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Interview Voodoo Priestesses and Personal Pirate Ships

VentilatorOfDoom

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Tags: Piranha Bytes; Risen 2: Dark Waters

<p>Gamespot <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/risen-2-dark-waters/news/6325895/risen-2-dark-waters-qanda-voodoo-priestesses-and-personal-pirate-ships?sid=6325895&amp;mode=previews&amp;tag=topslot;thumb;1" target="_blank">chatted with</a> Deep Silver's Daniel Oberlerchner on the topic of <strong>Risen 2: Dark Waters</strong>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>GS:</strong> We understand that Risen 2 will include a more fully-realized world with characters that go about their own daily schedules regardless of whether players are present or not. While this is definitely an interesting addition, what will it add to the game? How will the hero interact with, or benefit from, characters who wake up every morning to tend to their farm, or sneak out to the tavern every evening?</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>DO:</strong> To understand the focus on daily routines, the AI of the NPCs, and other design decisions, we have to dive a bit into the origin of the Gothic series. When Piranha Bytes created Gothic in 2001, their aim was to create an RPG which follows the tradition of the old Ultima games. The Ultima games in the '80s and '90s already offered a lot of the game mechanics we take for granted in a modern RPG even though the presentation was of course in no way comparable to what players are used to seeing on the screen nowadays. In Risen 2, every NPC has a daily routine and will react to the player based on a set of rules. Many of those rules are similar to the rules in our society: Don't steal or you will be punished. Don't attack or threaten people unless you're ready for a fight yourself. Don't sneak into people's houses when they are awake/nearby or you will raise their attention. All those basic rules give the player a sense of actually having a place as a person in society and thus convince him that this is a real world he is playing in.</p>
<p>Risen 2 does not throw the player into a huge city with thousands of citizens where none of them react to what you're doing. The appeal of the games of Piranha Bytes is to observe the NPCs, and then either play along or try to outsmart the AI by developing devious ways to get to your goals. What we offer is a lively and immersive gameworld to play with, and we equip you with the hero character, who is meant to serve as a vessel for your chosen play style. This is also why there is no character creation screen when you start the game. All decisions you make in the game will influence which skills will be available from trainers throughout the gameworld. Additionally, the game will not only react on your actions in the short term, but NPCs will remember that you fought or argued with them and, depending on the outcome, admire or hate you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Thanks to Krokar for pointing this out.</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
</blockquote>
 

Pope Amole

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By the title I thought that they want to make an RPG in the Monkey Island universe. Would be pretty awesome, but no, instead it's some crap I couldn't care less about.
 

Metro

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Pope Amole said:
By the title I thought that they want to make an RPG in the Monkey Island universe. Would be pretty awesome, but no, instead it's some crap I couldn't care less about.

:/
 

felipepepe

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Risen 2 does not throw the player into a huge city with thousands of citizens where none of them react to what you're doing. The appeal of the games of Piranha Bytes is to observe the NPCs, and then either play along or try to outsmart the AI by developing devious ways to get to your goals.
Sounds good. I really hate games that huge cities full of nothing, like NWN.
 
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... we equip you with the hero character, who is meant to serve as a vessel for your chosen play style. This is also why there is no character creation screen when you start the game.

Fuck you
 

felipepepe

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Excommunicator said:
... we equip you with the hero character, who is meant to serve as a vessel for your chosen play style. This is also why there is no character creation screen when you start the game.

Fuck you
I beg to differ.

Starting as a dumbfuck, slowly learning and going after masters to teach you and improve your skills make much more sense that a farmer that can spam fireballs, especially in a Role-Playing game. The issue is that no one ever got this done right before, they only use it to dumb down and make it "user friendly".

If Risen 2 follows this path in a smart way, we may have a trully amazing and hardcore RPG. Real C&C could be done, like learning firearms makes the Swordmasters despise you, or killing a NPC in a quest makes his father (a blacksmith) vow for vengeance, all that restrinting the skills and habilities you can learn. I have great faith in this, best of luck to them. :salute:
 

Regdar

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Real C&C could be done, like learning firearms makes the Swordmasters despise you, or killing a NPC in a quest makes his father (a blacksmith) vow for vengeance. I have great faith in this, best of luck to them

This was already done in Risen. Choosing the templars meant you could only advance staff fighting and magic, while choosing the bandits allowed you to master other forms of combat (except staves), but not magic (you could still learn to read scrolls, though). Pissing off certain trainers prevented you from learning from that particular trainer. However, there were always others who could teach you.

All decisions you make in the game will influence which skills will be available from trainers throughout the gameworld. Additionally, the game will not only react on your actions in the short term, but NPCs will remember that you fought or argued with them and, depending on the outcome, admire or hate you.

Basically what I just said. This was already done in Risen. Are trying to pass the same shit with new textures as innovation?

Disclaimer: I think the first two chapters of Risen are great, and Risen in general is a great game.
 
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pepe said:
Excommunicator said:
... we equip you with the hero character, who is meant to serve as a vessel for your chosen play style. This is also why there is no character creation screen when you start the game.
Fuck you
Starting as a dumbfuck, slowly learning and going after masters to teach you and improve your skills make much more sense that a farmer that can spam fireballs, especially in a Role-Playing game.

What the hell has that got to do with not having pre-game customisation?

Seriously you people make me feel like I'm reading drunk or something
 

MicoSelva

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Excommunicator said:
... we equip you with the hero character, who is meant to serve as a vessel for your chosen play style. This is also why there is no character creation screen when you start the game.

Fuck you
Why?

Gothics (and the first Risen) never had pre-game PC customization. Why would they introduce it now?
 

Shannow

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MicoSelva said:
Excommunicator said:
... we equip you with the hero character, who is meant to serve as a vessel for your chosen play style. This is also why there is no character creation screen when you start the game.

Fuck you
Why?

Gothics (and the first Risen) never had pre-game PC customization. Why would they introduce it now?
Because Oblibians had it, dummy. Don't you want Risen 2 to be at least as good as Obibibion?

Why quote that section, VoD? That's all the stuff every PB game had. Where's the news?
 
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MicoSelva said:
Excommunicator said:
... we equip you with the hero character, who is meant to serve as a vessel for your chosen play style. This is also why there is no character creation screen when you start the game.

Fuck you
Why?

Gothics (and the first Risen) never had pre-game PC customization. Why would they introduce it now?

Why not?

Because they didn't have it in the previous games they are precluded from doing it in this one? I understand that they want to develop skill progression within the game, but some customization at the beginning would be nice, appearance and base stats for example.
 

JarlFrank

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The character development of the Gothics and Risen has always been fine to me, even though I'm a sucker for high character customization. You start out as an average guy and can specialize later on, when you've already learned the basics of the game, tried out different weapons, and know what does what.

It's a solid system that has always worked well for the Gothic games, and I don't see why they should change it.
 

Alex

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One very cool side effect of having character customization occur in game instead of before it is that the character abilities you take become associated with the game setting around you. Your abilities are tied in with your relationship with the trainers, which is tied with your relationship with different factions.
 

Metro

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Excommunicator said:
What the hell has that got to do with not having pre-game customisation?

Seriously you people make me feel like I'm reading drunk or something

Probably because you are. Have you ever even played a Gothic game? :roll:
 
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Anyone creating a game they dare to call an RPG without real character creation deserves to be shamed and criticised for it

Bunch of wannabes
 

Metro

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Excommunicator said:
Anyone creating a game they dare to call an RPG without real character creation deserves to be shamed and criticised for it

Bunch of wannabes

:mhd:
 
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Alex said:
One very cool side effect of having character customization occur in game instead of before it is that the character abilities you take become associated with the game setting around you. Your abilities are tied in with your relationship with the trainers, which is tied with your relationship with different factions.
Exactly.

The way it is just fits well with the Gothic/Risen playstyle.
 

Shannow

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Excommunicator said:
Anyone creating a game they dare to call an RPG without real character creation deserves to be shamed and criticised for it

Bunch of wannabes
Only it was derpy fans who started calling the Gothics/Risens "RPGs". The same morons who call MEh, TW, etc "RPGS".
PB called the first Gothic correctly "action adventure". Not sure if they've followed the fans' nomenklatur later. I at least don't distinctly recall them ever calling their names "RPGs". (And this is an interview with a Deep Silver derper, not PB.)

But seriously, will you whine about semantics in a genre that has become so muddied instead of simply judging the game for itself? It doesn't matter for the quality of a game whether it fits into some artificial labelling box or not.
I'd be fine if you said: "I like games with character generation like Oblivioons, they are the only games that make me happy."
But:"It doesn't have character generation like Ooblbebiohn, thus it's not an RPG like Oblediboble, thus it's shit." Is full derp.
 

Regdar

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Excommunicator said:
Anyone creating a game they dare to call an RPG without real character creation deserves to be shamed and criticised for it

Bunch of wannabes

Dargon Age 2 had character creation. Just sayin'.
 

eugene2k

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This obsession with character generation is puzzling. The p&p RPGs have it, because that's a way to write the history of your character. cRPGs of old had it, but the writing character's history aspect was never there IIRC. These new-age cRPGs shy away from character generation and make writing the character's story somewhat of an in-game feature. So why the fuss? Because you have to play through more content? I guess the practical side of character generation is you can start trying out different builds in different combat situations early and thus figure out what the best tactics in certain combat situations are, but... tactics? In modern day parodies RPGs???

Edit: Also, p&p RPGs assume familiarity with the RPG system, and modern day cRPGs prefer to reinvent the wheel, if you roll a character without knowing how effective the character will be throughout the game, and find out your character is absolute crap in the beginning because you went for the skills that are not required, the early in-game encounters may become impossibly hard. Especially since there's no such thing as tactics in modern day crapRPGs.
 

SCO

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Gothic 1 had a beautiful, beautiful bug, where you requested to be a firemage, the guy says "sure, come over to the second floor", and you went to join either the of the other factions, level up their skill, and come back to the firemages and say, "I'm ready".

Kensai mage.

Bit of a learning point drain though.
 

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