Game News Wasteland 2 Kickstarter Update #35: Follow Up on the Prison Demo

[Lancehead]

Of course, one can abstract poorly. For example, simple HP vs. HP + stamina + locational damage. And I don't have to say which one them is considered more realistic.

There's nothing wrong with simple HP, it's worked well for a million games.

Nice straw-man. Here's one in return: Sawyer decided in PE that health + stamina is better than just health.

 

[HiddenX]

[USER=5830]HiddenX
good example, because i think that a limited backpack always leads to extra travels (because humans are greedy), yet i think that that this was never an issue in the games, quite the opposite it made them interesting.
What would be FO:1 and all its successors without it ? But it would interest me where do you think that was an issue and what game did you not finish because of it.
So to mention that you had to extra travel, and had no other choice, but not because you were greedy (like me).
Sadly i have never played JA and JA 2, but i have only heard good things about it. I am really interested in Incubation, because you have mentioned it.
[/USER]

Most pre-2000 CRPGs have a limited backpack (by space and/or by weight): Goldbox Games, Baldurs Gate, Might & Magic, Wizardry, Ultima, Realms of Arkania ...
Modern example: Inquisitor

I finshed all of them, but sometimes circular selling-tours are getting boring. In the case of Inquisitor you even need to fight respawned enemies to get your old loot to the shop. I'm doing this kind of roundtrips only in games in which every penny is needed (for training for example) not out of greed.

PS:
Incubation plays like chess with a high grade of abstraction. It is very challenging, very tactical, often battle rounds for winning a map are limited!


***

PPS:
Health vs. Health & Stamina

There's no right or wrong for ALL CRPGs.

Rule of thumb:
If you can create interesting entertaining and/or challenging game situations out of it use Health & Stamina.
Example: Stamina low deep in the Dungeon -> you have to hunt for food first to refill the Stamina.

If you don't plan to create interesting entertaining and/or challenging game situations with Stamina in mind, just use Health only.

If you want to go even more realistic, you have tro keep track which body parts are wounded and if they are still bleeding.
Again: If this adds to the overall gameplay do it, if not just leave it.

 

[Roguey]

Nice straw-man. Here's one in return: Sawyer decided in PE that health + stamina is better than just health.

Those are pretty much two HP meters. It's necessary so people don't feel like they have to backtrack to rest every other battle.

 

[Darkzone]

Rake
Naturally the words realistic, plausible and believable, refer to different concepts, on different levels but may include the same thing.
That is the reason that i used this three words and not just realistic.
To define realistic i have to provide the definition also for real and realism.

Real means in the matter something that exist, and therefore a part of our universe.
Realism besides being a direction of philosophy and arts, means a correct and appropriate estimation of reality. (Or derived out of something real, through means of abstraction.)
Realistic means oriented on the reality (not necessary from reality but not contradictory to the reality), or on realism if we talk about art direction.

There you see why i used the word realistic and not realism.

Now to answer my own first question to you: The last two Batman films, i did not like that the Gotham City was so realistic. Batman needs a appropriate stage, and a realistic city is not the stage for him, he didn't fit in.
Then on the other side everything else was quite implausible. So as you see my first question, a yes answer was possible, but mostly implausible.

Now back to the three words: realitic, plausible and believable.
Something may be realistic, plausible and therefore for all people believable.
Something may be impossible therefore total unrealistic, and then it is for a sound mind the believe about it is impossible. (Religions are that kind of things or Superman.)
Realistic things can be compared on this dimension, plausiblitiy (as likely or apparently valid) of a event is measured in the stochastic with a probability value and this can be compared. The level of belive can be also a scaled.
Something is more realistic, if the probability of this construct is higher, therefore more believable, than something with lesser probability.

To the witcher.
I have tried today something out: how many weapons can i wear on myself. So i put on my post apocalyptic survival gear on. I am not a cosplayer, i am an eccentric that believes, that mankind will blow them self in near future out.
2 long machetes (belt and thigh mounted) , 2 Glock daggers (Boots over the shafts), 1 foldet hand crossbow (belt and thigh mounted over the machete), 6 throwing knifes in a poach on the mole west and still many space left on the west.
Rücksack mole system: 2 Bokken as a substitute for a long barrel firearm, 1 Shinai, 1 Ken, 1 Warhammer. And 1 crossbow in my hands. My main concern is more about the weight, because with the bullet resistant west it all gets quite heavy.
Then i run out of weapons and still got space left in the Rücksack and on the mole west. I had to use my Kendo and Jaido training equipment as a substitute for the firearms, becase i do not own any firearms due to my residence.

Don't get me wrong i love the witcher, because in a way i was like him. Sex, drugs and Rock'n Roll. The story is very good. But mostly because the world is very mature and the problems (racism, etc ) are realisic, beside the magic and monsters.
As you see that the realisc things of the witcher is not an issue, but the highest value of the game, and the books. His equipment value is made for travel and to be fast, but as you have seen one person can carry much much more.

HiddenX

In the case of Inquisitor you even need to fight respawned enemies to get your old loot to the shop. I'm doing this kind of roundtrips only in games in which every penny is needed (for training for example) not out of greed.

In the case of Inquisitor, it has to be really tiresome. I had only once the necessity to do this: in Fallout 2, to get a SMG (first good weapon), to kill the slavers. In FO:3 i have done this to give every trade caravan member the best armor, to give everyone water, and to have full shelves. In FO:NV i have done this, so have a superb equipped depot. In no other game i have done this so consequent. But i think that it is not a problem resulting from a to small and limited backpack, but more a game balance one.


Many people believe in a false dichotomy: realism and fun standing partitioned form each other, and you can choose only one of them. Or that a too high form of realism costs fun, that would mean also that a higher form of abstraction or unrealistic things make more fun. But this can be quite the opposite, if we are honest. The only problem with more realism or more realistic systems are that the degree of micromanagement can get higher. As you see i have wrote "can get higher" this means not necessary that it will get higher, there are always solutions to counter this additional work. I have proposed for the combat mechanisms in Wasteland 2 a script option menu, besides that character sheet and inventory, where you can edit the specific combat behavior of one ranger.

 

[codexian reject]

These three statements from the book just state the obvious and are very vague, what equals lacking a point as far as I am concerned, but well, yeah, I agree with them of course.

As for inventory limits, they were indeed pointless in Infinity Engine games for example, because characters were easily capable of carrying all stuff they needed anyway, so carrying capacity only impacted how much of a chore it was to manage loot hoarding, but not options in combat. Instead of getting rid of it, though. I would add a simple UI system instead:

• Add unlimited area inventory – every item player brought to, or found in a current area can be placed there and is available when not in combat mode. If player encounter a merchant, then area inventory is available on a trade screen.
• When on overland map player can transfer an area inventory to one of his safe house areas inventories ( if safehouse area is reachable at the moment ). Safehouse inventory could be also displayed at some nearby merchants.
• I would go for grid presentation for character inventory and automatically sorted and categorised lists for area inventories.

It's should be simple to implement, and impose similar limitations, wile removing all the chores what would allow to get away with more realistic carrying capacity limits and item weights.
That would make strength stat and choice of equipped gear more meaningful.

Figuring out a very universal gear loadout good for most occasions – satysfying.
Paying attention to clues and taking with you a gear perfectly suited for an area – satysfying.
Making a mistake and taking a gear unsuited for an area, but figuring a way to make it through anyway – satysfying.

Having everything always easily available - … no source of satisfaction.
Having imposed limitations on the characters and finding a way around them is a fun kind of challenge, essential for a good rpg imo.

Is this what Josh Sawyer is going for ? I don't follow progress too closely and didn't found that info during quick search.

 

[Lancehead]

Many people believe in a false dichotomy: realism and fun standing partitioned form each other, and you can choose only one of them.

I think it's less of an issue of false dichotomy than many people using abstract to mean "making shit up" instead of "condensation to keep essence".

 

[HiddenX]

I think it's less of an issue of false dichotomy than many people using abstract to mean "making shit up" instead of "condensation to keep essence".

I agree.

You get an abstraction of complex real world processes/objects by generalizing and reduction to the essential methods and attributes.
Generalizing is not possible without simplification of real world objects.

So abstraction and simplification are very closely related.

Example: (1) Abstract object … (6) Real World object

(1) a publication
(2) a newspaper
(3) The San Francisco Chronicle
(4) the May 18 edition of the The San Francisco Chronicle
(5) my copy of the May 18 edition of the The San Francisco Chronicle
(6) my copy of the May 18 edition of the The San Francisco Chronicle as it was when I first picked it up (as contrasted with my copy as it was a few days later: in my fireplace, burning)

By generalizing from (6) to (1) you lose information, the real world object is "simplified".

 

[Darkzone]

lancehead said:

Darkzone said:
Many people believe in a false dichotomy: realism and fun standing partitioned form each other, and you can choose only one of them.

I think it's less of an issue of false dichotomy than many people using abstract to mean "making shit up" instead of "condensation to keep essence".

I would prefer that some says i have built my world view on a false assumption, than to be called plain stupid.

 

[codexian reject]

I think it's less of an issue of false dichotomy, than many game designers using abstraction as an excuse for lazy "making shit up" instead of trying to "condense to keep essence".

Iimproved.