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Development Info DoubleBear ZRPG Design Update

VentilatorOfDoom

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Tags: Brian Mitsoda; DoubleBear Productions

<p>Since his return from his honeymoon Brian resumed his weekly design updates. <a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,1570.0.html" target="_blank">Here are</a> <a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,1579.0.html" target="_blank">3 parts</a> <a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,1586.0.html" target="_blank">all concerning</a> Experience.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Before I get into an explanation of how the experience system works &ndash; and most likely, that&rsquo;s going to make more sense in the next post &ndash; let&rsquo;s go over some of the unique challenges of creating an experience/quest system in a game that centers on the collapse of society and a game system where absolutely any ally or enemy can die. Well, I think I just touched on the biggest one, so let&rsquo;s run with that.<br /><br />So in a lot of traditional RPGs, even in terrible, monster-caked dystopias you&rsquo;ve got cities full of people and a lot of those people give quests. Some of them can die, but most of them can&rsquo;t or at least not until you get the dialogue choice to kill them. So, anyhow, the streets are filled with people who you can&rsquo;t attack for fear of guards who are there to save you from yourselves - your progress will break, you see, if you kill all those people with exclamation points or names over their heads. A good number of these quests are going to be fetch quests sending you out of the Town of Incredibly Safe People into the wilderness where you will risk life and limb and werewolf rape for someone&rsquo;s missing hat. Find the hat, kill the endless spawns of the monster that&rsquo;s slightly higher than your level, return the hat, get some kind of reward and selfless/dick response &ndash; we&rsquo;re all familiar with this setup, yeah?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Brian's obviously not up to date. Experience is out, Followers is where it's at.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
 
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His name sound Japanese but he look joo
1260773367-00.jpg
 

Serious_Business

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This thread isn't about some random bitter faggot that lashes out with ad hominem attacks on an internet forum to catter to his base and ignorant habits, it's about the zombie rpg, why don't you keep on subject, thanks :M
 

Trash

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Codex is NOT a place for fat assholes to vent their pathetic frustrations about life, FFS. It is an exclusive club of elite individuals to share their educated, open and well-rounded views of thei0fi90sdfdkosffbggf5t5t6hhnnh;.v,cvi
 

shihonage

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I still prefer having people give you quests, rather than the game itself breaking the 4th wall by auto-revealing them for you. I feel that "bypassing the middleman" in this case lowers the Player's "giving a crap" factor.
 

Trash

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I got to admit that I like their approach. Why? Because it is something quite fresh and simple enough that it might work. The game also starts to sound more and more like a stat driven zombie survival game than a traditional rpg and I for one like that. Guess I'm just a sucker for originality.
 

Martin

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Serious_Business said:
This thread isn't about some random bitter faggot that lashes out with ad hominem attacks on an internet forum to catter to his base and ignorant habits, it's about the zombie rpg, why don't you keep on subject, thanks :M

Can't it be about both?

:(
 

SuicideBunny

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Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Torment: Tides of Numenera
shihonage said:
I still prefer having people give you quests, rather than the game itself breaking the 4th wall by auto-revealing them for you. I feel that "bypassing the middleman" in this case lowers the Player's "giving a crap" factor.
and people giving you quests for experience aren't 4th wall breakers?
it's an entirely artificial and quite shitty design shortcut without much meaning behind it, especially when quest rewards involve perks or xp.
the whole questgiver->quest->questgiver->reward structure is one of the many steps from rpg mechanics that are meant to coherently emulate reality through abstraction to just a meaningless agglomeration of disconnected systems that are included simply because they are considered to be necessary for rpgs, with the letter resulting in crap (mechanics-wise) like mass effect or oblivion.

in my oppinion, experience should rather be structured in a way where doing/dealing with something, whether of your own accord or on someone else's behalf, offers both the direct and minimal reward of slightly improving by performing that action, and some more unique or greater reward by offering the opportunity for introspection on said deed, whether through direct feedback when you perform it, some kind of internal monologue, discussion with others, or something else entirely...
in the ideal crpg, the introspection mechanics would also be drastically different for different character backgrounds, but it feels like each passing year the whole industry is going to pains at making the largest possible step away from that ideal, but i guess it cannot be helped....

anyhoo, both quest givers and mitsoda's approach are in essence lazy shortcuts, but at least mitsoda's idea makes more sense in terms of logical coherence, and doesn't have you construct more senseless artificial mechanics on top of it, just so you can prevent your quests from breaking, while limiting your creativity and maneuvering yourself into the corner of rpg cliches at the same time.
:x
 

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