'Recruit' and 'Veteran' Modes in Alpha Protocol

[BeholderX]

Fuck, you guys are bitchy today. More options are always good, so this is good news.

 

[BlitzKitchen]

Skyway is an example of a troll that works well. Other trolls should follow his example.

You're the troll for labeling others the title for making legitimate arguments.

 

[DriacKin]

Skyway is an example of a troll that works well. Other trolls should follow his example.

You're the troll for labeling others the title for making legitimate arguments.

Most people that label him a troll (i'm not one of them) don't have a problem with his arguments; They usually complain that he constantly spams his ideas over and over.
Again, I'm not one of these complainers.

 

[deuxhero]

Why are we complaining about needing to unlock them? We are PC gamers, that is what editing the really simple config files in notepad is for.

 

[MetalCraze]

They usually complain that he constantly spams his ideas over and over.

What's funny is that I've heard that "argument" even when I bashed a fresh PR hype not repeated anywhere. They just don't like to see their precious crap criticized and need a more legitimate reason to complain other than that so it's either I "repeat" stuff or "don't write any arguments other than "shit" ".

 

[ghostdog]

I'll agree with skyway, the 120 hours of spoken dialog sounds like PR bullshit. As for the unlockables, we'll have to see. The game has to be interesting enough for you to want to replay it. Unless you are of course some console retard that just to get all unlockables and achievements.

 

[poocolator]

God... spoken dialogue... it means nothing to me since Oblivion/FO3.

 

[Radisshu]

I actually thought this sounded pretty good. A difficulty setting with a bit more depth, not just "Enemies will now take half damage".

 

[JarlFrank]

Oblivion hyped its many hours of recorded voice acting, too. Some people were impressed, but others calculated that those were actually quite few hours for an RPG the size of Oblivion and found out that either there is very few dialogue, or many NPCs use exactly the same lines. Well, they were right, as you could hear from the voiceacting of the beggars....

And 120 hours is too much. Let's try with calculations again. How much space do 120 hours of soundfiles require? Taking a look at my music collection, one album is generally about 40 minutes, and those are 100 MBs large. Let's be generous and say 1 hour is 100 MB. So 120 hours would be... 12000 MB? Which is 12 GB? That's ridiculous. 120 hours of voiceacting require a shitload of disk space.

 

[Radisshu]

Oblivion hyped its many hours of recorded voice acting, too. Some people were impressed, but others calculated that those were actually quite few hours for an RPG the size of Oblivion and found out that either there is very few dialogue, or many NPCs use exactly the same lines. Well, they were right, as you could hear from the voiceacting of the beggars....

And 120 hours is too much. Let's try with calculations again. How much space do 120 hours of soundfiles require? Taking a look at my music collection, one album is generally about 40 minutes, and those are 100 MBs large. Let's be generous and say 1 hour is 100 MB. So 120 hours would be... 12000 MB? Which is 12 GB? That's ridiculous. 120 hours of voiceacting require a shitload of disk space.

Unless they've got some special format, but that would most likely damage the quality

 

[DriacKin]

My guess is that they actually just meant 12.0 Hrs

 

[Azrael the cat]

My guess is that they actually just meant 12.0 Hrs

Yeah, 12 hours sounds about right. Not only would 120 hours require an absurd amount of disk space, but the game would have to play like an interactive Gilmore Girls.

Ahh...Gilmore Girls the game, now that's an idea! An entire game full of 2 characters talking at 10 words per second, with interactive options like (a) explain why you're a male watching the show, despite one female lead being way too youg for you and the other one being way too old for you, (b) try not to think too hard about the illogicality of a parent as completely fucking useless as the mother managing to raise a straight-laced uni-scholarship kid like Rory, and (c) shut up, you disgusting fuck, they're cast as mother and daughter, there is never going to be an episode where they get it on, ok!

 

[Clockwork Knight]

(c) shut up, you disgusting fuck, they're cast as mother and daughter, there is never going to be an episode where they get it on, ok!

I'm sad you feel that way, son.

 

[JarlFrank]

It would be a lot more useful to know how many words they have in their dialogues, so you can directly compare it to older dialogue-heavy RPGs like PST. But nowadays "Our game has 100.000 words!" would probably scare away the kiddies because "words" means "read" and redding is teh hard, so they measure the length of their dialogue in the amount of recorded voiceacting.

 

[MetalCraze]

My guess is that they actually just meant 12.0 Hrs

And those evil journalists just have mistaken "one hundred twenty hours" for "twelve point zero hours" - what tricks hearing can play with people

I'm pretty sure there are much more lies from Obsidian, in fact I'm sure that just like in ME/Indigo Prophecy and Avellone's KotOR2 dialogues will lead to the exactly same responses simply because in no way I can believe that you first can pick "aggressive" option, hit the guy in the face then pick goodie-goodie option and it won't look ridiculously stupid. This is actually the reason why your choices are hidden from you behind retarded 1 word descriptions.

 

[BLOBERT]

HAHAHAHAHA THIS GAME IS SUCKS!!!!11 WHY DO YOU ASSHOLES LIKE IT NO ONE WITH ANY TASTE HAS PLAYED THIS GAME YOU SHITHEADS WHO0 BOUGHT IT ARE STUPID

OBSIDIAIANS ARE LIARS THEY LIE ABOUT THE GAMES ALL THE TIME IF YOU PLAY IT YOU KNOW HOW DUMB ITY IS GO BACK TO GAMESPOT CONSOLE KIDDIES

 

[Deleted member 7219]

You're trying too hard.

 

[poocolator]

Our game has 120000000*10^(-7) hours of spoken dialogue!

 

[DriacKin]

Where exactly does it say that AP has 120 hrs of dialogue?
I can't seem to find this quote (only looked for like 20 seconds)

 

[MetalCraze]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/alpha ... st-preview

 

[Llyranor]

Just a clarification: Recruit and Veteran are separate from the game's actual difficulty levels, and Recruit is available from the beginning.

Obs PR guy:

I think there's an error in this preview. Recruit is currently available as soon as you start up the game, and I don't think there are any plans to change that. Veteran will require you to play through Recruit before you can unlock it, though.

When you start up a game, you pick an "agent history", which pre-selects some of the skills for you. You can choose between Soldier (guns), Field Agent (stealth), or Tech Specialist (tech skills). These give you some basic recommended skills that will suit your playstyle if you don't want to allocate your skills yourself. (You can also choose Freelancer if you want to allocate your skills yourself.) However, the history you choose will also change the way some characters will react to you; some characters (especially early on) know that you came from the armed forces if you chose the Soldier background, and will comment on that, etc.

Recruit and Veteran are similar. If you start as a Recruit, you are assumed to be a really green recruit, and your other agents are going to give you a hard time about it (which in itself can be pretty amusing); likewise with Veteran, where other characters will treat you with a bit more respect because they know you've been around the block once or twice.

If you select a "tech specialist" background, you will be given a certain amount of advancement points allocated to certain skills in the character creation menu. If you want to, say, remove all of your points and throw them into Assault Rifles, then start the game, NPCs will still refer to you as if you had the tech specialist background, because that's what you initially chose.

That might sound confusing, but in the end it lets people who choose to replay the game the ability to go through with a different background and see some of the different conversations that ensue without necessarily having to play through with skills they don't want to play with.

 

[MetalCraze]

I think there's an error in this preview

Or Obs PR guy just noticed that something is burning.

some characters (especially early on) know that you came from the armed forces if you chose the Soldier background, and will comment on that, etc.

So basically exactly like that shit in Mass Effect. And I like the list of "consequences" for that, he could've just dropped the etc. thing.

Recruit and Veteran are similar. If you start as a Recruit, you are assumed to be a really green recruit, and your other agents are going to give you a hard time about it (which in itself can be pretty amusing); likewise with Veteran, where other characters will treat you with a bit more respect because they know you've been around the block once or twice.

Which won't go beyond a few dialogues commenting on that.

If you select a "tech specialist" background, you will be given a certain amount of advancement points allocated to certain skills in the character creation menu. If you want to, say, remove all of your points and throw them into Assault Rifles, then start the game, NPCs will still refer to you as if you had the tech specialist background, because that's what you initially chose.

What happened to good game designers anyway? All of these ideas are pretty lame.