I played the one with shadow lords whatever number it is. NPC interaction is NOT ENOUGH for a story because interactions are static and you just run around collecting secret words independently of each other, then dungeon crawl, and there are "alignment" quests with an option to be evil at certain point. It's a good game but there is no story really just a set of thematically connected quests.TucoBenedicto said:
NPC interaction is pretty much *everything* for a RPG, at least on the "social" side.Maerd said:
Story is meaningful in a RPG only when it's serve through player agency (who I can talk with, how can interact with those characters, how many unique options I have, how can obtain a different outcome according to my choices and so on).
When the plot just passively absorbed through cutscenes and scripted events, then it's time to give up on games and going for movies or books.
This is basically describing SKYRIM. A static world with its own lore where you the player gets to mold the story.TucoBenedicto said:
Yeah, that's cool for Ultima/Fallout/TES fans, but it isn't what TW has been about and what appeals to its fans. Good story is subjective. And TW is about scripted, dramatic storytelling. We're not the storytellers, the storytellers are taking us on a journey.
To me, TW series is the GAME OF THRONES of RPGs: a tightly woven story of political and mythological intrigue. Events are in motion all over the map. And characters are where they are at a specific time because the story needs them to be there. These types of stories have a timeline as the spine of their narrative.
Would GOT's story be as dramatic if we could take Jon Snow away from The Wall and control Ed Stark's fate at Kings Landing?
Who said that story driven RPG should has fewer interations with NPC? I would say it should have MORE in quantity and MORE in complexity. But conversations alone don't make a story if they are not connected to each other, if there is no flow.TucoBenedicto said:
And about cut scenes... How many cut scenes were in Planescape: Torment... 1 or 2? It could be none with the same effect.
I don't see why the story cant still be as good if not better in a open world. Everyone needs to stop thinking of other games when they think open world.
I think if they start the game with a good amount of story. but don't place to much urgency at the start it will give us the option to explore and flesh out the world a bit, as the story progresses I hope they can add that urgency element and direct us a bit more. by that time we will have explored most the area.
I don't see why we cant still have a chapter type of thing happen, we get a recap and a bit of back story after completing a large chunk of the main story line.
I really want some more of the story line from the books added, as a cut seen, we get to act out play as Gearalt for a bit even if its just some dialog.
Its nice having some choice in what hes saying show some of the romance with Yenifer. but not a big soft porn type thing, Id like to see what so special about her as a person why did Gearalt fall in love with her?
I think if they start the game with a good amount of story. but don't place to much urgency at the start it will give us the option to explore and flesh out the world a bit, as the story progresses I hope they can add that urgency element and direct us a bit more. by that time we will have explored most the area.
I don't see why we cant still have a chapter type of thing happen, we get a recap and a bit of back story after completing a large chunk of the main story line.
I really want some more of the story line from the books added, as a cut seen, we get to act out play as Gearalt for a bit even if its just some dialog.
Its nice having some choice in what hes saying show some of the romance with Yenifer. but not a big soft porn type thing, Id like to see what so special about her as a person why did Gearalt fall in love with her?
How am I trolling? MAfia was an open world game, but it was a STORY focused game, you could travel around the world as you wished, same as GTA games, etc however they focused on telling a good storyline.Maerd said:Mafia 1 is open world?/>/> First of all, it's not RPG. In Mafia you're executing one mission at a time and cannot switch or do anything else meaningful... Stop trolling.
How is it not an open world game? The world was open, you could go where you pleased, drive around the entire city and do what you wanted.
Yes it lacked any real side-missions and things, but it was still an open world game, and the story was great.
It lacked not only real side missions, it lacked everything not connected to the current mission. There was nobody to interact with besides the set up for the current mission. Unless you consider aimless driving and random shooting a worthy interaction. It was an awesome game but it's linear story driven shooter where most missions happen in the parts of the same large location.Stiler said:
Just because it's open world doesn't mean the story will be bad. But it does mean they will have to work extra hard on crafting the environment well to still provide those cinematic moments. One game that's always done that pretty well is the Zelda series. It's been open world for quite some time yet still tells a story reasonably well. One thing I don't really like is them dropping the Chapters/Act's though. I want it to still feel like were hearing one of Geralts stories.
No, what I'm describing is the EXACT opposite of what Skyrim focuses over.AndyWitcher said:
Did you people even bothered playing Ultima VII, before pretending to have an extended knowledge of the RPG genre?
A long time ago, back on my old 486 PC. I can barely remember it, just what a headache it was trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing and where I'm supposed to be going after wandering around aimlessly for many hours, collecting items, gaining spells, chatting to NPCs, and not really getting a sense of a solid story arc.TucoBenedicto said:
Then I later learned that if you knew exactly what you were doing you could speed run the game from start to finish in about 20 minutes.
To me, personally, that isn't great storytelling. Because storytelling is about causality of dramatic events.
In other words, the majority of Ultima VII's story elements were not required for your character to complete his journey. There was no solid through-line - no story spine. There were no core characters that arced and vital to your journey. Hence there was no drama.
Imagine what the GODFATHER would be like if Al Pacino's character decided to cut the bullshit and become mafioso before the end of act 1. His character journey wouldn't have existed. GODFATHER is one of the greatest movies of all time because every scene was vital for the story's epic and emotional finale.
Ditto for STAR WARS. What if Luke just hijacked the nearest ship and blew up the Death Star within 10 minutes of the movie? It would never have happened. He needed to meet Obi Wan, he needed to meet the droids, he needed to meet Han, he needed to learn the Force, he needed to fall in love with his own sister (?), he needed to join the rebel alliance etc. All of these dramatic elements make up the story as a whole.
Causality.
In Ultima VII, I just need to find the flying carpet and go to the right places and pick up the right items - which can be all done in about 20 minutes. That's your main story there. Where's the emotional commitment?
The commitment came from investing time completing tasks to obtain items that would make my avatar boss. The world's lore is the backdrop. Like reading a history text book and using your imagination to figure out the dramatic elements. Ultima is more about world building.
There is nothing wrong with that. It's just a different type of storytelling from what I, personally, loved about TW series - which is classic, structured storytelling - the causality of events as depicted in Aristotle's Poetics.
Your argument is that TW story is weaker than the classic RPGs like Ultima. Well personally I am here because I LOVE TW's current storytelling structure - hence why I took the effort to register to this forum.
I spent >>120 hours into Skyrim (+20 hours for adding mods), but Witcher 2 was still my GOTY 2011, so if they can combine those two into Witcher 3, i would probably live in that game, just think about the potential with the Redkit. Maybe people could add new countries, so we will get at some point the whole continent!
I also don't really understand why everybody says it will be like Skyrim, no it won't, they never stated that. They said it will be bigger than Skyrim and not like it.
You can still play Witcher 3 as you want, but now you will have the freedom to do things you want, there is no cage or border anymore. If you want you can go straight forward to the next favored mainquest, but you don't need to, also it will have consequences.
I also don't really understand why everybody says it will be like Skyrim, no it won't, they never stated that. They said it will be bigger than Skyrim and not like it.
You can still play Witcher 3 as you want, but now you will have the freedom to do things you want, there is no cage or border anymore. If you want you can go straight forward to the next favored mainquest, but you don't need to, also it will have consequences.
Nah, that doesn't mean the situation isn't urgent. I have to study for a test next week, it's actually very urgent, but do i learn? nope, just browing the internet, huntring trolls.Zanderat said:
Well, this comparison doesn't really work. I agree with Zanderat. Actually, I had an examplary situation in my first playthrough of Batman: Arkham City:Kallelinski said:
I finished a main-story-mission, very dramatic, a sense of urgency was built up, main character in mortal danger etc... but then I decided to make some side-mssions first before tackling the next main mission, which turned out to be the final one, concluding the main story. After beating the end-boss I sat back and thought: "Well that didn't make much sense..." (I won't go into details, because of spoilers) But then I realized that the story writer assumed that I'd continued with the last mission at once without any delay, only then does the final confrontation makes sense.
And that's a real danger for story-telling in TW3. For example, a grand finale, a village/city/castle is under attack from the Nilfgaardians, loved ones are in mortal danger.. no problem, the game world freezes while you're finishing some monster-hunting-quests first --> atmosphere goes down the gutter....
Wow I must have been playing different Ultimas to you folk, whether it was the existential eternal search for virtue in Ultima IV and the protagonists finding of a purpose in both worlds. The twisting of those virtues into moral absolutism, the fragility of an absolute monarchy and the unresolved issues of the past arising to haunt Britannia in Ultima V. The lack of empathy arising from the established speciesism of Britannia against the Gargoyle people, the war crimes of the Avatar in capturing the Codex and the danger of blindly following prophecy in Ultima VI. Or the ease with which virtue can be abandoned and the people manipulated by a false religion promising all too easy answers in Ultima VII.
That was nothing like the consequenceless hiking simulator that I played in Skyrim, with no themes or narratives running through it's pretty landscapes.
Or Fallout: New Vegas that sets us in the midst of a clash of cultures arguing over the new dawn of luxury that is springing forth in the Wasteland. To craft a borderland between two titanic diametrically aligned cultures, or to embrace a well meaning but increasingly incompetent and heartless democracy, or champion a tyrannical and facist slave empire that is ferociously effective and works. All this set against the backdrop of what technology has done to the world, and how its benefits can oh so quickly be subverted by the elected few, so that obscenities such as the vault experiments are authorised by the peoples protectors.
In no way would I put the subtle themes, carefully constructed narratives and brilliant characterisations of either New Vegas or the Ultimas in the same category as the pointless rambling, raiding and reading of Skyrim.
That was nothing like the consequenceless hiking simulator that I played in Skyrim, with no themes or narratives running through it's pretty landscapes.
Or Fallout: New Vegas that sets us in the midst of a clash of cultures arguing over the new dawn of luxury that is springing forth in the Wasteland. To craft a borderland between two titanic diametrically aligned cultures, or to embrace a well meaning but increasingly incompetent and heartless democracy, or champion a tyrannical and facist slave empire that is ferociously effective and works. All this set against the backdrop of what technology has done to the world, and how its benefits can oh so quickly be subverted by the elected few, so that obscenities such as the vault experiments are authorised by the peoples protectors.
In no way would I put the subtle themes, carefully constructed narratives and brilliant characterisations of either New Vegas or the Ultimas in the same category as the pointless rambling, raiding and reading of Skyrim.
I don't think most people that are sad about the open world thing are saying it will fail. It will likely be more commercially successful than TW2. Skyrim sure as heck didn't fail... it was a huge commercial success. Did it also have an extremely dull story, copy-pasted dungeons, boring quests? Check, check, and check.Malakar1 said:
But it doesn't freeze:SkycladGuardian said:
- Can abandon the storyline, but will have repercussions later
- Not doing a plotline is a choice the player has
I can most definitely say that AC2 is NOT an open world game in the real sense of the word. When you first start the game you are restricted to a small part of the town (there are animus "borders" that prevent you from leaving the area). You can take as much time as you like in this area and do sidequests, explore and mess around. New parts of the map are procedurally unlocked after certain main quests are completed. You can go back to any of the previous areas at any point in the game since they are part of one big map. If I'm not mistaken almost all of the quests are contained within the area they belong to.HighKing said:
Quite frankly, I think that this structure is quite good and would prefer a similar one to be used in TW3. This way it's easier to develop the game, provide a good story and a quality experience - it certainly isn't the colossal task that CDPR have taken up.
When such a system is used the pacing of the game is much better and under the control of the developer, because it is quite similar to the system used in the first two Witcher games. It has a few benefits because of the continuous world - going back to places you've already visited. Such benefits could be:
-as already mentioned, monsters living in certain regions, having to go back and hunt
-revisiting an area after some time, there could be new quests (continuations, additional jobs)
-quests spanning multiple regions
-finishing side quests you didn't feel like doing at the time and wanted to go on with the main story or go to a different place
The world shouldn't be static (Skyrim and the like), it should react to the player's actions and choices and change accordingly. The party/massacre in Flotsam would be a perfect example of this. So far this has only been done in linear games. And I don't even mean massive changes like that. New dialogue would suffice. Take a look at this to see what I mean by static: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/firstperson/9265-Skyrim-is-Soulless
Another thing is that it shouldn't be excessively big just for the sake of being "20% bigger than Skyrim". I'd much rather have a world 1/3 the size of Skyrim full of hand-crafted events and encounters, fun quests, hidden secrets and so on. The world needs to be captivating and interesting, not overly big, bland, dull and empty (Skyrim and the like).
Personally, I have never enjoyed truly open world games as much as linear games (AC2 is a linear game). But I really hope that CDPR can make a revolutionary game, and I am inclined to believe that they will deliver.
Again, you're confusing the setting content with the story. Ultima games (the old ones) have well developed settings but have very little story because quests that constitute the setting are independent of each other. The world react only very locally to all the quests, except for the one or two of actual story quests, which will immediately finish you the game.Blothulfur said:
The game with and awesome settings are very good but they are not
Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 3 have nice setting ideas with empty/bad setting content, which is why those games overall are boring. F3NV has better setting content though Ceasar's Legion idea was utter crap and doesn't fit the post-apocalyptic setting. Fallout 1,2 (and Ultimas 7 if you like), and Morrowind have excellent settings in terms of both: ideas and content and they are fun games to play but it doesn't make their stories any better. Baldur's Gate 2, on the other hand, has a quite developed story. But it's also not open world, there is some freedom but it's restricted and it's divided in chapters.