I think it would be fun to have sandbox set against a sub-plot of randomly (but linearly) activated events about the xenomorph menace. Kind of like in X3. So you begin almost oblivious, make friends, but suff, adventure, and things come out about the bugs. As time goes by the plot becomes more and more linear, tying you into an apocalyptic whirl, either killing you, or you 'escaping' into the vastness of space, or you doing something cheesy to undermine the threat.

 

Your sandbox behaviour, as in X3, defines your assets in the final acts.

I enjoy playing RPG with memorable characters, and even more if they have a degree of interaction or recognition towards you.

 

Sandbox kind of games is highly unlikely to achieve my above expectation, so I would take tightly focused linear plot instead.

I think it would be fun to have sandbox set against a sub-plot of randomly (but linearly) activated events about the xenomorph menace. Kind of like in X3. So you begin almost oblivious, make friends, but suff, adventure, and things come out about the bugs. As time goes by the plot becomes more and more linear, tying you into an apocalyptic whirl, either killing you, or you 'escaping' into the vastness of space, or you doing something cheesy to undermine the threat.

 

Your sandbox behaviour, as in X3, defines your assets in the final acts.

How would you be certain the players ever end up in the main alien-ladden plot?

*having wet dreams of a cross between X-Com and Aliens*

 

No more people getting massacred in the dark by snake people or little grey men with big heads, but by Alien drones on killing and hunting missions.

 

Research trees, resource management, tactical combat missions... locate the source of the Alien menace on Earth, while more and more cities fall to rampaging hordes of Aliens...

 

Could be done as a sandbox game

I vastly prefer sandbox. If there's not some degree of freedom, I simply can not enjoy the game. I still haven't finished Neverwinter Nights 2 for instance..

 

And it's perfectly possible to make a sandbox type of game and still have memorable characters. Just look at the Gothic games: I'm playing the third in the series and I'm still friends with Lee, Diego, Vatras, Gorn, Milten etc. and I even finally got to meet King Rhobar (who's was shown in a CGI in the intro to the first game and spoken of during Gothic and Gothic 2).

Ultima IV was to a large degree a sandbox game and Shamino, Dupre, Katrina, Iolo, Geoffrey, Mariah etc. are still "brothers in arms" for me, even if they appear very simplistic by todays standards. It may have something to do with you writing the story and them being part of it, rather than having a ready made (tv-dinner ?) story served for you

I didn't play X3 , so I unfortunately can't comment on that

 

In my mind the perfect combo of linear/sandbox(for this game) would be akin to Dead Rising except with more moral choices (being brave or a coward) and who you side with (just wanting to kill the aliens or experiment on them) and a greater sense of danger (since the zombies were pretty easy for the most part). People you saved and other things you did (that were optional) could all culminate in the end (not sure if thats how X3 did it, but it sounds like what you are suggesting) hopefully in a unique and non-shallow way (e.g. just one more npc standing next to you as the rescue ships arrive).

Edited August 22, 200718 yr by Zero

I think it should be possible to do what the bad guys always want to do and - through extraordinary luck and judgement actually succeed and triple Weyland-Yutani's stock price.

 

I really do think there shouldn't be a split one way or t'other. Has anyone else played X3? Or am i talking drivel?

I have played X3, it's one of my all time favorite games. I just don't see it compatible. I can see a few ways to try to integrate an event based campaign with X3's sandbox style. But, all the ideas end up making me feel like Derek Smart. Terrific ideas! Unreasonable to implement.

 

If it was created and wasn't unfinished and without glaring flaws, it could well be the

 

Maybe you're not giving enough detail for me to really understand what you're trying to suggest.

 

Edit: Rereading what you say for the 4th or 5th time, I want to make a comment for what I'm now thinking you're suggesting. Sandbox game style almost always seems to override linear elements. If a game has sandbox with linear aspects, people will play around in the sandbox most of the time. If a sandbox game requires certain things (and possibly a transition to linear gamestyle) to be done before the signature creatures appear, then it would be very dissapointing to a lot of players, myself included, simply because of the lack of interaction with them in the sandbox set. In X3, the Kha'ak and Xenon were around the entire time (and after you beat the storyline, unlike Oblivion where when you beat it, the gates close).

Edited August 23, 200718 yr by Tale

I have played X3, it's one of my all time favorite games. I just don't see it compatible. I can see a few ways to try to integrate an event based campaign with X3's sandbox style. But, all the ideas end up making me feel like Derek Smart. Terrific ideas! Unreasonable to implement.

 

For a moment I thought you ment Maxwell Smart. Because you didn

I'd love to see Obsidian produce a game with both free-roaming sandbox aspects and a strong and compelling story with interesting characters. It would be quite entertaining to go to the Fallout 3 forums and watch the fans beating Bethesda over the head with it.

 

So far Obsidian has produced two fairly linear RPGs with above-average to excellent stories. So I guess it depends whether they want to stick with what they're best at (and known for) or try their hands at something new. I'd be more optimistic about Obsidian's ability to make their kind of story-telling work in a sandbox than I am about Bethesda giving their sandboxes decent stories and characters.

I have played X3, it's one of my all time favorite games. I just don't see it compatible. I can see a few ways to try to integrate an event based campaign with X3's sandbox style. But, all the ideas end up making me feel like Derek Smart. Terrific ideas! Unreasonable to implement.

 

If it was created and wasn't unfinished and without glaring flaws, it could well be the

 

Maybe you're not giving enough detail for me to really understand what you're trying to suggest.

 

Edit: Rereading what you say for the 4th or 5th time, I want to make a comment for what I'm now thinking you're suggesting. Sandbox game style almost always seems to override linear elements. If a game has sandbox with linear aspects, people will play around in the sandbox most of the time. If a sandbox game requires certain things (and possibly a transition to linear gamestyle) to be done before the signature creatures appear, then it would be very dissapointing to a lot of players, myself included, simply because of the lack of interaction with them in the sandbox set. In X3, the Kha'ak and Xenon were around the entire time (and after you beat the storyline, unlike Oblivion where when you beat it, the gates close).

 

 

Hmmm. All I can say is, you may be right. I can certainly see what you mean.

 

To clarify a bit I am not talking about precisely the same experience as X3, because apart from anything else the driver there was aimed at ramping up the military issues surrounding your space empire. Since I would like to encourage players to diversify their strengths, a purely military dimension would be inappropriate. The thing I'm looking for is a wide open sandbox at the start, which becomes progressively less open as time goes by. Perhaps by invoking the fact of hypersleep - "You can't travel elsewhere because by the time you get there everything you are worried about will be over."

 

If we... um... restrict the strength/solution space into three dimensions... military, technological, political. The player is thrown into one of three different crises, all precipitated but not restricted to the alien threat. Just thinking about one, if the player is military then they begin with a fairly standard "You point, I punch" set of travels, and postings, Including potential for smuggling, bar fights, dust ups with organised crime, quelling civilian disturbances and so on. This would be a pretty tightly controlled campaign.

 

Towards the endgame they are basically a squad or platoon leader and have to cope with the system falling apart around them, rescuing people, and battling the xenos. However, their vanilla 'win' is merely to escape, having executed their orders. If they have alloyed skills or contacts they made get tasked to deliver a tacnuke or nerev toxin (not to kill the bugs but to kill potential hosts).

 

As an alternative the player can begin as a corporate fixer and wheeler dealer or civilian politician. They are going to be doing a lot of trading, but more importantly building contacts and authority. Their endgame will be less narrowed as they should be a strategic authority and can come up with big solutions according to taste. In fact their options are so open that they wil be (party) responsible for how bad the alien problem is in the first place. That is if they decide to rein in the corporations, and their own black ops military (with predictable attempts to have them killed). This would lead to a smaller aliens start point, and less possibility of the aliens having a working hive at the start of the crisis; it's more likely to begin with a single entity, giving more time to react.

 

I'm thikning that the techno option should be a sort of mad scientist hacker type and whatever contacts and equipment you can get at that stage. This will be the most open ans you are trying to avoid anyone telling you what to do. You will also have the option of learning more about the threat early on, as you may be able to hack the WY/CMC databases on LV426. The hackers are offset in that their win also involves bringing down the corporations. Imagine, if you will, that one of your greatest competitors is the eedjit who breaks the security interlocks at the alien research base in the first place, and posts proof of culpability online. this does indeed precipitate rioting among the latent resentful population. but this rioting actually hampers CMC efforts to fight the bugs. [Note that during playtesting I'd suggest incorporating the behaviour of the hacker players into the campaign of the corp and CMC players.]

 

I could write more but I should be working!

I vastly prefer sandbox. If there's not some degree of freedom, I simply can not enjoy the game. I still haven't finished Neverwinter Nights 2 for instance..

 

And it's perfectly possible to make a sandbox type of game and still have memorable characters. Just look at the Gothic games: I'm playing the third in the series and I'm still friends with Lee, Diego, Vatras, Gorn, Milten etc. and I even finally got to meet King Rhobar (who's was shown in a CGI in the intro to the first game and spoken of during Gothic and Gothic 2).

True, but Neverwinter Nights 2 did manage to have a slightly sandboxy design, though, whereby the player could choose to do side quests, or not, and the game kept a reasonable account of the progression of gameworld time.

I don't think sidequests are the same thing as sandbox. Flight simulators are sandbox, TES games are sandbox, as are Gothics to an extent, but NWN 2 didn't allow you to direct your campaign apart from a couple of choices and it didn't have the sandbox element of (nearly/) infinite sidetracking - once you did the couple of quests in an area, you were forced to move on to a certain direction.

SandBox like Betrayal in Krondor... I miss those meaningful exploration back in the old days.

 

Minus the food system of course, bleh.

And the lock puzzles. *brrrr*

what about branching linear? linear missions with multiple solutions each one leading to a different scenario.

 

I.E. alien remix:

 

option 1: find the cat ship mates die horribly, set the self destruct, get in life boat, fight alien, drift in space for 57 years. total lead in to aliens.

 

option 2: forget the cat protect shipmates, set self destruct, get in life boat, alien kills shipmates in side life boat leaving indisputable evidence of the alien, Marines send whole friggen Armada to LV426, corporation goes down for all of it's evil deeds. honor, justace, and love prevail eternally at the expense of jonsy the cat, my wife cries un controlably for twnety seven days then makes me go buy a kitten.

 

option 3: forget cat abandon shipmates to horrible death, down load navigational charts from "mother", set self destruct, get in life boat, alien chases kitty around the ship till it goes bang, set an actual flight plan off of nav charts, get back to earth in six months, Cash out huge settlement from the "corporation", enjoy the high life until Wayland-yucatani's stupidity releases aliens on earth. live with moral consequences.

 

option 4: don't set self destruct, set course for earth, steeple fingers cackle maniacally at the destruction of the human race and wait for the alien to mutate into a queen (ala. Jurassic park...actaually i think this possibility was written into the script then cut.) then raid the fridge for all the ice cream ship.

 

kind of on a grand scale there but you get the general idea, like morrowind's great house dynamic but applied to everything.

(uhm ..... not really what i was origanally going for, but it was fun to write it just the same! )

Edited September 3, 200718 yr by sogi_ya

Sogi Ya - Awesome. I like the options. Th eonly trouble is that predicting meta system consequences is quite hard. Even in pen and paper it is tricky.

what about branching linear? linear missions with multiple solutions each one leading to a different scenario.

 

I.E. alien remix:

 

option 1: find the cat ship mates die horribly, set the self destruct, get in life boat, fight alien, drift in space for 57 years. total lead in to aliens.

 

option 2: forget the cat protect shipmates, set self destruct, get in life boat, alien kills shipmates in side life boat leaving disputable evidence of the alien, drift for 57 years, come back and get executed for murder. Corporation never sends you back, the little girl dies, all the marines die even earlier, Aliens sneak back onto the Sulaco during the marines attempt at retreat. Eventually set up nest and Alien 3 is a repeat of Aliens, but entirely on the Sulaco.

 

option 3: forget cat abandon shipmates to horrible death, down load navigational charts from "mother", set self destruct, get in life boat, alien chases kitty around the ship till it goes bang, set an actual flight plan off of nav charts, realise the system was set to do that automatically, STILL drift for 57 years, Aliens still happens, you're just more of a coward now. As such, you probably never save anybody or help anyone out. Marines die early, you run for your life, probably taking eggs as you race for earth. Still get infected with a queen, fire may or may not happen. Alien 3 still happens, only you're not willing to sacrifice yourself and Weyland-Yutani gets its queen. Leads to eventual infestation of earth, all human colonies, and ultimate extinction of human race.

 

option 4: don't set self destruct, set course for earth, steeple fingers cackle maniacally at the destruction of the human race and wait for the alien to mutate into a queen (ala. Jurassic park...actaually i think this possibility was written into the script then cut.) then raid the fridge for all the ice cream ship.

 

I get the concept, but I rewrote some of that for you. The butterfly effect requires momentum.

Edited September 12, 200718 yr by Tale

if you make it sandboxy don't make it too sandboxy. then you're just scaring away most of you playerbase with "scifi GTA! DONE BADLY! WITH STATS!"

Fallout fansite NMA recently did an 10th anniversary interview with people who've been involved in Fallout one way or another. Feargus (very briefly) mentioned the Alien game. This probably means nothing, but since we're crazed fans on the internet and all that, I figured we could start drawing conclusions from it already!

 

Feargus:

To this day, I still think about how we addressed problems in Fallout and use them as examples of how to do things. Josh Sawyer was just talking about how the story and quest structure of Fallout worked and how we should apply that to the Aliens RPG that we are making.

 

Dun dun dun!

 

You can read the entire interview here btw (it's a great read). http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=39341

if you make it sandboxy don't make it too sandboxy. then you're just scaring away most of you playerbase with "scifi GTA! DONE BADLY! WITH STATS!"

 

I'd kill for a "Sci-Fi GTA! DONE BADLY! WITH STATS!"

 

Well, not actually kill. Just pre-order.

Edited October 8, 200718 yr by SilentScope001

*Edited* Doh, StarWars got it first.

Edited October 9, 200718 yr by Zoma

if you make it sandboxy don't make it too sandboxy. then you're just scaring away most of you playerbase with "scifi GTA! DONE BADLY! WITH STATS!"

 

I'd kill for a "Sci-Fi GTA! DONE BADLY! WITH STATS!"

 

Well, not actually kill. Just pre-order.

Ok how about this, I hope it doesn't turn into fable with aliens.

Fable? Naaah

 

Parasite Eve might be a little better example.

Edited October 10, 200718 yr by Zoma