Interview Colony Ship Interview at RPGWatch

[Prime Junta]

Something something Ding an sich Dasein Nichtsein Substanz Kausalität.

Conclusion: Immanuel was a Kant.

 

[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

I'm sure i'll love combat and skill stuff, but i mainly care about alternative ways to end a quest, so forgive me if i just get to the point and maybe make it simpler than it really is.
I don't want a "choice" if choice means a dialogue line with a spell check. I don't think it's interesting game design because it's too easy to play it, where's the challenge in clicking a phrase and let numbers do their job? The point of a good choice is the difficulty of finding it. example:

A guy guards a door. Choices: kill him, persuade him, threaten him etc. All spell check choices, all boring choices because they're right under your nose.

A good choice is a hidden one, one you don't even know is there to make. Following the example: find a vial of chloroform someplace, use fix skill on a common airvent, put vial in, repair the vent, guy is taken out. (extra score point if, when other guards come to pick him up, they don't get alarmed if you slip into his pocket a bottle of alcohol)

Where does Colony ship stand on that?

 

[Vault Dweller]

It's all scripted, one way or another, so either we script 'hidden' solutions (choloform + air duct = knockout, alchohol in the inventory = no alarm, etc) or we script dialogues and text adventure elements. It would be nice to have both, of course, but not with a small team like ours.

 

[Saduj]

All scripted and predetermined solutions? You.... you mean Colony Ship won't have an AI GM who can make up new content on the fly? Did you not see all the criticism of AOD based on the lack of such a feature? "You can only do what the developers decided you can do.." Bad mistake to repeat.

Spoiler

Edit: Just to avoid unnecessary confusion, I'm not making this joke about post #52

 

[Binky]

RPGWatch: And the final and hardest question of them all, what is your favourite pizza topping(s)?

I like mushrooms in/on everything including pizza.

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[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

It's all scripted, one way or another, so either we script 'hidden' solutions (choloform + air duct = knockout, alchohol in the inventory = no alarm, etc) or we script dialogues and text adventure elements. It would be nice to have both, of course, but not with a small team like ours.

Sure, why not, scripting is good. I'm not talking about improvized emergent solutions, like Warren Spector said because he was mad at adventures for having only one solution to puzzles (and it's the reason why Deus Ex is what it is). Of course, though, as you said a scripted alternative solution should be one among more typical, roleplaying, "violent" ones (shooting, persuading etc).

Is it really so expensive to add an alternative "action" like this among roleplaying skill gameplay? I mean sure, it would need an interface like Fallout, that lets you examine and use items with objects in the environment and with people. Black Isle did it, Fallout had plenty of these hidden solutions, and they felt perfectly organic with the rest of the game.

Can you add at least one to the game, please?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Is it really so expensive to add an alternative "action" like this among roleplaying skill gameplay?

It takes time. For example, we estimate that we need 2-3 months to do all quests in the starting town (combat, dialogue, stealth). If we add 'interactive' solutions to most quests it would take 4-5 months. And that's just the starting town.

Black Isle did it, Fallout had plenty of these hidden solutions, and they felt perfectly organic with the rest of the game.

I'm guessing Black Isle had a few more people and a slightly bigger budget.

Can you add at least one to the game, please?

If we have time.

 

[Dragon]

On the same-ish subject, an RPG should be careful not to fall too far in the "puzzle game" category. My character should still be the main "engine" of advancement and not only me as a problem solving provider.

It's the usual discussion of "shouldn't my high int mage be able to understand this riddle that I, as a dumb human, can't get my head around ?", and vice versa with a dumb character. A good dungeon master can make this really shine, and allow you to role-play a character that you are not in real life.

As I said, I loved my 250h on AoD, but it had that tendency to feel like a puzzle (and which I palliated with the aforementioned mod, which got me weirdly flamed with Kant, that's the codex for you...).

I guess it comes down to a question of tastes in RPGs (computer or table), but still, there's a thin line.

 

[Momock]

On the same-ish subject, an RPG should be careful not to fall too far in the "puzzle game" category. My character should still be the main "engine" of advancement and not only me as a problem solving provider.

It's the usual discussion of "shouldn't my high int mage be able to understand this riddle that I, as a dumb human, can't get my head around ?", and vice versa with a dumb character. A good dungeon master can make this really shine, and allow you to role-play a character that you are not in real life.

As I said, I loved my 250h on AoD, but it had that tendency to feel like a puzzle (and which I palliated with the aforementioned mod, which got me weirdly flamed with Kant, that's the codex for you...).

I guess it comes down to a question of tastes in RPGs (computer or table), but still, there's a thin line.

Gatekeeping content. If your character is not intelligent enough he doesn't even see or understand there is a puzzle. If he is then you can try to solve it. That solves only one half of the issue, but the good half.

 

[Jaedar]

As I said, I loved my 250h on AoD, but it had that tendency to feel like a puzzle (and which I palliated with the aforementioned mod, which got me weirdly flamed with Kant, that's the codex for you...).

This is true. It's why I really liked being able to zip open the scripts and see what the various stat checks were. That makes it more about mechanically meeting the limits, and less about guessing(It takes quite a few playthroughs to realize how bad etiquette and impersonate are otherwise...). Maybe it won't be necessary with train by use. We'll see.

 

[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

Is it really so expensive to add an alternative "action" like this among roleplaying skill gameplay?

It takes time. For example, we estimate that we need 2-3 months to do all quests in the starting town (combat, dialogue, stealth). If we add 'interactive' solutions to most quests it would take 4-5 months. And that's just the starting town.

Black Isle did it, Fallout had plenty of these hidden solutions, and they felt perfectly organic with the rest of the game.

I'm guessing Black Isle had a few more people and a slightly bigger budget.

Can you add at least one to the game, please?

If we have time.

Very well. Even though there won't be these alternative choices in it, i'm still looking forward to learn how quests are structured in Colony ship. Thank you for your time!

I just wanted to make another example, this time it was in Fallout 1 demo: two factions, the crypts and fools. They can kill each other, you join either, nothing changes. But then for some reason you decode to snoop a ranom fools' pockets, He has wirecutters, you use 'em on the power generator, the gangs leave, the people win. It was perfect in everyway. It. does. NOT. sound so expensive to make and write. Just saying

 

[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

On the same-ish subject, an RPG should be careful not to fall too far in the "puzzle game" category. My character should still be the main "engine" of advancement and not only me as a problem solving provider.

It's the usual discussion of "shouldn't my high int mage be able to understand this riddle that I, as a dumb human, can't get my head around ?", and vice versa with a dumb character. A good dungeon master can make this really shine, and allow you to role-play a character that you are not in real life.

As I said, I loved my 250h on AoD, but it had that tendency to feel like a puzzle (and which I palliated with the aforementioned mod, which got me weirdly flamed with Kant, that's the codex for you...).

I guess it comes down to a question of tastes in RPGs (computer or table), but still, there's a thin line.

The point is you can't fall in an overpowering "category", you don't have to do the puzzle, you don't even have to know it's there. It's an alternative to the more obvious choices (combat, persuasions, stealth). That's how designers reasoned back then, everything was organic, not categorized.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I just wanted to make another example, this time it was in Fallout 1 demo: two factions, the crypts and fools. They can kill each other, you join either, nothing changes. But then for some reason you decode to snoop a ranom fools' pockets, He has wirecutters, you use 'em on the power generator, the gangs leave, the people win. It was perfect in everyway. It. does. NOT. sound so expensive to make and write. Just saying

It doesn't but that's a simplistic example that fits only a short demo. If you have a proper conflict between two gangs, fucking around with a generator shouldn't make them leave or solve the conflict.

Edit: To elaborate, such solutions should solve each quest's objectives instead of being whimsical. For example, one of the quests is to kill a man recruiting more gunmen for a rival faction. You can kill him, you can turn the men he's recruiting against him, or using more puzzle-like solutions you can set up a accident, which would require extra assets, scripting, reaction, bug-fixing, etc. It's not an impossible task but it would take time we don't have.

 

[Infinitron]

Vault Dweller is interested in making RPGs where the player is fundamentally a political power player who has to choose from among a set of rational, basically predictable strategies to solve his problems. That doesn't fit thematically with the Guybrush Threepwood adventure game protagonist design approach you're advocating, where the player is a kind of lucky fool who gets through life by coming across various deus ex machina gadgets and wacky scenarios that seem to have been left there for him.

 

[Vault Dweller]

^ see my edit above. Using such gadgets would fit the science route perfectly (obviously we'd check your skills to make sure you can do whatever it is you're trying to do). For example, in AoD you can rig up some explosive (tied to your skill) to hit ambush the merchants delivering gold. It would have been much better if you could do it 'manually', not via dialogue.

 

[Infinitron]

Using such gadgets would fit the science route perfectly

Sure, when it fits a "route". Using a bomb to ambush a merchant caravan is something you'd do, regardless of any incidental local circumstances. It's a rational strategy that you could plan ahead.

But how about say, solving the scenario in the most recent Colony Ship update by using a screwdriver you found somewhere to unscrew the bolts attaching the store's sign to the wall, so that it falls on the thugs' head right when they're walking underneath it? I think something like that isn't just too expensive to implement - I'm not sure you'd want to implement it.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

^ see my edit above. Using such gadgets would fit the science route perfectly (obviously we'd check your skills to make sure you can do whatever it is you're trying to do). For example, in AoD you can rig up some explosive (tied to your skill) to hit ambush the merchants delivering gold. It would have been much better if you could do it 'manually', not via dialogue.

that's it, then! It's not even a question of categorizing and separating genres (and apparently adventures sadly became too stereotyped to be conceived anywhere but in their ghetto, let alone conceive an organic "communion" with rpg's, as it once WAS), so rpg skills or lucky monkey wrenches, but it's about the difference between making choices in dialogue lines or during manual actions, and the latter are too time consuming to script, because as you pointed out, you shouldn't escape a skill check even if it's "a puzzle action".

In other words, it's always about skills, but to be able to make a choice (that is, the pacifist one) there's items to find and utilize.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Just to be clear, it is as time-consuming (maybe even less so) as writing and scripting dialogues. Our focus is on dialogues, someone else's focus might be on pseudo- or truly emergent solutions or procedural content.

 

[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

Using such gadgets would fit the science route perfectly

Sure, when it fits a "route". Using a bomb to ambush a merchant caravan is something you'd do, regardless of any incidental local circumstances. It's a rational strategy that you could plan ahead.

But how about say, solving the scenario in the most recent Colony Ship update by using a screwdriver you found somewhere to unscrew the bolts attaching the store's sign to the wall, so that it falls on the thugs' head right when they're walking underneath it? I think something like that isn't just too expensive to implement - I'm not sure you'd want to implement it.

that's where good writers come in, they either avoid deus ex machinae, or they make the signpost such a well hidden, hard puzzle to solve (and not without its skill checks) that even if it's a signpost falling, you earned it. But then it wouldn't be an rpg, rpg's tend to have a healthy logic, so the first solution is ofc the right one.

But after all why is a deus ex machina so wrong? Peace and the people can win only if miracles happen.

 

[Gylfi.Fenriz.Conquests]

Just to be clear, it is as time-consuming (maybe even less so) as writing and scripting dialogues. Our focus is on dialogues, someone else's focus might be on pseudo- or truly emergent solutions or procedural content.

yes, like Ascendant did, so we're close.

I'd like to see actual skill-checked puzzles, one day, cause in my opinion that's the lost spirit of the 90's. There were also puzzles in platformers, like in Shadow of the beast series.