Tim Cain p0wnz teh n00bz

Killzig · Post by **Killzig** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:43 pm

[ -> N/A]

Avenrosh sent along this amusing ToEE interview with Tim Cain, right off Tim proves that us Fallout fans are perfectly logical. YESSIREEE!

<blockquote>

Q: Right off the bat, I have to ask why in a genre with the likes of Neverwinter Nights and Planescape: Torment did you decide to take The Temple of Elemental Evil away from real-time and into turn-based?



I am a little confused. D&D is a turn-based system, so I didnÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t take ToEE anywhere. I am more surprised that you donÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t wonder why the developers of those other games felt compelled to license a game system and then rewrite many of its rules to cover a mode of play that it was never intended to support. I wanted to make a computer game based on D&D, not some hybrid system that I invented myself. </blockquote>

Hah. Stupid question, stupid interviewer, and Timmy with the beat down stick. Read the rest over <A href="http://www.etoychest.org/interviews/interview_009.html" target=_blank>yonder</a>.

<a href="http://www.nma-fallout.com" target=_blank>Briosafreak</a> has pointed me to <a href="http://forums.interplay.com/viewtopic.p ... &start=225" target=_blank>JE's retort</a> over at the BIS forums.

<blockquote>

I have met Mr. Cain only a few times. He is a very smart and cool man.

However, I will address this statement, and I'll be pretty blunt about it. The answer to his rhetorical question is: because you're putting a pen and paper game onto a computer. Isn't this obvious? This doesn't apply simply to "turn-based vs. real-time". It applies to every aspect of the game that you review for implementation.

The environment and atmosphere when you play a pen and paper game is not the same as when you are playing a CRPG, period -- especially a single player RPG. You have no DM, you have no other players. There is no soft adjudication for any given application of a combat rule or skill. There are no players chatting to each other softly and telling quiet jokes while all of the other participants in the battle play through their turns. Turn-based combat in a five or six person pen-and-paper game is not the same experience as it is in an CRPG. Even the most pedestrian turn-based battle in a pen-and-paper game can be made fun for all participants -- even if that combat takes two hours of real-world time. Your experience goes beyond the statistics of the characters involved and the mechanical choices you make to resolve that conflict.

But in a single-player CRPG, that is what you are left with. You can put every rule in the 3.5 PHB into a game to the letter, dot all is and cross all ts, but you are not going to get the same experience that you would in pen and paper. This is a different medium. You're playing all the members of your party without any soft adjudication from a DM. The manner in which you draw pleasure out of a combat is not going to be the same as it is with a group of live people sitting around you -- whether it is turn-based or real-time. D&D is a pen and paper role-playing game. By putting it on a computer, you are already trying to make it do something that it was not explicitly built for.

I'm certainly not going to slam Troika for making ToEE in the manner they are. I really want to play it. But all developers have to make implementation choices when dealing with a licensed ruleset. AFAIK, Troika isn't implementing the Jump or Climb skills in ToEE. I don't blame them for leaving that out -- those are hard to implement in a CRPG. But that does affect classes like the fighter and monk, who have those as some of their (very few) class skills.

In a pen and paper game, the player can ask the DM at any moment, "Hey, man, can I climb that tower/tree/rock/fallen giant's corpse?" and the DM can wing it. If the player wants to climb up a corpse and jump off behind some guy while making an attack, he can just ask the DM if he can do it. There's no mounted combat or mounted combat feats in ToEE, which affects the paladin. TOTALLY UNDERSTANDABLE, BECAUSE MOUNTED COMBAT SUCKS TO IMPLEMENT. Again, this is because you can't just say, "Oh, here's a pony, follow the rules." Lockpicking, picking pockets, sneaking. All those things you can't reload from in a pen and paper game -- they're different. It's a computer game, not a PnP game. How you make it, how you use it, the experience you take away from it can be completely different.

</blockquote>

*Yawns* I think JE has design envy.

OnTheBounce · Post by **OnTheBounce** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:49 pm

That loveable MTC is gonna make me buy a High Fantasy CRPG yet!

OTB

swordinstone · Post by **swordinstone** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:54 pm

Yeah, I wasnt too interested in this game simply due to the lack of multiplayer (everyone has their own opinions on it, but i love it). The interview was pretty funny in a "slap the dumb ass in the face" sort of way. Those were probably pre-canned questions, so it might not be that guy's specific fault... but still amusing

it does provide some good info on the game though, and looks like it might be a lot of fun, especially with all the paths you can take to completion.

morris · Post by **morris** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:58 pm

Oh hell ya! Gooooo Timmy!

POOPERSCOOPER · Post by **POOPERSCOOPER** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:17 pm

TIM CAIN> all

Evil Natured Robot · Post by **Evil Natured Robot** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:24 pm

smakkz0r.

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:47 pm

Very impressive, Tim Cain, or should I call you Timmy. Way to be defiant and stuff to that interviewer.

Ghetto Goose · Post by **Ghetto Goose** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:49 pm

He's doin us proud. Lead on, supreme fallout commander!

Avenrosh · Post by **Avenrosh** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 11:13 pm

I didn't mention it, but I guess I should point out that I caught this on Penny-Arcade. Just to be journalistic and all...

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 11:20 pm

O NOEZ :O :0

<<<<< NOT FF XXXVIIIIlewl12:: Chronicels: Tactisc: 2

I foster a strong dislike for penny arcade.

Megatron · Post by **Megatron** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 11:52 pm

yeah, they...suck.

and even me and gg could make better comics than them, what's the fun in that?

Slave_Master · Post by **Slave_Master** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 12:07 am

Just one more reason why I love Mr. Cain.

Megatron wrote:yeah, they...suck.

and even me and gg could make better comics than them, what's the fun in that?

Megatron, you do make better comics then the Penny Arcade dumbfucks. GG does too, even though his aren't terribly good.

Mr Carrot · Post by **Mr Carrot** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 12:57 am

Timmy C: Fallout

JE: IWd

Timmy C = Winnar

JE fuck off to SA you love so much until you can make a decent skill set for FO3.

Rayt · Post by **Rayt** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 3:52 am

JE has a point. Board games have nothing to do with with computer games. Strategy board games, like Risk, The colonists of Catan and Stratego are turn based. Computer strategy games like Starcraft, Dune 2 and Warcraft 2 are real time. And all of them are excellent and played smoothly.

I think real time combat doesn't make a difference in the quality of D&D computer games. And I do believe it doesn't: BG, BG2 and IWD are D&D games I enjoyed playing. The reason why they're not as good as a game like Fallout is not because Fallout has turnbased combat, but because Fallout let you actually roleplay, which the other games lacked. Which I didn't really mind; I just played them as hack&slash games with a decent story to back it up.

That's why I don't mind Fallout 3 having both real time combat and turn-based combat. The roleplaying options and the non-linearity wil still be the same. And those made the original Fallout a fantastic game. So basicly, I don't get all the fuss about this real time/ turn based shit.

Though I'm interested in how TOEE will play. Maybe I'll change my mind completely and join you guys in your TB crusade

Mr Carrot · Post by **Mr Carrot** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 3:55 am

You can not roleplay without turnbased combat, relying on player reactions and mouse skills means you are not relying on your PC skill set. thus not roleplaying the character.

Rayt · Post by **Rayt** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 3:59 am

Though you have a point about the player's skill coming into play, I just don't think combat is such a significant part of roleplaying. It's often just a result of it, so that's why I think it doesn't matter.

pnutz · Post by **pnutz** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 5:11 am

that's assuming you think combat = roleplay, carrot

Doyle · Post by **Doyle** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 5:25 am

Whether or not it's a major part is totally irrelevant. It's still relying on player skills rather than character skills and therefore is contrary to any actual roleplaying. However, it is worth noting that combat is pretty much always a large part of BIS RPGs, making Carrot's point all the more pertinent.

Temaperacl · Post by **Temaperacl** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 6:07 am

Rayt wrote:JE has a point. Board games have nothing to do with with computer games. Strategy board games, like Risk, The colonists of Catan and Stratego are turn based. Computer strategy games like Starcraft, Dune 2 and Warcraft 2 are real time. And all of them are excellent and played smoothly.

I don't think most wargamers I know would classify RISK, Stratego, and Colonists of Catan in the same genre as those RTS games - That is pretty much the same as taking D&D, GURPS, and Paranoia, and putting them in the same genre as Diablo, (I can't think of any more of those action-games that no RPGers consider RPGs, but insert their names here, maybe even add an FPS or two in here). And I think that is an important point here- if a game in one form (paper) has nothing to do with a game in another form (electronic), then they are seperate types of games. If we are making a game that is going to be a computer version of an RPG, and we want to keep it as an RPG, then it should have something to do with the RPG it is based off of. Completely new games should maintain much of the core components that make a given type of game. (I'm not going to get into the fact that many games aren't at an extreme of a type of game, but tend to be in between types.)

Because of this, I am on the "Alter it as little as possible" side of the fence when it comes to translating a game from one form to the other- new games may be a somewhat different matter, but the essentials of the argument would be the same (Which is why I prefer TB to RT combat, but this is another issue, so..), but that would be drifting off topic, so I won't start into it.

pnutz · Post by **pnutz** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 6:12 am

Whether or not it's a major part is totally irrelevant. It's still relying on player skills rather than character skills and therefore is contrary to any actual roleplaying

...to roleplaying the combat, not in your character's dialog and other actions (where the meat of roleplaying lies). Combat is a large part of all CRPG's. Goldbox D&D was nothing but combat. This isn't roleplaying. It's the combat system from a role-playing game.

ugg, anyway yes. Realtime sucks. But I'll take an FPS that responds to the way I play my character and where I can interact with people and the gameworld over a turn based game that's nothing but combat.

Duck and Cover

Tim Cain p0wnz teh n00bz

Tim Cain p0wnz teh n00bz

Booya!

hey

BTW