Because of limited time I am fairly selective in what modules I'll download and play. I tend to read everything I can find on the Vault and the boards (well, not anymore...) about a module before I get into it. The voting system and the community are invaluable in helping to decide where to focus. Recently I tried two different modules that I would say are not top tier quality. Both are good in their own way but not world beaters by any means. The things that stood out as "faults" (to me, not necessarily to others) were a lack of flair, weakness in style and continuity from portion of the mod to the next. You could see where the builder ran out of time and patience moving from one inspired setting to a drab area. Most of the really good mods that I have played through are fairly consistent. I think that storyline and background give a module its gravitas and even a pure hack and slash build needs a certain amount of flair to keep it from being "more of the same". The addition of certain detail oriented touches seems to be what makes a good module into a great one. Following certain conventions that NWN has essentially established since the O/C may be a recipe for repetition but at the same time it gives the player a familiar starting point to dive deeper into the game.
I see concerns across the spectrum about "originality" and I understand the desire for something "new" but the entire universe that NWN inhabits is well covered ground so I think that the mark of success may be more along the lines of: "a tale oft told but told well".
So many of the "plotlines" that I would be tempted to dismiss as a "rerun" are timeless classics that deserve another telling. In order to make the new telling a success the trick is in the details. I believe if asked I'd say the little things matter most.
I pitch this out to get a feel for how the veteran members of the AME approach these things
TG
I don't think I'm a particularly picky player, although as NWN has progressed, the bar for basic expectations has, I think, risen.
I agree with you that even a basic H&S module really needs some kind of storyline. Long gone are the days where I'll happily jump into a module and hack my way through hoards of creatures, shop for hours and turn this way and that to see how I look in pink *grins* I do play GvE3 on occasion with my fellow reviewers (but it is a heavily modded version and extremely challenging) in MP.
I don't mind re-told stories, after all, we each have our own vision of how say, strider looks in our mind, or how he sounds. Tasslehoff Burfoot may seem as different to me as he does to you, so again, how familiar characters are portrayed from one module to another can vary greatly.
I do not like to be railroaded through a story. I will accept that the player sometimes needs to be driven in a linier plot, but please make the driving aspect interesting RP wise.
Journal entries are a must for me, a good module has an excellent journal! Interesting custom gear is good also, and descriptions on every NPC, item and stick of furniture makes me a very happy player. I'll spend hours reading descriptions and count that as part of the whole gaming experience. Yep, the little things matter a lot to me. Custom lighting/atmosphere in areas that make logistical sense helps as well. I really -hate-large areas, unless their purpose is for the player & enemy to be able to use the terrain for battle. A polished mod is always great to see.
I enjoy neat scripting, I'm normally delighted by the surprises that come from a scripted moment. I don't however hold it against an author if he/she can't/or have chosen not to add this to their modules...as long as their storytelling/adventure flows well, makes sense and is fun for me.
These days I'm afraid I much prefer the shorter modules, 4 hours is really as long as I want to spend playing a module. That can make it harder for an author to provide a ripping adventure...but it is by no means impossible ;)
In the end, I have to ask myself, did I enjoy the module? If I didn't, was it because it was not my play style? If that is the case, I then ask myself, well, put that aside, was the module well made, and did it deliver on what it offered? if yes, then I of course would value it on those terms. So, a H&S mod (not my thing really these days) may well sit highly on my list because it provides fantastic H&S quality. As long as it is also well polished, I'd have no problem recommending it to others for what it is.
Told you I wasn't picky :P
Well said the both of you. I can't rally add to that, you got it pretty much covered.
Very good point on Journal entries. They need to be clear and concise. I sort of view them as a "narration" tool.. A guide to make things clear to the player that aren't able to be made clear because of the limitations of the game. Sometimes scripting something is so complicated that it blocks the building of the module. Handling it in the journal lets things progress without a back-breaking amount of effort.
I am a huge fan of the narration as provided in Udasu's "Accursed Tower". To me it echoes the pen and paper experience very well. It's not something I've seen elsewhere but that may just be because I don't get to play that many modules.
I also agree that there needs to be "more than one way to get to Rome" in a linear module. Just because it is linear doesn't mean there shouldn't be choices. Maybe a hard path and an easier path, or even multiple difficult paths but some type of variation.
One convention that I am weary of is the locked door and the resultant key search. It makes a certain tedium to go looking through every random container for a key. If there's a dungeon then there ought to be a dungeon keeper with a key ring. Kill 'im and have done with it. There are so many things that can be done in a clever dungeon that don't involve searching for a key. I don't mind at all killing the "big boss" to get the key, he ought to have it if he's the "boss" but the searches through chests has been done to death.
Quote from: TimG on August 12, 2011, 02:57:48 PM
One convention that I am weary of is the locked door and the resultant key search. It makes a certain tedium to go looking through every random container for a key. If there's a dungeon then there ought to be a dungeon keeper with a key ring. Kill 'im and have done with it. There are so many things that can be done in a clever dungeon that don't involve searching for a key. I don't mind at all killing the "big boss" to get the key, he ought to have it if he's the "boss" but the searches through chests has been done to death.
I agree, searching endless rooms and/or containers is a real pain in the butt. I also dislike being told there is a specific key to a certain locked door, especially if I'm a high level rogue with maxed out Open Lock skills! What is the point of being a rogue and honing those skills if in the end, some container or indeed boss has them? pfft!
I do however like it when the lock opener gets XP for their skills, as well as other skills such as hide, sneak, spot/search etc. I firmly believe it brings value to making your PC the best he/she can be at their trade. I also think every module should acknowledge such skills, because unless you have no locked containers OR doors, then apart from brute force (noisy at the best of times) a thief is perfect for the job!
Oh yes, I have also found that many modules seem to neglect the Monk class quite a lot. Now I'm not really into playing a monk, (much prefer my war hammer!) but I have found that authors seem to forget about monks and offer very little (and often no) support for that class.
I only have time for a brief comment now (I'll write more later), but...
On keys and locked doors: I'm going to defend them as important tools for builders to structure plot, story, and play, especially in linear and strongly story-focused mods. A logical sequencing of events can be critical in strongly plotted work. In situations where the events in area Y don't really make plot sense until after the events in area X, a locked door between the two and a key found at the appropriate plot point in X can be a useful way to structure the necessary flow of play.
one other thing that I think is worth pointing out is control of creature/enemy re-spawn rate. I am currently struggling through a module where the combat is overwhelming no matter what. I try to "stick with it" to give even a module I am not enjoying a fair chance but "continuous defeat and death" is a bug not a feature. The Vault description suggests starting at level 15 and yet my 32nd level Paladin is lucky to make it from one screen to the next alive. I think that the builders need to keep in mind that the players are playing to be the "hero" of the story, not just another casualty. I don't fully understand scaling within the AI but I have played enough modules to know the difference between reasonable and absurd difficulty.
On the subject of locked doors I do agree that there are plot reasons to keep doors shut but I see a lot of doors locked just for the hell of it.
Players look for a challenge when they play as opposed to a longer play experience gained from relentless difficultly. One refrain I see a lot is how limited "play time" is for the current crop of NWN players. I suspect a shorter but more fun romp through the fantasy settings will be more kindly received than the desperately long slog.
Keep in mind I am just thinking out loud to gauge the responses, not really thinking too deeply.
I completely agree with you Andarian about locked doors that have a purpose. I guess like TimG, I'm really referring to the pointlessly locked doors and chests, that tend to serve no other purpose than to slow a curious player down.
From your description TimG, it sounds as if perhaps your enemy are placed in the area, as opposed to spawned encounters which can be scaled o the players level. I personally dislike the overuse of placed foe, they can lag an area out (on a lower end machine) and really be a pain in the er, tail to boot!
I tend to only use placed enemies though I am talking NWN2 here. I dislike random critters since I like to think about why each combat situation occurs and balance it to suit where I know the player is in terms of level (as much as that is possible).
I agree with what I think TimG is saying. Grinding in a module, be it through over large depopulated areas that require exploration or endless repeated encounters I find very annoying and lazy modding. Like TimG I fouvour a shorter, more focused, mod experience.
That said I am guilty of using big areas that don't respawn and in these cases traveling from a to b can be dull (I am going to fix that soon).
PJ
I have to agree here with the others because I prefer a short and fast paced game to a long winded epic. I also prefer story to combat and puzzles.
I've actually been trying to get to the sequel of Murder in Mireford. But I have not quite finished Murder in Mireford. I'm close, but I got bored because the other thing that I don't like is the linear adventure. I don't know if that adventure had any choices but I had a hard time finding them if they were there. Every conversation node had one response. While this worked for getting the story across, it makes me feel like I am just marching along a predetermined path. I wandered around and found everything I could, but it wasn't enough for me. I really wanted more. (Perhaps this is why I played primarily multiplayer and PWs...)
I think my proclivities as a player help explain my painfully slow progress in my own module. I probably have too many options, too many details. So I am wondering if other folks here dislike tons of options. Most conversation nodes have more than one so far. I'm also working on a number of different endings. but probably most dangerously I don't tell the player what to do next. I leave it up to them to explore, interact etc... which requires me to account for every contingency I can think of - many of which might never happen at all during play.
The question: does a lack of spelled out choices lead you to stop playing?
Lack of choices can make things boring or perhaps too chanelled but too much choice if not handled correctly can also be a pain.
It is personal preference but I like to see three or five responses. Thus you can have a good, neutral and "evil" response or five shades of that if needed. Three options allows role play at a miminum.
What I am not fond of is several wordy responses on the pc node with none of them really defining the character. That said this is very hard to do over the 40,000 to 60,000 words that make up a mod.
If I am going to have a conversation that is driven through to make the story flow then i leave it all the the npc's. It becomes a reading exercise but it does not force the PC to use one liners which ill define the players image of his PC. That requires that you have a permanent npc present but then I do so that is not a worry. These are also good times to define your npc as well and there is nothing I love more in a mod as one or more active and well defined npc's.
I have never stopped playing a mod due to the quality of the dialogue. I have stopped playing if it relies too much on the exploration of bland areas or is simply the tedious repeating of the same fight. In fairness I can think of only one that did this, and I cant rememebr the name of that ....
PJ
I'm usually quite tolerant towards different styles of gameplay. I like to be given choices but if the story-telling is good and my PC doesn't behave like an idiot all the time against my will, I'm also fine with linear gameplay. It's pretty challenging to find the right balance, I think. The sandbox approach can get just as tedious as a linear one, if the game loses focus as a result and players don't know what to do and why they should bother at all. One way to handle this might be to spell out a clear more or less linear path but allow for lots of exploration and side quests, like Baldur's Gate 2 and a few other CRPGs did. The downside is that there's likely to be a gap between the proclaimed urgency of the main quest and all the time-consuming exploration and side quests, especially if the latter are of rather mundane nature.
As for conversations, I've seen a few modules that offered choices apparantly just for their own sake, without any thought if they make any sense or are likely to be chosen. So you can have a module with many conversation options and still feel as if you're railroaded. The usual "good", "neutral", "evil" choices are often too blunt to be interesting ("I will do anything for you", "We'll see", "I kill you") and sometimes you even get to choose between more or less trite things like "Yes", "Yes, sir" and "Yes, sir. Of course." What I'd find more interesting is either significant differences in the choices that are at the same time all valid options (that lead e.g. to different quests, different rewards, different story outcome instead of just "get rewarded or get punished or "continue the story or ruin the story") or significant nuances in the answers that help you to play out different (but believable) characters even when the meaning is more or less the same.
Another thing I've got to admit though is that personally I usually don't like to replay modules, which sometimes spoils my enjoyment of modules that are designed in a way that you can't explore and experience everything during the first playthrough. I hate the feeling that I'm missing out on something but it's often not enough to make the second playthrough attractive for me, as I play mainly for story and don't like to go through the major part of it again without learning anything new.
an early module that I thought was the epitome of "flow" is Cormyrean Nights.
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Modules.Detail&id=3173
This was one of the first things I ever got off the vault and it set a pretty good standard.
I appreciate this discussion, especially since I am working on a module right now, and it is the first computer roleplaying game I have made.
In the module that I am working on, I'm trying to interweave many small choices that eventually lead to three strands each which leads to its own ending. The endings each suggest a different trajectory the character's life would take in early adulthood. The only failure state for the player is if they are unable to follow a strand instead hitting a dead end from which they need to start over. I'm trying not to make many of these if any. But Its too early to know for sure. Of course with the ability to save and restart, that shouldn't be an issue.
Thats the abstract.
Here's the lede:
In essence the story is about Goblinboy, a human, born to wealthy parents eager to establish their family as an important one in Arnheim. Arnheim is a rustic barony of the Orsennan empire. It is undergoing change from its old traditions to the new religion of the Orsennan Empire. Obviously a family with social ambitions in a changing world would have high hopes for their son. Unfortunately the son of this family is a Goblin-touched, a human who has suffered a disfiguring curse during infancy. If others of the upper crust discovered this, the family's social standing could be ruined. Goblin-boy is thus locked in the basement to hide the horns growing from his head, and his monstrous, goblinoid face. Goblin-boy languishes in the basement for years with little contact except his mother who visits every day. His father is distant, little more than a picture hanging on his wall. Almost everything he knows about the world is gathered from books, and yet he's on the cusp of early adulthood.
Then one evening, a goblin arrives in Goblin-boy's room, calling him by name.
And the story goes from there. Before the end of this short tale, the player will have guided goblin-boy towards a new path in his life. You can deal with your family, run away from it. Figure out what the goblin has to offer you etc.... Its a bit of a fairy tale - with the main character on the cusp of adulthood but suppressed - and then magical events enabling a flowering into new life. Thats the idea.
I just can't believe how much work it is to do something like this. All I have so far is the initial setup in two scenes, and then one of the first branches of possible adventure. And then I've also been slowed down by some technical problems with my custom base classes (aristocrat, commoner etc...) that were intended to precede the normal base classes (fighter, wizard, etc..) that Goblin-boy would grow in to. Essentially my plan there doesn't work, so i've had to scrap it and rethink the mechanics of character development and which of the standard base classes would be available to a teenage shut in living in his parent's basement. (I've settled on rogue and sorcerer). I'm presently trying to figure out how the story changes if goblin-boy can possess a familiar which could slip out the window and explore the city, and how I enable this in the first scene. Or even if I want to have to create the whole city just for some pointless exploring that doesn't advance the plot.... anyway.
But anyway all that to let you know how hard it is, and the depth to which I try to enable all of the options that should be available to the character.
I really hope I have this finished this year. I suspect I need to scale back some of the options I'm trying to provide and just make the story.... more linear. At least not deviate from the three main choices.
Enough rambling.....
Quote from: Henesua on August 17, 2011, 04:51:41 AM
Enough rambling.....
Sounds really interesting Henesua. I presume you'll be supplying a premade character? While such an option does deter some of the player base, it does have the advantage of making the building process easier since you don't have to cover so many options. It's an approach I decided to risk with my own work, particularly as I was basing it on my novel work so the story was pre defined and hence linear, but that gave me the added headache of trying to allow the player to still have choices within conversations so it felt like they had some input into character behaviour. I think I managed to pull it off in a way that still had alternate responses feel in character.
TimG hit the nail on the head when he said it's the little things that count. Stories can be further enhanced by the items that you find. While books offer an obvious way of doing this, other items can add flair, even if mundane, and you can always have a script update a journal entry on the acquisition of such an item.
It's ironic that such an interesting discussion should arise right when I have so little spare time to write about it at length. (For our newcomers, I just accepted a job transfer to a new state and am going to me moving over the next few months.) I'd like to try to offer a few thoughts at least for now, since this is a subject (particularly, the design of linear vs. nonlinear games) that I've actually given a lot of thought to.
I'm fairly well known around the modding community as one of its staunchest advocates of linear game design. That's not to say that I don't appreciate a good non-linear design when I see one, but I rarely do -- especially for story-based work, which is my main focus in gaming and modding. Henesua has outlined some of the issues that come up in trying to develop a non-linear design, and I think there are several basic reasons for them.
Quote from: Henesua on August 16, 2011, 12:35:08 AMI'm close, but I got bored because the other thing that I don't like is the linear adventure. I don't know if that adventure had any choices but I had a hard time finding them if they were there. Every conversation node had one response. While this worked for getting the story across, it makes me feel like I am just marching along a predetermined path...
I think my proclivities as a player help explain my painfully slow progress in my own module. I probably have too many options, too many details. So I am wondering if other folks here dislike tons of options.
Emphatically, yes.
QuoteThe question: does a lack of spelled out choices lead you to stop playing?
Quite the opposite. Speaking both as a modder and as a player, I'm mainly interested (aside from a sprinkling of RP options for flavor) in
meaningful choices. Nothing will turn me off as a player faster than a plethora of unstructured options (in dialogue or exploration) that I don't see as going anywhere, or having a meaningful reason for being there in the first place. And I build the same way I like to play. I know from experience that making more than a handful of choices actually be meaningful -- in terms not only of game consequences, but even plot and story integration -- is essentially impossible, for reasons I'll elaborate a bit on below. So I prefer story-based games to be honest with me about it from the start, and to present what is essentially a streamlined play experience with focused options. I know that the author is telling a story and regard it as my job as player to adapt to the needs of telling that story, rather than his job to adapt it to my desire for unstructured choice as player. The latter, in my view, mainly serves to dilute the impact of the story into a "least common denominator" or "one-size-fits-all" model.
The basic problem I see is that there is a fundamental opposition between the needs of good storytelling on the one hand, and plot-level player agency on the other. Truly compelling stories involve the development of a strong plot, in which the theme, characterizations, and story events are integrated into an organic whole. All of these elements have to be created and chosen to work consistently together, to convey a story experience that affects the reader or player as an integrated whole.
In a good novel, the major choices that the characters face and make all need to express the work's theme. The plot events not only need to make sense in relation to each other, but they also need to
add up to something more than the events themselves, when taken individually. Things don't just "happen" to happen in a particular way, and the specific way that the author chose to have them happen -- when taken together --
says something. That's what gives the reader or player the sense that these elements all add up to a meaningful and emotionally impactful story, rather than being a series of disconnected episodes.
This isn't something that can be accomplished by simply stringing together a set of disparate "quests" (as is common in RP gaming and modding today), and giving the player a series of unintegrated choices about how to resolve them. The high degree of integration required by good fiction becomes much more difficult to achieve when you try to introduce the idea of needing to accommodate plot-level player choice. Every time you introduce such a choice you're immediately faced with the problem of coming up with not one, but two separate plot threads, each of which works in the context of the overall story, and each of which adds up to a meaningful whole in that context. The explosion in the number of plot-threads that have to be integrated is exponential in the number of plot-choices that you introduce.
That's why story-based gaming in practice has tended to become increasingly linear over time, and settled on making use of a set of techniques that provide more of an
illusion of choice. RP choices tend to add "local flavor" sprinkled throughout the game's dialogues, so that you can act in accordance with one of several personality archetypes chosen by the author. But the choices offered tend to affect only the part of the story immediately surrounding where they happen, for example taking the player through different paths in a conversation tree or perhaps providing a choice of delimited side-quests. These choices mainly tend to be of a "branch and re-merge" variety, meaning that they all lead back into the trunk of a main plot which typically has little or no functional memory of them once they've been played.
This is the way that many games and mods avoid the problem of exploding plot integration -- by offering only a few choices that are actually fundamentally plot-relevant, and mostly choices that provide what are essentially cosmetic variations on a main theme. One consequence of this, however, is that these variations often lack impact because they're necessarily unintegrated with the main story. If they weren't, they couldn't be options; they would either have to happen in a particular way to maintain cohesion, or the mainline plot would have to have a branch to adapt to the different ways they can be played. That's why I would argue that most or all workable story-based games and mods are in fact essentially linear, with non-linear window-dressing. And when the window-dressing becomes too elaborate, it starts to distract from the focused experience of the main story, and thus turns more into a structured VR fantasy than a story experience.
Quillmaster,
I decided that I did not want to use a premade character. Its important that the player be able to choose skills, feats, and ability scores. It was a tough decision because I had to decide between my original concept, and maintaining those choices. Ultimately I decided that those choices were more important than my original plan. As was the opportunity to check out the character creation options available to the setting which includes custom races and lots of lore in the alternate text I provided. All of that gets skipped by a premade character.
I may add a premade character option later as an alternate choice - a sort of director's cut way to play the adventure - but that will be added last after I finish everything else.
Andarian,
the strongest reason I am hearing from you for avoiding non-linear story based mods is the exponential expansion of plot lines. I think I've found a way to maintain meaningful choices while avoiding the necessity to go beyond the three possible branches. The mechanic I use is to make many small choices available that may seem to have similar results at first but subtlely change the relationships between the PC and various NPCs.
Basically I am using reputation in a story based way like the wanderer did. So far the most important NPCs are the goblin, your mother, and your father. Many conversation options can increase or decrease your reputation with each of these NPCs. And while there are subtle text differences along the way to reflect this. Its when you reach critical junctures in the story that it will be most important.
This is however just a theory until I get to those critical junctures. I'm at my first one now, and still haven't resolved it. I have a basic idea about what I want... but its important to me that the responses feel like a natural and logical outgrowth of player choices so I don't like to force anything if it feels wrong.
So anyway - think of it as the Sims. All those small options affect the relationship between a particular NPC and the PC. When a critical juncture is reached all of those small choices add up and stimulate how an NPC responds to the crisis which will open a choice for the PC while closing others.
I think that is one way that you can provide meaningful small choices that affect flavor in the short run, but result in real plot differences in the long run.
And lastly, I chose a very small story to try this out with, that will not last very long, but can be replayed a number of times to discover alternate endings. So there are really only three big choices. And once the final decision is made as to which of the three will be the ending... the story ends. Its more complicated than this because I want everything to feel natural. So I have a lot of work to do. But the amount of ground I have to cover isn't exploding into infinity because the story really focuses on a choice between one of three branches. The trick for the player is to recognize which of the three they are pursuing. In the first play through I doubt it will be obvious what the three big choices are while you are focused on all the small choices.
To follow up briefly on Henesua's follow-up: the basic reason for my lack of enthusiasm for too much non-linearity in mods is that I think it almost always makes for inferior storytelling, compared to what is possible with a more linear plot. That's because of what I see as the requirements of a good story. The explosion in plot-lines is more what happens when you try to address that problem than the problem itself. It's an untenable solution, unless you're a plot-construction genius and have far more time to spend on it than even professional developers who do it for a living can generally manage.
I don't want to denigrate the utility of techniques like the "plot accumulator" or "relationship counter," which are widely employed approaches (especially for romance plots) that I use in my modules as well. But what I think you'll find is that they're not nearly the panacea you might be hoping for, for several reasons. One is that good, dramatic storytelling (at least as I see it) isn't generally composed of small, accumulating, interchangeable choices.
Another more basic reason, though, is that what you're describing is in fact a pretty good example of what I was talking about: an essentially linear storyline with variations. Think about the choices you've offered, and how you're going to resolve those critical junctures. Is it fair to say that they all essentially fall under one of your three named themes? Aren't you then, really, offering just three choices over and over again in small doses? This becomes apparent pretty quickly in romance mods, for example, where players will often figure out which figure out which are the "pursue relationship" responses and then consistently stick them.
How many new choices will be added or cut out at those junctures, and how fundamentally will they affect the following plot development? If it's essentially the same plot with variations, then is it really non-linear in a fundamental sense? If the threads go off in fundamentally different directions, then how much work will you have to do to keep them integrated in terms of plot, theme, and characterization? And how many times will you be able to handle doing that until it becomes unworkable?
Due to the scale of the story I have, I don't think I will see the problems you are discussing. I've defined a very small plot, and then tried to make it bigger through intricacy (which is what is eating up my time). Its kinda like a one act play ... except that I've split the act in three depending on which of the strands the player follows from a critical juncture. And then I've also allowed the player to see what might be available in each strand at the conclusion, and enabled the possibility to jump between choices if they have managed to keep their options open.
I've only got three big choices. And they are very different. However... once the choice is made, the rest is denouement. I don't keep going. You could argue that there is only one plot with three resolutions. But from a game design standpoint I have had to create environments and experiences that are not involved in every play through. Early on, for example the player has a choice between three paths and each of those paths involve different "areas", "cutscenes" etc....
This type of thing is not common in RPGs it is however exceptionally common amongst interactive fiction projects. Emily Short has produced several short interactive stories each with many endings. This was one of my inspirations. I've seen her pull off character focused stories very well, and so I am trying the same in an RPG format. I know it can be done well, specifically that the storytelling can be very strong.
What I agree with you on however is that you can't keep going very long in the same vein. Its just too time consuming.
And lastly I want to add - this is starting to sound all high falutant etc... The truth is that I don't know what I am doing. I am figuring it out as I go. I have a vision that I want to achieve and I am working toward it. But all the rest is theory. The real proof will be whether I finish this, and if it is any fun to play. I don't know if any of that will be the case yet.
For me the choice of linearity vs non linearity became a pragmatic one. Chasing several plot paths over any great distance in a mod is a lot of work especialy if you are dealing with a large number of npc's. I tried it in my first mod and soon realised that, for me, a single good quality plot was better and far more achievable than running several paths through the mod.
While I like linearity I also like to have choice, or at least the illusion of choice. I think Andarian mentioned above that several meaningless responses on a pc node added nothing to the play experience and i agree but three or four better thought out responses do i think. They keep you in touch with your pc and, provided there is variety in the responses, can help you to develop them in your mind. I think this is particularly the case if they call on skills (bluff, perform etc).
I like the goblin boy idea by the way and in the starting posts you mentioned class choice. I think any of the instunctive classes would work though you mention access to books? so realy you could justify a learned class. I would have thought sorcerer or favoured soul would work, fighter is okay and perhaps cleric since thier gift is a divine one. Wizard and rogue need training and practice though, picking locks requires a range of locks to practice on.
Just some thoughts ...
PJ
One thing is sure on the open-ended modules is that the storytelling is much tougher to handle. I don't really think it is possible to have the same level of story while maintaining the "free-form" feel. Having said that I think there is a place for a well built "free-range" module that has a number of generally unrelated quests that maybe tie together only lightly if at all. In the end though there needs to be some resolution to give the player an "I'm finished with this moment".
I did really like the way Darkness at Daggerford handled the quests where people would come to the player's castle and ask for help from the "local hero". I feel like that was well conceived and delivered.
Rather than start a new thread I thought I'd add this perspective here since it sort of applies.
The value of "walkthroughs"
Some players (me) can only play NWN in fits and starts. The chance to sit down and play for hours at a time is rare and getting rarer. If there is a chance for multiple hours of play I try to put a group together rather than waste valuable playing time on a single player experience. Because of work, home life and the normal commitments of life I don't always have the brainpower to devote to figuring out an esoteric puzzle that is elegant and well thought out (read: complicated). Other times, because of starting and stopping play time over and over it is easy to forget what has been done and what hasn't. Even the journal doesn't go into any real detail on plots missed.
So I come the the "walkthrough". Yes, it diminishes the play experience some but it also makes it possible for players with time constraints to "play through" when you get stuck. Sometimes it's as simple as forgetting to head north (a recent example) other times is can be really tough to figure out (the last level of Eye of the Beholder).
When a lot of your time is spent thinking about payroll, inventory, electric bill and car repairs the time on NWN needs to be fun escapism rather than tedium and frustration.
That's my defense of the walkthrough
I'm more of a fan of the "Spoiler File" combined with thorough use of journal entries to help players understand where they are and what they can or should be doing. That's the approach I use in my modules, and my journal entries tend to be somewhat like a dynamic walkthrough as a result. If you know what the potential sticking points are in the playthrough and can provide ready-to-hand information for players who get stuck, that can be less immersion-breaking than reading a completely OOC walkthrough that gives you a formula of what to do.
TimG, I feel the same way. I don't have the time or energy to invest in a 20 hour+ epic. The single player modules that I have most enjoyed in NWN are short adventures - less than ten hours long - and the shorter the better. As a side note, this is generally recognized in the gaming industry, and is one of the reasons why casual and social games are so popular.
I think the walkthrough or guide book or spoilers etc... is one method to still have an epic but provide a reminder for someone that comes back to the story.
Another way to handle this I think is to shorten the required playing time to reach a satisfactory ending. You could still maintain an epic but divide it up into manageable pieces. These could be episodes, chapters etc.... Make each of these sections playable in less than two hours (preferably one), and when the section is finished the player can walk away with a sense of accomplishment - similar to the feeling you have when you finish a chapter of a novel.
Since I don't like linear games, the approach the interactive fiction crowd has taken is appealing to me. Emily Short's work is a very good example of what I am talking about. (I might have mentioned her before in this thread) She has written several short works of interactive fiction that can be replayed several times and still offer a different experience each time. Some of these are only a single conversation. I think this idea can be applied in an RPG context to make a "casual RPG" type experience. I like the idea of a complex jewel of an adventure, something that can be played through in a sitting, but has many facets to be explored in subsequent play throughs. Admittedly I have struggled and failed to achieve this with Goblin Boy so far. But I think its more of a failure of my discipline to keep the story small rather than a failure of the concept of a tight RPG.
Walkthroughs are great for the reasons already mentioned. I'm certainly not opposed to them, and think that under certain circumstances (like becoming utterly frustrated with a puzzle/quest problem) they can save and or enhance a game.
One author's work I played created a walkthrough that while you could see the quests or puzzle titles, you had to highlight the lines under those headers in order to read the solution. I found this a really good way to do it, as it meant that my eye would not 'accidentally' take in solutions to other info...unless I wanted to *waggles eye ridges*
I've just posted somthing similar in the main forum on this. I am a fan of the walkthrough and journal for many of the reasons TimG mentions. Mostly I feel that we as modders are not in competition with players. We don't have to foil them with our complex trickery and if we do we have failed. Some won't be bothered to work out the sequence the plates have to be polished in a walkthrough helps them not to be and keeps everyone happy at the end of the day.
We can chose to peak if we wish or not as the case may be.
PJ
There's no substitute for high quality journal entries. It adds clarity to the player's purpose when there's no "in game" mechanism to do it.
I think it's also wise to keep elegant simplicity in the forefront. Since coming here I have a new appreciation for what the custom content means and how it enhances the game. That doesn't mean that I need every object on the screen to be clickable for no result. If an item isn't involved in the story in any way then I don't need it to highlight when the tab key is pressed. The Original Campaign is often panned by players but it did have a certain simpleness to it. Sort of "charming way" if you will.
I think that as a player the overwhelming desire is to move the story forward and the different chapters of the OC were well suited to sate that desire. Because of this there can be a tendency to make quests more complicated and convoluted in custom modules because simple quests have a "been there and done that feel". Even so when you are playing a low level character the "been there done that" feel is inevitable. You can't become a higher level PC without a certain amount of low level experience. And low level experience comes at a hard price...
Finding a silver lining to the Master Server/Bioware mess I got to play Pirates of the Sword Coast finally. The Premium module program was discontinued by the time that I got my first copy of NWN and I always thought PotSC would be fun. I did have fun with it but the ending brought me back here to ponder some more.
Based on the end conversations the game appears to have two possible outcomes. I was happy with the one I chose initially although I did reload from a save and try the other just to see how it went. After "the choice" the game ends pretty abruptly. I am a big fan of a gentle ending that allows the player to check back in the with the NPC's and then end the scenario with a menu choice via conversation. In Pirates I would like to have had a chance to help out/and/or check on the dragon at the end. Abrupt endings seem to be a Bioware staple where NWN is concerned. As a player I find them jarring, why as builders, do people assume the players wouldn't want to tie up loose ends for the characters that they have so much time invested in?
I think the issue is that typically a player's range of choices narrows towards an ending. After the ending player choices widen again. So it is difficult for the developer to cover all contingencies.
I didn't finish PotSC. I found the gamishness of it tedious although there are aspects to the game that I liked. Perhaps it was too challenging for a rogue and that was my problem. I wish they had pushed the humorous angle further. I thought that the piratey humor was working well for it.
I like the optional ending style where you are given a choice... "End the game" or "Continue playing for a few more turns" which could also be stated as "Go back and talk to xxx before ending this game" type of thing.
Not having ever really created a full mod, nor done a heck of a lot of scripting etc, I would still think that you could set a variable on the player, and say 2 or 3 of the npc's (various quest givers) that checks for that variable then offers an extra/final dialog choice of ending the game, or continuing... one dialog choice that remains static, so that it is always available by those specific quest giving NPC's so that the player can eventually decide they are through, and exit the module gracefully.
However, a large number of games just go *boing* you are done, whether or not you want to be. Seems to be easier for the developers.
It is easier for the devloper I agree.
What you describe is very possible especially if you are providing a sandbox game.
It's harder for the story mod though. What can be done is to allow the player to continue to shop and or pick up incomplete side quest until the signal they want an ending afetr executing an activity.
I've seen that done on a previous mod I think.
PJ
More silver linings: I finished Wyvern Crown of Cormyr and had a pretty good time throughout. I didn't find the ending to be that bad given that development was cut short. I bet when it was new it was super ground breaking and I am just guessing that the 1.69 update was built out of Wyvern development rather than the reverse.
So now I find myself wondering how much Wyvern effected community modules when it came out? I don't believe it can be opened in the toolset so how would a builder see how it was put together?
One thing I did find jarring was the limited ability to get back to spots already visited. Most NWN allows that flexibility in case something was overlooked and I had grown accustomed to it.
I enjoy a mod with a good storyline, puzzles, interesting characters, well thought out battles (please, no zombies in the middle of downtown during the daylight) and a chance at romance. Locked doors and chests are great, but I admit I hate fetch the key quests. There tends to be a lot of needless running back and forth. *cheeky grin*
Personally, I'm just thrilled there are still folks out there who continue to mod for NWN (oh! And let's not forget BG). It does my heart good to know that the games that really brought a player into the plot are still getting the attention they deserve!
These are for NWN1 (as the title indicates) and I admit, I haven't played any 'new' mods since the beginning of the year (so ah, any suggestions?). And now I have finally gotten a decent enough computer to play NWN2 (which - I AM LOVING!) so I'll be exploring those mods once I get through the OC and expansions at least once.
I also finished Wyvern Crown for the first time this year. I think the graphic custom content was what most affected the community. The TNO tileset has greatly influenced much of the cc that has followed its release.
And of course horseback riding was a very big deal too.
As far as module design... that I don't know. Someone else will have to speak to that.
Tangentially related since it is game design related:
Today I ran across a powerpoint from a talk given at GDC on coding dynamic dialog (http://assemblyrequired.crashworks.org/2012/03/13/ai-driven-dynamic-dialog-at-gdc-2012/). Good stuff. The animated shorts are entertaining too.
Quote from: Henesua on March 17, 2012, 02:35:41 AMToday I ran across a powerpoint from a talk given at GDC on coding dynamic dialog (http://assemblyrequired.crashworks.org/2012/03/13/ai-driven-dynamic-dialog-at-gdc-2012/). Good stuff. The animated shorts are entertaining too.
Looks interesting -- I'll check it out.
I don't remember who it was, but I know someone in the community who was part of Project Q was working on scripting for dynamic areas for NWN, which the developers said wasn't possible. I heard he made it work too, but never heard if it was ever released. That would be awesome!
Tybae, I don't know if anyone has made dynamic areas work without NWNX, but with NWNX it is definitely possible.
I don't know if you were simply riffing on the idea of dynamic game features, but that link above is a discussion of Valve's work towards creating dynamic dialog in their games. Its an interesting system that uses an extensible rulebook rather than relying on fixed scripts or hard coded behaviors.
Despite all my plans for gaming over the winter I never got much of anything going. Everyone has different schedules and even free food couldn't gather repeat players together!
That said, my wife and I have managed a few gaming sessions of late and I had one of those rare game moments where everything is just right. We were playing Accursed Tower (which I am an advocate of) and trying to get to Targos whilst guarding a caravan. We left the henchmen behind as we just wanted us in the party so the fights were pretty tough and the going was slow and frustrating. Last night we actually made it into Targos and it felt like we had really arrived in a haven of sorts. As soon as our characters found shelter at the Wolf's Pelt in I went from being wide awake in real life to super sleepy. Now that is immersion!
Sounds fun, good to have someone to game with ... not sure I would get my wife to play.
PJ