If you have a game that runs its course like Diablo II and once you finish it you redo it on the next dificulty level then you could give bonuses to those who choose the hard paths. That might make it a little more challenging. Then you hit the trouble of if you penalise the player if one of their NPC''s kills something instead of the actual player doing the killing. I guess you could always take it down to numbers, or you could take the Theif approach and simply knock out all of the goblins and tie them up - forcing them not to attack you and be more helpful in your ''inquiries''

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

I think in that case If the player ordered the killing (or maybe if the player didn''t order the NPC NOT to kill) then you should penalise the player if the NPC did it of his own accord or accidently then no you dont...

I think you need to make the bonuses for the hard paths more ''imediate'' i.e. in the current game rather than a later game, otherwise the player may feel that he hasnt really been rewarded for taking a harder choice... The player should gain as much from being nice as from being down right evil... just in different areas.. maybe with a different finnish if the player has been good than if the player has been bad, that may encourage the player to play both sides... ''just to see what the ending is''

I was also thinking of this. What about Goblin Sidekicks who could tell any goblin hoards to leave you alone instead of attacking you... How about that, only with more races

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

That may work to some degree, of course it has its downsides.. some NPC''s may now not want to join your group because they have something against goblins, some shopkeepers may not let goblins in thier shops.. you may attract the interest of town guards, etc.

Other possibilities are that other goblin groups that have heard about your kindness will help you, maybe they''ll tell you where a fabulous treasure is, (which doesn''t exist until this event.. so you cant find it unless you''re nice to goblins) and it has a very high value say to start with, obviously with some mean traps protecting it.. but if you then start being cruel to the goblins the value of that treasure gets less, until it becomes only something goblins would want...

The problem is making the reward as valuable (if not more valuable) as killing the goblins and looting all the gold, weapons, etc. from thier corpses... its a toughie...

Just a question: If you don''t allow for fighting / killing, what''s the mainstay activity? Puzzle solving?

I ask because realistic conversation isn''t really an option beyond dialog trees. What other activity would you give a player that''s as repeatable, challenging, and fun as fighting?

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Just waiting for the mothership...

Thief was a good example. It was not only to the player''s advantage to not fight and sneak around, it was fun.I''m not saying every game should include sneaking but it''s evidence that there are other things. Wow, I think I can use Thief to support almost anything


"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd

"Though the course may change someimes the rivers always reach the sea" --Led Zeppelin

Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

I believe that you can have conversation by a different way than dialog trees. You type in the subject and get the resposes. This way you have to do the thinking, which is a puzzle in itself in games . Apart from that, (puzzle solving and talking) you might want to go exploring (finding new places), questing (and finding new quests), learning and improving current skills (like casting and blocking [instead of attacking]), shopping, maybe you could allow your character to get drunk at the pub - then you would have ''socialising'' with the locals and you could get quests and learn information from other drunkards

About the goblins though. If you had goblin NPCs you should be able to pitch a tent and ask your crew to stay with the camp while you go into town (which would require you to strategically place your tent where it wont be found). New members would be shown your skill and would then join your group. If they don''t like the goblins then they will have to keep their mouth shut and accept it. Make them sign a deed or such to ensure that they do not run off (maybe another quest? Run off with your stuff). Is that all?

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

quote: Original post by dwarfsoft

I believe that you can have conversation by a different way than dialog trees. You type in the subject and get the resposes. This way you have to do the thinking, which is a puzzle in itself in games . Apart from that, (puzzle solving and talking) you might want to go exploring (finding new places), questing (and finding new quests), learning and improving current skills (like casting and blocking [instead of attacking]), shopping, maybe you could allow your character to get drunk at the pub - then you would have ''socialising'' with the locals and you could get quests and learn information from other drunkards

As for conversation, I think it would be interesting if whenever the player becomes aware of something, it''s then added to things the player can ask about. The only thing is the NPC may not tell the player if the NPC does not like him. Then the player almost comes up w/ his own quest as to how to get the NPC to tell him about something.

So then the player could get the NPC drunk, maybe threaten the NPC, try and join an affiliation or guild that NPC belongs to. So, the puzzle won''t be "guess what word the designers want you to type in". It''s "how do I get this NPC to give me the info". It could be less frustrating when the player doesn''t have to type in tons of words to figure out what the designers want them to type.




"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be --Pink Floyd

"Though the course may change someimes the rivers always reach the sea" --Led Zeppelin

Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.

Removing all fighting is a bad option for an RPG, and the non-fighting solution is probably a one-time affair unless you have multiple storyline options.. There are probably ways I havent thought of (its early am here so you''ll have to forgive me for being brain dead)

The conversation aspect is a hard one. Its hard to build a good, flexable, conversation engine as well as a top-notch AI, brilliant 3D or 2D Graphics Engine, Millions of sounds, etc. etc. That is no reason not to try of course...

It is VERY bad designing to give the players the situation where they have to enter the EXACT sentence in the EXACT order to get the information.. The very very worse example of this I''ve ever seen in is an old Text-Based adventure. The puzzle was something like this

There''s a huge snake blocking the entrance north, how do you get past it??

the answer... "DISBELIEVE ILLUSION"

now how many of us would have guessed that!!!

This is the sort of thing designers should be avoiding.

A good conversation engine design should anticipate all the possible ways the player could ask for information (or at least the most common)

"What''s this I hear about a gang of Orc''s threatenning this village then?" (I''ve gone over to Orc''s as the goblin''s have already had faaarrr to much exposiure on this topic and we dont want to appear racist do we...)
"So tell me about these Orcs"

etc.. are all requests for information.. the conversational engine should be able to pick this up (that is if its of the "type the message" type rather than the "pick the message from the list" type) The other problem the engines got to cope with is bad spelling (look at mine), typos, etc.



If it is a ''select'' the question type, then that question should be presented in a choice of different ways, from threatening to begging, each type to which the NPC will react differently, with varying degrees of inforamtion, also depending on how well he likes you... the NPC could even give you mis-information e.g. leading you into a quicksand, or something if he really hates you...

I think that we''re complicating matters over dialog...

Everyone keeps using the word "Conversation". That implies human conversation, talking to eachother, generally mimicking the way to communicate with your fellow human beings...

But games aren''t always about realism. Do we really need "Realistic" conversations? I think that just having "communication" would be a great start for a game.

Define a very simple language, with very simple grammar, and use this to communicate with the other entities in the game.
Sort of like a programming/scripting language, but small, natural-looking, and intuitive to use.

Designing something like this might be a challenge, but probably more technically achievable than "Realistic conversations."


People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
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