Interview But Thou Must: Choice in Games

[DarkUnderlord]

Watched it. Pretty good actually. The part where they go into the technical side I don't think worked / flowed too well but overall, talking about choice and things, was a pretty good panel.

They don't really get into detail about Alpha Protocol though, so it's still down to how the game plays as to whether it meets the lofty ambitions.

 

[Gobbo]

Alpha Protocol is starting to look better.

 

[betamin]

whyyyymca? :*(

 

[Forest Dweller]

I feel a little better about the game now. I actually do think they'll deliver on most of their promises regarding C&C on this game. I only wish they didn't bundle all the campy shit in with it. It'd be hard to take the game seriously if's it's really campy and over the top, and if I'm going to role-play I pretty much need to take the game seriously. I can only hope that what we've seen so far can be analogous to the Dragon Age marketing campaign (not indicative of the final product).

 

[CrimHead]

Call me a fanboy, but I have alot of respect for MCA and I always hold out hope for his projects. The man made PST-- what is, quite possibly, no exaggeration, my favorite thing in the entire universe. Mask of the Betrayer came very close to giving me another experience like PST, one that I'll always remember, but the very fact that it came attached to that POS NWN2 diluted the impact of it heavily for me. Anyway, suffice it to say the man is capable of great things, and while Alpha Brotocol doesn't exactly look great, I'm not going to rule it out as "CONSOLETARD POPAMOLE SHIT" just yet. It'd be different if we were talking about Cliffy B or any number of other developers who've since sold out, but Mask of The Betrayer happened just recent enough for me to believe MCA is still on our side.

 

[Davaris]

I wish they had showed us blow ups of the tools they used for the branching. I couldn't tell if they were custom or standard tools.

I'll bet some people ask them to make that dialogue timer optional, because some will want to take their time. I also find not being able to see the dialogue options in text before I choose them, a little frustrating.

Also, what were they saying at the end about emergent behavior being in Fallout, but not in Alpha Protocol? Did anyone understand their explanation?

 

[JrK]

As I recall it, they were explaining how Fallout really only had "consequences" in the ending slides and did not offer much in different approaches to your main missions. So they were contrasting how AP will be MOAR CnC than Fallout.

 

[KalosKagathos]

It'd be hard to take the game seriously if's it's really campy and over the top, and if I'm going to role-play I pretty much need to take the game seriously.

You want a Bond-inspired game with magical gadgets, flamboyant characters and a protagonist who can't take a step without a gorgeous woman falling for him to take itself seriously?

 

[Serious_Business]

MCA is a p. cool guy. I would most def. have a beer with him and talk about deontology versus utilitarian ethics and how this conflict is represented in role playing game games

 

[Forest Dweller]

It'd be hard to take the game seriously if's it's really campy and over the top, and if I'm going to role-play I pretty much need to take the game seriously.

You want a Bond-inspired game with magical gadgets, flamboyant characters and a protagonist who can't take a step without a gorgeous woman falling for him to take itself seriously?

That's the point. You don't have to do the spy genre that way.

 

[Cabeca Grande]

I enjoyed watching that. Everything they brought up about other games was basically correct and I didn't detect any disingenuous hype. It was nice to see the diagrams of all the scenes and have them explained. I have to say, after seeing this, there is a very real chance that I'll actually get AP. Despite disliking the setting (unless you get the chance to actually explore the various locals) and thinking all the characters are twats, I can't help but admire and look forward to the amount of decisions you can make and how they have a long term impact as well. Choice is fun. I'm really glad they bucked the whole emergent trend. Script those sequences and make them good. I want an engaging story and an interesting world - not little computer people who can kind of learn.

Of course, the game could still end up buggy as all hell, and there could be a choose-your-own-ending scenario before the final "boss", which would be very unfortunate. Also, the dialog could end up being Mass Effect Lite, which would totally ruin it. And, of course, the time responses could really blow. I enjoy thinking about what I'm going to say before I say it. I play games for fun, and the reason I play RPG games as opposed to action games is because I like to think before I do something.

@Dicksmoker

There's really only two choices when doing movie spies (as opposed to real spies, which do paperwork, politics, and stuff) - Bond and Bourne. If you don't want to go fun and at least somewhat campy, then you're stuck with being bland and taking yourself too seriously to be interesting.

 

[GMonkey]

I wish they had showed us blow ups of the tools they used for the branching. I couldn't tell if they were custom or standard tools.

Obsidian has a dialogue tool developed in-house that was being used for Aliens RPG, if I'm not mistaken, but as I recall, they weren't using it in AP. That may have changed, though.

 

[Davaris]

Obsidian has a dialogue tool developed in-house that was being used for Aliens RPG, if I'm not mistaken, but as I recall, they weren't using it in AP. That may have changed, though.

What I am most interested in is their plot control tools. I'd love to get a blow up of those screen shots, so I could see what they are doing and reverse engineer parts of it. Tee hee!

However I suspect they might be using the standard Kismet which looks pretty awesome.

 

[Forest Dweller]

@Dicksmoker

There's really only two choices when doing movie spies - Bond and Bourne.

What about Jack Bauer?

(as opposed to real spies, which do paperwork, politics, and stuff)

Those are the office workers. There are also field agents.

If you don't want to go fun and at least somewhat campy, then you're stuck with being bland and taking yourself too seriously to be interesting.

Whatever. If you think that it can't be interesting that's your issue. There's always a way to make it work as long as you put enough thought into it.

Remember that when the game was initially announced and Brian Mitsoda was on it they mentioned Syriana a lot.

 

[Davaris]

Remember that when the game was initially announced and Brian Mitsoda was on it they mentioned Syriana a lot.

Sounds like the financiers passed up a chance to make a classic.

 

[Sceptic]

There's really only two choices when doing movie spies - Bond and Bourne.

Funny you should mention these two. Bonds haven't been spy movies for thirty years and Bourne never were to begin with.

If you don't want to go fun and at least somewhat campy, then you're stuck with being bland and taking yourself too seriously to be interesting.

So spy movies can only be either campy action movies ir boring and pretentious? Cool story.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

I can only hope that what we've seen so far can be analogous to the Dragon Age marketing campaign (not indicative of the final product).

i feel the same. i stopped watching the AP vids after the first one, since it felt to me like these were videos meant to sell the game to people who have no idea what "MCA" stands for...if you get my meaning. since that's not me, i find it much more hopeful when reading/watching/listening to what Avellone is actually saying instead of what Obsidian is trying to sell the game as. because when it comes down to it...in this day and age...if you can't convince the BOOMSPLODES! to buy your game your company is shot to shit in a hot bankrupt minute.

 

[Vibalist]

Great video, and I was very happy to finally hear developers talk about issues in video games that I care about. This might also be the first video game press conference (or whatever you call it) where the people actually asked questions that I would've asked too had I been there, questions I was interested in hearing the answer to. Refreshing, compared to the usual, non-critical boring rubbish most gaming journalists ask. This is the good shit.

 

[Cabeca Grande]

Whatever. If you think that it can't be interesting that's your issue. There's always a way to make it work as long as you put enough thought into it.

I never said that it can't be interesting, only that when doing movie spies there's a limited range of archetypes you can use. They were obviously going for the movie spy with the heavy action, Bourne/Bond/Bauer approach, and flat out saying they're trying to make something akin to a summer blockbuster spy movie.

Maybe it would be more clear if I used the word "hollywood" instead of "movie" in front of spies.

Funny you should mention these two. Bonds haven't been spy movies for thirty years and Bourne never were to begin with.

Tell me, is the sky still blue in your universe?

 

[Arcanoix]

49:31

EDIT: Correction, Chris Avellone pulls a Volourn....