Just for the record, I'm against the idea. And that's as a game player, not a designer. It really is just my opinion, but I don't want to have to type out sentences or choose words from a gigantic list to get John to execute the four or five actions he is capable of. I just don't see what this adds to the game, besides a huge amount of low-level work for the human playing it.

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Original post by Kest Just for the record, I'm against the idea. And that's as a game player, not a designer. It really is just my opinion, but I don't want to have to type out sentences or choose words from a gigantic list to get John to execute the four or five actions he is capable of. I just don't see what this adds to the game, besides a huge amount of low-level work for the human playing it.

Oh, I totally understand that. I remember the old-school text adventures where the puzzles hinged around figuring out the vocabulary used by the engine or reverse engineering the mind of the designer - not fun.

But I did like the Lucasfilm system, where you are provided with a short list of verbs on screen (open, close, push, pull, give, take etc.). Actions were then performed by clicking on the verb, then clicking on an objects on the screen or in your inventory (also on screen). I found this to be fun because it provided a slight challenge to think of the correct action for any puzzle without being a game of "guess the verb". Plus it allowed a whole bunch of amusing actions (such as "use butter knife with electrical outlet").

My position on the 'just like real life' game is that it would be psychologically unsatisfying to the player because it has no teleology, no thematic message, and it would not respond to the player's trying to impose their own thematic goals, and would instead disrupt this with its randomness. Any story problem simple enough to be created by a quest generator (rather than a true interactive story generation engine) is going to be pretty meaningless. So even if you have this gorgeous imaginary world, if you can't do anything meaningful (whether the meaningful goal would be saving the world or something more subtle) in it, then there's no point.

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Original post by sunandshadow My position on the 'just like real life' game is that it would be psychologically unsatisfying to the player because it has no teleology, no thematic message, and it would not respond to the player's trying to impose their own thematic goals, and would instead disrupt this with its randomness. Any story problem simple enough to be created by a quest generator (rather than a true interactive story generation engine) is going to be pretty meaningless. So even if you have this gorgeous imaginary world, if you can't do anything meaningful (whether the meaningful goal would be saving the world or something more subtle) in it, then there's no point.

Well, this all boils down to just how the 'random' parts are done. If you base the game around the more classic 'quest' based gameplay, (Player! we need you, you have to go do this or all is ruined! yes, go get this thing I could do myself, and I'll give you this gold and increase your fighting skill, even if you are really just being an errand boy) then it will likely fail. Making random quests to throw at the player as they go would be next to impossible to make something good.

However, if you give the player a well developed world, a few small towns, a large city, and a huge country side to wander through, and let them loose to do what they want, trade, track down procedurally generated bad guys, rob towns folk, or try to kill the king/great wizard, and then have all the 'random' factors being minor changes, and NPC AI 'bumping', nudging them to be more friendly or hostile towards you. This means the game can't be the same way twice. Take Morrowind for example. The game is 'huge' however for the most part whenever I played I usually played along the same path, if I wanted to do something, usually either I couldn't really (they had next to no real options for being any kind of a business person on it) as something would be thrown in my face, and completing these things are usually the easiest way to 'advance', making yourself stronger.
Sure, you CAN go off to do as you want, but the game is centered around doing what the designers wanted you to do, rather than being a toy to play with, you act out prescripted lines. This is the way most games are sadly, and is something I myself would like to see changed for atleast a few games.

Of course, what would be great is an option for when you start a new game, before you enter the large world, you choose if you want any preset storylines or not. This makes it easier for the players, do I WANT the guards of this kingdom to treat me as a hero from the start like in the base storyline the designers made, or do I want to be a commoner trying to make my own way in life? Include good tools for editing and creating new storylines, the designers provide you a large world, with towns and a city or two, and main storyline that can be loaded, and maybe a few smaller ones (that likely could have been made in house to test the storyline editing tools anyway) for people to play with. Then let them run off and play how they want!
*Also include some way to easily edit things like how the combat systems work, make mods even easier, and would also make in house development a little easier actually*

It sounds like you're describing a medieval GTA, with random quests rather than built in ones, and without anything major to accomplish. The problems with that is the complete lack of direction, and the obviousness of the random situations.

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Original post by headfonez You can also travel in time

Is this the "1 second per second into the future" kind of time travel? If it isn't, how are you going to deal with the fact that it's logically impossible?

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invent things

What kind of thing? Will I be able to invent a nuclear bomb?

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And, anything can happen within the game.

Does that include an invasion by zombie mutant space dolphin pirates?

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That is, you can be playing a card game, and then suddenly a swordswoman from a rival town comes in and chops everyone's head off.

I like this part. Can I cut her head off with a sharpened queen of diamonds?

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All areas of the game are accessible. But, if you go around blowing up walls, guards will come out to get you.

What if I own the walls?

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What do you think (constructive criticism welcome)

Aww, only constructive criticism? You're no fun. I think it's insane and it'll never work. Of course, I thought the same about my next-door neighbour's faster-than-light space rocket. I was right, as it happened.

Thanks for your replies

Communication between you and the world would be similar to a Shadowgate interface, with options such as "take, open, use, etc." Questions are in a list as default, and can be selected from

"Where were you at xx:xx:a.m."
"Do you know ______?"

The answers to questions such as 'who are you' and 'where are you going' will show up as a info panel so that information can easily be looked at.

But quests would still be random and in some sense, create a unifed story.

What do you think about it.

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Original post by JBourrie "gee, I wish I could go through that door" or "why can't I jump on top of that tiny crate?"

I'm always saying/thinking this.