Dreamfall: Longest Journey II - Borderline RPG?

Those of you that loved Funcom's The Longest Journey, are probably aware of the sequel at work. What struck me as interesting was this piece from the official website:

Multiple outcomes? Branching dialogue? This sounds really interesting, especially considering how good the original was. Those things are more integral to roleplaying to me, than leveling up and finding phat loot, that's for sure. Anyone disagree?

 

That's good to hear. Though, don't several adventure games already have branching dialogue? This always seemed like the case, where you were able to talk to someone and the dialogue branched at certain ocasions; you coul ask the same thing again and get another branch. Not used extensively, probably, but still there, IIRC.

 

Intruiging. I'm sure a lot of us will check it out aka go to Mexico, when it comes out.

 

The roleplaying genre is not defined by branching dialogue choices or nonlinear gameplay. These things can exist seemlessly in other genres (from adventure titles to space sims) and rpgs can exist without them (though one could argue that for the roleplaying system to truly branch out, these things would need to be present). Substantive character development/creation is what makes the genre unique. The quality of the "roleplaying" lies largely in how many aspects are governed by the aforementioned character development/creation (diplomacy/combat/tracking/street know-how/tactical thought/first aid/empathy/etc etc etc) and the flexibility of said system. One can have RPGs that have weak roleplaying but are great games (Baldur's Gate 1/2 - DnD is so bleh) or RPGs that have great roleplaying systems but are terrible games (tough to find an example of this).

My two cents.

 

I don't care if it's a role-playing game or not. I loved the original, hated the abrupt cliffhangerish ending, hoped for a sequal. I'm not sure how I feel about the reports of action bits making it into Dreamfall, but otherwise I like the way the game seems to be shaping up.

I hope the voice acting is as good in this game as it was in the original. TLJ was one of the best voice-acted games I've played.

 

Its shit. It sucks. I recall game-designers speaking of sequel as "more action" and am little scared if that does not mean BrokenSword3 style action or, even worse, adventure style action. I am from those people who like RPG and like quests, but dont like mixing them. Well, except for QuestForGlory series. In my opinion non-linearity is not the feature every game should posess. Its only the tool to design game. Totally linear game-telling can be as awsoome as totally non-linear experience - its very case-dependant. Here, I love quests with totally linear storyline. Its the ideal, IMHO, and the best quests are allways been linear or marginally non-linear. Its the vice-versa with RPGs, IMO, but is true for quests.
I dont like action elements in quests - like jumping, I like classic story-telling style Sierra's quests posessed, GrimFandago had and the first Journey featured. This is why I am really unhappy with such news.

PS:
I have played only one non-linear quest, Post-Mortem. Well, it was decent just that non-linearity spoiled many things. The story turned too fragmented/cut/non-fluent and I was quite upset of that. Only [half-]good non-linear thing was different endings, though those were too short and left me unsatisfied. That was not very good story-telling. Decent game but nothing special. Cannot be compared with Grim or Journey.

 

I didn't said it was defining of it. Or did you just used my quote to expand on your point of view without making a direct connection?

 

Heh, who shit in your cereal this morning?

 

I got halfway through the original game, it was quite good. I want to play this sequel, but I want to know the complete story of the original. Is there anywhere where I can read it?