quote: Original post by TechnoGoth
you seem to enjoy dead kittens either that or crying woman, then again if your writer like I am it probably more of case of that liittle scene while not important is one that your really proud of.

Heh. It''s the girl; she''s so innocent, and in a time when there''s a major war going on, she''s weeping over her dead kittens. It''s the first time the audience will have seen her as anything but happy and smiling; a certain loss of innocence occurs when she breaks down. The kittens themselves are traditionally symbols of innocence. Plus there''s a.. thing, between her and Nareth. He''s been through torture and seen the worst sides of the human soul, and then he meets her and she''s so pure.. he has a kind of aweful love for her.

quote: If your stoy is written well character development shouldn''t not be a problem, since the character development will take place in game. The player should be able to watch the character develop without knowledge of previous games.

But does that mean I have to start over with my character development each game? That would seem *particularly* strange for someone who was playing through all the games in sequence; if, at the end of one, a character has a traumatising experience, you''d expect to see them respond to that in the next. For the new players, perhaps that could be explained through flashback - after all, trauma victims frequently mentally ''revisit'' the source of their trauma...

quote: Where the previous games come into effect is in the overall development and subtitle character reactions. These will be develop as the story as a whole. for instance if in a later game Nareth rushes into a burning build save a trapped cat and then nurses it back to health, the first time player will see this as an act of bravery, but someone who''s played through the whole story should be see this as refrence to Nareth early experince with his sisters dying cats.

Mmm, I get that - bonus goodies for people who play all the games and know the story - but if the characters aren''t actively developing, is the story going to hold their interest long enough for them to play all the games?

quote: I understand how you can my subplot refrences sound more like subquests, of course subplots and quest can be one and the same.

Indeed. In any case, I''m trying to avoid designing explicit ''quests'' into my game, I don''t like that format very much (ironically, I''m not a fan of ''traditional'' RPGs).

quote:
I guess I should have said there two types of subplots Atmosphere stories - These flesh out the settings and provide scenery making it feel like your playing in more fleshed out world.
Parrel stories - these are used to flesh out the main character and his role in the world. They are more common in games, since they involve the main character and are not part of the main story.

You mean ''parallel,'' right? And I guess you include secondary characters as ''main character'' (given that there are at least three central characters in my story so far). But where do you draw the line between ''main character'' and ''extra?'' Lily is going to feature in the story quite a bit - there''s going to be a section in one of the later games when the bad guy visits the house, hoping to find the hero but finding her instead, so he put her into a coma and as you continue on your main goal your characters are worrying about her and, as a ''secondary objective,'' you''re questioning the people you meet about a possible cure. There may even be opportunities to deviate from your route and talk to more people, though in the end you get the treatment as a side-effect of completing the main objective.

quote:
I''d also like to further say that, subplot is not the same a scenery.
"Like, you go down the tavern and can listen to this guy boast about the great deal he''s sure to get on a cart; you can then come back later and hear him saying that he got a great deal, but the other people laughing at him when they find out he was absolutely taken; and then you come back even later and find out that he then sold it on to someone else at an even greater price than he paid for it."

thats really scenery, it doesn''t add anything to story other then giving the impression that the "extras" have lives.

OK, bad example. But funny stories, or external drama - often drawing parallels with what is happening on the large scale of things - can contribute, can''t they?

quote:
while a subplot should have all the usual story qualites they can invole the main character and the often do the key thing is that a subplot is seperate from the main plot.
Here''s anthor example of sub plot this one doesn''t have anything do to with the main character or the story
"A severe draught has destroyed most of the counries grain crops. Every where you go you can here people muttering about the problem. Later in the story people are more panicked after reports of bandits destroy and stealing grain shipments have become know, The price of the remaing grain begins to skyrocket. Later still with graineries nearly barren starvation rampant in the land. Traveling merchants appear offering to sell the grain in exchange for any old lamps people might have. In then end people discover that rich merchant was behind the draught, bandits and merchants in mad scheme to claim ownership of all the lamps in the land in hopes of finding one with a genie in it."

I subplot should have some form of conflict and change in it other wise its just background scenery. "Bob going to the store to buy milk", isn''t a sub plot. However "bob going to the store to buy milk, and finding none end up buying a cow and within six months own a nation wide change of dairy farms, is an amusing side story.

Heh. OK, so a boring story isn''t a subplot, but an interesting one is?

I guess it partly depends on your definition of ''story'' - the loose definition I use is ''sequence of events.'' And those events don''t even need to be significant - ''I got up, I went to the bathroom, I went back to bed'' is a story, IMHO (albeit not one I would pay to read).

Superpig
- saving pigs from untimely fates, and when he''s not doing that, runs The Binary Refinery.
Enginuity1 | Enginuity2 | Enginuity3

"But does that mean I have to start over with my character development each game?"

Yes, and no. The character will start off in each game with same personality that they left the last game with. So If Nareth is traumitzed by the death of his sister in then of game 2. Then Nareth in game 3 will be a traumizted hero trying to keep going after the death of sister as the game progressess he make come terms with it and become revitlized with a new desire to right wrongs and triump over evil. That will then carry over to game 4 where Nazerth will be hero who has suffered lost and grown stronger because of it.

you can if you want use flash backs at points in the game to revel more about the character but you should not rely on them as your primary method of portraying a characters personality. The player should be able to see the characters personality through their actions and interactions with other characters in the world.

You should not have to explain why Nareth is traumitzed and the events that lead upto, afterall thats what the other games where about. The player should be able to just by playing that Nareth is traumitzed and hates "the anti kitten front of Ipswitch"

If you don''t understand what I''m saying about character development from episode to epsiode. Then I suggest you try watchin the Star wars trilogy, that similar to what your doing each episode is selfcontained and part of a bigger story, the characters develop throughout the course of the whole story. And someone watching the movies doesn''t to need see a new hope to understand return of the empire. But they get more out of it if they have seen them all.

as for your question about "extras" I mean that in the tv/movie sense NPC''s who just there to fill out the scene, player walks into the bar sees it full of people these people are just that because bars have people not anything to do with the story.

quote: Original post by TechnoGoth
Yes, and no. The character will start off in each game with same personality that they left the last game with. So If Nareth is traumitzed by the death of his sister in then of game 2. Then Nareth in game 3 will be a traumizted hero trying to keep going after the death of sister as the game progressess he make come terms with it and become revitlized with a new desire to right wrongs and triump over evil. That will then carry over to game 4 where Nazerth will be hero who has suffered lost and grown stronger because of it.

Ah, ok. TBH I''m not sure how that''s a yes - picking up where I left off is what I want to do

quote: you can if you want use flash backs at points in the game to revel more about the character but you should not rely on them as your primary method of portraying a characters personality. The player should be able to see the characters personality through their actions and interactions with other characters in the world.

You mean as in how they speak to people, and so on? I agree with that. Say a character has had his romantic advances rebuffed by another in the first game. If they then meet again in the third, they''ll be all cold to each other; the player who has not played the first game will think, "hmm, there''s something going on there..." while the player who *has* played the first game will know what it is.

quote: You should not have to explain why Nareth is traumitzed and the events that lead upto, afterall thats what the other games where about. The player should be able to just by playing that Nareth is traumitzed and hates "the anti kitten front of Ipswitch"

LOL. OK, I like the sound of that. Too much flashback would alienate the people who are sticking with the series throughout.

quote:
as for your question about "extras" I mean that in the tv/movie sense NPC''s who just there to fill out the scene, player walks into the bar sees it full of people these people are just that because bars have people not anything to do with the story.

Take my room full of NPCs. Extras, agreed. Now I take one of them, and I christen him ''Bob.'' Still an extra. Now I decree that Bob is a cheese-seller - when you talk to him, he will say, ''I am Bob, the cheese-seller.'' Still an extra? Now I load him up with all kinds of knowledge about the cheese market, to the extent that the player can discuss the economics of wendsleydale with him. Is he still an extra?

I think you get my point - where does the extra stop and the character begin?

Superpig
- saving pigs from untimely fates, and when he''s not doing that, runs The Binary Refinery.
Enginuity1 | Enginuity2 | Enginuity3

The simply way to destinguish between characters and extras is the amount of story events they particapte in. The are several levels. from main to minor, for instance a minor character is one that appears has a few lines of crucial dialog or is only visited once.

So to use the example of bob the cheese seller, If knowledge of cheese market is part of the story or if at some point you need to find the ancient cheese of demon slaying then bob would be a character.

quote: Original post by Gerald_C
You might want to try a load or create feature in the game, say when a person has been playing the whole series there''ll be no flashbacks, but if they are just starting in game 3 then there are flashbacks. Or you could even have a short into movie (like earlier suggested) that will play if they have to create a character.

I thought about that; but really, flashbacks - the characters actually *having* them, and acknowledging that they''re having them, perhaps becoming dizzy for a moment or crying out - is a bit harder to do if you''re not showing the flashbacks themselves. Though it could be interesting - players who are playing through just see the look of pain (or whatever) on the character''s face, and know why; new players get to see exactly what current events are reminding him of.

quote: Will you be allowing the players to create/modify the main character, skills, weapons, etc. Or use a standard character. If you''re allowing them to create it, then each game will have to have a basic character that''s better than the last game for character growth. Like if you start game 3 and should be a lvl 10 fighter (or something like that) then they can''t start out as a lvl 1 fighter. They''d be waaaaay outmatched.

I''ve thought about that - starting the game in level 3 means, literally, *starting.*

What I think I''ll probably do is have some kind of ''training'' facility at the beginning of each chapter. Not quite as blatant as ''welcome to the training facility,'' but a simple, graduated chunk of gameplay which players can use (if they want) to familiarise themselves with the game. The only exception is the first chapter - I''m going to assume everyone there is a newbie, and they''ll have a simple training section (escape from a minor dungeon) as an introduction. Once you know the game and are replaying it, you can probably take shortcuts.

I want to avoid traditional RPG elements like ''leveling.'' Rather than saying ''You are too weak to use this axe,'' it''ll say, ''Sure, you can use it, but you''ll be slower and won''t do as much damage.'' The stronger you get, the better the speed and damage becomes; it''s a smooth transition, unlike this step-up system that seems to be in all RPGs.

As such, I''m not sure about ''roll your own character.'' If the stats aren''t even visible in the game - you can just hear you character say ''ey, this thing is *heavy*'' when he picks up the axe - then I think it''s a bit pointless. Given that the party is going to be a trio, then it''ll probably work out that one is highly magical, one is highly physical, and one is a balance of the two (your opening character and the ''leader'' of the group).

quote: The hooks I used when I was writing my novel (ended up a 4 book mini series) were things like cliffhangers. Just found out brother is the "Big Bad", Fiancee kidnapped. things like that.

Hmm. How did you deal with the people who picked up the second book, without reading and discovering the the cliffhanger at the end of the first? Just a simple reprise in the opening chapters?

quote: I personally am a fan of GOOD Intro movies, not just a short 30 second clip, I mean a fully featured mini movie (3-5 mins) with the feature to skip it.

Yeah.

The opening storyline for the first game is something like this: Brent (your character) is out doing whatever a teenage boy does in the forest - walking or whatever - when he accidentally stumbles into a shady deal going on between the local overlord and some kind of merchant/sorcerer. The overlord is recieving some kind of artifact. Before Brent can run, the overlord''s escort have seized him, and he wakes up in a dungeon. Escaping from that dungeon is the first (tutorial) part of the game. So that first section should make for a nice little cutscene.

quote:
Will this be first person -ala EQ or top down liek Warcraft?

I''m thinking first-person - using the Half-Life 2 engine probably, what with some of the physics I''m going to need - where you can switch between the characters in your party. If you''re not using a character, they continue fighting/walking/whatever, but only get maybe 25% of the XP they get if you''re actively controlling them. So, you could walk your guys into a fight and just control one character, but the others in your party will not advance and evolve to stronger, better levels as a result (and you''ll need to use all characters to deal with the bosses).

Superpig
- saving pigs from untimely fates, and when he''s not doing that, runs The Binary Refinery.
Enginuity1 | Enginuity2 | Enginuity3

Jinjo, heh, thanks.

I don''t think I want to do each game on the same engine (or the same engine with small modifications/upgrades) each time. I''d rather establish a format for the data that gets passed to/from each game - the character info - and then let the game do things its own way.

That way if there are major problems with the first game, I can totally redesign the second one.

Superpig
- saving pigs from untimely fates, and when he''s not doing that, runs The Binary Refinery.
Enginuity1 | Enginuity2 | Enginuity3

Sounds excellent - if you can pull it off.
Wish you all the best