Interview Todd Howard needs help

[Blacklung]

I just have to wonder, who would eat an apple that was just lying on a table or placed there by a stranger?

Bums man. Bicycle-Army-Norm goes through our fraternity's dumpster everyday. I used to have random conversations and "bum" him smokes during my usual morning smokes (trying to quit now...ugh). He's definitely a guy who would grab a random piece of fruit off of a table.

I tell you what though, bums are some interesting people to talk to. Talk about strange lives.

 

[Claw]

Being able to buy poisoned food does not exclude the possibility of being able to make your own. You are a fucking hysteric crybaby.

And you are too dumb to quote. I win!

Of course it doesn't, strictly speaking. But who is? Why should anyone? It doesn't make sense to even suggest speaking strictly.
Pitching this feature when you can poison food yourself is silly. It sounds like a gimmick. After the mustard-filled donut, the deadly poisoned apple: The last prank you'll ever play on some poor sod.

Besides, what the hell is the assassins' guild? The evil stepmother club? Do they sell poisoned apples to anyone, or is that a special treat for members not skilled in alchemy? Obviously you wouldn't sell just the poison, it's much safer to sell poisoned apples. It is a fairy-tale world after all.

 

[dongle]

Anyone ever read Neil Gaiman's "Snow, Glass, Apples"? Gads what a creepy story.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Yep, great story. Loved it.

 

[geminito]

This site is awful and your opinions are not surprising.

 

[Data4]

This site is awful and your opinions are not surprising.

You are awful and your opinion is not surprising.

-D4

 

[Twinfalls]

This site is awesome and my opinion is of no consequence.

 

[franc kaos]

You all seemed to miss this priceless gem:

Xbox.com: Anything you'll be able to do with the game on Xbox 360 that just wouldn't be possible anywhere else?

Howard: Hmmm, I guess it's more about the fact that we can do it all and not really have to cut corners. So for instance, in the PC version, depending on your PC, there's a part of it you won't be seeing in all its glory, but on the Xbox 360, you get it all. Please, everyone, buy an HD set ... just please*.

What... like shadows?
Flying above the gorgeous landscape that goes all the way to the horizon, playing as a pacifist who avoids fighting, creating a unique Elf who isn't buffed / buxom, becoming a werewolf and terrorizing the locals, and, (my personal fave), not being able to use a staff as anything but a blocking flame thrower.

* Should include one free with every game.

 

[Levski 1912]

This site is awful and your opinions are not surprising.

2/10 troll rating. Too short and a surprising lack of insults and ad hominem attacks.

 

[Claw]

You all seemed to miss this priceless gem:

I only forgot commenting on it, actually.

Doesn't the need for a HDTV set invalidate the "consoles are cheaper" argument? My parents recently bought a relatively cheap HD-Ready set. That's the $700 kind of cheap I am talking about. That's far more than the price for my whole PC.

 

[Fresh]

Bah I think poisoned apples is a nice-sounding feature.

 

[Thrawn05]

What... like shadows?
Flying above the gorgeous landscape that goes all the way to the horizon, playing as a pacifist who avoids fighting, creating a unique Elf who isn't buffed / buxom, becoming a werewolf and terrorizing the locals, and, (my personal fave), not being able to use a staff as anything but a blocking flame thrower.

* Should include one free with every game.

Oh oh!!! Don't forget crossbows, darts, throwing stars/knives and of course spears. It would take too much time to get it "just right", and since they said we don't care about crossbows and the like, it shouldn't bother us. I'm so glad Todd can think for me.

 

[Vault Dweller]

This site is awful and your opinions are not surprising.

You are still here?

 

[Dreagon]

i wish they would try - Daggerfall was mainly awesome due to its huge random world.. it caused some problems, but i think that should be the next step beyond radiant AI... worlds and NPCs that generate their own quests and plotlines emergently

Wright was making a similar point when discussing spore. Games are getting to the point where it's just not efficient to create the whole game. Now a game that generates itself, or the player helps generate, is both more efficient and can even be more interesting if done right.

For a gamethat relies on a repeative partern of "Do X, Y, or Z" and have fun, it would work but if you want an interesting coherent story as motivation for doing X,Y or Z it's not. Thats the difference between online and offline gaming.

Not necessarily. Surely you could imbed the main quest or story into the game and then have the game procedurally build itself around those points. Just as graphics have come along way, surely all that new computing power can also be used for better terrain, quest, city, and dungeon generators.

 

[RpgMage]

Poisoned apples...

But why does it have to be a pre-poisoned apple!??

I don't get it; if you want to play the sneaky poisoner or poisoning witch, then they should just let you get good at alchemy so that you can poison ALL food.

Maybe that Argonian doesn't like apples (they're too green) but you find out that he does like rat meat, so you poison some rat meat instead... isn't that WAY much more fun than picking up a pre-built hand-grenade apple and wait until some dumb NPC comes up to it and it explodes in his stomach?

And they could make it so that the NPC, if they have high enough alchemy skill, can detect the apple is poisoned...

Hey, if I can think of this stuff, why can't a big-bucks game company!??

 

[Bidjou]

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

My eyes, what has happened to them?!

 

[Bidjou]

... :twisted:

 

[Thrawn05]

Re: Poisoned apples...

But why does it have to be a pre-poisoned apple!??

I think because it's just a regular apple mesh, but tagged with the name "Poisoned Apple". You see, that's called innovation.

 

[aweigh]

Is that a stream of shit flowing out of the horse as it gallops?

 

[Bidjou]

aweigh wrote :

Is that a stream of shit flowing out of the horse as it gallops?

How dare you criticize a masterpiece[/quote]

 

[AlanC9]

Not necessarily. Surely you could imbed the main quest or story into the game and then have the game procedurally build itself around those points. Just as graphics have come along way, surely all that new computing power can also be used for better terrain, quest, city, and dungeon generators.

The problem is that to make the story actually work, you'd have to construct it in terms of thematic elements -- the physical elements are relatively trivial.

Do we actually have a good enough handle on how stories are built to reduce it to formula? Maybe so. There are lots of courses that teach the "essentials of screenwriting" or some such, and I don't see why a computer couldn't generate plots for something as formulaic as that new Harrison Ford movie. What the hell is that called, anyway?

But we still wouldn't be able to generate dialog, so you'd be stuck with something like the MW Wiki system. Come to think of it, Morrowind plays like the quests were randomly designed, even if they were written by humans.

 

[Bidjou]

The problem is that to make the story actually work, you'd have to construct it in terms of thematic elements -- the physical elements are relatively trivial.

Do we actually have a good enough handle on how stories are built to reduce it to formula? Maybe so. There are lots of courses that teach the "essentials of screenwriting" or some such, and I don't see why a computer couldn't generate plots for something as formulaic as that new Harrison Ford movie. What the hell is that called, anyway?

But we still wouldn't be able to generate dialog, so you'd be stuck with something like the MW Wiki system. Come to think of it, Morrowind plays like the quests were randomly designed, even if they were written by humans

So for experimentation on a first game you could choose a setting based on some abondonated colony or a mining colony lying on a remote planet,where the only sentient beings would be robots and artificial intelligences supa-computer that would speak in a mechanical sort of way,that way dialogs would be easier to generate while remaining true to the setting

edited to add:
dirty but funny tryck like the way they did explain the bad translations in space rangers in the manual:
it's due to the fact that languages are different in the "futare"

 

[obediah]

You all seemed to miss this priceless gem:

I only forgot commenting on it, actually.

Doesn't the need for a HDTV set invalidate the "consoles are cheaper" argument? My parents recently bought a relatively cheap HD-Ready set. That's the $700 kind of cheap I am talking about. That's far more than the price for my whole PC.

Well HDTV's are cheaper than monitors. My 37" HDTV LCD was $1k less than apples 30" LCD monitor, and only a few hundred more than the 23" LCD panels I use at work. My 56" HDTV set was much more, but I bought that 5 years ago and paid a significant early adopter tax. Also I think the average household get's much more use out of the television than a monitor.

Besides, everyone should get an HDTV - it does wonders for movies, television shows, sports, some PC games, and yes consoles. If you don't enjoy any of those things an HDTV would be pretty stupid though.

All-in-all though, I think you're right that Microsoft is stretching the "value" aspect of the console pretty far. I don't fault them at all going for HDTV though, it just looks so much better. The real sticker shock is in accessories and the live marketplace. Microsoft is commited to making up the $100 or so they lost selling you the console before you even buy your first game.

 

[Levski 1912]

HDTVs have dropped significantly in price- my friend bought a 27" for only $450 last year, and yes, it is amazing for movies.