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tosser, wanker, punter, smeghead... wutever. i use lots of english colloquialism when talking and writing. they're fun to use, as they have a certain level of class over that which is used here... 'fuckwad' and 'shithead' get boring oh so fast. infer that which you will from my use of them tho' since 'teh mystary' caused and hub-bub generated is really amusing. for me at least, and like vaultdweller said, i'm all about self-gratification.

inregards to the nomenclature of pre-announced projects, i say 'haha'. mebbe it is that one, but mebbe it ain't. i say it's different... but if you wanna believe i'm working for a bunch of aussies on a diablo clone, knock yerself out. it really doesn't matter to me in the least. it's fun to make you work for such trivial bullshit. i get a wee giggle out of the matter... and once again, it's all about moi! like i stated previous, when the project is announced, i'll simply pack up this handle, breakout the old one, or mebbe a new one, and that'll be that. ooh... enigmatic. dance monkey, dance!

vd: it's more than a 'get more powah as you grow' thang. first you have to look at what the definition of power is in such a context. the first and foremost aquisition of power in any rpg is knowledge, in my opinion. from that knowledge, of the basic quest, a player begins to define their role in the game universe. a mandate given to change something is most definately empowering. from that sense of empowerment comes the ability and need to make choices in that environment and conversely the reprecussions thereof. from the choices made and experiences encountered, growth is a direct result. in that sense it'd be 'growth as a result of defining/using your power to affect the gameworld' simplisticly, but moves far beyond that, or should have deeper connotations. depends on the game, i guess.

the oft-familiar attachment of statistical growth needn't even be a part of that concept, but like section8 said, is included because of the appeal. i feel it's also included as it makes for decent gamemechanics as well. not essential, but rewarding and expected. as a pc aquires more power, meaning they have made more choices which affected the gameworld, they should be given coincedental stat boosts as well. the definitions of, or even the need to show these statistics is a debatable point. in some games it could be possible that only reputation need be used. i'd imagine this would have to be 'eavy on the dialogue and light on the combat, but i'm not the authority on imaginative thought. shown, not shown, verbose or a one word tagline they do serve a purpose. those 'stats' are used to guide a player on a semi-defined path thru the game, tho they can be ignored in the sake of open-ended play should the player choose to do so. the use of this incremental growth thru choice should, intheory at least, keep the players on a rough path that allows the narrative to make sense and have impact. if defined too tightly, you wind up with bg2, left too loose, you get morrowind. now, i felt both were good games, but somewhere in the middle is 'teh sweetness' for what i'd consider a great crpg experience. my opinions differ greatly from others.

it does present the exact problem you did mention tho'... the uber-badguys that come in droves later on/pc uber-ness in previously explored areas. this is hopefully explained/roped in by the narrative (ie. 'yer in enclave country now, boy, and you got a real purdy mouth.') but still is the major weakness that most crpgs experience in late game scenarios.

any ideas for ways around this?

there's always the inclusion of shrnasty logik puzzles later in the game. the tulla puzzle in arcanum comes to mind. there were some decent ones in startrail as well, but, they often feel like crutches. cliches some of us have come to expect... uberbaddies, logik puzzle, lastdungeon, more uberbaddies, another puzzle, kill foozle and then the end movie.

morality choices? this was covered in ultima 6 i believe. don't really remember much of it, but if the rebuild being done on the NWN engine gets decent fan reviews, i might actually buy the game just to play it. seems like an interesting concept but once you get to that point it's simply a must-do set of static choices... and sometimes we all prefer to play 'smashy smashy with foozle's skull' than talk anything out.

that last leg is always the damndest.

as for rash... go lick brahmin nuts.

Unintelligible as can be. I think I stopped at "thang", which really precludes any "effect" of using weak English slang. Thank you for giving me a reason to not have to read your drivel, though I have to note one thing.

That stat increase is used and is popular and convenient, it does NOT mean that it is a core aspect of CRPG design, as SimMoron claimed. That was the point people were saying, and you've even said it yourself. Learn to read and pay attention to the topic, penal colony boy. Good job in cutting your own throat on that one.

it's the definition of 'statistics' as applied to the term 'power fantasy' that is the subject. the tracking of choice is just as relative to the term 'statistic' as the generic strength, charisma, dexterity etc are. unless the choices are in linear fashion you cannot have a crpg without them. if they are in linear fashion they don't really make for a crpg either.

try to keep up with the rest of the class, muffin.

A mandate to change something... It sounds cool and important, but in reality it's not (unless it's a save the world type mandate, but that's just lame). Everybody does something every day, people run errands and do stuff, technically they have a mandate to change thing, but it doesn't empower them. Example: Fallout's waterchip quest, you don't feel all empowered, you've got the job that nobody wanted and not because you;re the best but because you drew the short fucking straw. Granted there are quests that are given to you because you're ready, because you have become very powerful, but they are designed to target and motivate power development

What if I like it the way it is? What if I want to change nothing? What if I want to remain unseen and unnoticed (stealth approach)? That is of course also a choice that have consequences, but you know what I mean. I like making choices and I like consequences, but it has to be balanced, so that one character passing through the city didn't change the way everything works and affect everybody's life. So any consequences should be on a micro level, leaving the macro level virtually unaffected. In time may be the micro changes would affect the macro level and that would be reflected during the end game notes, but a character shouldn't be aware of such a long term effect and thus remain unaware of his own "importance" and powah.

Why? You saved a kitty, found a little boy, and killed a couple of bandits. Should you suddenly feel stronger, smarter, faster? You've managed to rescue the kitty because you were already agile enough to climb a tree, you found the boy because you were smart enough to figure out what happened to him, and you killed the bandits because you already knew how to handle a sword. You've affected the world, that's for sure, but these effects are minor ones, and could come with their own consequences i.e. the bandits you killed were keeping the local wildlife from attacking the village. Now that they are gone, the village was overrrun by wolves and destroyed. You feel kinda stupid. Do you take some intelligence penalty? No. Of course, the quests I used are cliches that everyone is sick of, but so is the power thingy. Feel free to use your own quest examples that benefit your arguments.

The problem with BG2 was linearity, the problem with MW was lack of anything fun to do (i.e the quests were too generic, the guilds were lacking some purpose, the skills were too simple and maxed too quickly, the combat wasn't challenging, etc). Both problems or design choices if you please had nothing to do with the way char gained power and skills or being kept on a "rough path"

The narrative shouldn't fix bad designs, filling the gaps and such. If the powah is removed, and there are just reasonable skills and abilities, nothing of the world changing city killing variety, then the problem is solved by itself, and we can use the narrative for something useful :wink:

Yep, I have a meeting in 20 minutes, so I have to run, but I'll post more in a couple of hours.

lick the brahmin nuts, rash.

in order to have an affect on area #2 in bg2 the pc had to have had an affect on area #1 previously. the choices the pc was offered inregards to having an impact were very limited. why wouldn't a child of a hellgod stuck stick a knife to gaylen bayle's throat and get him to up the info? or use a charm spell? or preferably use a charm spell then off the annoying twat... 'coo now, muthafucka'. this is the linearity i was refering to, the virtual drudgery. it slavishly kept you stuck in the narrative, keeping you from feeling like you had any real affect on the world, or even a choice of what to do in it. (it was fun for me cuz korgan and keldorn make a decent posse and the narrative was well done, if a little standard.) in this sense it had everything to do with how a character came to have more effect over the gameworld. requirements had to be met before futher involvement in the world was able to take place, beyond knifing my beasties.

in morrowind there is the exact opposite problem. given the ability to travel anywhere and the fact there is no discernable effect from taking any non-main quest related action limits the impact of the narrative itself. there is no benefit from being a high-senschal or whatever it was in the knightly orders... no posse of badass knights came riding to your rescue. beyond ph@t lewt and stat increases, there was no reason to undertake any part of the peripherals to the mainstory. truth be told, there's not really much of a reason to undertake the mainquest for anything other than ph@t lewt and stat increases. there was so really ph@t lewt and the game was pretty, which is why i liked it. it wasn't great but as a massive dungeoncrawl it was fun.

i get the feeling we were talking about the same thing, perhaps i didn't define what i meant well enough. i'll try again.

while the need to have had an affect on a previous game area to have an effect on the current should not be needed, it should be beneficial. this beneficial aspect should give the character a better chance to overcome the challenges set in an additional areas. the character will be more self-assured, leading to more decisive and well preformed actions being taken. the character will have some form of reputation following them, be it in an aura they project, or the wanted posters. this is what i'm referring to as 'powah'. not totally derived from, or even needing generic statistics and skills, but having more to do with how they've affected the gameworld around them.

an example: a game offers the choice for the pc to become a badass bandito. he can move from area to area and begin his crime spree and muderous rampage anywhere he'd like. there's a bank in carson city that holds dufflebags of cash. it's a tempting prize and there is no short list of other thieves and gunslingers who'd love the chance to make off with it and retire large. the quality of npcs availiable to the pc who decides to go after this prize first should be poor. in a myriad of ways. terrible shots, seriously trigger-happy, they talk way too much, most definately going to betray the pc and slit his throat while sleeping etc. there should also be substantial penalties for trying to take this job to pc on a statistical level as well. if it's his first bank, he'll probably be shaking like a leaf and wetting his pants. maybe the tnt they brought to blow the safe will go off and take his arms with it. he might not notice the derringer the bank manager has in his waistcoat taking a .22 slug in the gut.

but what if the pc starts smaller? he gains confidence hitting stagecoaches and robbing the first bank of podunk. he becomes a better shot. instead of semi-psychotic drunks for a gang, he's got a team of cold blooded killers with an abberant sense of honour. they develop a sense of loyalty to one another through shared experiences.

of course in the gameworld there are also consquences for this... the pc now has a posse on him. there are posters up everywhere. he can't stay in a town more than a day or two and when the law catches up with him, there's just a gaggle of texas rangers waiting there to gun him down.

on the flipside, the pc can also become a lawman, with the same perks and pitfalls.

granted, this is an overly simplistic and incredibly short 'game', with fuck all for original content and zero meat on it's bones, but do you get where i'm going with the subject?

billy the kid knew he was a bad muthafucka. he knew he was quick on the draw. he knew he scared the shit out of others. if you thought you were hardu, you wanted to ride with him. he got that way by killing lots of wannabe gunslingers. part of that was due to the fact he did get more skilled as time went on, he also gained greater confidence in his abilities. it was also just as important that he made the average, or even the better than average cowpoke freeze in their boots.

he didn't know that a strongbox he stole was going to pay some company miners in a boomtown. he didn't know that they'd get ornery, then drunk, then up and kill the bossman... but if he wanted to know that, he could have. hell, he could have even done it on purpose so he'd then be able to buy the mine, a couple of chinese hookers and retire, never caring about that big dufflebag full of cash in the carson city bank. of course, that cash will still be there if he ever gets the itch again, though he won't quite be the badass he used to be, nor will he command the same respect and fear that he used to. he can also going around saving kittens from trees if he wants to, but no one is really ever going to give a fuck about him.

It is a given, but if you actually rp a char you have to realize that you just got screwed and that odds of finding the damn chip are next to nothing. Of course, I the player am aware that I'll find the chip and survive and triumph over any challenge, but rpgs are not about me they are about my char and if it's a good rpg my input is very small. If it's my char then he feels screwed, if it's me the player then I don't feel empowered because I know that I always win at the end, courtesy of game design and the reload button.

These choices may or may not lead to gaining more power. Power fantasy is one out of many directions, a choice to be made, not a mandatory feature. Becoming uber powerful and saving the world in every game is boring. It looses the excitement and its edge after the fisrt 20 times. There are genres like FPS that gives you no choice but to be the best killing machine in the game world, the RPG genre is about choices including not to be powerful, but be a guy who happened to be in the right place in the right time, or something else, it should depend on a player not a choice a designer made.

I agree, that's how I would like to see it.

lol, I know many examples where a person did something nice to people and then those people feeling a weakness (kindness) attached to the said person like leeches expecting more good deeds on a regular basis. This definitely didn't lead to any empowerment. (No, it didn't happen to me, I'm an asshole, but it did happen to many people I know). So, theoretically, if you help a person, especially for free, next morning the whole town knows that there is a fool with too much free time on his hands, in the end you feel used and abused, hate the needy bastards, and try to burn the town down before leaving to prevent spreading of rumors.

Well, if you like it then there was some other thread where I posted a part of a game I designed for my friends http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1664

Well, that's linearity.

It was close enough.

I agree with that. It';s one way, but there are others. Btw, I keep arguing only because you sided with the guy who said that power fantasy is the core of every rpg or something. If you agree that it's not, then we have no argument.

What if the pc bullshits his way into a strong gang or offer them a deal based on some info that came into his hands by accident using the gang to get what he wants? Like I said I agree if the player wants to rp Billy the Kid, then yeah, like you said, start small, grow skills and reputation, etc, but there should be other choices for people who don't want to end up like Billy, who want to stay in the shadows and let other people take the fall? Example: in Arcanum when you start there is a guy who want you to rob the bank, you can do that or ...it's not in the game, so it;s a what if scenario, you can go to the gang guarding the bridge and trade the info for a cut.

You came here with your hand between your legs bragging about how you work for some big dev house that's working on a project that's gonna blow everyone here's minds and make you our king. Now we find out your big secret project is a Diablo-clone, the least you could do is come clean on your shitty project. If you want to continue to be the guy in gym class that likes to talk about how big his cock is supposed to be, the least you can do is prove me and Roleplayer wrong about your Diablo-clone. I figured your shit out, princess; now drop the pompous drama queen shit. You can't hide behind your thesaurus forever.

Obvious? Hell yes. I know that you've already got a good grip on this sort of thing, but I thought I'd provide a little more clarity than merely shouting "Stats and Advancement aren't core to the RPG experience!" Like I was saying, it's a reward system and it appeals on a base level. While I myself am interested in any game concepts that break the mould, I still feel that it's hard to go wrong with such a commonplace reward system.

True to some extent. I think the main dissatisfaction to arise from many of these games is the fact that they don't do level treadmilling very well. Dungeon Siege didn't even go close to offering even a Diablo 1 experience. Secondly, it's only when the sole motivation is treadmilling that it becomes wearing on the player. I don't condone it as the primary feature of a game, but when you append it to an already solid design, it's a decided plus. take the skill trees in Silent Storm for example. They're not core to the game experience, but they add an interesting extra dimension.

Likewise perks in Fallout. They provide an advancement incentive beyond just leveling up, but even better, they are a great way for the player to shape their character. It's a peripheral system integrated heavily into the RP experience.

But once again, I'm pretty sure we're on the same page here, with me playing Captain Obvious to your Captain Obtuse.

Bingo! You hit the proverbial gaming nail on the head with that one. Most definitely something I would love to see in an RPG. This is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for with Morrowind. Daggerfall does some of the above to a very small extent and I felt that it should have been embellished on for the sequel. Maybe the next TES game will get it right. I certainly hope so. But not just the TES series. All RPGs should have this feel to them. That you are having an effect on the world around you, yet that effect can be as unpredictable as sunspots and can just as easily burn you or help you.

I would most definitely love to see this in a game as well.

to pull that off what would require one helluva program running the infrastructure of the game environment. tracking everything from npc movement, lives and familial ties, to a greater economic model of supply and demand. it'd be alot of work. to keep it fresh there'd also have to be random events generated on the fly as well, most of which the pc would never experience or even know about. it's alot of extra work for the programmers and designers that wouldn't see the light of day and that work is usually focused more on main-game aspects...

example: farmer x works on his field six days a week. twice a year he brings in his harvest, late summer potatoes, early fall it's wheat. he takes that to merchant y. merchant y then carts it off to town b. along the way, it's hijacked by the pc. what happens then?

farmer x has been paid, so he doesn't really care, yet. merchant y tho'... he's choked, so he'll organize a posse to hunt down the pc, who now has a big cart filled with booty. the only place to easily take it is town b, but they'll know something's fishy, cuz they get those goods from merchant x all the time. he can drop his price, or push on to the next town. will town b let him? doubtful, that's their food for the winter, so now he's got a town hunting him down and merchant y. maybe there'll be refuge in town c, but they trade commodities with town b as well and want to stay in good standing. the pc can sell it to a camp of bandits in the area tho, which'll gain him some cred with them. town b starts to starve, merchant y goes out of business and suddenly no one will buy farmer x's crops next season...

great in theory. even better in action. problem is, multiply those relationships by every farmer, town and merchant in the gameworld... that's months of scripting. it's alot of work that most gamers will never take advantage of, or even interest in. also, such things take time away from working on maingame events and interactions.

even the character has to 'buck up' and meet those challenges on his/her own. even if the pc was/is screwed over, or given a challenge they're really not interested in taking part in, the need for self reliance over takes that and the pc becomes 'empowered'

a different interpretation of the term 'power'. to me, in a fps, there is no power. you move forward and you kill shit. better weapons come along and in some games the pc will gain 'matrix-infringing' abilities, but those aren't power. the only power in any game is that of choice and having those choices mean something in the enviroment.

It doesn't have to be that way. Every time people talk about freedom of choice they think that it takes a NASA supercomputer to pull it off. You overcomplicated the situation, that's how I see it:
Farmer X is always fine, if the merchant Y goes out of business another will take his place, that's logic. Merchant Y gets screwed by the PC action's, you said that he will organize a posse, I think he will hire somebody, hire means some place that provides this service, this place will handle all hosile inquires to the PC in this area, so instead of several random gangs looking for the PC, we have one. The PC will have an option to deal with the place directly, with force, money, or persuasion, thus settling all scores. The town A doesn't want to deal with the stolen loot? The PC should hide it and look for shady dealers in a shady part of town, not to carry it to the next city. If he tries, he looses the loot (the PC is slow and attracts random encounters that damage the loot during fights, or it rots if perishable, etc). The towns wouldn't be affected by a lost cart of potatoes, so nothing really happened. You have some minor choices to make with limited consequences, it's more like a yes/no thing where no (the PC doesn't hijack the cart) affects nothing and yes opens a mini quest line that could lead to contacts with theives, etc.

Additionally, once such a quest is created it could be used in several other variations thus ensuring that time taken wasn't wasted. For example, somebody can ask the PC to ensure that the merchant Y goes out of business, murder is too much, hijacking one of his shipments is just right, voila. Of a talkative PC can convince the farmer that the merchant is not being fair, so the PC hijacks the cart, sells it, and splits the profit with the farmer, etc. One quest leads to another instead of a series of unconnected and seemingly random events taking place all at once.

Basically any decent RPG features a certain amount of quests, mostly the quests are stupid, pointless, and annoying as hell. But if the quests are built into the storyline that takes place anyway, then it would be much easier to predict and manipulate any potential outcomes to reduce the scripting work. The way I see it events will take place anyway, take my quest from the old thread for example (the one I linked), the towns would proceed with their plan with or without the PC, he just happened to be in the centre of the events, and thus he has a chance to manipulate events, if he doesn't the shit will still hit the fan, but it could create complications, etc.

I can agree with that

The way I see it the solution is to maintain the realism. I know that realism in games usually sucks, but this is the case where it might actually be useful. The first problem is hitpoints and levels. I'd say drop both. If the PC is not uber then there is no need in uber bad guys. That way if a very experienced and extremely handy with weapons PC would come back to his home town, his 30 or whatever starting HP won't last long and eventually he would be overpowered. Otherwise we have a 250HP mammoth fighting 10-20HP people who never had a fucking chance. It's just silly. So that way the PC is good and can deal with a lot of bad things in a reasonably fair fight or in a good tactical situation, but not with the waves of monsters or dukes of Hell themselves. Same goes for damage potential, when it's not calculated to bring down another mammoth, then you'd not be able to kill a regular town person with one blow/shot/whatever.

Another choice is to make sure that you're not the only one who gains level, i.e. guards in the starting town should keep practicing in your absense, may be they won't be as tough as some elite troops but some improvment should be noticable if you try to go nuts and show them your powah!

I forgot to remark upon this earlier, but....

Sig! Sig!

question

what is smeghead?

Does anyone else other than myself find that fucking hilarious?