Quote:Original post by Way Walker

Quote:Original post by sunandshadow

Quote:Original post by Sneftel
Why not force them to choose?

Because of course we want the players to be irritated no matter what choice they make, who cares whether they're dissatisfied with their character no matter what they wear? *eyeroll*

In Fallout II, if I took small arms sometimes I'd be hurting for ammo, if I took unarmed/melee sometimes i'd be hurting for range, if I took big guns sometimes I'd have bigger ammo problems and have to worry about not hitting my friends, if I took speech sometimes I wouldn't be able to talk my way out. No matter what I did, I was never completely satisfied with my character. Then again, Fallout II is still one of my favorite games.

I have a related theory. Role playing is pretty much all about pushing to build your character into an ideal concept. The trick to making players enjoy a role playing game is not actually letting them have a perfect character, but enticing them to play through the game by helping them believe they may eventually develop a perfect character.

Of course, you can't lead them around with a carrot stick forever without actually feeding them. Some parts of perfecting a character need to be given over time as they play (skills, renown). Some parts should be almost impossible, but still reachable with enough determination (powerful weapons, skill mastery). And some other parts should usually never be reachable (all skills mastered, equipment that totally outclasses all other equipment).

All things considered, a role playing game is essentially over when a player is completely satisfied with their character. Everything that moves them far toward perfection should require that something else be left behind to suffer, to keep the balance.

I don't really see armor appearance as something that moves a character's development toward perfection, though, unless it actually influences the gameplay. If someone wants to wear leather armor instead of meta-plastic, because meta-plastic looks like crap, I don't see anything wrong with giving them room to build leather armor up to the defensive quality of meta-plastic. At the same time, I don't really see the entire topic as much of a problem. Armor usefulness and balance is far more important than looking good while you play, and letting players dramatically change the effectiveness of armor will most likely unbalance the game.

Quote:I have a related theory. Role playing is pretty much all about pushing to build your character into an ideal concept.

I would question this. Note that I am not sayingt hat this isn't part of role palaying or that you can't role play with this system. It is just that I feel that it is not the only type of role playing tool that computers can do.

Why can't you start off with a perfect character and just not have character building at all? I feel that it should be the "Actions" the player/character takes that define role play rather than the stats the character has.

Role play is a dramatic expression, you essentially take a character on a journey. This is usually done through stat advancement, but it doesn't just hav eto be about stats.

Sure, you probably will be tracking values of some sort (this is a computer game) but these don't have to be "stats" as they are used now (like strength, some kind of skill level, etc). What about tracking something like Reputation, Honour, or Social Standing.

If the character starts off with only a small value in these, then the journey is in increasing this value (and how they increase it).

Sorry, I know that was off topic, but it does relate to what I am going to say below:

What if you ahve Form and Function as seperate, but both having gamepaly effects?

For example, there might be some way to track fashions in the game (essentially the look of the equipment). This might be done by tracking the Mean or Median looks of various subgroups (like are the warriors wearing gothic styles and are the mages wearing their robes short or long this season :D ).

For the next part you would need to have some way of extrapolating tyhe direction of fashions. One way would be to take the Mean and then use the Median to find the direction (so it might be that they are becomeing more Gothic or less Gothic in style).

You then set a low "Status Symbol" value to the Mean look (that is you are really just following the crowd) and a high Status Symbol value to the outfits that follow the direction the fashion trend is goin (that is towards the Median and beyond it).

What will happen is that fashion will rapidly move to one extreme style, then as that gets saturated with people it's value will be reduced making other style more valuable. There will be a period where virtually all styles will be ranked equally, but then a small change might tip the balance and drive the trends towards (or away) form that style ushering in rapid changes in fashion.

Because there are two feedback loops effecting the status (one increaseing the value of a particular fashion and the other driving it down) and these vary in strength over time and reach an unstable equilibrium. The inherent noise (even just players finding new gear already with a particular style, and players just seaking a look for themselves) in the system, however, will ensure that once that unstable equilibrium is reached, it will be pushed into another unstable equilibrium.

This could then be used to track a social standing of the character adn this can be sued to unlock various features of the game (new quests, areas, abilities, or whatever).

This could be a noncombat feature of the game that can only really be achived by seperating Function from Form. It also adds more imersion to the game and more opertunity to role play.

Quote:Original post by JasRonq
you miss the point entirely. Those are all gameplay challenges. obstacles. things intended to make the game fun because if it handed you the perfect gun and infinite ammo and a huge shield of unkillability then you would have fun for about ten minutes and then get bored. On the other hand, there is no valid reason for not letting a player look as cool as he wants to because you linked those gameplay challenges to his looks. you can provide those same gameplay challenges and provide the same fun and gameplay and also let the player look how he wants. you just have to separate them.

No, it's just that I'm thinking of the game as a whole experience without this gameplay vs. graphics dichotomy. Why should players be disatisfied with gameplay challenges but not aesthetic challenges? And why shouldn't those challenges interact, especially in an RPG?

Quote:Original post by Edtharan

Quote:I have a related theory. Role playing is pretty much all about pushing to build your character into an ideal concept.

I would question this. Note that I am not sayingt hat this isn't part of role palaying or that you can't role play with this system. It is just that I feel that it is not the only type of role playing tool that computers can do.

If we're both referring to the video game genre version of role-playing, and if the player character can not become enhanced in any way throughout the game (skills, equipment, finance, relationships, whatever), then it's definitely not an RPG. I'm sorry, but that's what defines the genre. If you take that out, you may have something fun and enjoyable, but it won't be an RPG.

Quote:Why can't you start off with a perfect character and just not have character building at all?

Because the genre is about character development. A perfect character can not develop.

Quote:I feel that it should be the "Actions" the player/character takes that define role play rather than the stats the character has.

I wouldn't want to chuck them all without question, but most non-violent role playing games would be categorized as part of the adventure genre without character development. The adventure genre is all about role-playing, too. It's just that it's more focused on actions and decisions than self improvement.

Quote:Role play is a dramatic expression, you essentially take a character on a journey. This is usually done through stat advancement, but it doesn't just hav eto be about stats.

Well, I didn't say it had anything to do with stats. Character development can be about anything that enhances the character in a way that allows the player to consider it a goal.

Quote:Sure, you probably will be tracking values of some sort (this is a computer game) but these don't have to be "stats" as they are used now (like strength, some kind of skill level, etc). What about tracking something like Reputation, Honour, or Social Standing.

How does this go against my theory? To repeat the phrase you quoted me with: Role playing is pretty much all about pushing to build your character into an ideal concept. Reputation, honour, and social standing are all character development traits that a player will percieve as goals that work toward an ideal character. You can't just give them maxed out reputation, or all of the fun involved with building reputation will be lost.

That was my point. You can't ever allow the player to be completely happy with their character. Once that happens, the role playing fun is over. It's the very reason rich and beautiful people are so miserable.

Quote:Well, I didn't say it had anything to do with stats. Character development can be about anything that enhances the character in a way that allows the player to consider it a goal.

My bad. I read you post as if you were talking about Stats and Gear as advancement of the character. This was partially caused by my skimming over your post and missin the one mention of non stat or gear methods of character advancement (where you mentioned renown).

However, you didn't explain how methods like renown could be used as non stat/gear character advancements, so in light of the rest of your post, my mistake is understandable.

I think we are actually trying to say the same thing. That Stats and Gear are not the only way you can have character advancement in a game.

Quote:If we're both referring to the video game genre version of role-playing, and if the player character can not become enhanced in any way throughout the game (skills, equipment, finance, relationships, whatever), then it's definitely not an RPG. I'm sorry, but that's what defines the genre. If you take that out, you may have something fun and enjoyable, but it won't be an RPG.

I disagree here. What about this scenario:

Youo are an investigator of the paranormal. You start off with a Revolver and an unlimited supply of ammo for it. The only stat your character has is "Sanity" and this starts off at 100%. You can't improve anything, you can't get better equipment and you can't improve your Sanity beyond 100%.

At this point your character is "Perfect".

However, as the game progresses, depending on your choices in dealing with the paranormal you might become mentally disturbed by it (loose sanity).

You can Role play this and your character is "perfect". In fact there is a whole set of Role Playing GTames based arund this mechanic, the Call of Cthulu series of RPGs (mainly in Pen and Paper). I have even played in a few game of this my self.

This means that having a perfect character is not a restiction on someone's ability to role play. The roel play comes from how you handle the encroaching insanity that is creaping up on you.

This "Fall from Grace" is the exact opposite of "Character Advancement" and it still offers ample opertunity for Role Play.

Quote:You can't just give them maxed out reputation, or all of the fun involved with building reputation will be lost.

What if the game was to avoid loosing social standing. Then you might start out with a maxed out Reputation, but then choices you make could either lead to the Reputation staying the same or it being reduced.

Now these are just example, and because of that are very simplisitic, but this does not eman that you could not make a more complex system that has the character starting off with "Perfect" stats, and the game is about the character trying to avoid the fall from grace.

Imagine a game where you are a police officer, once considdered the best of the force. A "perfect" character. However, the game starts off with them getting mixed up in bad operation and now they are being blackmailed. They have their reputation on the force (and without it the blackmailers would have no use for the character as they are suing that to their advantage). If the character's reputation falls too low, then they will be of no used to the balckmailers and the blackmainers would do something bad (like kill a hostage of the characters familiy). If the character/player fails to do what the blackmailers want, then they will do their bad thing.

So the player is juggling their reputation and the need to keep the hostage alive by doing what the blackmailers want. There is ample opertunity for lots of interesting role play and story here and the character started off as "Perfect" and is Falling from Grace, but trying not to.

The onyl time a "perfect" character is a block is only when you assume that the gole is to becoem "Better". Role play is not only about becomeing "Better" but it is "Playing a Role" (that is why it is called Role Play, not "Character Advancment Play").

I think what we have found here is that the presence of role playing does not make the game an RPG, even if the role playing is the focus. If there is no character advancement and the role playing is centered around actions and not items and stats, its really an adventure game.

Not entirely on-topic, but a few people have mentioned changing looks with an armourer/artisan/etc npc.

I just wanted to comment and say that I vehemently oppose those sort of solutions. When I encounter such situations where there is a special NPC for such tasks (especially in level based games where the player character is often higher level than the NPC), I find it extremely immersion breaking when the NPC can accomplish things that my character cant (such as crafting some armour, doing blacksmithing work, etc) solely by virtue of being an NPC or a flimsy justification of the mechanic.

Please, dont treat NPCs as magic pez-dispensers of convenient game mechanics!


More on-topic: I like Kest's point about Oblivion style skills for extended wear of a given item. Being able to train yourself to work effectively in your chosen armour, rather than the effective armour always being the developer's chosen favourite. Apart from skill systems like TES series, some RPGs already keep track of favourite items just for the sake of statistics - I seem to remember an obscure sub-menu in Baldur's Gate with the favourite weapon for each party member, and something similar on the main character sheet in Diablo.

were the NPCs in Diablo 2 immersion breaking for you?


I think a good solution for that would be a general armour wearing skill and then a stat on each piece of armour in the game that is a multiplier for your armour skill. That opens up the possibility of tailoring armour to fit better and increasing that stat and also having it go up very slowly over time as you get use to wearing the armour. In such a system I would recommend allowing the player to name their armour, or at least add the players name to the name of the armour so they can keep track of it at a glance in a pile of similar armour.

If you keep the stats of the armour simple and make the extra functionality like "resist this and that" something you add to the armour (permanently or allowing it to be transferable) then the player has incentive to stick with armour he has had for awhile even if he likes the looks of a new piece more. This model then would allow the player to have an aesthetics related goal that he can actually achieve. Specifically rather than having to choose between the look of one piece of the functionality of another, he can choose the new piece and rebuild its functionality. This provides a real and meaningful decision and an outcome that can be completely satisfying but at a cost.

Quote:Original post by JasRonq
This is a conflict that I don't think is a fair one, this seems to me to be a situation where the game and the players happiness with the game will benefit from having the cake and eating it too.

I don't really think that holds as a general thing. In lots of cases, it's a good thing that the graphics are sort of functional. That you can tell that someone's able to beat you up by how ridiculous their equipment looks etc.

And as sort of mentioned, Lord of the Rings Online (at least) lets you wear equipment just for looks that don't effect your stats. Not in the PvP bits of the game though.

Quote:Original post by caffiene
I just wanted to comment and say that I vehemently oppose those sort of solutions. When I encounter such situations where there is a special NPC for such tasks (especially in level based games where the player character is often higher level than the NPC), I find it extremely immersion breaking when the NPC can accomplish things that my character cant (such as crafting some armour, doing blacksmithing work, etc) solely by virtue of being an NPC or a flimsy justification of the mechanic.

I find it extremely immersion braking when I have to run around being a tailor or smithy or some rubbish like that. I just wanna crawl the dungeons, and let the NPCs sew dresses or whatever.

Edit: Feels a bit wrong to mention only some mediocre MMO. In the Gold Box games (the ones I've played at least) you get to pick sprites and some colors for your character. Yay.