Obsidian making Fallout: New Vegas

[IguanaBob]

Regarding Karma: I think a 2 scale approach would result in an interesting outcome.

 

The first measures like the classic, established Karma how good or bad you are, but this time is more of a reflect of your inner self, it has less impact on your surroundings, NPCs don

[Bokishi]

I hope the map is as big as FO3

[Promethean]

I hope the map is as big as FO3

 

I hope not. The larger the setting, the less time they have to work on things that really matter.

[Bokishi]

bigger is better

[Tagaziel]

One key thing I miss is "notoriety" or "recognizability", it's painfully obvious in Fallout 3, where everyone had permanent "Detect Alignment" enchantments and could recognize you on the spot, even though you are wearing a faceless power armour with no easily identifiable characteristics.

 

F:NV should include a robust system of recognizability, or at least one that will allow you to blend in and infiltrate. It's not impossible, the engine supports it, just look at this mod to see how it's done. Not to mention the engine supports recognizability, vide the Gray Fox Mask, which makes you become someone else entirely.

 

But that's half the system, as the actual rating system needs to be better. D&D's alignment system (Good/Evil/Neutral + Chaotic/Lawful/Neutral) is much more flexible and appropriate for Fallout than the binary Karma system, but would probably require recoding a fair bit.

 

So in the end, the system would check two things, first, if the PC is recognizable, second, what reaction should be taken by the NPC, based on the player's conduct.

 

PS: Plz bring Tell Me About back. That was one of the merits of the Morrowind dialogue system, you'd get distinctly different answers about the same subject, say, slavery, when talking to Telvanni, Hlaalu, abolitionists or Argonians.

Edited April 25, 2009 by Mikael Grizzly

[mkreku]

I hope the map is as big as FO3

I hope it is much bigger. Preferably with more space in between the different hot-spots. Also, get rid of those little arrows showing you the way all the goddamn time! And bring back vehicles. Even Wasteland had a car and a helicopter.

[Kjarista]

I don't know if it's possible, but I'd like a more robust system. I'd also like influence to be largely opaque. You know you have influence with someone based on how well you're received and how cooperative and helpful the NPCs are.

I'd like a system where the NPC could talk to the PC for a while, and based on the answers, decide that "This guy might just fall for it", and tell a convincing sob story that would set the PC off on a torch and burn mission against an innocent and defenseless village to return a "hostage" to her father.

(unknowingly slaughtering the family of the boy she'd eloped with)

 

It's interesting how many players don't like that sort of thing. We saw a taste of in in FO3 with the Tenpenny situation. Here's a whole building of people who basically need to be shot, and an outside group of folks who want to be like them. There are plenty of clues lying around as to what would happen if you make the obvious choice, yet we still had dozens of people on forum crying about the (minimal) repercussions of their decision.

 

The problem with moral decisions is that it is difficult to quantify morality. The game designers must find a way to quantify this so that they can use it as a variable...which forces developers to maintain a sort of default morality...one which likely doesn't jibe with the morality of the player character.

 

I'd rather not quantify it at all and just let the decision itself cascade consequences throughout the rest of the came. In the case of Tenpenny, one either helps one side or the other, helps neither, or finds a way to screw both parties to extract whatever personal benefit possible. How this decision affects the rest of the game...or not, is the key, not the keeping score. Fallout like end of game slides outlining events is good enough.

 

The only other use of faction, and this should be hidden from the player as Gizmo suggests, is to frame initial level of favor with NPCs, and that would be a sort of faction score, with each NPC maintaining a threshold based on their faction. This global faction level could shut down, or make available large masses of content and quest paths.

[Kjarista]

I hope the map is as big as FO3

I hope it is much bigger. Preferably with more space in between the different hot-spots. Also, get rid of those little arrows showing you the way all the goddamn time! And bring back vehicles. Even Wasteland had a car and a helicopter.

 

I don't see the usefulness in empty space. I'd rather see the entire playfield fully rendered, because I generally like to walk across the map. I would support a control to toggle on/off varisous helpers in the UI, which sould be easy to implement, considering it's XML (I think) based.

[Kjarista]

This means that the AI might ask mundane questions (or respond to silly ones), and if the player picked enough answers that implied they were a "softy" dense hero type, then the AI might respond, [ in the case of the village]

"No, no, I was listening to you, its just, just, I'm worried about something that's all" ~If pressed it might say, "Well my daughter was taken in a raid a month ago. Last week a man came to me with news of her, She is in a camp many miles West of here. The man offered to rescue and return her to me ~ for a price. I'm worried because he said that they had beaten and abused her pretty badly. I hired the man and that was the last I ever saw of him. I was so sure he'd help me, I even offered him his pick from my shop" (grandly gesturing with his arm at all he has for sale).

And then it waits for the player to fall for the bait ~or not, and just barters as expected.

 

The idea is that the area exists already, and is part of other quests, this quest (if taken ~no if offered at all), would cancel certain others depending on how it was handled.

 

 

*** It goes without saying that I am not suggesting the quest, I'm suggesting the capacity to give it on the fly.

Seems to me that the "trick" isn't really needed. Let the player decide if they want to take the quest or not. You walk up to me, we talk, I say: " hey, I really need your help. Those people outside of town there have captured my daughter. I need you to bring her back. I can pay you...." You just might go running out there, shoot them all, and haul missy back. You might ask the fellow at the end of the bar, who claimes that I'm a slaver and little missy is a runaway, and that's her family out there. You might talk to the sheriff, who could say he know nothing about any of it, as he glances over his shoulder. You might walk away not knowing what to do. What do you do?

 

This is more realistic, IMO. Situations are generally not black and white. When people have differing stories, which do we believe?

[TwinkieGorilla]

One key thing I miss is "notoriety" or "recognizability

 

heh. i was JUST going to say "can we please just get rid of "karma" entirely?", as it really has no place in the game world. it's a silly abstract concept which for all intents and purposes is a pretty invisible and intangible thing (i guess the force WOULD start to show on you, if you were doing evil things...but that's where i have to draw the line. Fallout isn't a game with a magical or spiritual theme. it just doesn't belong.) what DOES belong, IMO, is the Reputation system. unlike karma, word of mouth IS real and happens everywhere, all the time, over great distances. so say you do something, people hear about it...and depending on their particular alignment or needs, they either like you or they don't (or maybe they couldn't care less, but they see you as an opportunity).

 

seriously, Sawyer and Co. fecking get rid of karma or i hate you and your stupid faces.

[crakkie]

I hope the map is as big as FO3

I hope it is much bigger. Preferably with more space in between the different hot-spots. Also, get rid of those little arrows showing you the way all the goddamn time! And bring back vehicles. Even Wasteland had a car and a helicopter.

I hope it's a lot of tiny worldspaces (2x2, 2x3), connected by a overland map

[Gizmo]

Seems to me that the "trick" isn't really needed. Let the player decide if they want to take the quest or not. You walk up to me, we talk, I say: " hey, I really need your help. Those people outside of town there have captured my daughter. I need you to bring her back. I can pay you...." You just might go running out there, shoot them all, and haul missy back. You might ask the fellow at the end of the bar, who claimes that I'm a slaver and little missy is a runaway, and that's her family out there. You might talk to the sheriff, who could say he know nothing about any of it, as he glances over his shoulder. You might walk away not knowing what to do. What do you do?

 

This is more realistic, IMO. Situations are generally not black and white. When people have differing stories, which do we believe?

No... The point of it would be that its not a regular quest, and that the player might agree to it believing the lie, and depending on how they handle it, might well barge in shoot first, and ask questions later.

 

*Only realizing after the fact that they were duped. What I'm suggesting is two fold. One, that the player be judged by their actions/answers (IE. the NPC figured the PC for a gullible do-gooder based on prior conversations), and also the hit to the player when they realize that not all is what it appears, and not every NPC is honest ~and that had they asked around they would have found the man's tale full of holes... If only they'd done that before killing the guards in the village.

Edited April 25, 2009 by Gizmo

[Ausir]

The first measures like the classic, established Karma how good or bad you are, but this time is more of a reflect of your inner self, it has less impact on your surroundings, NPCs don

[Maria Caliban]

Seems to me that the "trick" isn't really needed. Let the player decide if they want to take the quest or not. You walk up to me, we talk, I say: " hey, I really need your help. Those people outside of town there have captured my daughter. I need you to bring her back. I can pay you...." You just might go running out there, shoot them all, and haul missy back.

 

 

You're ignoring how the game works though. Hostile targets are flagged. The average player will walk around, see a bunch of non-hostile targets and go searching for the bad guys. *If* the villagers are immedately armed and hostile, they stop being innocent and defenseless. It's no longer 'PC runs in shooting' it's 'PC kills in self-defence.'

 

The quest, as Gonzo originally wrote it, is a 'gotcha' - but it's one that doesn't work.

 

No... The point of it would be that its not a regular quest, and that the player might agree to it believing the lie, and depending on how they handle it, might well barge in shoot first, and ask questions later.

 

*Only realizing after the fact that they were duped. What I'm suggesting is two fold. One, that the player be judged by their actions/answers (IE. the NPC figured the PC for a gullible do-gooder based on prior conversations), and also the hit to the player when they realize that not all is what it appears, and not every NPC is honest ~and that had they asked around they would have found the man's tale full of holes... If only they'd done that before killing the guards in the village.

 

Yeah, that would work great in a PnP RPG, but not in a cRPG where NPCs are color coded.

 

NPC: My daughter is in Plymoth Grand being held by slavers! Won't you save her?

PC: Sure. *travels to Plymoth Grand*

Player: Okay, where are the slavers? Here are some NPCs I can talk to, maybe they know where the slavers are?

*fifteen minutes later*

Player: Gee, this village is full of people, but I can't find any slavers. I'll ask on the message board.

 

FO:NV message board

WHERE R TEH SLAVERS?

Hai! This oen guy told me to go to plmoth grande and kill slavers, but there aren't any. where are they?

*five minutes later*

I STILL CAN'T FIND THE SLAVERS! I try to talk tot he townsppl byt there they don't know?

*fifteenminute later*

THIS QUEST IS BUGGED! I'm going to skip it. ty.

 

****

 

Or..

NPC: My son is in Plymoth Grand being held by slavers! Won't you save him?

PC: Sure. *travels to Plymoth Grand*

*villagers all attack PC*

*PC kills them*

NPC: Why did you kill my wife and new family?! They love me!!oneoneone

PC: Because they were shooting *rockets* at me. Crazy idiot.

Edited April 25, 2009 by Maria Caliban

[Gizmo]

The quest, as Gonzo originally wrote it, is a 'gotcha' - but it's one that doesn't work.

Indeed... but how exactly would it not work?

 

*In the Fallout series (until #3), all NPC's were color coded the same (unless you had the right perk).

What's to stop the developer from color coding NPC's any color they wish if the PC has the right flag?

 

~And I'd prefer a game not brand NPC's hostile until they have a reason to be. So fence guards could become hostile if they saw an intruder, but not be hostile if they saw you walking the road near the gate.

Edited April 25, 2009 by Gizmo

[Kjarista]

Seems to me that the "trick" isn't really needed. Let the player decide if they want to take the quest or not. You walk up to me, we talk, I say: " hey, I really need your help. Those people outside of town there have captured my daughter. I need you to bring her back. I can pay you...." You just might go running out there, shoot them all, and haul missy back. You might ask the fellow at the end of the bar, who claimes that I'm a slaver and little missy is a runaway, and that's her family out there. You might talk to the sheriff, who could say he know nothing about any of it, as he glances over his shoulder. You might walk away not knowing what to do. What do you do?

 

This is more realistic, IMO. Situations are generally not black and white. When people have differing stories, which do we believe?

No... The point of it would be that its not a regular quest, and that the player might agree to it believing the lie, and depending on how they handle it, might well barge in shoot first, and ask questions later.

 

*Only realizing after the fact that they were duped. What I'm suggesting is two fold. One, that the player be judged by their actions/answers (IE. the NPC figured the PC for a gullible do-gooder based on prior conversations), and also the hit to the player when they realize that not all is what it appears, and not every NPC is honest ~and that had they asked around they would have found the man's tale full of holes... If only they'd done that before killing the guards in the village.

 

So you want to remove the responsibility of the PLAYER to make the right decision and rely on STATS for that? As a player, why wouldn't I want to make a difficult decision, based on the information presented me? If I make the wrong decision, so be it.

[Kjarista]

Yeah, that would work great in a PnP RPG, but not in a cRPG where NPCs are color coded.

Geez, then nothing in any game "works" at that standard. If people want to play taht way, then fine. The rest of us would head down there, make the best choice we can, given the way we interept the situation, and live with the consequences. That is the root of RP, is it not?

Edited April 25, 2009 by Kjarista

[Gizmo]

So you want to remove the responsibility of the PLAYER to make the right decision and rely on STATS for that? As a player, why wouldn't I want to make a difficult decision, based on the information presented me? If I make the wrong decision, so be it.

Uhh... no.

 

* That example was never intended to sprawl across 5 posts, but what was meant was simply this...

It would be cool if the NPC AI was a bit more "cognizant" of player choices. In my example the idea was that based on what they had picked in conversation, the NPC gamble that they might be just the right tool for his dirty work.

 

** That they might go into an unsuspecting settlement with preconceived notions that were not accurate, and they don't know it because they didn't check out the shopkeeper's story.

 

***This was only ever about wanting cleverer AI.

 

Edit:There's a flipside to this... The NPC might simply realize that the PC is a right bastard, and offer him the job in a straight forward manner... ~The town would react the same either way.

Edited April 25, 2009 by Gizmo

[Kjarista]

So you want to remove the responsibility of the PLAYER to make the right decision and rely on STATS for that? As a player, why wouldn't I want to make a difficult decision, based on the information presented me? If I make the wrong decision, so be it.

Uhh... no.

Thanks for clearing that up :/

 

I wouldn't mind fame stats triggering quests, is that is waht you are getting at, but I don't see why stats should be used to trick players. Throw the information out there and lest the players trick themselves...or not.

[Aristes]

This means that the AI might ask mundane questions (or respond to silly ones), and if the player picked enough answers that implied they were a "softy" dense hero type, then the AI might respond [based on how the PC answered.

Seems to me that the "trick" isn't really needed. Let the player decide if they want to take the quest or not. You walk up to me, we talk, I say: " hey, I really need your help. Those people outside of town there have captured my daughter. I need you to bring her back. I can pay you...." This is more realistic, IMO.

 

I disagree. It is undoubtedly easier to code a situation where the NPCs generally act the same way towards the PC and have the same attitudes and options. However, it's not more "realistic." In real life, folks size up each other based on a few second of conversation all of the time. By all of the time, I mean virtually every stranger makes an initial assessment of someone in the first moments of conversation and then, if they're smart, keeps updating that assessment as new information comes to light. Of course, they might not actually think of it in those terms, but they still act that way.

 

So, Gizmo's suggestion seems perfectly valid. NPC talks to the PC. By dialogue, the NPC decides what he thinks the PC's motives are. He then plays to those motives. Saying that it's more realistic that folks don't continually assess other people through conversation is simply misguided.

 

Hell, people don't even wait to talk. If a man walks into a bar wearing dusty, blood-stained clothing, the brim of his hat pulled low over his eyes, and an angry scowl on his face, folks there will treat him one way. If the same man walks into the bar wearing more or less normal clothing and a friendly grin, folk will treat him another way.

 

Even more hell, there's really only so much your clothes can do. The ways humans interact are so complicated and based on so many factors that it's impossible for the computer game to cover all the bases.

 

The problem is in creating a system that's complicated enough that our choices are meaningful in a larger sense while still being transparent enough that players aren't confused or angry. That's really why we end up with overt influence systems. slapping a number value on an interaction is the easiest way to tell the player, "you just succeeded."

 

I don't know that we need to keep a score, as such. I agree with your previous comment, "I'd rather not quantify it at all and just let the decision itself cascade consequences throughout the rest of the came. In the case of Tenpenny, one either helps one side or the other, helps neither, or finds a way to screw both parties to extract whatever personal benefit possible. How this decision affects the rest of the game...or not, is the key, not the keeping score." However, for those choices to be meaningful enough to impact the game the "rest of the game," must mean that the game keeps track of what the player did and will thus keep a score of sorts anyhow. In other words, it will determine how other folks see and interact with you. Whether we assign numerical values to your influence or simply make the design team look through previous actions and write dialogue accordingly, the game will still have to keep track of prior events.

 

...And it will need to do that regardless of whether or not each action occurs in a moral vacuum. So, you burn down and murder an entire village except for little Jimmie. Folks don't care, so the guy still comes up and says, " hey, I really need your help. Those people outside of town there have captured my daughter." Fine. ...But it's going to look really sloppy if the fact that you've slaughtered every single person in Radiationville, bragged about it far and wide, and it never has any impact on dialogue. Maybe folks won't care that you murdered everyone in Radiationville. Sure. Fair enough. However, there should be a good and ever increasing chance that they'll at least know about it.

 

Doesn't matter. We've probably lost the battle on karma and influence already. Karma is sufficiently part of the Fallout franchise that we're undoubtedly going to end up with it. Tranparent and in your face influence scores make life much easier for the design team.

[Maria Caliban]

*In the Fallout series (until #3), all NPC's were color coded the same (unless you had the right perk).

What's to stop the developer from color coding NPC's any color they wish if the PC has the right flag?

 

Right, in previous Fallouts, a hostile NPC caused the game to go into *battle mode.* A very subtle clue that one was facing a hostile NPC.

 

~And I'd prefer a game not brand NPC's hostile until they have a reason to be. So fence guards could become hostile if they saw an intruder, but not be hostile if they saw you walking the road near the gate.

 

Yes, but how does the PC know this? Or do they walk up to non-hotile NPCs who suddenly turn hostile?

 

Does the NPC talk to them? And if the NPC is talking to them, why won't they say "We're not slavers?"

 

Now, if you want to edit and add to the original quest you suggested, then that's fine. But ultimately, if the NPC attacks the PC without provocation, then the PC is in the right to defend themselves. If the NPC does not attack the PC, then a PC here to save the innocent maiden from slavers is going to try to talk to the various NPCs -- if nothing else then to find the slavers.

 

Now, you might not like it because it clashes with your unnecessarily elaborate set-up to teach players that saying 'yes' to a quest will funnel them into what you consider 'meaningful consequences' but *that's the way the game works.*

 

[Gizmo]

Right, in previous Fallouts, a hostile NPC caused the game to go into *battle mode.* A very subtle clue that one was facing a hostile NPC.

Yeah, but which one?

If you walk walk into a crowded bar with one hostile enemy... They're all potentials ~ without the awareness perk (which implies an especially astute PC). ~well... not always. Something I liked about the Fallout perks was that some were for the player specific, and would modify the game for them, like change the color code for friends, or add color codes for emotional responces from NPC's. *Ha, how about a TB perk

 

As it is... (and I'm asking because I don't know)... In Fallout 3, is there an NPC (or is it possible) that lies to you about a quest?

 

The original intent of the village example [regardless of the details] was that the player might feel they acted brashly [possibly feel regret]; and understand that they should decide with care who they trust.

Edited April 25, 2009 by Gizmo

[Kjarista]

I disagree. It is undoubtedly easier to code a situation where the NPCs generally act the same way towards the PC and have the same attitudes and options. However, it's not more "realistic." In real life, folks size up each other based on a few second of conversation all of the time. By all of the time, I mean virtually every stranger makes an initial assessment of someone in the first moments of conversation and then, if they're smart, keeps updating that assessment as new information comes to light. Of course, they might not actually think of it in those terms, but they still act that way.

 

...And it will need to do that regardless of whether or not each action occurs in a moral vacuum. So, you burn down and murder an entire village except for little Jimmie. Folks don't care, so the guy still comes up and says, " hey, I really need your help. Those people outside of town there have captured my daughter." Fine. ...But it's going to look really sloppy if the fact that you've slaughtered every single person in Radiationville, bragged about it far and wide, and it never has any impact on dialogue. Maybe folks won't care that you murdered everyone in Radiationville. Sure. Fair enough. However, there should be a good and ever increasing chance that they'll at least know about it.

 

Doesn't matter. We've probably lost the battle on karma and influence already. Karma is sufficiently part of the Fallout franchise that we're undoubtedly going to end up with it. Tranparent and in your face influence scores make life much easier for the design team.

 

First off, my argument about more realistic referred to making decisions based on incomplete, conflicting information. That kind of thing happens every day. I think I'm not understanding what Gizmo proposes, and maybe he thinks I'm being purposefully obtuse, which I'm not.

 

Again, I ahve no problem with NPCs deciding, by whatever means of faction, fame, etc to present or not present quests. I am arguing, however, that after that quest is triggered, the ball is in the court of the player to accept or reject the quest, and to set that situation up, it seems to me that the most effective way to do so is to seed conflicting information among teh gameworld, and let the player build a picture of the situation and make a decision. The results of that decision can change questlines.

 

Fallout 3 failed at Choice with consequence, and that needs to be fixed in F:NV. If you are an evil enough bastard to blow up a town, no one but very evil people should have anything to do with you. You should have that in the back of your head when some non evil looking NPC comes to you with a quest.

 

The idea is to bring all aspects of gameplay into the player decision making process. Even with the transparant fame system, and all it's faults, it would still be possible to make morally ambiguous quests with real world consequences.

[TwinkieGorilla]

Fallout 3 failed at Choice with consequence, and that needs to be fixed in F:NV. If you are an evil enough bastard to blow up a town, no one but very evil people should have anything to do with you. You should have that in the back of your head when some non evil looking NPC comes to you with a quest.

 

agreed. but i don't want the game telling me what's good or evil. this is why the karma system is crap. if there are people out there who disapprove of my actions that's great. but how do they know? well, they heard about it. how? people talk. but say it's long distance? well, there are travelers and caravans, right? so you walk into a bar and somebody recognizes you from the word of mouth description. they say to you "hey, you blew up that town, right? i might have a job for you." or they say "hey, it's the bastard who blew up that town! get 'em!"

 

see where i'm going with this? the decision of "good" or "bad" or "neutral" is so juvenile it makes me want to vomit.

[Aristes]

Yeah, then I pretty much agree with you, Kjarista. Especially in terms of the real world consequences, which I see as more important than where the PC stands on a scale anyhow.