There's no real defense against the claim that, as an omniscient observer with access to Gamefaqs and a complete understanding of the balance of the universe, you can usually decide which choice makes the game easiest to get through.
But like, in the Banner Saga I think they did a solid job of making the decisions reasonably opaque to a human being playing the game and not just checking a FAQ. There were situations where I thought "well, I could rob these people for supplies, but not only do I not want to be that sort of a person, but there's a chance that I'll end up with even more people injured and that'd be awful before a fight". It's possible that in those situations "strong arm farmers" would lead to a -10 clansmen and a +10 supplies, and really wind up being the more profitable decision, but you know whatever it's Role-playing and it's betting on an outcome and making a hard choice.
The idea that all decisions should be equally balanced in retrospect is just a silly idea. If every choice results in a mathematically even outcome why am I doing anything but flipping a coin? There has to be some sort of tension.
Dr. ChaosPost nuclear nuisanceRegistered Userregular
edited February 2014
Sometimes I like being evil for fun though, not just out of survival or pragmatism.
While I think New Vegas is an overall better game than Fallout 3, I enjoyed being bad in the latter more. I didn't want to be the guy that made harsh reasonable choices, I wanted to be THE bad guy.
Nuking Megaton, burning Harold, drinking the tears of the wasteland, etc.
It's sometimes vaguely insulting how games "reward" self-serving, pragmatic behavior. Asking for/intimidating extra rewards out of NPCs? That's 50 gp or equivalent extra(where you probably have wealth in the 10's of thousands, or more at this point).
The example that comes to mind right now is TOR, where all the massive wealth and rewards etc. the dialogue always touts usually amounted to piddly cash that wouldn't buy you a single medpack.
There should be one, or even two extra zeroes behind such cash rewards in order to make them genuinely worth taking, and possibly offering a temptation to people playing good characters. Doing evil things for the sake of doing evil things (if you're being a psycho), or doing evil things for substantial monetary gain (for an evil pragmatist) both make more sense than doing evil things for chump change(the usual game setup for such situations).
People always say that but then something banner saga comes along and everyone says its dumb that one choice (the evil one) is obviously the right one.
Wait which choice was evil in that game, and when was it obviously right?
I basically stumbled through that game before emerging on the other side a broken man, which I think was intended.
Banner saga is more practical/ethical than right/wrong. Like looting corpses. You leave them be you get nothing, loot them you get their stuff.
I think that that is how it should work but going by what people have said they didn't like that one choice gave more game benifits than the other.
But isn't that the whole point of doing the right thing or the wrong thing? Finding a wallet on the street with $100 in it is a good example. Give it back to the person in full or keep it. The good option is that you go out of your way and get nothing, the bad choice gets you $100. If people want choice they need to get over not getting as much as the person playing it a different way. Part of doing the right thing is going through the thought process of what you're giving up and doing it anyway.
EDIT: I should note that I still feel that both ways of playing need to be valuable. Maybe there's a way to let good players get rewarded without them even knowing it. increased rewards % increase on selling and slight decrease on purchasing.
Oh, I agree totally. Its one of the things I really like about banner saga or king of dragon pass.
I am just saying that that has been one of the most common complaints for banner saga and I think that you would get the same in any game you tried to do something similar. People expect that when you return the wallet you get a 100 dollar sword for being some brave and honest or, more likely, a 1000 dollar sword. Thats why most games either make the differences trivial or nothing at all gameplay wise.
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BrocksMulletInto the sunrise, on a jet-ski. Natch.Registered Userregular
It's sometimes vaguely insulting how games "reward" self-serving, pragmatic behavior. Asking for/intimidating extra rewards out of NPCs? That's 50 gp or equivalent extra(where you probably have wealth in the 10's of thousands, or more at this point).
The example that comes to mind right now is TOR, where all the massive wealth and rewards etc. the dialogue always touts usually amounted to piddly cash that wouldn't buy you a single medpack.
There should be one, or even two extra zeroes behind such cash rewards in order to make them genuinely worth taking, and possibly offering a temptation to people playing good characters. Doing evil things for the sake of doing evil things (if you're being a psycho), or doing evil things for substantial monetary gain (for an evil pragmatist) both make more sense than doing evil things for chump change(the usual game setup for such situations).
People always say that but then something banner saga comes along and everyone says its dumb that one choice (the evil one) is obviously the right one.
Wait which choice was evil in that game, and when was it obviously right?
I basically stumbled through that game before emerging on the other side a broken man, which I think was intended.
Banner saga is more practical/ethical than right/wrong. Like looting corpses. You leave them be you get nothing, loot them you get their stuff.
I think that that is how it should work but going by what people have said they didn't like that one choice gave more game benifits than the other.
But isn't that the whole point of doing the right thing or the wrong thing? Finding a wallet on the street with $100 in it is a good example. Give it back to the person in full or keep it. The good option is that you go out of your way and get nothing, the bad choice gets you $100. If people want choice they need to get over not getting as much as the person playing it a different way. Part of doing the right thing is going through the thought process of what you're giving up and doing it anyway.
EDIT: I should note that I still feel that both ways of playing need to be valuable. Maybe there's a way to let good players get rewarded without them even knowing it. increased rewards % increase on selling and slight decrease on purchasing.
There's an answer: Mo' money, mo' problems. And not just, "people attack you on sight". (Yay! More XP!). Things like people not wanting to work with you, the law being a tangible force, etc.
I actually just realized that auto correct change my words. I meant to say that both sides need to be viable not valuable. I'm not sure how you could do it though.
I'd like to see something where following the "evil" or self-serving choice usually results in short-term benefits, but occasionally fucks you over in the long term. i.e. Bullying people in a small town makes that section of the game easier and gives you some great loot and cash, but return later in the game and they all attack you on sight. Or, you're able to generate enough loot and high taxes to easily max out your fortress, but in the process you make an important NPC into a sworn enemy.
The "good" or selfless path usually gives you jack shit, but occasionally pays off. You pay off some dude's debt and you're out 5,000 gold. But, he let's your party crash at his place whenever you're in the area.
Essentially you make it so you aren't ever really sure what an outcome might be, you take actions based on the context of the situation and the type of character(s) you're playing. Of course, that would eventually get power-gamed with FAQs.... unless... maybe some consequences are randomly determined? Hmmmm.
There really needs to be better long term rewards for evil choices. Being able to start your own criminal empire or maneuvering yourself into positions of power or getting nobles to secretly swear fealty to you so that you can control things from behind the scenes.
There are also a lot of little things that they can do like have your character manipulate things in more subtle ways like using more euphemisms and deceptive rhetoric. It would be cool if your character's name can become infamous and other characters started using them in other ways, maybe as insults or having things named after your character. It would be fun to see a very strong ale or a vicious combat maneuver named after your character.
Also, even though it would take a ton of extra work, it would be cool if making "evil" decisions affected your character's perception.
If you act like a power hungry megalomaniac, the game would start showing/describing other characters as being smaller and more insignificant. The plea of others become more muted while praise heaped at your feet become more salient. If you went around slaughtering and stealing, then you could be desensitized to violence and suffering. Dialogue and descriptions concerning pain and suffer can be worded differently to either be far less detailed or emphasize the glory and macabre beauty in death and destruction to reflect your character's callous mental state.
Again, I'm hoping that the new Torment game does something like that.
If you act like a power hungry megalomaniac, the game would start showing/describing other characters as being smaller and more insignificant. The plea of others become more muted while praise heaped at your feet become more salient. If you went around slaughtering and stealing, then you could be desensitized to violence and suffering. Dialogue and descriptions concerning pain and suffer can be worded differently to either be far less detailed or emphasize the glory and macabre beauty in death and destruction to reflect your character's callous mental state.
Well, one way they could do this would be to stop giving you quests or any type of side quest where anyone asks you for help. If you're really a well known tyrant even bad guys shouldn't be asking you to help them.
If you act like a power hungry megalomaniac, the game would start showing/describing other characters as being smaller and more insignificant. The plea of others become more muted while praise heaped at your feet become more salient. If you went around slaughtering and stealing, then you could be desensitized to violence and suffering. Dialogue and descriptions concerning pain and suffer can be worded differently to either be far less detailed or emphasize the glory and macabre beauty in death and destruction to reflect your character's callous mental state.
Well, one way they could do this would be to stop giving you quests or any type of side quest where anyone asks you for help. If you're really a well known tyrant even bad guys shouldn't be asking you to help them.
Alternatively, they could give you an option to beat the shit out of insignificant mooks who run up to you and beg you to find their prized rusty warbleripper they lost while out warbling rippers, which is a piece of shit but has been in the family for generations.
Yeah, maybe that guy won't know who you are and why he shouldn't ask something so stupid, but after you burn down a village or two, you should stop getting the fantasy equivalent of spam email in your inbox.
There really shouldn't be good or evil morality scales at all. There should be decisions and the consequences of those decisions. The player can determine whether what he is doing is good or evil.
If he helps the widow and her orphanage then other towns people might ask him to help with their stuff and open up to him. Let's say he did it for free then they may expect him to do things for them for free and will become offended if he asks for payment. The player, however, may have ulterior motives for getting in good with the towns people. Maybe their hiding something he wants and earning their trust will reveal it to him. When he finds it he arranges a known troublemaker to take the fall instead.
Now as far as the townspeople are concerned the PC came into to town and did a bunch of good deeds. He even apprehended a known criminal, even though he was unfortunately "unable" to find where the perpetrator hid his loot (on another subject does anyone know where the PC can rent a large cart?) . Most games with morality scales are not going to be able to parse that. They just total up all your good deeds and total up your bad deeds and fart out a number. A number that probably will be an inaccurate reflection of the characters chosen personality. That number only really means anything to a player because he is forced to manipulate it to get the results he desires. It basically becomes a to do list that has little to do with "roleplaying."
So I hope Obsidian goes the way of decision and consequence rather than a Bioware style morality slider.
The next Obsidian game is going to be about a retired thief who is hired by a bunch of archeologists to recover an artifact. Little does he know that his journey ends up in space where he, after numerous adventures, gets sucked into another dimension onto an alternate earth where he lives out the rest of his days in a steampunk society.
I'm kind of interested to see how the next set of big video game kickstarters go. In particular, I wonder if people will ask for more money and promise less.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
I dunno about an estimate for more gameplay footage, but if you're dying I think you should see a doctor rather than hoping to see more of this game before you pass away.
I'm pretty sure I wore slacks, a long sleeve shirt, took a notepad, and got on the bus and made it there 45 minutes early. The receptionist had me wait in the lobby for awhile while the Producer and Lead Tester came back from lunch. They introduced themselves and took me to the Producer's office, where they asked me about my resume, how it was working at Crave, and what kind of games I played. My interview at Crave (or lack thereof) was different, but this had to have been the strangest one I've ever been in. I'm never been so comfortable in an interview, just essentially shooting the shit, talking about games.
Our first task? Build our own chairs. The QA team was so new that we didn't even have chairs made. It was pretty darn strange, but kind of a nice, family-type feel. I knew this was going to be different.
The coffee was in main lounge, so I went to get some, but I couldn't figure out how the newfangled machine worked. A man came out of his office right in the lounge and offered to help. He introduced himself as Feargus Urquhart, the CEO of the company. He already knew my name, and mentioned to me that I was currently the youngest person at the company. I was blown away. I still don't think I know who the owners of Crave were, and yet here I was on my first day at Obsidian and I meet the CEO and he knows about me? It was then that I decided that I wanted to be at this place for awhile, and that I would do what I can to work hard for these folks to ensure their games were as Quality Assured as I could make it. I thanked Feargus and headed back to my office. I went up to my lead later that day and told him that I planned on staying here. He gave me a strange look, but I didn't care. I wanted him to know that I was going to work hard to stay here.
Update by Eric Fenstermaker, Lead Narrative Designer
Undead abound in Heritage Hill.
Hey everybody. I'm Eric Fenstermaker and I'm the lead narrative designer on Pillars of Eternity. Before this I held the same position on South Park: The Stick of Truth, so if the dialogue in Eternity ends up being a long string of obscenities and fart jokes, you know who to blame. You can direct all hate mail to my work email account, brandon.adler@obsidian.net.
I know we suggested last week that I was going to give you a lore update, but I thought, this is a crowdfunded project. Why not completely fail to deliver on what was promised and instead give our backers something no one asked for?
I have three things for you today - the first is a look at what my daily experience is like, then I'm going to talk a bit about some high-level goals we have for writing our companion characters, and finally I might just have some lore about Eternity's undead.
On the next episode of Pillars of Eternity: Josh Sawyer writes a class update about wizards and druids, and Adam meets a wacky goblin neighbor only he can see!
But what to talk about first? Being a narcissist, the answer is obvious.
What It Is Like to Be Me
Today has been busy and varied. I thought it might be interesting to take you through a typical day as a narrative lead person. I will tell it in second person so it feels like virtual reality. Most of this is somewhat based on real events - at least as much as American Hustle.
10:05 AM
You arrive at work. Take serpentine route to your desk to avoid being seen by anyone who would frown upon your five minutes' tardiness. End up accidentally passing all of them in the hallway anyway. Pass subordinate in hallway too. Shake your head at him to note disapproval of his tardiness.
10:10 AM - 10:25 AM
Watch internet video of intro to Japanese wrestling match featuring life-sized animatronic raptor. Dream of making it big as a game designer and having a raptor of your own. Someday...
10:25 AM
Deny your subordinate's purchase request for an ergonomic keyboard to help with her carpal tunnel. That is what stem cells are for. Back to work, slave.
10:30 AM- 11:30 AM
Brainstorming meeting: What kind of monsters can we reasonably use in an urban docks district along the shoreline that somehow have not worked the surrounding populace into a panic? Proposals: invisible giant crabs, giants with poor height genes from both parents, low-key mummies.
11:30 AM
Reminded for seventh time about backer update, which you knew about but have been deliberately putting off. Chastise producer for not reminding you enough.
11:50 AM - 12:00 AM
Called in to review cutscene animatic. Despite the storyboard being delivered exactly as asked for, you berate the storyboard artist to consolidate power. This is garbage, GARBAGE!
12:00 PM
Lunch alone at office desk, like every day.
So alone.
12:10 PM - 1:00 PM
Spend the rest of lunch on Facebook and Twitter making it look like you have the perfect life and everybody loves you.
1:00 PM - ??
Intermittent raptor daydreams.
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Work with narrative designer on the design for a new companion centered exclusively on maximizing companion's potential to be spun off into a line of toys. Huge adorable eyes, soft plush fur, impressive physique, ability to transform into racecar, check, check, check and check.
2:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Passing off subordinates' ideas as your own. Crushing their spirit.
4:30 PM - 5:00 PM
Brainstorm barbarian clan names.
The Large and in Charge Clan
Clan Pizzaface
The One-Man Clan
The Passive-Aggressors
The Doughmen
5:00 PM -7:00 PM
Annoy backers.
In Summary
I may have taken a few liberties, but some of that is really a snapshot as to what my role is.
Day-to-day, I spend a fair amount of time coordinating the efforts of narrative designers with level designers, so for example I really did have a meeting this morning to figure out how on Earth we could have a quest with some monster combat in a populated, more-or-less oblivious urban district without the monsters there feeling absurdly out of place. The game needs to be fun, first and foremost, with or without a story. It's ultimately my responsibility to make sure that the fun things our designers come up with have a cohesive narrative wrapped around them. Sometimes it's an easy fit, sometimes it's a puzzle to be solved. Fortunately I am backed up by some very talented designers whose ideas I can steal liberally - that part was all true, too.
It's also on me to try and make sure the story is being told properly in-game, so there was in fact a meeting with a storyboard artist to look through one of our game's introductory cutscenes. Our concept artists' stick figures look better than the most realistic human portrait I could ever draw.
And I have to curate lore, though that's a responsibility I share with Josh Sawyer, our project lead. In general I prefer this to be a decentralized process where designers come up with things that make their quests and areas and subplots cool, and then we find ways together to work them into the overall scheme. But there was also a good amount of up-front central planning, dating back to before I was on the project. In this case, today I did have a long conversation with a couple of our level guys about the names and personalities of a set of barbarian-ish tribes.
Skeletons...
What's missing from the above is that on some days, when I am fortunate, I get to do some writing for the project, which is really fun. If you are a narrative lead you get to claim all the choicest dialogues for yourself. It's a great privilege, which is one reason why so many narrative leads are murdered by the narrative designer who is next-in-line.
So Alone
Companions may be my favorite things about RPGs. Long after you've finished the game, looking back, if they're done well, they feel like old friends. Lately we have been ramping up our companion writing. (We really did have a discussion about one of those designs today, and did some iteration on it.) As such, I've been giving a lot of thought of late as to what our goals should be in creating the companions for Pillars of Eternity, and I thought they'd be worth sharing with the people we're designing them for. These are a few of the benchmarks I want us to try to hit:
Interactively Dynamic
It's common in most types of fiction for major characters (or the protagonist at the very least) to follow an arc, in which their character begins a certain way and ends up being changed by the events of the story, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. But for a video game, that's not really taking advantage of the medium. This is a story about the player's character, told by the player's actions. It stands to reason that the ways in which a companion would change should be dependent on what the player does.
So we have an arc for each of our companions, but each arc has multiple potential endpoints, in just the same way that the plot has multiple endings. Which endpoint the arc ends up at will be, in one way or another, determined by what the player does - whether it's something they say or an action they take or some other choice they make. This was an approach we last took in Fallout: New Vegas and I thought it was something to definitely keep.
Unique, Varied, Relatable Ambassadors
Chris Avellone touched on this in a previous update, and it remains a core goal for us. Pillars of Eternity takes place in a brand new setting. Most players won't know their boreal dwarf chanters from their hearth orlan ciphers. Getting to know companions that run the gamut of races, classes, and cultures will help the setting come alive and hopefully become a place players will find themselves wanting to stay awhile. Each companion, in a sense, becomes an ambassador for his or her race, culture, and class.
And we only have so many companions. So they can't all be snarky elves (or can they?) - they need different characterizations, different voices, different struggles. As a designer, you never know what's going to strike a nerve with a given player. Rarely for our games is there a universal favorite companion - almost always there seems to be an even distribution for how many players like each character. In some ways that's maddening, because how do you adjust for that, but it's also one of the best things about writing companions - as long as you write a character that is authentic in its humanity, somewhere, somebody is going to identify with it, and that will be the character they enjoyed spending time with the most. By varying widely the particulars of each companion's persona and struggles, the hope is that while not everybody will necessarily love every companion, most will find at least one that means something to them.
Lanterns to the Themes
"Why should the player care?" is a question we try to ask ourselves for all aspects of the narrative. When it comes to plot, the question is answered by its themes - they make the plot about something more than a physical struggle.
But again, our narrative is interactive. The themes shouldn't be predetermined morals. There should be many facets to them, and it should fall to the player, not the designer, to decide what his or her perspective winds up being on the theme. To take a well-worn example, if the theme is about the struggle of good vs. evil (don't worry, it's not), the ending shouldn't simply assert that good always triumphs over evil. It should ask the player what he or she believes, given everything they've learned on their journey. Maybe they even surprise themselves with their choice.
That's where companions come in. If we're designing them well, their struggles should tie into the themes on some level. And the resolution they come to, which, because of the interactive dynamism discussed above, is influenced by the player, gives them a distinct perspective on the theme. The goal is that in the process of helping the companions resolve their conflicts, we give the player something to think about for what that might mean in the context of his or her own character, and in the long run, that gives the themes personal meaning when it comes time to resolve them for the player character.
I'd be interested to hear, what do all of you think? Not so much specific characterizations, but more, what are the abstract qualities that make you enjoy and remember a companion? (e.g. They made you laugh, they seemed like a real person, their quest was engrossing, etc.)
Here, Have Some Lore
Compensation for being subjected to the rest of this update.
All my best ideas are stolen. This one I ripped off from our lead level designer, Bobby Null. It is about the undead.
Male and female darguls.
One of the strengths of the Eternity setting, in my opinion, is its ability to put a new spin on the familiar. Let's be honest, you've seen undead before in a video game or two. I bet you've had a virtual conflict with a skeleton or perhaps even a zombie. But no matter how many times we see them, they're fantasy RPG staples - it'd be weird not to have them, and many people would really miss them were they omitted.
So we did some thinking as to how we could have undead but have them be our own special brand of undead that makes sense in this world.
This is How Undead Work
Let's say you are a wealthy noble who would like to cheat death. There are a variety of options at your disposal, but this offer from a shady animancer sounds the most painless. All he is going to do is bind your soul to your body, so that way when you die, your soul stays put and you still retain all your motor control.
Sign me up, you say. Suck on this, death! The animancer sets up some bizarre tools and machines, has you hold onto some copper wires, and before you know it the whole thing is over. He leaves and takes his fee. A few years later you die in a horrific skiing accident. Not to worry! Your soul isn't going anywhere. You are living large, my friend. But here's the thing. Your soul isn't going anywhere, but your body is. It starts to decompose. Slowly at first. A maggot here, a maggot there. And you are starting to get weird cravings, kind of like a pregnant woman, but instead of peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches, you could really go for some human flesh.
So you eat some guys. And lo and behold, the decomposition stops! You're cured! Except that after a while, you start to rot again. Over time, you find that eating folks and absorbing the essence from their flesh is the only way to stop decomposition. But after a while you run out of neighbor kids and it gets harder and harder to track down a meal. Flesh is dropping off in chunks. And it feels like your IQ has fallen a few points, like that time you used to live next to that industrial solvent factory. In time, your mind goes as well as your body. You become feral, then near-vegetative, then purely mechanical - your body nothing more than a fleshless marionette.
Revenant bestiary concepts.
What you have just done is experienced the full continuum of undeath. Corporeal undead in this world all suffer from the same malady, and are merely in different stages of decomposition. How do you get this condition? It's usually something that you would get by commissioning an unscrupulous animancer to help you live forever, or by volunteering for a "harmless clinical trial." These ladies and gentlemen have been studying a certain banned piece of literature known as the Theorems of Padgram and are trying to develop a true path to immortality. But there are supposedly other ways - certain alchemical tinctures, ancient architecturally-embedded machinery, self-pleasure (according to some disapproving Dyrwoodan moms), etc.
You start as a fampyr. (And these names are not different-for-the-sake-of-different - they're just following location-appropriate linguistic rules.) By appearances, you're basically a normal person who is going through a bit of a cannibal phase.
Allow yourself to decompose for a while, and you start to lose control of your urges, and your memory begins to slip away. Your self-consciousness is flimsy. You are now what's called a dargul.
Much more decomposition, and you become bestial. Your hair is gone (if it wasn't already), the flesh sags on your bones, and you live only to feed your hunger. You are a gul, but you don't give it much thought at this point. You just think you are hungry.
Then your mind gets really pretty thoroughly rotted, like what happens if you play a lot of FPSes, and you're only running at the basest level of instinct. You have no memory. You, my friend, are a revenant, and you are not very fun at parties.
After the last bit of flesh falls away, and the last mildly complicated neural synaptic path fires for the final time, you're running on pure reflex. You're not even hungry anymore (no stomach!). Your body is a murderous automaton. You are a skeleton, and your next step is dust.
Lastly
It's a fun time for the project. Amazing new level art and some of what I think are our best quests yet are being added every day, and I'm very excited for what's ahead. I personally want to express my appreciation for the thing all of you made happen by backing us, and I want to do everything I can to make sure you guys are suitably rewarded for your efforts.
Thanks for reading and don't forget to fill out your backer surveys. Those of you who have surveys will find them on your account page on the backer portal under the Surveys tab. You have until March 31st before they become as worthless as that Myspace page I had in college with all the animated gifs on it, so get those suckers in. Huge thanks to those who've filled theirs out - the team is already putting that content into the game and it's coming out pretty slick.
Last Lastly... reddit /r/Games AMA
Hey, everyone. This is Brandon. One last note, the Eternity team will be taking part in a reddit AMA in /r/Games. This is scheduled for today at 5:30 PM PST, so be on the lookout.
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Dr. ChaosPost nuclear nuisanceRegistered Userregular
People always bring up the rats but skeletons will always be my favorite generic RPG enemy.
OK, in the AMA Tim Cain said that he worked on a game in the '90s that was so bad he had his name removed from the credits. Now I want to know what it was! @C2B go!
Want to find me on a gaming service? I'm SwashbucklerXX everywhere.
When will this prejudice against the undead end? For too long have the undead been treated as second class citizens, used as slave labor and cannon fodders, denied unions, victimized by predatory lenders who take advantage of their immortality to get them into debt for eternity.
Posts
But like, in the Banner Saga I think they did a solid job of making the decisions reasonably opaque to a human being playing the game and not just checking a FAQ. There were situations where I thought "well, I could rob these people for supplies, but not only do I not want to be that sort of a person, but there's a chance that I'll end up with even more people injured and that'd be awful before a fight". It's possible that in those situations "strong arm farmers" would lead to a -10 clansmen and a +10 supplies, and really wind up being the more profitable decision, but you know whatever it's Role-playing and it's betting on an outcome and making a hard choice.
The idea that all decisions should be equally balanced in retrospect is just a silly idea. If every choice results in a mathematically even outcome why am I doing anything but flipping a coin? There has to be some sort of tension.
While I think New Vegas is an overall better game than Fallout 3, I enjoyed being bad in the latter more. I didn't want to be the guy that made harsh reasonable choices, I wanted to be THE bad guy.
Nuking Megaton, burning Harold, drinking the tears of the wasteland, etc.
Oh, I agree totally. Its one of the things I really like about banner saga or king of dragon pass.
I am just saying that that has been one of the most common complaints for banner saga and I think that you would get the same in any game you tried to do something similar. People expect that when you return the wallet you get a 100 dollar sword for being some brave and honest or, more likely, a 1000 dollar sword. Thats why most games either make the differences trivial or nothing at all gameplay wise.
There's an answer: Mo' money, mo' problems. And not just, "people attack you on sight". (Yay! More XP!). Things like people not wanting to work with you, the law being a tangible force, etc.
Steam: BrocksMullet http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197972421669/
3DS FC: 5086-1134-6451
Shiny Code: 3837
The "good" or selfless path usually gives you jack shit, but occasionally pays off. You pay off some dude's debt and you're out 5,000 gold. But, he let's your party crash at his place whenever you're in the area.
Essentially you make it so you aren't ever really sure what an outcome might be, you take actions based on the context of the situation and the type of character(s) you're playing. Of course, that would eventually get power-gamed with FAQs.... unless... maybe some consequences are randomly determined? Hmmmm.
Nope. Remember the Kickstarter party video?
3DS FC: 5086-1134-6451
Shiny Code: 3837
There are also a lot of little things that they can do like have your character manipulate things in more subtle ways like using more euphemisms and deceptive rhetoric. It would be cool if your character's name can become infamous and other characters started using them in other ways, maybe as insults or having things named after your character. It would be fun to see a very strong ale or a vicious combat maneuver named after your character.
Also, even though it would take a ton of extra work, it would be cool if making "evil" decisions affected your character's perception.
If you act like a power hungry megalomaniac, the game would start showing/describing other characters as being smaller and more insignificant. The plea of others become more muted while praise heaped at your feet become more salient. If you went around slaughtering and stealing, then you could be desensitized to violence and suffering. Dialogue and descriptions concerning pain and suffer can be worded differently to either be far less detailed or emphasize the glory and macabre beauty in death and destruction to reflect your character's callous mental state.
Again, I'm hoping that the new Torment game does something like that.
No. Refresh my memory? I only got some pics I went to collect from 4chan.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
http://www.pcgamesn.com/project-eternity-kickstarter-closes-3986929-obsidian-celebrate-dancing-and-inflatable-unicorn-urquhart-everybody-here-just-extremely-ecstatic
Well, one way they could do this would be to stop giving you quests or any type of side quest where anyone asks you for help. If you're really a well known tyrant even bad guys shouldn't be asking you to help them.
3DS FC: 5086-1134-6451
Shiny Code: 3837
Alternatively, they could give you an option to beat the shit out of insignificant mooks who run up to you and beg you to find their prized rusty warbleripper they lost while out warbling rippers, which is a piece of shit but has been in the family for generations.
Yeah, maybe that guy won't know who you are and why he shouldn't ask something so stupid, but after you burn down a village or two, you should stop getting the fantasy equivalent of spam email in your inbox.
If he helps the widow and her orphanage then other towns people might ask him to help with their stuff and open up to him. Let's say he did it for free then they may expect him to do things for them for free and will become offended if he asks for payment. The player, however, may have ulterior motives for getting in good with the towns people. Maybe their hiding something he wants and earning their trust will reveal it to him. When he finds it he arranges a known troublemaker to take the fall instead.
Now as far as the townspeople are concerned the PC came into to town and did a bunch of good deeds. He even apprehended a known criminal, even though he was unfortunately "unable" to find where the perpetrator hid his loot (on another subject does anyone know where the PC can rent a large cart?) . Most games with morality scales are not going to be able to parse that. They just total up all your good deeds and total up your bad deeds and fart out a number. A number that probably will be an inaccurate reflection of the characters chosen personality. That number only really means anything to a player because he is forced to manipulate it to get the results he desires. It basically becomes a to do list that has little to do with "roleplaying."
So I hope Obsidian goes the way of decision and consequence rather than a Bioware style morality slider.
The next Obsidian game is going to be about a retired thief who is hired by a bunch of archeologists to recover an artifact. Little does he know that his journey ends up in space where he, after numerous adventures, gets sucked into another dimension onto an alternate earth where he lives out the rest of his days in a steampunk society.
I'm eagerly awaiting Tim Cain's next masterpiece.
(That last sentence was 100% serious)
I wasn't kidding btw. It really looks like the next Kickstarter may be Tim Cain's baby.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
http://iamspiffer.blogspot.ch/2014/02/moving-loss-of-computer-and-reminiscing.html
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
AMA's are only going up when they are up. So still an hour and a half till it starts. I will post a link as soon as the AMA is up.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1yy4v7/we_are_obsidian_eternity_team_ask_us_anything/
AMA is still ongoing so head over there are pose your questions.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
Dustbusters!