...and a more constructive post this time I mentioned this in my Fallout 2 rant, but because it was a rant you may not have read it. So here's a possibly useful question: What's keeping us from having highly responsive worlds? I used to think that CRPGs were the most detailed and responsive worlds you can put a gamer in. But that's not really true, now is it? When you play a CRPG you almost always know that you're on a level. You know that there are monsters somewhere to fight. You know that there are signpost NPCs you have to pump for information. And you know that the sole purpose of this information is to get you past the next barrier which is the only thing aside from combat that keeps you from ending the game. Worlds don't work like this, and all the FMV and dialog and story and bitmaps or textures in the world can't convince me otherwise. What stands in the way? Disinterest? The burden of effort? Lack of skill? Lack of imagination? Or is it simply not possible to give us the semblance of what novelists and table-top RPG designers and even screenwriters have been doing for decades? -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership... Edited by - Wavinator on March 5, 2001 2:16:52 AM

too much emphasis on story. No one is going to believe me either. The problem is that if you make a story you then build a world to put it in. So the world will always feel artificial, because in some way, it was dictated by the story. NPCs are there because they are part of the story, or part of the background for the story, or they are there specifically to not be in the story. When you don''t bother with a story you are forced to create an interesting world where the player can write his own stories. Everything in the game has to be interesting all by itself, stuff just can''t ride in on the story, it has to earn its keep. So burn the story, and let the player write his own. That means the game has to be fun without the story to lead to a good story.

I don''t know about you guys but I''ve got some stories from playing games. The best ones aren''t from RPGs either. I''ve got a story where I won a 3v1 game in Starcraft. I have another where after getting back from the bathroom I found that the next round had started in Counterstrike, and I had almost missed it. So I bought a cheap gun and moved down all the other players, trading up guns as I went. I''ve got some from lan parties with my friends, or the time I played SC 11 hours straight, 21 games in a row. These are the real stories. I can''t recall more than one or two lines of dialog from any game I''ve played. That''s the story of some writer, not my story.

Well, Luna asked me a minute ago to post here, so why not, err?

I have read a few posts here, and keep noticing something. Everyone has the same idea about what a great CRPG would have to be like. Perhaps some of these people are interested to do something with it? To help to create a full, immersive world to let the player so what he wants?

Now, before anyone get''s angry, yes, this is also the point Luna tried to make clear

quote: Original post by Ronin_54

Well, Luna asked me a minute ago to post here, so why not, err?

I have read a few posts here, and keep noticing something. Everyone has the same idea about what a great CRPG would have to be like. Perhaps some of these people are interested to do something with it?

You mean be more action & less talk?

If so, I'm one of the many who are working on it. But I guess the main problem is in actually knowing what the best (or closest to best) direction is before you set off. Hence the post.

(If that's not what you meant, sorry, could you explain?)

EDIT:
Oops, wait a minute. It looks like from Luna's other post you were talking about teaming up?


--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

Edited by - Wavinator on March 5, 2001 5:09:57 AM

I sometimes think that instead of thinking of what it should be like, we should instead think of what it is like and which elements we should improve on, which elements we should leave behind.

My opinions about CRPGs
Combat is fun, but not fun enough: improve
Interaction/Dialogue is so-so, improve if technically possible, otherwise push into the background.
Graphics are cool, but I could do without if it would mean easier programming resulting in more gameplay options (I''d rather be able to cut down a tree that looks like a stick, chop it up into little chunks, then create little wooden figures out of them... than to see a nice looking tree but be stopped right in front of it, not being able to even climb it)
Plot: Daggerfall both proved and disproved to me that plot is important. I could play for hours without worrying about what I HAD to do... but after all those hours I went looking for something I HAD to do. I guess this is where a delicate balance has to be found. Just don''t make quests a long list of little things to do. Quests should expire. If a player chooses to pick quest A instead of B, he should not be able to return hours later to then also complete quest B.

The main thing that I like about games is making choices and the results that those choices create. It doesn''t really matter what type of game it is, they''re all about choice. The more affects those choices have, the more excitement making a choice gives. In CRPGs choices have a large effect, because they affect your character, a character you''re probably going to be playing for a long time. So... to give me the best thrill, just let me make choices that will really have an effect on my character''s life. Graphics or no graphics I''ll have my fun.

(want to know what it''s like to play games not focused on graphics? go download some old games... I did, and it''s amazing to see how much fun games are when graphics are not the prime goal of design -which, now that games have become truly succesful, is the first thing moneymakers look for in a game... I think)

quote: Original post by Wavinator
I used to think that CRPGs were the most detailed and responsive worlds you can put a gamer in. But that''s not really true, now is it?

The problem is still triggering, and as Anonymous Poster put it, too much emphasis on a pre-defined story. The two are linked.

If you have a pre-defined story, there is not much lee-way in playing it out. Events have a pretty fixed sequence, and while you are free to choose how you solve each step (to a very limited degree), the next step is always known in advance. There is not a lot of *branching* and if there is, it is pre-defined as well, and usually quite predictable.


There are two possible ways out:
1. Steer clear of a predefined story. This is what''s been discussed in "strategy for the main plot" and many other threads.

2. Find a way to write plots that are more flexible. Perhaps no more than characters that have certain dispositions towards eachother, and that will react in a way that, unless the player does some really weird things, will amount to something of a story.
The "single room" idea that someone mentioned in Wav''s other thread (I think) was not a bad idea at all. A very short computer role-playing game taking place in a single room with a few highly-detailed characters could really be a genre-defining thing. There are tabletop adventures taking place in a single room, just like there are stage plays like that. The ADnD Ravenloft setting had a brilliant adventure about being locked in a single room separated from the rest of reality until you "solved" the adventure. It just had the players and a single other character in it I believe.
Translating this into a halfway decent, responsive environment on a PC could open a lot of "professional" developer''s eyes to what is possible and also to how ridiculous the sizes of maps are getting.

Why on earth would I want to explore thousands of square miles of map with cardboard cutout monsters, trees, shrubs and NPCs? Give me 40 square feet with a couple of distinctive ones and I''ll be perfectly happy .




People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
Mad Keith the V.

I know this goes in one of the posts arround here somewhere...

Mostly (I think) the problem stems from "Which do you want the player to experience? the world, or the story." and it seems that in most games designers have chosen "story". Which means they''ve created this wonderful (sometimes) story and then try and build a world arround it. Which is all very well and good, but nothing much tends to exist in the world outside the confines of the story (with the exception of "easter eggs".) The other problem with this approach is that all major NPC''s are involved, somewhere, in the story-line.

As I''ve mentioned before. If you build the world and then try and build a story into that world, you will (hopefully) have something better, note: this is the "World" answer approach. The world will be more detailed, as that is where the main concentration of deisgn effort has gone, and if you continue this through into software production this may help. Of course you could build the entire world first (in software) and THEN put a story in there, of course this creates all sorts of problems if your computer is already creaking at the joints trying to control the world...

One problem I have with the "improvements" approach Silvermyst is that the answer may not always be an Improvement to the current system, but an entirly new approach. I do agree though that WAY WAY too much emphisis has been placed on Graphics (I''m sure I had a quick complain about this in another post, but i cant remeber if I hit the reply button on that one or not).

[Ok this sounds a bit like I regurgitating anon''s post (who isnt me btw) but I''m not (well that wasnt the intention anyway).]

NightWraith

Anonymous Poster hit on something important when he mentioned that the emphasis on story caused designers to neglect the rest of the game world.

But I think that the solution is not to ignore the storyline, but rather to pay more attention to the design of the game world. This neglect has also been to the detriment of immersiveness in high profile games.

Darn! Sorry, I''ve got to go. My computer access time''s up. (And this is the first time I''ve had access to a terminal since Saturday!)

~~Jonathon

i''ve been gone 4 a while, but i''ll take a crack:

i think on eproblem is that it takes creativity to create a story, but it takes more knowledge to make a responsive world. to do this, things in the world must have life. there have 2 be cultures, history, economics... i might not be thinking on the same plane as u r, please let me know if i''m not. but things have to exist w/o the character, not the character making things exist.


--I don''t judge, I just observe
Stuck in the Bush''s, Florida

Wow! I think the "world detail / gameplay only where story is concerned" answer is right on! It must be that I'm such a knucklehead when it comes to wandering away from the plot that I encounter this so severely.

I want whatever I'm doing at the moment to be engaging. In Fallout, I keep wanting my Outdoorsman stat to limit how well I can handle the desert. I keep wanting line of sight to matter when sneaking around so I can make choices about hiding. I keep wanting NPCs to respond to my choice of a 3 Charisma, 10 Strength, Sex Appeal trait, and female gender (think Russian bodybuilder w/ great face ).

Maybe for other people, what they're doing in the moment doesn't matter because they're caught up in the story? To me, a more responsive environment would really lock my "role" playing choices into the game. *sigh*

EDIT: This almost makes it appear that character creation is of no use other than for combat. Yeah, lower intelligence might affect conversation choices, but for most CRPGs, that's about it I guess.
--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

Edited by - Wavinator on March 8, 2001 5:06:15 AM