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Just ignore some of the other nonsense I was saying at the time. I was also wrong about Fargo controlling the word count (and the Italian localization paid for it).
Just ignore some of the other nonsense I was saying at the time. I was also wrong about Fargo controlling the word count (and the Italian localization paid for it).
Maybe the falling out with Ksaun was about the word count? It's very unlikely that Fargo would've stopped caring about localization costs. It all depends on whether they reached an extremely high number before or after he got fired.
Also:
Plus I'm going to blindly trust that the combat will actually be fun this time.
how could anyone say "at the last moment we thought damn we're loaded on nano's" as if that was a last minute thought. Ah, who was in charge of balance-is that a last minute thing to consider? I
how could anyone say "at the last moment we thought damn we're loaded on nano's" as if that was a last minute thought. Ah, who was in charge of balance-is that a last minute thing to consider? I
how could anyone say "at the last moment we thought damn we're loaded on nano's" as if that was a last minute thought. Ah, who was in charge of balance-is that a last minute thing to consider? I
1. Take responsibility for being wrong, and why we went down the wrong path (just like me and many other 1998-2002 storyfags did, by admitting that we allowed a small number of amazingly well-written and thematic games to influence us into thinking that such 'games as art' could be produced on a regular basis, and that we overlooked all the Bioware-esque shit, furries and waifu shenanigans, and completely failed to realise that developers might use that shit as an excuse for shit gameplay).
OR, if we didn't get it wrong for years, then
2. Stop pretending that we never championed the advantages of "text descriptors for every object you can click on", or that we derided Bioware for catering to illiterates, or that we made numerous posts expressing disappointment at MCA's belief that PS:T had too much text, or that we hand-waived the same criticisms we're making now as the views of illiterate console peasants. And then actually elucidate the difference between the "text-heavy crpgs" we were demanding (again, this is the 'we didn't get it wrong and then demand that developers cater to our shitty wrong beliefs' option), and the flaws that we see in TTON.
1. Well if the industry cant reproduce well written games maybe its time to turn the lights off and call it a game-over. The gameplay and writing are two different departments as far as I am concerned. If you have same people doing directly opposite stuff - wait for trouble. They can intersect at some points of the game, but are generally different and ideally should be done by different people.
2. I am all for text descriptors (look my previous post about PST). The problem here is the descriptor quality and more importantly their relevance. I believe that nobody cares about well written description of green grass outside or how sun is kissing PC skin. Not that they achieved that level of writing or anything.
"Dude, you just fell from the sky. You're a castoff, but it's also possible you're the Changing God. You'll need to fix that machine."
vs.
"Dude, you just woke on the slab. You're basically a zombie, with some weird tattoos on your back. You'll need to find that journal."
It's all a matter of how you put it. I found it pretty cool that you learn your objective - fix the Resonance Chamber - right at the start and it's something that pushes you forward through the entire game, as you slowly learn what that machine actually does. Castoffs are common, but that's not a bad thing in itself, is it? It just says something about the Changing God himself, and it's interesting to see how all these different castoffs decided to utilize their gifts, what they think of the Changing God himself. Notice, that even though you get the idea about your brethren and the Changing God fairly quickly, it's but a general idea and what you learn later on in the game broadens that knowledge a whole lot.
Expecting a game written on the level of Planescape: Torment is a bit naive. It was developed by much younger devs, who could devote a lot more time and thought to it; it was an early magnum opus (in writing, not in general, I hope) by a very driven MCA. It was placed in a well-documented setting. T:ToN is about repeating certain approaches, a certain ambiance, but it has to be regarded as its own thing, really.
It just struck me. You know what would have enormously improved the basic plot of TTON, without much alteration in dialogue?
Make it ambiguous whether or not you're the Changing God's last castoff.
Keep the Calliste/Alligern immediate explanation - they've based their life's work around the search for the Changing God, so of course that's going to be their first and nigh-unshakeable explanation.
But you're a star that's crashed to earth FFS. You could be a new, entirely different god. You could be the Sorrow made manifest, with the game's existing incarnation of the Sorrow trying desperately to re-absorb you because even as a primal entity, it's lived for so long (and experienced the beauty of living) that it doesn't want to fade to death just because you, Sorrow upgrade 2.0, are so much more adept at achieving its original aims. You could be the Changing God itself, having deliberately erased his own memories in order to throw the Sorrow off the scent. You could have nothing to do with any of it, and just be some random-guy-done-good
(I'm thinking of the villain in Captain America: Civil War the film, where they're so focussed on stopping whatever 'great evil plot' is at hand, that it never occurs to them that it's just some random guy, a competent Slovakian intelligence officer but nothing more than that, not capable of bringing himself to torture the Hydra guy beyond basic water-boarding, seeking revenge for something they didn't even notice that they'd done)
who has given himself extremely temporary immortality at the cost of his memory, in order to get revenge for something that none of the major players even realised they caused.
Make that last one a 'special bonus' possibility for those who explore everything and then link their findings together in an intelligent way.
And then, after all of those possibilities are revealed, at the 2/3 mark, kill/destroy the one person/evidence that could tell the character which possibility is right. Players who know that it's at least possible that they have nothing to do with the Changing God still get a decent reward for that discovery, as it puts them in a very different decision for all choices from that point. It's one thing to not know which side you were on in a eons-long war. It's anothing entirely to know that there's at least a realistic possibility, a minimum 1/4 chance, that you've got nothing top do with any of it. And that you'd better hurry the fuck up and get your revenge (i.e. choose what would normally be the ultra-ultra-crazy-idiot-evil option of killing every major character involved in the Changing God v Sorrow conflict) because your immortality could run out any minute.
The player can't know whether that 4th theory is right, any more than the others. So it forces the player to think about whether the Changing God, Sorrow and all their mortal enablers should be wiped from existence, wwith the knowledge that there's at least one plausible perspective in which it might be morally justified.
Meh, for me the game provided no mystery and no urgency. The game could have not told the player who he is, why is he being attacked/poisoned and more importantly BY WHOM. Like a spot of black tissue (resin like) on your chest is expanding and you have to repair the resonance chamber to stop it's growth or else it would change your stats (if you had any. Like dmg resistance, increased strength, added tentacles, but significantly reduced charisma (if you had any) or int/wis and ability to smooth talk, or vice versa, or add some psychic powers (or even add a new class/sub-class), or ability to create your clones, or ability to poison NPCs/to make them obey/increase their powers. The number of possibilities is truly infinite.) and consume all of your body and soul if the PC won't get healed. (and that's why kids STATS & SKILLS DO MATTER)
In the game the Sorrow just slowly hunts all of chaning gods cast-offs, but doens't give you special attention, because you are one of many. Even your ability to regenerate is being slowly dissolved by poisoning from Sorrow. If perhaps you spent too much time doing shit half of you would become covered in that strange black material and latter it would cover all of you. It could give some alternatives, the PC decides to be covered in that material, and become like Ignus, maybe the PC should choose to be fully healed or maybe half healed by the fixed chamber/or increase the power of corruption with the machine if the player has done the things necessary to make it possible and etc. Or some other technological intervention could change the material and it's composition for entirely different effects if the PC fails at fixing the chamber.
The possibilities are numerous, but then the people should be managed.
One of the problems I have with the developers is that they thought they could rediscover something they did in their youth.
Anyone who is basically past 30 now knows how stupid that is.
Avellone goes on about how he tried to do the opposite and go against so many gaming norms of the time.
1) A game where you could not die. Where succubus was the kindest person in the game. Zombies that don't kill you. Probably loads more that I never even realised since I only played PST last year.
Were the Tides games designers equally brave or did they try and copy PST and make the game PST squared?
2) If they were brave like Avellone, maybe they would have made a game where the hero was the weakest character in the game like Breakalot Samuel Jackson guy in the film Unbreakable.
3) Maybe the game tracks your death and each time that happens you lose a stat or skill.
Maybe you could only recruit animals to your party. There are a few interesting ones in the game.
4) Maybe getting eaten by cannibals and losing some HP is the only way to solve that quest.
5) If you can change reality in Meres why can't you kill yourself or bring someone back to life.
6) Or why is the hero the hero, why can't someone else be - a npc or companion
7) It seems the brave choices they made, like the implementation of Effort, basically made the game easy did not push any boundaries like PST did.
Forget the Planescape Universe for a moment. Forget C&C and story - what did PST do? Create a gaming experience like no other by going against many norms of the day.
Basically this is a good post, but i would like to add some things and show you some mistakes in this very loose set of thoughts.
1) You have forgotten the Cranium Rats, which gave the "go in cellar and kill rats" a new spin. (One of the best things.)
2) Not necessary weakest, this would be a lose on the hero, and has never functioned. Ronal the barbarian is one nice example for this failure. Heroes have to be extraordinary, but they do not necessarily have to fit in into the enviroment (outsider and wanderer (the nameless) trope).
3) This would be the normal cause and death would be avoided by load and save abuse. Death should alter things, but not the protagonist.
4) Sacrifice of the hero as a mean for a desired result is an very old concept and is the major part of the greek drama.
5) A very nice thought.
6) In Mad Max films Max Rockatansky is mostly the observer. But cRPG is a medium that requires player input for progression, and by omniting the player you make a more story based game, where the player becomes an observer with limited direct influence on the world.
7) This is the problem of Numenera, like the combat.
Or negative progression - hero start at lvl 20 in terms of DnD and every time he get lvlup (well, sort of) he goes from lvl 20 to lvl 1 - poison (D.O.A.) or he is sick some disease.
Or negative progression - hero start at lvl 20 in terms of DnD and every time he get lvlvup (well, sort of) he goes from lvl 20 to lvl 1 - poison (D.O.A.) or he is sick some disease.
I remember playing Alternate Reality - Dungeon a while back and despite trying to scum save and avoid dying the game somehow knew what was going on and always stopped me. For example, if I took out the floppy disk during a very difficult encounter and died, there was no way to stop that death, maybe even if I made a copy of the disk. I remember trying all that stuff in vain.
So, it should be possible to stop people saving and reloading to get positive outcomes, especially when the designers claimed some interesting things would happen on a fail.
It just struck me. You know what would have enormously improved the basic plot of TTON, without much alteration in dialogue?
Make it ambiguous whether or not you're the Changing God's last castoff.
Keep the Calliste/Alligern immediate explanation - they've based their life's work around the search for the Changing God, so of course that's going to be their first and nigh-unshakeable explanation.
But you're a star that's crashed to earth FFS. You could be a new, entirely different god.
i just thought it would have been pretty funny if the main character was actually not a product of the changing god but a trap conceived and created by the sorrow to infiltrate and unite the other castoffs - and then crush them all at once. could have been a nice twist with small hints placed here and there in the storyline.
Forget the Planescape Universe for a moment. Forget C&C and story - what did PST do? Create a gaming experience like no other by going against many norms of the day.
That's all nice and well, but you forgot to consider whom you are dealing with. You are not talking about a passionate gamer, you are talking about Brian “I wanna make cinematic games and lead Interplay to the ground” Fargo. The same guy who thinks that cRPGs can be manufactured on assembly lines, promoted on trailes like hot dogs, and ported to consoles at the expenses of his backers. Stop and think for a moment how nonsensical and pointless it is discussing counterfactuals in which quality gaming is the main imperative when the reality involves Brian Fargo.
Another problem is that you are repeating this narrative that makes PS:T seem much more innovative than it really is. Let’s not forget that the game has trash mobs, places to explore, weapons, etc. The game it is much more traditional than some people want us to believe. Besides, what made the game special is the interesting narrative premise tied to the gameplay, not the fact that some game conventions were dropped.
I know what you mean. I played it a few times after I bought it and barely got out of the mortuary.
Do what I did - buy it, wait 15 years for your brain to fully mature, get resolve, then play it in a quite determination to finally answer is it the best RPG of all time or are the Codexians and other practitioners of the RPG arts total retards.
Long before I ever heard the term “Jump the Shark”, I began to see some warning signs of Interplay’s continued success. I sensed a change in the management. There was a shift from a passion for game making, to a desire to make Hollywood-style cinema. We changed from the old adage of “Shoot for the moon. Here’s a nickel.” to “How can we make this experience more like watching a movie.” It began with Stonekeep (which started as a throwback to the old Bard’s Tale, but became a nightmare of “cinematic experience”), and exploded with the Sim-CD series (Interplay’s remakes of SimCity, SimAnt, and SimEarth in CD-ROM format with lots of movies) and the horror show that was “Cyberhood” (an interactive movie that became a black hole of funds.)
I remember one producer summit when we first saw the film footage shot for Sim City CD. The idea was that you could click on buildings and see a movie of the people inside living their lives. They were 30 second clips of people watching TV, or sleeping in bed, or doing aerobics, or eating cereal. And there were dozens of these clips; the most boring and mundane things you can imagine. Immediately after seeing this footage, we learned that it cost over a million dollars to film… and there was more filming to do. Considering that most of the games in production had a sub 100K budget, I (and many of the producers there) about had aneurisms. All it took was for this one game to be a train wreck, and the whole company suffers, or even dies.
Hmm, had never heard about Cyberhood before. A search turned up this:
A live action video game I wrote with science fiction master Robert Sheckley. It was the first million dollar budgeted live action video game. After shooting was completed, the company CEO divorced his wife who was one of the game's live action stars and, for personal reasons. refused to release the game! Ah, Bartleby, ah Hollywood!
Hmm, had never heard about Cyberhood before. A search turned up this:
A live action video game I wrote with science fiction master Robert Sheckley. It was the first million dollar budgeted live action video game. After shooting was completed, the company CEO divorced his wife who was one of the game's live action stars and, for personal reasons. refused to release the game! Ah, Bartleby, ah Hollywood!
Yep, a very strange argument indeed, how can you excuse your writing sucking because some people commented about something on the internet? If this was the case, then you aren't qualified to be a writer to start with.
It is a new version of the "Codex ruins everything!", after World War III it will be discovered it was us that started it.
Yep, a very strange argument indeed, how can you excuse your writing sucking because some people commented about something on the internet? If this was the case, then you aren't qualified to be a writer to start with. It is a new version of the "Codex ruins everything!", after World War III it will be discovered it was us that started it.
There is nothing wrong in blacklisting us, or ignoring what we have to say, because we are a bunch of nobodies, but we can be held accountable for hurting the sales of a game on a supposedly massive down rating review conspiracy, or for the bad writing of the game. Go figure.
Yep, a very strange argument indeed, how can you excuse your writing sucking because some people commented about something on the internet? If this was the case, then you aren't qualified to be a writer to start with. It is a new version of the "Codex ruins everything!", after World War III it will be discovered it was us that started it.
There is nothing wrong in blacklisting us, or ignoring what we have to say, because we are a bunch of nobodies, but we can be held accountable for hurting the sales of a game on a supposedly massive down rating review conspiracy, or for the bad writing of the game. Go figure.
We of all the people wanted the fucking thing to be good, now we are blamed for down rating... I didn't even rate the thing cause it's pointless right now.
Yep, a very strange argument indeed, how can you excuse your writing sucking because some people commented about something on the internet? If this was the case, then you aren't qualified to be a writer to start with.
It is a new version of the "Codex ruins everything!", after World War III it will be discovered it was us that started it.
Yep, a very strange argument indeed, how can you excuse your writing sucking because some people commented about something on the internet? If this was the case, then you aren't qualified to be a writer to start with.
It is a new version of the "Codex ruins everything!", after World War III it will be discovered it was us that started it.
Hmm let me channel my inner Noam Chomsky.... Oommmmm
The family of languages are in Type 0, Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3 grammars. Type 0 grammars are recursively enumerable (alpha->beta wihtout restrictions) represented with the turing mchine... Type 3 are regular languanges represented with the finite state automaton ... USA is guilty of everything even without a blowback ...
So you have posted on the codex, because someone posted his retarded shit on the codex. While doing so you have not closed the door and you have not given the cat its food. The cat was hungry and because there was no food it went out of the home, because you have not closed the door in search for a other food source. Therefore the codex is guilty and if you wouldn't read and post on the codex you still would have a cat.
