Does it ever bother you how in RPG's nothing ever happens without the protagonist?
Of course, the games are designed as your playground, everything is set so that you can affect everything and do all the quests your way. But this collides with writing - there's all these great and powerful characters and factions - yet everyone else is like a child, forever stuck in a stalemate until your character arrives and settles the trouble one way or another. They'll never act unless you appear, nothing changes without you.
Do you see this as a problem, and if you do, how should it be tackled?
>>330882914
A bit, sometimes, but not much, really. I accept it.
>>330882914
Should there be more quest timers then? Every quest has a timer and unless you do something quickly, an event will be triggered and the NPCs attempt to solve the quest without your help?
>>330882914
There were things going on in New Vegas before the Courier was shot you know
>>330882914
should be segments where you only have time to do lets say 1 of 3 quests and the other 2 will happen with some RNG outcome.
>>330883618
Wasteland 2 does that and it feels kind of artificial.
>>330882914
And in the cases where shit does happen without you people bitch about cool shit happening off screen.
Absolutely. The least they could do is pretend that's not the case, but most RPGs don't even try to do that. This is the reason I don't like Oblivion. At least Skyrim tried to make it so it seemed like there was actually stuff going on without you.
>>330883515
Yes, of course BEFORE the player begins the game.
Take for example Primm, where the hostage situation in the Casino will never be solved unless *you* come and do something. The raiders dont kill the hostages, the town wont try to make a rescue attempt, NCR won't just roll in, nothing happens. Hostage situations arent supposed to continue forever.
>>330882914
Deus Ex HR has stuff happen even when you aren't there. If you take too long and fuck around in the first mission, the hostages die before you even get there
>>330882914
no, i like that because i like to do everything myself. what i really hate is when i finished a game and got through most or all of the quests and there is nothing left to do. witcher 3 as an example. once your through the world looks so liveless and the NPC's being decoration becomes awfully apparent. i mean it's obvious that this is going to happen once you're through but it's still so disappointing.
>>330882914
I do wish some quests would have "timers" set on them. Not all, but a select few. Like the ones where you for obvious reasons just can't let the events stand at an impasse until you get them rolling.
Like Kvatch in Oblivion. After you close the Oblivion gate, the guard tells you, "Come on lets go get the rest" and you can say "Nah, I need time to rest". The guards should just go in anyway and maybe die doing so, but at least they tried.
>>330884002
you act like they've been like that for months, when in reality it's probably been just a few days, some hostage situations can last up to a week you know, the only bullshit thing about that quest is that there's literally a group of NCR soldiers near the town that won't do anything about it
>>330884223
>group of NCR soldiers near the town that won't do anything about it
Yep, sounds like the NCR.
>>330884002
How would you do that though? When you enter a certain area you get a sign HEY THERE'S A TIMED QUEST HERE DUDE? Because otherwise, what if I first want to go around Primm? That's what I did when I played FNV.
>>330884223
>there's literally a group of NCR soldiers near the town that won't do anything about it
That actually is a great characterization of how the NCR works.
>>330884347
Not him, but dude that's easy.
Just have the characters work it into the dialogue
"All right, we can wait for you to come back but if you're not back in two days we're gonna storm the place without you."
Or whatever.
>>330882914
Without that questline storytelling you end up with something like Mountain Blade, which isn't bad and there should be more RPGs like that.
>>330884542
So unless you talk to somebody the situation never goes away?
>>330884347
Well, for example, maybe change the triggers for the quest, maybe make Mr New Vegas tell about the hostage situation in radio, do all kinds of things to divert the attention to the crisis that is taking place. In the real world you'd quickly find out if a hostage situation was happening near your presence.
>>330882914
>Do you see this as a problem, and if you do, how should it be tackled?
Play Pathologic.
Seriously.
>>330884002
There's a disconnect between gameplay and writing. Gameplay-wise, you know the hostage situation has been set up for you since the moment you begin the game, but since they cannot when you'll get there or if you'll ever bother with it, that quest is frozen in time until you're nearby. You're supposed to take it as if the hostage situation literally JUST happened when you get to Boulder City and you just happened to be there, even though it's been X days since you began playing.
The only other alternatives are timed quests, which are an absolutely shitty concept
>>330882914
Btw, OP, you might wanna try Space Rangers. It's pretty cool.
>>330884643
What if I don't listen to radio at all? And, well, if I'm near a town and I get a HEY DUDE TIMED QUEST WHOA message, and I want to explore, I'll just load a save before I got that message, mentally draw a circle around that town and try to come later when I want to solve that quest.
>>330884720
There's something about the art style of Pathologic that makes the screenshots stand out even when the graphics have become so outdated.
>>330882914
I think the only game that addressed this properly was STALKER. For the world to feel alive the NPCs need to occasionally do something like attack an enemy faction or go about the wilderness doing their own thing. Skyrim tried to to something like this but somehow not enough.
>>330882914
The problem with such a system is it sucks out the fun for most players. It's the biggest complaint of the dead rising series. I think it would be a good idea to implement into more RPGs, but only as an extra. It should be a checkable option, like any other "realism" mode.
>>330882914
I'd rather feel the disconnect of everything requiring my presence than feel like I'm on a tight schedule to get all the game's content.
Devs don't like the idea of their hard work happening on the opposite end of the map without the player's presence
zelda would be cool if there was other adventurers running around.
or gta would be cool if there was npcs going on crime sprees
>>330882914
every now and then, someone makes a decent and insightful thread, thanks buddy.
I'd hardly call M&B Warband to be an RPG in the traditional sense but it was pretty satisfying watching the Nords conquer the Vaegirs from the game without my intervention at all in one game.
>>330885002
STALKER was supposed to address it but in the end it barely has anything. Space Rangers has a good balance - AI won't rob you out of quests, but they will liberate systems, fight each other, participate in the economy (well, sort of).
>>330885149
But it could make every new playthrough different. Say, you start at a different location, different people around you, different events happen that you could have solved in earlier playthroughs, and now they affect the world around you. Maybe a different faction has taken control of a town you once visited, maybe one that was terrorized by monsters had to be evacuated.
Make the world feel alive and organic, a single person can't achieve everything.
I first took notice of it in monster hunter 4U
>new monster
>the guild's most elite hunters get fucked by it
>they all have G rank gear
>losing to an LR monster
>you come in with your LR gear and beat it solo
Dins curse, shit happens all the time without you, take too long to kill a boss in the towns dungeon? Too bad he organized an army and is now raiding the town, couldn't find that one elite monster in time? Now he's a boss and wants to fortify his dungeon floor with gates to spawn even more creatures
>>330884614
Better than eternal stasis. That way you get a chance to do the quests but if you blow them off there are actual consequences.
>>330882914
Stalker clear sky tried it and failed, fuck you lelelelelelelelelelellelllllllllllllllelelele
>>330886092
Eeeeeh, I mean it's not realistic either but if there is an indication that a quest is timed then I'd probably be fine with it.
>>330885413
What do you mean supposed? The AI does its own thing if you don't arrive or help out. It's pretty brilliant how well done the AI is in those games.
Alright /v/, let's create a game. An rpg with an organic world, could we do it?
>>330886298You're already playing it.
>>330886298
MEMES FIRST AND FOREMOST
>>330886260
They were supposed to actually search for artefacts, to sell them, they don't do as much in the end. There was also some bullshit about "Zone ecology", how one monsters would naturally replace others, but all that is just scripts in the end (like a bloodsucker that will spawn on Cordon after some mission). I think mods restore a lot of that, though.
>>330882914
This can only happen with either full world simulation like M&B or a game where specific events are tied to calendar dates and outcomes differ depending on whether you "participate" or raise specific flags, or not, like in VNs/Persona Granted, Persona games still do have that core storyline that can only happen with your involvement as a player though.
>>330886298
Probably not. There almost no artists on this board, even fewer coders, and even fewer people who could handle the legal side.
>>330886576
And here comes reality, rearing it's ugly head
I could do some of the coding, art and legal stuff are not my area of expertise
>>330884007
Wut?
Rly?
>>330882914
Play Fallout 1 you faggot
I haven't played it, but doesn't Wizardry 7 have rival adventurers that will get to certain quest items before you if you take too long, and then you have to find them to get the stuff you neex? I feel like I heard about something like that
>>330885670
I always had my own headcannon for mh4u.
It was that you were the apex. Just as the virus kills many monsters but some manage to overcome it and become..well, the apex of their species, you were one that managed to do so for the human species.
>>330886723
I am learning to code, but I am no where close to being even RPG maker tier. Maybe we could bait in an artist from /co/ or /a/.
Guild Wars 2 promised dynamic events that would transpire with or without the player's intervention, and we all know how that turned out.
>>330882914
Dragon Age 2 was the exact opposite of this. Hawke contributed almost nothing of substance to the progress of the story. It made the game very frustrating.
>>330887738
Made the story actually pretty great, in my eyes.
>>330886805
yeah it was pretty neat. DE: HR pokes fun at things you take for granted as a 'gamer logic' like in this case or the 'thanks spyboy' part.
I agree with you, OP. A few games have such events, and they're usually tied to a timer.
In Tales of Phantasia, there's a nice reversal of this: originally, 4 heroes joined forces to stop Dhaos (the game's opening), but when you go back into the past, you inadvertently cause the death of one of them. So you have to press the invasion campaign faster than the original invasion happened, and defeat Dhaos yourself.
In Castlevania 64, there's already a hunter when you go into the castle. If you take to long to reach the castle's keep, he goes fight Dracula alone, and is turned into a vampire.
>>330882914
Warzones mod made my immersion increase by 200%. Didn't rob me out of quest but made it really feel like the mojave was in the middle of an epic battle.
I remember in Perfect Dark, you could skip the cutscene and it would happen in real time. For example, if there were villains talking to each other, and you skipped the cutscene and managed to reach them before the cutscene ended, they would still be there.
>>330885390
It is more of an RPG tham most listed games here
>>330882914
I honestly don't know. Majority of players hate timed quests.
>>330882914
As a person who likes to take it slow in games it doesn't sound very fun to me.
I think the best way to give the game a sense of "progression" would be to do something like Dragon's Dogma instead of having a constantly ticking clock where you feel you have to rush everything in-game.
>>330885390
It's definitely a sandbox RPG. I hope Bannerlord gives us even more roleplaying options.
the way out of that is rng or time limits
both are horrible in a game
time limits is the single most hated element in games, just look at xcom
and rng is just bullshit, no one likes to lose something because "fuck you and your luck"
>>330887738
It was one of the few things I liked about it.
To many RPG's go for the generic"ancient evil awakes, you are the only one who can save the world" stuff, so I thought it was nice to see a more personal story. We need more of that in games I feel.
>>330884807
That's probably how I'd handle it. Quests like that would be essentially timed, but the timer wouldn't start until you actually arrive, at which point everyone would act like the situation started pretty much right before you got there, even if you've been playing for a month and it was actually waiting for you the whole time.
>>330882914
In my opinion there is just no good way to do it that would actually be fun.
Only game that did time limits well (out of the few that tried) was MM, and that's only because they had a concept that could support it (repeating the same cycle).
Sometimes, games should just be games and stop trying to emulate real life.
>>330888974
Isn't it the mode which transforms global map into first person voyage?
>>330889230
I hope it gives us more "out of combat" things to do, I mean, most of the game is just you riding around trying to find enemies that are not to small and not to big, going to the eventual feast.
We need more stuff to do during peace times I feel.
>>330889710
It seems like fief management has been greatly expanded and towns now have crime and worthwhile taverns.
Stalker is good like that
>>330886916
>necropolis is always the first city to go
Sorry Set
>>330882914
I know what you are talking about.
>>330884614
If you finish the game without interacting with this quest, there'll be an ending slide that'll show how it'll go. Adding timed quest is probably a terrible idea for WRPGs since most developers seem to focus on showing the player everything on their first way through.
>>330882914
There's Dead Rising. It's not really an RPG though, but quests resolve themselves if you don't bother with em *hint* it often ends up with zombies or some shit.
>>330889851
Neat.
Hope they ad a lot of tavern/town events.
I always like coming back to a city you've been away from for a while and seeing what new characters turns up at the tavern.
Oh, and and some dedicated slave markets will you.
>>330882914
Age of Decadence tackled this issue to a certain degree.
In Age of Decadence you have several factions who want to achieve certain goals. The player can help them in doing so, but if the player is not around they'll still attempt to achieve these goals by hiring someone else. In fact, the player can meet people in the game who are doing what he would have to do if he were working for that faction and possibly keep them from doing it. Success or failure does not exclusively depend on the player, and the player can fail as well at achieving certain objectives. Occasionally, failing to do something has the better outcome in the end simply because of how the events play out at the greater level. Age of Decadence is not a dynamic system. Everything that happens is scripted and the schemes are always the same. Time passes when the player progresses in the game, but each time time passes all the factions make their moves and succeed or fail in relation to how things have played out. However, due to its intricacy and the intertwined nature of the various schemes it's probably one of the most "believable" faction system I've seen in an RPG.
While in theory, it would be nice to see a game employ a dynamic system, I don't think AI is yet capable of matching hand-written storytelling yet and it would ultimately be disappointing, at least when it comes to the plot.
>>330890005
I mean, you can observe the situation from the distance but it doesn't start being on-timer until you talk to some NPCs that inform you of it and start the timer.
i wish games would experiment more with branching paths
like let's say you fail a mission, or do it in a different way than you were told....instead of having to do it over again, why not make the story go in a different direction?
yes i know that branching paths is extremely complicated but i think it could be done.
>>330889603
nope, its the LotR one
>>330890130
Alpha Protocol?
That's what I liked about RotK X and M&B, the game can end without you ever joining a faction or doing anything if you really want to just hang out on the sidelines and mess around.
>>330890115
Yeah, that seems like the best work around, but I doubt a lot of people will be open to the idea of being "forced" to do quests in case they don't want to end up as a bad guy.
>>330890337
Why'd you end up being a bad guy? you'd just be not involved. A stranger passing by.
>>330890495
Huh, I meant more like you'd technically be losing the quest and I know a lot of people who savescum in RPGs just to make sure they get the best possible ending.
>>330890825
I see. Well, the ending if you didn't interfere could be mostly neutral, maybe even positive sometimes for a change. Maybe those NCR troopers received the signal to attack the gangers eventually, sure it was a bit messy and some of them died but hey, it happens on a war.
>>330882914
It's because all the quests are developed to work in a linear setting, yet the game is open-world.
>>330884007
Such a wonderful game <3
