The Flow of Continuity

[600lbpanther]

What I define as "The Flow of Continuity" (applying to cRPGs) are:  The consequences of actions and the affect of events on both people and environment that sustain our suspended disbelief throughout the story. These actions and events are permanent changes to the gameplay, story outcome, environment, or any combination of those 3. 

 

When you look at leveling up in skill, receiving better weapons/armor, or learning new spells you see that these are all vehicles to show progression through a story.  These work on the micro level (say the protaganist) which help facilitate the sale that the character is getting stronger and will eventually solve the macro level problem (say the antagonist). 

 

A lot of times you will grow in strength, power, intellect, etc. and the world around you (people, direction of story, environment) remains relatively unchanged throughout the game.  When you finish a game then you may see (i.e. via cut scene) the ramifications of your decisions and a lot of times these decisions are really just the decision to defeat the antagonist (generally regardless of if you were a warrior, a politican, a "good" person, or a "bad" person while you did it).

 

What would help a game-world's story are actions that have consequences (ranging in severity) and events that have permanent, lasting affects (also ranging in severity).  These actions and events are affected by the path of the character and happen over the course of the game as opposed to just being seen in end game cut scenes.  These actions and events can be immediate or accomplished over a set duration of time. 

 

ACTIONS:

These happenings can be triggered by a single action or triggered by multiple actions.  In the multiple action option the end consequence is still being decided until the final triggering action is chosen then based on which actions were chosen together the attending consequence is levied. 

 

EVENTS:

These happenings can be triggered by actions or by cataclysmic events.

 

In summary, a lot of emphasis is put on the micro level (the character) to make them feel special, unique, or at least more competent at the end of the game.  A lot more emphasis should be put on the macro level (the game world) and how the micro level (the character) is directly / indirectly affecting it.

[AGX-17]

These broad vagaries of game design are a little... no, a lot too late. Better suited for general gaming discussion than PoE at this point.

 

It seems like a lot of backers were unaware that Obsidian already had forums and had Project Eternity boards up in succession with the kickstarter, in which we spent many a night drinking copious amounts of alcohol while arguing the finer points of codpiece design. Hard to believe it was all a year and a half ago now.

 

Have some faith, the grand council of sages at Obsidian have already decided on these factors. Peace be upon you. Kuwabara kuwarabara.

Edited March 3, 2014 by AGX-17

[600lbpanther]

Great answer AGX-17...Sounds like I missed the boat on the real impactful game design discussions though I trust you all put a good word in for me on the small, but fierce, cod pieces.