AoD vignettes & screens

Oh, I was under the impression that you could walk around the town (just not leave it). I'm unsure about teleporting. It was used a lot in BG2 and it rarely felt right. Constant teleporting back and forth takes away the feeling of control over the character.

On the other hand I liked how Fallout used it when you agreed to help authorities to kill some crime lords. So it might work. Or not. If the town isn't big and the inn can be easily found, I think the player should be able to walk to the merchant all the way from the quest giver. It could still be a flashback, though.

Vault Dweller said:

but making choices "in the past" would feel kinda weird, no?

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Just for emphasis: No.


Also, to chime in with some editing of my own:

I agree that the "playing a different part in the same reality" is a nice aspect of the vignette. More elegant than having the map turn up in different places.

I don't necessarily think you should totally rule out any Deus ex Machina type business though - so long as it seems credible and not convoluted (kind of making it not a Deus ex Machina, but still...).
Allowing total freedom and having the map jump out at you from dark alleys might be a little silly, but allowing a few odd choices, and having the map turn up - in a reasonable way - might not be bad.


One question I have on all this: Is it believable that the character ends up getting the map no matter what his role? Do the other characters in the vignette always try to get the map too? What happens if they succeed - does the player "lose"?

I like the "one situation from different perspectives" thing, but it'd be that much more elegant if all the characters always start with the same motivations, yet the player manages to succeed no matter what his role. Does this happen, or do the other characters not care about the map?

For instance, how does the loremaster get the map? If he gets it from the merchant during the day, and the assassin kills the merchant in the night (since he only needs to be dead by morning), how does the assassin get the map? If the loremaster waits until later, how would he get the map from the assassin? Does the player really have to work at getting the map (I hope so), or does he just end up with it because the other characters fail quite easily?

I'll be fine with a "Trust me - it all works out."
If it does all work out elegantly from whichever perspective I play, then I'm eagerly anticipating it. No spoilers please .


On the screen graphics, I quite like Claw's attempt, though Twinfalls' is worth a thought. Will it often be interesting to have a larger visible area of the world in dialogue? Claw's has more room for a lot of dialogue if necessary - will it be?
If you use something like Claw's, I still think it needs a bit of background decoration at the bottom of the top right box (something like those trees someone posted a while back - but better ).
The Gold certainly blends in nicely in Claw's version.


Oh, and I think I'd be fine with making important choices "in the past". Perhaps if before the interactive flashback, there is player dialogue / description making it clear that important decisions had been made.
Something like:
"I wonder if this piece of junk will be worth the trouble I had to get it...
I just hope I didn't cross the wrong people....
It all started with..."

That's presuming that you can't get the map without crossing someone.

Jora said:

Oh, I was under the impression that you could walk around the town (just not leave it). I'm unsure about teleporting. It was used a lot in BG2 and it rarely felt right. Constant teleporting back and forth takes away the feeling of control over the character.

On the other hand I liked how Fallout used it when you agreed to help authorities to kill some crime lords. So it might work. Or not. If the town isn't big and the inn can be easily found, I think the player should be able to walk to the merchant all the way from the quest giver. It could still be a flashback, though.

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That's the problem. If the player is allowed to walk to the merchant, he can do anything at all, he can do some other quests, and return 3 weeks later and then I should either tell the player "it's ok, the merchant is still waiting for you, because the time has stopped while you were fucking around" or the merchant is long gone and the map is gone with him. As for the town, you saw the model, didn't you?

Good point about "teleporting" in Fallout though. I didn't mind that at all.

Claw said:

Also, to chime in with some editing of my own:

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I like it. A lot. Thanks, Claw.

galsiah said:

One question I have on all this: Is it believable that the character ends up getting the map no matter what his role? Do the other characters in the vignette always try to get the map too? What happens if they succeed - does the player "lose"?

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No. The map isn't the goal, so nobody's trying to get it. You get it more or less accidentally.

I like the "one situation from different perspectives" thing, but it'd be that much more elegant if all the characters always start with the same motivations, yet the player manages to succeed no matter what his role. Does this happen, or do the other characters not care about the map?

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They don't care. The map doesn't have much value to other characters. The other characters' goals are related to the merchant, so they will do their best to protect, steal, kill, etc. The knight is the only one whose task is to find the map, and he may find you, but how you handle it is up to you.

For instance, how does the loremaster get the map?

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He makes a copy to study. Also, once Antidas gets the map, he calls for the loremaster, etc. Logical, imo.

If it does all work out elegantly from whichever perspective I play, then I'm eagerly anticipating it.

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I hope so.

Vault Dweller said:

RGE said:

Age of Decadence said:

[trading] 250 or you can go and kill him yourself, if you still remember how.

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Way to insult your guildmaster as a way of getting paid more. What if the negotiating character doesn't want to be such a smartmouth?

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Fits the character's profession and situation. Some negotiations could be won by a nice approach, some negotiations calls for "go fuck yourself" responses that are properly understood by the "insulted" party. I know you may feel that I'm restricting your character that way, but think of it like that: your characters knows the guildmaster, knows the situation, and the only way to get some extra money is to be a bit agressive. Now, there is a huge difference between knowing what you must do and actually doing it (many people know what to tell the boss, but lack the balls to say it), and that's where your role-playing kicks in.

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I see. Well, I guess it's saved by that [trading] tag, because otherwise I would've assumed that it'd just be a way of getting verbally bitchslapped for being a smartmouth. But it still kind of feels like you're playing my character instead of me, unless of course I've previously found out that the guildmaster likes it when his assassins deride him. Most of the assassins I've seen in the movies are very obedient and loyal, and they usually only mouth off when they're about to kill their employer. When everyone is armed, everyone is very polite.

I just don't see how even a playful insult shows how the PC is worth the extra 50 gold, or does the PC know that none of the other assassins would take the job?

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The latter. The pay isn't the best, so he figures that most people won't jump at this opportunity unless more money is offered, etc.

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And is this explained to the player, so that the hardline negotation is justified, or is the player just supposed to rely on the [trading] tag and assume that it'll be treated as a generic skill roll no matter what the text actually says? Or will there be moments when the text matters, and if so, how is the player supposed to know?

Age of Decadence said:

Teron is a small town, and it's very hard for an assassin guild to stay in business here. We appreciate every contract that comes our way, so let's leave it at that.

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If business is bad for the assassin guild I would've thought that any of the assassins in town would jump at the chance for some work. Because you can't say that business is bad because the assassins demand too much money, can you? Or that it's bad because the law is too efficient? The above piece of information, which I assume is well known among the assassins, tells me as a player that there ought to be at least one other assassin willing to take the job, leaving little room for negotiation, and making that particular insult quite moot.

What would you suggest then? That doesn't imply that I'm ready to kill the vignettes, but I'd interested to hear some alternative ideas.

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My suggestion was similar to metallix's. Just place some code on every (early?) random loot container/corpse which checks to see if the map has been spawned yet, and if it hasn't, spawn the map. I guess this doesn't guarantee that the PC picks it up, but since it's not going to disappear, it'll always be there for the PC to pick up later. Somewhat unrealistic perhaps, and if it's important to track down the origin of the map you'd have to include ways for NPCs to recognise it as "that map that guy showed me" or something like that. But it offers much more freedom compared to the vignettes.

Having the vignette end only after the PC picks up the map works as well, and since you've already done the work there's of course no reason to not use the vignettes. Astromarine's suggestion for the map-flashback/vignette-map-game sounds just great, as it makes it clear that the map is important and suggests that the PC must pick it up in order to end the vignette.

RGE said:

But it still kind of feels like you're playing my character instead of me, unless of course I've previously found out that the guildmaster likes it when his assassins deride him.

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No, the game (this particular vignette) starts with that conversation, so you couldn't have found that out previously. We assume though that your character wasn't born that very minute and knows certain people (and prices) well. As for the particular choice of words, well, in a dialogue-heavy game you will always feel that your character would have used some other words in certain situations, and I don't think there is a solution for that, other then using generic commands like job, haggle, accept, threaten, etc.

And is this explained to the player, so that the hardline negotation is justified, or is the player just supposed to rely on the [trading] tag and assume that it'll be treated as a generic skill roll no matter what the text actually says?

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In this particular case, it's a simple skill check.

Or will there be moments when the text matters, and if so, how is the player supposed to know?

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When you see several lines expressing the same thought, idea, point in different ways.

If business is bad for the assassin guild I would've thought that any of the assassins in town would jump at the chance for some work.

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Bad business, especially in the guildmaster's opinion, and no business are two different things. I used to do some programming freelance work (contractors) many moons ago, and I didn't jump at every shitty offer that was thrown my way. As for bad business, I used to work in a small company making 10-12 mil a year in sales, and the president was always bitching how bad the business is. So, don't take everything you hear in the game as the absolute truth. It doesn't have to be a lie either, but many things are very subjective.

Because you can't say that business is bad because the assassins demand too much money, can you? Or that it's bad because the law is too efficient?

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Because it's a small town and business development opportunities are small.

The above piece of information, which I assume is well known among the assassins, tells me as a player that there ought to be at least one other assassin willing to take the job, leaving little room for negotiation, and making that particular insult quite moot.

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You'd see later on that average prices are much, much higher. Think of it that way, you know from experience what certain jobs are worth. You know when you are offered a very shitty deal. Etc.

Vault Dweller said:

FrancoTAU said:

Why so hung up on making the beginning so free form?

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I'm not. I simply showed you the design we have at the moment, pointed out some issues, and asked whether or not it's good enough, and if it's not, how to fix it. I, obviously, like the current system, otherwise we wouldn't have done it in the first place, but I recognize the flaws in it.

I really need some opinions here, people, especially from those who say that they are following the development. Without feedback, I'm kinda blind.

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Okay VD - I'll gladly provide my feedback for ya.. I am following development, but I don't get time to read everything.

I like what you have now. I don't think it matters that the players' actions are railroaded, and you definitely don't need to use flashbacks to handle this restriction of freedom. (I dislike that idea slightly, but would accept it without worrying I guess)

If you really want to change anything, I do have a couple of suggestions:

1) Make it the game tutorial, where the player is shown all the interface bits n' bobs etc Tutorial segments are understood to have a kind of receive instruction, carry out task, receive next instruction paradigm. Pretty easy to keep to a set sequence with this, but probably difficult to write N tutorials that teach similar things without getting incredibly bored.

2) Allow complete freedom, but find a way to let the player know that they are doomed to a normal, mundane & non-epic life if the didn't/don't get the map. Dunno what would be best: to let them know before they have their chance or let them know after they've missed their chance... whether you let the player continue playing or not depends on how resilient the game world would be if they were allowed to play on. I guess they wouldn't get very much to do. Either way the intended objective is to get teh player to start again - this time hopefully with some desire to get the map. (obviously this approach is not one that a large publisher would want to take, but I believe you're making this game for non-idiots, and I think that we could all take this as a consequence. It's certainly not worse than a sudden unavoidable death 'cos of a 'wrong' decision... and most here will remember the days when that was a common part of games! In fact I guess not getting the map could actually lead to death... in a different matter and grusomeness for each class... now that's a cool idea.)

Hope this helps VD - it kinda turned into a bit of a brain dump / ramble in the end. I'm really looking forward to playing this game later this year or next year or whenever.

Okay I'm off to read the rest of this thread now - I just wanted to reply first so that my lunch break didn't run out before I got round to it.

Cheers,

H.

Claw said:

Also, to chime in with some editing of my own:

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Very nice. It looks a lot more cohesive this way.

Hazelnut said:

Make it the game tutorial...

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For some reasons I hate all tutorials. Even though I hope that many rocket scientists will love the game, AoD's interface doesn't use the latest rocket science technologies and concepts.

Allow complete freedom, but find a way to let the player know that they are doomed to a normal, mundane & non-epic life if the didn't/don't get the map.

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I'm against that too. That would put too much emphasis on the map and its role.

Hope this helps VD - it kinda turned into a bit of a brain dump / ramble in the end. I'm really looking forward to playing this game later this year or next year or whenever.

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Thanks.

You need to work in a vignette that features Blitzball.

Vault Dweller said:

Hazelnut said:

Make it the game tutorial...

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For some reasons I hate all tutorials. Even though I hope that many rocket scientists will love the game, AoD's interface doesn't use the latest rocket science technologies and concepts.

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Fair point.. It'd probably irritate me too.

Vault Dweller said:

Allow complete freedom, but find a way to let the player know that they are doomed to a normal, mundane & non-epic life if the didn't/don't get the map.

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I'm against that too. That would put too much emphasis on the map and its role.

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And that's bad thing why exactly? Sounds like the map is the turning point in the PC's 'life' so to speak - kicking off the game story... whats wrong with emphasising that? Still it's your game, and as I said it sounds okay the way you have it anyway.

Hazelnut said:

And that's bad thing why exactly? Sounds like the map is the turning point in the PC's 'life' so to speak - kicking off the game story... whats wrong with emphasising that?

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It does kick off the story, but this particular map itself is not as important. There are other copies of it floating around. There is no [dramatic voice] "This map is your destiny! Follow it!" [/voice] emphasis there. It's hard to explain without telling the entire story and many ways to play it.

Still it's your game, and as I said it sounds okay the way you have it anyway.

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Well, it's not about "my game", it's about discussing design elements.

I think you are right guys!

(Been very ill, which is why I've not replied before - not that I have a great deal to say anyways)

Vault Dweller said:

Hazelnut said:

And that's bad thing why exactly? Sounds like the map is the turning point in the PC's 'life' so to speak - kicking off the game story... whats wrong with emphasising that?

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It does kick off the story, but this particular map itself is not as important. There are other copies of it floating around. There is no [dramatic voice] "This map is your destiny! Follow it!" [/voice] emphasis there. It's hard to explain without telling the entire story and many ways to play it.

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Right, I get you. I had made an assumption about the map being more important. Your reasoning makes more sense now. And thanks for not spoilering... ;-)

Vault Dweller said:

Still it's your game, and as I said it sounds okay the way you have it anyway.

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Well, it's not about "my game", it's about discussing design elements.

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It is a discussion, but you and your team make the final decisions - it's not like me throwing the toys outta my pram on these boards about map emphasis will pester you into changing your decision is it? Even if I wanted to, which I don't. Hence "your game", maybe "your call" would have been more accurate..

Oh, if I can have a say about the game, could I request that you put a NPC called Fez somewhere in the game... maybe he could give some instructions on the correct method to use for slitting your wrists, even giving a practical demo before bleeding to death. Oh how I miss Fez... even if I really hated his tasteless sig.

No Fez then I take it... {sniff}