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| In CRPGs what is your creature spawn preference? |
| When I kill all creatures in an area, I want that area to stay clean. |
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62% |
[ 10 ] |
| I want creatures I kill to respawn in some fashion so I can go back to an area and do more killing. |
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37% |
[ 6 ] |
| I have no preference - either way is fine with me. |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
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| Total Votes : 16 |
Joey Nipps
Orcan High Command
Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 849
Location: Outer Space |
| Your preference concerning creatures in CRPGs |
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In single player CRPGs, do you prefer that creatures in the game be in fixed numbers (when you kill them all, that is it) or do you prefer some sort of respawning of the creatures?
Personally, I find games that do not have any respawn of creatures at all to be not nearly as fun (in general) as games that have respawn of creatures. One reason for this is replay but also I find that respawning creatures in general gives me more enjoyment (it bothers me in a game to walk through a "dead" area). What do you think?
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Thu Jul 18, 2002 2:14 pm |
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XeroX
The MasterCopy
Joined: 13 Dec 2001
Posts: 7125
Location: The Netherlands |
I like creatures to respawn, that way you can lvl up if you want to. More interesthing than walkimg to a cleared out area.
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Thu Jul 18, 2002 2:37 pm |
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dteowner
Shoegazer
Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia |
Perhaps another poll option would have been good- I think there's a big difference between a continual respawn and a timed respawn. I thought the M&M series did a pretty good job with it. When you cleared an area, it stayed clear for a year or so and then respawned. There's probably more intricate ways to program it these days, though. I just favor being able to clear out an area and make it safe for some period of time, but not forever.
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Thu Jul 18, 2002 2:45 pm |
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Myrthos
Spoiler of All Fun
Joined: 07 Jul 2001
Posts: 1926
Location: Holland |
I don't want monsters to respawn. For me when an area is finished, I solved all the quests related to it, regardless of the amount of critters on their feet or on their back.
When I have to go through a 'cleared out area' to reach another one in order to get a quest solved. I don't want to be bothered by more combat.
Ok so I could level up faster.... so what.
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Thu Jul 18, 2002 3:04 pm |
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Joey Nipps
Orcan High Command
Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 849
Location: Outer Space |
quote:
Originally posted by dteowner
Perhaps another poll option would have been good- I think there's a big difference between a continual respawn and a timed respawn. I thought the M&M series did a pretty good job with it. When you cleared an area, it stayed clear for a year or so and then respawned. There's probably more intricate ways to program it these days, though. I just favor being able to clear out an area and make it safe for some period of time, but not forever.
I agree - I deliberately left out another poll option simply because there are sooo many possible variations. I have played games with different respawn techniques - some better than others.
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When everything else in life seems to fail you - buy a vowel. |
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Thu Jul 18, 2002 3:04 pm |
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Ekim
Eagle's Shadow
Joined: 27 May 2002
Posts: 2365
Location: Montreal, Canada |
In a CRPG that takes place within a tight tomeframe, I like the area I cleared to stay cleared. CRPGs are long enough these days that I don't have to worry about fighting more monsters in other areas. I like to clear an area so that I can then look for loot with peace of mind.
But, as was the case with the Might & Magic series, often times these games take place in the span of several years. So then I expect an area to respawn in a given time because it could happen that monsters return there after a while.
Fighting just for fighting is not much fun to me. I like the battles to have a certain purpose and reason. If an area I cleared spawns back up (unless there's some reason behind it, like a mad mage conjuring up beasts to protect his tower or something like that) it feels more like cannon fodder for me to build up xp. Xp can be built up in other ways if the creator is clever enough.
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Thu Jul 18, 2002 3:06 pm |
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mDrop
High Emperor
Joined: 06 May 2002
Posts: 479
Location: Under the desk |
I think it depends on the area. I usually prefer no respawning, because it's boring to clean up same areas every time a go to them. But in some cases respawning adds to the illusion of a living world.
For example forest areas should respawn, since there must be more animals or critters in the woods in addition to the ones originally in the area. Although creatures respawning at a fast rate take away from the illusion, a good amount of time should pass, maybe a gametime day or so.
In NWN, the city areas with hostile NPCs were respawning and that was also good, for the same reason as stated above. In Luskan, they were fighting eachother, so it really added to the illusion of a living city.
If the area is made so that additional creatures should not be there, for example some castles or houses, bases and places where you logically kill every hostile creature there could possibly be, respawning gets annoying. If I infiltrate a temple or a ruin etc. and clean it up, it's stupid to have the place crawling with hostiles just a moment later.
I think NWN had a nice balance between areas with respawn and one time encounters, I don't remember a single area where there seemed to be too many or too little critters compared to the setting.
Respawning just to get more exp is kind of boring, since improving the character becomes pointless. I like the character to grow as the plot moves forward. I remember how in Arcanum, if you accidentally happened to go to a certain complex in a certain city early in the game and managed to mow down every critter, you suddenly became really powerful compared to the challenge given to you by the plot and other areas at the time.
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Thu Jul 18, 2002 3:13 pm |
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Joey Nipps
Orcan High Command
Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 849
Location: Outer Space |
quote:
Originally posted by Ekim
In a CRPG that takes place within a tight tomeframe, I like the area I cleared to stay cleared. CRPGs are long enough these days that I don't have to worry about fighting more monsters in other areas. I like to clear an area so that I can then look for loot with peace of mind.
But, as was the case with the Might & Magic series, often times these games take place in the span of several years. So then I expect an area to respawn in a given time because it could happen that monsters return there after a while.
I agree, I want respawn (and everything else in the game) to make sense as you said. Thus, although I made this poll for creatures, the same would apply to NPCs - a town WOULD repopulate as new people moved in to replace the ones I might have killed off - but again, it MUST make sense.
quote:
Xp can be built up in other ways if the creator is clever enough.
While I would agree that killing just for killing sake gets boring and tedious, for the purpose of increasing my character's level (stats, etc. depending upon the system used) I like some in game system such as killing respawning creatures to allow me to level as I choose. Generally, I play a game once through as the designers meant - but it is frequently fun to replay again with a higher level character. This is generally not possible (without using out of game cheats) unless there is a fairly high creature respawn to allow for this.
While it is true that XP can be built up in other ways than killing the "cannon fodder" of respawning creatures, I cannot recall a single game that allowed mechanisms for this. If you can give an example, please do.
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When everything else in life seems to fail you - buy a vowel. |
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Thu Jul 18, 2002 3:21 pm |
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XeroX
The MasterCopy
Joined: 13 Dec 2001
Posts: 7125
Location: The Netherlands |
Lvl up gives you the change to correct the mistakes you made when you created your carecter, or when you lvled up before.
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Thu Jul 18, 2002 3:24 pm |
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mDrop
High Emperor
Joined: 06 May 2002
Posts: 479
Location: Under the desk |
Character faults make playing more interesting, no reason to repair them 
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Thu Jul 18, 2002 3:32 pm |
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Lintra
Elf Friend
Joined: 23 Apr 2002
Posts: 9448
Location: Bermuda, the triangle place with SANDY BEACHES |
Both - but I voted for stay cleared. There are situations where respawning makes sense, and situations were it does not. Ekim had a good point. If the time scale is short - then no respawn, if longer then yes - maybe.
An example of no respawn ever - a town is invaded and a group of the bad guys are holed up in a house/fort whatever. After I have cleaned out the house/fort I expect people to move in and occupy it - not be faced with the same situation again 6 months later.
On the other hand a cave/dungeon affair in the same town could respawn and it would not bother me (since the beasties are gathering in secret).
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Thu Jul 18, 2002 3:38 pm |
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Provis
High Emperor
Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 872
Location: Middle of the Forest |
I liked the way M&M did it, once an area is cleared it stayed clear for a year. But to make the system better the game should check to see if the dungeons in that area have been cleared and if they have the area should stay clear for a longer amount of time, if not forever. Of course some games would be weird if monsters never respawned, so there is a place for that type of system too. I think it depends on what works best for any specific game, for instance I got SOOO frustrated with Septerra Core and how it respawned everytime you left the area, the damn battle got SOO tedious that I just said "Enough with this crap" and uninstalled the game. |
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Thu Jul 18, 2002 3:54 pm |
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Gig
Southern Spirit
Joined: 20 Feb 2002
Posts: 3226
Location: NFG Headquarters |
I voted for "stay clean" but I actually like the way Gothic handled it the best. Some of the monsters respawned at the beginning of each new chapter.
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Thu Jul 18, 2002 5:41 pm |
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Ekim
Eagle's Shadow
Joined: 27 May 2002
Posts: 2365
Location: Montreal, Canada |
quote:
Originally posted by Joey Nipps
While it is true that XP can be built up in other ways than killing the "cannon fodder" of respawning creatures, I cannot recall a single game that allowed mechanisms for this. If you can give an example, please do.
Well, I am a personal fanboy of anything that is skill based as far as XP goes. I could mention Morrowind (not that I'm saying its system is the best) as being a good example. If I choose to hone my skills other than by combat, I can. So the need to respawn mobs is not as important.
The problem is that most games using XP to gain levels have one drawback: the main way to gain XP is to kill monsters. Sure, they'll give you XP to complete quests, or do something special (like fed-ex quests) but they usually have some fighting involved in them anyway. If they could find a way to reward a particular class of character in a way that is appropriate to his skills, then that could be nice. For instance, a fighter would gain the majority of his XP by fighting. The fighter can steal if he wants to, but since it's not the focus of his class he would get less XP for stealing than a thief would. And the thief might get less XP for killing someone than an assassin or a fighter would. I don't know, it seems to me there are so many ways that XP could be dealt with that often times I feel CRPGs are missing the boats and always fall in the "Kill and grow" category, which in turn causes the need for respawning areas. If that wasn't the case, we wouldn't be having this conversation 
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Thu Jul 18, 2002 7:17 pm |
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MoonDragon
High Emperor
Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 1254
Location: Waterloo, Canada |
quote:
Originally posted by Joey Nipps
While it is true that XP can be built up in other ways than killing the "cannon fodder" of respawning creatures, I cannot recall a single game that allowed mechanisms for this. If you can give an example, please do.
Fallout (2).
You could sit there behind an NPC and steal things from them all day long. Once their inventory is empty, you could plant things back on them. The longer your successful run, the more xp you got. It was always more xp profitable (if somewhat boring) to steal individual things rather than stacks.
Besides, I loved the way fallout handled (re)spawning and xp farming. NPCs in towns mostly didn't respawn. There were some "filler" NPCs that would respawn, but generally what you killed stayed dead. On the other hand, if you wanted to farm xp, you could roam the wastes for random encounters that were limitless. Anybody remember that nice stretch of mountain terrain north of San Francisco (towards the Navarro base)? Every once in a while you'd get a cave full of wickedly equiped raiders, or a cave full of deathclaws. Great for long term leveling.
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Thu Jul 18, 2002 8:11 pm |
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