Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Whats so interesting about the story mechanic? you'd be surprised what it is.
whilan
Member UncommonPosts: 3,472
When watching this video i think i hit on why i like Bioware games so much and why i'm interested in this game more so then say any other game.
Here is the video: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2633-Non-Combat-Gaming
In short, your not always fighting against mobs with swords (or lightsaber) guns and whatnot, sometimes the challenge is convincing an NPC to see things your way.
I don't see this in any MMO unless some of the newer ones are doing that. Where your stats allow you to convince an NPC your right.
If the newer ones aren't. I believe this is one feature we haven't seen in MMOs. I could be wrong but i like this feature and hope more games (not just MMOs) do this.
What do you all think?
PS. sorry for the long title, i really couldn't find any way to make it shorter and get the correct point across.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Comments
While different, separate from the "story" in some ways, Vanguard has a whole diplomatic sphere, stats partially play a role, but it is more a card game, literally.
I cannot wait to see Biowares input on the conversations. I believe it feels more immersive when you have a selectable opinion in a conversation. I really cannot wait to do/say some random things to NPC's in TOR! Mass Effect showed brilliant conversation tech, and this looks very simular. TOR FTW!
I think anyone who ever played a Bioware game already know this, OP.
Not really. I don't really like and I own DA:O.
I can't stand that squeeky voice the speaker hides behind in those vids but story is great way to explore the mmo world for sure.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
I did not say that you will like it, just that you know about the story mechanics. 2 rather different things. I loved BG 1 & 2, and I really loved NWN. Nothing in DA 2 surprises me, but I still just think it is "meh".
Fixed his comment. Now it fits
@OP: the problem with non-combat gaming is, you can use a lot of the same mechanics that is used in combat, only translate them into diplomacy, social standing, influence and that sort of things, but the problem is that when you do it with dialogue, you have to use a lot of non-repetitive content, a lot more than purely for combat.
Sure, you could use dialogue and such in some ways that makes you be able to reuse some elements, but you'll always have a core that's one-time use, where combat encounters use the same mechanics over and over again. Which makes combat mechanics far easier to do, and you can as a designer produce far more combat encounters content in a shorter period of time because of the same building blocks that can be used than you can produce story content.
I agree though that there are more ways of interesting content than just combat, that can be just as engaging. I still have to try out Puzzle Pirates, it seems it uses some different mechanics than the age old combat mechanics for its content and conflicts.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I enjoyed Oblivion's mechanic a bit more. There are plenty of mods that made persuasion fun.
Yeah, and dialogues gets leaked to the net so it is rather easy to cheat, there will probably be programs that handle the talk for you after release.
The mechanics I miss in MMOs are mechanics for traps. They were very important in P&P games, and you can reuse them just like combat.
Biowares story mechanics are kinda fun but it is a lot of work for how much content you get out of it. I have a feeling you will run past this rather fast.
yeah tho I even enjoy the original one:)
a bit more to those minigames, what I really want to see in games more are minigames similar to fallouts 3 - the lockpicking and hacking was way much fun to not be used again
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them
Reading your title I was expecting something negative, maybe I should be more possitive as a person
But yea, I can't wait to get into it, I really hope it's going to be an immersive experience.
I actually just bought one of the two books to get into the story beforehand, can't say I've ever done that before with a game.
"You don't have much choice when trouble's riding your back so tight it makes the leather squeak. Sometimes you outsmart it, sometimes you outfight it, and sometimes you just have to outrun it... full throttle."
Nice post, the title did have me thinking it was another negative "we don't want a story" post but i was pleasantly suprised.
It sounds like we are in the same sort of mindset, this game will be bringing the RPG side of things back and making the game enjoyable for those of us who have missed the RPG from MMOs these days and enjoyed the original KotOR and Mass Effect etc.
Cant really watch the vid as im in work, but donig stuff like this persuading NPCs to do different things. .does this get you XP?
Imo the best "action influence story"
witcher
The best "dialog influence story"
Vampire masquarade bloodline
Played all of bioware games except da2. Loved only baldurs gate series, kotor 1 and ME1. Imo bioware excel in making cinematic moment
Vampire Masquarade had a terrific dialog influence ,that made the crumpy combat system tolerable .
Infact being a hater of vampire serie and story , I still love that one .
I am suprised why many people never give Mass Effect serie a try , the story there was making me forget the combat system.
The dialogue were infact made sense , and depending on your choices you either get more info and chat dialogue, or just the standard conversation till loyalty quest .
Something they did in DA2 too , so nothing seems suprising till you find out that companions have more to say if you sometimes pick a different toon . then just good or bad .
Infact mixing it up brings out more conversation then black and white .
Bioware's "Choose your own Adventure" style is ok when you are dealing with a short story line and one player. I don't know how well that's going to translate to an MMO where you have thousands of players, each trying to make their own mark on the world. There won't be room for 10,000 Shepards or Hawks.
Personally, I haven't seen it done any better than in the old Everquest Scars of Velious expansion.
There were 3 different civilizations (dwarves, giants, and dragons), and you had to choose which to support. Your actions with one race had consequences with the other two races, and affected what lore and quests were accesible to you, and what gear choices you could make. You could reverse your choice, but it took a lot of work to convince any race that you had wronged that they should trust you again. And none of it required simple "Pick one of three" dialog choices that you could just navigate with a flowchart - these were entire cities and civilizations that you were interacting with, and the quest lines and lore went very deep into NPC interactions.
@Ride, that was simple faction juggling, while thats nice that wasn't the point of the post.
The point of the post is having to deal with npcs like you do in fighting, figuring out how to get them on your side. Granted most of the time it's pick one of 3 but sometimes you have to try and pursade the other side, which is based on your pursausion stat. Granted it's not overly complex but i think it's heading in the right direction, it's heading towards stats in more then how many zombies can i take down with X stat because i can.
Kinda like the video was saying about that one game where you trying to do something not based on combat but based on your stats. It's based around non-combat. Which is always a plus to me.
As for the one who said they liked oblivions style of pursade. That is nice but they need to have that wheel but get rid of the pie pieces, that way it is somewhat guesswork. Otherwise it's figuring out how the pie turns then picking the slices that were biggest for the one he likes and th e smallest for the ones he dislike. After a while it just came down to a few seconds of contemplation and then it's just simple working it, most npcs i had on my side withing moments which is too easy.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.