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Letting go of the checklist: Zombra says you shouldn't do everything in RPGs

Zombra

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I guess it's time for me to remind everyone that you don't have to click every option in every conversation. If you're not interested in some street thug's life story, don't ask him about it. Walk on by. It's cool to have that stuff there in case you do find a character interesting, but pretty much everyone will get to the point if you just say, "What's up, I'm here to disarm a bomb, where is it."
 

Silva

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Then why to create those walls of text in the first place? Why not invest the time and money that went into it to, you know, actually code and improve the game/mechanics aspect? Let the dramatic novellas to the books and soap operas. Gimme a badass GAME to play. I don't want to read a game, I want to play it. And the "game" parts are so shallow and uninteresting that it's pointless.

I keep coming back to these games because I'm a shadowrun lover, I love the setting and ideas that went into it, but each time I fire it up and do some quests I come back frustrated that lost precious hours of my life reading a book on the monitor instead of playing a game.
 

Zombra

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Then why to create those walls of text in the first place?
Because they want to, and some of their audience enjoy them. Optional content is a good thing.

Gimme a badass GAME to play. I don't want to read a game, I want to play it. And the "game" parts are so shallow and uninteresting that it's pointless.

I keep coming back to these games
Stop. Stop coming back to them. They're not what you want. How many times do you have to burn yourself before you stop licking the stove?
 

InD_ImaginE

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Thing is people complaining about this is pretty much the same with people complaining about autistic loot hoarding. You know 90% of the loot is useless, you still hoard them because you have ADHD.

You know you don't enjoy reading the dialogue. Still click and read all of them ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If you think reducing the text by 50% will suddenly make the game into JA2:Shadowrun Edition, get a reality check. If the dev are going for that game, they WILL go to that game even with the amount of text they had.
 

Sykar

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Thing is people complaining about this is pretty much the same with people complaining about autistic loot hoarding. You know 90% of the loot is useless, you still hoard them because you have ADHD.

You know you don't enjoy reading the dialogue. Still click and read all of them ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If you think reducing the text by 50% will suddenly make the game into JA2:Shadowrun Edition, get a reality check. If the dev are going for that game, they WILL go to that game even with the amount of text they had.

I have ADHD?

:despair:
 

Infinitum

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Problem is, the gameplay loop of rpgs assumes that players skip through all the inane dialogue they can find since there might be quest or reward prompts within. Makes hong kong all the more awkward since there is no way of telling beforehand that going through the dialogue changes nothing (iirc you get like 1 karma point from the doctor and unlock the good ending with the mage).
 

Jason Liang

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Yeah, there I like the Troika version better, where instead of clicking through purple prose dialogue trees, you can slaughter the stupid Ork family and/ or mind control bug them as your frontline fodder/ sex slaves.
 

almondblight

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I enjoy fluff dialogue, and enjoyed it in Dragonfall. The problem with SRHK isn't that it's fluff dialogue, but that it's bad fluff dialogue. I did eventually stop reading it, but when you find yourself avoiding elements of the game you usually enjoy because it's poorly done, it's a bad sign. Shadowlands is another example of how they misfired with the fluff - in Dragonfall Shadowlands BBS was a place where runners would share stories and rumors; in Hong Kong, Shadowlands was basically Reddit.

As I've said before, the whole game (encounter design, non-combat gameplay, mission design, writing, companions, fluff elements, etc.) is a pretty steep decline in quality from Dragonfall (though it had some decent mission premises). It's not surprising that the game felt so half-baked and unpolished - it only had a 7 month development cycle. That's about as long as the first Dragonfall release, though with Hong Kong they were also dealing with updating the engine with new and pointless features (also probably dealing with more turnover because of the gap between DF: DC and SR:HK). It would have been nice to see what they would have done if they took a year/year and a hald and simply re-used the Dragonfall engine.
 

Zombra

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Problem is, the gameplay loop of rpgs assumes that players skip through all the inane dialogue they can find since there might be quest or reward prompts within. Makes hong kong all the more awkward since there is no way of telling beforehand that going through the dialogue changes nothing (iirc you get like 1 karma point from the doctor and unlock the good ending with the mage).
Stop being a rat in a Skinner box. That 2 xp isn't going to fucking matter. Even if you only find 43 out of 44 missions in the game, your life will go on. Let it go.
 
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Delterius

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Problem is, the gameplay loop of rpgs assumes that players skip through all the inane dialogue they can find since there might be quest or reward prompts within. Makes hong kong all the more awkward since there is no way of telling beforehand that going through the dialogue changes nothing (iirc you get like 1 karma point from the doctor and unlock the good ending with the mage).
Stop being a rat in a Skinner box. That 2 xp isn't going to fucking matter. Even if you only find 43 out of 44 missions in the game, your life will go on. Let it go.
Your advice doesn't work for the things involved. Experience is one of the goals of the game. There's no way to know those little awards are going to add to squat to 20 EXPs later on. Further, one of the dialogues unlocks the good ending of the game. If that isn't a reason to edit this dialogue, nothing can possibly be.

HK had a better setting than Dragonfall, but the latter is the better story. Reason being better editing and a better realized story arc. HK is just everywhere and the walls of text won't help. I'm the guy who wants to know every thug's backstory and HK is too much, even for me.
 

Zombra

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Stop being a rat in a Skinner box.
Your advice doesn't work for the things involved.
Sure it does! I played and enjoyed all three games.

Experience is one of the goals of the game.
Preposterous. It's certainly part of the reward and progression system, but it's not a goal in itself unless you make it one. The goal is to solve your partner's murder, or avenge your mentor, or find your foster father. Did you get to the end of any of these games, then realize you might have missed xp somewhere and say to yourself, "Oh no, I lost the game?" Or would that be ridiculous?

I mean, if you find digging in every figurative trash can to be fun and fulfilling, knock yourself out, but don't pretend that someone who walks by them is "doing it wrong" or not pursuing the goals of the game. If the devs didn't intend saying "Goodbye" to be an option, the option would not exist.

There's no way to know those little awards are going to add to squat to 20 EXPs later on.
So you have to min-max every single game you ever play, dig in every trash can, scour every basement for hours to kill every rat because "I might need that 35¢ from selling a rat pelt later"? That's a very depressing approach to what's supposed to be entertainment. Again, if that's your "thing", enjoy yourself I guess. Trust me, I play and complete plenty of games without living in constant terror that there's something, somewhere, I missed in my Important Quest to Level Up a Little More.

Further, one of the dialogues unlocks the good ending of the game.
Interesting! I didn't know that. Is this dialogue obscure and hidden, or is it reasonably likely that the player will find it on the main path? Honest question.

I'm the guy who wants to know every thug's backstory and HK is too much, even for me.
So, like everyone else, your interest in dialogue is finite. To me this is good news - it means we're approaching the point in RPGs where there is so much dialogue that no one will want to read 100% of it. Again, that's great news. It only sounds bad until you realize that it will finally free players to pursue what interests them and ignore what doesn't interest them without feeling like they're "missing" something, because they'll begin to understand that they were never intended to read it all.

In a tabletop RPG, if I go to the tavern and my GM says, "There are 20 people in the bar," I don't say, "Sigh, OK, we go talk to person #1 until we've exhausted everything he could possibly talk about. Now we go to person #2 ..." No one wants that. But if I chose to, I could say, "OK, I go to the bar, sit next to person #16, order a drink and strike up a conversation," and my GM would be able to play out that dialogue in great detail. I don't feel like I "missed something" by not talking to every damn one of them; that would be idiotic. SRR approaches that level of freedom by providing a rich, populated environment with many characters you can talk to. But "you can" doesn't mean "you have to" unless you are truly a slave to the "completionist" goblin inside you. And I don't think you want to be a slave.

-----

Please, really think about what you're advocating for here: rote, Pavlovian reactions to numerical rewards instead of reasoned, motivated responses to story and role-playing goals. "Killing the kitten gets me 2xp so of course I kill it." Hey, I get it! I used to kill the kitten too because, like you, I thought I was "supposed" to ... until one day I asked myself, "Why am I doing this?"

Next time you play an RPG, leave the kitten alone. Walk away from the xp. See how it makes you feel. Seriously, try this for just one game. Refuse side quests that look like a waste of your character's time (and remember, he doesn't know what an "xp" is). Decline conversation options that you don't care about. Fire companions you dislike. Use a suboptimal weapon that suits your character better. Forget the scripted "good path" and "evil path" and just do what your character has a reason to do in each new situation. Smile at the kitten and walk on. Do all this and finish the game anyway because it turns out you never had to do any of that stuff. You did what you wanted to and said no to the rest! I promise it'll be like taking off blinders, a whole new horizon of fun in gaming.

:love:
 
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Lacrymas

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Imagine if we apply Zombra's logic to any other medium. "Oh, the book is good, just skip 80% of the words, it's fine, don't fall into the Pavlovian trap".
 

Lhynn

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Zombra

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Imagine if we apply Zombra's logic to any other medium. "Oh, the book is good, just skip 80% of the words, it's fine, don't fall into the Pavlovian trap".
Sure, and if you pretend an opera is a sandwich, you're gonna have a bad time. Games aren't just "books on a screen", that's the point.
 

Lacrymas

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Or maybe, just maybe, we don't give developers a free pass just because it's "not a book". It's not a painting, so why have nice visuals? I also don't think it's music, so we can skip that nonsense as well. Games are a holistic medium, so you can't slice and dice them to be a better sycophantic apologist to the devs.
 

Zombra

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I'm not talking about whether the writing is good or bad. (It's generally good, but that's not the point.) I'm talking about the fact that the text is not intended to all be read unless the player is interested in it all. If you read it that way and then complain there's too much, the fault is in you, not the game.

Other mediums generally are intended for comprehensive, linear consumption, so direct comparisons are stupid.
 

Lhynn

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But some of the text is clearly important to unlock the good ending. How does a player win the game without exhausting all the content?
 

Gord

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Further, one of the dialogues unlocks the good ending of the game.
Interesting! I didn't know that. Is this dialogue obscure and hidden, or is it reasonably likely that the player will find it on the main path? Honest question.

It's a somewhat different story, since it's the book-store magic vendor (iirc?) girl, not one of the random NPCs on the street which tell you their backstory if you bugger them.
So, higher probability to encounter it since it's an actually relevant NPC due to being a vendor (again, iirc).

Overall, Zombra's right - if you don't enjoy the game, stop playing. If you don't enjoy the wall-of-text stories of the random (non-vendor) NPCs, ignore them. They are inconsequential filler/flavor text.

I enjoyed all three HBS Shadowruns, but Dragonfall is clearly the best. DMS is a pretty solid noir Story up until the cemetary, afterwards it's declining a bit. Still good for playing it once, imo.
Dragonfall has a cool setting and story, good missions and some interesting enough companions.
HK is not bad, some nice missions, I liked the setting (although less than in DF) and enjoyed the variety of the missions and possible solutions to them. OTOH it didn't live up to my expectations as far as the matrix goes (I would have prefered a mixture of HK matrix and matrix in Blitz' mission from DF) and combat pieces in vanilla HK most of the time stay below the quality of DF. The post-ending mini-campaign has some good ones, though.
 

Delterius

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Sure it does! I played and enjoyed all three games.
So did I. Enjoying something doesn't mean enjoying all of it.
Preposterous. It's certainly part of the reward and progression system, but it's not a goal in itself unless you make it one.
It is an RPG. RPGs are about character progression, almost invariably about growth. Shadowrun is no exception. Which brings us to:

The goal is to solve your partner's murder, or avenge your mentor, or find your foster father.
And to transition into the life of a Shadowrunner, to grow in streetsmarts and such.

Videogame storytelling isn't just its plot and dialogue. The game in itself tells a story. As such, Shadowrun is part of a wider genre of adventure stories where the characters starts out weak but grows in knowledge and power over time.

Every sidequest you choose to pursue, the greater the knowledge of the world around you. The greater your reputation as a Shadowrunner. The more money you have to buy stuff -- and Hong Kong did a better job at balancing money than Dragonfall did. You are a mercenary. There's no reason to refuse a job, as long as you think it pays. On the contrary, there is a multitude of incentives to pursue side content. Its just that the dialogue is too heavy at times.

Experience is a consideration in play. Its the primary lure towards side questing and its one of the primary modes of storytelling. No high minded ideal of how games should be played is going to change that. This is written into the very essence of the game. Speaking of which.

In a tabletop RPG, if I go to the tavern and my GM says, "There are 20 people in the bar," I don't say, "Sigh, OK, we go talk to person #1 until we've exhausted everything he could possibly talk about.

Videogames are a visual medium. Those 20 random NPCs your GM talked about for ambience are equivalent to the hundreds upon hundreds of nameless NPCs in Shadowrun that do not have a talk bubble on them. They are fixtures of the environment and nothing more. Nobody expects to talk to them. Nobody tries to. And nobody would ask that conversation to flow very well. It just didn't happen. Your example doesn't really apply here.

That said, the complaint was never that there were too many boring NPCs. Rather that dialogue becomes too flowery and descriptive when it doesn't have to be. Portraits, character models and the character's speech mannerisms should supercede any paragraph about the appearance and attitude of a character.

This is just a point about the game's editing. HK is still pretty fun. It just has a good deal to learn about Dragonfall in order to bring about the full potential of its setting. These are basically the same game, but one did certain things better than the other.
So you have to min-max every single game you ever play, dig in every trash can, scour every basement for hours to kill every rat because "I might need that 35¢ from selling a rat pelt later"?
No, you're conflating my secondary concern into a strawman that you can beat. I only said that if the game hides Karma in random conversations with supporting NPCs, then that conversation should be pleasant. Brevity is the soul of wit, yadda yaddda.
To me this is good news - it means we're approaching the point in RPGs where there is so much dialogue that no one will want to read 100% of it.
Shadowrun is not a game that has such an incredible amount of content that I'd rather skip some of it. That would be a game like Skyrim or Zelda BotW. An open world RPG with so much content and so much trekking around that its a virtual buffet of storytelling

Shadowrun on the other hand is a plot driven RPG that does not have a monstrous amount of content compared to pretty much anything. I completed it, close to 100%. I enjoy talking to random NPCs for tidbits of the setting and sidestories. However, it was an exhaustive process. I don't think every single character should have PS:T levels of characterization. I only wish the dialogue was more succint. That's it. Its not really such a damning point to make. The game is still good for what it is.

SRR approaches that level of freedom by providing a rich, populated environment with many characters you can talk to.
Again, Dragonfall did the same thing and better.
Interesting! I didn't know that. Is this dialogue obscure and hidden, or is it reasonably likely that the player will find it on the main path? Honest question.
Its not hidden at all, but there's a bit of busywork involved. Redundant lines and such. You already know where the conversation is going 5 questions prior, but its entirely possible you'll miss everything because you didn't go to the very end.
 

Gord

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The edginess is so strong in this one, its about to reach critical mass...
 

Zombra

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Further, one of the dialogues unlocks the good ending of the game.
Interesting! I didn't know that. Is this dialogue obscure and hidden?
It's a somewhat different story, since it's the book-store magic vendor (iirc?) girl, not one of the random NPCs on the street which tell you their backstory if you bugger them.
So, higher probability to encounter it since it's an actually relevant NPC due to being a vendor (again, iirc).
Interesting - I probably got a "bad" ending then since I prefer non-magic-using characters. Funny, I'd never know it if Delt hadn't told me.
shrug.gif


Videogame storytelling isn't just its plot and dialogue. The game in itself tells a story. As such, Shadowrun is part of a wider genre of adventure stories where the characters starts out weak but grows in knowledge and power over time. Every sidequest you choose to pursue, the greater the knowledge of the world around you. The greater your reputation as a Shadowrunner. You are a mercenary. There's no reason to refuse a job, as long as you think it pays. On the contrary, there is a multitude of incentives to pursue side content.
Of course! In this case, the games do a very good job of making the player (and the character) want to do jobs, pursue content, and in the process get xp. It's all beautifully integrated. It wasn't my intention to suggest skipping the stuff you want to do, or stuff that makes perfect sense to do.

Its just that the dialogue is too heavy at times.
Cheerfully conceded :) But I maintain that you would find this less of a problem if you stopped treating "exhaust all dialogues completely" as an obligation and more as an option.

Experience is a consideration in play. Its the primary lure towards side questing and its one of the primary modes of storytelling. No high minded ideal of how games should be played is going to change that. This is written into the very essence of the game.
Disagree here.

Imagine if someone asked you about the SRR games ... someone who isn't a gamer. What's the first thing you would say? "It's this great game about getting xp"? This isn't a strawman; you just suggested that xp is the primary motivation for playing some game content at all! This is what I find sad and ridiculous. A game shouldn't have to bribe me to play it, or hold meaningful content hostage behind filler. When it tries, I walk away. It's great.

It's OK if you think that the progression system is more important than anything else. I suggest you try thinking of it as secondary and see if you have more or less fun.

I only said that if the game hides Karma in random conversations with supporting NPCs, then that conversation should be pleasant. Brevity is the soul of wit, yadda yaddda.
Fair enough.

To me this is good news - it means we're approaching the point in RPGs where there is so much dialogue that no one will want to read 100% of it.
Shadowrun is not a game that has such an incredible amount of content that I'd rather skip some of it. That would be a game like Skyrim or Zelda BotW. An open world RPG with so much content and so much trekking around that its a virtual buffet of storytelling.
Shadowrun on the other hand is a plot driven RPG that does not have a monstrous amount of content compared to pretty much anything. I completed it, close to 100%. I enjoy talking to random NPCs for tidbits of the setting and sidestories. However, it was an exhaustive process. I don't think every single character should have PS:T levels of characterization. I only wish the dialogue was more succinct. That's it. Its not really such a damning point to make. The game is still good for what it is.
Well, you still pursued conversations long after finding them dreary because "maybe 1 xp". That's silly and I've already made it clear why I think so. As long as you're playing in a way you find fun though, power to you.
 
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Lhynn

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The edginess is so strong in this one, its about to reach critical mass...
Im not being edgy, i like HK. but you guys are trying way too hard on the other direction.
 

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