New Breed...

[Wham Bam Shizzlezam]

It seems there is a new breed of scenarios emgerging. Maybe it is just the aging of BoE, I don't know.

It seems that more thoughtful combat is being implemented. That is a main factor. More fusing of puzzle and battle. You can't just swing at the "boss" hoping to hit and kill him, which is the norm in most scenarios.

 

Roots and NTH are the two main scenarios that come to mind when I think of this new breed.

 

If this is the way BoE scenarios are going to be created, what does everyone think about this?

[Kelandon]

Awesome.

 

Well, okay. To give a more elaborate answer: I think we have plenty of mindless hack-n'-slash already. If you want heaps upon heaps of fairly monotonous combat, play Demon Island I or II. Doing something new is good.

 

Also, as I mentioned over in the HoF Banter board in the Lyceum, some people have gotten really good at traditional Exile combat, and I think they're bored with it. I think that Thuryl is one such person (hence Roots), and so is the Creator (hence Areni), and TM, too (hence NTH — one would expect him to get bored with traditional combat after playing 200+ scenarios of it ). Since they make scenarios that they would want to play, they adapt the combat to be different from traditional Exile combat.

 

The developing skills of players has affected the style of designers, which is part of why I think that the really outstanding players who haven't designed much (Imban, Bruce Mitchell, and until recently Thuryl, among others) are important to the community. They force designers to design differently. Then it's up to the really terrible players, like myself, to keep their influence in check.

 

At any rate, new and different combat that stretches the limits of the BoE engine is good, since that's probably the only thing that will continue to keep BoE alive and healthy as BoA starts to gain ground.

[Wham Bam Shizzlezam]

What I think would be interesting is to balance hack n' slash with the tactical combat. I mean, it is kind of fun, sometimes, to fight masses of montsters and get treasure, but it seems more fufilling to actually WORK at killing someone.

 

Or, you could just use the editor

[Lilith]

My opinion is that the fusion of puzzle and battle is one that started in earnest with Doom Moon II. Of all the scenarios I've played, DM2 was probably the most influential in terms of how it affected the way I designed combat in Roots.

[*i]

Arguably Spy's Quest was a pioneer in this sort of stuff. It was weak on the plot, but did a lot of experimentation along the lines of tough combat. I suspect Doom Moon II borrowed a lot of this.

 

Oh yeah, I still don't recommend playing Spy's Quest.

[Donald Hebb]

Sadly enough, Squaresoft was my biggest influence- I basically made a combat system that was an amalgam of Sword of Mana, Golden Sun and a few others and then made situations that would make this sort of thing interesting.

 

If Roots, NTH, Corporeus or Areni were longer, they'd suffer like DM2, Final Fantasy 7, Spy's Quest and Quinessence do.

[Custer]

And SPS embodies a reaction to clever, nuanced fusion of combat and plot. I fully plan to make a spiritual successor which is a nice, straightforward, non-philosophical romp, either for BoE or BoA, in the eventual future.

[Balladeer]

It's tough to come into blades wanting to be a designer but knowing that the bar has been raised many times over. On the other hand there are many examples of good scenarios for new designers to look at to aid in making a new scenario. I think I may be trying too hard to make Redwall a great scenario, and in the process I'm actually hurting it. It's turning out to be anything but simple and I haven't even gotten past the first official day.

[Wham Bam Shizzlezam]

I think that Johnney Favourite was an interesting scenario that sort of ties in with the new type of scenario. There was absolutely no battle, so it's purpose was to tell a story. It seems sort of parallel to Roots, and NTH in a way. Those scenarios seemed like their purpose was to tell a story instead of making an adventure. I don't know if this was the intent of the designers or not, but it seemed like that to me. So maybe the new type of scenario is more of a storytelling device than anything else. Combat seemed to help the telling of the story. I don't know where I am going with all of this. Just trying to keep the topic alive. There has not been a worthy topic since Shyguy's "Thuroughly Disgusted".