Gaider on "Quality"

Saint_Proverbius said:

Role-Player said:

If this is regarding NWN's quality, Bioware had what? 3 to 4 frickin' years? 3 to 4 years is well enough. Morrowind was in development for about the same time, and still managed to present better content on many levels over NWN.

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Try five years for NWN. It was in production at interplay for four years, and another year at Infogrames.

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:shock: :shock: :shock: And i thought it was 3 to 4. Thanks for the info, Saint. Now THAT is what i call a waste of time and resources.

They weren't working full time on it, however, consideirng they were also working on the Bg series, and KOTOR during that time as well.

I missed this reply, so here goes!

Elvenshae said:

In the PnP world, roleplaying games are, almost by definition, multiplayer. Why, then, does it become an inherent contradiction when you insert the word "computer"? What about a multiplayer computer game makes it impossible for it to also be roleplaying?

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I think you know it does, since you seem to be excusing many of BioWare's issues with their games by the fact they have multiplayer. Why else would you even bring up multiplayer in to this, other than to use it as an excuse on why BioWare "CRPGs" lack role playing.. but they have multiplayer, so it's all good, right?

The main character dies at the hands of desert bandits, Vault 13 doesn't get its water chip in time, and its entire population dies. The End.

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If the main character kills the master, and destroys Mariposa, he doesn't have to get the water chip at all. Can you please tell me how to get through Chapter 3 of NWN without getting all three worldstones? How about getting through Chapter 1 without getting all the critter bits? Or Chapter 2 without getting all the journal bits?

Sarevok slays the Bhaalspawn PC, and presumably goes on to global/planar domination; the PC doesn't know, he's dead. The End. It *is* a possible ending, though not a generally accepted one.

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This is like saying that using hotkeys is a roleplaying feature. Dying isn't a role-playing option, it's a consequence of failure in combat or stepping on a trap.

Both of which(Fallout and Arcanum) were done in a much larger time frame with more people on the job (i.e., more dedicated man-months) and no source material to which the design teams had to stay true.

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You're joking, right? NWN had five years, and up to 75 people working on it. Fallout had three years, and about twenty people. Arcanum had three years, and even less people.

So one can come to the conclusion that more people and longer time in production does not equal higher quality.

Bios responses to complaints about NWN remind me of the ole standby alibi: I didn't see anything. I wasn't in town that day and if I was I wasn't there and if I was there I was asleep.

We didn't have enough time and if we did we had to successfully implement multiplayer and if that didn't work it's because we didn't have enough people and if we did have enough we were forced by execs to make changes..ad nauseum ad infintium

Saint_Proverbius said:

Jora said:

The main reason ToEE doesn't have multiplayer is that the Arcanum engine has some "fundamental flaws".

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You might have a point, except that ToEE isn't using Arcanum's engine.

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I'm quite sure it uses an improved version of Arcanum's engine. Read that thread again.

netlich: I apologise for reposting something that I am sure has been up on threads before but right now I am confused...
I read two posts stating that multiplayer has been squeezed in as on option of ToEE...
Is that true??? And if yes how is it going to be implemented?

smoret (troika): There is no way I'm letting multiplayer creep back into this codebase. I regret it being in Arcanum and am horribly sorry to all the fans who played it and got lagged out of games or desynched because animations weren't synching up.

There are fundimental flaws (that we have moved far away from as possible) in the Arcanum engine that make multiplayer a near impossibility to synchronize. While for the new codebase it isn't as big of a deal, there is neither the time, or the confidence that it will work in order to put it in.

For certain multiplayer will not be in ToEE. I also do not think it will be a feature added if we were to use this engine again on another project.

But stranger things have happened.

Why would (lead programmer) Moret talk about Arcanum's engine if ToEE didn't use it?

ToEE uses a bit of Arcanum's engine. But only a tiny piece of it. I'm not sure of the details, but I think it's the very foundations of the visual stuff: character and object placement and the like.

All the stuff I've read about ToEE suggests it's using a heavily upgraded version of the Arcanum engine. Of course, "heavily upgraded" also describes Crusader's engine in relation to its predecessor, Ultima VIII.

Tuvok, you must have missed all the times that BIO ahs criticed various aspects of their game. It saddens me that otherwise smart people like to ignore half the story in a lame attempt to prove something that isn't even true.

Volourn said:

Tuvok, you must have missed all the times that BIO ahs criticed various aspects of their game. It saddens me that otherwise smart people like to ignore half the story in a lame attempt to prove something that isn't even true.

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I'm going to be honest here, i've never seen Bioware state, comment or criticized, parts (or whole portions) of their games. What i DID see, however, was them complaining about production of X game was hard, or how they could not insert what they wanted because of time, etc., but never being too specific, which doesn't help in recognizing the admitance of their mistakes.

Dave Gaider has repeatedly said he wished he could have made the NWN npcs have deeper, and more dyanmic quests instead of just the fetch an item quest and tella story type they had in the original NWN.

Various BIowarians have also stated, quite publicly, they regret having all the loot just lying on the ground to be scooped up. This is why they made a concious effort to avoid that in SOU. For the most aprt they succeeded in that goal - at leats until ch2 which fell back into the trap.

The one who made ch2 of SOU has also admitted that that ch2 of SOU wans't as good as it could have been.

So, yes, they have criticized their work.

Volourn said:

Tuvok, you must have missed all the times that BIO ahs criticed various aspects of their game. It saddens me that otherwise smart people like to ignore half the story in a lame attempt to prove something that isn't even true.

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I didn't miss them, I am merely refering to the arguments (or excuses if you prefer) put forth in this thread:
Multiplayer and branching story paths don't work = multiplayer is to blame
Arcanum and Fo had more time and people = we had neither enough time nor people
Atari and Infogrames often enforce time/content strictures = execs told us what to do and by when.

I would hope that a company is willing to admit that their product is not sheer perfection - few are. My problem is the assignment of responsiblity for those flaws. Mind you, I ddin't even dislike NWN all that much nor the BG series, not as deep CRPGs but I had fun with them. It is Bio's attitude about their games and the flaws therein that rubs me the wrong way.

Volourn said:

Dave Gaider has repeatedly said he wished he could have made the NWN npcs have deeper, and more dyanmic quests instead of just the fetch an item quest and tella story type they had in the original NWN.

Various BIowarians have also stated, quite publicly, they regret having all the loot just lying on the ground to be scooped up. This is why they made a concious effort to avoid that in SOU. For the most aprt they succeeded in that goal - at leats until ch2 which fell back into the trap.

The one who made ch2 of SOU has also admitted that that ch2 of SOU wans't as good as it could have been.

So, yes, they have criticized their work.

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Even then, that's put to waste by their inability to remedy it. Also, the fact NWNs is not their first game leads me to wonder how Gaider claims he wished he could've done something better, when designing said things like quests come from the ground up, not in the middle of the game production. He may regret that with the henchmen/women, but that's his fault - both for not thinking of something better before, and for not correcting it.

bioware isn't a victim. If someone buys a product and it's a piece of shit but the people who made it didn't have enough time it isn't a good excuse. It's like ordering a pizza and the pizza-boy delivers you some dough and cheese. If a professional games company has 5 years to make a game and 75 people working on it, why not have multiple paths and endings? Morrowind had 5 years dev time and that's pretty non-linear, why can't bioware make a game similair to that?

And if a member of staff points out that the people who play his games
1) only play it once
2) only have the attention span of 3 hours
well the fans seem like add kids with too much money. And if a game lasts 3 hours you could at least make it pretty and add 10 minute fmv sequences every 5 minutes to try and balance it out.

Volourn said:

Dave Gaider has repeatedly said he wished he could have made the NWN npcs have deeper, and more dyanmic quests instead of just the fetch an item quest and tella story type they had in the original NWN.

Various BIowarians have also stated, quite publicly, they regret having all the loot just lying on the ground to be scooped up. This is why they made a concious effort to avoid that in SOU. For the most aprt they succeeded in that goal - at leats until ch2 which fell back into the trap.

The one who made ch2 of SOU has also admitted that that ch2 of SOU wans't as good as it could have been.

So, yes, they have criticized their work.

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Oh, what awe-inspisiring humility. They're only owning up to the stupid shit that made NWN's OC worse than their previous games, which I rather liked as action/adventure games. They mention nothing of the total linearity. They say nothing of the piss-poor engine. They say nothing of the awful quest design. Hell, they won't even share the secret of how to give yourself a blowjob!

Spazmo said:

Hell, they won't even share the secret of how to give yourself a blowjob!

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I believe that would be achieved by removing your 2 lower ribs, not having arm bones, hugging yourself, and tumbleweeding trough a circular stairwell.

Cool. Thanks for the tip. 8)

Psilon said:

All the stuff I've read about ToEE suggests it's using a heavily upgraded version of the Arcanum engine. Of course, "heavily upgraded" also describes Crusader's engine in relation to its predecessor, Ultima VIII.

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Nope, they just use datatypes from Arcanum, such as the item datatype. The gamestate and graphics engines are brand new. The graphics is obviously brand new considering Arcanum was a tiled engine with sprites, and ToEE is a bitmap engine with 3D models.

Volourn said:

Dave Gaider has repeatedly said he wished he could have made the NWN npcs have deeper, and more dyanmic quests instead of just the fetch an item quest and tella story type they had in the original NWN.

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Meanwhile, Gaider is the guy who said they couldn't do cloaks in NWN because BioWare never half-asses anything, and the reason they can't do deep plots with player choice outcome determined twists and turns because they don't have enough time to do things like that.

Hello again, everyone. Unlike some of you, I don't tend to visit internet message boards during the weekends. Hope you don't think you scared me off so easily!

EDIT: Here, I respond specifically to Jed. However, his points are mirrored in many different posts. Consider this a general reply in spirit, if not in fact.

XJEDX said:

PnP is inherently multiplayer, otherwise you're just reading a book or talking to yourself!

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I grant that. What I don't understand, however, is why there must be a distinction between the possiblility of roleplaying where the table, dice, and imagination are the media and the possibility of roleplaying where the computer, internet connection, and imagination are the media.

You (the general you) will, of course, raise the objection, "When I'm playing on a computer, it places limits on my imagination - I can't do everything and anything I could possibly want at any point in time."

This, of course, is not a limitation of a computer role-playing game, but is rather a limitation of *all* computer games - *AND* of PnP games when the DM and players are new to the system and the idea of roleplaying.

In Arcanum, it is not possible in the first mining town to set up shop, become a wool-importer, and eventually run for mayor; the game is not coded to allow this. And yet, no one here has any trouble speaking of the roleplaying possibilities that Arcanum brought to the computer. Why, then, this seeming inconsistency?

To whit, in PnP, all things are possible (or, at least, attempting them is possible). On the computer, currently, all things are not possible. More possibilities is an agreed-upon good thing; more is better, generally speaking. Arcanum and Fallout, which have many options in certain cases, are considered by the population of this board to have "sufficient options to be roleplaying games." NWN (out of the box), and, likely, BG and BGII, do not have "sufficient options to be roleplaying games."

Where, though, is the line? How many options - and what kind - are required to move from "not sufficient" to "sufficient"? Any halfway-honest logical examination must admit that the line itself is fairly arbitrary. Yes, 10 possible successful solutions to a single quest is probably enough to be considered by this board to be "sufficient." What about 9? 8? Is three enough? How about 2? What if there is a given quest that only has one possible successful solution - can you still roleplay while performing that quest?

Mediation. The same thing that happens when you insert a computer between any two or more people's interactions. Aftet all sex and cybersex aren't the same thing either, are they? CRPG multiplayer is unsatisfying because the first thing to go is interesting combat, next are the non-combat skills, next is the dynamic game world, followed quickly by the feeling of immersion and the realization that the neither the PC nor his choices have any effect on the game world, and finally without depth of setting or gameplay, you end up with a hollow hack-fest.

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Or so says your anecdotal, personal evidence. Have you ever used WebRPG? Have you ever done a PBE-mail campaign, or single adventure, even? Have you ever tried an NWN scheduled game on the Neverwinter Connections website?

Have you ever roleplayed a character on, heaven forbid, EverQuest or Ultima Online?

A game becomes a hollow hack-fest if and only if you play it in such a fashion.

Someone later in this thread mentioned that he doesn't whine when, in a late 21st century cyberpunk campaign, he can't play a spell-wielding dwarven cleric of Moradin, nor a juicer/hacker in Napoleonic France. In the exact same way, the rules coded into the game engine can make it easier or harder to do what you want (by opening up or limiting possible actions within the game world), but they in no way stop you from playing out a role.

I take that back. Multiplayer RPGs do allow you to play a role, one role: t3h l33t ub3r PC! w00t!!!!!!!!!11111234 LOL!!!11 OMG!!!11 KTXBYE1!!

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How cute - the AOLer defense! You have probably run into people of this sort, I imagine. I have, as well. I have also run into roleplayers who do not act like this. I do not judge a roleplaying system's merits based on the players' personalities. I doubt you really do, either, or you would hate all PnP players because of the stereotypical powergaming-12-year-old-munchkin-types.

Given that, how can you possibly consider a single-player game a roleplaying game? All the other "players" are sets of 1s and 0s on your computer, and have absolutely no personality whatsoever. They can't possibly react realistically to anything and everything you do. Also:

PnP is inherently multiplayer, otherwise you're just reading a book or talking to yourself!

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So, another human being responding to you through the intermediary of a multi-player program cannot be roleplaying, and yet, somehow, canned, programatic responses from bits of code *is*? How is that any different, at all, from a relatively complex choose-your-own-adventure book, which, you admit above, isn't roleplaying at all?

I can't even believe you're trying offer that as a serious point of argument. If dying is a satisfactory "completion" of a game to you, then no wonder you're so easily satisfied by Bioware's lukewarm products. When you go to parties do you also get razzed if they got potato chips?

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I'm not sure about the last question, but as to the rest... Failure, whether in small things or in great, should be a possible path in *any* RPG. I'm sure, at some point in PnP, you've been hired to escort someone or something from one point to another, be it princess or plutonium. If there is no chance whatsoever of failure - loss of the item, banditry, runaway princesses - then what is the point?

The death of the PC is the most easily visible form of failure. It must be, by definition, a possible solution to any quest, although admittedly not a very gratifying one.

If anything, CRPGs tend to err on the side of too many possible ways to complete a given task and not enough ways to productively fail it: you are unable to locate the artifact in time, the evil wizard gets it and completes his transformation to a lich, and now you have to deal with his newer, more powerful form, rather than ending the game when the wizard gets the artifact.

Elwro said:

Both of which were done in a much larger time frame with more people on the job (i.e., more dedicated man-months) and no source material to which the design teams had to stay true.

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Could you please specify, much longer time frame than what?

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'

My apologies, I should have been more specific. I am comparing both Arcanum and Fallout to ToEE.

Neither of the first two cases had any hard-and-fast source material to roger to. ToEE, on the other hand, does, and so any "alternate paths" they might wish to include, as well as how divergent the openings and endings can be, will be limited by this source material.

While I hope it isn't so, and that "true" multipathing for differently aligned parties is more robust, it is still within the realms of possibility that ToEE while have nine starting points, where the party is addressed by one of nine different power groups and sent off to Hommlet, where the story proceeds identically (or nearly identically) until the end, when one of nine power groups congratulates the characters on their performance.

In visual terms,

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This could possibly happen because the environment of the Temple is largely predetermined - the module itself tells what encounters happen where. How much Troika is willing - and able - to deviate from this pre-determined formula will determine how truly mutl-branching the story is.

Except that the Troika people have mentioned that there are quests based on party alignment...

So, for example, a LG party might get a quest to find some old widow's kid thats been captured by bandits, while a CE might get a quest to steal an artifact from the Church of St Cuthbert.
But, they wouldn't get the other party's quest...it simply wouldn't be an option for them. Mostly because old women don't ask favors of blood-stained maniacs.

Elvenshae said:

Where, though, is the line? How many options - and what kind - are required to move from "not sufficient" to "sufficient"? Any halfway-honest logical examination must admit that the line itself is fairly arbitrary. Yes, 10 possible successful solutions to a single quest is probably enough to be considered by this board to be "sufficient." What about 9? 8? Is three enough? How about 2? What if there is a given quest that only has one possible successful solution - can you still roleplay while performing that quest?

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Good question, Elvenshae, for there could be no "right" answer to that. Of course, any options in a computer rpg are pre-determined by designers and thus limited to their vision of a game. So if they think that you shouldn't buy that mine in Shrouded Hills, there is no way you could. Does that mean that the whole concept of CRPG is flawed? Not really, as long as there are choices and opportunities, no matter how many, to role-play your character. If I choose to play a certain character, while I may not be able to do everything "I" want and do it "my" way, as long as a game provides means of playing that character and offering opportunities to progress as that character, I'd call it a CRPG. Using my definition, you can clearly see why I consider Fallout and Arcanum RPGs, unlike BG2 and NWN. Here is a thread that provides more detailed opinions on BG2. http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1935

Given that, how can you possibly consider a single-player game a roleplaying game? All the other "players" are sets of 1s and 0s on your computer, and have absolutely no personality whatsoever. They can't possibly react realistically to anything and everything you do.

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Have you ever played Fallout or Geneforge? I don't thinbk you thought through this statement unless I misunderstood you.

Vault Dweller said:

Good question, Elvenshae, for there could be no "right" answer to that. Of course, any options in a computer rpg are pre-determined by designers and thus limited to their vision of a game. So if they think that you shouldn't buy that mine in Shrouded Hills, there is no way you could. Does that mean that the whole concept of CRPG is flawed? Not really, as long as there are choices and opportunities, no matter how many, to role-play your character. If I choose to play a certain character, while I may not be able to do everything "I" want and do it "my" way, as long as a game provides means of playing that character and offering opportunities to progress as that character, I'd call it a CRPG.

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I agree in spirit with your definition. The problem, however, is that we are still dealing with subjective lines: how much leeway is necessary in the programmed responses to player actions before an adventure game becomes a roleplaying game? And why can't a well-scripted multi-player game be considered roleplaying, though a well-scripted single-player game can?

Using my definition, you can clearly see why I consider Fallout and Arcanum RPGs, unlike BG2 and NWN. Here is a thread that provides more detailed opinions on BG2. http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1935

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Thanks - I'm checking that now.

Have you ever played Fallout or Geneforge? I don't thinbk you thought through this statement unless I misunderstood you.

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Have not played Geneforge, played and loved Fallout and Fallout 2. Jed specifically stated that something to the effect of "roleplaying by oneself, and claiming to actually be roleplaying, is silly - you're just talking to yourself or reading a book." In other words, some other human player is necessary. He allows single-player computer games to be role playing however, despite the fact that - at root - they are nothing more than particularly complex choose-your-own-adventure books.

In other words, PnP requires multi-player, but CRPGs cannot be multi-player. This seems, to me, to be a logical inconsistency.

Look, your point was that NWN is t3h bestest gaem evar! because it has multiplayer and that, including dying, there are "two" ways to complete the game. I'm not debating theory with you, I'm telling you in NWN there is no way to roleplay because in order to have your beloved multyplayar!, all depth of gameplay was sacrifced, leaving combat the only method of interacting in the world. So if your idea of deep roleplaying is being the guy who kills everything, then you win the argument and can crawl back to your cave. On the second point, if you're still insisting that having your character die is an option for finishing NWN, you are a moron.

Elvenshae said:

Hello again, everyone. Unlike some of you, I don't tend to visit internet message boards during the weekends. Hope you don't think you scared me off so easily!

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Not at all my good man.

I grant that. What I don't understand, however, is why there must be a distinction between the possiblility of roleplaying where the table, dice, and imagination are the media and the possibility of roleplaying where the computer, internet connection, and imagination are the media.

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There isn't one per se. However, one shouldn't base the limitations of the medium to an excuse as to its inability to improve. PnP is PnP, no way around it, and its the best roleplaying medium in existence. To an extent, live cosplay mixed with roleplay would also be. A computer, however, just because it cannot properly emulate PnP, shouldn't stick with the excuse of boring and non-descript roleplaying opportunities seen on every other attempt at a CRPG. How many times have we been asked to fetch something's head as prove it was slain? How many times have we had to save the damsel in distress? How many times have we been asked to save innocents from villains? Too many times. And yet, how many times can you say you were given a well-thought out, well structured and well presented way of roleplaying a villain, instead of just choosing "evil" dialogue lines and killing the occasional peasant? How many times can you say you went a step further and sold your family and friends into slavery, and were actually considered evil for doing so? How many times can you claim to have been able to spread rumours of underground resistance groups needing help? How many times can you claim to have been able to play a CRPG where the choices presented to you actually had an impact?

Certainly not as much as you were asked to help Joh Doe who got trapped in the cave; certainly not as much as being told to travel across the beautiful land of GenericMagickY'All and search for the 4 lovely artifacts of "teh d00m"; certainly not as much as being told you can choose to go either left or right but left or right will both end up in the same place; certainly not as many times as being asked to retrieve the mahvelous golden key which will open up a god-forsaken chest which has been in a god forsaken cave for thousands of years without anyone ever being able to open it.

Answer me this, are improvements upon the standardized roleplaying opportunities impossible to include? No. Would it help roleplaying in CRPGs that new types of quests, more relative to the game and more well designed to be included? Yes.

In Arcanum, it is not possible in the first mining town to set up shop, become a wool-importer, and eventually run for mayor; the game is not coded to allow this. And yet, no one here has any trouble speaking of the roleplaying possibilities that Arcanum brought to the computer. Why, then, this seeming inconsistency?

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Simple, because it provided significantly less boring options, and more interesting and varied opportunities of roleplay. Again, the excuse. CRPGs cannot copycat PnP as a medium - but because they can't copy, doesn't mean they should. In the event of an inability to run endless options for players to decide, give several which are compelling, diverse and meaningful to the gameworld and character in question. In that case, eventually running for mayor sounds interesting - but if there is an inability to do it, why revolve around the fact we are all aware of that it can't happen? Instead of having people try to defend a game's weaknesses and repetiveness because of hardware limitations, people should actually circumvent said limitations. We don't necessarily need AI behaving like human beings, we don't need 560 km of gameworld, we don't need to be able to micromanage every aspect of our character, and neither do we need to interact with everything there is in a gameworld - what we do need is, and i assume most people here think the same, that whatever result is given us, no matter how incomplete when compared to PnP, to be well executed, entertaining, and innovative. At least, that it be different from HeadEx quests.

In short, less comparisons with superior systems, and more work and dedication to what one can work with should be the rule.

To whit, in PnP, all things are possible (or, at least, attempting them is possible). On the computer, currently, all things are not possible. More possibilities is an agreed-upon good thing; more is better, generally speaking. Arcanum and Fallout, which have many options in certain cases, are considered by the population of this board to have "sufficient options to be roleplaying games." NWN (out of the box), and, likely, BG and BGII, do not have "sufficient options to be roleplaying games."

Where, though, is the line? How many options - and what kind - are required to move from "not sufficient" to "sufficient"? Any halfway-honest logical examination must admit that the line itself is fairly arbitrary. Yes, 10 possible successful solutions to a single quest is probably enough to be considered by this board to be "sufficient." What about 9? 8? Is three enough? How about 2? What if there is a given quest that only has one possible successful solution - can you still roleplay while performing that quest?

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"Halfway-honest"? Sure. Think of it like this. You're playing a CRPG that presents you with a situation for you to overcome. The situation in itself is not the issue, its HOW you can react to the issue. I don't pretty much care for the amount of ways i can handle a situation - they can be 2, they can be 12, they can be 34 ways. As long as they're interesting and flesh out the problem t hand. Roleplaying opportunities are first and foremost as priority, about the quality of said opportunities. Whats best to deal with an obstacle, 10 superficial lines which amount to only affecting it directly, or 5 that produce variations of solving the problem, like affecting it directly, circumventing it or bypassing it? When you come to a reluctant NPC that won't let you pass an entrance, what do you consider a better roleplaying opportunity? 1) To be given the choice to kill it, to bribe it, or to soothe it by giving it an obvious item that it wants?, or 2) To be given the choice to kill it, bribe it, soothe it, go around it and trying to find another passageway, influence it to let you pass, distract it so it'll leave its post, wait until dark to pass by when its asleep, or alter your physical aspect via magic so it'll let you pass?

Again, the example of CRPG limitation when compared to PnP. 50 different possible ways of dealing with a problem are nothing when compared to PnP, but are certainly more than the standard 8 which don't do anything different, nothing every other RPG hasn't showed it can also do. So there's no reason to not include more options to deal with problems, unless they have a meaning to the matter at hand. Its not a problem with amount in itself, its how that amount actually allows you to try different things, and how those things relate to the problem.

So here's the occasional jibe at Gaider: is it really that much better repeating formulaic, basic and reduced ways of solving quests in every game he does, or does he still speak from "personal experience" when he says there isn't a reason to include other ways of playing a game because some people don't play it that way? Hell, many people don't play RPGs - why does he make them? Many people don't care about D&D rules on videogames - why does Bioware include them? Its this kind of self-serving arrogance and flawed logic which irks me about his "work".

Someone later in this thread mentioned that he doesn't whine when, in a late 21st century cyberpunk campaign, he can't play a spell-wielding dwarven cleric of Moradin, nor a juicer/hacker in Napoleonic France. In the exact same way, the rules coded into the game engine can make it easier or harder to do what you want (by opening up or limiting possible actions within the game world), but they in no way stop you from playing out a role.

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Actually it appears to have been me who didn't whined but i think you misunderstood. What i was saying is that multiplayer online functionality doesn't autmatically make people play he game as it should be played. Hence, why i wrote that (and i quote myself), multiplayer only makes players "be there", not "make them act as if they were there".

I say you misunderstood because we were talking about multiplayer possibly breaking the barrier and making online RPGs simulate PnP, but you suddenly talk about the game's own rules. I didn't said the rules would make it easier or harder to play a game - what i said is that people will generally fail at playing the game, not because of its rules, but because multiplayer doesn't make gamers acts as if they were there.

Given that, how can you possibly consider a single-player game a roleplaying game? All the other "players" are sets of 1s and 0s on your computer, and have absolutely no personality whatsoever. They can't possibly react realistically to anything and everything you do. Also:

PnP is inherently multiplayer, otherwise you're just reading a book or talking to yourself!

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So, another human being responding to you through the intermediary of a multi-player program cannot be roleplaying, and yet, somehow, canned, programatic responses from bits of code *is*? How is that any different, at all, from a relatively complex choose-your-own-adventure book, which, you admit above, isn't roleplaying at all?

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I consider a single player game an RPG because it has things which make it so. A setting, a gameworld, NPCs, quests, characterization, customization, interactivity, etc.. Not 1 or two factors, but all combined. In fact, people in online-capable multiplayer don't necessarly act out in the best intent of the game. Imagine a MMOG with Strategy and RPG elements. How does it help the gameworld, the story or other gamers to see some dwarf hacking away at trees just to increase his Axe skill, all the while saying "Fuk off n00b"? There isn't cohesion.

The single most important aspect as to why a single player CRPG is better than a multiplayer one is the constant, uncompromised credibility of its gameworld and flow. I'd very much doubt if i'd find enjoyment in Arcanum or Fallout if i'd see an NPC prostitute struting her stuff, and some player called JimIzUrGOD saying "Ya biotch suk my wily!!" to the NPC prostitute (who, incidentally, won't answer him). Or a spellcasting mage, with a 17 INT going about "Wuts ur name?". Better yet, how would an online mutliplayer CRPG set in a Victorian era would feel, if, in a court ball, you'd have one of the oficials asking "A/S/L, dammit!!" to the court lady next to him?

The majority of games has a level of suspension of disbelief in them, but some things are too much. In a single player game, wheter its simply single-player or party based, its designed to work without outside influence, where things will make sense, where things will happen in a credible way as not to ruin entertainment or that afforementioned degree of suspension of disbelief. In multiplayer online games, its usually governed by a noticeable amount of chaos, and socializing, and playing for one's own benefit. Its the tradeoff, i guess - i can more easilly adapt to the loneliness of playing a CRPG alone, than adapting to the lack of a sense of roleplaying a MP game usually provides (or its players provide, i should say).

On an aside i don't stop considering an RPG as an RPG just because its multiplayer. I simply don't see multiplayer, as it is now, capable of allowing for a better roleplaying experience. I also don't believe all online players are the standard AOL-caricatures; however i do believe the majority still has a long way to go when it comes to self-integration into virtual gameworlds.

I'm not sure about the last question, but as to the rest... Failure, whether in small things or in great, should be a possible path in *any* RPG. I'm sure, at some point in PnP, you've been hired to escort someone or something from one point to another, be it princess or plutonium. If there is no chance whatsoever of failure - loss of the item, banditry, runaway princesses - then what is the point?

The death of the PC is the most easily visible form of failure. It must be, by definition, a possible solution to any quest, although admittedly not a very gratifying one.

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But failure to a quest is not the same as Game Over. In fact, many games already got to the point where its not only possible to fail in the solving of a quest and still allow you to proceed, but some also present minor variations of storyline and/or NPC interactions, given your achievements and/or failures. Faliling to save a peaceful village can lead you to become addicted to carrying self-help booklets at all times in your pockets, otherwise your AC and Quickenss decrease by 2 but it won't necessarily mean Game Over. Failing to save the Mayor might allow you to be given a chance to redeem yourself by saving an entire city. Failing to catch a train might give you time to sit back and tinker with that gun, optimizing it for triple-shot bursts. For instance, an example in the much loved/much hated Baldurs Gate - Captain Brage, whom you can cure of his madness, or who you can kill and turn in a bounty. Failure to save doesn't end the quest, merely gives you an alternate ending to it.

So failing a quest's goal may not be to fail it completely - its completion is still possible.

If anything, CRPGs tend to err on the side of too many possible ways to complete a given task and not enough ways to productively fail it: you are unable to locate the artifact in time, the evil wizard gets it and completes his transformation to a lich, and now you have to deal with his newer, more powerful form, rather than ending the game when the wizard gets the artifact.

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And we know from Gaider that programming more things like that aren't worth it.