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Welcome. In many previos games we seen how davs are developing thei games, and how thei are developing thair plots. This thred was made becouse i;ve enchounter opinions that games today are not "linear" and even some that skyrim is not linear becouse it has "sandbox" xD In general you coud progress a story in 3 difrend ways, Linear, halflinear or nonlinear. And i will exmplainf how that work. Linear You play thu pint A to point B next to point C, you have no influence on the story and no decisions, or you influence is reather cosmetical. The funny thing is that Skyrim in this poit of view is one of the most linear game ever made xD The only freedom that you have is "when" you take some quest, witch is reather cosmetical way of "adding nonlinear feeling". You take quest and you go to poin A then to pint B, next to point C, regardless if you are good, bad, mage or a warrior. The only 1 decision that affects skyrim storyline is "Will you join Stormcloaths, imerals or don't join any of them". Ony 1 decision xD and people think that game is non linear, the funny thing is that when you join stormcloath or imerials you mostly do the same thing but from "other perspeciv", you go to the same cript but you are on difrent side, you fight for the same city, but from other point of view, you conqer rival citys. Of course skyrim, is not good example of linear plot, good example was Neverwinter 1, Balfours Gate 1 or easterd Final Fantasy 7, 8 etc. Simplest definicion - 1 ending with at most some "cometical" difrences. Halflinear This type of games, are linear storylines but cut thos some stages in which you make a decision and change the possible "ending" of ech stage. We encounter this in dragon age orgins, Neverwinter nights 2 etc. This element is perfectly shonw on skyrims "Ulfric-Imperial" issu where you may join ulfrik, imperials or none of them, so this makes skyrim something between linear and halflinear xD. In general Halflinears have 2 big issues. 1. Decisions are in best cases, split to "Good", "Neutral" or "Evil" decisions. And regardles of how many possible endings we have they are Good, Neutral or Evil and only diffrence between 1 good ending and second good ending is cosmetical, co at the end we end up with 3 endings that have some cosmetical difrences inside them ... xD 2. Rewords for gridning (taking an decicion base on the "outcome" like xp, gold") reather then roleplaying, in whith some peaple may 1 time save the kitten, then kill whole city and still say "Im tru neutral damit" XD Nonlinear Hardest story line to input. I've never encouter it in any new highly advanced game, only in 2d games with low graphical level and some of game "novels". Nonlinear plot meant that 1 decision leads to andother, then means that if we for example make decision numer 1, all decision that coud be unlocked by taking decision number 2 or number 3 are closed. I will give an example of game of thrones ts series. Stark has a decicion, marry freys daughter or not, marrying her has a big risk becouse frays daughters are mostly ugly but will lead to make powerfull anti-lannister ally, not marring her may lead to freys betreyal and death of young stark xD This how tru nonlinear decision shoud look like, and ant the and we will have 14 compleatly diffrent endings, in many cases that we cound not put to any bag like "evil" "Good" or neutral becouse they whoud be to complexed. This also whoud protect agind "grinding" decision makeing becouse taking decision like "i will save this poor lad from those bandits" whoud look down any decision like "i will help those bandits kill that lad", becouse it whoud be logical, that a person whou whoud "act like a good person" in "rescueing lad from bandits" whoud do the same in other cas or at least be "neutral" and say "i will not put my boot in this goodbye". Not like in 1 decision char acts like total walking evil, but lawfull good and gantle in second xD and still say "Hey, im neutral damit xD" Im, wainting for your opinion xD