Fallout 1: The Glow and the Brotherhood of Steel. If you didn't get into the Glow, you missed getting into BoS. Made me replay the game again after I'd found out that beam could have a rope put on it. I swear to God I moused over that fucker everywhere the first time and missed it. Mind you, dying from the radiation there because I didn't take the Anti-Rad pills did make me avoid it.
That isn't really the same. You just couldn't do A which is required to get into B, therefore no B for you.
It's similar enough. If you couldn't find the way in, then you missed out on A (The Glow) and B (BoS). If you got into the Glow but couldn't find what you were looking for, then you missed out on B - but the issue is still the same, you "missed out" on content. You missed out on and end-game option (no talking the Master to death using Vree's holodisk to show the Super Mutants were infertile), you missed out on the best piece of armour in the game and you missed out on having allies with you when you attack the Military Base. Along with B being completely inaccessible.
I expect similar options to be available in Wasteland 2. Don't have a high enough lock-picking skill? Well, you're not getting into the level of the military base that's full of secret goodies. That means you miss out on the awesome weaponry and might have a harder time fighting the bad guys at the end.
1) Crispy doesn't complain about quest C&C. If you don't have a high enough lock-picking skill, you should not get in that military base. That's normal and expected behavior.
2) What Crispy is saying better than me is this: an elegant C&C design allows the player to make informed decisions. Give him hints, throw some info and let the player decide what he should do. Let him use or ignore the information, that's his prerogative.
You mean like the Brotherhood of Steel does? Clearly technologically superior military establishment which you can join if you go and quest for the right thing.
And Crispy didn't say any of that. Crispy said (what I responded to):
I mean if there are going to supposedly be entire sections of the game that are going to be locked out via certain choices, requiring a complete replay in order to even see, that's pretty harsh. Retarded, I might even say.
He even goes one further "Absolutely forcing a replay in order to not miss out on large sections of the game just seems wrong to me."
This is the "Bethesda Softworks 101" school of thought. You can't have the precious petals "miss out" on all those quests and NPCs in that area, so we make all the quest NPCs immortal, we remove any real "consequences" and your "choice" merely boils down to at what time you choose to experience that content.
There's nothing in any of what Crispy says (not until this page anyway) about "allowing the player to make informed decisions", nothing in there about "hints" or "throw some info and let the player decide". In actual fact he states
via certain choices, so I could equally argue that the player
will be fully aware of the consequences of their decision at the time (otherwise it's not really a "choice" now, is it?).
What he says is fairly fucking black and white to me: What, I can't visit Town X unless I replay the entire game because I
chose Option B? Fuck that lame bullshit! That's retarded! Town X should always be available! "Locking out entire towns because I made a choice, and only being able to visit that if I replay and
make the opposite choice? What? That's harsh! Who wants to replay games!??"
... like this is some sort of retarded Bethesda game where you should be able to do everything.
3) Your comparison between Fallout and Witcher 2 is incorrect
That wasn't my comparison, just fyi. That was Rivmusique I think. I haven't played Witcher 2 so aren't really in a position to comment on it.
Don't have a high enough lock-picking skill? Well, you're not getting into the level of the military base that's full of secret goodies. That means you miss out on the awesome weaponry and might have a harder time fighting the bad guys at the end.
In a party-based game though, wouldn't you typically have a thief with lock-picking and a diplomat with persuasion, etc.?
Not necessarily. Perhaps more to the point, if I
choose to have a team full of Soldier-types, what should the game do to inform me of all that content I'm going to miss out on? Pop-up a dialogue box that says "Hey, you don't have anyone with Lockpicking, you'll miss out on fat loot which you'll only realise half-way through the game, forcing you to restart!"
.. or what if my Lockpicking guy only has 20 points in the skill and he needs 40 to open the next lock? Should the game tell me when I level-up? "Hey, watch out - the next part of the game has some tougher locks, you better up that Lockpicking skill!". Especially annoying if you're only a point or two off. You know, it's only fair, right?
...
Sometimes you have to make a "blind" choice - and you won't be entirely aware of the consequences until you get deeper into the game.
it isn't so much about the amount as it is about the form of the consequences.
having to choose which town to save is fine as long as the choice alters the town you didn't choose while also offering at least some (different) content there. it's not fine if the other town just becomes unaccessible/deserted/empty as that just emphasizes the fact that the choice is forced upon you for no reason whatsoever without allowing you to split your party.
You should only be able to split your team if you then get to watch as both half-teams get horribly outnumbered, die and you lose the game right then and there because you haven't got enough man power.
It's only fair.
The only thing I dislike about content becoming unavailable due to choices and consequences, is that it leads to metagaming when making decisions, especially when replaying. You end up making choices based on what content you want to see and not on what makes sense in-game.
And how is this different to any other game? If I play Mount & Blade, and decide to focus on Bows & Arrows and Horseback Riding, I miss out on being able to use Pole-arms, One-Handed Swords and Shields and Long Swords. Those are entire fields of content and game-play that I'm missing out on. All those items I ignore and sell-off because they're useless to me.
I miss out on being able to run about on foot fending off horsemen because my foot skills aren't up to par (and may even die as a result of that). I miss out on being able to use Crossbows (different skill from standard Bows I think). I miss out on being able to use pole-arms from the back of a horse. I miss out on heavily armoured horses because I want to keep mine light and fast.
The only way to experience that content is to replay and roll a different character. The same can be said for Arcanum. If I choose to play a techie, I "miss out" on the Magic content, including some quests. In fact every major combat skill in Arcanum has a special quest associated with it that gets you "the best" skills and weapon.
If I want to experience any of that different - or "missing" - content, I have no choice but to re-start and make meta-gaming decisions. "Oh, I've played this game as a Magician spamming harm spells - now I want to try it as a Swordsman and see what's different".
Remind me elegantly , however, of the consequences of my decisions through logical gameplay elements such as being able to still visit the bombed-out town and I'll be satisfied.
From a game-play perspective, visiting an empty crater is pointless. The people are all dead and they've taken their quests with them. The content is no longer there. The only way you get that back is to
replay the entire game from the beginning - which it seems is what you're most upset about. Having those people still there, with their quests still available (IE: "the content") even
after their town has been bombed out, would be exceedingly lame and make any "consequences" from your "choices" utterly meaningless.
That content is gone. As Fargo basically says: Entire sections of game-play gone. *poof*. Entire towns wiped off the map. And the only way to get it back is to start again and make a different choice.
or maybe
?) said in an interview about an area that they were designing being almost like designing two areas because it was completely different if <SOMETHING THEY COULDN'T TALK ABOUT> happened or not.
