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• • Would you want a player character that insisted on being nice?

  • Originally posted by Wickersham
    

    It's a nice idea.

    IMO It can only truely work in a cartoon setting so there would be no need for cinematic quality.  if you are going to have the character disagree with the player you have to make it a pleasurable experience for the player.  If a realistic looking character refuses player actions they will feel he/she is cowardly and they will be annoyed by it, but if a cute looking cartoon character does it all will be forgiven.  The reward will be how your character refuses to jump off the cliff, does it stand there with its arms folded stubbornly stomping its foot when you try to make it jump?  Does it grovel at you and beg for its life?  Does it tell YOU to go jump off a cliff?  These can really only be done with cartoons anything more and it will feel combative.

    The other thing would be to prevent those things from happening in your game by not having them in your game.  You can't jump off a cliff because a safety bar is there.  You can't get naked because you don't have the ability to.

    Do both.  The cinematic character ignores the command, but a cartoon icon version (ala World of Warcraft) would emote something to indicate why the action wouldn't be permitted.

    Player: commands "Hit king"

    Character: No reaction.  Continues as if the command had never been given.

    Cartoon: says "That's a good guy!  I can't attack him!"

    Only the owning player sees the cartoon.  Everyone sees the character behavior.  The cartoon is serving as the equivalent of an error message/dialog.

    In any case, the character would simply not do an action if the game says that it shouldn't.  There's no need for a safety bar by the cliff because the character just won't respond to a command that causes it to go over the edge.  While getting naked might be available (for swims in wilderness lakes), a character would refuse to do it in certain contexts.  Such as while in town, or perhaps around other people, depending on how prim and proper the world's social structure is defined to be.

  • Posted: 5/11/08 4:42 PM
    General Discussion
• • Crafting in most games sux

  • Originally posted by VengeSunsoar
    

     

    Horizons had all gear crafted, and while the crafters loved it, the adventurers hated it.  There was no reward for fighting that mob.  Oh they would get a crafting component but then they would either have to wait and craft it themselves or find a crafter willing to make it if, you could, then wait for the crafter to make it, which sometimes took days depending on when he was on, when your on, and how hard it was to make.
    

    That's right on target.

    Eve Online uses the technique of ensuring that there is a steady supply of desirable goods available in an open market even if all crafters are offline.  Fantasy MMOs usually structure crafting on a contract basis where logged-on customers make requests of logged-on crafters.  Fantasy MMOs also typically refuse to make crafting an integral part of the game.

    Crafters cannot keep an inventory because there is simply no provision for it, nor can they sell anything if they are not logged-on.  Eve Online is structured to let crafters crank out product into a market that is constantly consuming it.  Neither side is inconvenienced and both sides desire the interaction.

    All this said, crafting generally doesn't exist in MMOs.  It's actually push-button manufacturing where players pour ingredients into recipe hoppers, press a button and get a manufactured item.  I'd very much like to see crafting implemented in the way that A Tale in the Desert attempts; player skill is involved with the task of creating the end product.  Specific examples there are charcoal production, gem cutting and blacksmithing.

  • Posted: 5/11/08 9:51 AM
    General Discussion
• • Would you want a player character that insisted on being nice?

  • Originally posted by Godliest
    

    Of course there is also one last important aspect to take into consideration: the fact that realism makes people behave realistic. When you play WoW do you feel that you are really in that game? Probably not. But when you play a game that feels as realistic as our world does then you will probably feel that the character you are controlling is real enough to you that you don't want to bring shame on yourself by doing stupid acts.

    That's an interesting point, but I'm afraid that having greater realism in the presentation is only going to make it worse.  Imagine that a higher percentage of people observe the proprieties of the new and improved cinematic-quality reality of the game environment.  Players start to relax into the idea that they are moving a real person in a real environment.

    When somebody decides to do something that violates the context, it will be particularly damaging to the experience of other players.

    Ah well.  Perhaps when the day comes, we'll just have a hundred different copies of the game world so that a hundred different rule sets can be in force.

  • Posted: 5/11/08 8:29 AM
    General Discussion
• • Would you want a player character that insisted on being nice?

  • Originally posted by Blackfoot-3
    

     

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    Originally posted by JB47394
    I'm not a roleplayer, but I'd sure like to be able to walk through a town that seemed like a town.

    ---

     

    Everything you wrote before this sentence is roleplaying. Only roleplayers want that sort of thing, nobody else, for the simple fact that it's roleplaying to want the town to seem like a town and want your character to follow some obtuse rules set by the game devs.

    Sorry, this thread just really confused me because everything you said, prior to what's quoted, is roleplaying. Roleplaying is wanting the game to feel more like another world rather than a game. Everyone else.... just wants to play a game.

    Granted, the less mature crowd does irk me at times in the chats, but most games have a way of ignoring them in some way shape or form.

    I'm just throwing it out there, it's kind of a crazy thought though. But, why don't you go try an RP Server? I'm not meaning to sound like an ass. I have nothing against RPers, I wish I was into it. I'm just saying, you might like it.

    When players are in combat, they like to see fierce swordplay animations, sparkly spell animations and their character looking awesome as it tanks the raid boss.  That's roleplaying.  That's wanting the fiction of the game to support their particular fantasy of being powerful and cool.  I was curious to know if anyone else enjoyed the fantasy of a town looking and behaving like a town.  With the advent of cinematic quality graphics, I can well imagine that the powerful and cool fantasy is going to get even more alluring.

    I'm not interested in roleplaying, but I'm interested in my character doing it for me.  I don't want to remember who to wave to, or the path to move through town, or who to give way for, etc.  I just want it to happen, just as I want walking to 'just happen'.  I want my character to be an actor on the stage and I can direct.  But roleplaying is far too much work for me to do it by hand.

    Part of the inspiration for all this was walking through some of the cities in World of Warcraft while in first person view.  I was just walking along, looking around town.  It was a lot of fun.  I was playing tourist.  I was exploring, and that's something that I really love in gaming.  Exploration is all the sweeter when the thing being explored behaves in a self-consistent manner.

  • Posted: 5/11/08 8:24 AM
    General Discussion
• • Would you want a player character that insisted on being nice?

  • I recently watched the opening cinematics to World of Warcraft.  I was thinking about what a great game the cinematic-quality animation would make - in another 10 years.  Certainly there are lots of other high quality animations out there, and I'm sure I'd have a similar reaction to them, but I can perhaps more easily imagine a game when I see World of Warcraft characters on the screen.

    Imagine a game with cinematic quality animation, with full physics, collisions, cloth and hair simulation, wind, weather and top-notch lighting.  It would be absolutely phenomenal.

    Until the players showed up.

    They'd still be saying and doing the same sophomoric things that they always do.  The naked dwarves would be passed out drunk in the streets - in beautiful cinematic quality with flakes of snow gently falling on their inert forms.  The gnomes would still be jumping off the highest buildings to see whether they could kill themselves - in beautiful cinematic quality with blood and gore as femurs drive up through torsos.

    Is there any point in pursuing an ever more realistic presentation of a themed setting when the players themselves actively ruin the setting?  It's a bit like trying to watch a movie in a public theatre while the guy behind you keeps yelling out advice to the silver screen hero.

    Would you sacrifice flexibility in the control of your character if it meant that all player characters in the world remained consistent with the theme of the game?  So your character would refuse to strip in public places.  It would refuse to jump to its death.  It would refuse to sit on the mailbox, block doorways and otherwise be annoying.  Your character would, in short, follow the social conventions of the game setting.

    Taken to an extreme, if the king shows up, everyone bows.  Including your character.  You might tell your character to cross the street in front of His Royal Annoyingness, but it won't, because the social conventions of the game insist that your character respect the king.  There's no point in calling him king if everyone /insults him and dances naked in front of him.

    This would all mean that when you trundle down the street of town, you'll see NPCs and PCs, and they'll all be behaving like citizens (or visitors) to that town.  People will walk in and out of shops, never jumping out windows or walking their horses into town hall.  And so forth.

    I'm not a roleplayer, but I'd sure like to be able to walk through a town that seemed like a town.

  • Posted: 5/10/08 7:06 PM
    General Discussion