A Realistic Social System in Project Eternity

[JFSOCC]

What if there was a caste system but getting a special soul is a way for upward mobility? Or worse, you could be born into a caste that's quite high up, only for it to become apparent that you have a soul of one of the minor castes, like that of a barbarian.

Could you change your soul? what about your place in society?

This would obviously only work if the soul system is not always apparent (and only a few realise/are lucky enough to have a powerful soul inherited)

[Sacred_Path]

Could you change your soul? what about your place in society?

 

It would be kind of cool if near the beginning of the game, your unknown party attracts the attention of cults/ churches with their strong souls (they're hero material after all). That could result in your first quests/ factions/ way of gaining reputation.

[Rostere]

The problem with fantasy games is not that they don't depict the rural populace (the large majority during the corresponding historical ages), but that they depict society as a whole wrong. Oh, here's Pete Peasant casually strolling by the nobles on Main Street. Nobles would have carriages, or in some cases horses, and probably also a retinue of bodyguards and courtiers to accompany them. I could think up an interesting synopsis for a fantasy game where you only ever interact with noblemen. I don't think that's the case with PE though, and I would like the devs to understand that the social differences between classes in society was much larger than they are today.

[mcmanusaur]

The problem with fantasy games is not that they don't depict the rural populace (the large majority during the corresponding historical ages), but that they depict society as a whole wrong. Oh, here's Pete Peasant casually strolling by the nobles on Main Street. Nobles would have carriages, or in some cases horses, and probably also a retinue of bodyguards and courtiers to accompany them. I could think up an interesting synopsis for a fantasy game where you only ever interact with noblemen. I don't think that's the case with PE though, and I would like the devs to understand that the social differences between classes in society was much larger than they are today.

Exactly this.

[anubite]

In an "ideal cRPG" - entire societal structure wouid be simulated by the computer program. You might ask why such a thing would be even necessary, but an "ideal cRPG" we're aiming for player agency to merge with the story, to act on a virtual world. The only way to do this without having a human behind a curtain dictating events, is to simulate events. If you slay the evil Wizard, a human "game master" says the land is prosperous again, and can easily reflect this in the way NPCs react and how expensive items are in the market. If you slay the evil Wizard in a cRPG, a computer can change prices and NPC attitudes, but a lot of this content, when hardcoded, grows exponentially when we consider the fact we might want 10 quests about killing 10 evil wizards and we want there to be at least 2 different outcomes - one if you fail to kill the wizard (or choose not to) and one if you do. That's 20 hardcoded sets of information that need to be dolled out. If want players to have more than binary level choice, we've now doubled or tripled the amount of work that has to be done.

 

Simulation can in effect, generate content. Now, I know this is frowned upon - nobody tends to find randomly-generated dungeons or worlds all that exciting or interesting, but in an ideal cRPG, we would have ideal functions which take in hundreds of variables. We would have systems that model human behavior in a world, economics, military and political spheres, et cetera - all of these systems interacting together creates a dynamic virtual world. And although creating all these systems could take a while, in the long run, they generate more and possibly better content than trying to hardcode a series of cause-->effect scripts.

 

PE obviously cannot afford to do such things, but what the OP talks about is not necessarily bad. It's simply a matter of cost and scope. PE can afford to have a dynamic economy I think, where they have basic systems to simulate village economics interacting with large city economics -- it's something I wish Skyrim had done. But to put it simply, if PE lets us visit several villages, they could tie a "productivitiness" value to each village, which is determined by the number of happy, living villages and the quality of the surrounding roads. If you help bandits and evil Wizards, village roads are less safe, so city economies are less healthy, for instance. Such a system would take a little coding, but such seemingly "small" impacts from your quest choices I think add up and help ground you in the virtual world.

 

VTMB doesn't have any simulation of that kind, but VTMB has the Masquerade, which simulates Vampire code. It also has a basic human and hunter system, simulating those aspects of being a vampire. It also simulates the need for blood, to a limited extent. These systems are all very basic, but none of them are hard-coded cause-->effect chains, they're systems that dynamically react.

 

edited: wrong clip, gah can't find it

 

In the brief clip above, because of the combat system causing low-life enemies to flee, and because of the basic civilian flee AI, a gun fight in a large city area goes out of hand and involves innocent people, which simulates what actually happens in real life. Obviously, VTMB doesn't have much simulation, but you can agree the basic simulation it has is absolutely necessary. If enemies statically stood around or were hardcoded to do specific things under specific circumstances only, things would seem jerky and odd, which breaks immersion.

Edited December 9, 2012 by anubite

[PrimeJunta]

The problem with fantasy games is not that they don't depict the rural populace (the large majority during the corresponding historical ages), but that they depict society as a whole wrong. Oh, here's Pete Peasant casually strolling by the nobles on Main Street. Nobles would have carriages, or in some cases horses, and probably also a retinue of bodyguards and courtiers to accompany them. I could think up an interesting synopsis for a fantasy game where you only ever interact with noblemen. I don't think that's the case with PE though, and I would like the devs to understand that the social differences between classes in society was much larger than they are today.

 

Yes!

 

One of the few actually interesting bits in DA:O was the dwarf noble background. It at least attempted this, where you could play your dwarven prince so that he never actually spoke to the dirty plebes, but had his servant do it for him. That was a great idea, and it's too bad it went out of the window the minute the actual game started.

[Sacred_Path]

The problem with fantasy games is not that they don't depict the rural populace (the large majority during the corresponding historical ages), but that they depict society as a whole wrong. Oh, here's Pete Peasant casually strolling by the nobles on Main Street. Nobles would have carriages, or in some cases horses, and probably also a retinue of bodyguards and courtiers to accompany them. I could think up an interesting synopsis for a fantasy game where you only ever interact with noblemen. I don't think that's the case with PE though, and I would like the devs to understand that the social differences between classes in society was much larger than they are today.

 

That reminds me of a little something I'd like to see employed more in CRPGs: alternative paths and routes. Like in Darklands, where there are many ways to get into a city. Stroll into there by the main gate and just pay the fee if you can, but it might be wiser to scale the walls at night or even trudge through the sewers if you can't pay/ are a criminal (lose charisma or reputation for that). Travel along the high road if you've nothing to hide, it will be safer if it's patrolled regularly, but might make an ambush more likely if it isn't. Or take a shortcut through the woods/ swamp if you want to avoid attention, but be prepared for the consequences.