death rules

[Volourn]

"Well... to be honest, most of the regular, mainstream (as in non-hardcore, so none of you count) gamers I know are morons, at least when it comes to gaming"

 

You must know some dumb people. Most of the so called 'non hardcore' gamers I know aren't morons - gaming or otherwise. They'd likely go with the flow no matter the rules; but they have no problem playing it the 'hardcore' games.

 

Besdies, don't most action games go with the 'you die, you reload' rule, anyways? I hears those action games are quite popular amongst the 'masses'? Hmmmm...

[Judge Hades]

Most hardcore gamers are morons too. Everybody wins.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

More like everyone loses.

[Judge Hades]

In any case the decision for idiot proofing NWN 2 has been made and its not going to be changed, so this entire argument is moot.

[Volourn]

We don't know that...

[213374U]

You must know some dumb people. Most of the so called 'non hardcore' gamers I know aren't morons - gaming or otherwise. They'd likely go with the flow no matter the rules; but they have no problem playing it the 'hardcore' games.

Well, yes and no. It's just that this is part of the dumb down trend that games seem to follow as they become more and more a part of the mainstream entertainment industry. Learning curves are in the process of disappearing, just like any other element that may cause inconvenience or that requires a bit of an effort.

 

Also, by "hardcore" I didn't mean players that devote their life to gaming, that's not hardcore. That's stupid. I was referring more to the kind of player that posts in dev boards.

 

 

Besdies, don't most action games go with the 'you die, you reload' rule, anyways? I hears those action games are quite popular amongst the 'masses'? Hmmmm...

Such as GTA, in which if you die, you just respawn at the nearest hospital?

[Atreides]

I'm trying to laugh at your adacity of hyperbole; but I failed the roll on the laugh-a-meter. "

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's funny because I'm chuckling over the irony of your post.

 

Anyway I think the devs should try disabling KOTOR-deaths (as an option) and see whether the game breaks. If it takes too much time to fix or isn't viable at this point (story hard coded in) then I guess that's that. I'd rather not have the game break or have tons of bugs crop up at this point.

[Cantousent]

You fools got the Alignment thread axed before I had a chance to post again. Now I'll have to spam this one! bwahahaha

 

Oh, what the hell. First of all, Llyranor, I thought you played your alignment just fine.

 

As far as death goes, PnP is different. It's a group thing, and death and healing and all sorts of things take place with the group. In a CRPG, the player is the only person who faces the consequences. In that regard, I agree with both numbers, Vol, and the others who say that KotOR style death takes away a substantial option for players.

 

I tend to reload a lot when I play CRPGs. I don't just do that when I lose or when a party member dies. I try the same battle many different times and different ways to see which way works better. For me, these little experiments provide a lot of my pleasurable gaming experience. The KotOR style death scheme, although I don't outright hate it, does change that dynamic. At least, it makes it so that my tactics don't have to account for a party member dying.

 

I don't mind it, like I said, but I can understand why others do.

[MrBrown]

I tend to reload a lot when I play CRPGs.  I don't just do that when I lose or when a party member dies.  I try the same battle many different times and different ways to see which way works better.  For me, these little experiments provide a lot of my pleasurable gaming experience.  The KotOR style death scheme, although I don't outright hate it, does change that dynamic.  At least, it makes it so that my tactics don't have to account for a party member dying.

 

For me, the issue is simply about boredom.

 

In the BG games for instance, if your Cleric died, then you had to tromp through the countryside to the nearest temple and then back to whatever you were doing (not to mention the inventory management to carry all their stuff). This could be 5-15mins of boredom, depending on where you were. And yes, it was annoying.

 

Death didn't bother me in games like some Final Fantasies for instance, where having enough phoenix downs would be enough. There death was just a statistical set back, not a gateway to boredom.

 

 

This isn't really a problem with PnP, where you can just say "okay, you're at the temple" and "okay, you're back at the 34th level of the dungeon".

[Cantousent]

hahahaha Gateway to Boredom. I love it. I'll have to steal that one.

 

It's true, though. Time is a premium. I fall in that category also. I'd rather waste my time in the manner of my choosing.

 

Nonetheless, the real problem for me is that I get emotionally attached to the NPCs. I hate seeing them die. Once Dogmeat took a liking to me, I couldn't bear to see him die. THAT was frustrating. Imoen lived through every battle.

 

Sure, some jackass can spout off about real life or some other such non-sense, but I'm playing a game. Dammit. Real life can kiss my backside.

[Volourn]

Good. And, no one is stopping you from reloading if an npc dies afterall. The way Obsidian plans to set it up is for those who want dead = dead have to play your way.

[Llyranor]

I'm sure you'll be able to script in something OnDeath that'll take out XP/gold/items/whatever and freeze the game for 30 min or however long it'd take to get to a temple with a proper benevolent cleric dawg.

[kirottu]

lol rez

[Atreides]

I'm sure you'll be able to script in something OnDeath that'll take out XP/gold/items/whatever and freeze the game for 30 min or however long it'd take to get to a temple with a proper benevolent cleric dawg.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Or necromancer.

[alanschu]

Anyone who thinks that you can't have a good story with permadeath is an idiot.  Seriously.  You can have a good story with permadeath.  As I recall Fallout 1, Fallout 2, Ultima 4, BG 1, BG2, and a host of other CRPGs  had good stories to them and had permadeath.  Only brainless noobs that want their hands held cry like a lil' child against permadeath.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Except that's not what was said. But hey, if you feeling like calling people idiots, have at it.

[alanschu]

Doesn't anyone remember older games that were acutally tough to beat, and the feeling of satisfaction you'd have from conquering them in addition to completing the story?  When did words like challenging and difficult become a dirty word in video games?  Games should beat the hell out of you and bring out emotions like frustration and dismay - it makes the reward for overcoming them all the more enjoyable, as well as establishing an artificial affinity for the game and all it contains.

 

It's no wonder RPGs seem so short these days, when you can pretty much sleep through the combat in the bulk of them since developers have grown overly concerned with desiging games that coddle the player.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I think a lot of the "difficulty" in older games came from the fact that we weren't as good at gaming.

 

Playing older "really hard games" often does not give me a "really hard" experience.

[Tigranes]

I don't know. Wouldn't that mean that the new, younger generation (or simply new gamers) should have a similarly hard time playing, say, KOTOR, as the older did with their games?

 

Personally, I started PC gaming with PS:T and Baldur's Gate II. Leaving PST aside (because its combat is crap any way you look at it), BGII was *not* hard. And I was what, 12. I had no previous experience with D&D, all I knew about RPGs or Fantasy was LOTR and Final Fantasy VII. (Hey, I was 12.) I had no idea about those dice rolls and whatnot, still could get by without much trouble, apart from a few frustrating areas.

 

Granted, I seem to be faster at getting the hang of games than most people around me, but I don't think it's quite true that new games are just as difficult.

[Morgoth]

I never really cared about how my PC dies, because when it happens I just hit QUICKLOAD.

Man, if that would work in reallife too...

[Walsingham]

I never really cared about how my PC dies, because when it happens I just hit QUICKLOAD.

Man, if that would work in reallife too... 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You've seen the easter-egg in BG2?

[Morgoth]

Nope. What was that?

[Atreides]

If you reload 5 times in a row Irenicus and a few Liches appear in the loaded scene and fun ensues.

[Tigranes]

Not sure if he's talking about this one:

 

In TOB, one of the things you have to do is... go kill some kobolds or something. Seeing as you are level 30something demigods and this is certainly below you, the questgiver suggests you 'outsource', by casting Stone to Flesh on some poor souls trapped in the dungeon, and making them do the dirty work. Out comes the intrepid Bondari, together with a brainless barbarian and Tim the wizard, of One Magic Missile Before Rest fame.

 

They return with your required item, and a scripted sequence shows them trying to take you on for loot & glory. You turn into the slayer and lay the smackdown forthwith. Bondari proceeds to reload, then give you the item peacefully.

 

edit: rofl.

Edited May 24, 2006 by Tigranes

[Moose]

I kinda like the system whereby when someone runs out of health they die.

[SteveThaiBinh]

I kinda like the system whereby when someone runs out of health they die.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Go Realism!

 

As someone who mostly plays CRPGs for the stories rather than the combat, I quite liked Fable's approach - where you find 'life potions' equivalent to extra lives, so you only really die if you run out of HP 9 times in succession. Very arcady though, I suppose, and in Fable's case the story itself wasn't that great anyway. I don't mind having to reload a few times to get past a tough battle, and I don't feel that it detracts from the story at all.

 

I'm always interested to see how the various approaches to dying are explained away in the game. Planescape: Torment and the immortality was pretty good and certainly memorable, I thought. The funniest was perhaps Ultima 7 and Elizabeth and Abraham's Britannia-wide MEDEVAC Service - No Dungeon Too Deep! I also miss the Quest for Glory death humour, where every different death - from getting squished by a rhino on the savannah to overdosing on the hookah - had its own joke death message.

Edited May 24, 2006 by SteveThaiBinh

[Dark_Raven]

If you reload 5 times in a row Irenicus and a few Liches appear in the loaded scene and fun ensues.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No way. This for real? I never heard about that.

[metadigital]

Yeah, I'm not big on resurrection or raise dead.  I think it has a place, but it should never be common.  It shouldn't be cheap, either.  Most of all, it should be something a cleric only casts in the most dire of circumstances.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

*Jumps in without reading past this post*

 

Agree.

 

Resurection should be (like 2.x? rules) where a point of constitution is lost in the process. This would limit the number of resurections to the initial constitution quantity of the character ... assuming characters get to run amok and add magical enhancements to their basic stats as they tend to in most games.

 

I don't mind BG style, either.

 

This, of course, is relevant to a DnD game: I wouldn't expect the same rules for Half-Life or Space Rangers 2 ( (w00t) ), as eldar said earlier.