Update #62: Production 01 - State of the Project

[rjshae]

Smaller quests == side quests

 

was my interpretation. Pretty normal stuff for a CRPG; I didn't sense a cause for concern.

 

Presumably the smaller quests may help with faction approval, and provide a reason for exploration and interaction in settled areas. Hopefully a handful of these smaller quests will later tie back into the main quest in some subtle manner.

[LadyCrimson]

One thing I really dislike and I'm seeing a lot of in my play through of IWD II is the over use of the asterix. Please for the love of god, don't use the * around words. We're not idiots and do get the emphasis on words. It's annoying as heck.  

Maybe they were worried italics - commonly used for emphasis in text - would be too hard to read in whatever font they were using.

 

I don't see anything *wrong* with asteriks, tho ... they don't *bother* me *personally*, but it *can* become visually irritating if they're used *toooo* often. *Especially* in short-form convo/story-telling snippets like is often used in gaming.

 

I feel the same way about the over use of exclamation points. Like if there's one at the end of every sentence! To show how upset or angry someone is! Or that they're shouting! Exclamation points should be infrequently used! imo!

[Ineth]

Maybe they were worried italics - commonly used for emphasis in text - would be too hard to read in whatever font they were using

 

Nah, the Infinity Engine simply didn't support it.

 

PE on the other hand, being a new game developed in 2013, likely will.

[rjshae]

 

 

By Brandon Adler, Producer

...

Stronghold

Tim went on a tear and got most of the backend systems for the player stronghold in place. There are a ton of really fun things you can do with your stronghold like sending companions on missions, buying rare loot off of merchants, building upgrades, and even purchasing hirelings to defend your keep from attack. Watching Tim's stronghold get robbed blind because he has low security and high prestige never gets old.

 

These all sound great. I was wondering though about the "sending companions on missions" activity. Are these separate adventures that we, as the players, will be able to play using just the companions? Or do these missions get completed based upon some internal formula? Thanks.

 

Hopefully we can send NPCs we don't like on suicide missions.

 

Then have them defect and join the other side. Bwahahahaha...

[Stun]

 

Maybe they were worried italics - commonly used for emphasis in text - would be too hard to read in whatever font they were using

 

Nah, the Infinity Engine simply didn't support it.

 

Yep. Same thing with Bold (which is what the astricks around words in the IE games was supposed to signify.)

Edited August 27, 2013 by Stun

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

Maybe they were worried italics - commonly used for emphasis in text - would be too hard to read in whatever font they were using.

 

 

I don't see anything *wrong* with asteriks, tho ... they don't *bother* me *personally*, but it *can* become visually irritating if they're used *toooo* often. *Especially* in short-form convo/story-telling snippets like is often used in gaming.

 

I feel the same way about the over use of exclamation points. Like if there's one at the end of every sentence! To show how upset or angry someone is! Or that they're shouting! Exclamation points should be infrequently used! imo!

 

 

It isn't needed. I can read a book without the author resorting to these gimmicks. So I don't understand why game developers have to use them.

[Lephys]

It isn't needed. I can read a book without the author resorting to these gimmicks. So I don't understand why game developers have to use them.

You can read a book without punctuation too much of the time it's still important though a cat is quite fluffy

 

 

The point being that there's a huge difference between "I never accused her of anything!" and "I never accused her of anything!". Those two sentences actually have two different meanings.

 

One is very specifically stressing the falsehood of the action, and the other stresses the falsehood of the target of action. I.e. "I did something to her, but it certainly wasn't accusation," and "I accused someone, but it certainly wasn't her."

 

Sure it's not necessary, but it certainly helps to represent inflection in dialogue that people actually use that would otherwise go unrepresented.

Edited August 27, 2013 by Lephys

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

It isn't needed. I can read a book without the author resorting to these gimmicks. So I don't understand why game developers have to use them.

You can read a book without punctuation too much of the time it's still important though a cat is quite fluffy

 

 

The point being that there's a huge difference between "I never accused her of anything!" and "I never accused her of anything!". Those two sentences actually have two different meanings.

 

One is very specifically stressing the falsehood of the action, and the other stresses the falsehood of the target of action. I.e. "I did something to her, but it certainly wasn't accusation," and "I accused someone, but it certainly wasn't her."

 

Sure it's not necessary, but it certainly helps to represent inflection in dialogue that people actually use that would otherwise go unrepresented.

 

 

Must be a new thing for people these days. Tsk, tsk. The decline of education in our schools.  Authors for centuries didn't need to do this.

[Lephys]

Must be a new thing for people these days. Tsk, tsk. The decline of education in our schools.  Authors for centuries didn't need to do this.

The decline of education in our schools is responsible for the awareness of the difference between claims of benefit and claims of necessity? That seems an odd truth...

 

Also, yes... italics is totally a new thing. It was invented by robot computers, and not by typesetters hundreds of years ago. You got me.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

The decline of education in our schools is responsible for the awareness of the difference between claims of benefit and claims of necessity? That seems an odd truth...

 

Also, yes... italics is totally a new thing. It was invented by robot computers, and not by typesetters hundreds of years ago. You got me.

 

 

So when I pick up a book and can read it without the italics, the asterixs, the dashs and everything else to emphasize certain words, then clearly the author got it wrong. Lephys says so.

[Sedrefilos]

The only thing I want to say (an this is the 3rd or 4th time i'm saying it) is that the letters (in the conversation box) ARE SOOOOOOO SMALL AGAIN!!

 

Plz guyz do something about that! This is so annoying in IE games!

[Ineth]

The only thing I want to say (an this is the 3rd or 4th time i'm saying it) is that the letters (in the conversation box) ARE SOOOOOOO SMALL AGAIN!!

 

Plz guyz do something about that! This is so annoying in IE games!

 

The pic in the update is a downscaled version of the screenshot they took... Click it to open the original screenshot, in which the letters look much bigger.

 

Plz guyz do something about that! This is so annoying in IE games!

 

Those games were designed for 640x480 and 800x600 resolution (+ experimental support for 1024x768 in case of BG2 and IWD2).

 

If you play them on your modern 2560x1440 monitor and use the fan-contributed widescreen mod/hack to force the use of the native screen resolution, you can't blame the game designers if things end up looking small...

 

Personally I prefer to play those games at 800x600 or 1024x768 even today - it will look slightly blurry on modern flat-screen displays (because those have a fixed physical pixel size so resolution down-scaling has to be faked via resampling), but it's not that bad.

[Ineth]

It isn't needed. I can read a book without the author resorting to these gimmicks. So I don't understand why game developers have to use them.

 

Books can use a lot more (continuous) text to describe a given situation, compared to a cRPG in which the writers have to stick to short dialogue lines and descriptive snippets.

 

Thus book authors can much more easily rely on context/repetition/redundancy/annotation to get the intended meaning of sentences across.

 

In a cRPG individual lines have to be much more self-explanatory, thus the aforementioned "gimmicks" come into use.

Edited August 27, 2013 by Ineth

[Stun]

Just a note w/ regards to text size and screen resolution, the GoG version of all the IE games features adequately resized screen resolutions - meaning you won't have a problem with tiny text, or having to play in windowed mode or any other such nonsense.

[rjshae]

 

It isn't needed. I can read a book without the author resorting to these gimmicks. So I don't understand why game developers have to use them.

 

Books can use a lot more (continuous) text to describe a given situation, compared to a cRPG in which the writers have to stick to short dialogue lines and descriptive snippets.

 

Thus book authors can much more easily rely on context/repetition/redundancy/annotation to get the intended meaning of sentences across.

 

In a cRPG individual lines have to be much more self-explanatory, thus the aforementioned "gimmicks" come into use.

 

Agreed. However, I regularly see out of copyright books using italics for the aforementioned purpose. It's not just a recent gimmick intended for new millennium slackers. It can be overused, but when it is use properly it is beneficial for communicating tone.

Edited August 27, 2013 by rjshae

[Xienzi]

I'd like to point out that if it weren't for italics, species nomenclature would be so much more complicated.

[Lephys]

So when I pick up a book and can read it without the italics, the asterixs, the dashs and everything else to emphasize certain words, then clearly the author got it wrong. Lephys says so.

Truer words were never spoken. I do believe you've somehow managed to hit my point far more precisely than even I myself had done. I mean, looking back, I can't even find a single word to quote (much less a string of words) that isn't screaming "obviously authors who don't emphasize certain words with visual means are doing it wrong." Luckily you got one of those good educations before it all went downhill, eh?

 

Also, it goes without saying that something cannot be beneficial without being necessary. My car? Pssh... I have the capability to walk 30 miles, so I could easily get to work without it. I don't actually need my car to reach work. Therefore, we shouldn't use vehicles. I mean, people were getting by without vehicles for a long time, so that clearly means they serve absolutely no purpose.

 

Necessity = purpose. Lack of necessity = pointless.

 

Your understanding of things is beyond measure.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

So when I pick up a book and can read it without the italics, the asterixs, the dashs and everything else to emphasize certain words, then clearly the author got it wrong. Lephys says so.

Truer words were never spoken. I do believe you've somehow managed to hit my point far more precisely than even I myself had done. I mean, looking back, I can't even find a single word to quote (much less a string of words) that isn't screaming "obviously authors who don't emphasize certain words with visual means are doing it wrong." Luckily you got one of those good educations before it all went downhill, eh?

 

Also, it goes without saying that something cannot be beneficial without being necessary. My car? Pssh... I have the capability to walk 30 miles, so I could easily get to work without it. I don't actually need my car to reach work. Therefore, we shouldn't use vehicles. I mean, people were getting by without vehicles for a long time, so that clearly means they serve absolutely no purpose.

 

Necessity = purpose. Lack of necessity = pointless.

 

Your understanding of things is beyond measure.

 

 

Comparing apples and oranges. Cars? Completely missed the mark.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

 

Books can use a lot more (continuous) text to describe a given situation, compared to a cRPG in which the writers have to stick to short dialogue lines and descriptive snippets.

 

 

Thus book authors can much more easily rely on context/repetition/redundancy/annotation to get the intended meaning of sentences across.

 

In a cRPG individual lines have to be much more self-explanatory, thus the aforementioned "gimmicks" come into use.

 

 

Ah, ok. So the below dialogue *needed* emphasis because *most* people wouldn't *get it*. The developers *had* to show the *emphasis* on the words *I* and *you*.

 

 

Because hey, the below dialogue written out would have totally confused everyone.

 

Oswald Fiddlebender- Of course I can! I'll need to find more components though... and guard my ship - or what's left of it. Say, I could guard the ship while you retrieved my spell's components - I wrote them all down in that book over there. Interested?

[Lephys]

Comparing apples and oranges. Cars? Completely missed the mark.

Hahaha... ^_^. You're fantastic, you know that? Truly.

 

Cars provide speedier travel, which is useful but not necessary.

 

Italics/bolding, etc., provides indication of more precise inflection/tone in textual dialogue, which is useful but not necessary.

 

You're right. Apples and oranges. I don't know what came over me, as I was clearly trying to point out how similar cars are to italics. I could've sworn they were practically the same thing, for a moment there. Hmm...

 

I'll not argue that I missed a mark, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the mark.

 

(See how much splendid-though-unnecessary use I'm getting out of italics? You should try it sometime, 8D)

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

Comparing apples and oranges. Cars? Completely missed the mark.

Hahaha... ^_^. You're fantastic, you know that? Truly.

 

Cars provide speedier travel, which is useful but not necessary.

 

Italics/bolding, etc., provides indication of more precise inflection/tone in textual dialogue, which is useful but not necessary.

 

You're right. Apples and oranges. I don't know what came over me, as I was clearly trying to point out how similar cars are to italics. I could've sworn they were practically the same thing, for a moment there. Hmm...

 

I'll not argue that I missed a mark, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the mark.

 

(See how much splendid-though-unnecessary use I'm getting out of italics? You should try it sometime, 8D)

 

 

Nope, look at my example of IWD 2 which is what I originally started this about. If you're going to use an example, then at least keep it in context. Since this is game design, and the overuse of asterixs and other gimmicks to highlight uneccessary words, then how about showing dialogue which is used to great effect? Since you're such a proponent of using these gimmicks in game design?

 

Waits for the next irrelevant apples to oranges red herring comparison, or an actual screen shot of a game where these gimmicks are useful. Since this is all about game design.

 

Note, I didn't have to emphasize any words.

[Lephys]

Nope, look at my example of IWD 2 which is what I originally started this about. If you're going to use an example, then at least keep it in context. Since this is game design, and the overuse of asterixs and other gimmicks to highlight uneccessary words, then how about showing dialogue which is used to great effect? Since you're such a proponent of using these gimmicks in game design?

I wasn't aware that the two possibilities were the "overuse" of such things, or the complete absence of their use. I'm... not really sure how that works, to be honest. One would think that something that's overused could, by very definition, be potentially underused, which would mean that some kind of equilibrium exists there, in the middle, in the form of simple, unprefixed "use."

 

Two things you're ignoring:

 

A) I still have yet to claim that visual indication of inflection is just-plain necessary for textual dialogue to even function, and yet you're still arguing against that for some befuddling reason.

 

B) I already made an example of how it can be used to great (and yet still not necessary) effect.

 

You know what, though? I'll go again, shall I?

 

"I could help you" vs "I could help you." Without saying any other words, the second emphasizes the fact that it's there's a possibility of help (as in conditional) as opposed to the text simply being a statement of the fact that the speaker has the means to help you.

 

"I can't help you" vs "I can't help you." The second version specifies that the speaker is conflicted about helping, based on the identity of the "you," rather than simply stating that they lack the ability to help the other person (as in the first version).

 

It's functionally the exact same thing as using an exclamation point instead of a period. Or, better yet, a question mark. "You've already eaten." versus "You've already eaten?" Same exact words. Only the punctuation tells us how to read it, and the specific meaning of the sentence. Same with italics. As in the above example, "can" has various specific meanings. A precise use of emphasis conveys one meaning over another. It provides knowledge of that precise meaning that would otherwise be guessed.

 

And, just to stress one more time, it's still not necessary to be able to read dialogue. It's simply nice to be able to convey a more precise meaning of a sentence/word that could possess any number of nuanced meanings, depending on inflection. Why do you think we use inflection when we speak in the first place? Why don't we all just speak in monotone? If we do it in speech, why would we arbitrarily forego it in text?

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

I wasn't aware that the two possibilities were the "overuse" of such things, or the complete absence of their use. I'm... not really sure how that works, to be honest. One would think that something that's overused could, by very definition, be potentially underused, which would mean that some kind of equilibrium exists there, in the middle, in the form of simple, unprefixed "use."

 

Two things you're ignoring:

 

A) I still have yet to claim that visual indication of inflection is just-plain necessary for textual dialogue to even function, and yet you're still arguing against that for some befuddling reason.

 

B) I already made an example of how it can be used to great (and yet still not necessary) effect.

 

You know what, though? I'll go again, shall I?

 

"I could help you" vs "I could help you." Without saying any other words, the second emphasizes the fact that it's there's a possibility of help (as in conditional) as opposed to the text simply being a statement of the fact that the speaker has the means to help you.

 

"I can't help you" vs "I can't help you." The second version specifies that the speaker is conflicted about helping, based on the identity of the "you," rather than simply stating that they lack the ability to help the other person (as in the first version).

 

It's functionally the exact same thing as using an exclamation point instead of a period. Or, better yet, a question mark. "You've already eaten." versus "You've already eaten?" Same exact words. Only the punctuation tells us how to read it, and the specific meaning of the sentence. Same with italics. As in the above example, "can" has various specific meanings. A precise use of emphasis conveys one meaning over another. It provides knowledge of that precise meaning that would otherwise be guessed.

 

And, just to stress one more time, it's still not necessary to be able to read dialogue. It's simply nice to be able to convey a more precise meaning of a sentence/word that could possess any number of nuanced meanings, depending on inflection. Why do you think we use inflection when we speak in the first place? Why don't we all just speak in monotone? If we do it in speech, why would we arbitrarily forego it in text?

 

 

Congratulations, more red herrings. Why doesn't that surprise me.

 

It seems it's hard for you to stay on topic with game design with my original quote of using asterixs in IWD 2. Not once have you listed games that use it effectively to rebut my stance on IWD 2. I requested not to use them in P:E because they're unnecessary. How about sticking to the actual topic of games and showing games where it's been useful if you're such a proponent of it.

Edited August 28, 2013 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Lephys]

The topic isn't your quote and only your quote. Your quote is an example of the topic, which is the emphasis of specific words within a section of dialogue text via visual indication. Italics, bolding, asterisks... They're all just substitutes for one another.

 

At the very least, if I'm off-topic, and you don't disagree with me (because the only thing you disagree with is the use of asterisks), then you agree with the use of visual indicators to emphasize key words, as long as it's not done with asterisks like in IWD 2. So, maybe I'm off your overly specific topic, but that still brings us to the fact that the potential for visual emphasis on key words serves a useful purpose.

 

As for the "you haven't shown me any game examples" bit, that's utterly preposterous and irrelevant. If game examples were the only useful examples, then why did you point out the fact that authors have done without such "gimmicks" for years to support your argument that these "gimmicks" are pointless? By your very own reasoning, that wasn't a game example, and therefore was completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Oh wait, except dialogue text is dialogue text, no matter if it is displayed within a game or printed upon a page.

 

I can't believe you're serious, at this point. It's highly, highly improbable that you're not simply being difficult on purpose, for the jollies.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

The topic isn't your quote and only your quote. Your quote is an example of the topic, which is the emphasis of specific words within a section of dialogue text via visual indication. Italics, bolding, asterisks... They're all just substitutes for one another.

 

At the very least, if I'm off-topic, and you don't disagree with me (because the only thing you disagree with is the use of asterisks), then you agree with the use of visual indicators to emphasize key words, as long as it's not done with asterisks like in IWD 2. So, maybe I'm off your overly specific topic, but that still brings us to the fact that the potential for visual emphasis on key words serves a useful purpose.

 

As for the "you haven't shown me any game examples" bit, that's utterly preposterous and irrelevant. If game examples were the only useful examples, then why did you point out the fact that authors have done without such "gimmicks" for years to support your argument that these "gimmicks" are pointless? By your very own reasoning, that wasn't a game example, and therefore was completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Oh wait, except dialogue text is dialogue text, no matter if it is displayed within a game or printed upon a page.

 

I can't believe you're serious, at this point. It's highly, highly improbable that you're not simply being difficult on purpose, for the jollies.

 

 

For what must be the third time already. Can you show screen shots of games where the emphasis of words with gimmicks like asterixs has added to the game and was necessary?

 

Also attacking me for being difficult and for the jollies is poor form. You've been consistantly avoiding the issue of where these gimmicks have been added to games and added context to what's been said in games. Who's being difficult? It's certainly not me when I've shown an example from IWD 2 where it's unnecessary.