Fallout: New Vegas Dev: Recent RPG Advances "Undermine" the Genre

[antipunt]

Avellone was part of the team that made Planescape: Torment which, aside from being a strong contender for the best RPG ever made, was unique at the time in that it avoided the rather tired dichotomy of good-versus-evil, and instead offered more ethically challenging decisions.

I think you meant to type: "Avellone wrote practically every line of text in Planescape: Torment, and is therefore arguably the best writer in the entire gaming industry, and cannot be proven wrong, ever."

You're right, I think I did. The first woman you meet having left the mortuary has a backstory more compelling than the central plot of most games before and since. Guy is a genius.

Ahh so true. Now I'm getting nostalgic.

And yes I played PS:T for the first time 1 year ago.

>_>

Yeah, seriously

 

[Emergent System]

But as for voice acting - while it's possible to voice act every single character you will have limited voice actors and a limited amount of accents those voice actors can do. With them having to read volumes of generic text the acting will be bland.

In short nothing like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptnSXhVrrbs&feature=related

Oh man, listening to that was almost like listening to a real person talking, like people talk when they talk to each other! Nothing like droning, monotonous, humm-ing and haa-ing that passes for voice acting in skyrim. It'd have taken them 8 times as long to say the same thing as that guy did, and they'd probably have done it without swearing.

 

[mattaui]

Developers are welcome to make hard core games for hard core players. You want something dense and nearly impenetrable? It's probably out there. You want AAA production values with it? That might be asking too much.

Developers simply found that by adjusting the game difficulties and complexities by a fairly small amount gave them a vastly larger audience, and so they've run with it. If you want these games to be harder, sometimes you've got to make your own objectives, and the better games allow you to have more freedom in that regard.

In Fallout New Vegas, after going through it with my typical well-balanced shooter close combat guy, I made Carl the Alcoholic Cannibal, and he had to eat everyone he could and drink all the booze he found. Amusingly enough, there's a hidden perk for consuming the bodies of the faction heads (Meat of Champions) and you've pretty much got to plan the whole game around doing that. Fun stuff like that should be in more games, where you can challenge yourself.

Also, my opinion is a bit heretical in that while I recognize the greatness of Planescape Torment (and I own the original, a re-release and the GOG version), I was a bigger fan of the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games (ditto on those versions, too).

 

[Dastardly]

Fallout: New Vegas Dev: Recent RPG Advances "Undermine" the Genre

It's hard to fight this, though.

Make your world bigger, and people are going to have a hard time getting around. Additionally, it's usually accepted that your character "grew up around here," or is at least familiar with a few basics. The map system simulates that familiarity, but the fast-travel system usually only works once you've actually been there.

Now, within a "dungeon," sometimes they do spell things out pretty clearly with an arrow... but how is that any worse than:

a) A game that doesn't tell you what you're looking for, and expects you to randomly fumble around until you find it?
b) A game that requires you to stop playing and read clues upon clues before finally going to look... and still end up fumbling around until you find it?
c) Most games, in which the dungeon is designed to clearly guide you down an almost entirely linear path, to a quest item that is huge and glowing with fire?

I prefer a game that puts an arrow on your major quest goal, but then gives you reasons to explore all of the other areas of the dungeon without guidance. Sure, I know where to go get the Midget Helmet, or whatever, and I'll get to that -- but first, there's a bunch of rooms over here...

Basically, I think there are a few places that tend to have too much guidance (like any "investigation" type quest, in which you just move from marker to marker), but overall it's an unfair and narrow criticism of a mechanic that can be used effectively if the rest of the game's context supports it.

 

[mjc0961]

This is why these developers need to start including OPTIONS. Yes, leave in all the stuff that can make things easier for new players, and simply have an option to disable them if you want. Some of this falls on the player though, too. Don't want a map? Don't open up and look at the map, then.

Some people want to fumble around with zero guidance and find everything on their own. Give them the options to do that. Some people want a map and a marker telling them where on the map they need to get to. Have that in there for those that want to use it. Force one or the other, and people aren't going to be happy. Include options, and while you can never please everyone, you'll be able to please a lot more people.

 

[Kargathia]

If I played Skyrim and was told to get to a dungeon out in the middle of now where, without a map, I'd get SOOOO lost.

You'd probably head over to the wiki, and pull out their map. So yea, might as well make it ingame.

But if I'm reading this right, then the problem isn't all the branching out and morphing the RPG is doing nowadays - the problem is that they're missing an RPG that smacks you if you so much as ask for directions. Sounds fair I guess. Might in some cases be as easy as a mod. Script detailed quest text for Skyrim, take out all markers, including the map markers for places you've only heard of, and you're set to go.

Morrowind simply pointed you in a direction and said "it's somewhere thataway." I'm not sure I agree with that design, but I would like it kept as an option.

Which seems to be the general preference around here. I also think we can safely say that it financially makes very little sense to make a game that doesn't do any hand-holding at all. The ones who want to just have fun won't play it, while the ones that do like it will play a game even if it tells you where to go.
Also can still remember Morrowind, including the bit where I stopped playing because I lost all sense of what the hell I was doing. Long live quest markers.

But well, more interesting (or at least to me) question is: should this be something provided by developers, or left to the modders?

 

[Blackpapa]

But as for voice acting - while it's possible to voice act every single character you will have limited voice actors and a limited amount of accents those voice actors can do. With them having to read volumes of generic text the acting will be bland.

In short nothing like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptnSXhVrrbs&feature=related

Oh man, listening to that was almost like listening to a real person talking, like people talk when they talk to each other! Nothing like droning, monotonous, humm-ing and haa-ing that passes for voice acting in skyrim. It'd have taken them 8 times as long to say the same thing as that guy did, and they'd probably have done it without swearing.

Indeed.

Voice acting has it's place. Many games had excellent voice acting and not just tiny fragments like the one here. The Legacy of Kain series for example.

I'm assuming people read books. Not in Skyrim but in real life. I'm assuming the people who play games and the people who read books aren't two mutually exclusive groups. The imagination is what makes fiction pleasant to read. My rule of thumb is that voice acting, graphics or any other medium should be used where using the more direct medium conveys the message better and/or is generally better than what you can expect the viewer to imagine.

In the case of Skyrim 90% of the dialogue could be cut from the game and the game would be better off for it. Better to have text and let people give it a voice based on the graphics alone than to suffer the horrible voice acting as it is.

 

[Blackpapa]

Now, within a "dungeon," sometimes they do spell things out pretty clearly with an arrow... but how is that any worse than:

a) A game that doesn't tell you what you're looking for, and expects you to randomly fumble around until you find it?
b) A game that requires you to stop playing and read clues upon clues before finally going to look... and still end up fumbling around until you find it?
c) Most games, in which the dungeon is designed to clearly guide you down an almost entirely linear path, to a quest item that is huge and glowing with fire?

I prefer a game that puts an arrow on your major quest goal, but then gives you reasons to explore all of the other areas of the dungeon without guidance. Sure, I know where to go get the Midget Helmet, or whatever, and I'll get to that -- but first, there's a bunch of rooms over here...

a) Bad design

b) Bad design or you haven't been paying attention

c) Game is probably meant as an aid for patients recovering from lobotomy or brain stroke

I can imagine why you wouldn't want a game without quest markers. If current-gen games had quest markers removed without a major redesign they'd be pretty unplayable. The truth is they're designed around those quest markers. There's no need to have clear or interesting dialogue, no need to have comprehensive journal entries. Quest markers allow developers to get away with lazy writing because at the end of the day the player follows waypoints not unlike a bot follows pathing nodes.

Removing quest markers is certainly possible but it would require more work in other areas. For one it would require writing that isn't absolutely horrible, as is the case with Bethesda games.

 

[Dirty Apple]

I know I'm just gonna come off as old balls, but my feelings can best be summed up with an anecdote.

Around the time I was 20 years old, my family and I ended up at my uncle and aunt's house for Christmas. Their son would have been about 12 at the time, and he was telling me about the newest games he had been playing on his fancy new Gamecube. He showed me the newest Zelda offering (Majora's Mask I think) and mentioned that he had finished the game already. Apparently, he had finished it in about 5 days.

I was blown away. I knew adults that had taken months to get through the game. I was starting to think I was in the presence of a wunderkin. That's when I found out that his parents bought him a official hintbook with every new game. He would then literally open up the book on page one and follow it word for word.

What I'm trying to say is that there is a generation of gamers that aren't interested in a challenge while they play only winning. They aren't looking to push themselves or fight through repeated failures. Because, to fail would mean that they aren't perfect and special like they'd been told.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

This is why every RPG needs a 'Hardcore Mode' or maybe a selection of how 'Hardcore' you want it to be.

Imagine a tick box screen at the beginning of a game (which would be completely optional to even open) which lets you select; whether everything you carry counts as weight on your person, or a reticle for your gun/ sword, or a compass, or a need for food or sleep or even going for a piss.

'Hardcore' RPG players would rejoice in the fact that their game has been made incredibly difficult, and 'Casual' RPG players would still be happy because they don't want to get lost for 3 hours, every 8 hours of play time.

And how much time would be needed to implement this?

 

[Blackpapa]

This is why every RPG needs a 'Hardcore Mode' or maybe a selection of how 'Hardcore' you want it to be.

Imagine a tick box screen at the beginning of a game (which would be completely optional to even open) which lets you select; whether everything you carry counts as weight on your person, or a reticle for your gun/ sword, or a compass, or a need for food or sleep or even going for a piss.

'Hardcore' RPG players would rejoice in the fact that their game has been made incredibly difficult, and 'Casual' RPG players would still be happy because they don't want to get lost for 3 hours, every 8 hours of play time.

And how time would be needed to implement this?

You need to differentiate gameplay features that add needless burden to those that add difficulty/depth. The necessity to eat from time to time is realistic but unless the game is designed around that element it will just be a minor inconvenience as in F:NV.

The problem with a hardcore mode is that since it's such a significant gameplay change you have to design your game around it. Or make it an insignificant gameplay feature.

Eating and food in general is a major gameplay element in tycoon/management/strategy games. Or in games like Oregon Trail. If food was an on/off option it would affect the whole game immensely. You'd have to have two variations of the game, in fact.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Journals are a welcome sight. I do not enjoy having to write down by hand/textpad what I'm supposed to do. Yeah, I might be a lazy gamer... and a LOT of people used Strategy Guides before these recent "advancements", which is pretty much the same thing. Or FAQs. Again, same thing. How many of you "core" gamers out there made your own Demon's Souls build having no foreknowledge on how the game worked? Maybe a handful, the rest of you are lying if you say yes.
I like the current gen of RPGs, and I like the developments. It also introduces a less niche game to a wider audience, thus expanding the base.

 

[zidine100]

are you really telling me that journals are a bad thing, unless you really really hate the player and expect them to take notes themselves, notes they will eventually loose half way through the game and be screwed over by them (IM NOT BITTER ADVENTURE GAMES).

I dont see how journals are a bad thing, or do you really want us to believe that the character im playing as is so incompetent that they wont take a note of this huge list of directions to get to someplace half way across the world, in favor of thinking "i know i have this supper awesome memory ill just remember these directions for later in my awesome head of awesomeness, no i dont need to write this down, writings for weaklings and i wont have it."

 

[Bobic]

Ok, this guy may have a reasonable point, but that's not why I'm here.

All I want to say is, goddamn, that quake video was hilarious.

 

[Hal10k]

My point kinda was that these games could have been even more complex if money would not have been wasted to voice acting everything.

Then again if not having everything voice acted makes some people skip buying the game, then I understand why developers do that. I don't personally however exactly like it nor do I see it as necessary.

Personally, I'm not entirely sure why you'd want Skyrim to be more complex. I've played for around 15 hours, and have yet to complete a full questline yet. There's easily as much on offer here as in Morrowind or Oblivion, and Bethesda managed to marry that with stronger game mechanics and better voice acting than either of those two games. Get the game playing correctly on the PS3, and this would easily be the best installment of the Elder Scrolls series.

In short, I guess, there's no need for a game like Skyrim to get more complex, unless you simply want to punish the player with needless stat crunching and number calculations.

Yeah, Skyrim is fully voiced. It's either quality or quantity and Bethesda went for quantity. The voice acting was as mundane and boring as the writing.

I was debugging a quest in Skyrim and had to open up the internals to see what's going on. Every speech fragment/response given by an NPC is a speech node and those have their internal names given by the developers. Players don't get to see them. I found them to be much more clever, funny and interesting than the actual dialogue the player gets to see.

But as for voice acting - while it's possible to voice act every single character you will have limited voice actors and a limited amount of accents those voice actors can do. With them having to read volumes of generic text the acting will be bland.

In short nothing like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptnSXhVrrbs&feature=related

Different tokes for different folks. I for one found the voice acting vastly improved over Oblivion, and the writing was leagues better. Characters spoke as if they actually fitted in with their surroundings, and were actually part of a cohesive culture.

Sure, not every NPC spoke with great drama and excitement in their voice, but here's the thing: most people you chat with on a day-to-day basis in real life have rather dull voices. People don't tend to talk about their daily activities while heavily emoting or hamming it up. That's the sense I got in Skyrim- the important characters spoke with all the gravitas, dignity and relevant emotion that their roles demanded, and the everyday characters speak to you in everyday voices. I couldn't stand an open-world RPG where every single character is trying to out-ham the other.

And yes, before you ask, I much prefer to hear characters speak to me. Text worked well for older RPGs, but nowadays, if I see a character, I should be able to hear him. Hearing is no lesser a sense than sight. And I find all talk of 'text allowing for more choice' to be redundant. If that's so, imagine how much more choice would be available to the player if developers decided to ignore visuals too, and relayed all vital information through on-screen text.

If you want limitless freedom in your roleplaying, I suggest you play Dungeons and Dragons, or another pen-and-paper RPG. Any videogame, no matter how grandiose, is going to be constricting in comparison. You can either keep cutting out certain elements, such as voice acting, to try and lessen the gap, or you can try and offer a polished game that offers as much freedom and choice as possible while still providing realistic input for your ears as well as your eyes.

I agree with pretty much everything you've just said, though Skyrim NPCs are still a bit limited by their body language. They really only stand ramrod straight and stare in your direction. It doesn't really bother me for the most part, but it would be nice if every once in a while NPCs would just start gesticulating wildly like they were giant wind socks.

Why not?

 

[Realitycrash]

If I played Skyrim and was told to get to a dungeon out in the middle of now where, without a map, I'd get SOOOO lost.

You'd probably head over to the wiki, and pull out their map. So yea, might as well make it ingame.

But if I'm reading this right, then the problem isn't all the branching out and morphing the RPG is doing nowadays - the problem is that they're missing an RPG that smacks you if you so much as ask for directions. Sounds fair I guess. Might in some cases be as easy as a mod. Script detailed quest text for Skyrim, take out all markers, including the map markers for places you've only heard of, and you're set to go.

Morrowind simply pointed you in a direction and said "it's somewhere thataway." I'm not sure I agree with that design, but I would like it kept as an option.

Remember what a piss-take that was? Remember someone saying "It's a bit to the northwest, and then close to a cave", only for you to spend the next few HOURS looking for it, the place turning out to be either on the other side of the continent, but strictly speaking "north-west", or nearby, but not northwest at all.
No, I don't ever want to go through that again.