Game News Dragon Age and day-n-night cycle

[Vault Dweller]

You just provided an example of some very basic emergent gameplay that already exists in games like Baldur's Gate (when the Flaming Fist show up) and Bloodlines (the cops).

So, why did you say it was a myth then?

The problem with a lot of games that allow such a degree of freedom is that while they allow you the freedom of murdering people from house to house with only a few guards spawning each time a body is detected, the game doesn't react to your actions in an 'emergent' manner, thus creating a lack of believability.

I see what you mean, and yes, if your keep murdering people you should expect to see some reaction, but that could be handled in 3 easy ways.

1. First, the BG2 way - each time you commit a reportable crime, some guards are spawned. If you kill them and escaped, next time more powerful guards are spawned, and so on, until you are dealt with. Wouldn't take long.

2. The Gothic 2 way - each time you commit a crime, people will complain to the Guy-in-Charge, who'd deal with you appropriately.

3. The Bloodlines way - if you commit enough crimes, there will be "wanted" notes and bounty hunters making your life difficult

I would argue that for the sake of realism and immersion, whatever he was intending to steal should have probably been shifted to a new location and the entire area should be cordoned off as a police crime scene in the nights after the initial attack. It'd be utterly silly if you went back into the mansion only to find that things were just as you left them and when you confront the Duke of the manor he behaves like the attack all occured over the span of a few hours instead of (realistically) behaving as if he'd been burglarized days ago.

That sort of emergent gameplay is just impossible to accomplish

Why? You break in a mansion, steal something, next morning the place is well guarded, and a many other "high-profile" houses are guarded as well. What's impossible about that?

 

[Sol Invictus]

Well, I was referring to Warren Spector's myth of "emergent gameplay". It's one thing to implement cops spawning at the sound of gunshots, but totally another to have the entire game based around it instead of simple AI reactions. Like, having the entire game locations react to your actions, with an actual living breathing game world. That's impossible to do without devoting a copious amount of 'reactions' to every single action a player is capable of performing.

This is basically the concept that Fable was based on.

Why? You break in a mansion, steal something, next morning the place is well guarded, and a many other "high-profile" houses are guarded as well. What's impossible about that?

Yes, but there needs to be a change in dialogue of all the NPCs involved, as well. Your handler should scold you for not doing your work fast enough and order you to go back to the mansion, and the people in the mansion shouldn't act the same way if you show up a second time, since they'd have had notice of your arrival and were expecting you to come.

All in all, it's way too much work to put into a single area. It might not seem like much but when the game is very big, and you have to do this sort of 'emergent gameplay' for every area you visit, it's going to be a real pain in the ass for the writers, scripters and designers. Most of the game's budget would be spent on developing the emergent gameplay and the end result would be similar to Deus Ex Invisible War and Fable. Much of the game's early areas had this degree of emergent gameplay but as you progressed, the game became increasingly linear because they didn't have the time to test or even implement it.

 

[Volourn]

Is Rosh crying again? Geez.. I think Dave Gaider and the rest of BIoweenies musta stole his girlfriend, ate his mom, and raped his dad. How else can one explain why he's so emotional on such a "small" issue like day and night cycles ina GAME. At least VD is acting normal, and actually use intelligence. Then again, one can't be too ahrd on Rosh in this insatnce - one can't use what they can't have.

R00fles!


"Well, dontcha think that if they thought it was useful they would have spent some money on it? After all, as you noted, they did have that feature in many games, so they have a good idea about how it works, how to make it, and whether or not it's useful."

Like others mentioned; they may find that for at least where DA is concerned, day and night cycles aren't as important or useful as other stuff.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

Off on a slight tangent, I just find it sad that Bioware have a great opportunity to make their own IP, they have the whole universe of ideas to choose from, not tied down by publisher demands and restrictions... and they make another generic, boring Tolkein rip off with dwarves and elves.
Bioware suck for that.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Yeah, I mean as much as I'm looking forward to Dragon Age I gotta say I'm not particularly excited about the setting. It's been done time and time again. Gosh, I wish they'd just try something different, like a steam punk RPG or something like that. With no magic.

 

[Volourn]

Bah. Fantasy rules! And, dwarves are awesome! But, yeh, elves are unneeded and more importantly, unwanted.

 

[Rosh]

Like others mentioned; they may find that for at least where DA is concerned, day and night cycles aren't as important or useful as other stuff.

Such as learning how to script in a capable manner so that you don't need to make an entirely new map in order to have a simulated night cycle.

R00fles!

Also, heaven forbid that BioWare actually try to make something resembling a world in a supposed CRPG. Then again, the average BioWare fanboy (and developer) probably doesn't know too much about the real world to notice the difference, so it is understandable that the characters usually come across as forum stereotypes. The similar ignorance of BioWare towards gamedevelopment and the CRPG genre only serves to follow suit.

 

[Surlent]

Like Teatime said, with such resources you'd think BIO would make all kinds wacky and complex stuff in their games. They even have their own tech team for engine development.

All for what ? So that the games can be tuned down to pong ? Instead of making more complex games than BG2, they go simpler variants ?

Day/night cycle itself is nothing, console rpgs do without all the time.
But with tuned down spell system, vanilla plot and stereotypical races + now the day/night cycle and who knows what next the game doesn't leave immersive impression compared to previous titles, BG series.

 

[DemonKing]

I really don't give a flying fart about a day/night system in a CRPG. If anything it's an annoyance if, for example, I want to cash in my phat loot, but have to waste time finding an inn so I can rest for 8 hours just so the store can open in the morning.

Basically I can't see much point to it except to create more busy work for the player, which is something CRPGs have been trying to cut down on (that's why we have an automap instead of graph paper these days).

As for stereotypical fantasy races and so on, I can see where they're coming from a marketing standpoint. I would rather they produced a nice storyline and decent NPCs in a vanilla D&D-like setting than something "new and interesting" like Jar Jar Binks, for example.

 

[Mendoza]

But with tuned down spell system

All we know so far is that it's mana based, I don't see how that necessarily equates to tuned down.

vanilla plot

Has someone told you and only you the DA plot?

stereotypical races

It has elves and dwarves, the horror. Which Bio have made a point of saying are significantly different to what people expect.

Seriously, people are managing to make up a lot of stuff about a game that they know next to nothing about. The plot, spell system and races may well be sucky, but I don't see how anyone can determine that from what is known about DA.

Such as learning how to script in a capable manner so that you don't need to make an entirely new map in order to have a simulated night cycle.

NWN has a day night cycle, at least if you have HotU. It's not that Bio can't make a day/night cycle, it's that they choose, rightly or wrongly, to focus their efforts elsewhere.

 

[Surlent]

Mana compared to DnD wizard spellcasting, is tuned down to make it simpler. This doesn't mean it's necessarily worse. Like day/night alone doesn't mean a thing.
It's those things together that make up a nice list and give overall impression of the game.
Imagine a review summing one game like that, doesn't sound too interesting.

To my knowledge Bioware has promised they will deliver their next product, DA, with game features they are known of as a company. (Sorry I have no link, but I could try find one.) That includes epic plot with characters to match the atmosphere. Epic good and evil = vanilla.

But you are right, we are extrapolating here quite a bit. I guess it also depends what you are willing to take from a developer and what you are willing to believe from it.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Well apparently to some people on the Codex, anything short of D&D's pissant magic memorization system is 'tuned down' and therefore 'crap'.

But you are right, we are extrapolating here quite a bit. I guess it also depends what you are willing to take from a developer and what you are willing to believe from it.

Do that long enough and you'll start to sound like how Patrick sounds whenever he talks about how 'crap' Half Life 2 and how 'superb, mind blowing and revolutionary' STALKER is without having actually played either of those games.

 

[ichpokhudezh]

and Dave's overall point on the whole thing

Again, all things being equal, it would be preferable to have the ability for day/night transitions so that some of these situations are possible... they do provide more options, after all. But none of these situations are necessary in order to have a good story or a good game.

This is not a 'point', this is a truism. The real opinion/point seems to be that night/day cycles are less important than some other options to both Bioware (as expressed by Darcy), and David G. (as implied by him).

 

[Surlent]

Do that long enough and you'll start to sound like how Patrick sounds....

So you could start photoshopping someone else eating c0x ?
No thanks.

 

[ichpokhudezh]

Like others mentioned; they may find that for at least where DA is concerned, day and night cycles aren't as important or useful as other stuff.

Such as learning how to script in a capable manner so that you don't need to make an entirely new map in order to have a simulated night cycle.

Rosh, while you might be an expert in RPG, the proper lighting of the scene in any 3d environment is a pain in the ass and a lot of work. This decision was not linked to scripting by biowarians but rather to area art and design complexity according to David.

You also seem to not know much about programming as well, since the introduction of the 'innocent' time parameter in the setting actually means the introduction of another data dimention, which would, most probably, increase dramatically size of all your stored resources and will swallow horrendous amount of debugging/qa time.

EDIT: example:
Consider adding a simple flag (Y/N) check to every statement in one of your scrips, if you have them. Please estimate, how much longer your scripts will become. Now, imagine this flag to be a function of the actual time of a corresponding statement execution (so all the flags are independent). Now imagine debugging this.

 

[suibhne]

NWN has a day night cycle, at least if you have HotU. It's not that Bio can't make a day/night cycle, it's that they choose, rightly or wrongly, to focus their efforts elsewhere.

Don't forget that, for better or worse, all of the BG games had a full day/night cycle. It didn't affect most NPCs, but it did allow for some scripting and special encounters.

 

[Volourn]

"All for what ? So that the games can be tuned down to pong ? Instead of making more complex games than BG2, they go simpler variants ?"

Huh? That's hialrious. NWN has more complexity in its pinky finger than BG has in its entirety. And, i can say that even though I prefer BG over NWN OC. It's just a fact. Deal with it.


"Also, heaven forbid that BioWare actually try to make something resembling a world in a supposed CRPG. Then again, the average BioWare fanboy (and developer) probably doesn't know too much about the real world to notice the difference, so it is understandable that the characters usually come across as forum stereotypes. The similar ignorance of BioWare towards gamedevelopment and the CRPG genre only serves to follow suit."

More crying by the biggest baby of them (this side of Hades and that side of Exitium). BIO knows more about RPG dvelopment than you can ever hope to. GContinue whining. It's hilarious!


"NWN has a day night cycle"

NWN always did.

 

[Dgaider]

Since you fellows have shown an interest in the topic, I'll just add a couple of comments:

- At the end of the day, not having a day/night cycle is corner-cutting, more or less. There's no denying that. As I was quoted elsewhere in this thread, the decision is whether or not to have more areas or whether or not to have a day/night cycle. And while someone can try to take the skewed view that not including day/night cycles means we are willingly giving up quality, I disagree. Having a longer game where you aren't re-using level art all the time is surely part of quality, too, no?
And we haven't decided where we're going to end up, here, either. If we can find the art resources, perhaps we can even have both... but that really is the question at this point.

- There are games, such as Gothic and Morrowind, which are all about world simulation and exploration. In Gothic you can watch the people of a town wake up, go to work, have dinner and then go to bed... and, yes, that's all very interesting. Do you need to have this kind of cycle in order to make a world seem alive? Not at all. Dragon Age, in fact, will have a whole slough of ambient animations going on so that characters are not all simply standing about and appear to be engaged in life-like activity. True, you will never see them go to bed at night (or wake up, if it is actually a night area), but how necessary is that to have a good story with lots of options for the player? I mean, if the idea of reality in a game being an illusion truly offends you, then perhaps you need to stick to Gothic and Morrowind-like games, period.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Like, having the entire game locations react to your actions, with an actual living breathing game world. That's impossible to do without devoting a copious amount of 'reactions' to every single action a player is capable of performing.

The actions are limited, and, therefore, predictable. CRPGs are very limited these days, as certain actions like climbing, or swimming , or using a window are impossible. Whatever actions are left are relatively easy to deal with, ensuring some reaction in the gameworld.

Yes, but there needs to be a change in dialogue of all the NPCs involved, as well.

So? Hasn't this been done before? I'm not talking about a complex dialogues, and new gameplay branches, following your every decisions, mind you. I'm not talking about a short "get the fuck out, thief, before I call the guards on you" -type response.

Your handler should scold you for not doing your work fast enough and order you to go back to the mansion, and the people in the mansion shouldn't act the same way if you show up a second time, since they'd have had notice of your arrival and were expecting you to come.

Your handler is a specific NPC and a quest-giver, I assume. His lines should be able to handle a variety of situations, from your refusal to accept the quest to you failing the quest. That's what makes sense.

It might not seem like much but when the game is very big, and you have to do this sort of 'emergent gameplay' for every area you visit, it's going to be a real pain in the ass for the writers, scripters and designers.

It doesn't have to be. You don't have to record a reaction of every single person in the game. It's micro in any given area, macro in the world overall.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Since you fellows have shown an interest in the topic, I'll just add a couple of comments:

We are always watching from our dark little hole, recording your every move, waiting for you to make a mistake...

Do you need to have this kind of cycle in order to make a world seem alive? Not at all.

No arguing here. I agree with you that since it adds nothing, there is no point in wasting resources on that. Of course, it would have been nice if it actually added something, but that's an entirely different story. :wink:

 

[Rosh]

NWN has a day night cycle, at least if you have HotU. It's not that Bio can't make a day/night cycle, it's that they choose, rightly or wrongly, to focus their efforts elsewhere.

Yet they will turn to making another map, versus learning how to script. Well, I suppose that comes from developers instructed on the DarkEdit editor for DarkStone. With more flowery writing, it could easily be their editor of choice. Simple and Fed-Ex.

Volourn, for people who are said to know a lot about CRPG development, they have yet to prove so. Instead, there are excuses, and games that are sub-par on almost all levels to games released more than a decade previously. All with hype of "first", "best", and "blockbuster" behind them.

Of course, who am I to speak about scripting, when BioWare has yet to master the basics of pathfinding, AI, and many other simple code constructs that makes me wonder exactly how these assholes got into such a position other than riding on turning D&D into Diablo 3: Crackheads of Amn.

Then again, I can't expect much else from someone who follows a collective of half-witted spin-doctors:

- At the end of the day, not having a day/night cycle is corner-cutting, more or less. There's no denying that. As I was quoted elsewhere in this thread, the decision is whether or not to have more areas or whether or not to have a day/night cycle.

Actually, it was more akin to why are you having to make an entirely new map, unless the programming is to be as expected?

And while someone can try to take the skewed view that not including day/night cycles means we are willingly giving up quality, I disagree.

When it comes to anything that should add immersion to a BioWare game, we have comes to accept "nothing" time and time again. Thank you for keeping up to your personal standards. Although, I still can't fathom why you'll try to claim to be so great other than sales made from the D&D name and design that was done far better in games made before you left grade school.

Having a longer game where you aren't re-using level art all the time is surely part of quality, too, no?

Oh, so the night map = teh different! Or did you just dig yourself into another hole?

Or is it just another excuse as to why "script" is a four-letter word there at BioWare? I would have to state that your company's designers should never again try for "longer". What does pass for the plot is drowned out by the sizzle of the keyboard giving up the magic blue smoke, resulting from the sheer amount of drool caused by said hollow design and static, unimaginative worlds. I, too, can rip down a tapestry and carve holes into it, and play BioWare map/area designer. I could enjoy playing it some year when I no longer value my time and intelligence, but that would still require a spike lobotomy.

And we haven't decided where we're going to end up, here, either.

Let me guess: You're going to shoot for mediocrity, call it innovation, and be content when you do little more than exploit the CRPG genre for the sake of sales figures. In the meantime, you think that because the press laps up anything you say, those who have some sense of design should acknowledge that BioWare has done ANYTHING of note other than dumb down the genre? Sure, it might fool those still too young to smoke, but you're not bullshitting those who have been around the industry for a lot longer.

If we can find the art resources, perhaps we can even have both... but that really is the question at this point.

Or are you just trying to find another publisher to soak from while doing minimal work?

There are games, such as Gothic and Morrowind, which are all about world simulation and exploration. In Gothic you can watch the people of a town wake up, go to work, have dinner and then go to bed... and, yes, that's all very interesting. Do you need to have this kind of cycle in order to make a world seem alive?

Gothic actually felt a bit like a real world, events changed outside of superficial means, and you saw them. Day and night also "felt" different in games like Gothic and Ultima, but I suppose we'll have to wait a few years until BioWare starts claiming to have invented "atmosphere" and "worl interactivity" in CRPGs, much like Fable is said to be innovative...somehow. I would then have to be the asshole and have to note that night in Baldur's Gate felt much like...oh, yeah, a different bitmap and different sound files, little else.

Morrowind was almost like the average BioWare game. A lot of fighting, a lot of superficial speech/level design/collow characters, a lot of bullshit to wade through until you either sludge through the repetition and the Ed Wood Jr. School of CRPG Design style writing, complete with Logic Puzzles I Figured Out In Second Grade, you paint a very good picture of the monkeys working there at BioWare. Your latest excuses are, as usual, pathetic.

Not at all.

That describes the attitude of BioWare's to put ANYTHING into the game that would make it seem worth exploring.

Dragon Age, in fact, will have a whole slough of ambient animations going on so that characters are not all simply standing about and appear to be engaged in life-like activity.

Including the famous BioWare developer one, the blank straight-ahead stare as the script takes a shit all over itself.

True, you will never see them go to bed at night (or wake up, if it is actually a night area), but how necessary is that to have a good story with lots of options for the player?

Really, is it necessary for any BioWare game to have any complexity?

I mean, if the idea of reality in a game being an illusion truly offends you, then perhaps you need to stick to Gothic and Morrowind-like games, period.

At least Gothic managed to have some feeling of worl design (you know, it might be because they choose to NOT stick that magical item in the breakable barrel next to the beggar). Your games are about as soul-less and cliché as your writing and characters.

I also notice that you have tried, and failed, to dodge mention of Ultima. Yes, that still plants anything BioWare has ever done deep into the shitter.

ichpokhudezh, back off, Kaeto, until you can learn that the basic MUD used to do calculations like all of that, and more, all at the same time, for up to hundreds of users, while running on a 486. Thank you for baking and faking your response, but I would rather work towards using better methods rather than excusing superfluous and sloppy work that is typical of BioWare's development methods. Especially the point about their design already feeling hollow, they aren't even bothering to make the world seem like something other than a single-player MMORPG.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Something totally unrelated just occured to me, but... Rosh, were you ever part of a band? I just had this image of you doing some punk act, or something like Nick Cave, only twenty times more sarcastic >_>

 

[Dgaider]

Ooo, ick, I got Rosh on me. Again.

Is it really necessary for him to hump my leg like that?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

- There are games, such as Gothic and Morrowind, which are all about world simulation and exploration. In Gothic you can watch the people of a town wake up, go to work, have dinner and then go to bed... and, yes, that's all very interesting. Do you need to have this kind of cycle in order to make a world seem alive? Not at all. Dragon Age, in fact, will have a whole slough of ambient animations going on so that characters are not all simply standing about and appear to be engaged in life-like activity. True, you will never see them go to bed at night (or wake up, if it is actually a night area), but how necessary is that to have a good story with lots of options for the player? I mean, if the idea of reality in a game being an illusion truly offends you, then perhaps you need to stick to Gothic and Morrowind-like games, period.

Well, personally, while some people may like task cycles for NPCs, I can't say I really do like them. I find it annoying when I get a quest from an NPC located in the town hall, go do itm then return from it and have to hunt down that NPC in town because he went to the tavern to grab a sandwich. Task cycles, to me, seem like a lot of work to add a little realism to the world but at the same time force the player to spend downtime looking around for someone.

In the end, I'd say most players will just simply use the PASS TEH TIEM gadget on the interface to either find the NPC where they know he'll be at certain times. I guess that's okay, unless you want to have a timed quest or two to force the player to find that NPC in that town at the time he returns. In the case of timed quests, task cycles just breed frustration.

 

[Volourn]

"Volourn, for people who are said to know a lot about CRPG development, they have yet to prove so. Instead, there are excuses, and games that are sub-par on almost all levels to games released more than a decade previously. All with hype of "first", "best", and "blockbuster" behind them. "

Just your opinion. An opinion that is just full of whining and crying. You think highly of yourself; but really know nothing. But, hey, keep spinning your wheels, it is entertaining.

You say BIO's games are subpar on all levels yet anyone with half a brain knows that isn't true. Sure, subpar on some levels (ie. freeform role-playing ala FO for sure); but in others ala npcs, deep and interetsing quests, and atmosphere theya rne't. Of course, that's my opinion.

Thankfully, youa re just one of those who thinks that if he screams the loudest; he must be in the right.

Good fun.

R00fles!