Interview at Irontower forums

[Starwars]

http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index...pic,1473.0.html

 

Goes a bit more in-depth than other interviews, talking a bit more about the reason for including certain mechanics.

 

Really interesting that they actually tested the results of the dialogue stance systems in a scientific manner.

[WorstUsernameEver]

The interview is definitely interesting, however I'm not sure what point they're trying to make when they say that the game can be concluded without using RPG skills if the player is good in action games.

Especially after the previews that talked about dice-roll shots.

[Raithe]

Not a bad little interview...

[Starwars]

The interview is definitely interesting, however I'm not sure what point they're trying to make when they say that the game can be concluded without using RPG skills if the player is good in action games.

Especially after the previews that talked about dice-roll shots.

 

That bit stood out to me as well. I'd prefer it if you couldn't kill everyone if you have zero skills in the particular weapon. But judging from that earlier preview, I guess it's gonna be really hard and/or frustrating.

[WorstUsernameEver]

The interview is definitely interesting, however I'm not sure what point they're trying to make when they say that the game can be concluded without using RPG skills if the player is good in action games.

Especially after the previews that talked about dice-roll shots.

 

That bit stood out to me as well. I'd prefer it if you couldn't kill everyone if you have zero skills in the particular weapon. But judging from that earlier preview, I guess it's gonna be really hard and/or frustrating.

 

That or he was talking about active skills (like Chain Shot). It wasn't exactly clear.

[Raithe]

Taking the interviews together, it sounds like increasing skills with particular weapons will give you improvements to their use (damage, amount of recoil, the small things) and open up a mixture of passive / active abilties to use with those weapons.. but at the same time they've built it so that people who have serious "twitch" skills can treat it like a standard shooter if they don't bother to improve the gun skills..

[Morgoth]

Good questions, good answers.

 

I'm now even more looking forward to the game.

[Sannom]

The interview is definitely interesting, however I'm not sure what point they're trying to make when they say that the game can be concluded without using RPG skills if the player is good in action games.

 

Does he not say it would need a very persistent (and savvy) gamer to pull this off? It could also refers to active abilities.

 

That bit stood out to me as well. I'd prefer it if you couldn't kill everyone if you have zero skills in the particular weapon. But judging from that earlier preview, I guess it's gonna be really hard and/or frustrating.

 

There is also the "toughness" problem to evaluate, a stealth character would probably be so fragile you wouldn't hold long in a firefight!

[Starwars]

Speaking of which, do we know anything about the Toughness skill and/or any of its abilities? I've never been a fan of the "put points in this skill to raise your health" type of feats or mechanics in most games and I never liked its inclusion in AP. But I wonder about the abilities it grants.

[Raithe]

Speaking of which, do we know anything about the Toughness skill and/or any of its abilities? I've never been a fan of the "put points in this skill to raise your health" type of feats or mechanics in most games and I never liked its inclusion in AP. But I wonder about the abilities it grants.

 

I'm theorising that it will have passive abilties that reduce chance of knock back/down from cqb attacks, and such like...

Rather then greater health, just a touch more likely to shrug off damage or act as if it isn't so bad. "Tis but a flesh wound..."

[WorstUsernameEver]

Untill I play the game I obviously can't comment but my guess is that players without toughness will have to rely on their armors, so a stealth character that uses a fragile but very stealth-y armor would be ****ed up in open combat while a more balanced approach (still stealthy but with an armor that make a bit more noise and is a bit more resistant) would be preferable if you are spotted by the enemy.

[Alvin Nelson]

When we say you can get through the game without putting any points into skills, we mean you would have to be amazing at both shooting and dodging bullets. Though yes, you could do it, you would probably need something like the Intersect in your head to be able to pull it off.

[Oblarg]

"Theoretically possible" only means that there is no point in the game which you cannot progress past without having invested stats. Practically, I'm willing to bet it's impossible.

Edited April 9, 2010 by Oblarg

[Wombat]

At least, it won't scare off shooting gamers away like Vampire the Masquerade:Bloodlines, where character stats cry loud, interfering with its action game-play.

 

Well, I thought the story development was more straightforward but now it seems to be pretty complicated since it turns out (at least, this was new to me) the game allows the players to solve missions in the order of their liking, which sounds crazy enough for me even without thousands of NPCs... Avellone must be a cyborg, indeed.

[Oblarg]

Great interview. I'm really hoping character interaction is as deep as Chris Avellone is claiming. The combat sounds fun, too.

 

June is so far away, though!

[Cycloneman]

When you see a Speech skill in a role-playing game, it's usually the "correct" response. That's not much of a choice. So we made the "speech skill" based on actions you take in the game world including research, paying attention to cues in the dialogue, your attitude when speaking to someone, the amount of Intel you've gathered or purchased, and how you treat other people - not just the person you're talking to. We want you to act the way you want when choosing a stance or action, not have a skill point you to the "best" option.

 

In addition, dialogue in Alpha Protocol is complicated in that you don't always want to succeed in a conventional speech check against someone. In the spy feel of the game, there are many positive and negative repercussions to dealing with folks that pay off immediately (which is how players have been trained with Speech) but also longer-term counterbalancing positive and negative repercussions (which do undermine how Speech skills are perceived). By the end of the game, there isn't always a clear win when all's said and done - just reactivity.

 

In short, the payoffs for a response or behavior that would be typically defined by a short-term Speech skill success are often "too soon to tell," both immediately and in missions down the road.

Just wanted to remind you noobs how much I own. This is a quote from over a year ago:

"Persuasion" is a pretty good skill for a spy to have. Might also be called "Diplomacy".

Personally, I find the idea of that unlikely, given a couple points:

1. The (current) mechanism for conversation is that you select a mood and it goes automatically. It seems kind of weird if it had you randomly start rolling dice in the middle, without any sort of warning.

2. It seems to imply the game will try to be a bit more "inclusivist" with your playstyle still earning rewards, no matter what you choose with Chris Parker saying things such as "If you play the entire game as the flirt, you'll get one kind of reward. If you're aggressive, you'll get another one. But what if you do a little of everything? We're making sure you get rewarded for that, too." Or another quote (not from Parker) saying "If a game provides a reward for one course of action (but not another) many gamers will re-load a save until they feel they have achieved the best payoff. This will not be necessary with Alpha Protocol."

3. Diplomacy skills are just lame, honestly. They are quite frankly pointless to have because they are so important that most players will put points into them whenever they can.

And you noobs thought Alpha Protocol would have a speech skill.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Uhm, we knew that AP doesn't have speech skills for at least 1 year.. what's the point?

[Pidesco]

And now Cycloneman has nothing else to live for.

[Jokerman89]

Wow an interview asking questions we wanted to know, good stuff.

[Cycloneman]

Uhm, we knew that AP doesn't have speech skills for at least 1 year.. what's the point?

Uh, pretty sure that the only person who recognized that it wouldn't have a speech skill one year ago was me. Yeah I know we know now that there are no Speech skills, and this wasn't the first introduction of it. But I was calling it way earlier than anybody else. Feel free to point out how I'm wrong. Oh wait, you can't, because I'm actually right! Boom, headshot!

[Wombat]

Calling the others "noobs" can be done away with but, indeed, I felt the past trend of CRPG tends have made the players too rule conscious, which probably made them more or less gamist rather than role-players. Although this is not necessary a bad thing, even Planescape:Torment had "winning formula" such as putting as many points as possible to wisdom, otherwise, the players will lose many of good dialogues, which was the best part of this work. To make full use of the talents of Obsidian, I think this is a rational decision since they are more of story-tellers than action game makers. That said, I cannot but wonder if Alpha Protocol will be able to establish memorable game experience like PS:T since I don't think brain scanners can see the long term effects of long narrations/dialogues.

 

In any case, the message seems to be: You don't need to be knowledgeable about any role-playing game rule-set to play this game. Just be you or play someone else in you, then you will have a customized story for your personality but, of course, if any of Bourne, Bond, and Bauer are your cup of tea, you shouldn't be playing this game.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Uhm, we knew that AP doesn't have speech skills for at least 1 year.. what's the point?

Uh, pretty sure that the only person who recognized that it wouldn't have a speech skill one year ago was me. Yeah I know we know now that there are no Speech skills, and this wasn't the first introduction of it. But I was calling it way earlier than anybody else. Feel free to point out how I'm wrong. Oh wait, you can't, because I'm actually right! Boom, headshot!

 

In fact you were calling it TWO years ago, not one.

Anyway, I wasn't here 1 year ago, nor I was here 2 years ago, so it's not like I ever argued about dialogue skills in Alpha Protocol.

[Cycloneman]

Whoa, this game has been coming out for two years? What the ****, Obsidian?

[mr insomniac]

Whoa, this game has been coming out for two years? What the ****, Obsidian Sega?

Fixed