Comments on: Setting Paths and Changing Outcomes in RPGs /2015/04/30/setting-paths-and-changing-outcomes-in-rpgs/ Play, Share, Unite! Fri, 11 Mar 2016 18:57:03 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.com/ By: Prof.mcstevie /2015/04/30/setting-paths-and-changing-outcomes-in-rpgs/comment-page-1/#comment-13522 Tue, 02 Jun 2015 22:49:49 +0000 /?p=4457#comment-13522 Big but has moments of focus. Open world must be consistent and you have to CREATE memories, other kinds of game worlds craft them for you as the designers sculpt the world.

Liked by 1 person

]]> By: longandshortofitall /2015/04/30/setting-paths-and-changing-outcomes-in-rpgs/comment-page-1/#comment-13521 Tue, 02 Jun 2015 20:05:38 +0000 /?p=4457#comment-13521 Ah the Witcher 3, the main reason why I was tempted to just bring my Xbox along regardless.

I will say that Bioware did a much better job of making both sides sympathetic this time around than they did in Dragon Age 2 (where the only side that made sense was protecting the mages from the consequences of Anders’ terrorism). There’s enough vocal bastards on both sides and enough regular mages and templars who think this whole rebellion is a ridiculous and unnecessary waste of life.

Liked by 1 person

]]> By: cary /2015/04/30/setting-paths-and-changing-outcomes-in-rpgs/comment-page-1/#comment-13519 Tue, 02 Jun 2015 14:25:19 +0000 /?p=4457#comment-13519 I’ll tell you, I wanted to badly to replay ME2 just to keep Mordin around, but time just didn’t allow for it. (Getting the full trilogy is back on my to-do list, so by goodness I’m gonna make it happen someday!) But I’m with you in wanting as many teammates to survive as possible (no matter the game). That just makes for a satisfying ending generally, to have as many friends at your side as possible. Every now and then, I try to take the evil/renegade path in a game, but I’m usually not too happy with the results.

My first playthrough of Dragon Age: Inquisition crapped out just after I decided to side with the Templars. As much as I might have liked to see how that played out, I re-started the game and went with the Mages. I’m fairly happy with the way things have gone are are going in the game so far. Any nagging feelings of “I should have picked the Templars” have pretty much dissipated. Really, I just want to finish the game now so I can move on to The Witcher 3!

Liked by 1 person

]]> By: cary /2015/04/30/setting-paths-and-changing-outcomes-in-rpgs/comment-page-1/#comment-13518 Tue, 02 Jun 2015 14:11:15 +0000 /?p=4457#comment-13518 That’s a really interesting point…and you’re right. In many of the recent games I’ve played, as good as some of them were, there are few outstanding scenes or moments that reside in memory. It’s all just a mish mash of “that game was soooo great/bad/other.” It’s hard to find intimacy, if you will, with a sprawling game like The Witcher 3, over something that’s more contained, like, say, Chrono Trigger. (Which is still a “big” game, just not by today’s standards.)

Like

]]> By: cary /2015/04/30/setting-paths-and-changing-outcomes-in-rpgs/comment-page-1/#comment-13517 Tue, 02 Jun 2015 14:03:35 +0000 /?p=4457#comment-13517 I’ve done that plenty myself — get to a critical choice point in a game and, instead of barreling through, head to the Internet to see how things might play out! It does put a kink in gameplay, but sometimes, it’s just the thing to do.

Your note about Person 4 makes me think of all the different ways games “warn” us of those points of no return. (Well, those that actually do, anyway. Many don’t!) It’s funny when you think about it those “if you have anything left to do, you better do it now” conversations. So non sequitur and yet so necessary.

Like

]]> By: longandshortofitall /2015/04/30/setting-paths-and-changing-outcomes-in-rpgs/comment-page-1/#comment-13499 Mon, 01 Jun 2015 20:25:19 +0000 /?p=4457#comment-13499 I’ve done both, depending on the game and the decision. In some, nope, go back and try again. In others, yeah definitely played all the way through. If I enjoyed the game I’ll go back and replay and replay anyway.

Then there are moments where I’ve just had to go “bugger that” and quickly changed it regardless of whether I was going to play through it again with different decisions. Like at the end of Mass Effect 2 with (spoilers) our surprisingly killable Salarian friend (goddamnit he was going to survive the suicide mission if I had to replay the ending ten times). I tend to have a “everyone lives!” attitude to gaming, with the survival of my crew/soldiers/team-mates/party-members/whatever being the primary goal. It’s why I’ve never managed to get through an Iron Man Mode on Xcom:Enemy Unknown/Within.

But, yeah, I get where you’re coming from. Inquisition came out a far too short while before I made the move from Oz to Canada and I didn’t have the room in my bag to take my Xbone with me, so I wanted to get as much out of it as possible. So I played once, picking the Mages, got to the second or third from last main plot mission (enough so I had a pretty good idea what was going to be the results of that decision) than started again with a different race, picked the Templars and played through to the end.

Liked by 1 person

]]> By: Prof.mcstevie /2015/04/30/setting-paths-and-changing-outcomes-in-rpgs/comment-page-1/#comment-13495 Mon, 01 Jun 2015 18:14:24 +0000 /?p=4457#comment-13495 Old games for me seemed to have a desire to make “moments” more than anything, something that is sort of coming back. I can’t often think of really cool moments in more recent games that resonated well with me, I can do so far easier and more consistently with the older games.

Liked by 1 person

]]> By: veryverygaming /2015/04/30/setting-paths-and-changing-outcomes-in-rpgs/comment-page-1/#comment-13492 Mon, 01 Jun 2015 16:33:10 +0000 /?p=4457#comment-13492 I’m in the same camp as the commentor who said choices in games tend to be more worrying than fun. Usually a branching path moment requires a trip to GameFAQs to try and work out the ramifications for every option and then choosing accordingly. It’s a hassle basically. Perhaps I need to lighten up a bit and just go with the flow… but there are too many games that handle these things poorly and punish the player!

It can be a real risk sometimes – if I hadn’t checked on a walkthrough then there’s no way I would’ve gotten the “good” ending of Persona 4, for instance. And in that game I wouldn’t have been able to go back and “fix” my mistake either because the game gives you no warning or indication that you should save before the particular events that determine the ending. You have to get it right first time!

Liked by 1 person

]]> By: cary /2015/04/30/setting-paths-and-changing-outcomes-in-rpgs/comment-page-1/#comment-13489 Mon, 01 Jun 2015 12:51:56 +0000 /?p=4457#comment-13489 Reblogged this on Recollections of Play and commented:

Gaming isn’t the only hobby that’s taken a hit in my adult life, but the way I play games, especially RPGs, has fundamentally changed over the past decade. No longer do I have the time to stroll through a huge story with multiple customized characters, collecting and discovering and squeezing every bit of goodness out of a game’s every nook and cranny. Nowadays, I tend towards taking a single path in a game and changing the outcome when needed, rather than sticking to choices with the knowledge that I’ll be able to take another path with another character. This journey towards RPGing with limits is something I explored recently on United We Game.

Like

]]> By: cary /2015/04/30/setting-paths-and-changing-outcomes-in-rpgs/comment-page-1/#comment-13180 Wed, 13 May 2015 14:51:13 +0000 /?p=4457#comment-13180 Seems like a solid way to play. I can never remember to save often enough (and autosaves are just no help sometimes). For the really big events (like the end of Mass Effect 3, for example), there, yeah, I’ll save till there’s no tomorrow. Guess it kind of depends on the context of what’s going on.

Like

]]>