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NeverDark
Village Leader
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
Posts: 91
Location: Virtual Reality aka Life |
| Role playing or munchkinism? |
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Well, perhaps the notion of manchkinism is not entirely relevant for the context of my post, but I lack a proper definition of this phenomenon. What I'm talking about is a tendency of a player to RELOAD a game if he/she selected a "wrong" conversation branch.
I noticed me doing this often, particularly in Fallout 1, which I'm currently playing, especially in the later stages, where I have to deal with the Children. I'm trying so hard to achieve a desirable outcome that I save the game near every important character before starting a conversation, and then simply try out all possible dialog branches, until I find the one that doesn't lead to a confrontation and reveals more details of the story. This wasn't that bad at the beginning of the game, where the conversation choices were few and more obvious.
Do you think this is a game design flaw, or I just don't know how to play RPG's properly? Do we really need conversation choices that trigger a hostile reaction from an NPC and subsequently lead to a total annihilation of the population of the NPS's town, who try to intervene, or lock the NPC out of future conversations? I never understood how it is possible for an NPC to "never want talk to me again". IMO, besides the NPC's personal predisposition towards my character, there should be other means to extract the bits of key information out of "angry" NPC - bribe, cleverness, theft, size of my weapon, etc.
Any thoughts? |
Sun Dec 18, 2005 3:06 pm |
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Val
Risen From Ashes
Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA |
I'll find myself reloading sometimes if I pick an option by accident that I didn't mean to or if I just want to try one to see the result. But that's usually only on my first time through the game. After that, it's open season on everything. I'll pick every option, I'll kill every person, I'll rob every house, etc. My second time through a game is usually the "evil" version. 
As to your point about NPCs not talking to you. It's realistic to hae them stop talking to you if they don't like you, but I do agree that there should be a method of circumventing that.
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Freeeeeeedom! Thank heavens it's summer!
What do I have to show for my hard work? A piece of paper! Wee!
=Guardian, Moderator, UltimaDot Newshound=  |
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Mon Dec 19, 2005 9:32 pm |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
Good question. I try to "roleplay" my characters but it's hard to avoid powergaming altogether - especially when you don't know where some dialogue choices will lead - or even if the game sufficiently supports multiple approaches. This is one of the reasons I don't mind some "idiot markers" in dialogue (where a dialogue choice is marked to indicate this option leads directly to combat, for example).
At the end of the day, I think it is a design flaw. An ideal design would lead to different viable outcomes from all dialogue (or provide alternative methods outside of dialogue), so there are consequences in your choice but still providing a valid path forward. The problem at the moment is that is so rare, the player can't trust the designers to have done that - it's safer to reload.
This is one of the reasons I am looking forward to The Witcher, even though it looks like just a pretty action/RPG on the surface. Whether they can pull it off or not is another thing but the devs are at least trying to provide multiple paths and make them all valid.
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Editor @ RPGDot |
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Fri Dec 23, 2005 1:21 am |
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Shimbatha
Village Leader
Joined: 15 Feb 2002
Posts: 78
Location: Jersey Shore |
I have al;ways believed that in ANY offline game, you can do whatever you want. Yes, whatever you want. That includes reloads after "wrong" choices, reloads after failed chances at performing a feat (Lockpicking, bribery), or even cheating. I do all of those things EXCEPT the last one. Like I said, as long as it's offline, you aren't hurting anyone. It's sort of like smoking a cigarette all alone in your house. Should I tell you that it's rude or "impolite" to do it just because some people might not like it?
Ok, bad analogy. But you get my point.
As long as it furthers the enjoyment of your game, I call it "Gameplay enhancement". Some games need it more then others. |
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Sun Jan 08, 2006 8:29 am |
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