I am very happy with your direct participation in TToN…it gives me hope that the game will not be a disaster after the Turn Based combat decision. I am a little concerned that you will not be influencing the narrative though
Thanks Huminds!
The entire core team (Kevin, Colin, Adam, me, as well as Avellone, Tony Evans, and others) has had some influence on the narrative, and I’m sure that will continue as development progresses. Although Colin is the narrative lead, this project has taken a collaborative approach to most aspects of development, and Colin has been great about responding to feedback and incorporating cool ideas from others. I can also attest that Colin is a very creative and talented writer.
If TB combat was so good, how come most popular games in recent memory have been RTwP? From BG to MoTB to Dragon Age. I not seen any outstanding developers make the TB choice. What is so unique about TToN that makes TB superior?
In my experience, the choice of RTwP is usually made to appeal to a mass-market audience, not because developers believe it is qualitatively better than turn-based. I think RTwP is also better-suited to games in which combat is a frequent occurrence (i.e., the games are faster paced).
In TTON, combat will not be a frequent occurrence. Additionally, our turn-based encounters (aka Crises) will include some combat actions, but they’ll also include other sorts of interactions with objects and NPCs. As a result, we are specifically aiming for a system that allows for more complexity and a finer degree of control over the player’s actions per turn. We also think it’ll be easier to tie narrative elements (e.g., mid-conversation dialogues) into Crises if we use a turn-based system.
If Combat in TToN is not frequent, then where does the ‘game’ to be played lie? Can you imagine playing any game for 10 minutes without killing something?
Most of our game will focus on dialogue and exploration. There will be combat, but it will never be filler content – instead, it will always be motivated by the narrative and specific player goals.
In answer to your second question… yes! Perhaps the best example is the original PST, in which I frequently went more than 10 minutes without any combat, usually because I was delving into the NPC dialogues. In fact, the vast majority of the combat in that game was filler content with trash mobs (e.g., hive thugs) that offered little in terms of XP or loot. (Personally, I found those combat encounters to be more of an annoyance that detracted from an otherwise great experience, and I thought the game would have been stronger without them.). So imagine PST without the trash mobs, and you’ll have a reasonable approximation of our vision for TTON combat frequency.
Is a total bro! <3
