So I have decided to flipflop...

[Multi-headed Cow]

GOD DAMN REDISTRIBUTION OF VIDEO GAME EFFORT OBSIDIAN ARE HOLDING BACK THE EXCEPTIONAL PLAYERS

 

[Wyrmlord]

lol

Here's a fun example of Obsidian punishing you for succeeding.

4-5 years ago when I last played KotOR2, I posed a question at the BioWare forums about why the Handmaiden doesn't give me some useful clue about the white Jedi woman. Turns out that I had too much influence. I was supposed to have just enough influence for her to not hate me and enough for her to not like me. Anything else is a mistake.

Does that make sense to you?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

On the other hand, how many of you have managed to turn all non-Jedis into Jedis in a KotOR 2 playthrough? Very tricky - in fact, impossible. Any party member that you influence enough to train as a Jedi means that you miss on the chance to make another one a Jedi. It is strange that doing anything right in one situation amounts effectively to doing something wrong in another. It's a good representation of real life, but bad representation of how to make an interesting videogame.

The fact it's hard to do is what makes it interesting, I'd say. Would you keep playing pacman if the ghosts decided to give up and leave you alone if you managed to evade them for 3 minutes?

Here's a fun example of Obsidian punishing you for succeeding.

4-5 years ago when I last played KotOR2, I posed a question at the BioWare forums about why the Handmaiden doesn't give me some useful clue about the white Jedi woman. Turns out that I had too much influence. I was supposed to have just enough influence for her to not hate me and enough for her to not like me. Anything else is a mistake.

Thing is, you didn't exactly succeed. If she disliked you too much, you wouldn't get the option either. It's not a "win or lose" matter, but a "you can do X if you did Y" thing (or, as the codex likes to say, C&C). You seem to think of having everyone love you as "winning", but I think that's just your personal preference. Some players prefer having companions hating them because playing as a jackass is funnier.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Point taken.

Has anybody ever done it though? Or are there only finite situations that allow for it? In KotOR2, I mean?

 

[Jools]

So is a 60 hour game better or a 30 hour game with 2 alternative play-throughs better?

Anyday. The 2 alternative playthroughs will only be 30% different from each other at best, and I'm being lenient. VERY lenient.

 

[mondblut]

Has there actually been a game that actually functions in this way? A separate story for each "class" is an incomprehensible amount of work.

Separate story, of course not. Optional content, all the time since the decline hit. They seem to actually believe that's what this elusive "roleplaying" thingy is about, having content only a very particular type of character can access. Morons.

 

[circ]

On the other hand, how many of you have managed to turn all non-Jedis into Jedis in a KotOR 2 playthrough? Very tricky - in fact, impossible. Any party member that you influence enough to train as a Jedi means that you miss on the chance to make another one a Jedi. It is strange that doing anything right in one situation amounts effectively to doing something wrong in another. It's a good representation of real life, but bad representation of how to make an interesting videogame.

I managed to do it every time I played through it, which was like 3 times. Both dark and light side and both sexes, it didn't matter. This is a modern game after all, where you can't get a boo boo because that might hurt your feelings. Impossible? Did we play the same game?

Also, C&C, what C&C? It always ended the same. Maybe MCA and team should play some more Chrono Trigger for a very basic C&C tutorial.

 

[shihonage]

Has there actually been a game that actually functions in this way? A separate story for each "class" is an incomprehensible amount of work.

Separate story, of course not. Optional content, all the time since the decline hit. They seem to actually believe that's what this elusive "roleplaying" thingy is about, having content only a very particular type of character can access. Morons.

I'm split on this issue. In my project I don't want to have Fallout's "tardtalk" for a similar reason, but again Fallout did limit you based on your character. Even a single CHA check in conversation is mild branching, is it not?

It seems that one would have to eliminate the FIXED char stats entirely, and allow player to level whatever he wants during the game, ONLY based on what he sees around him and how he acts. In a way this prospect is appealing. In other ways, it's frightening.

 

[Phelot]

I agree with the OP. Perfect and recent example: I have no desire to play through Twitcher 2 again just to see what the elf has to say about things.

 

[mondblut]

I'm split on this issue. In my project I don't want to have Fallout's "tardtalk" for a similar reason, but again Fallout did limit you based on your character. Even a single CHA check in conversation is mild branching, is it not?

Not really, a few lines of dialogue is hardly the amount of content worth the hassle. What I mean is arbitrary crap like in BG2, "you can go either to Underdark or under the seas but not both cuz we are oh so replayable". Or "if you side with A, forget about all the content associated with B cuz A and B are oh so hostile and shit".

It seems that one would have to eliminate the FIXED char stats entirely, and allow player to level whatever he wants during the game, ONLY based on what he sees around him and how he acts. In a way this prospect is appealing. In other ways, it's frightening.

One would, first and foremost, have to remember there isn't a single goal or task in the universe which can solely be accomplished by only one specific way. There are always many ways to accomplish everything, even if it's "hire/blackmail/force/ask nicely someone else to do that for you".

Saying "we couldn't be bothered implementing all the infinite ways to backtrack, betray, manipulate, oursource work etc between factions so you'll just have to suck it and stick with one of them, leaving the rest of content for other playthroughs" is cheap gimmickry, not "choices and consequences".

 

[shihonage]

Ah, it's clear now. Early on I've abandoned the notion of sticking to a specific faction and being isolated, for the same reasons.

Though it isn't very realistic, which forces the world design into factions that can't let you in too deeply. They'd have to treat you more as an outsider, a mercenary rather than a loyal follower.

Or maybe this is where the immersion should be screwed, and player should be allowed to get in deep with a faction and still leave at anytime and help their enemy, and come back, and help them, and so on, until their clash of interest manifests too obviously to be ignored.

 

[Monkeybiscuit]

I like natural replayablity rather than developer included replayability, which often are too obvious to ever work.

Collect 100 hidden packages, shoot 100 pidgeons. No thanks, what about fun gameplay instead, I'd replay that.

You know a game is good if when you complete it, you immediately start a new game without even thinking about it.

 

[ghostdog]

Both Torment and Bloodlines are awesome games and you're a fag if you don't think so.


Now, don't knock replayability, I believe it to be an important factor although it's absolutely connected to the quality of the game. You want to replay only a game that you really enjoyed, so you don't really give a shit if a mediocre game offers replayability. As some people already said replayability is better is it's offered through character build, both Fallout and Bloodlines give you this, though in a different way.


On the other hand the game I've played more times is Deus Ex, which doesn't offer as much replayability as the aforementioned games, although you can make different builds and play the game in different ways. So in this case for me it basically boils down to the quality of the game and the variety of interaction with the game world.

 

[ever]

I don't get the whole "I don't like how I can't be super powerful and do everything" thing.

I usually stop playing games as soon as I get to that point where I'm super powerful and can do everything.

Case in point I've played Baldur's Gate II maybe six times or something, never finished it once, cause at some stage I become too powerful and I run out of side quests and have to sort of trudge through the mediocre main story, which I don't like doing.

So in conclusion if you're like me and the fun part of a role playing game comes from *adventuring* then

1) The more you can discover, the more detailed the gameworld ( lore, NPC relationships etc. ), the more replayability it has.

2) The more *emergent gameplay* there is ( things playing out completely differently depending on any number of things e.g. combat tactics in Baldur's Gate II depend heavily on the party build ) the more replayability it has.

I value both these things muchly, in any genre.

 

[SacredPath]

...and say that I no longer regard "replay value" as any useful feature of any RPG. Or any genre in general.

Except that it's like paying 60$ for a CD you'll listen to only once. Lack of replay value may be the greatest fault of almost all old RPGs. I could never be bothered to play through Ultima 7 more than once, no matter how much I loved that game the first time around. There's just nothing left to see and do. Same goes for Realms of Arkania... and Darksun... etc.

Supposedly, seeing that many things played out different would have made me enjoy the game more, but it was only as boring as the first time. Arguably, removing the replayability element should have made the game less fun, but it would not have. In short, replay value had absolutely no meaning. The very fact that interesting things could be shut out to the player in a single playthrough meant that the game was even less interesting. If I didn't find it fun the first time, why would I replay it?

Faulty logic. "I didn't replay this terrible game because there was replay value."

Even for a fairly decent game that was based primarily on replay value, such as Bloodlines, I felt that the amount of total content was greatly reduced, because of the need to have more ways to do the exact same mission. Not the same as, say, Torment which was FULL of quests filled in every corner (to the point that it seems overpowering to be able to do all of them), without necessarilly the need to have 10 ways to do every quest.

Agreed. No matter how many solutions, it's still the same quest. Not to mention that it's sometimes pretty eerie/ contrived when you start over and choose a diplomatic option when just a while ago you killed that NPC and his friends in the bloodiest fashion (Shrouded Hills anyone?)

 

[MicoSelva]

Replay value will never make me start a second playthrough of a game if I did not like the gameplay.

It can, however, make me finish the game a second time.

If I already like the game enough to replay it, alternate paths are great, since I'm getting semi-new content with the same great gameplay. It is similar to playing on a higher dificulty level - both the same and new experience at the same time.

The only game I played twice in exactly the same way (same class, same alignment, same quest resolutions, etc.) was Planescape: Torment. I still got some new content, as I missed a lot of stuff the first time.