Linear or Non-Linear for spiderweb's games

[Death Knight]

I was just wondering what is everyone's preference for this type of game regarding spiderweb's games.

 

I happen to think that regarding avernum and avadon, I prefer the linear of Avadon and Avernum 4-6 to Nonlinear of 1-3.

 

I think that all jeff's games tell really friggin awesome stories and linear games like avadon and avernum 4-6 help you stay focused on the story.

 

I do have a small preference when regarding geneforge where i love the non-linear feel of geneforge 1 and 2.

 

There really cant be a wrong answer as these games are awesome regardless. How do the rest of the forum feel about this, linear or non-linear?

[Actaeon]

Non-linear all the way. You sacrifice a bit of plot coherency, but gain a wealth of side quests, varying challenges, and the fun of exploration.

 

(Overall, though, other aspects take precedence. Geneforge remains my favorite series despite being relatively linear.)

[Mea Tulpa]

Non-linear. I disagree that you sacrifice plot coherency. You sacrifice exposition, but in exchange you tend to gain atmosphere.

[Death Knight]

Acteon, I have to agree with you on Geneforge. Jeff could remake all the geneforge games linear or nonlinear and i would play and replay them over and over again regardless.

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Actaeon

(Overall, though, other aspects take precedence. Geneforge remains my favorite series despite being relatively linear.)

The first two weren't particularly linear. Not coincidentally, the first is almost universally regarded as the best game in the series and often included as one of Jeff's best ever, and the second usually places very highly in rankings both within the series and as a whole. By contrast, the third game, which is also the most linear of the five, is widely panned.

[Actaeon]

Part of my distaste with Geneforge 3 comes, I think, from the fact that it was the first major release I had to wait for (I discovered Spiderweb around the time G2 came out), partly because I was delighted with Geneforge 2, and partly because of what you described. Nevertheless, they are on the whole more linear than Avernum, particularly 1-3.

 

You have a point about exposition vs coherency, Slarty. Either way, there's an impact, but it's worth it.

[Death Knight]

I never completed gene forge 3, but i still liked it more than the 4th. My favorite was gene forge 1 for the story and building up suspense with gene forge 5 being my second favorite, which i am nearing the end right now.

[Kelandon]

The key thing, I think, is that you can get a kind of urgency and narrative with a linear game that you can't as easily get with a nonlinear one. LIkewise, you can get a sense of wonder and exploration in a nonlinear game that you can't as easily get with a linear one. I liked Avadon for the tight plotline; I liked A1-3 for the exploration.

 

Basically, this: http://www.spiderwebforums.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/34937/2

[Triumph]

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

Non-linear. I disagree that you sacrifice plot coherency. You sacrifice exposition, but in exchange you tend to gain atmosphere.

This.

Slarty says it well.

[keira]

I'm on the non-linear boat as well. IMO a story is told a lot better when in a non-linear setting, because you get that atmosphere like Slarty mentioned. Much more immersive, not to mention way more replay value.

[Goldengirl]

One of my biggest complaints with the linearity of some of Jeff's games was that regions became essentially "dried up" and stuck in a vacuum after you finished with them. The Forsaken Lands of Geneforge IV are my favorite example of this, because everyone literally gets up and leaves. Avadon addressed this to a certain degree by having the three regions to which you had to return, seeing the progression of the problem. Avadon was the most linear of all the games, though, obviously.

 

I believe the end sequence of Avadon was the most well done of any of Jeff's endings - aside from the unfortunate affair of fighting Redbeard. I think that that route offers a lot of promise. Why not let the PC explore at will, until they trigger a chase scene or some other event that jolts them onto a linear plotline for a while?

[Mea Tulpa]

Lilith's rollick & grit article has long been one of my favourites.

[Lilith]

of course it's good, i wrote it

[Alorael at Large]

I think Avadon actually has a good model. I much prefer revisiting to traveling in a line, which many "non-linear" games end up being. Yes, you have a zigzagging line and you pick the path, but you still rarely backtrack to re-explore or talk through an old location.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't particularly care whether his course through the game is predetermined. He likes having larger areas than Avadon for exploration at a time, though. Avadon's revisiting with A5-sized chunks would be ideal.

[Callie]

The whole nonlinear thing is what started me playing these games in the first place. I mean, you didn't even have to kill those cockroaches!

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Varney the Umpire

I much prefer revisiting to traveling in a line, which many "non-linear" games end up being. Yes, you have a zigzagging line and you pick the path, but you still rarely backtrack to re-explore or talk through an old location.

RPGCodex's pejorative term for this style of nonlinear gameplay is "lawnmowing": when exploring, you walk across each part of each area exactly once, filling out the map as if mowing a lawn

of course, being rpgcodex, they have a pejorative term for every style of gameplay

[Mea Tulpa]

Heh. What are their other (relevant) pejorative terms?

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

Heh. What are their other (relevant) pejorative terms?

I would imagine that a great deal could (or should) not be posted here...

[Nioca]

Personally, I've been finding Spidweb's approach to linearity to be a bit disheartening. I don't mind linear games per-say, but I felt Avadon took it a bit too far (no, you're not allowed to visit the southern part of this area. Why? Because I said so, that's why!) in this regard. A5 also felt like nothing more than a chain of sausages (although my list of complaints about A5 is hefty, so...). It makes me long for the more open games of the first Avernum trilogy and Geneforge.

[Triumph]

Based on my experiences with the demos + what people say on here, I've refrained from purchasing games like A5 and Avadon in part because of their linearity. Spiderweb hasn't completely gone off the linearity cliff, however, since amid those games it also released A6 which definitely offered more chances to rollick. Of course A:EFTP is also very open, but it's based on an older game and therefore I don't see it being as representative of Jeff's current design trend. It will be interesting to see if A5 / Avadon are the wave of the future and A6 is the last of a dying breed, or if Jeff swings back a bit more toward the rollicking feel.

[Student of Trinity]

It's really hard to have an open world that isn't just populated by monsters sitting in rooms waiting for the player to kill them. Geneforge 1 was a great game in large part because its particular plot made that seem natural. It also made it seem natural that you didn't get a lot of guidance from NPCs, while its setting let you see the whole island from the beginning and try to plan where to go on it. So you had a feeling that you were just exploring all on your own. In fact, though, the island geography had numerous choke points, and the plot had only a few simple branches. Very few of the player's decisions had any effect on the world at all. But that seemed okay.

 

There aren't that many combinations of plot and setting that let trivially simple decision trees seem like open worlds. Jeff can't just keep on putting out games set on abandoned magical research islands. To have an open world where things actually keep on happening, though, and the player's actions matter, takes a huge amount of preparation. Jeff simply can't afford to design ten games for every game he sells, just in order to give players the impression that nine totally different games could have happened.

 

I think Jeff just has no choice but to make rather linear games. What he may be able to do is to work in a few tricks that give some illusion of rollick. It might work to scatter around a dozen or so isolated little encounters that can each be handled in many ways, but only affect the world in really simple ones (a reputation boost, say, or an item). A cluster of accessories like that could be flung onto the main game without so much trouble. I can imagine Jeff doing a bit more of this in Avadon 2, where he won't be having to devote quite so much time to just getting the engine working.

[Mea Tulpa]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

It's really hard to have an open world that isn't just populated by monsters sitting in rooms waiting for the player to kill them... I think Jeff just has no choice but to make rather linear games.

Your comments about Geneforge 1 are spot on, but I think this is a bizarre conclusion to draw. Jeff has created a large number of non-linear, rollicky games: Exile 1, Exile 2, Exile 3, Nethergate, as well as Geneforge 1, 2, and 5. Some of those involved huge amounts of research (Nethergate) or planning and redesigning (Geneforge), but others did not: Exile 2 was created more quickly than any other non-remake Spiderweb game, and yet can be counted among Spiderweb's cult classics.

I think this list of games disproves your conclusion. Yes, it takes a little bit of thought to avoid having an open world that simply inspires players to say, "Oh look, more stuff. Great." But that is the SAME little bit of thought that's necessary in order to have an interesting story and an engaging atmosphere.

[Dire Hobbit]

The golden-mean please.

 

Sandbox <--- Spiderweb ---> Bioware

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

Jeff can't just keep on putting out games set on abandoned magical research islands.

Well, he's done a pretty good job putting out games set in a magical underground cave systems. He's on what, number 11 now?

[Earth]

non-linearity of Avernums, although Avadon's linearity has its points too.

[Alorael at Large]

All the underground games work because he made those caves an entire setting, and effectively an entire plot world. He could have done that with Geneforge, but only if he kept them all on Sucia. Even then, you'll note that a third of Avernum games don't take place in the main area of Avernum (3 and 5), and there were two wars to shake up political geography and an engine change to keep things fresh.

 

—Alorael, who suspects that a fair number of complaints about Avadon's linearity would disappear if the game were larger or the world more reactive. It feels constricted because it is constricted. But the second Avernum trilogy and the later Geneforges also keep you on the rails with a lighter hand, and there's far less pushback.

[Mea Tulpa]

Geneforge 3 was restrictive, and there was some pushback from that. I think the real issue is having genuinely interesting content that is not repetitive. If you can do that, the pushback will disappear.

[Acky]

The more I play RPGs the more I realize how much I like linearity more then openness. I'm one of those casual players that needs some strong direction in order to stay interested in the game and plot. If I'm given to much freedom I find myself loosing interest in the game and wondering off to the next one.

 

On the flip side, for me at least, atmosphere and setting has a lot to due with it. In a game like RDR, having an open environment fits the setting well. Avernum:EFTP is another example of providing me with a world interesting enough to merit wandering around. A game like Minecraft, however, is really hard for me to get into, since it has pretty much no fixed progression and gives the player damn near all the power of what to do first and how to proceed.

[Student of Trinity]

I didn't really think of G5 as a rollicking open world, but maybe it kind of is. At first you were confined to one little region, then you hit this swamp area that has Unbound and you pretty much have to head straight for the nearest town. So it begins rather linearly. But I guess it broadens out after a while.

 

I'm just repeating stuff I thought I read in one of Jeff's columns. He doesn't want to waste time designing stuff that many players won't see, when with the same time he could be making another game and earning more money. G5 was a while ago, and the great majority of SW games in recent years have followed a fairly rigid path, where modest-sized areas open up in succession as the plot develops. But in A6, for instance, there's a lot of freedom to wander around within each successive region, and they're fairly large.

 

Rollick and grit are good concepts, but I think they may actually be orthogonal to linearity and nonlinearity. I think you could do grit with atmosphere, and you could probably manage a rollicking game that ran on rails, by ensuring that the range of practical consequences of player choices was limited, but allowing a lot of different actions to give different pop-up texts.

[Randomizer]

Jeff finds it easier to balance linear games. Players may not fight everything or do all the quests, but with required quests to unlock new areas there won't be a wide divergence in levels when you reach the next required quest.

 

Of course beta testers will try to do it all because there isn't anything else to do until the next section is available for testing. So you have Delicious Vlish in Geneforge 5 fighting his way through Lerman's Pass to reach the Storm Plains instead of the easier way through Kratoa-Kel.

[Mea Tulpa]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

G5 was a while ago, and the great majority of SW games in recent years have followed a fairly rigid path, where modest-sized areas open up in succession as the plot develops. But in A6, for instance, there's a lot of freedom to wander around within each successive region, and they're fairly large.

G5 is the 4th most recent SW game, out of 20 total. While I agree with your comment in general, the last 4 games don't really bear it out: relatively non-linear G5, semi-linear A6, super-linear Avadon, and super-non-linear A:EFTP (admittedly a remake). What you are describing is really the period before G5, which gave us G3, A4, G4, and A5, all fairly linear games with a succession of unfolding areas. (Though again with remade, non-linear N:R thrown in there.)

[adc.]

Vhat in the world do you mean by linear or non-linear? But when you said that GF 1 & 2 are non-linear, zhen I agree vhid you. I think it might be the graphics you're describing. And yes, I agree with your opinions/post.

----------

Does anyone feel that it is more of a... I can't describe it, but you consider GF1 and GF2 as well, much better than GF5. That was my opinion.

----------

-Nightwatcher

[Mod.]

Originally Posted By: Rehctawthgin's ÜberCharge

Vhat in the world do you mean by linear or non-linear?

Linear means you progress through the story in a sort of "line", meaning you must finish one part, before you can access further parts of the game. Non-linear means a more open world, where you can go around and explore, doing things without having to do parts of the main quest first. The main quest still must be completed in order, but you don't have to do it yet if you would rather go somewhere else.

Oh, and non-linear is much much better.

[Cpt. Charles]

My favorite Spiderweb game was Avernum 3. I thought that it was extremely non-linear, as you didn't have to destroy the plagues in any particular order, and there was still plenty of other things to do in between.

 

However, I've only played the demos of Geneforge 1, 2 and 4, so I am definitely biased.

[Necris Omega]

Avernum 3 is perhaps one of the better examples of balancing linear and non-linear progression I think, which to me may be the best of both worlds.

 

I like having the capacity to progress beyond the bounds of the beginning, and grow into something legend worthy without dragging absolutely everything else along with me, ending up with random bandits EVERYWHERE in divine forged armor or what-have-you. Being able to see and grasp actual, factual, undeniable growth is one of my favorite things in the Genre.

 

Yet, at the same time, I also appreciate the sense of freedom and exploration a more freeform game offers - you're not glued to a track or held by the hand. You make your own decisions, your choices, and your own way, and that makes them all the more meaningful I think.

 

A "perfect" mix of the two is entirely subjective, but for me the original Avernums really had it down well.

[Juan Carlo]

I prefer non-linear, but I don't mind linear as long as they have a good story and plot. And if forced to choose, I'll actually take a good plot over an open-world any day.

 

So people often complain about something like Geneforge 3, for example, just because it's more linear than the earlier ones and only has two factions but personally I think GEneforge 3 is when the series got interesting. Sure it was linear, but what it sacrificed in freedom it gained in moral complexity and the fact that there was only two (very imperfect) factions forced you to make some very hard choices at times. Plus, the writing quality took a huge leap between Geneforge 2 and 3 and remained consistently strong for the rest of the Geneforge series. I actually think the later Geneforge games (everything from number 3 onwards) are some of the more morally ambiguous RPGs out there (the only other series which can rival them on that point is maybe the Witcher games). I like that there really is no good or bad as much as just various shades of grey, which is really refreshing given that "morality" in most RPGs usually comes down to absurdly black and white choices like "will I give the puppy a treat, or drown it in a bag."

[Mea Tulpa]

The linearity itself isn't the reason people complain. The forced-boat system made the separate-area design far, far more arduous than it has been in any other SW game.

 

Personally, I did not love the forced-choice nature of G3's moral schema. It was interesting at first, but then you get hit over the head with it for the entire game. I'm fine with not having obvious heroes and villains, but "shades of grey" requires having more than 2 shades, which is really all G3 had. (Except for Khyryk, I guess.) If there were at least creative ways for the player to wriggle out of those dilemmas, even if both of the actual factions were unpleasant, that might have been more satisfactory (witness the cult popularity of G2's "kill all the leaders" ending).

 

Also, G3 had the worst combat balance of any Geneforge game.

[Juan Carlo]

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

I'm fine with not having obvious heroes and villains, but "shades of grey" requires having more than 2 shades, which is really all G3 had. If there were at least creative ways for the player to wriggle out of those dilemmas, even if both of the actual factions were unpleasant, that might have been more satisfactory (witness the cult popularity of G2's "kill all the leaders" ending).

Well, I mostly just liked how the limited choice forced unintended consequences on you. I very much tried really hard to do good in that game, but ended up doing much less than good despite my best efforts, which I admired. It's really rare for a game to do that to you (especially in the era of Mass Effect 3 where fans will petition developers to change things if they don't like the way a game ends). G3 is one of the darkest RPGs I've ever played for just that reason and I really admired it for that (even if I think it has other shortcomings as a game).

Which I guess just comes from my preference for interesting plot over freedom. Geneforge 1 and 2 had enough options that you could basically almost entirely dictate what story you wanted the games to have. You could basically get to know each faction, pick your favorite, and the endings would more or less follow from that, which I personally don't like as there's little element of surprise to that. I like a game to have some push back and control over the narrative, to occasionally confound your intentions, and to surprise you, even if this comes at the cost of freedom.

Quote:

Also, G3 had the worst combat balance of any Geneforge game.

This is true. I'm not in anyway arguing that Geneforge 3 is the best Geneforge (I much prefer Geneforge 4 for both plot and gameplay and have yet to start G5), I just think it's really underrated in the series and is somewhat a turning point in terms of Vogel's writing ability (which, like I said, I think took a huge leap in quality from Geneforge 2 to Geneforge 3 and only got better as the series went on).

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Juan Carlo

(especially in the era of Mass Effect 3 where fans will petition developers to change things if they don't like the way a game ends)

Quick interjection: The petition, by and large, wasn't to change the ending, it was for Bioware to actually write an ending beyond "Normandy crash-lands on planet following red/green/blue explosion".

None of Jeff's games have had this problem, or anything anywhere like it.

[Juan Carlo]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Originally Posted By: Juan Carlo

(especially in the era of Mass Effect 3 where fans will petition developers to change things if they don't like the way a game ends)

Quick interjection: The petition, by and large, wasn't to change the ending, it was for Bioware to actually write an ending beyond "Normandy crash-lands on planet following red/green/blue explosion".

None of Jeff's games have had this problem, or anything anywhere like it.

Nah, Me3 had an insanely long ending with tons of closure (did no one play the part where you literally say good bye to every character who ever appeared in the game for like 2 hours straight?). It just didn't have a conventional Bioware ending (every Bioware game ever has basically ended in the exact same way, so I think this threw people a bit), or for that matter, a typical video game ending (video game endings tend to spell everything out for you in a neat package, which ME3 did not).

But the petitions were very much partly about dissatisfaction with the content of the ending, not just supposed "lack" of an ending. There were several petitions, but the main one included the demand for an added "heroic ending which provides a better sense of accomplishment" (e.g. "Wah! I want a happy ending but didn't get one!"). Even the creator of Dragon Age argued that its main problem was not having a "happy" ending.

I had no problem with its ending and thought the petition was silly. But this is probably off topic.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Juan Carlo

There were several petitions, but the main one included the demand for an added "heroic ending which provides a better sense of accomplishment" (e.g. "Wah! I want a happy ending but didn't get one!"). Even the creator of Dragon Age argued that its main problem was not having a "happy" ending.

it wasn't so much "not a happy ending" as "an ending in which a bunch of completely out-of-character dialogue is put in your character's mouth and you're forced to trust the enemy you've been fighting against for the past three games and accept one of the options they offer to you, no matter how successful or unsuccessful you've been at building up a force to fight against them"

also the synthesis ending was straight-up ridiculous even by the floppy scientific standards of the series, as was the attempt to ascribe motivations to the reapers that were in direct contradiction to their actions in the first two games. so there's that

[Mea Tulpa]

Originally Posted By: Juan Carlo

Well, I mostly just liked how the limited choice forced unintended consequences on you.

Agreed. That was cool; I just didn't feel like I needed to hear it over and over again for the entire game. It made the "it's hard to do good when you're caught in an ugly web of power slash human nature" thing seem less like an elegant part of the story, and more like a schoolhouse ruler with a nail driven into it.

Quote:

Which I guess just comes from my preference for interesting plot over freedom... You could basically get to know each faction... there's little element of surprise to that... control over the narrative... to surprise you, even if this comes at the cost of freedom.

I think it's really a question of narrative exposition versus atmosphere building. The former is easier to support in a linear game, whereas the latter is easier to support in an open world game. If "plot" means "people physically doing stuff while the player watches and/or participates" then it only means narrative exposition. But "plot" is really more than that. Geneforge 1 has very little narrative acted out; neither do E/A 1 and 2; but it would be absurd to suggest that they have less plot development than linear games like G3 or A5. (G2 I won't argue.)

[Juan Carlo]

Quote:

you're forced to trust the enemy you've been fighting against for the past three games and accept one of the options they offer to you, no matter how successful or unsuccessful you've been at building up a force to fight against them"

Which is partly what I liked about it (and kind of jibes with what I've been saying about G3). I think a Rock Paper Shotgun defense of the ending addressed this point really well, especially this part:

Quote:

And then the choices themselves. Of course anyone is welcome to dislike the options, or dislike that they’re there at all, but to suggest they’re not relevant to the games isn’t fair. There was certainly a failure to properly define that it all comes down to the creation of Synthetics, and their eventual destruction of Organics, and I am confused by how an apparently ancient Synthetic race is the one arguing this. But as Shepard herself appeals, this is the result of an ancient race having lost its way. They firmly believe that what they do is for the good of the galaxy, and that they’re preserving these races in Reaper form, but they do not see how evil their actions have become. They’re wrong. But they’re wrong from a position of enormous power, and it’s a power that not only dominates the worlds of Mass Effect, but also the player. Those three choices – those are what you get, from a wayward god-like species that’s in control. Don’t like the options? Hell, maybe that’s the point.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/03/19/whats-right-with-mass-effect-3s-ending/

Put this way, I actually think being "wrong from an enormous position of power" pretty accurately describes both factions in Geneforge 3 as well.

I do think ME3's ending has some flaws (one being that it does render all the faction uniting/resource gathering in the earlier portions of the game moot...although, at the same time, I don't think the ending would have worked as well or been as surprising if the game hadn't fooled you into thinking it would make a difference, as underhanded as this may be), but as I've said before I think it reaches so much farther than your typical video game ending and does so much that is unexpected that I can't blame it if it doesn't obtain everything it is reaching for.

[Mea Tulpa]

You've mentioned "surprising" twice now. Why does an ending have to be surprising to be good? Can't a good ending also feel like an epic culmination that you've been seeking?

[Dantius]

Devil's advocate time: Bioware also produced a little game a ways back called, what was it now- KODOR? KOTHOR? Oh, right, KOTOR- that is now widely renown as the ultimate "twist" ending* that caught everyone by surprise. It also had only two endings: a "good" ending where everyone lives happily every except for Malak, who gets sliced to bits and tossed into a sun, and an evil ending, where you conquer and rule the galaxy. Both of the endings are standard vanilla Bioware, but it's inarguable that the game was:

 

1. Exceedingly well-written

2. Filled with interesting characters

3. Well-paced

4. Excellently plotted

5. Surprising and replayable

 

, and, of course, a huge critical and commercial success. So why couldn't Bioware simply pull out some ridiculous surprise about the Reaper nobody was expecting, killed off a few characters, wiped out a planet or two, and then let you crush the Reapers into a cybernetic pulp with the combined fleets of the Galaxy and the Crucible, which was really just a giant Death-Star type thing? You say that would be formulaic, but it would also have the added side effects of not infuriating a fanbase that, frankly, was already simmering over the disaster that was DA:II, and provided closer in a classic manner that is known to reap in cash and awards?

[Juan Carlo]

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

I think it's really a question of narrative exposition versus atmosphere building. The former is easier to support in a linear game, whereas the latter is easier to support in an open world game. If "plot" means "people physically doing stuff while the player watches and/or participates" then it only means narrative exposition. But "plot" is really more than that. Geneforge 1 has very little narrative acted out; neither do E/A 1 and 2; but it would be absurd to suggest that they have less plot development than linear games like G3 or A5. (G2 I won't argue.)

Well A5 has next to no plot development (or it does, but it's pretty simplistic and generic) and it's incredibly linear, so I don't think lack of freedom necessarily goes hand in hand with plot development.

But I agree that plot isn't just narrative exposition. Geneforge 1 had an interesting setting and world, but I guess my problem wasn't so much that it didn't have a plot but rather that it's plot was far too dictated by player choice in an easy and predictable manner. And it just wasn't that interesting. The game never really subverted my expectations or intentions in anyway or did anything that I didn't expect or put me in any memorable binds or anything like that. The factions are all pretty readable on first glance without much depth to them. Plus, I just don't think it was as well written as the later Geneforge games. The characters aren't as well developed and I don't think there are as many interesting quests, but that can probably be debated (I don't think I was ever as involved in anything in G1 or as interested in the outcomes of any given quests, for example, as I was in playing the various factions off each other and seeing what would happen in G4). Which isn't to say that I disliked G1. It was a good game, I think. Just not as good as the later Geneforges.

[Triumph]

I don't demand a "happy ending" with puppies and bunnies. What I do want is the chance to do what I think is right (or at least something vaguely resembling something that approximates what might be considered "right" in some sense). It doesn't have to result in a jolly happy ending for everyone. Sometimes there are no choices that lead to especially pleasant results. Sometimes choosing to do ill even seems to lead to more positive outcomes. But to have meaningful choice, one must have option to do good or to do ill. If all options equally involve doing ill (the two factions in G3, in my opinion), if all options are equally morally repugnant, that's not really a choice. Note that this independent of how fluffy and bubbly the results are.

 

Real choice requires meaningfully different options, with meaningfully different results. In G3, the "choice" of factions seemed meaningless because the two factions were competing so hard to outdo each other in brutality to each other. That's what was unsatisfying.

[Mea Tulpa]

Originally Posted By: Juan Carlo

it's plot was far too dictated by player choice in an easy and predictable manner. And it just wasn't that interesting. The game never really subverted my expectations or intentions in anyway or did anything that I didn't expect or put me in any memorable binds or anything like that.

So basically, you don't like it when (at least on a macro scale) doing something that you expect to lead to outcome A, actually leads to outcome A. You prefer it when twists and surprises and subverted expectations are thrown in. Fair enough, but I think it's worth recognizing that most gamers prefer the opposite.

Also, did you actually finish G1? Because the various endings to it are full of twists: in particular, supporting a faction in-game often leads to that faction being destroyed in the ending, and how you deal with Trajkov, Goettsch, and the Geneforge can have somewhat unexpected results.

Characters: yes, this can definitely be debated. There are a few good characters in the later games, like Litalia and Rawal, but for the most part there are a lot of cardboard cutouts with no character development whatsoever. Ghaldring is pretty much the least interesting character that was foreshadowed for two entire games before showing up, ever. I don't see how G1 and G2 are any worse off here: G1 had Trajkov, the three drayks, and some interesting caricatures of Danette, Corata, and Defniel; G2 had Shanti and Barzahl, both fan favourites.

EDIT: Per usual, Triumph said it better.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Juan Carlo

But I agree that plot isn't just narrative exposition. Geneforge 1 had an interesting setting and world, but I guess my problem wasn't so much that it didn't have a plot but rather that it's plot was far too dictated by player choice in an easy and predictable manner. And it just wasn't that interesting. The game never really subverted my expectations or intentions in anyway or did anything that I didn't expect or put me in any memorable binds or anything like that. The factions are all pretty readable on first glance without much depth to them. Plus, I just don't think it was as well written as the later Geneforge games. The characters aren't as well developed and I don't think there are as many interesting quests, but that can probably be debated (I don't think I was ever as involved in anything in G1 or as interested in the outcomes of any given quests, for example, as I was in playing the various factions off each other and seeing what would happen in G4). Which isn't to say that I disliked G1. It was a good game, I think. Just not as good as the later Geneforges.

I don't think there's anything particularly admirable about throwing the player for a loop for the sake of doing so. Consequences need to be predictable to some extent for choices to have any meaning at all: otherwise you're just choosing a path arbitrarily.

[keira]

hey guys

 

spoiler alert