384 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

Wozearly wrote...

Ah, kinda have to disagree with you there. Depending on how the quest is done and how the mechanics work, that approach can be incredibly frustrating when you realise that the random clay bowl in your junk loot that you scrapped an hour ago is actually the incredible holy grail of Andraste which has now been lost because the vendor has long since sold it on beyond your reach (ie, its despawned from his inventory). All because you happened to get the quest later than you 'should' have done.

It serves you right for not examining it more closely.  What you describe is exactly the sort of thing I want.  As long as none of these quests are on the main plot (thus breaking the game if the item is lost), this would be terrific.

That said, I don't overly like the idea of putting a massive sparkly "you don't know why, but this item is somehow important, let me put it in a part of your inventory that means you can't ever throw it away" because its immersion breaking if you don't already know its a quest item.

And this is why.  If the PC doesn't have any reason to suspect an item is special, the game shouldn't use metagame information to tell the player that it is.

And I really didn't like the "you've found a rare book that you know is rare because you just somehow do, and you psychically know that someone in an area of town you've never been to before is looking for this book and would really value you surreptitiously passing it to them. They'll identify themselves by a massive great arrow hovering over their head and an inexplicable entry in your journal".

That was awful, and for more that just that reason (though that reason alone would have been sufficient to render it awful).

Although I'm not a huge fan of generic MMO mechanics, this is one of the odd things that has been done right in the past. Using the item description to be clear that there's something unusual about the object, or that you believe it has latent value, can be a halfway decent indicator even if you have no idea what it is or who might want it. Doubly so if you have somewhere to stash items for future retrieval that doesn't involve clogging up your inventory.

Absolutely.  Give every item a text description, and leave hints in that description about the plot worthiness (nothin too obvious, though) of that item.

I don't mind the odd facepalm moment where you realise that some throwaway decision you made can later come back to bite you, but IMO this is better done via decisions in questlines rather than decisions about your inventory.

Again, I think this would give the player too much metagame information about his choices.  There's no reason why a choice in conversation is any more of a roleplaying event than a choice when managing inventory is.

[Vegos]

I've...never looked at inventory management from that point of view. It's an interesting and quite sensible one, I'll give you that. I suppose tagging certain items as "essential" or "quest" is just an anti-frustration feature.

[Anomaly-]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Wozearly wrote...

Although I'm not a huge fan of generic MMO mechanics, this is one of the odd things that has been done right in the past. Using the item description to be clear that there's something unusual about the object, or that you believe it has latent value, can be a halfway decent indicator even if you have no idea what it is or who might want it. Doubly so if you have somewhere to stash items for future retrieval that doesn't involve clogging up your inventory.

Absolutely.  Give every item a text description, and leave hints in that description about the plot worthiness (nothin too obvious, though) of that item.

This is what I'd like to see. Going beyond that, most MMOs have a "buy back" tab for merchants, where you can buy back what you sold them. What I'd really like to see is instead of quest items despawning, have them remain in the merchant's inventory, and perhaps have a chance for a scripted event whereby someone else buys the item, who you then have to track down.

I think this would create the perfect balance of no additional information being bluntly given to you, having the freedom of being able to sell these things off and facing consequences for doing so, but still being able to recover from it. This way it can apply to main quest items, too. For example, you may not judge it worth it to track down that ceramic bowl, or pay the price the merchant is now charging you for it for a side quest, but you won't have much of a choice for a main quest item. Serves you right for getting rid of it, but at the same time, you're not totally screwed.

[Vegos]

Anomaly- wrote...

This is what I'd like to see. Going beyond that, most MMOs have a "buy back" tab for merchants, where you can buy back what you sold them. What I'd really like to see is instead of quest items despawning, have them remain in the merchant's inventory, and perhaps have a chance for a scripted event whereby someone else buys the item, who you then have to track down.

That would make perfect sense, indeed. Depending on the merchant's helpfulness level of course (I'm pretty sure there's several who'd simply go "Tough luck, but I'm not discussing my other customers with you").

[KilrB]

Vegos wrote...

Anomaly- wrote...

This is what I'd like to see. Going beyond that, most MMOs have a "buy back" tab for merchants, where you can buy back what you sold them. What I'd really like to see is instead of quest items despawning, have them remain in the merchant's inventory, and perhaps have a chance for a scripted event whereby someone else buys the item, who you then have to track down.

That would make perfect sense, indeed. Depending on the merchant's helpfulness level of course (I'm pretty sure there's several who'd simply go "Tough luck, but I'm not discussing my other customers with you").

That's what charisma, speech, intimidation and bribes are for!

[LPPrince]

And murder.

[Vegos]

But dead merchants tell no business secrets.

[Sylvius the Mad]

But their inventories and records are easier to search without them standing there complaining about their "rights".

[Wozearly]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

It serves you right for not examining it more closely.  What you describe is exactly the sort of thing I want.  As long as none of these quests are on the main plot (thus breaking the game if the item is lost), this would be terrific.

Ah, if its possible to get an inkling that the item might be more than it seems by looking at its description, examining it, passing an intelligence check, paying a small fee for a merchant to value it, etc. then that's a different situation. The player has the potential to make informed choices and be appropriately informed (or misled) accordingly. 

What I would be concerned about is if generic junk loot no. 54 turned out to be something more important without any opportunity to discern that this might be the case. Feeling that you've been punished for making an uninformed decision where you had no potential way to make an informed one would be a highly frustrating mechanic (IMO).

You could get away with that if there was some form of safety net, such as giving a player the opportunity to attempt to correct an earlier mistake in selling something, such as the suggestions in subsequent posts about going back to the merchant with a few options as to how to proceed. Great way to add a dynamic potential element into an otherwise static find-and-deliver quest too.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
If the PC doesn't have any reason to suspect an item is special, the game shouldn't use metagame information to tell the player that it is...give every item a text description, and leave hints in that description
about the plot worthiness (nothin too obvious, though) of that item.

Agreed. The ability to suspect the item might be more than it seems should be part of the game mechanics in some way - item description would be a great one. Metagame information is either laziness on the part of the developers or, that dreaded phrase, "dumbing down" to better suit players who don't want their own laziness in reviewing non-equippable / non-consumable items to have any negative consequences.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
Again, I think this would give the player too much metagame information about his choices.  There's no reason why a choice in conversation is any more of a roleplaying event than a choice when managing inventory is.

I'm open to the principle that any action a PC takes holds the potential to have wider consequences, be that a flippant remark to an NPC in conversation or deciding to sell / hold on to something that later turns out to have an unexpected use.

My comment was from the start point that as exploring consequences will always be limited by development time, I would rather see a ripple effect from a few more major decisions than unexpected minor consequences for minor actions.

In reality, its not an either/or and they work better in conjunction.

A mix of consequences from major decisions that affect entire elements of the game world and/or plot, alongside consequences from minor decisions that change certain situations without affecting the main plot, or that introduce unexpected flavour elements? So its about more than just hack and slash and did you beat the end boss? Sounds great...where do I sign...

[The_11thDoctor]

Honestly I think the OP is smoking something and I dont agree with your points other than the story. The story had tons of glaring holes in it.

Choice was missing in the game.
Couldnt romance everyone in party or game
Customizable armor for entire party was missing
glitches were game breaking and happened often
no co-op
runes sucked
no dual wielding for warriors and rougues
no blizzard spell for mages
no auto death ball spell for mages in your party
no healing spell for all mages in party.
recycled areas
no weather
no horses or cloaks
no female Qunaris or Dwarfs
bad modeling for most the characters in the game
terrible hands both modeling and texture wise
choices didnt matter
pop in enemies
lack of strategy in fights
bland skin textures
bland environments
side quest being mandatory to continue main story instead of just stating it's main story.(annoying if you just want to do the story and find out you have "some business left in the city...")
can't save any family members but you can save kirkwall...
Lack of NPCs doing anything in city(no travel patterns, they dont change in 10 years clothing wise, where they are, conversation wise, they dont leave or more people dont come in the city etc.)
Lack of clothes for 10 years for all party members
Lack of expressing time passed( I had no clue any time pasted until someone informed me?! I never met them, but they all know me? Really?! Total disconnect!)

Those are reasons. Get your facts straight!

....................
Animations, cinematics those are subjective. They have no weight on the game being good or not despite if you like them or not. I loved them, so I reject your reality and replace it with my own. Graphics did need improving, but the game isn't just the looks, but the atmosphere it gives off. If you said it was bland and there wasnt much to the environment to sell the the fact that your in the world, that's one thing, but you didnt even have a point. What was your point in graphics? A Tool set? They barely had half a game and you want a tool set? LOL!