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A Midgame Review of Avadon


Paul Collins

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Subjective? Yes. Most things are. Etiquette is a set of subjective rules of conduct determined by the leadership and/or popular consensus of a given group. What various people have pointed out is that you're acting in a manner contrary to the Spiderweb forum's code of etiquette, not that what you're doing is objectively wrong, or would be inappropriate in all contexts.

 

Also, I'm pretty sure I agreed and agree with the substance of your point about leadership. I nitpicked parts of it, and I'm not a fan of the "who cares if we alienate casual gamers" line of thinking, but I think that the Geneforge series (and various non-Spiderweb games) have handled leadership and similar conversational skills in a way that adds quality and value to those games. I think conversational attributes/skills, if done right, are a good thing, and I think I've said as much above.

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Aight. Perhaps I just wanted an ally in what I felt was the losing argument for the diversification of gameplay experience, not because it was easy or right, but because it offered choice. As I mentioned prior, Jeff's games are valuable in both large and small ways. And a small way was the manner in which a character's personal charisma was treated. I can't accept that the loss of leadership is a good thing, ever. And so can't others, silent or not. That is all I ask, an understanding of a perspective informed by years of good games (Arcanum,Bloodlines, Torment, Geneforge)

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It may well come back, you know. Jeff had a lot of work to launch a whole new system, and thinking out useful things for Leadership to do is hard. It's only worth doing at all if you can do it well, after all. So it may just not have made it into the first game. If all goes well, there'll be an Avadon 2, and Geneforge-style Leadership might get done then.

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Originally Posted By: Paul Collins
Aight. Perhaps I just wanted an ally in what I felt was the losing argument for the diversification of gameplay experience, not because it was easy or right, but because it offered choice. As I mentioned prior, Jeff's games are valuable in both large and small ways. And a small way was the manner in which a character's personal charisma was treated. I can't accept that the loss of leadership is a good thing, ever. And so can't others, silent or not. That is all I ask, an understanding of a perspective informed by years of good games (Arcanum,Bloodlines, Torment, Geneforge)


The thing is that I was never saying that diversity in gameplay experience is bad, just that there are better ways to diversify gameplay experience than with simple pass-fail skill checks. Look at Alpha Protocol: for all its flaws, it has one of the best dialogue systems in any game ever made, and without a single dialogue skill being involved. The player is given the choice of how to approach each conversation, which will affect future interactions with NPCs, and instead of there being one clear "best path" in any situation, there are different benefits and drawbacks to different courses of action. You can be the charismatic agent who befriends everyone, but you can also go around ruffling feathers and making enemies wherever you go, and both options are equally interesting and rewarding in their own ways. To my mind, that's infinitely better than simply having a good outcome or a bad outcome depending on whether the character meets an arbitrary level of skill.
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Originally Posted By: Lilith
Look at Alpha Protocol: for all its flaws, it has one of the best dialogue systems in any game ever made, and without a single dialogue skill being involved. The player is given the choice of how to approach each conversation, which will affect future interactions with NPCs, and instead of there being one clear "best path" in any situation, there are different benefits and drawbacks to different courses of action.


I have not met anyone who played Alpha Protocol and didn't just pick "Suave" every time, because that's what James Bond would do.
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Just one thing on the dialogues. Why is there ever a dialogue option that, in the face of betrayal goes something like this

 

Bad-guy-ion: Moaha ha ha, you have stepped right into my trap. Now I will feast on your innards!

 

Player: What are you doing with that knife? What is going on? When will you give me that lollipop you promised earlier, just before you led me down this spooky dungeon and turned of the lights?

 

You have to be pretty dedicated to playing happy-go-lucky in order to pick those, or am I missing some subtle adventurers joke here?

 

Edit: sorry if I just went completely off-topic, not that anything is being helped with this ad hoc excuse

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Originally Posted By: Olle
Just one thing on the dialogues. Why is there ever a dialogue option that, in the face of betrayal goes something like this

Bad-guy-ion: Moaha ha ha, you have stepped right into my trap. Now I will feast on your innards!

Player: What are you doing with that knife? What is going on? When will you give me that lollipop you promised earlier, just before you led me down this spooky dungeon and turned of the lights?

You have to be pretty dedicated to playing happy-go-lucky in order to pick those, or am I missing some subtle adventurers joke here?


In G5, there is actually a pretty hilarious moment where that happens. After being obviously betrayed by a Guardian, your character can say to him upon appearing something like "Hooray! Now you can help me defeat this evil monster which has mysteriously come to life in an area under your control."

The Guardian is rather nonplussed by your "optimism."

It is so over the top that I role play it as my character having a very dry sense of humor.
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