Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

They have been very up-front about that.

 

from day 1, yeah. And if that was Rob throwing a fit, what do you call when VD went on a rampage?

 

Here's my take on it, Infinitron:

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The developers write a manual.

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The players read that manual.

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If some players can't infer how to manipulate core game mechanics through the application of minimal brainpower, they are functionally retarded and should choke to death on their own vomit.

That post (and Sawyer's musings) are all very well conceived and written, but it ultimately boils down to impatient, functionally illiterate subhumans who have to sprint around everywhere furiously masturbating, Tweeting that they took a shit, checking their iPhone every three minutes, and impulsively snapping pictures of cats and food. If these people were all gassed by the reincarnation of Hitler, I would have a week-long orgasm.

 

The problem Blaine, is that Sawyer will start to build for those people. The furiously masturbating type. And then experts will be left to clean up their vomit-ridden shit-filled games. Something has to be done.

I've been thinking about this from last night and how not utilizing the manual really should be grounds for "don't give a fuck." At the end of the day, it didn't really affect me: I was able to figure out most of the rest of the stuff myself. But playing PnP did make BG2 a richer experience (shit there are actually things called Drow and people play this stuff in RL! I wonder if all that shit Haer D'alis was saying could actually make sense? What's this "Planescape?" OMFG) I think that players who do have a half-decent manual have a lot going for them, and those who don't use it, are ultimately losing out not because the developers did anything wrong. If they don't RTFM, then that's their fault. Devs shouldn't design for them. But if certain concepts and topics don't make sense to a majority of your players (those that actually RTFM) then there is something wrong with the way you wrote it. A lot of these games are concepts building on other concepts. Either we let the newfags in on a few secrets, and still watch them struggle, or we leave them out there without some toilet paper to wipe themselves. We don't get any decent newfags who enjoy RPGs.

I'm not saying make the game easy or retarded; just keep in mind not everyone is an oldfag. Manuals are only one step towards re-educating the manboons.

 

That's the sad thing you hinted at there...
We never needed to read the manual. It was easy enough to figure these things out because by gum, these games weren't rocket science.

That isn't to say as younger people we didn't love reading manuals. Still, I'm sure a lot of you had some pirated games given to you by your big brother, with no manual or anything, and you still played them comfortably: Syndicate, Theme Hospital, Dungeon Keeper and so on. It's easy enough to pick these things up just by paying a bit of attention.

 

Yeah, Jasede seriously... Sawyer shouldn't be building games for these kinds of people:

But what to do? I mean Sawyer says its not beneficial to him or the player. But what if his design of the game around that player, breaks it for all his other players?

 

Idiocracy happening right before your eyes.

The number of intellectually lazy people is simply greater than the opposite. In the blind economy system based on profit, that we have - only the end result counts.
Therefore it adapts itself to the majority and the amount of money.


btw ive never read a single manual, never played any PnP, and yet i played most of famous crpgs just fine, never abusing the crutches or even knowing what some stats meant. Guess im a genius?
Nor do i think that crpgs are even trying to emulate PnP, despite people blathering about it, or that it is something they should be doing.

cRPGs became something different then PnP emulations. Despite drawing so much inspirations and mechanics from that system, despite early games trying to emulate some parts of it. Despite many devs being inspired by it.
A new form of gaming environment/media.

There is no going back either.
(NWN tried to do that and look how well loved it was and is - for it. TOEE tried to do it and it ended up being a lesser game because of it, superb TB combat and art notwithstanding).

 

This is almost too perfect. 100% hiverific.

 

Anyway, yeah I agree. I think Fallout didn't have the same pitfalls that BG and its D&D based games had because they were new systems and decent, honest "geniouses" like you weren't expected to know a whole system. But a lot of the D&D games really did try to emulate to the best of their ability the PnP route. That's why we have crappy RTwP with rounds and all that.

Luckily, we're moving away from that and I think a lot of the issues I had with previous RPGs will diminish. But at the same time, I think that as an RPG continues down its sequels, a lot of things become more and more "accepted" and newer players go WTF. Maybe the retards playing FONV who needed the "end of game autosave" were playing based on how Fallout 3 was made and so they were in a different mindset. It's just something I think devs need to keep in mind.

Be right back, gotta go water my plants with some Brawndo. It's got electrolytes I hear.

 

Hormalakh: Fallout was originally meant to utilize GURPS 3rd Edition, which is (or was, back when I played tabletop RPGs) my favorite system. It was skill-based, generic, modular and easy to tailor to one's needs with a bit of work.

But in 1996, FUCKING CHRISTIANS ( FretRider and Humanity has risen!, this means you) thought RPGs were the Devil, as seen in Jack Chick tracts. They still do think that, but in the mid-nineties it was a much bigger deal.

For that reason, Steve Jackson of Steve Jackson Games decided not to associate GURPS with Fallout, because there was too much violence, drug abuse, cursing, evil cults, and so on in the game. Thus was born S.P.E.C.I.A.L.

 

A simple Firefox spell checker mistake to look over, for someone who isnt native to englimsh. But i guess Twinklie must get any ego boost he can.

Maybe brawndo will help in realizing that spelling mistake doesnt really fit. Though i doubt it.
-
Btw, Fallout had the same "pitfalls" as BG and others, proven by tonnes of complaints about the most silly stuff which can be understood without any manual or tutorial, based solely on playing the game and seeing what works and what doesnt.

 

HAHA. We're mixing religion and RPGs. Isn't that /gd/? But yes, you're right: it was supposed to be GURPS, but I'm glad it wasn't. I think part of Fallout's success was having its own system.

It's also ironic, because I played Fallout 2 before playing Fallout 1 and had no trouble with the system. I played Fallout 1 many years later.

I'm not sure what the hell it was with D&D...

hiver....wait you weren't being ironic with the word "genious?" Dammit I thought you were. I guess you should never assume anything about anyone's intelligence.

 

4th edition is an improvement, but since you don't play P&P anymore, you're excused for that slight oversight.

 

What a load of baloney. Interplay abandoned GURPS because of pricing issues with the license. Even I know that.

 

How fortunate that this very Forum has conducted an interview with Sean Punch, the line editor of GURPS, asking him about this very concern!:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=8172

There seems to be little support for either of your claims, though incidentally a bit for FretRider's.

 

Stick to the fucking topic. Keep your religion discussions in GD. Thanks.

 

Yes, Your Grace. Let's see, four pages arguing over some concept art, and... where were we? Right, Sawyerism and people with learning disabilities.

Ultimately, I visualize this issue as a spectrum:

At one extreme, there are people like me who've been playing tabletop RPGs for decades, who've been playing cRPGs for decades, who'll read the game manual for fun, and who will probably be able to master the game even in absence of a manual or "disguised tutorials" of any kind, without relying on crutches such as save scumming.

At the other extreme, you have the impatient, oblivious, Johnny-come-lately casual gamers who won't read the manual, may not fully absorb the tutorials (however they're implemented), and will get buttravaged if their party of gnome priests can't beat a dragon by virtue of mashing buttons.

It's a conflict of interest, really. There's no way to completely please both groups. I will say that there should be a well written and extensive manual, that the game itself should be tightly designed, and that a few tutorials of some kind may not be out of order. I'll even go so far as to condone a "retard toggle" for those closer to the casual end of the spectrum who need compasses, quest markers, dialog tags, easier difficulty and so on. They have to get their funding from somewhere.

In this way, 2/3-3/4 of players should be fairly satisfied, and the other 1/4 will have the retard toggle if needed. I still wish P:E would go full-on Realms of Arkania tier, though.

 

^ I can live with that.

 

Bro, you're ignoring me, remember?

 

I thought the point of kickstarter was that they didn't have to appeal to Joe 6-pack.

Edit: though with modern UIs, I see no reason for traditional manuals. I did just fine with Baldur's Gate and Fallout without ever looking at a manual. All you need are tool tips, and a civilopedia-esque help system where you can look up information about anything in the game.

 

I see you haven't skimmed a wide sampling of the Kickstarter backer comments, tuluse.

Neither have I, because I know exactly what's there and I don't want to see any of it.

 

I sort of thought that these old school developers wouldn't either, and would just make games with the same design principals as they used to use before appealing to the lowest common denominator was the only way to get publisher money.

 

Trying to please any kind of majority is a mistake, and excessive pandering will quickly turn the game into a retconned mess. This is exactly why publishers suck. They got the funding to make a game with certain features, and within these confines they should work only to please themselves. You know these guys are perfectly capable of making a good game, and really they know more and have thought more about gaming than any of us. More importantly, they have access to the design documents and know the effects of a given feature on the rest of the game. We don't. If they're given the reins and the end-result sucks, it'll be because the team itself sucks, and no amount of pandering will fix that.