ZylonBane on 16/9/2009 at 05:05
Bloody hell, turn all those PNGs into JPGs, would you?
Renault on 16/9/2009 at 13:50
Didn't even notice that, I just took 'em right off the TNM website. I'll fix it later today.
Jonas Wæver on 18/9/2009 at 19:06
Oh hey I didn't realise you reposted this criticism here Zylon, I read your post over at Quarter To Three, but I couldn't reply to it because they never authed my account (I registered when the TNM thread first appeared, but I still haven't heard anything :( ).
Anyway, I want to explain why we handled Trestkon the way we did, because I actually agree with you that the way we treated the player/avatar relationship isn't super conducive to immersion. The thing is that we wanted to make a comedy mod, because taking our own concept seriously would a) kill us and b) be ridiculous. It was my opinion that having a blank-faced JC-like avatar in a comedy world would get a bit annoying - everybody in the game has a great sense of humour except you, you're the boring straight-faced guy who never cracks a joke. We wanted player to have a personality and be a cool character who you enjoy playing, so we decided not to write him like JC.
Once we'd made that step, it made another choice easy for us. Personally by the time I started seriously writing TNM, I was well and proper tired of player characters who do nothing but ask questions. Every time you talk to somebody, it's all your guy can do to heap questions on them. Everything from directions to background info to deeply personal questions about the people you're talking to or their neighbour, the protagonist is always just one big question mark. I decided that it would be more interesting to give you a character who actually knows the basics, so we made Trestkon a veteran. This also allowed us an easy way to tie the player character into the story to avoid the old RPG problem that was particularly blatant in eg. Neverwinter Nights: you're a Generic Adventurer who happened to pass through town when EVIL BROKE OUT. Now go kill some goblins until you're powerful enough that we'll randomly decide to trust you with all our fates.
I'm not saying this is necessarily the best game design choice in any situation, but I feel that making Trestkon a well defined character with a history inside our setting supported the type of play experience that we wanted to create :)
Uh... there was more. *Reads down* Oh right, the premise. Yeah, I dropped the ball a bit on that one, I have no excuse. Larry and I should've sat down in 2002 and figured out exactly how our setting worked, writing down the rules that would govern our fictional universe. Unfortunately we didn't, and the result is eh... a slightly confused and confusing world. There's a basic idea in there that you can somewhat make out though, that aside from "real" avatars controlled by forum users, there are also NPCs if you will - because if Forum City is based on Deus Ex, it's critical that it seems like a real world (since that was one of Deus Ex's greatest strengths), and that requires people willing to fill the boring roles. So that's why you get anonymous characters like all the rent-a-cops (there's a humourous and very meta discussion between two of them that you can pick up in Phas's apartment building if you're careful dealing with precisely their own nature) and it's why all the generic employees of WorldCorp have normal names when all the proper characters use weird Internet user names. But obviously that's not really thought through very well either, and you'll still find characters with nick names who ostensibly have boring jobs or at least lead incredibly boring existences - for example, why would Beeblequix still hang around the forums when he hasn't spoken to anybody in 2 years? That kinda defies the point of using bulletin boards in the first place.
ZylonBane on 19/9/2009 at 01:13
Oh yeah? Well, I enjoyed it anyway! Take that!
Papy on 20/9/2009 at 15:15
Quote Posted by Jonas Wæver
I decided that it would be more interesting to give you a character who actually knows the basics, so we made Trestkon a veteran. This also allowed us an easy way to tie the player character into the story to avoid the old RPG problem that was particularly blatant in eg. Neverwinter Nights: you're a Generic Adventurer who happened to pass through town when EVIL BROKE OUT. Now go kill some goblins until you're powerful enough that we'll randomly decide to trust you with all our fates.
I haven't play TNM, but I find this quote interesting.
First, about the generic adventurer, I understand and I can agree with the argument, but is there a introduction text in TNM that tells the past of this "veteran" adventurer, from childhood to present, as well as a description of the world (from his point of view) so I could know who I am? Because if I don't know the character I'm playing, then whatever his past is, he would still be generic to me.
Second, about the "trust one side with all your fate", just don't force the player to make that choice, that's all ! The "choose your faction" style that all games seem to follow is just bad. It should be choose your actions, not choose your faction. It has nothing to do with a character being generic or not.
Manwe on 20/9/2009 at 20:21
Quote Posted by Papy
Second, about the "trust one side with all your fate", just don't force the player to make that choice, that's all ! The "choose your faction" style that all games seem to follow is just bad.
No it's not, and all these games you're talking about obviously don't exist. Or are you talking about the "factions" in TDS or WoW ? Cause those are just numbers on a screen. "You've got 12000 reputation points with this faction, you can now buy this awesome epic gear". Or the faction system in farcry 2 maybe ? "Go kill that guy, now go blow up that truck, now go kill that guy, now go blow up that truck, now go do the same for the other faction then come back to us". They're just gimmicks, you don't actually join a faction in these games, there is no interactivity or any impact on the gameplay. It's just for show, it's something nice to have written on the back of the case.
But the number of games with interactive stories that allow you to make choices which actually have meaningful consequences on the gameplay are extremely rare however. And that's what TNM is about.
Quote:
It should be choose your actions, not choose your faction.
And that's exactly what it is... It's not like there's a huge prompt asking you which faction you want to side with at the beginning of the game. When you play the game you meet a lot of different people with different personalities and agendas. It turns out there are two major companies fighting for power in the city (among 5 in total) and to accomplish your mission you need their help. So you go to one of them first and you start doing missions for them, until one mission leads you to damaging your reputation with the other faction irremediably (which makes perfect sense storywise since they're sworn enemies). And it's not just numbers or a status on the menu screen. It leads to two completely different 20-hour-long storylines, with exclusive content for both (most of the levels and dialogues are exclusive to each side). And I'm not even talking about the other factions which are completely optional.
I'm sorry but we need more games like that.
Papy on 20/9/2009 at 23:16
Quote Posted by Manwe
No it's not, and all these games you're talking about obviously don't exist.
What? Are you saying that no game ask you to choose between doing things for generic faction A or for generic faction B? They now almost all do this!
Having said that, I think I understand what you associate with "factions". You don't consider a game to really propose a choice between two or more factions, unless you can't switch side whenever you want (like the Gothic series). But you know what? That kind of limitation _is_ the gimmick. You may fall for it, but it doesn't work for me. The problem is it doesn't change the fact that choosing a faction is still a blind choice, or a superficial choice at best. Sure, the faction model (whether you can switch side or you are stuck with your choice is irrelevant) makes the gameplay easier as it allows the game to give clear indications to the player about what he can do, but the price to pay is having no emotional impact. I will never take responsibility for my actions if I'm _forced_ to choose between two unknowns. So if my choices have consequences and if I don't like those consequences then I will simply blame the game, not myself. I will never feel bad about myself if I choose head while the coin toss falls on tails. Having consequences is great, but if those consequences were the result of a blind choice, then I won't care about them and, in the end, I will view those choices only as a gimmick. I'm sorry, but I certainly don't need more superficial and badly written games like that.
BTW, I'd like to point out again that I didn't play TNM, so maybe the story is not as superficial as I think it is. I'm just replying to general ideas about game design.
chris the cynic on 21/9/2009 at 00:37
Quote Posted by Papy
BTW, I'd like to point out again that I didn't play TNM, so maybe the story is not as superficial as I think it is. I'm just replying to general ideas about game design.
What made you think the story is superficial?
-
In TNM you can learn as little or as much about what is going on as you want before choosing a side. The only way you would be choosing between two unknowns is if you
wanted to choose between two unknowns.
If you would rather know what you're getting into you can find out. In addition to being able to talk to the leaders of each of the main factions before making up your mind you can also learn gobs about both from their employees and bystanders.
I could learn more than enough to make up my mind about World Corp by talking to one of its employees drinking at a local club, or by talking to its leader, or by talking to a bum outside a local bar, or eavesdropping on a conversation back at the club, or having it described to me by a friend, or any number of other sources. Each source gave different information, but what I learned from any of them would be enough for me to decide. If you wanted you could get all of this information before making up your mind, and a similar amount about PDX (your other option.)
If anything you learn about World Corp after joining them surprises you then that means you didn't put much effort into doing your research beforehand. (There is nothing wrong with that, by the way. It is a completely valid play style.) The same can be said of PDX. Their absentee nominal leader does have secrets but, as he is an
absentee nominal leader, he isn't the one you are being asked to join.
This is not to say that you won't learn anything new about the organizations after making your choice, but rather that you should know enough about who you are joining (if you bothered to learn) that none of the new stuff would lead you to conclude you didn't have enough information when you made your choice.
Papy on 21/9/2009 at 03:04
Quote Posted by chris the cynic
What made you think the story is superficial?
Because I have yet to see a single game which handle the "choose your faction" situation in a meaningful and believable way. Some fall into a childish "the player is the center of the world", some into a arbitrary "choose on looks", some other into a simplistic and caricatural "choose between good and evil".
Anyway, I believe choices should come from the player's desire, not because the writers decided to make two paths for the sake of having two paths. That's where almost all games fail. I talked about "blind choices", but talking about a lack of emotion would probably be more accurate. The action of choosing a faction should come naturally from an emotional reaction. Is that the case for TNM?
Edit : I forgot...
Quote Posted by chris the cynic
If anything you learn about World Corp after joining them surprises you then that means you didn't put much effort into doing your research beforehand. (There is nothing wrong with that, by the way. It is a completely valid play style.)
Sorry if I'm not as politically correct as you are, but playing like an idiot is not a valid play style to me.
Manwe on 21/9/2009 at 09:08
Seriously you just need to play the fucking game. You're just talking out of your ass. There are no other games out there with a proper faction system where you can actually join the faction you want and it will have a real impact on the story and the rest of the game, not one ! Like I said you can choose which faction to work for first in a game like farcry 2 but it has no impact on the story at all. You'll just do their missions then you'll do missions for the other faction and so on.
There is no consequence to your actions. You can't actually make a choice, you don't actually have any freedom about anything. It's got nothing to do with not being able to switch factions. That would actually be a great thing, even more depth. It's got to do with not having a choice in the first place. And that applies to every commercial game. No game has ever done what TNM does, because no game can afford to. You can't make billions of different storylines and give the player complete freedom to do whatever he wants and think of all the possible outcomes of every situation the player can possibly put himself into in a commercial game. It's just not commercialy viable. There's a reason it took them 7 fucking years to make this game. That's because creating real content (ie recording tons of lines of dialogues for every possible consequences of every possible action the player can think of, plus all the levels and missions that come with it) takes a shitload of time ! The reason they limited themselves to two faction is because they wanted to release the damn game someday.
TNM is just DX times 10 that's all. You're in the wrong forum to be complaining about freedom of choice in video games. If you don't want to have to choose that's fine go play halo or whatever. But don't complain about it here. Giving you freedom of choice is the absolute best thing a game can do. Actually being able to have such an impact on the rest of the story at the beginning of the game is the ultimate freedom. DX would have done the same if they had had the time and resources for it. In DX the only choice you had regarding the story was five minutes before the end of the game. TNM does the same thing except at the beginning of the game and your actions have an impact on the rest of the game. And depending on your other actions throughout the game you will still have a different outcome at the end no matter which faction you sided with. When you side with PDX you can still fuck them over at the very end and go with king kashue, and vice versa. It's not just a binary choice good vs evil or whatever. PDX might seem like the good guys at first glance but you quickly realize there's something terribly wrong in their administration.
Anyway the choice between the two factions makes perfect sense in the context of the story it's not just a gimmick. Because they are really two factions who are enemies and fighting for power over the city. And when you side with one you feel involved with it because there are actual consequences to your action (again the whole fucking game is different depending on who you side with, how is that superficial exactly). You will become enemies with the opposite faction, and it's not just a status on the menu screen like in other games "oh you're now enemies with that faction, they will appear in red when you move your crosshair over them and will shoot you on sight". No in this game you will have reactions from the opposite faction. As in actual lines of fucking dialogues involving you emotionally.
TNM is easily one of the the most interactive games ever created. If that's not your thing fine, but again, you're in the wrong forum to complain about something like that.
