Some thoughts with occasional spoilers

[Vault Dweller]

This was supposed to be a reply to Saint-Proverbius. Why to SP? He was the only one who kept on replying. No offence to other folks, I know it's time-consuming to check and reply to all the post. However I want to get attention and share and discuss my views
with more people, considering the direction the postings have taken lately.

My post could be confusing for people who have not been paying attention to my discussion with SP, so feel free to check the last page of Greeting from the Lead Writer.

Saint, have you ever had a feeling in crpgs that a lot of things (if not all of them) happen excusively for players convinience. Sometimes you don't even have to think what to do next. Everything happens precisely at the right time in the right place in the right sequences. After a while you feel like your actions does not really matter, a game becomes a leveling up railcoaster ride.

Well, a something is better then nothing, so we play those games, realizing that gaming companies have to turn in profit to feed a bunch of useless mother-......s like marketing, legal, pr depts, etc that a game should be 'fun' and not to difficult for those with attention-deficit disorder. And then a small outfit like Zero-Sum emerges from nowhere, like many before them who have forgotten by now what it's like to do games for gamers by gamers. And we the fans have a chance to help ZS to do things right, so once again I call for discussing something before dismissing it like a scripting error.

agree, that quest shouldn't be given or triggered until the bombing thing comes around. That's a problem with the scripting.

May be it was, may be it was not. But don't you think it worked out well? Wouldn't you find it odd that the moment you get a quest a supportive quest pops out, so you don't need to think, so you don't need to make a moral decision about a killing an innocent person for your own amusment (to continue the rebellion storyline), so that whenever a quest comes up you automatically do it without considering how it might fit into your agenda if at all? A choice of drugging the priestess, killing her, or exposing yourself as a spy is not really a choice at all. Would not you agree?

I am amazed by the overall quality of Prelude. Sure there are crashes, odd bugs, but none of them is a game stopper. Some quests are simple, some dialogues could have been better, but a lot of things were done right. I don't know about you, but after the riddle and the necklace quest, I really started paying attention and think before acting.
It was .... different. So let's tweak questionable things instead of dismissing them, let's not push Prelude and any next game into the mainstream of what most of us are sick and tired of.

Already the dev team is responding by trying to buff up random encounters. I myself thought and posted that it would be good. My mistake, good for whom? Diplomatic characters or my carefully chosen war party who sliced through the Glade invaders like a knife through the butter and wanted more? And what about the armor discussion? I read it before it became a public knowledge that the penalties don't work. Then there were some tough choices to make, some people posted that they sacrificed armour in favour of extra attacks, some people preferred the comfort of being well protected, and some folks simply wanted to look good. What choices do we have now that the penalties are 'gone'?

About leveling up. Yes, barter, nature, etc go up very slowly if ever. I understand how frustrating it is :shock: . But you get tons of skill points plus trainers in almost every non-combat skill, that's more then enough to bump up the skills you want. It's nicely balanced that way. Throw in more skill points or make the soft skills grow faster, and everybody will start creating uber-characters by using skill points to bump up _all_ skills to 30/50 increasing str, dex, and speed. If you wanna hear my solution to that just ask, but be warned that it's rather radical

Well, that's all I wanted to say folks, all above represents my opinion and does not imply that I know better.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Saint, have you ever had a feeling in crpgs that a lot of things (if not all of them) happen excusively for players convinience. Sometimes you don't even have to think what to do next. Everything happens precisely at the right time in the right place in the right sequences. After a while you feel like your actions does not really matter, a game becomes a leveling up railcoaster ride.

Yup, there's a few good CRPGs that don't really have that feeling, but there are a lot that do. However, there's some that don't do it at all that would probably be better if they did give a little more information.

May be it was, may be it was not. But don't you think it worked out well? Wouldn't you find it odd that the moment you get a quest a supportive quest pops out, so you don't need to think, so you don't need to make a moral decision about a killing an innocent person for your own amusment (to continue the rebellion storyline), so that whenever a quest comes up you automatically do it without considering how it might fit into your agenda if at all? A choice of drugging the priestess, killing her, or exposing yourself as a spy is not really a choice at all. Would not you agree?

No, because there's no warning. Now, if you could take the priestess a meal every so often, say once every few days, then that'd be a lot better than just thinking the whole meal thing is a side quest unto itself. You shouldn't be able to break a plotline like that, especially not that easily.

Here's why! Things like that actually discourage people from freely roaming around and doing quests for people because that type of situation can screw up a major plotline. It boils down to being once bitten, twice shy. You're being punished for something you're supposed to do in a CRPG, talk to people and do quests. Because that breaks the rebellion plot, you've just lost a good deal of stuff to do because you did something you thought was a side quest.

I am amazed by the overall quality of Prelude. Sure there are crashes, odd bugs, but none of them is a game stopper. Some quests are simple, some dialogues could have been better, but a lot of things were done right. I don't know about you, but after the riddle and the necklace quest, I really started paying attention and think before acting.

There are a number of plot stoppers though, like the Academy Riddle, the Food for Priestess thing, and a dialogue option in Jerrock which screws the whole set of quests there up. Those are the three I know about.

While they don't prevent the player from beating the game, they certainly do cripple parts of it by cutting the player off from things with no warning. I'm not saying the game should be easy, but we're talking about a game with SPEECH skill, BARTER skill, and various other skills which should be there to help the player along. That's what those skills are all about. If there is something that's going to screw the player if they do it, they shouldn't just be allowed to stumble blindly in to it.

It was .... different. So let's tweak questionable things instead of dismissing them, let's not push Prelude and any next game into the mainstream of what most of us are sick and tired of.

There's a difference between mainstreaming Prelude to Darkness and having events where you can totally screw up areas of the game without warning. Relying on save/load to much, which is what that does, is a very mainstream practice, after all.

There are ways you can retool all those quests so that they don't totally screw the player. Having the meal on a semiregular schedule is one way to make that quest doable when the time comes. Give the player a few drach for taking the food to her.

With the Academy, allow the player to explain his rationale for picking that answer, so long as the player has a high SPEECH or a good charisma. Even a bribe to the headmaster would be a nice thing. "I'll get him to accept you in to that class for 1000 drach." Heck, make the cost of the bribe dependent on BARTER.

Allowing things like that are much better than enforcing the reload mentality that makes a lot of CRPGs suck.

After all, look at the pickpocketting in Prelude to Darkness, which gives you a chance after you try it as opposed to something like Icewind Dale 2. If you fail at a pickpocket attempt in that game, the whole town attacks you right there. Even one of the developers of IWD2 said, "Always save before you try to pickpocket because you'll probably have to reload the game due to how hard it is!"

It's just much better to handle things within the game than making things revolve around the fact you have a Load/Save interface.

Already the dev team is responding by trying to buff up random encounters. I myself thought and posted that it would be good. My mistake, good for whom? Diplomatic characters or my carefully chosen war party who sliced through the Glade invaders like a knife through the butter and wanted more?

Meh.. Those things kicked my ass bad.

And what about the armor discussion? I read it before it became a public knowledge that the penalties don't work. Then there were some tough choices to make, some people posted that they sacrificed armour in favour of extra attacks, some people preferred the comfort of being well protected, and some folks simply wanted to look good. What choices do we have now that the penalties are 'gone'?

You wouldn't be able to get through the game without good armor. A lot of NPCs only have 12APs too, like Tauna. Imagine having to put her in a platemail after developing that POLEARM skill so high, and now she can't use that POLEARM skill because that full suit of platemail's reduced her to 6APs. Do you think that's a better solution? I certainly don't.

About leveling up. Yes, barter, nature, etc go up very slowly if ever. I understand how frustrating it is :shock: . But you get tons of skill points plus trainers in almost every non-combat skill, that's more then enough to bump up the skills you want. It's nicely balanced that way.

You're forgetting the fact you can totally screw up areas like the Academy, Jerrock, and the rebellion plot. If you're not a huge fan of Save/Reload, you're going to miss out on a shitload of XP.

Furthermore, a lot of those trainers require other skills. For example, learning by reading in the Library of Leit requires you have a high LITERACY AND LORE skill.

Throw in more skill points or make the soft skills grow faster, and everybody will start creating uber-characters by using skill points to bump up _all_ skills to 30/50 increasing str, dex, and speed. If you wanna hear my solution to that just ask, but be warned that it's rather radical

I don't think other attributes should really affect the process of learning either. However, I do think that NATURE and BARTER should go up faster than they do. After all, once you hit 40 skill, we're talking 3XP just to raise one point of a skill. I'm not saying they should increase dramatically, but there should be some increase. I never saw my BARTER go up, ever.

 

[Kyminara]

Quote:
May be it was, may be it was not. But don't you think it worked out well? Wouldn't you find it odd that the moment you get a quest a supportive quest pops out, so you don't need to think, so you don't need to make a moral decision about a killing an innocent person for your own amusment (to continue the rebellion storyline), so that whenever a quest comes up you automatically do it without considering how it might fit into your agenda if at all? A choice of drugging the priestess, killing her, or exposing yourself as a spy is not really a choice at all. Would not you agree?

No, because there's no warning. Now, if you could take the priestess a meal every so often, say once every few days, then that'd be a lot better than just thinking the whole meal thing is a side quest unto itself. You shouldn't be able to break a plotline like that, especially not that easily.

Here's why! Things like that actually discourage people from freely roaming around and doing quests for people because that type of situation can screw up a major plotline. It boils down to being once bitten, twice shy. You're being punished for something you're supposed to do in a CRPG, talk to people and do quests. Because that breaks the rebellion plot, you've just lost a good deal of stuff to do because you did something you thought was a side quest.

I think it would be a good and probably easy fix this to let characters deliver the food more than once. Mario's leg doesn't suddenly get better once you deliver the food, does it?
That would at least fix the main plot, but these quest-breaking details don't stop there. My character walked by a broken well somewhere and fixed it. I found out later in this forum that there a series of quests related to that that I would not be able to do because the well was fixed. There's many quests that can be ruined just like that. I think that's fine how it is. I Hate games that give you a quest and suddenly a monster appears somewhere or a broken fence that wasn't there before. I takes much away from the realism of the game. It reminds you that it is just a stupid computer game just as much as being forced to reload (which could happen as a result of any combat anyway). So you may miss a few quests. There are still many other quests in the game for you to do. Also you still got the enjoyment of finding and completeing the small part of the quest that you did. If they make it so you can't screw up part or all of a quest, then the game does become linear, and will lose that which sets it apart from other games.

While they don't prevent the player from beating the game, they certainly do cripple parts of it by cutting the player off from things with no warning. I'm not saying the game should be easy, but we're talking about a game with SPEECH skill, BARTER skill, and various other skills which should be there to help the player along. That's what those skills are all about. If there is something that's going to screw the player if they do it, they shouldn't just be allowed to stumble blindly in to it.

Speech and Bater skills are already used heavily in this game. Try finishing the game with speech and barter no higher than 20 and then tell me what those skills are for.
All skills help the player along in some way. Between my 5 characters, I had at least 30 in every non-combat skill available, and every one of them helped me in several ways. If you really want to talk your way out of the riddle, then I would put the speech difficulty at 60, because there should be some things that the player has to think about/decide.
For people that determined to get into the Academy, 60 speech is a good goal.

It's just much better to handle things within the game than making things revolve around the fact you have a Load/Save interface.

Again, there are very few things (except in Jerrok) that will stop you from finishing the game. You can even tell the rebellion to go screw themselves and still finish the game following the dagger quest.

Quote:
Already the dev team is responding by trying to buff up random encounters. I myself thought and posted that it would be good. My mistake, good for whom? Diplomatic characters or my carefully chosen war party who sliced through the Glade invaders like a knife through the butter and wanted more?

Meh.. Those things kicked my ass bad.

They kicked my butt too. In fact almost everything did. I just barely had enough combat skill to beat most of the tougher encounters.

Quote:
And what about the armor discussion? I read it before it became a public knowledge that the penalties don't work. Then there were some tough choices to make, some people posted that they sacrificed armour in favour of extra attacks, some people preferred the comfort of being well protected, and some folks simply wanted to look good. What choices do we have now that the penalties are 'gone'?


You wouldn't be able to get through the game without good armor. A lot of NPCs only have 12APs too, like Tauna. Imagine having to put her in a platemail after developing that POLEARM skill so high, and now she can't use that POLEARM skill because that full suit of platemail's reduced her to 6APs. Do you think that's a better solution? I certainly don't.

Polearm is a long weapon. Tauna can stand behind the tanks and when she's not healing, she can stab the enemy from two spaces away. All other weapon classes have weapons that take as little as 6 AP to use. Even the Zero-sum staff admitted that the penalties were a bit harsh, but I think there should be at least some penalty for wearing armor.

Quote:
Throw in more skill points or make the soft skills grow faster, and everybody will start creating uber-characters by using skill points to bump up _all_ skills to 30/50 increasing str, dex, and speed. If you wanna hear my solution to that just ask, but be warned that it's rather radical

I don't think other attributes should really affect the process of learning either. However, I do think that NATURE and BARTER should go up faster than they do. After all, once you hit 40 skill, we're talking 3XP just to raise one point of a skill. I'm not saying they should increase dramatically, but there should be some increase. I never saw my BARTER go up, ever.

I Agree with SP on this one. For some skills, it seems the only way to raise them (aside from a helpful teacher) is through XP. Sword or Armor could go up two or three times in just one combat. A character would need to talk to 30 people for Speech to go up the same amount, and there aren't enough traps or broken things out there for Tinker.
As for other attributes affecting learning, why should it be so difficult for my fighter to learn combat just because he's not smart? Toward the end of the game, my Acolyte had Unarmed skill higher than my Bodyguard's Blunt skill. My acolyte didn't even start the game with Unarmed skill, and she put no XP into it. This happened mostly because she had an intelligence of 20 and he had an intelligence of 10.

Some quests are simple, some dialogues could have been better, but a lot of things were done right. I don't know about you, but after the riddle and the necklace quest, I really started paying attention and think before acting.

This really is what it's all about. Prelude gives you a sense of responsibility. The characters actions have real consequences. This is good because it makes the player think about he does, and it's good because it makes it seem like the choises made really matter.
I think the necklace quest is great as it is. If a character has a high Thuamaturgy, this quest rewards him for having trained well in the right skill, and If no one has the right skill, it keeps the player on his toes. I don't know about other people, but I am williing to accept the occasional forced reload to keep the game from becoming a bed time story.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

That would at least fix the main plot, but these quest-breaking details don't stop there. My character walked by a broken well somewhere and fixed it. I found out later in this forum that there a series of quests related to that that I would not be able to do because the well was fixed. There's many quests that can be ruined just like that. I think that's fine how it is. I Hate games that give you a quest and suddenly a monster appears somewhere or a broken fence that wasn't there before. I takes much away from the realism of the game. It reminds you that it is just a stupid computer game just as much as being forced to reload (which could happen as a result of any combat anyway). So you may miss a few quests. There are still many other quests in the game for you to do. Also you still got the enjoyment of finding and completeing the small part of the quest that you did. If they make it so you can't screw up part or all of a quest, then the game does become linear, and will lose that which sets it apart from other games.

Does this make you more or less likely to do side quests knowing that you can be helpful, fix a well, and then lose out on a lot of stuff?

That's my point. If you can do part of a quest, and break a series of quests later, then that doesn't encourage you to tinker around, pardon the pun.

If you allow the well to be fixed at any juncture, that should be handles within that series of scripts. You want to talk about realism, do you honestly think that because you took the initiative to fix a well on your own that people won't look to you for help in doing something else?

Speech and Bater skills are already used heavily in this game. Try finishing the game with speech and barter no higher than 20 and then tell me what those skills are for.
All skills help the player along in some way.

I'd say you could finish the game quite easily with a BARTER of 20.

Between my 5 characters, I had at least 30 in every non-combat skill available, and every one of them helped me in several ways. If you really want to talk your way out of the riddle, then I would put the speech difficulty at 60, because there should be some things that the player has to think about/decide.

For people that determined to get into the Academy, 60 speech is a good goal.

I disagree for a number of reasons. Firstly, the Academy is a beginning town. Just using XP alone on a Merchant or Bard, you're going to have to spend 75XP just to get to that 60 SPEECH up from 15, which is what they start with. Now, considering the player also has other skills to raise, I think that SPEECH of 60 is entirely unrealistic.

My Merchant finished the game with a SPEECH of 54. He also had a LITERACY AND LORE of 46 and a BARTER of 43.

Secondly, the Academy is a beginning area, is it not? So why force the player to have to spend 60-75XP just to get in to a newbie area just because they picked the wrong answer on a 50/50 shot question?

30 SPEECH would be more than enough, especially since it's supposed to be an early in the game area.

Again, there are very few things (except in Jerrok) that will stop you from finishing the game. You can even tell the rebellion to go screw themselves and still finish the game following the dagger quest.

That's not the point. If all I was concerned with was a main plot, I'd be playing Dungeon Siege or Icewind Dale 2.

They kicked my butt too. In fact almost everything did. I just barely had enough combat skill to beat most of the tougher encounters.

Anyone that says the combat at the end isn't challenging must have played the game differently from me. I even had one guy devoted to combat, Nylias.

Polearm is a long weapon. Tauna can stand behind the tanks and when she's not healing, she can stab the enemy from two spaces away. All other weapon classes have weapons that take as little as 6 AP to use. Even the Zero-sum staff admitted that the penalties were a bit harsh, but I think there should be at least some penalty for wearing armor.

That only works on encounters where you're not surrounded or enemies don't come from multiple sides.

I Agree with SP on this one. For some skills, it seems the only way to raise them (aside from a helpful teacher) is through XP. Sword or Armor could go up two or three times in just one combat. A character would need to talk to 30 people for Speech to go up the same amount, and there aren't enough traps or broken things out there for Tinker.

Agreed. TINKER could stand some other use that would allow it to be raised during the game. With pelts and wood available, being able to make things out of them, like leather and wood armors, would be a nice touch for raising that skill.

As for other attributes affecting learning, why should it be so difficult for my fighter to learn combat just because he's not smart? Toward the end of the game, my Acolyte had Unarmed skill higher than my Bodyguard's Blunt skill. My acolyte didn't even start the game with Unarmed skill, and she put no XP into it. This happened mostly because she had an intelligence of 20 and he had an intelligence of 10.

Because Strength would affect damage done, not the finesse of the situation. It's how you learn to strike versus how well you strike.

This really is what it's all about. Prelude gives you a sense of responsibility. The characters actions have real consequences. This is good because it makes the player think about he does, and it's good because it makes it seem like the choises made really matter.

The the things mentioned here don't have real consequences, they have bullshit consequences. They're bullshit because there's no warning on them, and they lock you out of valuable things.

Like I said with the well thing, people looking for help with things, aka Quest Givers, aren't going to simply not need help in other areas because you take the initiative to fix a well on your own.

I think the necklace quest is great as it is. If a character has a high Thuamaturgy, this quest rewards him for having trained well in the right skill, and If no one has the right skill, it keeps the player on his toes. I don't know about other people, but I am williing to accept the occasional forced reload to keep the game from becoming a bed time story.

And if you DON'T have that high THAUMATURGY skill? What then? Oh, that's right, you die with no warning at all.

Killing the player for picking the wrong choice in a dialogue window is bad design, no matter what the excuse is. It has nothing to do with being a bedtime story or not.

 

[Trash]

That's not the point. If all I was concerned with was a main plot, I'd be playing Dungeon Siege or Icewind Dale 2.

Well, you gotta admit that a cool main story does give a player more incentive to keep on playing. There's just something about delving deeper and deeper into a game trying to figure out the what's, who's and why's that's very appealing to me. That is, if the main plot is not the standard "kill the foozle with the sword of yadada" rehash.

That only works on encounters where you're not surrounded or enemies don't come from multiple sides.

Heh, guess that enemies that attack you really don't mind it if you're not fully prepared for ém eh? But I have to say, the combat was hard, even to the point of getting frustrating for me. Then again, I'm always more for the diplomatic approach (and then letting other people do your dirty work) :twisted:

And if you DON'T have that high THAUMATURGY skill? What then? Oh, that's right, you die with no warning at all.

Killing the player for picking the wrong choice in a dialogue window is bad design, no matter what the excuse is. It has nothing to do with being a bedtime story or not

Remember the old call of cthulu rpg? This game had tons of shit like this happening to you and to be honest...I loved it. Learned me to be really carefull with magic crap...and to get my chars running at the first sign of anything wierd.
Magic imo should be fearsome, powerfull, alien and quite often lethal. It explains why not everybody is a wizard and why many people fear it.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Thank you for your replies. I appreciate you giving what I wrote a thought.

if you could take the priestess a meal every so often, say once every few days

Even a bribe to the headmaster would be a nice thing. "I'll get him to accept you in to that class for 1000 drach." Heck, make the cost of the bribe dependent on BARTER.

These are excellent ways to fix the quests without removing the logic and original intentions of the designers. As for the necklace thingy, I would suggest making the husband or a guard react as they do to stealing attempts (which what it would look like, i.e. bunch of thug looking people see a sleeping woman and suddenly try to remove the necklace). So the guard warns the party, if the party insist on having things done their way, the guards attack. What do you say? I don't think the changes we suggest, assuming the majority of folks here would agree, are hard to implement. Sure it's an extra mile, but it would solve some issues.

As I said before, i don't necessary disagree with some choices the dev team made, but a lot of folks did. So I would rather think of a way to find a compromise solution that does not alter the 'realism' of the game, but provides more flexibility, and fits well into the realistic settings. Saint, I thank you for your ideas, I hope that ZS is paying attention.

learning by reading in the Library of Leit requires you have a high LITERACY AND LORE skill.

you can train lore in the seminary as high as you want for some coins (if it's not a bug)

You wouldn't be able to get through the game without good armor. A lot of NPCs only have 12APs too, like Tauna. Imagine having to put her in a platemail after developing that POLEARM skill so high, and now she can't use that POLEARM skill because that full suit of platemail's reduced her to 6APs. Do you think that's a better solution? I certainly don't.

Well, you come up with good points, I'll give you that. Here is my take on that. You don't have to use the heaviest armour. There are plenty of "medium" armors with -2-3 penalties that is as good. There is a harden armor spell (we agree that the riddle should be fixed), there is armor skill that supposed to reduce penalties (which would be a good way idea to balance heavy penalties out). Also you can use exp points to increase speed-raising skills. As you can see, there are clearly some choices to make.

Also, from the role-playing point of view, I am having a hard time to imagine a figher in a heavy armor using a polearm. It's a fast, reflex-based weapon as of opposite to strength based great axe. Just my 5 cents. The fact that you don't really die, can give you a luxury of trying different strategies and using party members more creatively.

My character walked by a broken well somewhere and fixed it

Well, do you always fix broken things when you walk past them? While I agree that it's better to fix these quests, why would your group of adventurers bother to deliver the food or to fix the well? At least the thau in Kellen clearly says that he would teach you a trick or two if you fix the fence, so there is a good reason to it.

My problem with many crpgs is that they turn a player into a hound running around looking for something else to do for extra exp. It's like a huge vacuum cleaner that sucks in all exp points and loot leaving an area squicky clean..

It's like '' alright folks, we slayed the dragon, we stopped the orcs' invasion, we found the manadatory little kid, we even saved the old lady's cat. What else can we do? Common, folks, don't be shy, no matter how small it is we will take it. What? Nothing? Something to be delivered? We have a fellow right here who can fix anything. No? Hmm, tough crowd. Say, if we kill you all, we can still get the exp and then loot the corpses. Where you all running?

Again, there are very few things (except in Jerrok) that will stop you from finishing the game. You can even tell the rebellion to go screw themselves and still finish the game following the dagger quest.

Bravo to ZS for that, providing 2 main plot lines is a great way to promote true non-linearity.

As for other attributes affecting learning, why should it be so difficult for my fighter to learn combat just because he's not smart?

To stimulate people puting a couple of points into intel. May be the balance should be tweaked a bit, but I think the main idea is right. My fighter has intel of 12 at the expense of more important attributes, otherwise I would keep it at 6 or 8 and bump up the str or speed.

I don't know about other people, but I am williing to accept the occasional forced reload to keep the game from becoming a bed time story.

My sentiments exactly. I don't mind an occasional reload, but I realize that not everybody feel that way. The tweaks that SP and I suggested can help to maintain the sense of responsibility without forcing players to reload. What do you think, Kyminara?

That's my point. If you can do part of a quest, and break a series of quests later, then that doesn't encourage you to tinker around, pardon the pun.

It does not really break anything that could not be fixed. Fixing the well is part of the quest to be admitted to the Academy. 50 coins will do the trick for you, high intel helps too, and even if you insist on helping the little guy, fixing the well is one of the way to do it. Another way to go is to talk his mom into leting him go. If your speech is not high enough, go to Citadel's Seminary and train it.

It is a great example of multiple ways to solve a quest, by the way,

IIf all I was concerned with was a main plot, I'd be playing Dungeon Siege or Icewind Dale 2

Dungeon Siege has a plot ? :shock:

I even had one guy devoted to combat, Nylias.

I don't think that Nylias was the best choice. I picked the adventuring chick in the Kellen's tavern, the dagger thief Mirilich ( I gave him a double shot crossbow), and the merc Divianna.

Killing the player for picking the wrong choice in a dialogue window is bad design, no matter what the excuse is.

Being an adventurer is a risky business. Dungeons are full of dusty bones whose owners made a wrong choice Seriously though, after carefull consideration I agree with SP, killing is too much, especially so casually. If you bent on killing a char do it with style, preferrably Butch Cassidy and Sandance Kid vs the whole Bolivian army style

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

As for the necklace thingy, I would suggest making the husband or a guard react as they do to stealing attempts (which what it would look like, i.e. bunch of thug looking people see a sleeping woman and suddenly try to remove the necklace). So the guard warns the party, if the party insist on having things done their way, the guards attack. What do you say? I don't think the changes we suggest, assuming the majority of folks here would agree, are hard to implement. Sure it's an extra mile, but it would solve some issues.

Actually, that's brilliant, man! That's a damned, DAMNED fine way of handling it rather than the way it is handled. It makes sense too, because it ties in with the way the rest of the game is. When you try to pickpocket, and fail twice on someone, they cry out. Instead, the guard should do that for the wife.

After all, the guard probably would be watching over her while you're in there just to make sure you're not doing something fishy. Getting a necklace off a sleeping lady's neck isn't the most subtle thing, either. It should be more than a little noticable by the guard.

As I said before, i don't necessary disagree with some choices the dev team made, but a lot of folks did. So I would rather think of a way to find a compromise solution that does not alter the 'realism' of the game, but provides more flexibility, and fits well into the realistic settings. Saint, I thank you for your ideas, I hope that ZS is paying attention.

It's also kind of hard to argue realism in a game where you can beat someone several times with a great axe until they die. :D

you can train lore in the seminary as high as you want for some coins (if it's not a bug)

Not if you kill the student.

Well, you come up with good points, I'll give you that. Here is my take on that. You don't have to use the heaviest armour. There are plenty of "medium" armors with -2-3 penalties that is as good. There is a harden armor spell (we agree that the riddle should be fixed), there is armor skill that supposed to reduce penalties (which would be a good way idea to balance heavy penalties out). Also you can use exp points to increase speed-raising skills. As you can see, there are clearly some choices to make.

All it takes is 5 points before you're reduced to just Quick Attack with the spear.

What's the point of spending all those points on DAGGER when you're going to be using a POLEARM skill? In addition to that, you have to spend points on GIFTS OF GODDESS and her other skills. She has no DAGGER at all, so you'd have to raise that 50 points just to get her to 15 Speed. That's a hell of a lot of XP.

Also, from the role-playing point of view, I am having a hard time to imagine a figher in a heavy armor using a polearm. It's a fast, reflex-based weapon as of opposite to strength based great axe. Just my 5 cents. The fact that you don't really die, can give you a luxury of trying different strategies and using party members more creatively.

The Chinese did it. The Greeks and Romans(note the Roman influence in the game) also had armored spearman.

Well, do you always fix broken things when you walk past them?

No, but we tend to drive passed stranded motorists on the freeway too.

My problem with many crpgs is that they turn a player into a hound running around looking for something else to do for extra exp. It's like a huge vacuum cleaner that sucks in all exp points and loot leaving an area squicky clean..

Most of the quests in the game aren't like that, but you're also working for The Watcher, which can explain why you'd go around looking for trouble and solving problems. That's what The Watcher does, isn't it? Shouldn't he pick people who problem solve?

It's like '' alright folks, we slayed the dragon, we stopped the orcs' invasion, we found the manadatory little kid, we even saved the old lady's cat. What else can we do? Common, folks, don't be shy, no matter how small it is we will take it. What? Nothing? Something to be delivered? We have a fellow right here who can fix anything. No? Hmm, tough crowd. Say, if we kill you all, we can still get the exp and then loot the corpses. Where you all running?

Well, cat saving stuff is silly, really. While you should expect to help people out for money, maybe some experience and other stuff, what you're doing should reflect who you are. I just wiped out the evil underground in the sewers of The Citadel. I most certainly am above decatting a tree.

Bravo to ZS for that, providing 2 main plot lines is a great way to promote true non-linearity.

I agree. I think that's probably the coolest part of the game. Though, I prefer Fallout's method of just leaving clues about the mutant army all over the place rather than a sequential series of plot lines. It's still pretty sweet, though.

However, what's silly is saying that you should be able to blow a plotline because another plotline is in the game. That's why the Priestess's food should be served periodically.

To stimulate people puting a couple of points into intel. May be the balance should be tweaked a bit, but I think the main idea is right. My fighter has intel of 12 at the expense of more important attributes, otherwise I would keep it at 6 or 8 and bump up the str or speed.

I agree here. If my skills raised based on Strength and other factors, then I'll be damned if my Intelligence score for my guardian will be above 5. I'll just buff out my guardian with Strength, Dexterity and Speed and make UBERGUARDIAN.

The way it is now, I can make UBERGUARDIAN, but I'm going to trade off how fast his skills go up for raw Speed and Strength.

My sentiments exactly. I don't mind an occasional reload, but I realize that not everybody feel that way. The tweaks that SP and I suggested can help to maintain the sense of responsibility without forcing players to reload. What do you think, Kyminara?

I can name lots of CRPGs that are hard that don't punish the players like Prelude to Darkness does and still maintain grit. Geneforge is pretty good about this. Fallout did this as well. There's nothing bedtime story about either of those two.

It does not really break anything that could not be fixed. Fixing the well is part of the quest to be admitted to the Academy. 50 coins will do the trick for you, high intel helps too, and even if you insist on helping the little guy, fixing the well is one of the way to do it. Another way to go is to talk his mom into leting him go. If your speech is not high enough, go to Citadel's Seminary and train it.

It is a great example of multiple ways to solve a quest, by the way.

Oh.. THAT well.. No wonder I missed it. I just talked his mom in to letting him join.

I agree. In that case, there are a number of ways of not doing the well, which is great.

Dungeon Siege has a plot ? :shock:

Sure! You're a farmer.. And you walk.. and walk.. and walk some more. Eventually, it's over and you win.

I don't think that Nylias was the best choice. I picked the adventuring chick in the Kellen's tavern, the dagger thief Mirilich ( I gave him a double shot crossbow), and the merc Divianna.

The new game I'm playing, I have Tauna and Divianna. I haven't picked a fifth one yet.

Being an adventurer is a risky business. Dungeons are full of dusty bones whose owners made a wrong choice Seriously though, after carefull consideration I agree with SP, killing is too much, especially so casually. If you bent on killing a char do it with style, preferrably Butch Cassidy and Sandance Kid vs the whole Bolivian army style

Speaking of westerns.. When I was town killing Kellen, I got to thinking..

I just slaughtered everyone at the Inn in that town, so why is everyone else in town so willing to die? If you want to talk about realism, don't you think those people, after seeing me cut down the innkeeper, Nylias, the hunter, and the two people who live in the farm, would be more inclined to NOT fight me?

I just think it'd be interesting if, rather than everyone in town trying to kill you, they fell in to line similar to those people in the Mexican town in The Magnificent Seven. You know, the whole, "Please don't kill us, take what you want!" situation. Following in line with that movie, they should use the mean time to recruit guardians and other people who are willing to aid them and train them.

It's always bothered me that towns in CRPGs, once you get caught stealing or kill someone, always fall in to the same old, "everyone in town lemmings themselves at your powerful party".

 

[thathmew]

A couple things:
1) Actually it is a bug that you can't deliver the food more than once, you are supposed to be able to do it again, so that should be fixed in the next version.

on the necklace:
I like the ideas, don't know if I'll be able to get them in or not, I agree the situation could be handled a bit better.

on the Academy Question and the Jerrock issue.
1) I probably am going to modify these in some way, even if it's only to add more significance and make sure the player has some sort of "are you sure? option" and possibly add an intelligence based inicator "so-and-so thinks that might be a bad idea, are you sure?" etc....
.
But it does bring up a larger issue, which is that as a developer do you ignore the fact that the player can save/reload or not?

Basically you have to decide during development if you're going to pretend the ability doesn't exist or if you're going to allow for it and acknowledge the fact that players will re-load when things don't go there way. We tried generally to design systems and situations where the player would and we tried to take away a lot of the randomness experienced in other games, i.e. in most situations you can't re-load to get a better result, you're either capable or not. (exceptions being pickpocket and lockpicking generally)

On the one hand saving/reloading causes a break in the suspension of disbelief. On the other hand not having some decisions be "final" also generally causes a suspension in disbelief over time if not immediately. We tried to make it so that when the situations do occur with significant consquences and the player is "screwed" they generally know it immediately, we did try (and generally fairly successfully I think) to keep the player from screwing themselves in the distant future with a decision made now. Not neessarily the best way to go from a realistic world standpoint, but much preferable from a gameplay one.

anyway that's just some thoughts on it, like I said I agree they situations are a little arbitrary and need improvement regardless.

cheers,
-mat

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

A couple things:
1) Actually it is a bug that you can't deliver the food more than once, you are supposed to be able to do it again, so that should be fixed in the next version.

Excellent!

on the necklace:
I like the ideas, don't know if I'll be able to get them in or not, I agree the situation could be handled a bit better.

I think that Vault Dweller's idea on the subject, while it may be more tricky to impliment, is the best suggestion on this so far since it fits in with the game mechanics.

on the Academy Question and the Jerrock issue.
1) I probably am going to modify these in some way, even if it's only to add more significance and make sure the player has some sort of "are you sure? option" and possibly add an intelligence based inicator "so-and-so thinks that might be a bad idea, are you sure?" etc....

More warning would be great. I did the Academy in my present game, and there's something like 26 points for the player learning Thaumaturgy, three important Thaumaturgy spells, and 14 points XP for everyone involved in this quest.

That's quite a lot to lose out on because of one dialogue answer.

But it does bring up a larger issue, which is that as a developer do you ignore the fact that the player can save/reload or not?

I'm not so sure you should ignore it, but relying on it is a problem.

 

[calron]

Another way around such important dialog options would be to adjust the autosave feature. Instead of only doing the autosave specific to a time interval you could also have some key moments in the game where the autosave is activated. In that way at least you have a save file you can go back to if you make a mistake in a dialog, such as the one in the academy, without losing other things.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Actually, that's brilliant, man! That's a damned, DAMNED fine way of handling it

Why thank you. :D

The Chinese did it. The Greeks and Romans(note the Roman influence in the game) also had armored spearman

True, and I did note the influence. However, I thought that the Greeks and the Romans were mostly fond of light to medium armor. The Romans used leather, scale armor, and segmented armor. Cuirasses were mostly reserved for higher ranks. Don't take it as an argument though, I don't know enough. Just my 5 cents

agree. I think that's probably the coolest part of the game. Though, I prefer Fallout's method of just leaving clues about the mutant army all over the place rather than a sequential series of plot lines. It's still pretty sweet, though

Pretty sweet indeed.

they fell in to line similar to those people in the Mexican town in The Magnificent Seven. You know, the whole, "Please don't kill us, take what you want!" situation

Great example. There are many discussions out there on how to play an evil char. Mostly game developers provide a fascinating option to charge money for the services, throw in rude remarks here and there, ally with an evil npc, and ability to butcher whole cities. Well, what if you arrive in a town, go staright to a local militia place, kill them if you can (should not be easy though), and then it's "please don't kill us, take what you want" time. You tax the establishments, get free goodies, fight off goody-goody mercs.

It should not be transformed into simcity of course. All it technically does is add some coins every week or so, goods cost 0, etc., but it would be very cool. It might screw your reputation big time, but what do you care. You are evil after all, you are the second worst thing that happen to this game world :twisted:

It's always bothered me that towns in CRPGs, once you get caught stealing or kill someone, always fall in to the same old, "everyone in town lemmings themselves at your powerful party".

Agree. It does not make any sense.

which is that as a developer do you ignore the fact that the player can save/reload or not?

All I can say, recognizing the fact that I'm not a developer yet (it's my dream to make a game one day), and generally I dislike giving advices to people who are more experienced in any given area then I'm, but I will give it a try. File it under fans' feedback

The fact that a player can always reload has nothing to do with the way developers should design a game. Reload is not the last solution to quests. Try to give a player as many choices stimulating and rewarding development of as many skills as possible, and that should take care of forced reloading situation.

Don't take me wrong, thathmew, overall Prelude is a great gaming experience. Keep up the good work

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

True, and I did note the influence. However, I thought that the Greeks and the Romans were mostly fond of light to medium armor. The Romans used leather, scale armor, and segmented armor. Cuirasses were mostly reserved for higher ranks. Don't take it as an argument though, I don't know enough. Just my 5 cents

Well, they didn't have full plate like we normally think of it, no. However, if they did, I'm not sure they'd give up their polearms. They'd probably just make the joints less armored so you could use those weapons.