Curse

Nevin · Jan 06, 2008, 03:34 PM // 15:34

Okay to make somethings slightly more clear for the experienced RPGer's who may read this, I'm a fanboi of Bioware/Eidos Interactive/Irrational Games. So if you've played a good handful of any of those games (Mass Effect, Dues Ex, Bioshock, System Shock) you'll know what I'm talking about. Surely enough this will also sound like a "I played this game so I want it in my other favorite game too!" rant.

Onto the concept, just to get something straight this is obviously not a suggestion for GW1, as we have all concluded that GW1 will really not see anymore major advancements due to Anet working on GW2. So this is a suggestion aimed at GW2 (perhaps there should be an official forum section for that).

So how exactly do text conversations go in GW.. and MMO's for the most part. Well you stand next to the person, click a few options, nothings really conclusive other then yes or no. Boring. What I want is, Player to NPC conversations that reflect the individual's particular attitude towards the matter at hand which may result conclusively more rewarding, less rewarding, or an average level reward for that player.

Now understand, reward is a broad term. It could be anything from that NPC simply liking you a bit more and you having to pay 5-7% less charge on merchandise from his shop, or a quest giver NPC offering a better weapon or gold reward based of the way you conducted the conversation and how the NPC's personality was programmed to liken it. More on that later though, I simply wanted to address what I meant by the term rewards. So what have I envisioned exactly. I want every NPC to have a conversation of some sort no matter what, of course there would be differences in amount of speaking available. Such as simple town walkers would have a "Good day", "How's the weather" 2-3 hitter lines, basically like how GW is now. Merchants would have the second most advanced conversations, revolving around how you conduct business with them (this would call for a more advanced economy though). Third most would be the quest givers, now these would sort in two ways. I'll start with the lesser first, the secondary quest givers would be extremely sensitive to how you act. I would like to see factors such as intimidation, charm, or even inquisitiveness, present in these sorts of conversations. These NPCs should feel like real people you can relate to, if it's an old woman and you're a valiant young adventurer you may remind her of her son who's out at war, but not so much if you tell her to that you demand a higher reward for killing some zombies at the graveyard. Now the other type would be the primary quest givers, likewise to the ones in GW1 they'd be the ones who keep the main storyline moving. How ever depending on how you talk to them (perhaps a little good/evil light meter type thing going on) you may take a different path along the story, *non-linear storyline would be pretty nice eh?* Hear me, I understand many of you are thinking how could we ever possibly hope to have the same immersive quality likewise to that of Oblivion in an MMO? Well why not, just because its never been done before doesn't mean it can't be. The only real beef is the amount of production required to accomplish the task, lots of writers and lots of scripting but I'm tired of my MMO's being watered down RPG's.

Through more advanced conversations, cities and towns could feel more alive then ever. Not to mention all the paved way that would be made for further advancements. How about having a separate attribute for a character which could level up and offer bonuses upon becoming more experienced in conversations, branching into a tree similar to what I stated early (Intimidating, Inquisitive, Charming, Humorous, Gloating). Doing the selected option more often, would make you better at it, these how ever should be relatively easy (not a grind) to get higher and more advanced. The situations how ever must be understandable, such as it would be easier to intimidate a merchant then a town guard but the experience of intimidating the town guard would be better. Why not even having collective reputation? (On a town/city/territory scale) Not only would it be based on conversations, but the amount and type of quests you do. A quest giver's rewards maybe extremely tempting, but his purpose/intent may be foul; forcing the player to decide between keeping high respect among the good doers of the local town or losing respect by committing a few sins in order to reap a high reward. Location reputation in essence would basically be a Good/Bad meter for the area you're in based off your actions, of course there'd be plenty of room for neutrals though not just good and bad. What would local reputation do though? Well for the most part act as a divider, prevent you or allow you, simple as that; Whether it be being able to get a quest from someone, or being able to use a merchan't services. (Maybe including black market for the baddies so they're not always left out?) Location reputation could also incorporate many aspects/systems that will already likely be present in GW2 into itself, perhaps not being able to access a primary quest giver until commended to meet him, or getting to go through a gate. (Think back to the 10k kurz/luxon quests, but don't think GW1 mechanics, because surely some one will relate it to title grinding). Ultimately though there has to be limitations obviously there never will be enough production values among Anet to implement a whole world of believable NPC's. (Which is why MMO's shy away from the concept) So for the most part traders/merchants would have generic personalities like the "Greedy coward", "Generous dealer", just food for thought. I'd think 4-5 would suffice and then be swapped around through out outposts, but thats merely an example for one type of NPC in the game. Dealing such as selling, buying, and trading in conjunction with conversations would determine if the guy likes you which could result in many things, discounts, gifts, even quests. I believe how ever there should never be a best or better in any situation. By this I mean, you may be thinking, why should I bother getting this NPC to like me alot in a noob town and getting a 25% discount on items like salvage kits when I could just wait till the end of the game to get to the last trader to get 25% off on the best items in the game. There needs to be exclusiveness to traders but to create this, there needs to be separation, I'll use Cities -> Towns (outposts) for my example. There'd be the "Bob the blacksmith" and "Henry the marketer", but they'd be more exclusive to cities and even have a set of goods unique and only found at their shops. GW2 has a lot of room for this, I'm sure the city of humans in Kryta will differ greatly from the charr cities or even the norn based off what the merchants have an available at their stores. Outposts could go by a different system all together to steam roll the process of raising rep with individuals. The Xunlai agency is well.. basically a corporation correct? So if you raise rep with the business, that rep should follow you anywhere they're present, which means there could also be some sort of merchant corporation and trader corporation as well. So outside of cities when you run into a near town, sure there could be a plethora of NPC's to gain rep with and even local merchants, but if you need to just beeline it to get some item quick with out developing a relationship before hand, you could do so. How ever the "corporation trader/merchant/storagers" should never be as rewarding as developing a full relationship with a local trader. Say the max discount for corporates could only be 10% but the locals may go up to even 30% when given the time.

Now not that I haven't ranted on enough ideas already, I was reading something about racial bonuses in another thread and it stated something about "racism". Well, I figured it fit pretty well with what I was thinking, so I'll type a bit more just to force you to read a few minutes longer. The rep is pretty clear cut if you've already gotten the vibe of what I've been saying, especially if you've played a game I mentioned up top. If you're human and in a charr town/city, you're not gunna fair pretty well with the locals unless you do some serious reputation gaining, logic would say intimidation would probably work the best. Say you're in a leafy city of Sylvari they're a new raise, so they're probably inquisitive and would enjoy that kind of conversation more. The dialog would vary greatly among races as well, Norn would prefer blunt talks, questioning them too much or shooting the occasional breeze could tick them off. Charr on the other hand may be more vicious and see you trying to charm them as a sign of weakness, thus resulting in a negative "reward" from the conversation. The possibilities are endless. Something else that could also be introduced would be a racial bonus towards certain conversation attributes. Such as Norn could start off higher in intimidation, but lower in charming. Asura higher in gloating, and humans well rounded in all of them. You catch my drift.

In conclusion, this was basically just a big giant rant of ideas that popped in my head one day. Heck GW is already making the effort to have voice activated conversations, they could go a few extra miles. This whole post how ever is not to be taken literally. This is simply a compilation of multiple ideas revolving around the concept of advanced conversation mechanics. Some could be implemented into GW2, some could not. In depth convos, but no town rep, or maybe no discounts. What matters to me though is the immersion, the RP, and hope some of you feel the same way.

Edit: Did a pretty nice job fishing through the /signed /unsigned one comment posters with this one.

Shayne Hawke · Jan 07, 2008, 12:09 AM // 00:09

In layman's terms...

Sounds like you want a diplomacy system in GW2, in which a player's discussion with another character or an NPC can give them some reward or mishap.

/signed. Would go well with the idea of environmental changes through player actions.

You can't see me · Jan 07, 2008, 12:29 AM // 00:29

Though I would love to see this kind of thing implemented, I doubt Arenanet will put this in GW1. I really hope I see it with GW2 though.

It related to "Speechcraft" in the game Oblivion. Depending on how high the skill is, you have an easier time talking with people, and they tell you some things they wouldn't normally tell you. The race rewards you suggest go hand in hand with Oblivion's system, where as different races have different levels of speechcraft.

All in all, I like the idea and hope it makes it to GW2 if anything.

HawkofStorms · Jan 07, 2008, 05:09 AM // 05:09

holy cow that's some long paragraphs...

anyway... eh, /notsigned
I generally like "decision making" in games. The big difference between Mass Effect/Kotor/BioShock/Fable, etc and this one is that GW has you play with other people. All the choices have to allow you to somehow play within the same world as the other player characters in GW. You can't have part of the population living in a beautiful jungle and another part living in a barren wasteland that USED to be that jungle until the player burned it down.....

If the decisions you make aren't big enough to change the outcomes, then there would be no point in having choices. And since GW needs some level of persistance to it... there is no way to make everybody arrive at the same places without either making the choices pointless (luxon or kurzick) or not have choices (you must join the Sunspears, you MUST join the shinning blade, you MUSt fight against Abbadon).

Nevin · Jan 07, 2008, 05:21 AM // 05:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

holy cow that's some long paragraphs...

anyway... eh, /notsigned
I generally like "decision making" in games. The big difference between Mass Effect/Kotor/BioShock/Fable, etc and this one is that GW has you play with other people. All the choices have to allow you to somehow play within the same world as the other player characters in GW. You can't have part of the population living in a beautiful jungle and another part living in a barren wasteland that USED to be that jungle until the player burned it down.....

If the decisions you make aren't big enough to change the outcomes, then there would be no point in having choices. And since GW needs some level of persistance to it... there is no way to make everybody arrive at the same places without either making the choices pointless (luxon or kurzick) or not have choices (you must join the Sunspears, you MUST join the shinning blade, you MUSt fight against Abbadon).

This is primarly what I thought too, but none of us know how Anet is going to conduct GW2's persistant/instanced environments. Or if quests can overlap etc etc... Which is why I wouldn't expect this to be implemented unless 100% doable. So technically I'm assuming you're point is they probably couldn't do it anyways so why bother to begin with? Personally I feel that could be said just about every suggestion in this forum. However I see what you mean about if X happened but player Y only can only see Z. These confrontations would be kept to an absolute minimum if things went appropriately. By this I mean, player's would not have the ability to make world changing decisions other then the linear storyline (which i still believe should have the option to be good or bad).

The way I see it is, the whole conversation scenarios in and of themselves would simply be based off of personal reward for the player participating in them. 5 people could get the same quest from the same person, but they may each be getting rewards that differ slightly due to how they conversed with that person. They all could still do the quest together. Now the hierarchy of this system would be the fact that some people wouldn't be able to get some quests while others would. By that I mean if you're extremely nice to some NPC they may bestow upon you a greater task at hand, in this case you'd only be able to party with people in the same situation as you for it. Aside from this lays the "missions" aspect, which could still work just like how it does in GW1 (ideally like nightfall) Being able to revisit areas but having them change for you as an individual based off your progress, but having players who would be able to notice the gap unable to access that area. Theres lots of loop holes though for rushing and power leveling and what not, but those should be within Anet's fixing ability. All in all what I'm trying to say is MMO's will.. well not for a very long time have the amount of freedom as say Oblivion. Where the world virtually revolves around you. However for MMO's to get to that point, there have to be some baby steps taken first, and my concept would be a first. After all limited freedom > no freedom at all? (atleast in my opinion)

System_Crush · Jan 07, 2008, 08:03 AM // 08:03

Ahhh my eyes...
WTF? thats your line O.o

I agree with the "this is in my favorite game, I want it in GW(2) too" rant. /signed
(want a free 360 to play ME on

and it will be another month till I get a hardware upgrade and can play BS

)
It would go well with the cutscene diversity thread also in the Sanitarium, I suggested something similar there which was actually a mod for NWN(by Bioware, but you prob's already knew that)

Though a separate attribute for diplomacy would probably have me resetting points into it whenever in town, but forgetting to do so 80% of the time and then cursing/complaining on the forums.

Would be better if it was something un-reset-able and gained by doing; like a diplomat/actor/sweet talker title, with a bonus effect.

Nevin · Jan 07, 2008, 11:45 AM // 11:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by System_Crush

Ahhh my eyes...
WTF? thats your line O.o

I agree with the "this is in my favorite game, I want it in GW(2) too" rant. /signed
(want a free 360 to play ME on

and it will be another month till I get a hardware upgrade and can play BS

)
It would go well with the cutscene diversity thread also in the Sanitarium, I suggested something similar there which was actually a mod for NWN(by Bioware, but you prob's already knew that)

Though a separate attribute for diplomacy would probably have me resetting points into it whenever in town, but forgetting to do so 80% of the time and then cursing/complaining on the forums.

Would be better if it was something un-reset-able and gained by doing; like a diplomat/actor/sweet talker title, with a bonus effect.

Yeah sorry about the huge paragraphs I usually break my posts up with bold underlined sections to get my point across better, I was feeling lazy. In my opinion though I think lets say we put everything on a scale of 10. (Charm, Inquisitive, intimidating, Humorous Gloating) And all of those can get to 10, so technically you can be a master actor/ress of sorts. But furthermore there should be items available (headgear, gloves etc etc) To increase them above 10. If you ever have 1 dominanting the others, your attempts at lesser ones may fail.