Interview Lionheart Team Q&A #16 @ RPGVault

[Voss]

<snipity snip>
So you have lots of stupid people (in your judgement anyway - how many of them do you REALLY know?) in your country. So what? What does that have to do with your argument? As I've said here and elsewhere, the gaming industry caters to many different sectors of the gaming community - why is that such a bad thing? Why are the only GOOD games you can see games that YOU like? Don't you think that is a very narrow view that everyone else might not share exactly? That alternate views of goodness and worth are possible?

Why are the only good games the ones that I like? Because when it comes to me buying games for myself, my opinion is the only one that matters? Goodness is a completely subjective judgement. So of course its a narrow view... it doesn't affect anyone else.
And, following that, what other people feel is good is irrelevant to me.

Other points... don't assume. When I'm talking about Reflexive I'll mention them specifically...the gaming trends aspect of the conversation had gone fairly general a while back.

optimism vs. moron indicators ... actually the moron indicators seem more reasonable, since, well, I've direct evidence of the indicators, and little direct evidence to support your optimism.

politics. Not so much against a discussion of politics, just having it inserted tangentially to a discussion of games, in a reaching attempt to prove a point. Its not a forbidden thing- I just don't care much for it. And how does criticism as what people do here fit in? And how do I hang out with people here? I've never met any of them. That I know of, anyway.

I'll pass on the molesting and suicide. This isn't really the place for it. Which of course means I shouldn't have brought it up, but its what came time mind at the time as a more serious alternative to watching paint dry. I'll stick to deer hunter then, if theres more discussion on this general concept.

I don't think every use of destiiny is a gimmick. Just the over use of it in this particular genre. In a lot of ways its dragging the entire genre of fantasy down- not just games, but books, film and other mediums. Just like the *Dark Lord* concept. Its been beaten to death...people should find a fresher corpse to pick over.

My point with stupid people. They don't play RPGs. Therefor, there isn't a need for moron indicators to help them out. And why would I want to know them? They're background, like trees and squirrels. Except less interesting. :wink:

 

[Skorpios]

Why are the only good games the ones that I like? Because when it comes to me buying games for myself, my opinion is the only one that matters? Goodness is a completely subjective judgement. So of course its a narrow view... it doesn't affect anyone else.
And, following that, what other people feel is good is irrelevant to me.

So why exactly are you in this dicussion at all? If you have your opinion and my opinion is irrelevant,why are we here?

This isn't really the place for it. Which of course means I shouldn't have brought it up,

That has been my point all along - if people sat back and thought for a second, I would have a lot less ammunition for my 'moral crusade'. For a community that seems so critical of 'stupid people' there does seem to be a lack of forethought shown on many occasions. If people on these boards are going to constantly criticise people for saying dumb things, turn that critical faculty on yourselves as well.

Can't argue with you on the unoriginality problem - my wall is covered with the mounted heads of 'Dark Lords' I've bested in various encounters. :twisted:

My point with stupid people. They don't play RPGs

Didn't you go on to say that to you stupid people are 'background, like trees', so how do you KNOW what they do? Maybe, all around the world at this very minute there are people playing IWD2, banging their heads against their keyboards shouting, "What does 'goodbye' actually MEAN??!!!!"

That is a very general and sweeping statement, Voss, and forgive me if I don't accept it on 'faith' just because you said it. Show me a survey correlating IQ to gameplay or your actual experiences with stupid people. The problem is that for you, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you ask anyone whether they play RPGs and they say "No." you assume they are stupid. If they say "Yes," well, they must be doing something right at least.

My position is and always has been that you don't HAVE to be a moron to use the indicators and thus they shouldn't be labelled as such.

 

[Voss]

So why exactly are you in this dicussion at all? If you have your opinion and my opinion is irrelevant,why are we here?

Sharing opinions and ideas?

That has been my point all along - if people sat back and thought for a second, I would have a lot less ammunition for my 'moral crusade'. For a community that seems so critical of 'stupid people' there does seem to be a lack of forethought shown on many occasions. If people on these boards are going to constantly criticise people for saying dumb things, turn that critical faculty on yourselves as well.

It was a throw-away line of little importance. An example to prove a point. I backed off on it because I didn't feel that the rest of the people reading this site really wanted to listen to us gibber back and forth on the topic, since it isn't really RPG related.

If you ask anyone whether they play RPGs and they say "No." you assume they are stupid. If they say "Yes," well, they must be doing something right at least.
My position is and always has been that you don't HAVE to be a moron to use the indicators and thus they shouldn't be labelled as such.

No sorry. This doesn't go backwards. I don't assume people are stupid if they don't play RPGs. Thats like saying someone's stupid for liking Bach over Wagner. My point is theres a lot of people who don't get involved in the first place. And what does it matter if faceless 'people', referring to no one in particular, get labelled as one thing or another?

 

[Skorpios]

Recent events have given my optimism regarding Lionheart a good battering, so I'll just respond to your last point.

And what does it matter if faceless 'people', referring to no one in particular, get labelled as one thing or another?

Well, why are you referring to no-one in particular? Either you are talking about real people or you are talking about figments of your imagination - which is it? The problem with labels is that they stick - look at the popularity of the 'moron indicator' tag on this board.

You might be talking about 'faceless people' that exist only in your mind or wherever but the labels you promote can easily be applied to real people. Where do you stop? Are labels OK for 'faceless people' only? People you don't know and don't care about? How far away is that from people you DO know, but don't care about? Or people you don't like? Or people you don't agree with? Where do you draw the line if you think labels are appropriate for some situations.

 

[Voss]

Each category gets its own label. Its the most efficient way.

I don't really bother to draw lines. I just accept that things get fuzzy in border places.

And I refer to no-one in particular because faceless people make for great statistics. Its the only use for them, really. The market, the masses- give them a couch, an entertainment center, a phone and a door for delivery of food and toys, and they'll be perfectly happy and more than willing to be manipulated to believe anything you tell them to.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Recent events have given my optimism regarding Lionheart a good battering...

To wrap a six page thread up, what's the final thought on the moron indicators?

 

[Skorpios]

And I refer to no-one in particular because faceless people make for great statistics.

Meaning that your arguments are based on 'statistics' gained from your thoughts on people who may or may not actually exist? Fair enough.

DarkUnderlord: At this stage the dialogue icons aren't bothering me at all! So feel free to call them whatever you will. If one day we find your body in a dumpster with a badly spelled note saying, "DOWNT KAWL PEEPUL MORE-UNS!!!!", well at least you can be composted and thus be useful for something.

*sigh* Again I marvel at your talent for the constructive criticism of games. Funnily enough I haven't read ONE complaint about the icons in the flood of reactions to the demo. Nice to see you still have your finger on the pulse, DU.

 

[Spazmo]

That's because there's fuckall dialog in the demo, Skorpios.

 

[Voss]

*sigh* Again I marvel at your talent for the constructive criticism of games. Funnily enough I haven't read ONE complaint about the icons in the flood of reactions to the demo. Nice to see you still have your finger on the pulse, DU.

Maybe you should *read* the reactions to the demo then. Since there are at least a half-dozen references to them, ranging from "silly" to "pointless".

 

[Skorpios]

Well, don't just stand there! Point me to them!

And Spazmo, you do know I wasn't being entirely serious, right? I was just pointing out that various combat issues are bothering MANY more people than the dialogue icons right now, that's all. So finding the criticisms of dialogue is more difficult.

Also, I've seen plenty of people commenting on the dialogue that IS in the demo and on the whole it has been positive and nary a mention of the dialogue icons making people feel like morons or having their roleplaying choices degraded. But perhaps that is just relief after actually finding some dialogue in the demo.

 

[Skorpios]

Sorry Voss, I should have been clearer: I'm referring to the responses to the demo on the Interplay boards - this represents a larger group of people playing the demo and believe me, the dialogue icons are WAY down the list of player complaints. As I said, I don't think I've seen one reference to them so far - that particular obsession seems unique to this board.

I didn't need to read the local response to the demo (although I have now) to see that many of those responses you quote are from people who's views on the dialogue icons were well known to me even before the release of the demo, so I'm not too surprised that the demo (with it's almost complete lack of meaningful dialogue) hasn't changed their minds on the subject.

Boy, you guys seem touchy today!

 

[Spazmo]

The Interplay boards! The Interplay boards!

Oh, my, Skorpios, you must be new to the community. You see, the Interplay boards play host to the largest collection of idiots, mentally retarded persons, freaks of nature and other morons next to a furry convention. The majority at the IPLY boards is generally absymally stupid. Most of the bad stuff in Fo2 can be traced back to a previous iteration of those boards. Any support for real-time combat can be traced back to the Interplay boards. The Interplay boards are batting 1.000 for wrongness.

Basically, the moron indicators were put into Lionheart specifically for IPLY forumites.

 

[Skorpios]

Any support for real-time combat can be traced back to the Interplay boards.

So I guess you haven't actually visited them then? So who is arguing from ignorance now?

Here at RPGCodex we have 1 thread looking at responses to the demo - on the Interplay boards I've been wading through dozens - and if realtime and the icons are supposed to be making the 'morons' (again with the disparaging labels!!!) happy I haven't seen much evidence of it.

As I said, criticism of the combat has been constant and vitriolic and so the dialogue icons have never been mentioned that I've read so far - AS I SAID.

All I'm saying is that the vast majority of responses to the demo have been focussed more on the combat system and what is wrong with it than the dialogue icons - I never claimed anything else Spazmo - just slow down on those grumpy pills!

Whatever your opinion of the Interplay boards you can't deny that they currently reflect the reactions of MORE players regarding Lionheart than RPGCodex. I'm not even saying they are right or wrong in their criticisms, just stating the icons are WAY down the list of complaints, that's all.

 

[Skorpios]

You see, the Interplay boards play host to the largest collection of idiots, mentally retarded persons, freaks of nature and other morons next to a furry convention

Isn't that just a fair description of the human race?

Well I am a denizen of the Interplay boards, so I guess that proves your point.

*hugs my SPECIAL teddy*

If you'd read any of the historical debate threads I think you'd realise that many members are far from morons. The boards are a public space, just as likely to attract 'normal' people as well as misfits - much like RPGCodex really. :wink:

 

[Skorpios]

y' know... there is no contest between bg and diablo because they are different genres, not because one is superior to the other.
both series are good and among the better ones in their respective genres.
/objectivity

though as a hmm.. crpg i found bg1+2 to be rather unimaginative, bland and boring, esp when compared to ps:t (which is unpareil), fallout1+2 or 3d titles like gothic1+2. the only real highlight in the series was the philosophical discussion between the werewolves in bg2 before they tried to shred my fighter to pieces... the rest was somehow medicore, despite all effort put into it.

diablo had a nice atmosphere due to the dark setting and the rather gloomy religious theme (at least through the catacombs and crypt.. after that it became too colorfull and too bright), that sadly was missing in the sequel, but it was fun in multiplayer, though it lacked the complexity of nethack to be a truly great hack n slash game, and failed to impress (me).

uuh... but i digress.

i don't favor any of them over the other, and i did enjoy the demo.
the combat was a challange at first, and a lot of elements feel raw and unpolished, but there also were some really nice features like the icons indicating the result of your dialogue choice, the different reactions, the amount of choices in the bandit quest, the system behind the monster spawns, which basically is just an extension of the usual semi-random treasure generation found in other games, but a good one.

as for your theory:
more people who favor bg will like lionheart because lionheart and bg fall under the same genre and thus do share more similarities than, say, diablo and lionheart do.

Just a quote from the 'morons' over at the Interplay boards - so there is at least ONE person who finds the icons useful - didn't you guys say no-one would, because they'd be too stupid to notice them? Does the above poster sound like a moron to you? Also, even though the demo contains hardly any dialogues, even the admittedly rushed ones within it are impressing some folks.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Well, since you don't think they're there for morons, and Reflexive is on the right track with them.. Imagine how easy something like that would make dealing with Tandi in Fallout 2.

Do you always say exactly the right thing to everyone to make them happy in real life? No? Well, that's because there's a margin of error in speech. You don't know every little thing about even people close to you, so why the fuck would you think that having moron indicators to tell you the result in advance would actually be an enhancement?

Hell, you can't even go through combat without knowing beyond any doubt that you'll win or lose it, so why do that same thing with dialogue?

 

[DarkUnderlord]

DarkUnderlord: At this stage the dialogue icons aren't bothering me at all! So feel free to call them whatever you will.

Nice to see you're not taking the moral high ground anymore. You gave up on that approach? Strange, as you must've devoted at least 500 words in this thread to your disgust at the word "morons".

All I'm saying is that the vast majority of responses to the demo have been focussed more on the combat system and what is wrong with it than the dialogue icons...

... I'm not even saying they are right or wrong in their criticisms, just stating the icons are WAY down the list of complaints, that's all.

I should hope that the moron indicators, which indicate the response to the dialogue which apparently isn't clear from the dialogue itself, WOULD BE far down the list of Things Wrong With Lionheart™. If the roof is falling in and there's a hurricane outside, people aren't going to be too concerned about the busted tap.

*sigh* Again I marvel at your talent for the constructive criticism of games. Funnily enough I haven't read ONE complaint about the icons in the flood of reactions to the demo. Nice to see you still have your finger on the pulse, DU.

I love the casual *sigh* at the start here. The major complaint, the battle over real-time combat, was fought a long, long time ago Skorpios.

 

[Skorpios]

Do you always say exactly the right thing to everyone to make them happy in real life?

Of course I do, Saint - isn't that why you love me so much?

In any case I'll bow to your superior skills in making friends being charming.

Nice to see you're not taking the moral high ground anymore.

Oh, I'm still up here (just ask SP) but I've realised that none of you guys are interested in the view.

The major complaint, the battle over real-time combat, was fought a long, long time ago Skorpios.

Which is kind of ironic because the game was always intended and designed from scratch to be realtime so the fight was pointless. It's a bit like complaining about tennis because it uses balls.

I'm happy to admit that the reception of the demo (I don't really have any hope of downloading it, so I'm hoping for a coverdisc) is disappointing. But once the general flurry died down, the more positive responses started coming in. It looks like there were high expectations from both sides of the fence, and Lionheart took a little getting used to. I'm still interested anyway if cautiously so.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Of course I do, Saint - isn't that why you love me so much?

In any case I'll bow to your superior skills in making friends being charming. .

My question is a general one, not a specific one. You can put your foot in your mouth with people you think you know well, just because you don't know every little fascet of their personality. You can say something that might annoy them, even though it wasn't your intention in the first place. You thought you were asking a harmless question, or making a harmless comment. Maybe the person is just touchy about some things and you didn't know it.

The moron indicators basically remove any type of interesting exchanges in dialogue simply because you know exactly what the result of the dialogue choice will be before you click on it. Like I pointed out, Tandi in Fallout 2 was one of the more memorable characters because talking to her was like trying to navigate a minefield wearing a blindfold. Moron indicators like Lionheart has would basically have made talking to her dull and mindless, you don't have to worry about walking on the eggshells because you always know exactly what you're saying and the outcome.

Fallout and Fallout 2 have many examples of things you can think are harmless, but might make an NPC unhappy. Tell Killian there's not much to do in Junktown, for example, and he'll growl at you. Talking to Rhombus of the Brotherhood of Steel and saying the wrong thing can get him to toss you out of his room.

 

[Skorpios]

But Saint, we've gone over this all before and my position hasn't changed. Applying the dialogue icons to Fallout dialogue proves nothing because Fallout wasn't designed/written with dialogue icons - so of course icons would spoil the dialogue! That is a totally irrelevant issue - we are talking about Lionheart not Fallout.

Don't you think the writers of Lionheart WANT surprises in their dialogue? I've given several examples earlier in this thread of ways you can write challenging and surprising dialogues even WITH icons. Is it so hard to believe that the writers of Lionheart haven't done so?

The icons indicate general consequences: quest, aggression, skill use. But it still boils down to what the writers have plotted for consequences of those choices that will make the dialogue great or not so great. That is the case for all RPGs, icons or no icons and that is my point and always has been.

Have you played the demo yet? Admittedly the dialogue in that is limited but did the icons seriously affect how you played your character or not? Was it the icons or the actual dialogue that had more impact on your choices and enjoyment?

 

[morenoise]

But Saint, we've gone over this all before and my position hasn't changed. Applying the dialogue icons to Fallout dialogue proves nothing because Fallout wasn't designed/written with dialogue icons - so of course icons would spoil the dialogue! That is a totally irrelevant issue - we are talking about Lionheart not Fallout.

Of course Lionheart is different.
If Lionheart doesnt need thinking at all,
how can moron indicators spoil our funof thinking?

Don't you think the writers of Lionheart WANT surprises in their dialogue?

Crusade, and YOU are the one going to be surprised. We've already correctly
figured out what its like.

Moron indicator are not completely useless on conditions that:
If the story sucks, (sounds likely)
but the combat is enjoyable.(highly improbable)
The moron indicators can quickly guide us out of dialogue and save our invaluable time.

 

[Skorpios]

Well, that is your opinion and that of Saint_Proverbius and as I've said, we've argued this all before, so why restart it SP?

I'm not going to repeat myself again - quality of dialogue depends on the writing, NOT on any icons or the interface. The icons may or may not be useless, I've seen posts saying both so who is right?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I'm not going to repeat myself again - quality of dialogue depends on the writing, NOT on any icons or the interface. The icons may or may not be useless, I've seen posts saying both so who is right?

The quality of writing depends on not knowing the outcome in advance, the mystery of exploring interaction with a new persona. You simply can't have that if you tell the player up front what the effects will be. You can't have interesting NPCs if you know the outcomes of everything in advance.

 

[Skorpios]

But a well-written dialogue designed with icons in mind needn't be mindless.

Example: the sword icon represents an aggressive/negative comment. With well written dialogue though - how does that icon 'predict' the outcome? A well-written NPC could cower in fear, laugh in your face, launch into combat, teleport away, transform into a demon, disintegrate one of your companions, call the Inquisition, etc, etc.

How can you 'predict' any of those consequences from the simple presence of the sword icon? The icon indicates what your character is trying to do (ie tick someone off/intimidate them), but it in no way predicts what the outcome will be as you suggest.

That is my position - obviously different from yours, basically because it is a question of perception. You see an icon and see nothing beyond but a fixed outcome. I see the same icon and see all sorts of possible outcomes in response to a CHOICE i make for my character (ie the aggressive tone). That is quite possible with good writing, can you deny that?

Of course I don't know for sure if Lionheart HAS good writing yet, I'm basing that on the background I've seen far which looks very interesting and well-written. If thatmkes me a fool then so be it. I've been Skorpios the Fool for a very long time, and I'm unlikely to change!

 

[Voss]

But odds are...a fight starts. So you know, generally, what to expect.
Thats prediction... just not prediction with absolute 100% accuracy.

But you're still missing the point...if you have well written dialogue there is absolutely no need for the icons. None. Zero. Zip. Nada.

Because, you see, if you have good writing (or even mediocre writing for that matter) if you read the text you can make the *exact* same prediction.