changes in the realms

[cosmin haraga]

something I found annoying in games is the lack of change in a realm once you " clear " an area.

 

I mean small changes: penons, guards, patrols, slight changes in lightning depending on the faction etc

 

and I don't mean around said stronghold, but in general, think bg naskent after clearing the mine of kobolds - no extra peasants , guards , anything to prove things improved.

 

or fallout - once a city was cleared of quest - you should have seen at least more guards in your winning factions armor something.

 

same goes for morrowind , oblivion etc.

 

say you go bad - some crosses with victims, spikes with heads, people looking poorer , more thieves, darker lightning

 

stuff like that

[Juneau]

That would always always be awesome, but it's one of those things people always seem to ignore normally because 90% the time you don't revisit an area.

 

Would still be cool to see, villages rebuild, shops reopen etc.. roads become clearer / people travelling.

 

BUT that would need the game to spam months/years not just days/weeks.

[Hormalakh]

The way to solve this problem of "revisiting locations" is to make locations "re-usable." Stop making 100 different locations and making your adventurer travel across the whole world in a single game. Keep locations "local" and make the player return to the same locations further in the story to look for quests. Make your locations oversaturated with quests and make these quests chronologically-dependent and trigger-dependent.

 

E: The other thing is that a lot of times, location changes really depend on the location we're talking about. A small village, because it is really small, should really show changes affecting that village. Changes to a village are more significant. But large cities because they are in effect, populated by many people shouldn't change as much. The changes caused by a party of adventurers really shouldn't be as significant (unless it's a huge quest, for example).

Edited January 22, 2013 by Hormalakh

[rjshae]

I think I "get" why developers don't bother with the area updates once it's been cleared or the issues resoled: it's a lot of work for very little reward. Basically the developers almost need to develop the equivalent of an entire new area for no useful purpose.

[Sacred_Path]

The way to solve this problem of "revisiting locations" is to make locations "re-usable." Stop making 100 different locations and making your adventurer travel across the whole world in a single game. Keep locations "local" and make the player return to the same locations further in the story to look for quests. Make your locations oversaturated with quests and make these quests chronologically-dependent and trigger-dependent.

 

Well, a lot of people asked for the same in the various "two cities" threads. Still I suspect it'd take a crapton of ressources to make two Athkatlas that stay relevant throughout the game. Much more so if they're supposed to change graphically/ mechanically with your choices.

 

That also makes me think about how much cooler this game has become with all the stretch goals.

[Hormalakh]

It's sort of a paradox: the smaller locations (villages, etc) are affected more by outsiders (even killing the kobolds in the area should produce some changes in the village) but because they are small areas, they are less likely to be re-used to give quests. So developers don't bother expecting you not to return to the village.

 

On the other hand, larger locations (cities) should in theory be less affected by minor quests but because they are large quest locations, are reused and encompass a lot of developer's resources. Yet, these places "change" more even though the cities are meant to be larger and more anonymous locations where people might not know you.

Edited January 22, 2013 by Hormalakh

[Sacred_Path]

It's sort of a paradox: the smaller locations (villages, etc) are affected more by outsiders (even killing the kobolds in the area should produce some changes in the village) but because they are small areas, they are less likely to be re-used to give quests. So developers don't bother expecting you not to return to the village.

True, though I think, if they really want to take the time to flesh out those two cities, I think they shouldn't include any villages and small towns anyway. Nothing larger than, say, a merchant camp.

[Naurgalen]

Story wise you can make a party revisit the same place almost every time you want. In fact it has been made: Remember the town of Curst in Planescape:Torment? Its not a mega city like Sigil but you still visit it 2 times for the "same" reason (Trias) and both are REAL different. It really adds to the story and setting (belif power!) + it IS your fault.

 

I would love to see that kind of things in PE again, but better: making them you choice to happen.

[Osvir]

The more paths there are, the better.

Heck, let's say only my content that I'd like to experience is 1%. Fine!!! I didn't experience all 100% on my first playthrough, suck it up, we play differently, and you know why this is important?

I get 1% out of all 100% of the content my playthrough and I finish the game only having experienced 1%. Fine. Now next time I play I can experience another 1% of the game. Replayability.

Likewise, Hormalakh experiences 1%, I experience 1%, Rostere 1%, Naugalen 1% etc. etc. now my example is a little bit on the extreme side but still, I don't think you'll experience "All" content on your first playthrough or on any playthrough. Going about a Quest in a certain way, locking you out from the other way that you could have went. Past tense, you chose another path, deal with it.

Many games lets you start as the same character, and the path is linear like a Magic Missile (several different paths leaving "Point A" and ends up at "Point B"). There might be different paths to it, but Point B is "the same", I'd call that linear.

What if you chose to not kill the Archdemon too escape the lands yourself? Kick Alistair in the nuts, run and get backup. DA:O is a bad example. But what if you could start a business in Baldur's Gate, and you conspire yourself and you take over the Iron Throne and you have hired mercenary to do your bidding.

What if the "Ending" was completely different depending on which path you take? The outer circle altogether is the "Grand Scheme", the "Foundation".


The Final Point, in Playthrough A you might never ever even be close to the content from Playthrough D, unless you decided to go that path midway into Playthrough A, but before that you wouldn't have any incentive to be in the same area.

Different playthroughs/professions reveal different areas~

[Nonek]

I'm with Hormalakh on this, at least in the sense of pen and paper campaigns, I began with the usual vast maps and international quests but they were always a little dry and lacking. The more I scaled things down, and added detail and reactivity, the more my settings came alive and jumped into the players minds. To the point where I ran a city campaign for two years, in which we hardly ever left the metropolis.

 

It was heartening when my players could remember street layouts from memory, have a whole host of associates and antagonists to draw upon, and prefer to drink at the pub where they knew the clientele and got free ale for past deeds of heroism. It became their place as much as mine, to the point where they actually corrected me on a few issues, which I grudgingly conceded while quietly rejoicing inside.

 

Don't know if that can be achieved in a computer simulation, the closest I would say that came to it was the ever changing lands of Britannia, as the Avatar ventured through them in Ultima 4-7. Be nice if Eternity is successful and can grow like that in future instalments.

[Sacred_Path]

Don't know if that can be achieved in a computer simulation, the closest I would say that came to it was the ever changing lands of Britannia, as the Avatar ventured through them in Ultima 4-7. Be nice if Eternity is successful and can grow like that in future instalments.

It would be great if the changes you make to the world carried over to any sequels (like the geographical changes in Ultima). The aspect of souls offers so many possibilities there.

[Dream]

The more paths there are, the better.

 

Heck, let's say only my content that I'd like to experience is 1%. Fine!!! I didn't experience all 100% on my first playthrough, suck it up, we play differently, and you know why this is important?

 

I get 1% out of all 100% of the content my playthrough and I finish the game only having experienced 1%. Fine. Now next time I play I can experience another 1% of the game. Replayability.

 

Likewise, Hormalakh experiences 1%, I experience 1%, Rostere 1%, Naugalen 1% etc. etc. now my example is a little bit on the extreme side but still, I don't think you'll experience "All" content on your first playthrough or on any playthrough. Going about a Quest in a certain way, locking you out from the other way that you could have went. Past tense, you chose another path, deal with it.

 

Many games lets you start as the same character, and the path is linear like a Magic Missile (several different paths leaving "Point A" and ends up at "Point B"). There might be different paths to it, but Point B is "the same", I'd call that linear.

 

What if you chose to not kill the Archdemon too escape the lands yourself? Kick Alistair in the nuts, run and get backup. DA:O is a bad example. But what if you could start a business in Baldur's Gate, and you conspire yourself and you take over the Iron Throne and you have hired mercenary to do your bidding.

 

What if the "Ending" was completely different depending on which path you take? The outer circle altogether is the "Grand Scheme", the "Foundation".

Forum3.jpg

 

The Final Point, in Playthrough A you might never ever even be close to the content from Playthrough D, unless you decided to go that path midway into Playthrough A, but before that you wouldn't have any incentive to be in the same area.

 

Different playthroughs/professions reveal different areas~

 

The game would have to be like an hour long for that to work.

[Hormalakh]

 

The game would have to be like an hour long for that to work.

 

What a glorious hour that would be!

[Osvir]

1 hour long, 100 different paths.

Jokes aside, it would be cool to have kind of, different "spawn" points that go around the world differently. One goes from South to North, another goes from East to West, reclaim areas by using them differently on different playthroughs.

The Warrior - Charges in from the front door.
The Thief - Swims in through the sewers
The Magician/Diplomat - Asks for an Audience

Likewise, the Warrior could be on a passage of onslaught towards North, but for a Thief playthrough it could imply that you have a mission to steal an artifact for some rich Noble, and it has nothing to do with killing anything, and then return back East. Recycling areas for several playthroughs, or recycling them for backtrack Quests?

Edited January 22, 2013 by Osvir

[Utukka]

^The problem with that is 1) you're essentially having to code separate games within 1 game if your choices are gonna impact more than Merchant A is available or unavailable.  2) They're telling a story, not giving you a real world simulator. 3) Different endings then have to be factored into the expansions or sequels if you don't advance it 100 years. I've heard of several games that gave different choices and multiple endings that completely ignored your "choice" in future installments.

 

Was directed towards Osvirs earlier post.

Edited January 22, 2013 by Utukka

[Dream]

I'd rather have one long very well written path than 100 short simplistic ones, but that's just me.

[Lephys]

I think the Mass Effect series did a pretty good job with the effects of quest decisions (especially carrying over through 3 games). Of course, that was still just a well-above-average number of possible starting states and outcomes for different quests (there still weren't really any "OMG, this city is DIFFERENT because of what I did!" moments).

 

Of course, however wide your cause-effect tree got with its branches, they all just converged at the end, no matter what, which was the brunt of the main complaint with that trilogy's conclusion.

 

But, it was really nice to talk to friends and learn about all the differences in quests and such based on stuff you did in the first game, then stuff you did in the 2nd game, and even choices in the beginning half of the third game.

 

Again, not that it was perfectly executed or anything, but I think they had the right idea (compared to a lot of other RPG stories.)

[Dream]

Yea, ME did a great job. Remember the Rachni queen, the collector base, the council, giving away legion, etc?

 

Loved those choices.

[Lephys]

Well, my point was obviously that P:E should be Mass Effect, so I'm glad you agree. u_u

 

I mean, it's not as if I said something like...

 

 

 

Again, not that it was perfectly executed or anything, but I think they had the right idea (compared to a lot of other RPG stories.)

 

Which is why I now must defend all attacks on Mass Effect with my life! T_T

[Dream]

Heh, I do agree with you in concept; just not in your example.

 

Maybe I'm still bitter about BW's massive hyping of the importance of decisions in ME3 (in the lead up to ME3 they even specifically mentioned the Rachni Queen as an example of a major decision that would come back to haunt you).

 

Personally I liked the way Torment did it. There pretty much everyone got the same ending but based on how you played the game the "feel" was definitely different.

[Lephys]

^ Fair enough. I mean, I personally enjoyed the whole ME series, for what it was. I don't think it's the end-all-be-all model for any RPG or anything. It was a hybrid, and it was a fun game, with a lot of problems (like a bunch of the major decisions only ending up affecting a "How good of a completely one-dimensional ending do you get?"-o-meter).

 

All I was trying to get at by citing it was that, in playing through it, you felt like you had a lot of chances to impact things. Sure, sometimes they ended up not doing much, but that doesn't say anything bad about the offering of choices.

 

And I still think they could've gone with more choices/branches/things-to-affect. But, what with it being fully voice-acted and all (and all hollywooded out to appeal to a larger crowd, etc.), I guess they could only do so much in a certain amount of time (which is why they had to come back with DLC to beef up the still-horrendously-inelegant conclusion.)

 

Just, if you look at it side-by-side with, say, Dragon Age (I know, I know... but they're graphically/engine-ally RIDICULOUSLY similar games), you get WAY more choices and outcomes in ME than in Dragon Age. Dragon Age gives you oodles of pointless decisions that don't even give you IMMEDIATE differences in the outcome.

 

I just like the idea of the little things actually being numerous AND mattering in the bigger picture (just, you know... actually mattering on down the road, which is where the value of the ME example stops.), rather than trying to code in only choices that are huge, pivotal things that decide which mountain explodes and which dimension changes or something.

Edited January 23, 2013 by Lephys

[cosmin haraga]

I subscribe to change being bigger in smaller comunities.

 

Things could work like this for big cities - music change , banners on buildings, guards patrolling according to guild in charge : warrior , mage , priest - shouldn't be too hard / expensive to do - if you did major league quests - you would still have side quests in new setting.

 

 

for smaller comunities - a new building : warrior stone, thief - wood/river dockyard, mage a tower, a few guards etc - they should fall in a bigger city area of influence, characters fatter or slimmer , richer or poorer depending on resources available to programmers. quests could be minor clear this get that

 

the reveisiting of locations can easily be arranged by looking for people/stuff for the stronghold, also by setting up a caravan- trading post - how about that?!?!? I liked a lot the caravan / upgradeable from fallout / even the mod crimson caravan.

 

luckily - I'm not dying for full voiceover - just the first line of dialog would do, dao was more then ok , I could do with a lot less.

[Juneau]

ME 1/2/3(ignore the ending) Was awesome for a story progressing and how character deaths carry over, the story changes etc and how decisions have consequences (people dying). The ending ruined that BUT I think everyone knows that.

 

DA was fantastic for the level of what to do.

 

I do like the idea alot and always have done where what you do effects everything. BUT that only works when games span years. You clear a road of bandits - you see merchants on the road in future. Your a really famous MAGE then the city your in see's an increase in mage stuff (new mage tower/high class tavern called the mages arm) more people in finer robes etc...

 

Say your a ebil warrior - then the city becomes awash with mercs/more pubs/less guards/ scummier (less police)

 

and so on..

[Lephys]

I do like the idea alot and always have done where what you do effects everything. BUT that only works when games span years. You clear a road of bandits - you see merchants on the road in future. Your a really famous MAGE then the city your in see's an increase in mage stuff (new mage tower/high class tavern called the mages arm) more people in finer robes etc...

 

True, except it doesn't necessarily have to be years. I think that's part of what ME did right. Every time you actually progressed, it was assumed an appropriate amount of time had passed (whether it was a day, or a week, or weeks...). The same can EASILY be done with world-map travel, etc., in a game like P:E.

 

You still have a time discrepancy whilst doing things (i.e. "That just took me like an hour, real-time, but the second I completed it and went down the path, that suddenly took all night?!") sometimes. But, it can be minimized with quality design.

 

Also, in Mass Effect, you went back and forth to different places a lot more than in some games. Between that and the assumption of time passing upon quest/mission completions, almost EVERYone always had something new to say, and it always felt like "things" in general were in a different state now, and that it was specific to the choices you made (even if that often only showed in some little bit of dialogue that went along the lines of "Hey, I really like that you picked (insert choice here), 8D!"

 

I don't want everything to just stand still while you spend 3 days in the forest gathering all sorts of information, tracking down baddies, recovering artifacts, and unblocking the mountain stream that feeds a town, THEN magically resume from the exact same point as if you didn't really CHANGE anything and there was simply never a problem to begin with. If you allow things to be different when you get back to town, or when you have to head to a different town, then travel back to a previous one 4 game-hours later, the game world feels a lot more reactive and alive.

 

I think too many RPGs, nowadays, go for the "Let's just offer ALL quests we've thought up for the WHOLE town right here at once and get it over with" approach. You can typically do 7 quests in any order you wish, because they don't really affect one another. But they advertise "choices and dynamics!" because, within each given quest, you get a few branches in the quest line. "Oh, you saved my cat instead of letting that poor old woman keep it because I'm an evil bitch? Well, now SHE gives you the next quest instead of ME, u_u. THE WORLD IS SO ALIVE, ISN'T IT?!"

 

Again, I know ME didn't do everything perfectly, but I'm more trying to focus on WHAT it did that works well, rather than measuring exactly how well it did things.

Edited January 24, 2013 by Lephys

[Juneau]

I agree, in general, with most of what you said. It can be handled and it can be managed and it would be nice to see if it is introduced. The concern I have with a fantasy RPG settings unlike in ME - You'r going to be checking out dungeons/woods/caves etc... The desire to return to places has to be slim, where as within ME your visitng city hubs, towns,areas so change is needed especially in number of people on the streets/what there talking about. (me fan boy here tbh).

 

Take DA2 they reused the same town, pathways, caves and tunnel systems and it DESTROYED the game for me and many many others. The second you realised you were reusing the same places was just sad. I lost all interest in replaying the game as I had seen everything at least 6 times. (I think I managed 2 play throughs spread out between other games where as DA:O was about 7 and I still think I missed stuff.

 

My concern would be IF they implement a time system then don't make us reuse the same places, towns and villages yes. But the same dungeon or set of woods or caves.. Not ideally.