Interview Restricted Area Q&A on GameGossip

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Jan Beuck; Restricted Area

<a href="http://www.gamegossip.com/">GameGossip</a> has a <a href="http://www.gamegossip.com/comment.php?id=1121">neat interview</a> with <b>Jan Beuck</b>, <A href="http://www.master-creating.com">Master-Creating</a>'s one man interviewing machine, about their up and coming <a href="Http://www.restricted-area.net">Restricted Area</a>. Here's a taste:
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<blockquote><b>GG: Players will gain skills and abilities through cybernetic implants and genetically enhance organs - how will this augmentation system work? What are some of the skills that can be gained through these augments? </b>
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JB: You can think of the implants as the equivalent to the armours, boots and helmets in fantasy games, except that they can not be magic and can therefore can only give boni that are logical by their function. For example, a genetically enhanced heart can increase your costitution attibute but not your intelligence. Skills, which are usally learned with so-called development points you earn for level ups, can also be learned with skill software. That means you can replace your real knowledge of - let´s say "aiming level 2" with a chip that features "aiming level 5". As this software replaces your real knowledge about the skill the values aren´t added but replaced as long as you decide to use the chip. Currently all 75 skills can be learned with skill software as well. It was one of our highest goals about the skills that all each one is very different than all others and that none becomes unimporant after you learned a another one. A good example is "Will to Survive", a misc skill (that means all character may learn it) that, with each level, increases the chance that you simply don´t die although the last hit would have killed you. It´s useful for every character and it´s always good, equal what weapons or other skills you use. Of course it´s also tricky as you can´t count on it.</blockquote>
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<i>Who wants to live forever?</i> I'm not so sure this is the type of thing that works well in real time, though, because that hit that <i>should have killed you</i> will most likely have the hit <i>that will kill you</i> already inbound towards you after it's calculated <i>not to have killed you</i>. If you're getting machine gunned, saving versus one bullet won't matter much.
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Spotted this at <a href="Http://www.bluesnews.com">Blue's News</a>

 

[chiefnewo]

A good example is "Will to Survive", a misc skill (that means all character may learn it) that, with each level, increases the chance that you simply don´t die although the last hit would have killed you. It´s useful for every character and it´s always good, equal what weapons or other skills you use. Of course it´s also tricky as you can´t count on it.

Funnily enough, someone suggested a perk like that on the interplay boards for fallout 3/ van buren, although they called it "Too dumb to die".

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

In Avernum, if you have a high, high Luck, you can "luck out" and not die.

But like I said, this idea doesn't really work in real time combat. It pretty much requires turn based to work.

 

[Jan]

RE

Don´t forget that for you guys the entire game requires turn-based combat to work :wink:

Of course this skill is not the best against a machine gun (but would´t a good turn-based game calculate the damage for each bullet as single hit as well? Anyway... maybe you wouldn´t die "that round"), but what about other weapons? Isn´t the interesting point that not every skil has the same value in any situation although they are (well, I hope so...) equally good in total?

"Too dumb to die" - well, I always thought about a crpg that makes fun on all others, that fullfills all cliches with an unbelievable flat story and the most standart characters ever. Anybody here who likes this idea as well???

BTW: We have a "luck skill" as well. After long discussion we decided to add it although luck it´s not what I would call a typical skill as you can´t really learn it. However, it´s very interesting as it´s the only skill were we won´t tell you what it can do... :shock:

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Re: Restricted Area Q&A on GameGossip

JB: You can think of the implants as the equivalent to the armours, boots and helmets in fantasy games, except that they can not be magic and can therefore can only give boni that are logical by their function. For example, a genetically enhanced heart can increase your costitution attibute but not your intelligence. Skills, which are usally learned with so-called development points you earn for level ups, can also be learned with skill software. That means you can replace your real knowledge of - let´s say "aiming level 2" with a chip that features "aiming level 5". As this software replaces your real knowledge about the skill the values aren´t added but replaced as long as you decide to use the chip. Currently all 75 skills can be learned with skill software as well. It was one of our highest goals about the skills that all each one is very different than all others and that none becomes unimporant after you learned a another one. A good example is "Will to Survive", a misc skill (that means all character may learn it) that, with each level, increases the chance that you simply don´t die although the last hit would have killed you. It´s useful for every character and it´s always good, equal what weapons or other skills you use. Of course it´s also tricky as you can´t count on it.

Actually, didn't Skillsoft chips appeared in Neuromancer and Circuit's Edge already?

[EDIT: fixed the tags]

 

[Jan]

RE

(quote]Actually, didn't Skillsoft chips appeared in Neuromancer and Circuit's Edge already?[/quote]

Maybe - I know them from the pen-and-paper RPG Shadowrun. However, I haven´t seen something similar in computer games yet (which doesn´t necessarily mean it doesn´t exist - wouldn´t be the first time I reinvent the wheel...).

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Oh, ok :D

I was just stating those because i remember them. I never got to play the Shadowrun PnP system (much to my misfortune), but since Shadowrun PnP was heavilly based on Neuromancer (the book), i believe it may include that. I played the PC adaptation of Neuromancer, and a game called Circuit's Edge (more info on them at theunderdogs.org or mobygames.com), and i'm almost sure they had skill software which didn't increment like standard skills, and were very much like those presented here.

Cheers

 

[Jan]

RE

I read the book but it didn´t know there´s a game adaption - I´ll check it out!
Well, we don´t state to create a totally new world - the game is a hommage to the cyberpunk literature (one of us even studied English with main topic Cyberpunk literature but as you can easily guess it´s not me ) and to the great pen-and-paper systems. What makes it special anyway is that there aren´t much games that choose this direction and that the few there are are mainly very old.

 

[chiefnewo]

Re: RE

"Too dumb to die" - well, I always thought about a crpg that makes fun on all others, that fullfills all cliches with an unbelievable flat story and the most standart characters ever. Anybody here who likes this idea as well???

It'd only work as a humour piece, but even then you can't rely on humour and picking on others to carry a totally flat story. At least not if you wanted to make money.

 

[Psilon]

"Too dumb to die" - well, I always thought about a crpg that makes fun on all others, that fullfills all cliches with an unbelievable flat story and the most standart characters ever. Anybody here who likes this idea as well???

Oh yeah. I'd also probably appreciate one where the party members are psychopaths, morons, and confidence men. Kind of like a non-FF conversion of 8-Bit Theater. Other welcome conventions would be bulletproof nudity (i.e., female characters wearing barely enough to avoid an AO rating yet still with an armor class equivalent to plate mail), a gazebo, ale'n'whores, and ludicrously painful criticals.

Basically, make the combat system the most evil mess imaginable so only munchkins stand a chance at survival--but they stand a very good chance. Similarly, make the plot a pitifully thin excuse for slaying stuff. Throw in a shallow romance just because. Add some anachronisms and parody situations (e.g., a "find four artifacts" quest and a Chosen One storyline) and voila.

 

[Jan]

RE

To me that sounds fun. What do you think about this:

"Warrior, Wizard or Survivor? Which fate is yours? In any case, you are the chosen one according to prophecy."

No, we can´t just steal that from Divine Divinitiy´s homepage... we have to write it somehow different

Your quest is to find the 7(!) magic artefacts that all look the same that are the only hope to save mankind from an unpredictable evil demon and his evil master, the witchlord Kazar! Choose between a nearly naked double-D amazon, a muscle-packed but somehow noble barbarian, a blessed paladin who is so good that it hurts ("I stand for the light") and - no, three are enough. Experience a wide but empty world in 640x480 with 256 colors and talk to female smiths, fight against merchants that have more hitpoints than the evil demo himself and die if you dare to talk to the chief of the robbers without speech skill at 10! 8)