Pacman - I''ve been playing it for a bit, and I don''t want to knock Warren Spector (maybe he didn''t have much influence on the design - i dunno) but I really think he''s taken a step backwards since his last project (System Shock) in terms of gameplay. It''s probably meant for more skilled players and I''m getting creamed on medium mode

I think he could''ve made some of the computer skills and stuff a bit more of an accesible solution to the problems that are faced in the game, I feel like I''ve wasted lots of points on those skills which just aren''t coming in handy, leaving me like a vulnerable duck in the MANY combat situations that I face. It''s good, but could be better. Plus I never have enough multi-tools (you''ll know what I mean when u play the game)

On the bonus side though, I''ve found that the plot and NPC interaction is really good, and I like the way there are lots of actrions and consequences, HOWEVER I feel that none of the actions and choices I make as a player have any big effect. I mean, getting reported for entering the women''s toilets was good fun and getting a little reprimand - but most of the big plot movements are totally out of control of the player and I feel like my character is guiding me thru the plot rather than me conciously choosing this plot.

By this I mean that Warren Spector has constructed a story line in which there are many points in the game where the character is confronted with a decision that could affect who/what/why he fights for whatever. But in every case where this occurs it''s the character that makes the choice, not the player. This is kinda frustrating in some ways because you often get shoved into really **** situations by your character because he makes a choice you wouldn''t have. What''s more is the player has no effect on the character''s mindset, which can be a little annoying because the character leads the conversations alot and you may get a few choices here and there as to what you want to say.

Furthermore, when you are given a choice between more than "Yes" and "no" the different "maybe''s" tend to lead in the same direction, so if you are trying to be discreet, most likely you''ll end up pissing a guy off anyway and just might as well have mouthed off at him for some extra fun.

I don''t really have anything else to say about it at the moment - I think I need to play it a bit more and see if I can find some positive sides to the game.

Reloading the gun is an absolute bitch too, especially in the many situations where a player that is trying to use computers and business to get to the root of a problem is confronted with a combat situation in swhich he in so impaired it''s just stupid. If you don''t have enough specific type gun skills it takes more time to reload your gun than to shoot off the clip.

That''s it - I''m going to stop, I respect Warren too much, I''ll have to play the game more and come up with some good stuff.

Paul, I think that it is possible, and to me, that too would be a great game. It''ll be tough to find the balance, though. I think that the way to do it would be to make the powermaxers role play to get their "goals".

Maitrek, it sounds like it''s suffering from the "must-kill-everything" problem so many "look at all the options you have" games have. I hate that. "Oh look at all these choices, wow, I could cuss the guy out, tell him I''m his bitch, or just walk away." But, you know what: IT DOESN''T MATTER!!! No matter what you choose, the same thing happens. I HATE that! I''m playing the game, not my char, so let me PLAY it!

Ahem.... excuse me. I think I should stop now, maybe lie down...relax...breath.....

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"What's the story with your face, son?!?"

wow.

There''s a lot of stuff in this thread. I wish I had stumbled on it about a month ago as opposed to just now so that I wouldn''t have just spend hours upon hours reading this stuff (my eyeballs hurt). If any of this is incoherent, it''s 4:30 AM.... gimme a bit of a break. ^_^

I really don''t know where to begin with all the stuff I want to say. I guess I''ll start with my opinions on stats, attributes, skills, and experience, because that''s what most of this thread seems to be about.

But first I''d like to define what I''m going to define some terms (for my post only). Attributes: General measures of a character''s ability. Skills: Measure of a character''s ability to perform a task. Experience: Some measure of how much the character has developed. Stats: The collective term for all of the above.

Now, on with the good stuff. How prevalent stats are in a game should be defined by the atmosphere you want to create in a game. Remove all stats, and you have an adventure or action game (actions are the only thing that determine results). If you want to foster role-playing in a game, obscuring stats seems like a good idea. Of course, there would have to be some internal numbering, or something... but the player doesn''t have to know about that. Giving the stats as numbers only directs players in the "gotta have bigger numbers" direction. Heck, even I, a seasoned role-player, succumb to the "only 300 XP to go before another level" feeling. The problem with obscuring stats is you need to give your players some idea of how their character is improving, or else they''ll just get frustrated. One idea I thought of whilst reading this thread is to have certain people who can report on your progress. "My Jake, your sword skills have certainly improved since the last time we practiced together! Good work!" or "*sexy female voice* Well hello there Jake... you''re looking tougher every time I see you." Any way you cut it though, if the player doesn''t know how their character is doing... they''ll stop playing.

The second quandary that has arisen here is the issue of how to reward characters for actions. I''m going to pull a page out of the book of NetHack here (there''s an oldie but goodie). In NetHack, the only way to improve your attributes was to excersise them. If you pushed enough boulders around, sure enough, your strength went up. This idea could be applied to skills and attributes alike. The more you excersice a skill or sttribute, the better you get. If you stop doing something, you gradually lose the ability to do it. If you wanted to bring some psychology into this, you could use learning and re-learning curves. They''re well documented, and suited to the purpose quite well I would think. Training under a teacher could speed up the process, or allow you to overcome a "celing" on a skill you may have encountered. With this system, there doesn''t need to be any "experience", per say, just constant improving and degrading of attributes and skills. If you wanted to award for completing part of a story, you could apply a blanket increase to all stats. As a side note, the Intelligence att. could be applied here to determine how quickly you learn.

Third, someone a ways up mentioned the ancient problem of "player knowledge vs. character knowledge". In AD&D for example, as a DM I can''t use monsters from the Monstrous Compendium anymore, because everyone knows all of their stats and weaknesses already. And even though my players know that their characters don''t know that trolls are vulnerable to fire, even the really good role-players will burn them anyways. What can we do about this evil phenomenon? Not a whole hell of a lot. Once a play knows something, their character knows it too. You gotta keep that in mind when working with RPGs of any kind.

Fourth, why do we need combat? Well... uh... we don''t. I''ve both run and played in a number of tabletop RPG games where there has been minimal combat... sometimes none. But on the computer what combat does is keep the action coming. Even with the best story in the world, you need action, and action that the player can influence. What better whay to do that than combat? Removing combat would make a game slow... relegating to the land of the adventure game. But reducing combat, and providing story in it''s place, is not a bad idea. One example that comes to mind of a adventure/RPG crossover is Quest for Glory by Sierra. It was a great blend of the two genres. Took the best of both worlds, so to speak. It''s not really a very specific example, closer to taking an adventure game and adding RPG bits to it... but the idea is the same.

Well... I think that ''bout exausts my brain for now.

It''s 4:50AM. I''m going to bed.

quote: Original post by egerlach

Third, someone a ways up mentioned the ancient problem of "player knowledge vs. character knowledge".
...
Once a player knows something, their character knows it too. You gotta keep that in mind when working with RPGs of any kind.

Very good point there, and nicely lifted out of this long discussion! I don''t think we had really covered this ground in much detail yet, so I''ll comment about it now.

I see two possible solutions to the problem:

1. Limiting Character Knowledge through your game logic. If the character does not know about something, they cannot use that information. This is not so easy to do, but not impossible. It''s also kinda frustrating:
   
   > burn troll
   You cannot perform this action, this knowledge is not available to you.
   
   
2. Letting Player Knowledge == Character Knowledge. Instead of trying to guide and limit the player, work with the player. This can be very hard, and very unrealistic. The player can always burn the troll. It could also potentially limit players to their own ability - unless you also provide a mechanism by which the "character" automatically supplies the "player" with knowledge.
   

Give me one more medicated peaceful moment.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~
ERROR: Your beta-version of Life1.0 has expired. Please upgrade to the full version. All important social functions will be disabled from now on.

Controlling character knowledge was extremly difficult to hand in the table top days as i remember. You really had to rely on the players desire to role play. It''s very much a problem that only rose its ugly head when powermaxers come into the scene.

One option is to make character knowledge an automatic function ingame. ie fire hurts troll is knowledge but the player cannot use fire. it''s an automatic thing that the character does if he or she has this knowledge. Well thats my brain racked on the issue for now.

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

Knowledge bases are the next step for NPC''s and games. To make a character in your game more believable, there needs to be some form of remembering what happens by the creatures that the player fights. That way as the player adopts to the fighting paterns of his[/her] foe, the foe also adopts itself to the players technique. This will mean that eventually a balance will be struck, but a lot of combinations may need to be tried to get there. This also means that if Powermaxers do their deed on strength, but a goblin learns to use lightning, then all the goblins will fry the powermaxxer right out of his seat! (wishfull thinking maybe ).

On a different note here, I was thinking about magic casting and wondering if my freaky idea is really feasable. I suggest that for some spells (we are going to keep a quick cast for those unfortunates who cant do without ) I would like for the player to ''draw'' certain [simplistic] symbols on the screen to summon a spell. This would mean that they are actually required to involk that spell rather than just click the buggery out of everything. Just a thought

I think thats the best I can do for now , must be breakfast time


-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
http://www.egroups.com/group/NPCAI/
made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)

A good way to prevent player knowledge from spoiling things is to randomize stuff. Like weaknesses, locations, etc. It might be a little harder to implement, but it''s very possible, and it would add to the replay value too.

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"What's the story with your face, son?!?"

I am also a late comer to this thread, though I am finding the discussions very interesting. There are some brilliant game designers out here.. I have the pleasure of being a bit of a programmer as well as stumbling down the game design path, so most of my design ideas are kept or discarded based on what I can feasibly code at the moment. (design ideas discarded in my circle are shelved on the "for the sequal..." folder)

As far as knowledge goes, if we are talking combat, my current battle design uses critcal hits and crippling blows (blows that render a body part unusable) based off of a skill system. The first time a character fights ''a goblin'' he/she will not be likely to score a crippling blow or even a critical hit. But over time of fighting many ''a goblin'' the character will learn the strengths and weaknesses of ''a goblin'' and will both attack and defend better against ''a goblin''. Thus yielding critical hits and crippling blows as well as a growing knowledge of the monster (i.e. weak against fire).

This has yet to be applied to a role-playing (story-line) perspective but it will make for some interesting fights, and make those long walks through the local dungeon a little easier near the end (as it rightfully should be).

If I misunderstood the latest topic on the thread, forgive me.. I didn''t have time to read it all..

Brian Cain

Sounds awfully like murder based experience to me . I intend to teach my PC not to kill arbitrarily... At least that will be a midpoint in the game... Ah Insanity, we can blame anything on you . (If you don't know what I am talking about then don't worry... neither do I )


-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
http://www.egroups.com/group/NPCAI/
made due to popular demand here at GDNet

Edited by - dwarfsoft on July 31, 2000 6:59:43 PM

Actually, the way it sounds to me is that if there is a secondary exp system (how many times you have fought a certain enemy), and the primary exp isn''t derived from this, then it''s not murder based exp. It''s learning your opponent.

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"What's the story with your face, son?!?"