Something Awful NWN2 Primer.

[The Rambling Sage]

I don't understand why the RPGer hivemind is so freaked out by this, tactics games have been doing it forever, it's one of two ways to allow the computer to make some impression on the player during a battle (knocking one his units out) while keeping the consequences tactical. The alternative is having people litterally come back from the dead 20-30 times a game and oddly enough all the "consistant, believable world" whores think that one's just dandy, what's up?

The only impression made when one of my characters is knocked out without any consecuence is that the designers where retarded. Cut my characters in half, dismember them, behead them, and do not give me a resurrection spell. Then force me to press my teeth and move forward, angry and frustrated and trying to be more attentive the next battle.

Play JA2 the hardcore way (no reloads at all, if your custom dies you start a new game) and tell me that every choice you make is not making you sweat when you think of the consequences, that you do not double and triple check every step of your plan, and that the worst part of you does not come to the surface when your custom is almost dead and you make a run for it leaving Ira behind to be killed by the elites while your squad regroups and you heal yourself.

Have you ever played Hardcore ToEE making a vow not to resurrect those who fall in battle? If so, were you not aroused in those freakin' difficult battles against the temple's main order and especially the balrog wannabe? It may not be a good example of roleplaying, but since we are talking tactical combat and it's consequences...

So the real alternative is to have your characters blown to little, bloody pieces, and then have the game overwrite all your saved games so you can't load before the tragedy. No resurrection spells, no second chances. THAT is the kind of game i think most hardcore roleplayers want. You fuck up, you lose quests, storylines, a character, his equipment, and all the effort you put in leveling him up.

Choices and consequences, as they say around here.

And of course that is not going to happen anytime soon.

[edit]

I forgot the conclusion:

But the fact that they are taking away from the player the choice to play the game the Hardcore way because the game will become horribly broken if an important character is smashed to a pulp is what really makes this thing stupid. Ok, games will always have save-reload and all that, but the fact that i can choose not to use it is what should not be taken away. Put the option, and make the story survive any NPC death, like those other guys did in Arcanum.

 

[davo]

I like the original Wizardry's resurrection system.
You can try to resurrect someone, but it's a high level spell and if it fails the person turns into ashes.
After that you can try again with an even higher level spell but if it fucks up on an ashed character he's gone for good.

You can pay to have an NPC at the temple try it, but it's expensive as shit.

 

[Zomg]

Playing Ironman in games that weren't explicitly designed for it (typically by having fungible resources) is wringing the last few cloudy drips of your beer out of a dishrag into your mouth.

 

[Nael]

I like the original Wizardry's resurrection system.
You can try to resurrect someone, but it's a high level spell and if it fails the person turns into ashes.
After that you can try again with an even higher level spell but if it fucks up on an ashed character he's gone for good.

You can pay to have an NPC at the temple try it, but it's expensive as shit.

Yeah, but that's what quicksave is for. Sure it's not very RPG'ish, but I play games for fun. Not to contemplate the consequences of trying to play that last encounter distracted, talking on teh phone

Consequences for death is rarely effective unless it's either a multiplayer game or PnP, IMHO.

 

[Nutcracker]

I don't understand why the RPGer hivemind is so freaked out by this, tactics games have been doing it forever, it's one of two ways to allow the computer to make some impression on the player during a battle (knocking one his units out) while keeping the consequences tactical. The alternative is having people litterally come back from the dead 20-30 times a game and oddly enough all the "consistant, believable world" whores think that one's just dandy, what's up?

If there's a "right plan" that allows the player to cut down all of the computer's units without even one of his being taken out of action, then the game's tactical portion needs some work. Either the player has units that are vastly more powerful than the computers (generally true in RPGs) or the AI is FUBAR (also generally true in RPGs). Having the computer roughly on the player's power level in every battle and having battles where both sides actually lose some units is a win-win, it makes for a better tactical game, and having it occur without world-shattering, religion-starting miracles is even better.

Actually in BG2 it wasn't rare to have a character killed permanently - if the "death blow" was a critical hit, the body got smashed into a million pieces of meat and their character card disappeared - hence no option to resurrect.

 

[cutterjohn]

I honestly don't care. I would reload when I lost the more interesting characters in games like Jagged Alliance 2 or BG.

The point is that if your companions died in Bg you were forced to reload and play the battle again taking a more strategic approach till you get it right. That way the battles really had some challenge. With the Kotor system there is no need to try again and replay a battle till you manage to keep everyone alive thus making it much easier to advance without a challenge.

Bzzzt! Wrong answer!

IIRC you only had to redo battles if the ENTIRE party(and/or main char died) ow you just went to see the wiza... er cleric for a quick res. [edit1]Similarly in BG2. Also, resurrection is a fairly high level AD&D cleric spell, level 6 IIRC. There is also another spell that is lower level(5? druid), does not work on elves, causes permanent loss of 1 point of con, and higher failure % called raise dead. (The spells could be level 4 & 5 or something similar. It's been a while, and I can't be bothered to check.)[/edit1]

[edit2] Hmm... that's odd, as I recall high level clerics SHOULD be able to resurrect just about anyone nearly regardless of state of remains and casting cleric's level. Raise dead, however was much more restricted. As to whether or not I recall correctly, don't care, and can't be bothered to check.[/edit2]

[edit3]@nutcracker
IIRC in the real game there were a few instances where resurrection was impossible, e.g. disintegration, and some other nasty spell effects, but never anything from purely physical attacks. I'm not sure why BG2 would work that way, but I don't really recall having many points in which a character was unrecoverable...

@obsidian & nwn2
From what I've read yes Obsidian officially developed NWN2, but it also seems like they did it with a fair amount of asist from Bioware... [/edit3]

Now in KotOR I can sort of see not having NPCs, etc. die as there are no handy clerics, but they COULD have substituted a high-tech hospital with some whiz-bang resurrection gizmos although it wouldn't really be "lore" correct. (BTW: I don't care if it's "lore" correct for Star Wars as I couldn't give f--k about Star Wars, and haven't since I was, oh, about 13... The only thing that I find that it has going for it any longer is perhaps best production values of any scifi flic made, beyond that, it's pretty generic space opera.)

 

[Nutcracker]

I honestly don't care. I would reload when I lost the more interesting characters in games like Jagged Alliance 2 or BG.

The point is that if your companions died in Bg you were forced to reload and play the battle again taking a more strategic approach till you get it right. That way the battles really had some challenge. With the Kotor system there is no need to try again and replay a battle till you manage to keep everyone alive thus making it much easier to advance without a challenge.

Bzzzt! Wrong answer!

IIRC you only had to redo battles if the ENTIRE party(and/or main char died) ow you just went to see the wiza... er cleric for a quick res.

Now in KotOR I can sort of see not having NPCs, etc. die as there are no handy clerics, but they COULD have substituted a high-tech hospital with some whiz-bang resurrection gizmos although it wouldn't really be "lore" correct. (BTW: I don't care if it's "lore" correct for Star Wars as I couldn't give f--k about Star Wars, and haven't since I was, oh, about 13... The only thing that I find that it has going for it any longer is perhaps best production values of any scifi flic made, beyond that, it's pretty generic space opera.)

See my post above. When i lost characters, it was often permanently (and i had to reload)

 

[The Rambling Sage]

Playing Ironman in games that weren't explicitly designed for it (typically by having fungible resources) is wringing the last few cloudy drips of your beer out of a dishrag into your mouth.

The problem is that no mainstream game is designed to allow for ironman mode, leaving one or two aside, and i like the challenge and the immersion it brings.

System Shock 2 in Ironman mode is gaming heaven, for an example - To at least try it once or twice should be obligatory for any hardcore gamer, and in both max dificulty and ironman mode at the same time is going to turn you into an adrenaline junkie - i actually went for months without being able to play anything after that one runthrough, as every game felt unexiting and boring. And killing Deirdranna with the last bullet of your custom, who is hanging to life by his fingertips after her two elite bodyguards' interrumps, through means of a called headshot is more emotional and fullfilling than any scripted plot twist, when weeks of effort depend on that bullet.

And i believe save/load actually kill a great deal of the "last ditch effort" thing that heroic and involving moments are made of. Roleplaying, and the unstopable consequence of actions that roleplaying needs, depend greatly on the absence of cheap ways to "opt out" the chain of causes and effects. You bought a new sword instead of a better armor? Live with it, and die because of it if so must be. Ironman mode, artificial or not, is one of the only ways to create that obligatory dependency on causes and effects. The relationship that there is between choices and consequences is a dictatorship to the user, not an option or choice.

But you are right. There is a drought of good, challenging, hardcore games and one has to try to turn hardcore what is not. A true shame, and it does not promises good things to come.

Sorry for the pointless rambling. Just some random thoughts on what you wrote.