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Elder Scrolls V
Dimmukane:
All we have to go on right now is what the article said, but I imagine it won't be too long before they release gameplay footage. They want to show this game off. And yeah, that assumption's correct or at least not far from whatever it is they have planned.
KvP:
Despite my pessimism I'm open to the game being good in some respects. I know Bethsoft is open to criticism of their design and even when they fail to correct faults they usually at least give it a shot. Oblivion was good for about one playthrough before the shortcomings really started to become glaring. Fallout 3 remains relatively playable. I think the TES setting as it exists presently is pretty generic and doesn't give them a lot to work with. I'd like to know who the principal designers are, at least. Emil from FO3 is probably their greatest asset, to be honest.
--- Quote from: Dimmukane on 08 Jan 2011, 17:25 ---In any case, when has any non-scripted character interaction in a video game not been numeric? The only difference between TES and other games is that they make it really transparent.
--- End quote ---
Not at all. The thing with other games is that they're not trying to go as broad as Bethsoft does. In terms of choice and consequence (dun dun dunnn) other games will often give you direct feedback for your character actions - NPCs will comment directly on your character's identity, his or her skills, an the choices they've made. Up until FO3 Bethsoft was the absolute weakest studio in the industry in terms of this. They offered so much player choice in terms of character creation that all interface between character identity and the gameworld was sanded away, rendering the choice meaningless beyond skill stats and abilities. For example, in Icewind Dale 2 or Arcanum or Dragon Age, characters will comment on the PC's race / gender / class in conversation. In the latter two games, racism exists in the game world and it is directly stated against the PC. In TES games, conversations around the PC are as general as possible (beyond stock "Hello Breton / Greetings Dunmer / Nice to see you Nord" greetings) and all feelings about the player's identity and actions are numerical in nature. People are prejudiced against Dunmer? Play as a dark elf and go around talking to people, they will not think highly of you, but for reasons that are never stated, it's a simple mechanical check for race leading to a dock in universal disposition. In many cases the way they address you and speak to you may remain unchanged from normal but when it comes to dealing with the character in other ways the character will not be predisposed to you. You may as well be someone who just never bathes. The game never tells you beyond the fact that this person has only 30/100 Liking You points. Feed them a number of 10 gold bribes (Morrowind) or play a contrived minigame (Oblivion) and in less than 5 minutes you can completely turn their feelings for you around, and it will be as though the factors that led them to dislike in the first place never existed.
They create these big, unwieldy worlds and, in TES anyway, they've never figured out how to make the character interaction compelling, because they've needed a universal system that is easily implemented across the entire game to cut down on otherwise stratospheric development time. Unfortunately that system has really sucked in practice. In FO3 they were actively trying to follow the example of the older games of the series in terms of how you interacted with the world, and the game was much, much better for it. Barring some big changes to the TES system I'm skeptical of the amount of progress they can make. It's certainly a possibility, but I don't know the extent to which they're open to letting the FO3 design into TES. Hopefully more than a little.
Dimmukane:
Ah, ok. I misread that and thought you meant that there was something in character interactions in other games that wasn't decided by a variable or group of variables. You're right, the games haven't been good about giving players a direct hint or message as to why they're unliked (except in the case of vampires, hehehe), but in my case, I was able to figure out the gist of it after reading a few books in-game. There's a pretty solid history for the setting, it just involves finding the books and reading them; it's not quite as handfed to players as in other games.
est:
I definitely agree with pretty much all of that, John. It's one of those things you don't really notice until you see it, then you can't unsee it, and everyone feels creepy and fake to you. Having basically the one voice for everyone didn't help, either. I would definitely like to see someone who just straight up won't deal with you because of your race, and makes it plain that that is why he's doing it. No "I don't want to talk to you right now" or whatever, more like "Get out of here you filthy Dunmer" or "You scum killed my father in the Marshes, get out of my sight" (etc) and you have to find some other way to talk to them, like pay a mage to disguise you or get a proxy to talk for you.
KvP:
If only Bethsoft would hire Woody Allen to write for Max, that would be awesome.
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