Development Info Putting the science back in Wasteland 2's science fiction

[St. Toxic]

A combat encounter offers plenty of content and entertainment to the player, even if the monster is generic.

You mean to say "can offer". But why stop it there? A good combat system, if that's all it takes, shouldn't need a generic monster. An abstract shape could be equally challenging. In fact, a visual representation of what it is you're fighting, or where, seems wholly redundant in this context. The combat system in itself needs no additional assets to be good.

Since I don't want to get hit with another link to the Oblivion wiki, I'd be stupid to talk about "those" people who view combat, at best, as a passable bridge between islands of escapism.

Take Silent Storm, for example. It's a pretty good tactical game about fighting bad guys. The bad guys are generic as fuck and the plot is non-existent, but the combat system is good and killing these generic bad guys is fairly entertaining and is the content of the game.

What's "bad guys" supposed to mean in a game where you choose sides? Who were the bad guys in Red Alert or Warcraft? It's just a classic case of a third-party manipulating two sides into killing each-other, they're all 'bad guys'. But I digress. The plot was about as non-existent as in those other two games, except your characters would interrupt combat to engage in dialog all the fucking time telling you about it.

Listen, you lost me, what's this example supposed to illustrate? That SS wouldn't benefit from a stronger plot and a more fleshed out world? I mean, from what I can remember, you did go hunting for blueprints and pick up clues and plot-points and backstory. So we could eliminate all that and still come up trumps with good combat? Well, sure. But at what point do we start caring about how our decisions interact with the world?

A poorly designed and/or overly simple "moral dilemma" offers very little content and entertainment.

Why so? If a poorly designed and/or overly simple world can act as a decent enough device to further good combat, why wouldn't a poorly designed and/or overly simple moral dilemma be a decent gateway for good gameplay? I mean, what's the meat and potatoes here? You have experience, you have loot, you have good combat. Throw in some arbitrary moral choices into your hollow world that split off players from all taking the linear roller-coaster path of your average Diablo clone and you're 1up on any game that doesn't. Right?

Mind, we aren't talking about false choices here, shit that just adds bonuz points to your Rebel-o-meter, but choices that give players vastly different experiences with their individual playthroughs. But what we also aren't talking about are choices that engage you emotionally, that's redundant faggot larping is what that is.

Same way we don't need to know the details of why things are as they are in the world to appreciate them, or require strict adherence to the physical reality that we're presented with. If we're told radiation is dangerous, and later pick up a perk that heals our bodies based on how irradiated we are, it doesn't have to make logical sense to be a good addition to gameplay. Right?

Backstory that doesn't result in loot or exp or you beating the game is pointless. Same thing for relics left behind by people you'll never meet that probably died years ago; boring. Why would anyone strut around collecting holodiscs, documenting pre-war shit that has nothing personally to do with you? I'm quite serious, game-devs think that throwing some inane books around in your empty vacuum of a world gives it a backstory, when it's plain to see it's been manufactured in a way that's not consistent with anything other than practical consideration for the player's progression in it.

Well, I mean, naturally, a well thought out world makes scraps of information like that interesting rather than tiresome. You start caring about shit that isn't in the game itself, but would have existed had the game been a universe of its own. Then, maybe, if you've gotten this far, you might get the player to care about so-called moral dilemmas in ways more than the obvious reward/loss meta mentality.

Of course, with the current state of the industry no I'm kidding, that's not really an argument. It's just the lamest excuse for cynicism I've ever heard. Forget about W2, which we all know is going to be total garbage. What's wrong with the design ideal of making a world internally consistent and plausible?

Meanwhile, plausibility in regards to environment, creatures, gameplay and the like......will solve all our problems and make everything better. Because that's why many games suck - they aren't plausible enough.

I guess you're being sarcastic here, but this seems to me a completely true statement. An author that writes books where characters are nothing more than devices for driving a plot forward is hardly probing the depths of humanity, he's just feeding himself at the expense of the ignorant masses. That's all well and good in itself, but don't go calling it literature.

Look, I'm just surprised that you argue for an emotional attachment to choice, but against an emotional attachment to the game-world. When I pulled the same stunt where morality was concerned, saying that it's equally valid as just a useful link between various gameplay mechanics and hardly needs to satisfy any other criteria to be good, you flat out refused to listen. Here, we're talking about the world being plausible and consistent, so that you can easily immerse yourself in what it has to offer and get emotionally attached, and you're playing my card, saying that, as long as the gameplay criteria are satisfied, the world can afford to be little more than a backdrop to set the mood. How is this not a contradiction?

 

[Moribund]

Not that anyone's going to read it, but I will leave this out here.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...zo-realism-in-video-games.69743/#post-1978813

Trying to codify things into rules and then follow those rules leads to the phantom menace, and I think that kind of sums up why vault dweller is so out there on this issue.

Fargo had it right when he said "we get more brainy people in with cool ideas and look for more cool ideas" or whatever it was. Just make stuff that's cool, not try to create some kind of gaming fun formula. Or you feel like you are playing a flow chart, which have have felt when playing some games.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Not that anyone's going to read it, but I will leave this out here.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...zo-realism-in-video-games.69743/#post-1978813

Trying to codify things into rules and then follow those rules leads to the phantom menace, and I think that kind of sums up why vault dweller is so out there on this issue.

Fargo had it right when he said "we get more brainy people in with cool ideas and look for more cool ideas" or whatever it was. Just make stuff that's cool, not try to create some kind of gaming fun formula. Or you feel like you are playing a flow chart, which have have felt when playing some games.

If you read that article you'd see that the only thing worth codifying is terms and not the process.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I'm almost out of time, but I've always enjoyed arguing with you, Toxic and this is a damn good post.

You mean to say "can offer".

Good point.

But why stop it there? A good combat system, if that's all it takes, shouldn't need a generic monster. An abstract shape could be equally challenging. In fact, a visual representation of what it is you're fighting, or where, seems wholly redundant in this context. The combat system in itself needs no additional assets to be good.

It's true. There is a number of games, from roguelikes to PnP computer adaptations where all you see are portraits of creatures moving around (similar to KotC2 prototype screenshot) to early spiderweb games with cardboard cutouts and even chess. A combat system doesn't need visual representations to be good.

Visual representation is just something extra for your amusement. It adds to the atmosphere and style, but it's a cherry on top of a cake, not the cake itself. The way I see it, as long as the style is visually interesting and everything is consistent, it doesn't matter if the creatures are scientifically plausible or not. It simply is irrelevant.

What's "bad guys" supposed to mean in a game where you choose sides?

Depends on a game.

Who were the bad guys in Red Alert or Warcraft?

Who cares is the best answer. Both games weren't about choosing sides but about building armies and defeating your enemies.

Listen, you lost me, what's this example supposed to illustrate?

That even a simple combat encounter offers a lot more content and entertainment than a simple moral dilemma (that was in response to your comment) because a simple combat encounter is using a more or less complex combat system, whereas a simple moral dilemma is nothing but a simple question.

That SS wouldn't benefit from a stronger plot and a more fleshed out world? I mean, from what I can remember, you did go hunting for blueprints and pick up clues and plot-points and backstory. So we could eliminate all that and still come up trumps with good combat? Well, sure. But at what point do we start caring about how our decisions interact with the world?

Depends on the game, like I said. If the goal is to give the player a solid tactical combat system and a bunch of isolated scenarios that test the player's skill, why add anything else?

A poorly designed and/or overly simple "moral dilemma" offers very little content and entertainment.

Why so? If a poorly designed and/or overly simple world can act as a decent enough device to further good combat, why wouldn't a poorly designed and/or overly simple moral dilemma be a decent gateway for good gameplay?

See above. A good combat system is a big chunk of gameplay right there. In many cases it is an entire game. So, setting up a quick combat encounter and throwing it at the player might take as much time as setting up a quick moral dilemma, but the latter doesn't have a "moral dilemma engine" that delivers the meat and potatoes. The developer has to put in a lot of work and handcraft each moral dilemma, presenting it properly, making the player care (fighting 6 orcs in RoA2 is a lot more exciting than saving some priestess you've never met), setting up meaningful consequences, etc.

I mean, what's the meat and potatoes here? You have experience, you have loot, you have good combat. Throw in some arbitrary moral choices into your hollow world that split off players from all taking the linear roller-coaster path of your average Diablo clone and you're 1up on any game that doesn't. Right?

I don't think so. Plenty of games offer "some arbitrary moral choices", but they don't seem to make them any better. NWN2, Skyrim, KOTOR, Alpha Protocol, etc.

Mind, we aren't talking about false choices here, shit that just adds bonuz points to your Rebel-o-meter, but choices that give players vastly different experiences with their individual playthroughs.

Vastly different experiences take a lot of work, which is why very few games actually offer them. The amazing drowning boy example (as presented) certainly doesn't strike me as a choice providing such experiences.

Well, I mean, naturally, a well thought out world makes scraps of information like that interesting rather than tiresome. You start caring about shit that isn't in the game itself, but would have existed had the game been a universe of its own. Then, maybe, if you've gotten this far, you might get the player to care about so-called moral dilemmas in ways more than the obvious reward/loss meta mentality.

I agree with you 100% but where we disagree (I guess) is that I don't think science consultants can make a fantasy world (including wasteland) a well thought through one. It takes a storyteller to tell a good story and write a well thought out world. Science has nothing to do with it.

Of course, with the current state of the industry no I'm kidding, that's not really an argument. It's just the lamest excuse for cynicism I've ever heard. Forget about W2, which we all know is going to be total garbage. What's wrong with the design ideal of making a world internally consistent and plausible?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I was talking about something else (developing creatures into more than blobs with xp and loot) when I mentioned the state of the industry. And for the record, I've never said nor implied that WL2 will be a bad game.

I guess you're being sarcastic here, but this seems to me a completely true statement. An author that writes books where characters are nothing more than devices for driving a plot forward is hardly probing the depths of humanity, he's just feeding himself at the expense of the ignorant masses. That's all well and good in itself, but don't go calling it literature.

We don't and it's not what I'm suggesting.

Look, I'm just surprised that you argue for an emotional attachment to choice...

I don't. I'm saying that a choice should be "well thought through" as you put it, be clearly presented (i.e. you are not choosing between saving a boy and doing nothing for the lulz), and have consequences.

Here, we're talking about the world being plausible and consistent, so that you can easily immerse yourself in what it has to offer and get emotionally attached, and you're playing my card, saying that, as long as the gameplay criteria are satisfied, the world can afford to be little more than a backdrop to set the mood. How is this not a contradiction?

I'm not saying that at all. SS is not an RPG and thus it can afford to have the world as a mood setting backdrop. Proper RPGs (i.e. non-action ones) are something a lot more complex and they require a lot more. While we all want better designed worlds that are consistent and logical, we disagree on what's needed to get us there. Some people feel that science consultants can be of help there, I don't. Simple as that.

Anyway, I'm off now. Thanks for the discussion.

 

[hiver]

Finally a sane post.
You see VD? Everything makes more sense when you stick to your field of expertize.
It may surprise you but you are a game scientists.
A game expert.

If i wanted to go and make a game - i could very well go an study the game design "by myself" - or i could go and ask you directly about stuff.
And i have a slightly suspicious feeling i know which road would take more time and produce more mistakes.

Let me just comment on a line that is very indicative and crux of the matter.

I agree with you 100% but where we disagree (I guess) is that I don't think science consultants can make a fantasy world (including wasteland) a well thought through one. It takes a storyteller to tell a good story and write a well thought out world. Science has nothing to do with it.

Of course i would disagree that "science has nothing to do with it" as a very generic statement with no actual confirmation in reality. (reality=facts=science)
It would only be true if scientists would be the ones designing the game. In that case - it is always better to have actual experts in the field doing it - rather then people who dont work in the field at all.

And thats the crux of it - scientists do not design the game. Game designers do.
Science consultants wont make "a fantasy world a well thought out one" - they will provide data which could allow game designers to do so. (of course there is a possibility a game designer can always implement this data badly in the end, or just make a bad game, but thats not the issue here)

 

[St. Toxic]

a simple combat encounter offers a lot more content and entertainment than a simple moral dilemma (that was in response to your comment) because a simple combat encounter is using a more or less complex combat system, whereas a simple moral dilemma is nothing but a simple question.

Well, the combat in SS was far from 'simple'. If you want to compare a Yes or No question to an equally complex combat encounter, a better example would be clicking on a 1-hit-kill monster in a Diablo-clone or not doing so, at which point it's hard to make an argument that this would inherently be more entertaining or offer more content.

If the goal is to give the player a solid tactical combat system and a bunch of isolated scenarios that test the player's skill, why add anything else?

More like, why wouldn't you add more? And then you can state your reasons, which I'm sure would be more practical than aesthetic. I can certainly appreciate well-made game systems, but one naturally does so from a more detached viewpoint, making comparisons of the systems one has encountered before, their strengths and weaknesses etc. But there's a reason so many people favor a specific set of rpg's despite the combat, and I do think internal consistency and plausibility play a substantial role here, in enabling good writing and design to merge sufficiently well with the gameplay and present the player with a world to get lost in.

Note, we aren't talking about larp here. It's easy to forget that larp is mainly prevalent in games that are or feel unfinished and empty, making people who desperately want to enjoy the game add their own stories for where the devs have left gaps, or try to explain away questions that are left unanswered. I think you may be abusing the term to some extent, bringing it up whenever someone talks about the immersive qualities of a game. You remember how, before it became an annoying marketing buzzword, we could just say immersive without having to write paragraphs describing what it actually means? I mean, now it's basically synonymous with cheap.

See above. A good combat system is a big chunk of gameplay right there. In many cases it is an entire game. So, setting up a quick combat encounter and throwing it at the player might take as much time as setting up a quick moral dilemma, but the latter doesn't have a "moral dilemma engine" that delivers the meat and potatoes. The developer has to put in a lot of work and handcraft each moral dilemma, presenting it properly, making the player care (fighting 6 orcs in RoA2 is a lot more exciting than saving some priestess you've never met), setting up meaningful consequences, etc.

It's a fair point, but what if you don't have a good combat system to back it up? Now, I think a 'good' system for character progression, which is something an rpg needs to have anyway, coupled with a basic set of world event triggers, is enough to make even the most generic 'moral' choices rewarding to the player. As long as the devs aren't afraid of punishing the player, appropriately, in cruel and imaginative ways, you can squeeze the world that your graphics artists, writers and designers have built for all that it's worth and without having to constantly intersect the "main plot" or write a completely different story for every individual choice.

As an example, getting tagged as a "Cynical bastard" because you won't help people, or a "Dirty rat" because you double-crossed some thugs, or a "Filthy lier" because you got caught telling one tall tale too many, really only affects your character's reaction-modifier + whichever specific flag-tags the devs care to set up for unique character encounters. But for the player, it's enough to create an illusion of a truly dynamic reputation system and on top of that you get stuck with a badge of honor/shame that gives the impression of you having affected your character's personality and progression in the world beyond mere skill/stat distribution or appearance.

Now, I can't speak for everyone here, but I think it really adds to the experience, the same way the ending slides of Fallout, without being governed by particularly complex triggers, added an additional layer of depth to the wasteland. Even a more mechanical approach that doesn't embroider the statistics with fancy stories, finding out how often you've lied or stolen or done this and that throughout the game, is an interesting feature, showing you that the world cared enough about what you and your character were doing to store and present the information.

In contrast, emotional attachment in itself just isn't as quantifiable. An adventure game with split paths but no actual freedom of character progression will have a much harder time trying to convince the player that he's affecting anything and that his choices make any difference. Different ending cgi, on its own, never really had that much allure to begin with, if you didn't already care about the world. Same with affecting the lives of npc's, ecology and so forth; nobody gives a shit. Saving a drowning boy? Hah! Even a well written and thought out dilemma, we're talking quality stuff here, isn't guaranteed to stir any emotions.

But, suppose you save a drowning boy at the very start of the game; well, you couldn't care less. But, if what you do leaves a visible mark on the PC, and as you progress through the game you continue to gather up more and more baggage, so that at the end of the game -- as the final encounter comes to a close, and you've established a definite link between your actions and your character and the world around him -- you get to find out what effect your private crusade has had, including, perhaps, some choices which you hardly even considered as such. At this point, there's a much greater chance of eliciting an honest, emotional response. If truly that is the case, the quality of choices isn't as much in the writing or the idea, but in the character system, gameplay, world 'plausibility' and so forth.

I don't think so. Plenty of games offer "some arbitrary moral choices", but they don't seem to make them any better. NWN2, Skyrim, KOTOR, Alpha Protocol, etc.

I'm afraid I've only beaten one game on that list (Kotor) [EDIT: As a side-note, I thought it was garbage and put it down for weeks after getting to the sewers, but then I tried Oblivion for a few hours and suddenly the sewers seemed fucking awesome], and only played NWN2 and AP very briefly, so I can't say for certain that the implementation of moral choices in these games isn't some ultimate proof against my argument. But, as far as Kotor and Ap goes, these are games of very linear story-lines and character progression. The description 'adventure game with split paths' seems fairly easy to apply.

Suppose moral choices were redacted out of these games, what would be the practical consequences for each game? Would they simply become linear action-games, and would that retain the essence of what they were trying to accomplish? Perhaps that's the formula they should have been shooting for in the first place? I'm certainly not arguing that one could mod in arbitrary moral choices into Quake 2 and instantly get a more meaningful gaming experience.

I agree with you 100% but where we disagree (I guess) is that I don't think science consultants can make a fantasy world (including wasteland) a well thought through one. It takes a storyteller to tell a good story and write a well thought out world. Science has nothing to do with it.

Well, let's hope inXile has some good storytellers. I'm sure they didn't hire scientists to do their work for them.

Cheers, Thorgrimm

_________________
Saepius Exertus, Semper Fidelis, Frater Infinitas
Sic Vis Pacem, Para Bellum

 

[DwarvenFood]

Updated my journal.
- What did you just say?
- U- updated my journal?
- Nigga is you taking notes on a fucking criminal conspiracy?!