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Xaphod wrote:NWN never appealed to me for the same reason that Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 didn't.. I really dislike D&D - the system, the setting, everything. While Morrowind's setting is similar it's much more similar to LOTR in that there's a defined history and solidly written backstory behind everything, something that only Planescape:Torment seems to have in the D&D system.
Games that require the players build upon them have always done poorly. Plan on NWN to drop into obscurity in a couple of years. V:TM didn't last long, as did UA and others.
No backstory in the Forgotten Realms? Maybe not in NWN, but don't tell me that the Forgotten Realms isn't a richly developed setting. The hundreds of novels alone create lots of great history, not to mention the countless adventure module, campaign setting boxed sets, and endless articles in various magazines. I agree that NWN was overhyped; I was disappointed by the game, myself, but PnP D&D goes far beyond anything ever seen in a D&D CRPG.
Hasn't this strayed a little from the question of which game engine to use for a Fallout mod? The richness of the orginal games' setting is specifically going to be made irrelevant by the mod to Fallout.
Having seen Xaphod's site, I'm hoping him and his team follow through and deliver. It looks great and the Morrowind engine is fine by me (as long as I can use some area transitions instead of walking across the entire wastelands in FPP ...)
That reminds me... It's neat to find all these stories in books in games...
But..
It's VERY annoying to read texts - specially since often they'll use some funky papyrus looking background to read from. So the game should never rely on books to set atmosphere and history because it's just exhausting to read on the screen. I know we do it for dialogs, but dialogs aren't as optional... (though if you've played the game a lot you can often skim through them ).
If you want history, stick it in the manual, not the game. It'll add some value to those who bought the game too.. Heck, make a whole damn book to explain the setting in detail. How's that for added value when buying a game?
Yeah, but when the only way a game can come up with to transmit some backstory is by making you read a bunch of books, that ain't good. The tapes in Fallout were well done because there weren't too many of them, they were mostly relevant to the plot, and they were always pretty interesting. Except for the FEV experiment tapes in the Glow, that is. I mean, do they really need three or four three page tapes to tell us that there were FEV experiments at West Tek?
Spazmo wrote:Yeah, but when the only way a game can come up with to transmit some backstory is by making you read a bunch of books, that ain't good. The tapes in Fallout were well done because there weren't too many of them, they were mostly relevant to the plot, and they were always pretty interesting. Except for the FEV experiment tapes in the Glow, that is. I mean, do they really need three or four three page tapes to tell us that there were FEV experiments at West Tek?
So, youre saying "background references" (books, holotapes and whatever) are ok as long as theyre good, and are done in the right quantity and in the right plot connection?
I agree.
And I didn't say they need to be the only background.
I think they should add a little, but not too much.
And System Shock and it's sequel do the delivery of history and plot elements, in addition to providing data relevant to gameplay (ie locations, keycodes, etc) through one simple game mechanic. Audio logs.
Audio logs in SS1 and 2 are a truly beautiful thing. Here's why and what they provide.
Most important point first. I am fairly patient as far as gamers go, and I don't want to read through pages of text. Reading off a screen will never compete against curling up with a good book, but I digress. The fact that you continue playing while listening to the audio of SS means that you are always playing the game. It beats the shit out of cutscenes, it absolutely fucking buries the Deus Ex "jump to third person, watch inane drivel with little interactivity, return to first person" method, and I can't think of a metaphor to describe how much better audio is as opposed to reading chunks of written text.
Additionally, it provides voice acting, and allows the player to visualise the situations and the characters without inflicting any artist's particular vision. It works with the player's imagination the same way PnP RPing does. It also provides dramatic situations without the dilution of drama due to engine limitations, hectic artist schedules, etc.
In a similar vein it give a lot of character to NPCs in a game without them. The dead characters of SS2 have a lot of personality, by giving a brief window to a character's persona, or fragment(s) of, and leaving it once again for the imagination to play with. Additionally, there is never a problem with repetitive VO, unless the player is choosing to play a log over and over.
However, having audio presented in such a manner requires a series of plot devices that are not always relevant to the game setting. In such cases, it's usually good to deliver any data in small chunks, preferably progressively and episodic. Leave a page of a book with a cliffhanger of sorts at the end, and the player wants to find the next part. Leave the whole book, and they'll more than likely refuse to read 20 pages, because it detracts from time that could be better spent playing the game. Also, provide rewards. Back story is kind of pointless if it's nothing more. If the back story mentions some kind of secret location, briefly touches on the purpose of an artifact the player has been carrying around for days hoping it becomes useful somehow, then the player feels compelled to read, and is rewarded for doing so, and that's the business we're in here. Make the player want to do something, and reward them.
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Only a real artist knows the actual anatomy of the terrible, or the physiology of fear - the exact sort of lines and proportions that connect up with latent instincts or heriditary memories of fright, and the proper colour contrasts and lighting effects to stir the dormant sense of strangeness.
We intend to use audio for quite a few things, but only where it's relevant.. for example we intend for the player to use radio communications from time to time.
The holotapes in Fallout were all text, and for the sake of continuity we'll probably keep it that way.. plus having all the text being read out by someone would expand the mod to at least a CD size.. and people have to download this thing.
There'll also be magazines and books which will be, well, books.
Books and tapes might be important to read, again, like they were in Fallout, but a lot of the time it will be background information. there's some good points made here so we'll take them into account I'm sure.
I'd have one small question...i the Level Up sistem going to be like the one in Morrowind:The Elder Scrolls or like the one in Fallout and by saying that I am refering to Skills,the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. table,Perks,Traits and stuff like that.It would be great to adapt this sistem to Morrowind but...I bet it's quite difficult.
We have an alpha version of a "pip boy" working, which basically converts all the morrowind skills into Fallout skills.
Most of the SPECIAL system will be implimented.. though we're using "SPECIALS" to add a "speed" stat, which governs your maximum speed - something Fallout's turn-based system didn't need. Speed will be added because we don't really think agilty should really count for your speed.
Levelling up will be done by gaining experience, like in Fallout. Perks should also be implimented when we're done.
It's a lot of scripting (morrowind coding), but it's not as hard as some other things we have to do, like guns. Our scripting team has been mostly working on them because they're a particular thing that isn't meant to be possible in Morrowind. Rest assured that the gun scripting is around 90% done now though.
It isnt impressive to dig one's grave.
Much less to dig an old DEAD post from the ground.
you SICK SICK man.... btw..
im guessing this project turned out to be fail.....
).
