quote: Original post by Silvermyst
Taking the Requiem ''angel'' idea one step further (hopefull a good step)...

What if, depending on your actions, different ''angels'' will accompany you? IF you choose to do the ''right'' thing the entire time, your angel will be a righteous one, if you choose to do the ''bad'' thing, you''ll have an evil little angel on your side, complimenting your every kill etc.

What if different angels can grant you different powers?
(...)
Example:

Paladin helps out the poor and weak (saves villages from monsters, gives money to the poor) and a nice entity enters his body, aiding him some defensive powers. The longer the player stays ''in character'' (that is, the longer he keeps playing the nice paladin), the longer the entity will be with him and the more defensive power it might give. But, if the paladin starts to roam castles, disturbing people in their rooms, maybe even touching fair maidens against their will, the entity would leave, leaving the paladin weakened (without the defensive powers he''s learned to depend on).

mmmmm my how this Crow I''m munching on is yummy.

Thank you for sticking with it, SM. You have a great idea and I hope my rant did not deter you guys.

It''s a good idea, though you''d have to get the broad playtest in before you could make final decisions on that. I think of this like your Good and Bad Muse hanging over your right and left shoulders repectively (little red horned you, little pink winged you)...

I''m getting some ideas on how I might make this work on a unit-basis too...

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-WarMage
...cynicism is only as good as...well, mine''s pretty damn good, anyway...

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-WarMage

WARMAGE:

Yes, it''s a little like the ''good muse, bad muse'' principle, except that you could create hundreds of entity personalities each with their own powers (or flaws?).

The player might or might not be able to have control over the entities. Should a player who''s been nasty be possessed by an entity that will try to change him? Like an unwanted houseguest?

Should the player be able to banish that unwanted houseguest? Should he have to perform certain actions to get rid of it? (like, go to a priest and have the priest expel the entity?)

I think that the fun thing about having multiple entity personalities is that the player will be able to experience different styles of playing. Each entity could be designed specifically to encourage a certain type of play. You could have tens, or hundreds, or thousands... or millions (randomly generated).

Could a player have more than one (good and bad muse)?

And what type of gameplay should be paired with this entity idea? Just your regular rpg ''kill monster, get ep''?

Woohoo... I''m on day 4 on my C++ in 21 days course. %Another two weeks and I''ll be a master programmer!%

quote: Original post by Impossible
In extreme characters they could put you in jail or fire you (hence ending the game.)

Anyway, if designers don't want players to act stupid in their games, they need to have a system that deals with it (usually rewards\punishments work the best in any game.)

Hmmm... I'm remembering that the Wing Commander's actually dealt with this well. They always had the traitor subplots going, and if you attacked a friend long enough they'd say something like, "So YOU'RE the traitor!!" and start fighting back. When you got to the ship, you were jailed.

(Heh, they thought it important enough to include this that they spent money having Mark Hamill and Malcom McDowell do a "take this man into custody" scene in WC3 )



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Just waiting for the mothership...

Edited by - Wavinator on July 20, 2001 4:53:08 PM

Thanks for all your responses, its nice to see one''s thoughts rewarded tenfold.

Just to clarify, I''m not advocating or shunning any particular type of behaviour or character choice. Play a Shrekian ogre. Play a paladin fallen from grace. Burn villages or build them, it''s not the players actions that concerns me but the CONSISTENCY of those actions. I believe that choosing a character should provide a strong focus for the player. If we can find ways to entertain the player WITHIN the limits of their choice, then they wont need to resort to novel means to enjoy themselves.

Roleplay should be just that: Playing a ROLE, rather than just vicariously indulging our fleeting whims. Lets help the player play out their roles and give them a fufilling experience, defining it sharply sometimes if need be. I think the problem with a "freeform" game is that it tends to emphasise the player too much at the expense of the character.

I am not a Kardurian War-Monk. I don''t possess the patience, skill or deadly resolve necessary. In my unguided hands, this character will most likely visit a couple towns, talk to every NPC he meets looking for information, buy some supplies, leave town on a quest given by a merchant, kill some respawning low level monsters to gain experience, and hoard all the weapons and gold he can obtain. Strangely, this is the same behaviour that I would exhibit by playing a Thief of the tattered cloth. Or a Szzyth wizard. Or an Imperial honour guard.

What is defining my experience AS A CHARACTER IN THE GAME WORLD when I have complete freedom? My garb? My name? My hodge-podge skill set? I become nothing but a watered down vision of a characterization, A dull and unremarkable experience. Now a true Kardurian War-Monk eschews all frivolous valuables. He seldom speaks to strangers and when he does it is for good reason. The tasks he undertakes are those which accord with his theology, and he never draws blood needlessly.

I want the game to help me see through this characters eyes. I want to be given a unique perspective, one that I would not have a chance to see otherwise (left to my own devices). Let this character have limitations and tendencies, aversions and beliefs. Let him act and react "In character", CONSISTENTLY AND WITH PURPOSE.

Granted, I may be targeting a small audience here, so lets sharpen the question on the grindstone.

Which do you prefer, then, and why:
1) freeform world where the onus is on the PLAYER to provide motivation, goals and characterization; by whatever means they desire

or

2) guided world where your CHARACTER has detailed motivations, goals and behaviours which the player must work within, playing AS that character

The above anonymous post belongs to me, in case you were wondering.

What do you call metal gear solid or shadowrun (for genesis)?

I think you are still playing the options of true character decision making - with simple subsistence in the game world as it''s least common denominator , and inconsequential decisions on an incontrovertible path - the Diablo and Baldur''s Gate problem.

Doesn''t this still boil down to finding some form of reward or acknowledgement based on character action and interaction that is typically going to defy logic and analysis? I cannot yet fathom how (or why) you would reward a character basically for "being themselves". I think this is why questing is important, it allows the designer to set goals that typicaly won''t conflict with a particular social code.

Maybe I''m overthinking this?

I would prefer open-ended gaming, with the occasional boss-type stashed away in the mountains or a woods somewhere that ultimately I have to fight, again, because he is an amoral antithesis not to me, but to the game world. Give me the chance to wander around juggling axes in the bazaar for 15 years, then I''ll go fight some bogies.

...but I really didn''t want to play eq

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-WarMage
...I still don''t have a good answer for this one, mostly because how do you build a state machine based on a player''s random series of in-character acts that have no bearing on the gameplay?

Silvermyst brought up an implementation of reward system. It will work well no doubt, but as mentioned earlier by somebody else, it is ruined by the save and reload tactic.

It almost seems indeed the gamers'' mentality which need changing. But that is one thing we cannot do, can we?

Firstly, we could have save points. Not that bad but it isn''r realistic. And saving gems fare worse. Also, we could auto saves at specific areas and when players make a mistake, they respawn there. This would make players think twice before doing anything stupid. Also, they''d be pretty annoyed. =p

We should employ a mix of solutions. Somebody suggested doing things the easy way, by limiting the actions of players. For example, you cannot hurt the townsfolk. Personally, I''d go with this idea. Then we cannot implement the reward system. Silvermyst had it such that you enjoy benefits while being in-character and you lose them as soon as you did something silly.

I have no other suggestions other that the above. I believe that immersion is more important than freedom. Though freedom is also an important factor. Though maybe, we could change how freedom is executed. Like playing style, we should make combat open to all types of styles.

Personally, I''m for allowing the player to do whatever they want. Many people that play cRPG''s aren''t true role-players. For them part of the fun is obliterating a village for fun or stealing everyhting in sight. If you''re a true role-player than all you have to do is obey the rules. Since your actual purpose is to take on the existance of a character that isn''t YOU, you''ll play the role of the character because you WANT TO.

But if you want to have it work both ways here''s a suggestion. Have an option to turn consequences and consistency on/off. If its on then you won''t be able to do things that go outside your character and/or the game can save every ten seconds or something, so your actions are permanent.

Personally, I don''t consider myself a ROLE-player, I''m more or a WORLD-player. What I mean is that I don''t want to play the role of someone else, I want to be myself, but in a different world. I don''t get to run around fighting monsters, saving princesses, and casting magic spells in this world, so I go to a different world where I can, but I want to be myself as I do it.

There''s a way to restrict character capabilities given the players previous action, it''s called character building, a feature I plan to include in my game.
I think that''s best than a fixed character, you''re free to build your won character, but you must act accordingly.

About the World-player, I find this ridiculous, cause in a game your character is an interface to the world, and his capabilities have nothing to do with yours, his face... are those decided by the game designer.
In a game with a story, is backstory also is owned by the gamedesigner.

I don''t think players want to be ''themselves'' in another world, but much more being to play a being similar to them or different depending on their feeling.
Forcing one or the other is a bad idea, simply offer auto restricted freedom such as described at the beginning of the post, or full freedom.

-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-