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Gambler

Augur
Joined
Apr 3, 2006
Messages
767
Now, what about acid arrows and gas arrows?
Rope arrows are the most important kind of all.

why should I say "No! Thou shalt not kill!"
You may allow to kill someone, but then end the game with some kind of explanation. Making a good story that has no indispensible characters is virtually impossible.
 

Paranoid Jack

Scholar
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
186
That is the great thing about cRPGs... killing somebody, anybody can have/should have effects on the players character's future in game. And the player never really knows what Farmer Joe knows or what his death will mean to the game world. Now if it (his death) has no effect then that tends to subtract from the over-all experience of the game. So as long as you are designing your game with consequences (and it sounds like you are) then the ability to kill anyone is a major positive toward the game-play and re-playability of the game. Sounds great to me.

But I hate how some cRPGs handle the entire death by assassin character type... unless somebody is near there is no way in hell every NPC in the game should automatically know you killed Farmer Joe the instant you kill him. If you sneak into the Kings inner chamber and poison him while he sleeps or poison his meal nobody should know that but you and the quest giver if there even was a quest giver. :wink:

Having little ways of reducing the Kings protection would also be nice. Or less protection after you get inside the castle for instance. Some kind of diversion like a fire or explosion... or better yet a guard finding another guard dead. Of course that last one would make it hell getting out due to the heightened state of alert.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Gambler said:
Now, what about acid arrows and gas arrows?
Rope arrows are the most important kind of all.
You can use rope+bow/xbow to climb walls. There is no animation for that, obviously. Just equip a bow in one slot and a rope into the other, and click on the bow.

You may allow to kill someone, but then end the game with some kind of explanation.
Why end the game? If your boss - an important character in your life - gets hit by a truck, is your life over? No. Another boss will take his place and there are other jobs too.

Making a good story that has no indispensible characters is virtually impossible.
Why? Good, well written characters are important to a story, they add a lot of flavor, but they don't make a story. Take PST for example. The story is great, we can all agree on that, I hope. I was disappointed when Pharod died because he knew a lot about my character and could have told me more. I didn't want to kill Ravel for the same reasons and I tried to find a peaceful way out of that conversation, but there wasn't one.

You can kill every fucking character in PST and it still would have been a game with a great story.
 

Claw

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Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
Gambler said:
You may allow to kill someone, but then end the game with some kind of explanation. Making a good story that has no indispensible characters is virtually impossible.
That sucks. Developers should focus less on telling their oh-so-awesome-no-I-mean-banal-unoriginal-and-hookey-story and more on allowing me to write my own.
Fallout had a good story as far as RPGs are concerned and as far as I recall the Overseer was the only invulnerable one. And he could've been made obsolete with some effort, too.
 

Gambler

Augur
Joined
Apr 3, 2006
Messages
767
Vault Dweller said:
You can use rope+bow/xbow to climb walls.
That's interesting. Are all these features documented in some way, or is it up to the player to explore game capabilities?

If your boss - an important character in your life - gets hit by a truck, is your life over? No.
That's because my life is... well, life. Life sims and CRPGs are different genres, and it's the presense of a storyline that differentiates them.

You can kill every fucking character in PST and it still would have been a game with a great story.
Actually, that's where I got that idea about endgame screen from. If you do something game-braking in P:T you get the "you have failed" screen. IIRC, that includes premature killing of several charactes. I don't think you can kill Lothar either.

Claw said:
Developers should focus less on telling their story and more on allowing me to write my own.
That's what Todd Howard says.

But storyline provides character motivation and makes player actions meaningful. I believe that it is essential for a good CRPG.

Besides, no game can match OpenOffice.org if you really want to tell a story.

Fallout had a good story
No comment.
 

Bradylama

Arcane
Joined
Jul 24, 2006
Messages
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Location
Oklahomo
How avante garde.

Whether or not you can kill an NPC is irrelevant. Dead or not, the story will still be there, and there will still be a main quest to flesh out. Perhaps that story won't be delved into as deeply assuming the player kills a central character, but then, that's what happens if the player develops an uncontrollable bloodlust everytime he sees a humanoid figure.

I don't understand what the problem is. Either you kill everything in your path, or you don't. It's quite simple, really.
 

MINIGUNWIELDER

Scholar
Joined
Sep 9, 2005
Messages
604
I request water and vinegar, they both get rid of poison.
:idea:
Also, two words concerning poisons and potions:Food.Coloring. :twisted: :lol: :twisted:

I believe I was the only one who thought of that, and food coloring is not very...modern


Also, will there be any magical hotspots/creatures/anythying?

Like animals and such(Hummingbirds could be a result of magic in your world, giant rattiez, etc)
 

Paranoid Jack

Scholar
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
186
Whether or not you can kill an NPC is irrelevant. Dead or not, the story will still be there, and there will still be a main quest to flesh out. Perhaps that story won't be delved into as deeply assuming the player kills a central character, but then, that's what happens if the player develops an uncontrollable bloodlust everytime he sees a humanoid figure.

That sounds too much like everything is black & white. There has to be some shades of gray, right? There is always a main story but from what I remember (correct me if I am wrong) seven different endings to AoD main story/plot line. So that should equate to a hell of a lot of variety in the plot and story-line.

I don't understand what the problem is. Either you kill everything in your path, or you don't. It's quite simple, really.

Not everybody plays just two character types... the raving homicidal maniac and/or the extreme pacifist. Sometimes you just hate a character due to your personality. So I may want to kill a certain NPC (and if there is a quest line that leads me to that event that is all the better) but you on the other hand may love that character and join his guild or faction.

So this requires a lot of different avenues for the story/plot to unfold. And if Iron Tower pulls this off we will see that happen and be amazed how we all were able to do things differently or had different out-comes when dealing with a quest-line or obstacle.

I hope the story-line and options are as varied as humanly possible (for a four person team). It will differentiate their game that much more... since most of the games released lately/now are boring by the numbers linear garbage with little to no personality. They can still be entertaining but over time the novelty just wears thin. At least for me it does.

I rarely finish a game but over the past few years it has gotten worse. I realize part of this is because certain games are designed to never be finished. You have your level grinders (MMORPGs), your on-line shooters, and your overly long cRPGs that get boring or drag on for hundreds of hours.

I'll take a well developed game with fifty hours of above average game-play over a mediocre bore-fest with hundred of hours of unfocused game-play. Seems to me a lot of developers are confusing content with quality.

Fuck the open ended sandbox... unless it has been covered properly there is most likely some cat shit buried in there.
 

Bradylama

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
23,647
Location
Oklahomo
That sounds too much like everything is black & white. There has to be some shades of gray, right? There is always a main story but from what I remember (correct me if I am wrong) seven different endings to AoD main story/plot line. So that should equate to a hell of a lot of variety in the plot and story-line.

Yeah, and if you somehow kill every living thing in the world of AoD I'm sure you'll get that one ending where you're forced into combat.

If the player wants a story, he'll let NPCs live and interact with them. If he wants a mindless bloodfest, then it should also be within his capability to murder everything in the gameworld. That's called consequence. Everything you do should have a consequence, and if you kill a central character, making it harder to complete the main quest, I don't see how it's anybody's problem except the player in question. Unless, of course, he wants it that way.

This isn't like Oblivious, where you can murder anybody for the price of 1000 septims and have a clean slate, yet you can pick up a quest-related follower who is, what? Oh right, invincible, as well as become the leader of every single guild regardless of what their stance on each other is.

I guess I just don't understand the problem. Is there a reason that certain NPCs should be harder to kill? Impossible to kill?
 

Gambler

Augur
Joined
Apr 3, 2006
Messages
767
Is there a reason that certain NPCs should be harder to kill? Impossible to kill?
Every storyline is a sequence of events. You can have multiple paths and branches, but some overall structure should be intact in order to convey the meaning. That means that there must be some nodal points that (in one way or another) are present in every possible scenario.

Every good story should also have at least a few recurring characters that interact with one another in a meaningful way. Encounters with those characters are frequently serve as nodal points. So the possibility to kill every character in the game would be a huge limitation on the storytelling capacity, because it would mean you can't have character-driven nodal points.

What would be left of Deus Ex story if it was tweaked in a way that would allow you to kill your brother in the beginning of the game? Not much. Or am I missing something?
 

Bradylama

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
23,647
Location
Oklahomo
I guess you're missing the way this game was designed.

This isn't a linear progression-type game like Deus Ex, it's a Roman Fallout (forgive the simplification, VD, but it seems to fit best). If there's a character that acts as a node point for a quest related to the central plot (i.e. not a side quest) then it's not too hard to have clues around that aren't provided by the NPC in dialogue. A note in their pocket, for instance, or a blueprint in their study.

Alternatively, if world travel in AoD is also like Fallout, it's entirely possible for the player to stumble upon on the endgame temple.

The story doesn't have to be tweaked all that much in a game like AoD to have any NPC be killable. After all, the story should be designed to work independantly of the NPCs in an open-ended game like this. It isn't character-driven like Deus Ex or JRPGs like Suikoden. (those games tend to make it impossible to kill any NPC)

Oh wait, you already don't think Fallout has a good story. So I guess all the comparisons I've made don't really mean anything. =/

The setting should take precidence over the story in any case, since that is the platform off of which the player does his roleplaying.
 

jeansberg

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 5, 2004
Messages
173
Gambler said:
Vault Dweller said:
You can use rope+bow/xbow to climb walls.
That's interesting. Are all these features documented in some way, or is it up to the player to explore game capabilities?
I'd like to know that, too.
 

Lumpy

Arcane
Joined
Sep 11, 2005
Messages
8,525
Vault Dweller said:
Lumpy said:
That's why I think questline-essential NPCs should be unkillable.
We all know how well it worked out in Oblivion.

I believe that:

a) certain people should be hard to kill. NPCs like kings, warlords, generals, lords, etc should be well guarded and only an extremely well trained assassin or fighter should be able to get past the numerious elite guards. That in itself is an ultimate test of one's fighting skills and such battles should be as memorable as taking out one of them alien bases in XCOM.

b) decision to kill someone belongs (or should belong) to the player. The player should realize that killing a seemingly important character would most likely have some unforeseen, at the moment, consequences. If the player is ok with that or maybe hates an NPC with a rare passion (which would be "teh victary!" for me as the designer) and really wants to kill the fucker, then why should I say "No! Thou shalt not kill!"?
Here's an example: the slave trader in Tel Aruhn in Morrowind. She did not seem essential at all, and players had reasons to kill her - to free her slaves.
Now, why should killing her prevent me from doing the main quest? Does it even make sense? You kill a random slave trader, so you can no longer buy a slave for the village chief? (stupid quest, btw) You could just go to another slave trader.
On the other hand, if you go and kill Caius Cossades, should the game keep you from doing it? It has a predictable, realistic consequence, so it shouldn't be prevented at all.

And I think it worked preety well in Oblivion - however, they shouldn't have prevented you from ruining questlines you don't care about.
 

Paranoid Jack

Scholar
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
186
jeansberg said:
Gambler said:
Vault Dweller said:
You can use rope+bow/xbow to climb walls.
That's interesting. Are all these features documented in some way, or is it up to the player to explore game capabilities?
I'd like to know that, too.

I'm sure that when we buy AoD we will get a manual with all the required info to include the character/players abilities and skills. Not to worry. Though I tend to start playing first then read the manual as needed/if needed.

As far as killing anyone you like I see the value of letting a player choose but we must also remember the scope of AoD. Iron Tower is again... a four person team, unless VD finally sold out to the big money. So is it reasonable for any of us to request they make AoD so that we can kill whomever we damned well please?

Think about it. How many people are actually going to go to the trouble of killing the main NPCs? Maybe a couple? As VD stated before some of the main characters will be heavily guarded and he said they may still be killed but it will not be easy, right?

So what if you can't kill every single NPC in the game? Who the hell is going to play the game like that anyway? What would you guess... maybe a few percentage of the people that purchase a game will actually play it as a homicidal manic killing everything and everybody? I have tried it. It's just not fun after a few hours it gets old. I mean this isn't a click-fest action RPG. If you want to be able to kill everything in site boot up a FPS or Diablo II (though don't try to kill the NPCs) or something of that nature. Combat will always be an option but I doubt we will ever see a game where every single NPC can be killed off. It would be a huge feat no doubt and a unique option in a true cRPG.

Just don't get bent out of shape if they don't spend extra time and effort to make every single NPC kill-able. Its just not a worthwhile feature for a indie company in my opinion. If you can kill some or most that will add more than enough variety to the game-play.

So I guess we need VD to give us the final answer and put an end to all this debate. Will a player be able to kill every single NPC in the game and still complete the main quest or story-line?
 

Lumpy

Arcane
Joined
Sep 11, 2005
Messages
8,525
Paranoid Jack said:
So I guess we need VD to give us the final answer and put an end to all this debate. Will a player be able to kill every single NPC in the game and still complete the main quest or story-line?
I think he said that in theory, you can. In practice, it would be impossible to kill every NPC in the game, since you never really become a god.
 

Claw

Erudite
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Gambler said:
That's what Todd Howard says.
What he says is irrelevant since his actions contradict it. Oblivion is utterly restrictive. It does exactly what I don't want, offer the player pre-written stories the player can choose to follow or not.
Really, bringing up the Toddler must be the most pathetic move I can imagine in this situation, so I guess I should have anticipated it coming from you.
I argued in favour of what? Killing all NPCs. I argued against what? Developers focussing on telling "their" story. Oblivion does what? Make all NPCs unkillable to protect the developers' "awesome" story.


Lumpy said:
Here's an example: the slave trader in Tel Aruhn in Morrowind. She did not seem essential at all, and players had reasons to kill her - to free her slaves.
Now, why should killing her prevent me from doing the main quest? Does it even make sense? You kill a random slave trader, so you can no longer buy a slave for the village chief? (stupid quest, btw) You could just go to another slave trader.
On the other hand, if you go and kill Caius Cossades, should the game keep you from doing it? It has a predictable, realistic consequence, so it shouldn't be prevented at all.
In this post I don't see anything supporting your point that questline-essential NPCs should be unkillable.
 

Lumpy

Arcane
Joined
Sep 11, 2005
Messages
8,525
Claw said:
Gambler said:
That's what Todd Howard says.
What he says is irrelevant since his actions contradict it. Oblivion is utterly restrictive. It does exactly what I don't want, offer the player pre-written stories the player can choose to follow or not.
Really, bringing up the Toddler must be the most pathetic move I can imagine in this situation, so I guess I should have anticipated it coming from you.
I argued in favour of what? Killing all NPCs. I argued against what? Developers focussing on telling "their" story. Oblivion does what? Make all NPCs unkillable to protect the developers' "awesome" story.


Lumpy said:
Here's an example: the slave trader in Tel Aruhn in Morrowind. She did not seem essential at all, and players had reasons to kill her - to free her slaves.
Now, why should killing her prevent me from doing the main quest? Does it even make sense? You kill a random slave trader, so you can no longer buy a slave for the village chief? (stupid quest, btw) You could just go to another slave trader.
On the other hand, if you go and kill Caius Cossades, should the game keep you from doing it? It has a predictable, realistic consequence, so it shouldn't be prevented at all.
In this post I don't see anything supporting your point that questline-essential NPCs should be unkillable.
The slave-trader was questline-essential, and she should be unkillable.
 

Late

Novice
Joined
Aug 7, 2006
Messages
25
Location
True North
Well at least tell the player they’ve killed someone important to quest-line. Let them decide for themselves if they still want to kill him/her. (like what Morrowind did)
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Paranoid Jack said:
So that should equate to a hell of a lot of variety in the plot and story-line.
Yep.

So this requires a lot of different avenues for the story/plot to unfold. And if Iron Tower pulls this off we will see that happen and be amazed how we all were able to do things differently or had different out-comes when dealing with a quest-line or obstacle.
Pretty much. Often solving quest A a certain way opens up another way to handle quest B, which you would never see if you handle quest A differently or do quest B first (the game is non linear).

I hope the story-line and options are as varied as humanly possible (for a four person team).
They are.

So is it reasonable for any of us to request they make AoD so that we can kill whomever we damned well please?
All NPCs are killable. The only question is "Are you a bad enough dude to save the president?"

So I guess we need VD to give us the final answer and put an end to all this debate. Will a player be able to kill every single NPC in the game and still complete the main quest or story-line?
Yes.

Gambler said:
What would be left of Deus Ex story if it was tweaked in a way that would allow you to kill your brother in the beginning of the game? Not much. Or am I missing something?
I disagree. The story isn't about Paul and your relationship with him. He plays a minor role, and that role could be carried by someone else (people who worked with Paul).

jeansberg said:
Gambler said:
Vault Dweller said:
You can use rope+bow/xbow to climb walls.
That's interesting. Are all these features documented in some way, or is it up to the player to explore game capabilities?
I'd like to know that, too.
Not yet. I wrote only a few manual chapters, so they may or may not be documented. Experiment.

Lumpy said:
And I think it worked preety well in Oblivion - however, they shouldn't have prevented you from ruining questlines you don't care about.
I disagree, but I'm too busy to argue.
 

Claw

Erudite
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Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
Lumpy said:
The slave-trader was questline-essential, and she should be unkillable.
I see. To me, your post seemed to question the sense of her being essential rather than support the notion of unkillable NPCs.
Now that is cleared up, allow me to come back on your previous post:

She did not seem essential at all, and players had reasons to kill her - to free her slaves.
Now, why should killing her prevent me from doing the main quest? Does it even make sense? You kill a random slave trader, so you can no longer buy a slave for the village chief? (stupid quest, btw) You could just go to another slave trader.
Interesting questions. Killing her shouldn't prevent you from doing the main quest. It doesn't make sense. You should be able to just go to another slave trader.
Last not least, she should un-essential rather than un-killable.
 

Bradylama

Arcane
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Messages
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Location
Oklahomo
Morrowind's main quest line wasn't even in the same veign as Deus Ex or Planescape to begin with. From a design perspective, the whole business about Dagoth Ur is just one quest line that happens to be better designed and more involved than others. Completing it doesn't end the game, and ruining it doesn't stop it, either.

I also don't see why when killing a slave-trader, why another generic slave-trader can't take their place. As for that quest-critical slave, she could be activated to be in the cage when the player accepts the quest.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Bradylama said:
Alternatively, if world travel in AoD is also like Fallout, it's entirely possible for the player to stumble upon on the endgame temple.
AoD's world travel is very similar to Fallout. However, not all locations could be stumbled on, some locations require specific instructions, like the Sierra Army Depot.
 

whatusername

Scholar
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Jun 14, 2006
Messages
619
Location
burp
Sierra!? Does that mean we will be able to see the massive armies the publisher of Arcanum creates?
 

Gambler

Augur
Joined
Apr 3, 2006
Messages
767
Bradylama said:
Oh wait, you already don't think Fallout has a good story.
Fallout does not have any story. Neither good, not bad.

Vault Dweller said:
The story isn't about Paul and your relationship with him. He plays a minor role, and that role could be carried by someone else (people who worked with Paul).
I'm not going to argue about Deus Ex storyline here, but I want to make a quick point about storylines in general.

Storyline is a sequence of events. But it also is a context for character actions, just like setting is. JC can't cast fireballs, because it would not make sense in that setting. Similarly, Killing Paul in the beginning of the game doesn't make sense in that story. Implementing Denton’s early death would be just as pointless as implementing fireballs. Does storyline break role-plating capacity of a game? I think not, as long as you have reasonable freedom of actions inside the story. (Which Deus Ex did not have, but that's a different issue.)
 

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