benefit. Of course, I'm sure folks have already thought of these things, but the CnC aspect of RPGs is why I find them so compelling. Well, that and fun of building up a decent party and smiting folks, but the CnC is primo also.

I don't give a rat's ass about a bit of grief on facebook. I. just. don't. care. However, with that in mind, I think it puts them in a bad light because their real beef isn't with Brevik in the first place. Their real problem is that Brevik gave voice to so much of what others were already saying. To me, D3 and WoW show the good and bad sides of Blizzard, which is ironic since it seems to me that the design team went out of the way to bring some of the social aspects of WoW to the Diablo franchise. I don't play WoW anymore, but I didn't stop because it's a bad game. I stopped because I'd played it out and there wasn't enough there to keep me interested. WoW is a great idea and a great game. D3 is the third game in one of my favorite franchises where I've bought each title and expansion. I stopped playing D3 because it just wasn't that great of a game. I've finished normal and played a little nightmare, so I'm not going to rail against the game. I had a bit of fun, but it just had too flaws from my perspective, starting with the fact that it forced me to play online and ending with the fact that the mobs and gear were just a bit too ho-hum. I don't mind other folks having fun. I'm not a D3 hater. It was just a letdown. On the other hand, I will give the patch a fair shake to see if it breathes new life into the game.

Funny. I thought I was 9th level in my other account with my trooper, but I must have just turned 8th because I remember getting a brand new skill and I got that at 8th level on my subscription account. Playing one character and just jetting through the quests wasn't so bad, although I will admit I'm only 9th level. Considering I'm married and I take breaks to visit with the wife, drink myself to oblivion on the weekends, and basically don't grind like I might do on a weeknight, I think I'm moving pretty quickly. ...And, I think Bioware should be happy to have people like Spider and Nep trying to recruit folks, and Cal and Raithe and Hurlie and even Grom (the bastard) who still talk about the game and keep up interest. I will say that there is no chance I would have even tried the game if it weren't for this thread. lol Anyhow, It's a pretty good game. I have a monthly subscription right now, and I'm sure I'll end up paying for at least a couple of months at this point and maybe much more. I'm one of those old fashioned suckers who think you should pay folks for providing a good experience even if you could weasle out of it.

Oh, I've done the drill on WoW. At end game content, I like playing a healer more than anything. I just tend to enjoy feeling like I'm outside of the fighting keeping the group in the struggle. My intention is, if I find I still like the game in high levels, to make a tank and a healer. The tank because I like being useful and nothing makes you more useful than fielding a tank. The healer because that's what I want my role to be in end game raids.

...And I'm subscribed and online. I created a trooper on Corellian Run named, surprise, Cant. I plan on making a Sith Warrior. I think I'll make both dps. Later on, I'll make a tank and healer. For right now, I need to get the lay of the land and dps tends to be the simplest thing to learn. EDIT: Only real regret is that I left some sort of purple drop on my level 8 trooper on the other trial acct. I don't know how rare purples are, though, so if it's not all that rare, no biggie. ...And if it is a really rare thing *shrug* no biggie. hehe

I'll make a toon on Corellian Run. I'll have to start over again anyhow, so what do you think, Republic or Imperial? There are story lines and voice over work I enjoy on both sides.

I don't mind grouping from time to time, but I tend to enjoy being a loner. I think the fact that every class apparently gets a companion makes it much much easier to solo things. When I did my Jedi Guardian, I tend to explore and kill more, so quests were easier when I finally got around to them. I think I did something similar as the Imperial Agent. I'm surprisingly happy with the Republic Trooper story line and I've gone straight through each mission. I finished all but the group quests on the planet and I'm only level 9 right now, which made a couple of the quests a little tougher to do relative to the other classes. Of course, my highest level character is level.... 12? 13? So I can't talk very authoritatively about any of them. I saw Nep's comment above and I sent him a message which means I'll have to start a new trial account and then purchase a subscription, which undoubtedly means I'll have to start over again with my characters. I don't want to take too much time leveling folks who're going to be dumped anyway. I'm going to hold off gaming until then. BTW: Thanks a million, Super Cal. Like a lot of folks here probably do, I set subtitles on and then read and skip the voice over now. A couple of things I let play out, like that rat bastard... well, I don't want to give away any of the Trooper story, but some of the dialogue I just had to hear all the way through. Anyhow, if I had to listen to every second of dialogue every time, that would have ruined the game for me, so thanks again, man.

My biggest complaint so far is that I can't bypass the dialogue. Maybe I missed something, but I can't see how to skip the damned stuff. Is it possible on the second run? I know Bio is always so excited about their voice over work, but I would be much happier if I could bypass the dialogue for the more boring quest lines.