Quote:Original post by Wavinator
In a futuristic RPG, what would you lose if you abstracted the towns and made all the NPCs contactable via the equivalent of a cell phone?

I don't think much is lost...

They don't need to always answer, it can be controlled by the story progression (and "accessibility" in practice be like it used to be in towns). Maybe the range of the cell phone is limited, so you need to be pretty close to the NPC you're calling.

Hey! What about a cell phone radar? Maybe it only shows NPCs that you've exchanged number with, and with unique colors, that would be cool (still, they might not answer, and you search for them in the environment using that radar).

Anyway, I think, what you're thinking about, is great.

Quote:Original post by Wavinator
If you're safe and secure in some location and you call the mob boss up to tick him off, it's not the same as going to his restaurant down town.

Then the boss can still somehow track you down using the call log [grin]

Quote:
Finally, you'd probably lose some sense of danger or physical threat. If you're safe and secure in some location and you call the mob boss up to tick him off, it's not the same as going to his restaurant down town.

Two words: Phone tracking

I love the concept! I don't think town wandering would be eliminated as if you look at real life as an example, not all conversation options are viable through a communication device or through FedEx. A good reason for this may be legality, security or a question of trust. You also got the possibility of visually seeing goods and products being sold and if the social atmosphere improves, players will want to go to town rather than be forced to do so.

I think the whole sense of danger thing can be really thought out creatively. There is nothing to stop the NPC from trying to send you a bomb after you've finished their job. There is also the threat of being attacked because of the very information you have.

In terms of feeling that the world is less expansive, I have to disagree. I think by contacting your client, you can give your client a bigger life than the game's asset allow for - they're currently at a conference, they're currently having a party with their friends, one of their clients has been found dead and they are at the hospital for identification.

Quote:Original post by Wavinator
In a futuristic RPG, what would you lose if you abstracted the towns and made all the NPCs contactable via the equivalent of a cell phone?

Not if you presented all the disadvantages of a cell phone - traceability, reception, signal weakness, interception... If you did that, some NPCs would prefer to do some forms of business face to face.

The effect would be to eliminate pointless face to face meetings and travel to and fro, but when it really mattered you'd meet in person, reinforcing the import of the engagement.

This is pretty much exactly what I'm doing in my medieval RPG. Later on, I plan to build up the town and then move the camera along a track to each location as it's selected, but that's really just eye candy.

The tedious exploration of a town is one of my pet peeves, particularly in 3D RPGs. It's frustrating and almost always pointless. I think Morrowind would be my one and only exception, because the towns were interesting and there was plenty of optional stuff to do. And probably because you had to get used to manually walking everywhere, so it didn't feel like such a slowdown.

A good compromise, if you want to build scenarios in town, is something like Mount & Blade. You can explore the town manually, or you can use the menu to trade and quickly enter buildings.

I agree with Oluseyi.

Including the negatives gives a lot more opportunity for different kinds of interaction, and Id consider it almost a necessity in order to properly integrate it into the world setting instead of having it look like a tacked-on extra (which is important, because thats generally how they feel in most games)

And I think while you lose some possible situations of danger and physical threat, you could actually manage additional threatening situations by presenting the negatives in the right way. After contacting an ally, you could get a second call from somebody alerting you that the call has been traced and the enemy is currently speeding towards your location. Or the classic thriller movie setup, where you receive a mysterious phone call - the caller reveals that they are watching you at that very second, but the faceless nature of the phone means you have no way to identify or locate them, and so you're vulnerable and at their mercy. Its just a change in the device used to create tension, not necessarily a loss of tension.

Quote:Not if you presented all the disadvantages of a cell phone - traceability, reception, signal weakness, interception... If you did that, some NPCs would prefer to do some forms of business face to face.

Starting with 4G, all phone systems actually run on the internet.
There are ways to be anonymous and to crypt information on the Internet, which makes traceability and interception irrelevant.

Then there is the reception/signal weakness problem. But hopefully, that won't be a problem in the future because technology would allow to cover every space for sure.