Not exactly sure what you're saying here. The "lone wolf" example refers to a game where each scenario is compartmentalized largely as a result of the protagonist's "solo" nature. Think, with respect to this, of a series in which each episode has the hero catapulting into a new locale and solving a new set of problems, with an entirely new cast, in which the only continuity, if it exists at all, is that of the hero himself. Compare this, then, to a series where the protagonist has to deal with other characters that travel with him (or just other characters in general, with a focus on their relationships) - they certainly *can* respond discontinously, as you indicate, to the adventures in each locale as the "lone wolf" does. But they *cannot* respond discontinuously, at least no tin a good series, with respect to their interactions with each other (unless some weird gimmick ala "time warp" occurs at the end of each episode). If one character in one episode indicates that the protagonist is his best friend, we do not then expect that to change in the next episode irregardless of whether the locales are different.
I understand that they must respond with some sense of continuity, I'm just saying that continuity can be employed in a similar manner to say, Fallout's ending slides and still be a more than reasonable facsimile of the "strong" continuous narrative of Baldur's Gate or Final Fantasy. For instance.
"When I killed Gizmo, my best friend fought valiantly alongside me, and it strengthened our friendship. Further down our journey however, we were set upon by ghouls, and he was of the belief that they were far less of an abomination than they seemed, and that strained the friendship, when I set upon them, all guns blazing."
For the intents and purposes of the player, that's a continuous narrative, even if the two particular encounters are completely compartmentalised.
But that in and of itself is a discretizing of the NPCs, though in your case not alongside the locales but alongside hidden variables. It works, much as Fallout's system of different locales works, in creating Non-Linearity. But it clearly comes at the cost of limiting the complexity of the NPCs, and in this case I can't help but think of how canned it'd be if the underlying mechanics are at all conspicuous. Think of it this way: in real life an event never so easily affects people simply through changing their dispositions towards each other and/or personalities. Almost always, the specificities of the event shape the memory of those affected by it, thus adding to their world knowledge and thus everything they do from that point forward.
Certainly, real life isn't nearly that simple, but neither is the idea of the player's impact on a locale having only two resolutions. This little side discussion is opinion with regard to cost and gain of non-linearity, as opposed to absolute definition.
And my opinion is that even a limited, variable NPC response is a far better appropriation of resources than providing a fixed response that also provides discrete references to past events, at the cost of them also being fixed. Just the same as a binary resolution of events in a given locale is better than a fixed resolution with more theoretical complexity.
There's simply no way to convey that if your only "memory" from important conversations are that it made you like said person better or worse. When real people speak to each other (and similarly in novels and films), they always reference things that's happened to them in the past. Without that reference, responses are almost guaranteed to be canned, and I think you see some of that in those failed Morrowind (and possibly Oblivion) dialogue systems. Sure, you can design a game where dialogue mostly consists of generic statements people of certain dispositions make towards each other, but that's a far cry from the full-blown complexity of referential speech typically expected of meaningful conversation.
But we're not talking about purely generic responses. My example previous was of an event where the NPC can be as complex as you like with regard to a specific situation, and the only thing that is genericised are the
specifics of prior occurances. Consider:
Friend: You've wronged me in the past, so can you understand I'm a bit reluctant in unquestioningly following you in future?
That statement stems directly from the consequences of a past incident, and it has a meaningful effect on the present and future, and unless I then argue and say "When have I wronged you?" it still bears the weight of the past. And ironically, the only reason I can think of for arguing the point, is to gloss over the past and reduce the consequential effect it had. For instance:
NPC: Would you like to spend the night with me? I'm so very lonely.
PC: Spend the night in this shithole? You can't be serious.
NPC: How rude! Get out of my sight!
PC: Hah! Gotcha! I was just joking.
NPC: Oh, that's okay then.
The longer this Plot goes on, the more intensified the differences between compartmentalizing Bob's reception versus the natural responses, largely due to the application of details. Course Case 2 would have zounds more potential outcomes than Case 1, but that's the trade-off with continuous non-linearity, which is my point. Clearly, you can delay the offset of canned responses by increasing their numbers and forcing the NPC to speak a new one each time, but that comes with its own problems. The best approach that balalnces the two, that I've seen so far, is to have a multitude of "hidden variables" that retain at least *some* of the specificities of each event, while neglecting others.
Well, I think were on the same page as far as the science, because I'm aware of the exponential increase of a tree that only ever diverges, without a convergence to keep things reasonable.
But when it comes to the actual interpretation of opinion based on the facts we're both accepting, we're differing.
Here's my take, metaphorically speaking:
Imagine reading a linear novel, written in second person. It would be strange to say the least. The whole story revolves around "you" and yet,
you don't actually get any input into the outcome. Personally, I'd find that hard to swallow. I'd probably end up shouting at the book - "That's not what *I* would do! Why are you even written in second person, a perspective clearly unsuited to the strengths of your medium?!"
Now imagine a book with just as many pages, once again, written in second person, with actual choices to be made on my behalf, the good ol' Choose-Your-Own-Adventure. Now, while the sum of an individual story is inherently less than that of a novel that reads straight through from cover to cover, and it's certainly not going to cover every choice the reader may want to make, but there are also advantages.
First of all, the second person nature of the book doesn't seem so contrived, because the book actually involves choices. I can better relate to the constant references to *me*, because in a limited sense, it is me. I've willingly guided the narrative onto the path it's on.
Secondly, even though it may involve retracing common steps, the culmination of pursuing different outcomes provides a lot more reading than the linear novel, as long as the reader is willing to re-read, and I don't know anyone who only reads Choose-Your-Own-Adventures once.
Lastly, the reader's involvement in the choices can be compelling in itself. I've read books where the "correct" path requires varying degrees of problem solving, from riddles to arithmetic. That then becomes a
challenge which is not offered by conventional media (film and literature).
The key to this whole idea is the nature of second person perspective. Games are an interactive medium, where *I* am the protagonist. Using the narrative methods suited to first and third person perspectives don't suit the nature of the medium.
And so from that, I believe that RPGs should
always strive toward consequential non-linearity because the compromises of misusing the medium represent a far greater cost than the development resources required for non-linearity, especially when games like Fallout stand as superb examples of how those development costs can be greatly minimised.
Without interactivity, games will always be an inferior medium to film and literature, and efforts made to stifle that in order to fit some misconception of what constitutes a compelling narrative are counterproductive.
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But as I say, this little side discussion isn't directly related to the original thread, so apologies for hijacking it somewhat, MrBrown.
