What's the one RPG trope you can deal without in PE?

[Umberlin]

Hmmm. Texan knights sound...

 

Ever played Gothic II? Southern Baptist Fire Mages (I'm being unfair, they didn't all have southern accents). I love that game so much, despite some of its voice acting decisions.

 

I also like Russian accents. They are cool.

 

So do I, and anything Russian really.. but I have genetic and ancestral reasons for being incredibly biased toward such things.

Edited January 14, 2013 by Umberlin

[Keyrock]

I'm really sick of the ancient evil that rises up to destroy the world. Give me complex political intrigue, espionage, and ambitions run amok, or at the very least a brand new evil rising up to destroy the world. Also, I could do without the all powerful artifact which is the only thing that can defeat said ancient evil. (Spoiler: It's almost always a sword)

Edited January 14, 2013 by Keyrock

[Calmar]

English accents on the voice-overs.

God, I hate that, especially when the voice acting is bad. The game has to have American accents too.

 

It can be really good, like Jon Irenicus in Baldur's Gate 2 or Agent 47 in the Hitman series (the voice actor did a really good job in Absolution!!), but most of the time it is just so damn cheesy and sounds like crap, it's this kind of "would you like some crumpets and tea m'lady" kind of accent. Bah.

 

They could assign real-world accents to region in the world of Eternity; in some realm the people speak like Welsh, another place has them sound like New Yorkers, Newzealanders, or the like. I just would prefer conntinuity over random mixing of accents.

[TRX850]

They could assign real-world accents to region in the world of Eternity; in some realm the people speak like Welsh, another place has them sound like New Yorkers, Newzealanders, or the like. I just would prefer conntinuity over random mixing of accents.

 

I was just going to suggest regional accents in P:E. It would make so much more sense. Where it can sound fake is if a non-British voice actor attempts a British accent, and a non-American voice actor attempts an American accent etc. I don't think there needs to be an all-rounded approach for the sake of political correctness either, but to be fair, most medieval settings sound more realistic with Anglo-European accents. And where it tends to sound really REALLY bad, is when voice actors try too hard. Or maybe they just aren't inspired when they record their voice because they know nothing about the game, its history, the expectations of the player community, artwork, and what has come before. The voice over on some games sound like they've shoved someone in a box, with a script, and put a gun to their head and are forced to read. I really do hope the voice actors on P:E will have time to absorb the game's DNA and actually have some fun with it.

[Luridis]

Hmmm. Texan knights sound... wrong. Then again most English accents in games are either (a) cut glass posh or (b) comedy **** Van Dyke Londoner that sounds almost Australian. Some proper regional English accents OTOH...

 

I didn't say they had to have Texas accents... I would just prefer any genuine accent over obviously fake English ones. So, you can get off your high-horse now.

 

Oh, and BTW: Texas is known for its Rangers, not Knights...

Edited January 15, 2013 by Luridis

[Tamerlane]

Get the voice actors of Xenoblade Chronicles for PE. So that every time can be REYN TIME!

Edited January 15, 2013 by Tamerlane

[Falkon Swiftblade]

I mentioned this in another thread a while back, but it's bothered me for some time that final encounters are almost always like a tennis match and pretty much a button spamming match. Not to mention is pretty obvious the boss is ALWAYS in the deepest dungeon or highest peak, so it's no real surprise. I challenge game designers to script a boss fight that changes things up. How about just as you get to the deepest pit or highest mountain to fight said boss, you actually accidentally free them upon the world, and have to back track to find him and stop him from burning down the whole city or something where you chase him across the over world before he kills everyone. Also there would be an option to inflict much more environmental damage to him instead of killing him by stabbing him in the toe 187,000 times until he bleeds to death. If you were a smart player you would have done the optional side quest that set up booby traps around the place to stop the impending army, only to realize afterwards they would be used on the boss instead. Something like that would be way more entertaining than spending 40 hrs to collect a shield that protects you from the dragon's breath attacks.

[Calmar]

Hells, that's many typos in my last post...

 

One annoying thing that I feel has become too abundant in recent times is those super muscular ultra tough manly man guys (though so far that doesn't seem to be an issue in PE). Male heroes should very well be tough and brave, but if you look at settings like Warhammer and Warcraft (and imitations thereof) there are way too many guys who look like they're working out 6 hours/day on steroids. Once in a while such a hulk is fine, but that shouldn't be the norm of male appearance in the game world. Otherwise you might end up with a situation like in Starcraft 2 where a normal shlub like Raynor has arms as wide as his head and a dude like Findlay ends beyond proportions.

[TRX850]

Hells, that's many typos in my last post...

 

One annoying thing that I feel has become too abundant in recent times is those super muscular ultra tough manly man guys (though so far that doesn't seem to be an issue in PE). Male heroes should very well be tough and brave, but if you look at settings like Warhammer and Warcraft (and imitations thereof) there are way too many guys who look like they're working out 6 hours/day on steroids. Once in a while such a hulk is fine, but that shouldn't be the norm of male appearance in the game world. Otherwise you might end up with a situation like in Starcraft 2 where a normal shlub like Raynor has arms as wide as his head and a dude like Findlay ends beyond proportions.

 

Agreed. Someone already started a thread on this very topic (sort-of).

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63110-strength-and-dex-phenotypes/

[Faerunner]

The only thing I can think of is purely evil races like drow and orcs. I know it's been a staple fantasy trope since Tolkien and I know audiences tend to need enemies that are genetically pre-disposed to be evil so good-aligned characters don't have to feel bad for killing them, but I think we've come far enough as a society to recognize that there is no pure good, pure evil, or that some people are inherently less moral than others. It's just people with different moral, cultural, religious, etc. beliefs clashing with differing ones.

 

I can buy two countries going to war because one nation is an imperialist power that wants to convert its neighbors to their religion because of some misguided belief that they're doing the right thing (and they probably also want the country's resources), while the other nation is full of such extreme isolationists they border on hostile (the war between the human nation of Orlais and the elven nation of the Dales in Dragon Age). I don't buy one nation trying to invade and slaughter the other because the entire race of one is Muahahaha evil (the drow invasion of Waterdeep in NWN: HotU).

 

That's all.

[Calmar]

I partly agree with you, because 'Always Evil' is quite silly. On the other hand, objectively evil factions and races are important for a setting to work. Are the Norse, Saxons, or Unseelie purely evil? Probably not. But if we play a game as people of the Arthurian realm, we'll have to believe they are in orfer to become fully immersed in the story. Or take the Pacific War; neither side is as a whole the embodiment of evil, but each has to assume that the other one is in order to take the thing seriously. I guess enemy stereotypes are necessary to get into the mood of a conflict. At least fantasy tends to depict non human nonhumans.

Edited January 15, 2013 by Calmar

[Falkon Swiftblade]

I partially agree with you guys regarding the evil scheme, though I wouldn't want to play a game that had mechanics in it such as killing children for a quest or for fun because I'm a bad guy and its supposed to be fun to kill everything. I'd much prefer like what was said about a political or society belief system that was a little more gray than true evil. You know what would be fun for me is if the bad guys were like the bad guy in Space Balls, or the 5th Element. They had a lot of personality and charisma.

[JFSOCC]

American accents tend to be immersion breaking for me, especially when they're trying "ye olde english".

[Keyrock]

My thoughts on accents and dialects: Doing a specific dialect for a game is a very risky venture. While it can add flavor and atmosphere to a game, it will only do so if it is done consistently really well. 90% of the games I've played that have tried to do a dialect have not done it well consistently and thus it wound up coming off sounding ridiculous and immersion breaking.

 

The short version: Only use dialects if you are absolutely sure you can do it really well consistently.

[Keyrock]

Drinking alcohol and it having no real gameplay consequences other than the short "drunk" phase which you just walk off.

The Witcher is the game that comes to mind as handling intoxication the best. Obviously, that's a single player action RPG so not exactly applicable to Project: Eternity without modifications.

[Tamerlane]

Hells, that's many typos in my last post...

 

One annoying thing that I feel has become too abundant in recent times is those super muscular ultra tough manly man guys (though so far that doesn't seem to be an issue in PE). Male heroes should very well be tough and brave, but if you look at settings like Warhammer and Warcraft (and imitations thereof) there are way too many guys who look like they're working out 6 hours/day on steroids. Once in a while such a hulk is fine, but that shouldn't be the norm of male appearance in the game world. Otherwise you might end up with a situation like in Starcraft 2 where a normal shlub like Raynor has arms as wide as his head and a dude like Findlay ends beyond proportions.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure Findlay was on steroids. Terran lore in SC can pretty often be summed up as "also, he was using a ****load of drugs". Edited January 15, 2013 by Tamerlane

[Faerunner]

I partly agree with you, because 'Always Evil' is quite silly. On the other hand, objectively evil factions and races are important for a setting to work.

 

No, this I have to disagree with. If the writers want to create a setting that only works if some races are "objectively evil" (which is an oxymoron since morality is subjective), then I think they need to adjust the setting. I can understand sapient beings from some societies or cultures having systems, values, or lifestyles that we from the perspective of the player cannot agree with (like orcs living in war tribes), or performing some actions that we might understand but not be able to condone (like lizardlings attacking human villagers because of territory disputes), but I do not buy that people from those societies or cultures do it because they're inherently evil.

 

I can understand some societies having values or behaviors that others might disagree with, but I don't think they should be inherently evil.

 

Are the Norse, Saxons, or Unseelie purely evil? Probably not. But if we play a game as people of the Arthurian realm, we'll have to believe they are in orfer to become fully immersed in the story. Or take the Pacific War; neither side is as a whole the embodiment of evil, but each has to assume that the other one is in order to take the thing seriously. I guess enemy stereotypes are necessary to get into the mood of a conflict. At least fantasy tends to depict non human nonhumans.

 

No. Enemy stereotypes are not necessary. Making only non humans pure evil is not necessary. I understand the need for antagonists since every story needs conflict, and there would be no conflict if everyone got along. I understand the need for cannon fodder since over 80% of RPGs are lethal combat, and we need targets that good-aligned characters don't need to feel bad killing. We need enemies that attack first so we can claim self-defense when we kill them. However, I believe singling out some races to be pure evil, and attacking the player only because they're pure evil, is a very out-dated attitude. Even Tolkien seemed to express doubt in his decision to depict orcs as pure evil later in his life.

 

I really liked how the writers of the NWN games sometimes questioned races being inherently evil. For example, in the opening conversation of NWN: SotU, a human paladin and a half-orc sorcerer have a discussion that goes something like this (paraphrasing): "The goblin is an evil creature. Even if it was a child, I could not let it grow up to do wicked things." "And who's to say it couldn't be good if it was raised differently?" "It's different for you, your human blood redeems you of your orcish wickedness." "And you think only human blood can make me good?"

 

I also felt the territory disputes between human villagers and lizardling tribes was rather well-handled NWN2. We start out as a villagers who have to fight every lizardling we encounter in the swamp and even settle territory desputes between one village and one tribe, but we get a few opportunities to hear the conflict from the lizardling's point of view. From the lizardlings' perspectives, humans are encroaching on their ancestral territory and they're simply defending their home and their way of life. From the humans' perspective, they need the land to run their settlements and the lizardlings are just savage beasts, so they need to git. Depending on how you play your character, you can choose to see the lizardlings as evil monsters that deserve to get driven out, or you can try to negotiate a peace agreement that both sides can live with. (Doesn't work, but then humans are just as antagonistic and mistrusting of lizardlings as lizardlings are of humans. The conflict is perpetuated on both sides, not just one.)

 

Need I mention the githyanki? Brutal, vicious, xenophobic zealots that attack your home village and spend the entire first act tracking and attacking you to try to steal back some magical shards... so they can use them to reforge the only weapon that can defeat an ancient evil megalomaniac that will destroy most of your entire realm. Which you only learn after you've killed them all and the task of gathering the shards, reforging the sword and fighting the ancient evil is now completely on you. Oops. Turns out they aren't evil per se, they just have a very coarse bedside manner. They want to save your realm, they just go about doing it by impatiently ransacking villages and adventurers for shards and killing people who try to resist. Good intentioned, not big on negotiations.

 

My point is I can understand a conflict of interest and some races having beliefs or desires that clash with others, but not "this one is evil."

[TRX850]

A purely evil tribe/community/race would probably burn itself out anyway. A chaotic/lawless community would find the same thing. Even a lawful evil example would mean everyone is out to foil everyone else. Pure evil is one of those concepts that fits a Hollywood B-movie where the good guy always wins, and the bad guy is really just a story device to allow the good guy to win. Nothing more.

[TMTVL]

Always Evil means always Evil from the perspective of who's describing the ... Evil. Like Volo, or Elminster, who will call orcs and ogres always Evil because in their experience they are. If an orc scholar would write a book he'd write something else, maybe that all Elves are Evil (or Elvis, I forgot which) or something.

[Jarmo]

Basically it just comes down to the setting.

 

If there are angels and devils, it's reasonable to agree angels are always good and devils are always evil.

Or if you want the kind of setting where angels are ambiguous and the devils likewise, that's fine but not inherently a better setting.

 

Further, if there are angels and devils, they might have heavenly and demonic creatures serving them in the game plane.

Might be the "servant races" are even more good or bad, black and white than their masters, or more ambiguous, depends on the setting.

 

It's not necessary to have pure black and white in order to make for a good rpg, but it's not necessary to paint everything grayscale either.

Usually its like, the more down to earth realistic the setting is, the grayer everything gets. But that's not a hard rule you have to follow.

[Calmar]

To me it seems that approach of 'they're not really evil but only have different ethical standards' usually tends to lead to the stock scenario of all the ignorant peasants wanting to murder the witch/monster/stranger/etc only for the wise Player Character to stop them.

 

I honestly find it more interesting to be part of the possibly ignorant or misguided society of the game world than being the soo much smarter and enlightened guy from the 21st century who can see behind the curtains of their primitive assumptions and superstitions.

[TMTVL]

Of course, when it comes down to it, most RPG main characters are murderers and thieves. The difference between good and evil is if they are smug about it, or if they're just a big jerk doing brutish things for no good reason.

[Sylvanpyxie]

Things I could do without.... Flawed Party-Characters that the Player needs to "fix".

 

I absolutely love flawed characters. Angry bastards, bitter cynics, self-absorbed gits, clumsy screw-ups. I like characters that have their own problems, their own failings, characters that make mistakes and have their own views on life, no matter how cynical those views might be. Characters that have experienced things that have made them who they are, things that might be truly and utterly terrible. Who am I to come along and suddenly make everything "better"?

 

I really don't need or want the power to "fix" everybody and/or solve all their problems. I hate it.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Sylvanpyxie

[UpgrayeDD]

Things I could do without.... Flawed Party-Characters that the Player needs to "fix".

 

I absolutely love flawed characters. Angry bastards, bitter cynics, self-absorbed gits, clumsy screw-ups. I like characters that have their own problems, their own failings, characters that make mistakes and have their own views on life, no matter how cynical those views might be. Characters that have experienced things that have made them who they are, things that might be truly and utterly terrible. Who am I to come along and suddenly make everything "better"?

 

I really don't need or want the power to "fix" everybody and/or solve all their problems. I hate it.

I don't really have a problem with static campanion characters in games, but I don't think that theres a problem with having characters that can change(for the better or the worse).  The idea that some experiences have changed them for life is less believable then characters that have opinions that are constently being affected by the new encounters as well as the old.

[Sylvanpyxie]

I don't really have a problem with static campanion characters in games, but I don't think that theres a problem with having characters that can change(for the better or the worse).

 

I'm not saying they need to remain static. While there should always be core characteristics that remain unchanged(in my opinion), it's perfectly fine for characters to evolve in a natural manner that is suitable for their character.

 

However, I have a problem when the only thing that causes a character to change is the Player. I shouldn't be the only person in the known universe that can cause people to completely change their views on life, I shouldn't be the only thing around that can "fix" all their problems. I firmly believe that a character can find it's own "atonement" or evolve in a perfectly natural manner simply from the events they experience in their travels - I don't believe they should change simply on the word of the Player.

 

A few words of encouragement here or there from the Player, when the character themselves begins to see things in a new light, is all well and good. But the Players having the power practically beat someone over the head with the Stick of Change is something that I dislike, greatly.

Edited January 21, 2013 by Sylvanpyxie