Amentep

Only bug I remember in AP was one where at a certain point after loading a particular area, I could backtrack and a door should have closed behind me, but didn't so you could walk off the map.

Hint more, I'm lost in your devious analogy. English not my first language and all that jazz... Its an analogy to comic art. Comic art is a series of sequential images that tie together to form a narrative; because it is static image the reader's imagination has to fill in the action going on between the panels. The area between the panels is referred to as "the gutter" between panels, thus the imagined connection between panel A and panel B is what the reader invests in "the gutter". From a video game perspective, this might be something like in BG2 when your party is traveling for a day (or so) from Athkatla to Umar Hills (IIRC), the player might assume, conjecture or imagine that the party might have conversations, or camp, or whatever during the trip that happens between "gather your party to venture forth" and arrival in Umar Hills. The trip doesn't exist in the game, only in the mind of the player. Other people will play the game and not assume anything happened during the trip since for them the game only exists based on their explicit input and what they see. This is where comic art storytelling and video game storytelling differ, since comic art storytelling can't exist without an assumption of action happening that you don't see, whereas I'm not 100% sure the same can be said for video games (although certainly there are those who do "expand on the action" that could happen "off-screen"). EDIT: poor grammar

I seemed to recall having high sneak allowed me to run and hide from one of the bosses. Yeah he still came after me but couldn't see me until he got close, and it allowed me time to let my gun skills come back active (or to hit him with grenades) and then run off and hide elsewhere on the map. Personally I appreciate the game allowing me to have a giant beard and wear a swamp hat.

An NPC can assume (or if you prefer, infer) the PC's motivations - they can't KNOW it. I suppose for better C&C the developers should allow the PC to correct the NPC on their inference vs what the PC intended, but ultimately the simpler (to implement) reaction is for the NPCs to react to the actions - not why unless the story itself provides a greater context. But why can the game assume you inputing the "whys" is "true"? If I shoot my wife and the police come and I say she tried to stab me with a knife, that doesn't make my motivation true even though I stated them. By stating intentions to an NPC a PC isn't nailing an intention down, they're presenting an intention they want the NPC to believe they have. Therefore, again, the game can only react to what the PC does (in this case, indicate a motive) but not why they actually did it. The assumption you're making is that the player (and by extention the PC) can't lie to make themselves look better (or because they don't have the option that fits their motive). If I help a peasant who I have some vague intel may be inherting some money and tell them its because I hate injustice, then later the peasant is revealed to be the last of the scions of a royal house and I ask for some money from the royal treasury and its given to me, what is my motivation? I said its because I hate injustice, but if I know the guy is getting money and accept it was I motivated by greed? Your way would assume that I did it because I hate injustice...but maybe I just told the peasant that so that they'd think I was a great guy worth giving money to down the road if my intel panned out. I had always assumed the trauma of being ripped from the force had made some of the memories of the Exile lost as well. In fact I thought it was stated (but perhaps I just inferred it?) I think I understand the point; I still think there can be value in romances, but I'd argue they shouldn't be done at the expense of having a well-realized NPC as well. I'd disagree with that design point, though. However the more specific features, quests, character relationships become the less prioritized they should be, I'd think. I think I'm being pretty objective considering the pros and cons of implementing romances into a game of this scope with a limited budget. It's just not practical. And yes the best way to make the game is to not have romances so welcome to anti-romance side. Hahah, not really what I meant. I can't class myself as anti-romance even if I will admit there would be a lot of pitfalls (time investment/resources in dev, careful planning, very specific NPC perspective framework) with implementing them "properly" (or at least what I see as properly).

Just wanted to chime in to say that I disagree with this assumption. What if you want the world and the NPCs to react to your motivations? If you don't state them in the game, you lose this dimension of NPC interactions. Granted, it's very difficult to cover all motivations, and not having your preferred option sucks, but if the conversation is well done the options should be broad enough to make this a non-issue. Arguably he's right, the game can't know the players motive only react to his choices. The game can only react to what you do not why you did it (which is why the old "donate to a church / whack a villager" reputation meter in the IE games was kind of wonky). However, there is the question that if the game only reacts to what you do under appropriate understandings (for the game) of what you did, then is it essentially indistinguishable from understanding what your motivations were (or at least render the motivations moot) in context of the game / NPC. To use an example, in FONV, in Nipton when you talk to Vulpes Inculta if you express outrage at what he's done in dialogue he'll say something to the effect that if the player feels strongly about it to attack him and the Legionnaires. Lets say you attack them and win. From the games perspective it doesn't matter WHY Vulpes was attacked, or even that Vulpes invited me to do it. There way its handled - Ceaser's Legion sees me as a hostile - is regardless of my motivation. In essence the motivation behind the action is rendered irrelevant to the reaction the game gives the player and yet still reactive to what the player did.

I'm not sure that I really understand your point here; there's a difference between someone's past being important to them vs being important to other people. I never got a feeling that the PC in KotR2 was straight-jacketed by the past ("you are always fundamentally you, even if you don't remember what you've done"), only that the past was always there and those people who knew the past would react to that, rather than who you are. Or am I missing your point?

Okay fair enough; I understand you don't believe its technically possible. I'm not convinced it is/isn't (we seem to be okay with non-romance relationships but that may also be because some non-romance relationships are inherently shallow so depth is less of an issue?) but have always accepted that it might be. Or even that it might be technically possible but so resource intensive to "do right" that its not worth it. So again I'm not for mandating romances, either, only including them if they "make sense". Why do they need to appeal to a large amount of people? I don't understand the mentality that some content can't be created for a game that makes sense for the game but that the player may not ever see based on how they view/play their character. If I make a choice and kill an NPC who would have given a quest later on, I've just locked myself out from that quest. That doesn't mean I think the quest should not be created, another quest giver created so I can still access the quest content or the quest giver made immortal. If I play a celibate monk, what purpose is creating a brothel in the game? Well obviously for those people who want to roleplay in other ways than as a celibate monk. Again the content is there because it makes sense (if its included) not necessarily so everyone can ring all the bells to the end. In my opinion at least. *shrug* Beyond technical limitations - which as someone who doesn't make games I've always accepted that there may be practical considerations that just make "doing it right" impossible - I'd think most of the rest of this debate is subjective rather than objective. Anyhow, I'd class myself as being pro-romance in games (provided it makes sense for the plot and characters of the RPG), and I wouldn't be upset about a romance that could fail because of things outside my choice, because it was still ultimately my choice to pursue the relationship that can't work. Certainly this would alter replays (like knowing Yoshimo is going to betray you alters BG2 replays), but I'm not convinced that should be a consideration as to whether its "good" or "bad". Then again I'm also for a game not having any romances if that's the way to make the best game, so...

I'd like to think it'd be more complex than "Joe the Stabby hits -100 influence, Joe the Stabby STABS YOU", but can see the concern of metagaming in this aspect. Ideally I was thinking along the lines of some kind of NPC satisfaction scale that wouldn't be based on any one factor but might include several - like the PC-NPC influence, whether the NPC approves of the rest of the NPCs in the party (interparty friction) or some particular quests the NPC might feel strongly about and what they'd think of the resolution, or something.

That's actually why I was suggesting removing it from being hard scripted to being down to party influence. Ie certain character may / may not betray you due to low influence with them. In fact I used Yoshimo so little after his betrayal, I forgot he betrayed the PC when I was making this thread...

One thing that happened from time to time in PnP games I've played is one player or a NPC hireling might decide to betray the group - sell them out for gold, steal items while everyone was asleep and run off. In cRPG when PC influence with the NPC gets below a certain level, usually the character just leaves the party. There's also morale failure in battle where the character runs off. Betrayals might happen due to hard coded script - doesn't matter what the PC did, once that story point is hit, betrayal happens. I haven't really played a cRPG where NPCs who become disatisfied who could leave during a rest period with part of your belongings. Possibly this is scripting / resource intensive, but seems like it could create a mini-quest (to retrieve your stuff) that isn't static within the context of the games story. So the question is, if resources weren't an issue, would this kind of behavior be interesting for NPCs to possibly have? Or would it just be too frustrating?

Lawsuits just aren't possible with pie. I'm not sure I'm holding fellow fans with disdain. However people being argumentative, people taking the same information and reading positive / negative connotations, people being upset over trivialities...that's my experience with people - myself included despite my efforts not to microfocus on things.

Just because its stupid and pointless doesn't mean people won't try...

I'd argue that's poor design though; POOL OF RADIANCE: THE RUINS OF MYTH-DRANOR (or whatever) had that problem. I stopped playing it because....everthing...mo....ved.....so......sl........o............w There's no real reason for TB combat to be slow, as far as I know, other than not thinking through how to implement it.

You may not care. But Johnny and Susie care. And they may care so much that if they feel their funds are being misused that they sue Obsidian over it. If Johnny and Susie find out that the X amount of dollars designated for character design didn't all end up going to character design and thus they felt their funds were being misused, they could sue Obsidian over it. Yeah, the lawsuits might not amount to anything - might be laughed out of court. But it could create severe headaches for Obsidian without any real benefit to the community beyond satisfying a mild curiosity, IMO.

Well yeah. But within those bounds, there's still room to make choices when the game gives choices to you, so my question was how do you make that choice as a player - on how you as a person would make the choice, how the character you've defined should make the choice, which one seems the funniest at the time? Right, I'd agree; to me having romances created simply for the sake of equality of relationships is moving into the developers metagaming; they're not creating a situation out of the who the NPCs are, but they're forming (or forcing) the NPCs to conform to a situation they want to have happen. I'd argue this isn't the proper way to form NPCs. I guess when I see fanservice, I'm thinking more of "everyone gets a sex scene with semi-nudity for their jollies" since most of the time when I see fanservice its about some vaguely skeevy sexual element in something. I'm - and I believe others - are not demanding romances in the game, I'm not demaning romances for every type of interest. I do like PC-NPC interaction and I'd like to see more of that (I also like NPC-NPC interaction as well). I want these interactions to go beyond a few dialogues and to have some meaning within the party / characters / reactivity with people around - whether its friendship, rivalry, love, hate, indifference, brothers-in-arms, or whatever. I'd like the decision for what kind of relationships the PC might have the the NPCs to be decided in NPC design so that it makes sense with the character created, and I agree that in a limited time and resources situation, longer developed inter-party relationships - which I think would have to have time / resources to develop properly - might not be in the scope of design.

Okay, thanks. So really its less that "ROMANCE = Shallow character and no personality" but more that you don't believe the resource outlay for this game (with very limited time and resources) would be worth it to "do right" compared to what wouldn't get done because those resources were used this way and that if they can't do it right they shouldn't do it? Personally I'm for not including romances if Obsidian doesn't have the resources to do it right as well. It just seems some arguments - to me at least - have come from a 'romances will always be "bad" in games even wtih unlimited time and resources to design them'. EDIT: To clarify, what I mean is that it seems like that the argument is that romances will always be bad and never justify the time/resources spent on them - that might be a better way of putting that. I'm not sure I agree because, again, I think the creators should be free to define the NPCs and that might validly include a romance.

Which raises the question, how do you make the choices on how the story progresses? Is it based on what you the player would do? Or what you think your character would do? Because if the later I'd argue you are role playing within the constraints set out by the game. In essence you're the lead actor and you're method acting as best you can. If its the later well...either you're playing yourself or the PC/story isn't that important to you perhaps (which is completely valid since with video games I still think gameplay is the important thing)? I'm not sure. Okay, first off romance /= sex and vice versa. We're back to the "romance-derps want to get their jollies off and that's the only reason they'd want romances in a game" argument. Second...if the game had a romance in it that the world, people and story could recognize...then doesn't that mean by what you're defining here that it does work with the plot and narrative? I understand the argument that resources are limited, and have said often that if its not the in the scope of the game, the character and stories or just not worth it from a time-investment standpoint on limited resources that's okay. I (and consequently I believe others although not necessarily all) are not arguing that there MUST be romance, only supporting romance as a possible PC-NPC relationship amid all the other possibilities. Who is asking for "romance as fan service" though? Again this seems to come back to flawed logic IMO that romance in a character and story driven game only can exist if its part of some sort of sexual gratification thing. There is some overlap, I think, with RPGs and written works. A novel is character, plot and setting. An RPG is (or can be at least) all of that with an added gameplay component on top. A game is a failure if the gameplay sucks and the nature of "choice and consequences" alters the inter-reaction between character, plot and setting. I'd argue this alteration makes video-game RPGs more modularized (which may be why I have no problem with large human emotions - revenge, romance, friendship, enemity, etc - being handled in a more modular fashion and not tightly interwoven within the main quest fabric) Why can't a deep character NPCs with different personalities and motivations not - under specific circumstances - be romanceable IF it fits the character (and PC), story, etc. I'm not sure I understand why NON ROMANCE = deep character with personality and ROMANCE = shallow character with no personality by necessity (not saying that games don't end up this way, but I'm not convinced this is at the feat of romance vs. creators not being able to realize a romance in an interesting way)? I'd disagree with this, but then I'm of the opinion that NPC design should dictate the appropriateness of a romance. I disagree with making NPCs for the sole reason to make sure there is equality in romances. I'm not entirely sold on the idea that there should BE equality in romance with NPCs (and I certainly don't think THERE MUST BE ROMANCES). Again to me the litmus test should be based on whether it makes sense for the NPC to have a romantic interest in the PC? Does it make sense with the story being told? Shockingly I also think romances should be able to fail for reasons other than the PC decides to fail it. I'd disagree with a design that always allowed success of a romantic relationship (however you want to define success - I certainly wouldn't define it as "having sex in a cut scene") since part of what I think is fun in RPGs is the ability to not succeed on "plot crititcal" game elements and have the game still react to that.

I love some turn based games. I love some non-turned based game. So I'm happy either way so long as its "good".

Lo Pan Style...lol that's kinda awesome.

TSR specifically does not give the Lady of Pain stats in the Planescape Campaign setting (or in later materials) to address the first point; they also specifically point out to DMs that the Lady of Pain should be treated as unchallengeable to address the second point and players doing so should be killed. That does solve that for the setting, yep. I've never read Planescape stuff so I didn't know that. And yet... doesn't that just confirm my defending Cultist's point that BIS couldn't allow the PC to kill LoP due to, you know, fiat by TSR/WotC? Well I never disputed that argument (that BIS would need WotC permission to alter the Planescape setting / kill LoP), just that it didn't (to my mind) relate to talking about PE or my suggestion (since my argument was doing something similar to another game, not why that other game did it that way) or at the very least was a side point. Nothing but theology and theological concepts...AND THE ABILITY TO PUNCH THEM IN THE FACE!!!!!111111one* *and possibly die when doing so. How sad.

....eg, I love exploration, but there is such a thing as too much pointless, empty, "exploration potential." And on the other side, there's also such a thing as too much focus on density. I don't want to encounter stuff every 20 feet. When I want that, I'll play an action-rpg. imo. Pretty much this sums up the situation for me; locations didn't seem to exist in BG2 unless something happened (or was going to happen) there. I'd like something in between, something with open areas to encounter but more general focus than BG1. I mean I enjoyed BG1 exploration, but really that was partially "fog of war removal OCD" than anything else.

Definitely picking up a "Dear God - how is this going to all work?" vibe from this video And in the back of the minds of everyone at Obsidian creeps in an ugly thought: "Did gamers really pledge 4 million dollars and make the game as big as it could possibly be...simply because they secretly hate us and want to see us suffer?"

I liked the backgrounds in Arcanum.

I didn't know who Malukah was, and I don't know what Dubstep is either. You crazy kids and your new fangled fads! Now get off my lawn!

I think this ties a bit into the TABULA RASA thread; while I like to define a lot of the major parts of the PC - well they had to have a childhood somewhere, so I don't mind the idea of presenting a character who is a childhood friend provided the game allows us to not be forced to be friends with them as adults. They also have to be careful if they add the ability to define character backgrounds to the PC like Arcanum. It wouldn't make sense to have a childhood friend if I have a "feral child" background and grew up in the wilderness, or if I was playing a female PC with a "Tomboy" background but was treated as if the character wasn't a tomboy when establishing the "childhood" material. Someday games will have that kind of reactivity to play out the details between the character background and establishing a less vague (or utterly irrelevant beyond stats) but effective PC past that the game can react to, but I don't think we're there yet.