Nother NWN2 Preview

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

The rules need tobe easy for n00bs to grasp but the action needs to be challenging as challenging a game can get, within the confines of the rules system in use but there hasn't been a challegning d20 System game yet so I doubt NWN 2 will be.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

How exactly do you make a roleplaying game challenging ?

 

Roleplaying games require only a modicum of player ability such as being able to click in general direction of what you want to hit.

If you create a game that is built around a powergamed character you remove much of the ability to make odd roleplaying characters.

 

Different things challenge different builds. Where a horde of weak monsters might be able to drag down the most powerful fighter a single fireball will destroy them all in a blink. Likewise even a weak magic immume foe will make a mage sweat. But a fighter will swat it aside with ease.

 

Whenever I think difficulty I always think about Omega Weapon , Shinriyu, Emerald , Ruby etc.

 

But never as a part of the main plot.

[mkreku]

They could make challenging puzzles and problems for the player to solve. They could make the maps into mazes (not recommendable!). They could make the world huge and wide open and hide the goals in the wilderness. They could place riddles everywhere.

 

All of the above are probably bad design decisions, but my point is that it doesn't have to be all about cmbat to be challenging.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

They could make challenging puzzles and problems for the player to solve. They could make the maps into mazes (not recommendable!). They could make the world huge and wide open and hide the goals in the wilderness. They could place riddles everywhere.

 

All of the above are probably bad design decisions, but my point is that it doesn't have to be all about cmbat to be challenging.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The thing with puzzles is.

 

www.gamefaqs.com.

 

There goes all that effort you put into making a challenging puzzle.

 

Puzzles are also not roleplaying if the puzzle challenges the player.

 

One of my fave puzzles was the SMT fates puzzle. But the solution to said puzzle relies on your knowing which fate is which. SMT has some insidious puzzles, but I wouldnt say they challenged the character. Only the player.

 

Things that you can do (like Omega) just to make yourself feel uber. Thats a different matter. But you also have to weigh those things up against the difficulty curve of the main plot. If for example I leveled to 99 to beat Emerald (or went and got the KotRT summon) the rest of the game becomes so much the cakewalk.

Sepheroth fell to a mimed KotRT which wasnt what I would call a satisfying end. Even if the effort needed to aquire that particular thing was imense.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

The thing with puzzles is.

 

www.gamefaqs.com.

 

There goes all that effort you put into making a challenging puzzle.

 

Puzzles are also not roleplaying if the puzzle challenges the player.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Very true. Although, if the idea is to come up with puzzles as a challenge then they could be made to provide random elements or winning conditions.

 

Still, you could also apply this to a basic framework of a detective scenario for a character in a roleplaying game to solve. Set up a given number of characters, a handful of motivations and clues, then randomly kill one and randomly assign motivations to some of the other characters and randomly place the clues somewhere in the location. While the reasons and clues will eventually be fully revealed and possible to be listed, finding out who has them and why won't be necessarily as easy, and can be made to depend on character skill.

 

Sure beats asking riddles we all know the answers to.

[Deraldin]

Very true. Although, if the idea is to come up with puzzles as a challenge then they could be made to provide random elements or winning conditions.

 

Still, you could also apply this to a basic framework of a detective scenario for a character in a roleplaying game to solve. Set up a given number of characters, a handful of motivations and clues, then randomly kill one and randomly assign motivations to some of the other characters and randomly place the clues somewhere in the location. While the reasons and clues will eventually be fully revealed and possible to be listed, finding out who has them and why won't be necessarily as easy, and can be made to depend on character skill.

 

Sure beats asking riddles we all know the answers to.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Reminds me of this module that someone linked to awhile back. Detective story, find the hidden killer among the crowd. The outcome changes everytime you load the game.

[Ellester]

IWD2 had a lot of puzzles that had nothing to do with asking you riddles. The monks

[Gfted1]

Make a training tutorial that is optional, so you dont have to go through that c**p at the beginning of the game. Like Myth1. That game had a funny and entertaining tutorial.

 

See Silmarillion's workaround.

 

At the beginning of the game, you

Edited April 6, 2006 by Gfted1

[Jumjalum]

Why don't you make a challenging mod?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That sounds like a challenge!

[mkreku]

Uhm.. But isn't referring to gamefaqs as a way of making a game too easy despite of puzzles kind of the same as referring to a cheatcode or a trainer to make the combat easy..? Weird point.

[Jumjalum]

Uhm.. But isn't referring to gamefaqs as a way of making a game too easy despite of puzzles kind of the same as referring to a cheatcode or a trainer to make the combat easy..? Weird point.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

He does have a point. You can read a cheatcode and not use it but the way things move on the web it's hard to avoid hearing about how to get past a puzzle sometimes and once you've heard about it you can't forget it.

[Llyranor]

Very true. Although, if the idea is to come up with puzzles as a challenge then they could be made to provide random elements or winning conditions.

 

Still, you could also apply this to a basic framework of a detective scenario for a character in a roleplaying game to solve. Set up a given number of characters, a handful of motivations and clues, then randomly kill one and randomly assign motivations to some of the other characters and randomly place the clues somewhere in the location. While the reasons and clues will eventually be fully revealed and possible to be listed, finding out who has them and why won't be necessarily as easy, and can be made to depend on character skill.

 

Sure beats asking riddles we all know the answers to.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Reminds me of this module that someone linked to awhile back. Detective story, find the hidden killer among the crowd. The outcome changes everytime you load the game.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

*waves*

 

Also, difficulty levels actually meaning something would be nice. Challenge should not be self-imposed.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Uhm.. But isn't referring to gamefaqs as a way of making a game too easy despite of puzzles kind of the same as referring to a cheatcode or a trainer to make the combat easy..? Weird point.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Puzzles have two states really. Either you know the answer or you dont. I'm not suggesting that you don't have puzzles. Rather I'm saying that there isnt any point going to extreme lengths because people will simply look up the answer.

 

Then you get into replayability. In which case unless the puzzle changes in a dynamic manner it's no longer a puzzle since you know the answer from your previous playthrough.

[Llyranor]

Not to minimise what the lead designer does, but at this point it's all kind of "keeping it rolling" mode. All the design work has been done. All the dialogue has been written. We're in polish and get-it-done mode.

 

Good. Polish until Q3. Very promising.

[metadigital]

And here's another new interview

http://www.totalvideogames.com/articles/Ne..._0_0_0_0_20.htm

............................

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

as you're beginning to move through the story and you get to Neverwinter, the other change that we've done is not have Lord Nasher come down from his castle, shake your hand, and ask you to save the world - which happens a lot in RPGs as well - I mean, why would that ever happen?

Make a training tutorial that is optional, so you dont have to go through that c**p at the beginning of the game. Like Myth1. That game had a funny and entertaining tutorial.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

We can't make the D&D rules go away if we wanted to, and we don't want to because it's a great rule system once you kinda become one with it, so the biggest thing is to lead people down the path of understanding it and enjoying it before you put them in a position to make decisions where they could really hurt themselves.

As long as the tutorial is engaging, I don't see a problem. The tutorial in K2 was not one I wanted to do more than once. The tutorial in Oblivion suffers from an extreme linearity: I couldn't actually kill the King, for example, even though I got a few good slashes in ...

 

The point is that if the tutorial does its job correctly, then people will learn about D&D 3.5, so that new and experienced D&D players alike can make an informed decision about characters and races, etc.

Finally, going back off track again, are there any other details about the SEGA title that you can share with us?

 

Not really, other than it is next-gen so we're doing Xbox 360, PS3 and hopefully PC. We're using Unreal Engine 3, but I can't tell people what to expect; it's not going to be exactly the same as other games that we've done but we hope to bring what we're good at which is characters, story, great game systems and that sort of thing.

Yah! Unreal 3 engine on the PC!

[karka]

Well, lots of games are using U3 engine these days, except Unreal 3... Where is that damn game?

Edited April 6, 2006 by karka

[metadigital]

Uhm.. But isn't referring to gamefaqs as a way of making a game too easy despite of puzzles kind of the same as referring to a cheatcode or a trainer to make the combat easy..? Weird point.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Puzzles have two states really. Either you know the answer or you dont. I'm not suggesting that you don't have puzzles. Rather I'm saying that there isnt any point going to extreme lengths because people will simply look up the answer.

 

Then you get into replayability. In which case unless the puzzle changes in a dynamic manner it's no longer a puzzle since you know the answer from your previous playthrough.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Bioware handled that pretty well in the second expansion of NwN: HotU. The end had a randomized bunch of motives, roles and solutions for the final characters.

 

I agree, though, it should be something that the character has to discover, not the player ... even though I generally know all the riddles (I would hope so after this amount of time!).

[Gromnir]

we knew that ferret were gone, but am surprised that josh is now the lead. ferret may not have been quite at the emberassing man-love stage with his appreciation for wotc, but it were a close thing. josh, on the other hand, has documented issues with wotc... we surmise that he would probably prefer to rubs broken glass shards into his own eyeballs rather than be having to deal with wotc from a relative position of weakness such as he is in as the lead designer of a d&d crpg.

 

am recalling a case we had some time ago, and a client we couldn't stand. the guy were a racist and a misogynist. he accepted Gromnir with some difficulty, but we suspect that were only 'cause he could see that we were not the least bit intimidated by him.

 

nevertheless, the guy bothered Gromnir something fierce, so we made sure that most all communications with the client were handled by a very able junior associate... a very able black and female junior associate. drove the guy nuts.

 

...

 

maybe fergie is doing the same thing.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Gabrielle]

Why don't you make a challenging mod?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hades can't make a mod. He would complain about the modding tools sucking or something.

[Judge Hades]

I have tried to make a mod in NWN 1 quite a while back but I suck at coding script.

 

I built up a lot of dialog though for it. I could just write a short story based on the mod I was working on.

[Gabrielle]

You should try it again and focus on scripting. I dreaded BG2's scripts but after a lot of reading of tutorials and practicing, I became pretty good at it.

[Atreides]

I could see scripting being an issue if you don't have the advantage of a computer science background. The tools may be easier to use but being able to think in computer science logic would be useful.

 

Hades should team up with someone else that's willing to handle the coding. Maybe Volourn. Yeah, I can see it now. Everyone'll want to get their hands on a module by Hades and Volourn. And don't forget to post the fights dev logs.

[Llyranor]

Learning it isn't that hard if you actually make a good effort. That, and knowing to actually seek out the numerous community resources out there.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I have tried to make a mod in NWN 1 quite a while back but I suck at coding script.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Was it invincible and faster than you?

[Lilandra]

I will leave modding to those who like doing that thing. I prefer to play the game and the mods. Modding never struck me as being something fun. A lot of hard work and no praise or money.

Edited April 7, 2006 by Lilandra

[Llyranor]

Aye, some of us enjoy the window it offers into the world of game design, but it certainly isn't for everyone. It can be considered 'work', after all.