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You know, I'd been wondering what it was that made GF2 seem awkwardly a replica of GF1 to me, and I think this discussion has got it: GF2 is a static world that doesn't seem to have any reason to be static, but GF1 is a static world that seems to lack motion believably.

 

*wanders off to ponder this some more*

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A3 had entirely generic people in entirely generic towns. They didn't even have names, just wares.

 

A4 has contentless characters, but they at least get their own names and descriptions.

 

—Alorael, who was upset by the few remnants of characters from older Avernums who were once important or at least entertaining and who were reduced to those few lines. Ken of the Ken and Jen pair was stripped of dialogue entirely. Fort Draco lost its smelting, its grime, and its Bills. "I'm Bill and he's Bill too!" was one of the defining moments of Exile about a decade ago.

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Wow, this has turned into a really great conversation.

 

I think Stareye's analysis is spot-on. I would add, however, that even a game that has this kind of repetitive and unoriginal general construction CAN be a really cool and creative game -- but there has to be something else about it that makes it cool. Lufia II, for example, has a basic structure more blatantly and stupidly repetitive than anything I've ever seen, and it has awful cardboard characters, yet it's a celebrated game because the combat is challenging, it has interesting widgets, and the characters do unusual things like cry, a lot, and have children.

 

Avernum IV was Jeff's 13th game. All his games have been remarkably similar as RPGs go -- probably because he works alone. I don't think any other game designer has produced more than two or three games all by himself. The trend, however, is that the games have been getting more similar. With the exception of Geneforge 1, there haven't been any real paradigm shifts, either in terms of gameplay or story, since Nethergate (game #5). Everything has been getting more streamlined... so there is less room for cool stuff, for experimentation.

 

It also seems that he's under a lot of time pressure. I salute him for his ability to force himself to publish. It's something that's very rare, and damn straight it's the reason Spiderweb has been so successful. But it does seem like this schedule, with close to 2 games per year plus ports, may not be the most conducive thing for innovation -- or for humor, or for intricacy of worlds. Intricacy does not mean putting in lots of details that don't matter -- a shirt and pants in every drawer that you can pick up. It means all the personal details E/A 1 and 2 had. All the wrinkles.

 

One last comment: Avernum does seem to be picking up a little bit of that D&D good vs. evil vibe, doesn't it? Av1 (and its prehistory) are all about Grah-Hoth, and then Garzahd and Rentar-Ihrno both merge with demons... huh.

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I would have to agree with the fact that the world of Spiderweb games are static, and that it is an issue. How could the games rather be done?

Well, think about it. Morrowind, for example, is basicly just the same. You go to Bob, Bob gives you a mission, you kill Bob's enemy, and you are rewarded with loot and more missions. However, there are so many Bobs, and so many diffrent fractions that you can join at once, with mutliple Bobs wanting to get on eatchothers throats. You don't have to do the main mission for the main Bob, but can actually ignore it untill the very end.

 

The part of Bob just sitting in his office, dispening missions, is another easily fixable thing. Just have him change location, or aid you in battle now and then.

And by the way, I thought the main villain of Diplomacy with the Dead, the BoA scenario, was rather detailed and well fleshed-out.

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I would have to agree with the fact that the world of Spiderweb games are static, and that it is an issue. How could the games rather be done?
Well, I'll use an example of my scenario A Perfect Forest. Although it is very short in comparison, I purposely tried to avoid the Jeff Vogel method. I warn that there be spoilers ahead.

The identity of Bob is not fixed and sometimes not a person at all. I will also look at the villains:

Initially Bob is the Empire sending you out to survey a remote isle. I could have just used the you were wandering a forest excuse, but I felt this to be more coherent.

Upon discovering the village, you are interrogated by Arivan (one of the villains) and then you continue to investigate and find Klinger (who takes the role of Bob). You help Bob escape and complete his mission to go to Asmur.

Asmur gets quashed, you pick up Valzier (who sort of serves as a Bob accessory). Get to Rebel lair, the role of Bob transfer to the rebel leader, Suvar. Rebel lair gets attacked by Arivan (who takes an active role). You rush to escape to get to Lost City, smack Valzier who turns out be an imposter and agent for Arivan.

Suvar gets killed and the rebellion crushed, thus leaving the party Bobless (although the player knows, the party does not, to be fair). Klinger sacrifices himself to kill Arivan and her followers. Go though Lost City, meet Perfect Spirit (the main villain) in the Lost Mine.

At this point, the player is motivated by the fact of uncovering the mystery. The party does not necessarily know that Bob is dead, so he remains as the party's motivation. However, for the player, Bob is now the abstract mystery itself.

The Perfect Spirit is a static villain and one that is not really developed that much. This is on purpose because of the mystery atmosphere. If I had it "active" in the party's adventures, it would have diminished the mystery. To justify the Perfect Spirit staying inactive, I made him trapped in the mine by magical machinery.

You destroy machinery, Perfect Spirit leaves island. Return to rebel lair, talk to Arivan before she dies. Speak to last remaining Rebels, learn of their future plans, leave. Meet the Empire (your original Bob), tell your story.

In this, Bob does not just sit in his office. We have the Empire who sort of does, but only serves to get the party to the action, not facilitate it. Bob, as Klinger joins the party, fights along side them and plays an active role. Bob transfers to a less interesting character who is immediately killed and replaced by an abstract concept of intrigue and perhaps wanted to report results to the Empire.

The villains Arivan, Valzier (who is really the imposter), and the Perfect Spirit each have varying degrees of involvment. The party meets Arivan before meeting Bob (Klinger), which is somewhat of a reverse. Arivan also takes an active role by crushing the rebellion. In addition, you never fight her, you only speak to her just before she dies.

Valzier joins the party, pretends to be a friend, leads Arivan to the rebels unknowing to everyone else including the player, and eventually betrays the party.

The Pefect Spirit I have already discussed.

The difference in this from Jeff's is that Bob is actually an important and active character in the story. The villains (except for the Perfect Spirit) do not just sit on some throne and laugh meniacally until the party sets them straight. That's the difference, it shares commanility, but is different.

Quote:
The part of Bob just sitting in his office, dispening missions, is another easily fixable thing. Just have him change location, or aid you in battle now and then.
That's exactly what I am saying. The characters would be more realistic if they actually did stuff other than act important. To take it further, the more interaction of other characters with the story, the better the characters, and the better the story, generally speaking.
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Sounds very good. I'm sure Jeff could do something in this direction -- in fact it sounds as though he wants to. Not as a counterargument, but just as a continuation of the thought, though, I wonder how long can that kind of thing be kept up.

I mean, I'd go beyond just getting Bob off his duff, and say that I like the idea of a complicatedly scripted game, where NPCs take initiative, respond dramatically to the player's choices, etc. I have a bad feeling about the scaling of this sort of thing, though. A game as long as a game has to be, if it is to sell for $30, probably just can't handle much complexity, because of how it multiplies itself. That means that Jeff just can't afford to go too far this way.

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I think Nethergate worked really well despite no one moving around at all, and I think the reason is that no one seemed like the sort to move around at all. There are all sorts of people in A4 who might move (adventurers, merchants, etc.) but don't. (There were a bunch who did move around also, but that's neither here nor there.) But in Nethergate, which was about as static as one could get, where were the Roman soldiers going to go? To Celtic territory? Definitely not.

 

I think that's why Anaximander sitting in his office didn't bother me as much. Anaximander wasn't an adventurer; he was some sort of pencil-pusher. Where was he going to go? He had an office in which he sat and gave orders when you made reports. He was sort of like the head of a military base in foreign war.

 

Come to think of it, A1 handled the static-villain concept very well, too. Sss-Thsss wasn't likely to go on raids personally — he just ordered them. Grah-Hoth, once he escaped, went off to hang out in his own kingdom and build strength. Where else would he go? Hawthorne wasn't expecting you, so the most natural place for him to be was in his fortress.

 

I think the answer, then, is to create situations in which it seems natural that the characters do what they do.

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I am familiar with the "Bob" term, though I don't use it in my thinking about design.

 

Having one central character who gives orders for a large chunk of the plot happens for several reasons. It's realistic. It's easier on the player. (Lost in the plot? There's always one dude you can talk to to set you straight.)

 

And, perhaps most importantly, it's easier, so I can focus design time on the actual missions as opposed to the mission giver. Because, honestly. All my fondest memories of RPGs are of the dungeons, traps, foes, and so on. Not of the Jedi/General/Porn Star/Alphonse The Talking Brick who told me to go there.

 

As for an rpg with a deep interactive world with non-static characters and so on, that is a really tough nut. I need to be convinced that the payoff is worth the huge amount of work. When I'm planning Geneforge 4, I think my energy will be much better spent planning cool, badass (albeit static) dungeons to go through.

 

By the way, I've been reading D-Day by Stephen Ambrose. At first, I thought it was really exciting, but now I know that it is not. Eisenhower was such a "Bob" character. All he did was sit in the back and give orders. I had no idea that World War II was so uninterestingly plotted. smile

 

- Jeff Vogel

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Originally written by Spidweb:
By the way, I've been reading D-Day by Stephen Ambrose. At first, I thought it was really exciting, but now I know that it is not. Eisenhower was such a "Bob" character. All he did was sit in the back and give orders. I had no idea that World War II was so uninterestingly plotted.
Two problems with this analogy jump out at me: first, how many of the soldiers in WWII actually got their orders directly from Eisenhower? There were many mini-Bobs throughout.

Second, would an assassination of Eisenhower have ended WWII in defeat for the Americans? Your villain leaders are much more important for their sides than Eisenhower was for the Americans. Garzahd's death is critical in the turn of the Empire-Avernum War, but Stalin could purge his generals all the time and the Soviet Union could keep on fighting (albeit with 25 million losses).

Likewise, as far as interactivity goes, I'm reminded of the time when Nance and Elspeth get separated when Cotra is destroyed in Avernum 2, and the party tells one of them (I forget which) where the other is. She says that she's going to go to the city where her "friend" is, but she never does. It would be really satisfying to see the two of them actually re-unite because of the party's actions. It doesn't take a lot (a flag, a couple of specials to hide Nance in one town and make her appear in the other), but it's a big payoff for the player to see that the party's actions really are meaningful.

Still, I understand your point about an interactive world (that creating a lot of interactivity is a lot of work), and I think that all scenario designers sympathize. My point in all this is that some of your worlds seem static because they ought to be static, and some of your worlds seem static because it's hard to program them not to be, and the former are more believable and fun than the latter. The trick, I think, is not to write yourself into a situation in which it would make more sense for the world not to be static, but you don't have time to put in the interactivity that the plot calls for.

And you've mentioned in an interview or two that E3 was your best-selling game for a long time (not sure if that's still true). E3 was larger than anything else, and it changed over time. Towns were destroyed, plagues got worse, people moved around, so that the player got the feeling that the party's actions had meaning, and that the world was real and dynamic. I have to think that the dynamic aspect of E3 was part of the reason that it has been so successful. (And the size, and the elaborate spell system, and the classic old-school graphics, among other things.)
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Quote:
As for an rpg with a deep interactive world with non-static characters and so on, that is a really tough nut. I need to be convinced that the payoff is worth the huge amount of work. When I'm planning Geneforge 4, I think my energy will be much better spent planning cool, badass (albeit static) dungeons to go through.
It does not have to be that deeply interactive really. Even simple things like, you help out a fort. The fort sneds help to you later on. Or, you do something to offend Jack. Jill, who is friends with Jack, decides to make things inconvenient for you later on. We see some of this minor stuff already, but it would make things more interesting and really be only a little bit of code.

The other more detailed part comes from a very few characters who take more of an active role. Bob was just an example. Gretta and Alwan are characters who sort of do this, but never really develop beyond being poster childs for each extreme.

They have a few lines here and there, but otherwise they do not do anything other than following the main character. The way things are written it works decently well. However, they could have played more active of a role, actually influencing the storyline in some way.

A possible suggestion are a few recurring characters who have their own agendas (related to the plot in some at least tangential way) that sometimes either coincides with or against that of the party. In cases where the needs coincides, the character offers assistance, and in cases where it is against they may work to stop them. Again, not a lot of coding, but goes a long way to make the world more interactive.

Unexpected things could happen that change the dynamics of the situation. An example is the death of Houghton. As far as I can tell, this should have been a major event in Avernum but was regarded as little more than a hiccup because King Starrus was able to jump in right away and act as a new Bob as if nothing happened. Suppose there is no clear leader, we get a vacuum. This could have very interesting implications. This would take a bit more coding and plot modification, but if planned, it can be done well.

I'm not sure I see a whole lot of effort needed here. Have the main villain not sit in his tower all day cackling and thinking up evil schemes. Have him do stuff in the execution of these plots and be an active character rather than just rely on lieutenants. Have other characters have their own stories that have intersections with the main plot. Make us know them as actual people with likes, interests, and ambitons.

Quote:
By the way, I've been reading D-Day by Stephen Ambrose. At first, I thought it was really exciting, but now I know that it is not. Eisenhower was such a "Bob" character. All he did was sit in the back and give orders. I had no idea that World War II was so uninterestingly plotted.
I respectfully call this a strawman argument for several reasons:

1) WWII is a real event. RPGs bear a semblance to the real world, but are ultimately fantasy. We can draw parallels, but making direct comparisons is untenable.

2) Eisenhower was a fairly interesting character that I'm sure D-Day develops quite well. We get a lot of backstory on him; he becomes someone the reader can relate to. For example, someone like Lord Rahul gets little backstory other than that he is a big, powerful shaper. Had we known more about him, his personality, etc. Rahul would certainly have been interesting and crticism far less.

3) The face of war has changed in the modern era. Used to be the big guy like Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, etc. would go on the battlefield with their men. Sure, these guys did Bob like things, but they were more than just barkers of orders. I would put the RPG worlds of Avernum and Geneforge closer to those commanders.

4) On that note, Eisenhower is really just an old man who probably would not last long on a real world battlefield. Lord Rahul is very powerful, more powerful than virtually anyone on the isle, especially the main character. Why doesn't he take on Akari Blaze himself? Why does he need the party other than the fact that its a game and it would be uniteresting if Lord Rahul just won the game for them.

Thanks for participation in this discussion.
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Actually, Alwan and Greta do develop gradually, but reasonably. Their experience drives them to more extreme versions of their initial inclinations, but that's not hard to believe.

 

Bumping off Stalin, at the right stage, might have done something.

 

The issue of player power is one I have raised before, as something I would like to see better justified. To me it calls for explanation, how an apprentice can come out of nowhere and in a few days settle problems that defeated mighty leaders with years of experience. G1 did this quite well, I thought: the PC was a Shaper in a land of serviles, and there were canisters, and lots of buried secrets. But in G2 I really wondered why Barzahl didn't just walk over and whomp Easss the same way I ended up doing.

 

In G3 I felt there were grounds to rationalize the situation, in that I got an impression that there were actually far more rogues around than just the ones the player met, so the authorities had their hands full still. But it would have been interesting to get some explicit indications of why the PC was so uniquely effective, even compared to leading Shapers. Even just some remarks about the Shaper obsession with caution and security being paralyzing in a crisis.

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"I respectfully call this a strawman argument for several reasons:"

 

It wasn't a strawman argument. It was a joke. Thus the smiley.

 

The real argument, such as it was, buried within had already been stated in a previous paragraph. Simply, I am far more interested in what the characters do than how they are told to do it.

 

I have been thinking of someday writing a whole new humorous rpg series. And, when I do, there will be a chain of quests given by Ambrose The Talking Brick. This I promise you.

 

As for interactivity, changing world, and so on, I love this stuff, and put in as much as I can stand. However, for me, the most time-consuming, exhausting part of writing the games is dialogue and prose. Every bit of world-changing is a straight shot of the hardest stuff to do. I WANT to do that stuff. But I can only do so much.

 

Kelandon makes an excellent point about the evolving world of Exile 3. But it mostly evolved in a way that was very easy to code (crumbling buildings) and didn't manifest itself in dialogue very much. I may try doing something like that in the future. It was neat. But I have to have a game where the plot, etc. lends itself well to it.

 

- Jeff Vogel

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Quote:
Originally written by Spidweb:
"I respectfully call this a strawman argument for several reasons:"

It wasn't a strawman argument. It was a joke. Thus the smiley.

The real argument, such as it was, buried within had already been stated in a previous paragraph. Simply, I am far more interested in what the characters do than how they are told to do it.

I have been thinking of someday writing a whole new humorous rpg series. And, when I do, there will be a chain of quests given by Ambrose The Talking Brick. This I promise you.

As for interactivity, changing world, and so on, I love this stuff, and put in as much as I can stand. However, for me, the most time-consuming, exhausting part of writing the games is dialogue and prose. Every bit of world-changing is a straight shot of the hardest stuff to do. I WANT to do that stuff. But I can only do so much.

Kelandon makes an excellent point about the evolving world of Exile 3. But it mostly evolved in a way that was very easy to code (crumbling buildings) and didn't manifest itself in dialogue very much. I may try doing something like that in the future. It was neat. But I have to have a game where the plot, etc. lends itself well to it.

- Jeff Vogel
I'm totally in for beta testing that game when it happens. I really do NEED a good humourous RPG.
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I think the points about plausible and implausible static worlds are the most useful. A1 is static because things are at a standstill, and the party acts as the pebble that levels up and quests to become an avalanche that upsets the status quo. Nethergate is an obvious stalemate, and there's even a good reason for an arbitrary band of unskilled Celts to be the deciding force. Half of the deciding force, anyway.

 

Worlds that are static for a reason and that tap first level adventurers for important tasks are better than worlds that are static because they are and adventurers who adventure because that's what adventurers do.

 

As far as characters go, I don't mind cardboard Bobs. Villains and significant helpers deserve better. Erika (who is half Bob but only half) has a real background and a real personality. It matters when she gets killed. If players could see Garzahd burning down giant lizards, raping houses, and riding off on women, defeating him would be more satisfying. Seeing him return in A4 would also be more meaningful, although that was one encounter that I already thought was spiffy.

 

—Alorael, who places Alphonse ahead of Ambrose in his list of favorite talking bricks.

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"—Alorael, who places Alphonse ahead of Ambrose in his list of favorite talking bricks."

 

I mistyped. Alphonse is indeed a funnier name.

 

If you think you can be critical of my games, you should hear me with my game-designer friends when I really get going. "Yeah, so in my new game, you meet this farmer who says you need to find a rock, and then another rock, and then a third rock, and when you stack them in a bucket the farmer gives you a key you used to get the fourth rock OF POWER, and then you can kill the demon and win. Oh, and there's runes in there too."

 

- Jeff Vogel

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Quote:
Originally written by Spidweb:
"Yeah, so in my new game, you meet this farmer who says you need to find a rock, and then another rock, and then a third rock, and when you stack them in a bucket the farmer gives you a key you used to get the fourth rock OF POWER, and then you can kill the demon and win. Oh, and there's runes in there too."
Quick, BoE players: what scenario does this remind you of? :p

By the way, Jeff, if we had a topic about what you had done right in each of these games, I would have at least as much to say as I have had here.
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"For example, someone like Lord Rahul gets little backstory other than that he is a big, powerful shaper. Had we known more about him, his personality, etc. Rahul would certainly have been interesting and crticism far less."

 

I want to highlight this point. Not every character needs to have an interesting story and personality, but SOMEBODY should. In Exile I and II, these people were everywhere. G3 really only has two (Litalia and Khyryk), and A4 has practically no one besides Rentar-Ihrno. Previously interesting characters, like Solberg, were shuffled into corners, if they weren't eliminated entirely (Patrick, Aimee, the dragons, for example). BOB doesn't need to have a huge backstory, but he needs to be somehow differentiated from everyone else.

 

"I have been thinking of someday writing a whole new humorous rpg series. And, when I do, there will be a chain of quests given by Ambrose The Talking Brick."

 

IMHO, Ambrose the Talking Brick would make a MUCH more compelling Bob than any Bob we've had since the Three Crones. Avernum has weird magic. If there's room for GIFTs surely there's room for a talking brick. (Do I smell a Sylak crossover? wink

 

In all seriousness, I REALLY hope you write the humorous RPG series, Jeff! I think it would bring out some of your best assets as a game-maker.

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Funny RPG could be both an explanation for the Puzzle Box and the sequel to Nethergate that's been requested so many times. Your intrepid band becomes trapped in the bizarre miniature universe devised by that oh-so-impressive wizard Sylak and, armed only with assorted quirky items and the good advice and taunts of a talking skull (who isn't Morte), you must save the world from the perils represented by Ambrose the Shareware Monkey.

 

—Alorael, who can at least see a very promising BoA scenario here. All other considerations aside, it will definitely stand out.

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"If players could see Garzahd burning down giant lizards, raping houses, and riding off on women, defeating him would be more satisfying."

 

Actually, Garzahd gets a lot of these details. I'm not sure a cutscene of him "riding off on women" would be such a good idea, hehehe. But Enla talks about his womanizing, and various others talk about what he's done, most major NPCs really. It's quite spread out, but I think Garzahd's actually one of the better developed characters in the series. Especially considering he was only really in one game

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I don't mind "static" as much as I mind minor characters not having anything to say. I don't need an in-depth conversation but when I click on a guard, townsperson, cow, etc., I like do have some description, even if it's only "This cow, like every other cow you've ever met, can't talk. It just moos once and resumes grazing." I don't like towns where only the important characters can be talked to and no one else can.

 

Dikiyoba.

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Quote:
Originally written by Dikiyoba:
I don't mind "static" as much as I mind minor characters not having anything to say. I don't need an in-depth conversation but when I click on a guard, townsperson, cow, etc., I like do have some description, even if it's only "This cow, like every other cow you've ever met, can't talk. It just moos once and resumes grazing." I don't like towns where only the important characters can be talked to and no one else can.

Dikiyoba.
I sort of agree. However, given a choice between a few well developed characters and lots of sort of developed characters, I would choose the former. Right now, we pretty much had neither.

Personally I would rather wait another 2-3 weeks on a game releasing if it would have some built in interactive characters.
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It's the small things that make the difference. Just give me a few scrapes of change here and there, and I will be fine with the rest of the static, monotome world around me.

In G3, you had the time-display, telling you how much time has passed since you left the school. And time slightly altered things in the game. That was great. I sort of miss the seasons from previouse Avernum, with the special days and festivals.

 

Another small thing that makes the game more fun is the small, hidden jokes. The ongoing "evil altar" jokes still makes me laugh.

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I don't really mind static. Who has time to go back to every person and city they ever visited. What I do not like is the massive dungeon crawls. Like say the clawbug tunnels below the Eastern gallery. That place was so boring and tedious. I'd much rather explore smaller more compelling areas such as bandit forts and so on. I'm sure a lot of people would disagree, mainly those with lots of free time. I usually play a game through once, try to do everything, then never look at it again. I mean who reads a book twice. shocked A few more large scale battles would be nice. Perhaps were your group fights along side some allies.

 

Oh and a side note, I just finished the west of Fort Remote quest. Where are all the bodies. If 1,000 soldiers were sent out and only half returned, why are there only 10 bodies by the pylons? I loved the idea of a disastrous attack though.

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Originally by VCH:

 

Quote:
I mean who reads a book twice.[?]
I have a stockpile of books that I own that I have read so many times that several have torn into smaller pieces, many more are close to falling apart, others are covered in food/drink/other spills, and most I can "read" the next half-page or so when I come to the end of a page but don't have a free hand to turn the page immediately.

 

I also have a few movies which I've watched so many times they are beginning to wear out and several Spiderweb Software games I've played so many times I can follow the story without reading the dialog boxes. Someday, I will end up with a repetitive stress injury.

 

Dikiyoba finally added the Lord of the Rings trilogy to the stockpile so that Dikiyoba doesn't have to feel bad about rereading them until they are destroyed.

 

Edit: Forgot quote.

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Some books, movies and games are worth reading/watching/playing again, simply because the brain has this marvelous abillity to forget things when it haven't experienced it in a long time.

You may remember the grand plot, but not exactly, and not the fine details.

And what makes a book/movie/game is often the fine details.

 

For me, such a book is Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, or Man's Wordly Goods, and perhaps also A Conspiracy of Dunces (haven't given it a second try yet, but I know I will.)

For an example of a movie I would have to say Twelve Monkeys, and games such as Civilization II and Geneforge 1.

 

In the end, it is all about preference, I know my dad has read probably over 10.000 books, and rarely reads a book twice, but even he has. Afterall, having read so many books, how can you really remember every single one that good?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Oh my gosh, what a great topic, and I missed all the fun! frown Well, I'm saying my bit anyhow.

 

Way too much Bob talk for me (and I came up with the term). He's an inevitable symptom of putting the player in a situation where they can do pretty much whatever they feel like. There are much more important things to worry about.

 

What *I* would like to see is a story that is more personal and less political. When was the last Spiderweb game where the story wasn't all about faction X fighting faction y? Having that stuff in there is cool, as a background, but it's not engaging as the main plotline. With war movies, the movies aren't actually about the war, it's just a backdrop to the story about the characters.

 

Imagine the next Geneforge game running like this: Battle lines are being drawn between the Shapers and those who oppose them. You're a farm boy living under Shaper rule, who gets drafted into the army. Under the command of a Shaper, your troop (or whatever) goes to seize/destroy some bunch of canisters/something along those lines that the rebels have. Through a twist of circumstance, you find yourself in the room with the canisters. A bunch of rebels burst in, and you look doomed... only hope is those canisters. You heard they made you powerful or something.

 

You quickly use them and trash the rebels. Then in comes your commander with a few other soldiers and creations. Your commander looks at you, at the empty canisters, and at the dead rebels before you. He orders everyone else out of the room.

 

He explains his problem. They won the battle, the canisters are destroyed, so the objective is complete. Trouble is, you, a regular human, have come into possession of Shaper power. Shaper law makes no provision for circumstance, you're pretty much up for the death penalty here. He shows mercy and tells you to run.

 

Out on your own, as a fugitive from the Shapers, you decide to go home and try to find your family. You haven't heard from them since you were drafted and are worried about how the war might have affected them.

 

...and on it goes. That sort of beginning sets the stage for a very different kind of game; one that is much more personal than political, and as a consequence, feels fresh.

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As a small bonus, giving the player a chance to use some but not all of a group of canisters gives a tidy way to create a customized character during the game without creating the usual custom character = generic, impersonal character problem.

 

—Alorael, who likes games that force some role on you. A2 almost gets there with your beginning as an Avernite soldier, but that disappears is all of two minutes. A3 just tells you that you're in Unspecified Services/Covert Ops, which means you're free to do whatever you want.

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Quote:
Originally written by spiders in my brain get them out:
—Alorael, who likes games that force some role on you.
Omg you mean role-playing games? :p

In all seriousness, I agree to some extent with Ash. Making things personal is nice. One of the nice parts of A3 was that your Avernite support base in Fort Emergence had already pegged you as their second choices, since their top squad had already gone out and gotten killed. I almost enjoyed being made fun of.
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I agree that more role playing in the game would be nice. I think using the character's names in the dialogs would be a good start. For example, if you have a slithzerikai in your party named Ssschah, a dialog when entering Gnass the first time could read something along the lines: "Ssschah smiles to finally be among many fellow slith."

 

I also think certain side quests should be dependent on having (or not having) certain races in your party. An extra quest in Gnass only available if you have a slith, or a quest by a racist in the castle only if you are all human would be fun touches.

 

Impact

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Many RPGs, Spiderweb's among them, avoid anything more than the most nebulous of backgrounds. Your character or party comes from somewhere and did stuff, but that's not important. Everything you do and are starts with the moment you start playing.

 

Instead, imagine that you are forced to play as a skribbane-addicted vigilante wanted for and guilty of murdering a corrupt mayor. You flee to Avernum one step ahead of the Empire's finest executioners. Now you get to play and deal with the consequences. That's a forced role, and it's not always a bad thing.

 

—Alorael, who does not recommend skribbane (for others!), vigilantism, or fleeing from executioners. Well, okay. The last isn't so bad.

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"Many RPGs, Spiderweb's among them, avoid anything more than the most nebulous of backgrounds."

 

Several games I have truly loved (KOTR, Planescape: Torment among them) have featured main characters with a well-defined background. And yet, I am personally irritated by games that tell me who I was.

 

When I play a game with a role-playing element, I like to fill in the details of the past for myself, to give more of a context to the sort of character I have decided to play. This is such a strong preference on my part that I can't imagine myself designing a game that works any other way.

 

In the end, I have two absolute limits on the games I design. One is time. The other is that I can only properly design games of the sort I would want to play.

 

Which is not to say that writing games where the main character has a well-defined past isn't a good idea. I'm sure it is. Just not for me.

 

- Jeff Vogel

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Quote:
Originally written by Spidweb:
Which is not to say that writing games where the main character has a well-defined past isn't a good idea. I'm sure it is. Just not for me.
Which is why you made Blades, right?

One of the elements in RPGs I find enjoyable is book-style Machiavellian intrigue. Stuff like the way you join the Scimitar (I'm talking E1 here), like how you find that cave with a heap of chopped up Empire soldiers, and a Scimitar carved on the wall.

Or those epic battles in E3, where the dialogue describes some horrific scene and then ends with an OK button labelled with something like 'Oh dear...'

I think the A4 engine gives a much more personal feel to the world as well, that feeling that you're never really outdoors is cool, the fear that those pesky Goblins may just chase you all the way down to the front gate of the damn fort is actuality, rather than just, well, alluded to.

I agree with Al on the RPGs-being-fun-when-you're-pushed-into-a-role thing as well, just that it's a problem finding things-to-be-pushed-into that everyone finds cool and exciting (KOTOR *definitely* delivered on this, with KOTOR2 destroying it entirely).

Md.
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Regarding RP, I find these games give enough background to allow bits of role play to appear out of nowhere.

I realized that my characters tend to take on lives of their own. ("Oh, that silly warrior got himself enfeebled again. Fix that, will ya, Wiz?")

I do suspect that my two current mages are engaged in a bit of one-upmanship mainly because I can't figure out why one hits before the other, but weaker. After a while I consider this part of the story rather than bothering to fix it. Makes the potion-sharing, gear-rearranging pitstops much more fun. ("I'll trade ya two hasting potions for your last energy elixir...")

 

Point is, the trilogy gives plenty of background, I think, while still allowing me to paint the story in my own head any way I like. Of course, I just realized that my sorcerer is wearing a skirt (small graphic) which is totally ruining his chances with the mage.

 

Something I've always wondered, though, who the heck came up with the name "Mycroft"?????

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Quote:
Originally written by SNM:
Jeff works alone. If I understand the nature of his life anywhere near as well as I think I do, he will always work alone.
I have a theory about that. Unless he is very much in touch with his feminine side, he's had a wee bit of input from a gal-pal.
There are certain bits of story line, dialogue, design, humor, etc that seem to point that way - female players may know what I mean. There is no let-the-girls-play-too condescention - the battle of the sexes is not even an issue. I don't wish to ruffle feathers, but such even-handed confidence is rather uncommon and unexpected. (Thank you, thank you, for not designing a Blessed Plate Mail Bustier.)

These games present as many male as female fighting characters, good or evil, and some of the story lines and characters are greatly enriched by making sure things don't get overpowered by testosterone.

Don't get me wrong, I like going berserk on those demons as much as anyone smile but the gentle humor and interactions add to the fun more so than the low-brow one-liners so rampant elsewhere.

Unlike many many games out there, this one is as non-sexist, non-misogynist, non-homophobe, non-racist as it gets (even while dealing with opposing cultures that are, by default, racist). Kudos to all those involved.

Here's to hoping that there are friendly spiders in AV4 - but I'm silly that way
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Nice point, Shine.

 

Although I've always wondered why everyone in Exile was so damn tolerant. I suppose being thrown into the underworld for your own differences might make you more tolerant of others -- but for many people, it would probably make them bitter, and make them search out scapegoats. I suppose the nephils and sliths sucked up a lot of the hateful energy, and some of those people ended up in the Abyss. But Exile still seems inconceivably tolerant to me. (Maybe it's better that way.)

 

...on the other hand, Nance and Elspeth don't seem to be entirely out of the closet. (I suppose I wouldn't be either, in their shoes.)

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