Renown-The good and the bad

[invertin]

What if people acted differently depending on what you did!
E.G1 a trader is under attack from 2 raiders, you knock one out with a head kick and the other runs away. The trader thanks you and carries on his way, at the next town everyone thanks you and praises you because the trader got there first and told everyone about you!
E.G2 same situation you throw a knife into one of the raiders backs and the other see's the knife and runs, you were hideing behind some trees or something the whole time so the trader doesn't see you, you ge to the next town and people are spreading a rumour about "the blade slinger" an invisible warrior wiht 100 knifes...
E.G3 same situation, this time you help the raiders by knocking out the trader then helping them loot his things...

Your views please.

Edit: I should have said this is for Lugaru2..

[pyros soul]

I have no idea.......


But i don't think that can or will happen (At least not in L1)

[GaGrin]

I agree. IMO things like this are exactly the kind of thing I'd like to see in RPGs and a much lesser focus on equipment and such.

It should be more like this - who you are, what you've done and who you know, not how many swords do you have.

IMO of course.

I'd go further and say I'd like to see three broad values...

Fame - how well known you are and how likely it is for people to recongnise you.

Reputation - A local value of how well people think of you.

Relation - On a per individual basis, how they feel about you. The locals might well love you and praise the ground you walk on, but that doesn't mean the local grocer is going to give you a discount if you keep trying to chat up his daughter!

You shouldn't know exactly what these values are, but I'd like to see the effects of them (or something similar to this or what invertin originally posted).

[invertin]

I agree. IMO things like this are exactly the kind of thing I'd like to see in RPGs and a much lesser focus on equipment and such.

It should be more like this - who you are, what you've done and who you know, not how many swords do you have.

IMO of course.

I'd go further and say I'd like to see three broad values...

Fame - how well known you are and how likely it is for people to recongnise you.

Reputation - A local value of how well people think of you.

Relation - On a per individual basis, how they feel about you. The locals might well love you and praise the ground you walk on, but that doesn't mean the local grocer is going to give you a discount if you keep trying to chat up his daughter!

You shouldn't know exactly what these values are, but I'd like to see the effects of them (or something similar to this or what invertin originally posted).

I sugest another one which might affect fame-Mystery, if when helping villagers you wear a disguise or hide so nobody see's you doing it, this increases mystery. If you are more open and show off for the villagers this decreases mystery. If you are mysterious then villagers will like you more but no recognise you and treat you normally. If you are no mysterious then you will be praised by villagers although your enemies would know who you were and that could be dangerouse your your friends. If you are too mysterious the authorities (If there are any) would get suspicious and try to stop you when they see you in disguise. Also mystery would only be local unless the peopl you help travel. One town could worship and praise the legendary turner. And another could be telling rumours about the invisible Blade slinger.

Or just go with my first post. Basically the same.

[Kalexon]

That would be cool, it seems a bit more like the system Fable had only the added Mystery factor. Although what really caught my eye is this:

It should be more like this - who you are, what you've done and who you know, not how many swords do you have

This always annoyed me with RPGs, in that you don't have to worry about your skill as a player as long as you can dual-wield your two Longswords Of Uber Fire Destruction +50

[Colicedus]

This always annoyed me with RPGs, in that you don't have to worry about your skill as a player as long as you can dual-wield your two Longswords Of Uber Fire Destruction +50

I Concur with that. I hate my Sisters Game that She plays Called World Of Warcrack for that Reason. It Sucks, and anyone who Try to Disagree will get a Preemptive "Shh" or a Chainsaw Wedged up themselves.

Oh yea. David, I think the Guy is onto something.
and Might I say, No Skills! No Invisible Dice, No Nothing of that Sort!

[zatoichi]

see, you can't just say a game sucks. I don't personally like WoW, but if so many people like it, it's obviously a good game. The point is for it to be fun, remember?

[GaGrin]

Zatoichi hits the nail square on the head!

Interestingly the WoW popularity factor is a similar thing to a test they do with rats...

Inconsistant rewards mean that players know they will be rewarded if they continue playing, but they are unable to judge the distances and therfore curb their playing time.

Invertin: You don't need the mystery thing if you have reputation and fame. Reputation is what people think of you - it doesn't mean they recognise you (unless it gets *very* high or low) but Fame + Reputation = chance of people knowing who you are (ie Recognition).

Roughly.

[marmorek]

I think this is a grest idea, but you should not be able to know what your exact fame/reputation/mystery levels are. Just like with your health you have to guess and/or figure it out yourself.

[Colicedus]

Tasudar hits the nail square on the head!

Interestingly the WoW popularity factor is a similar thing to a test they do with rats...

Inconsistant rewards mean that players know they will be rewarded if they continue playing, but they are unable to judge the distances and therfore curb their playing time.

True. Why i think it sucks.

[Kalexon]

I played WoW for a while, at first like everyone else I was like "OMG this is so good," after a while I was thinking "Y'know this is getting kinda boring and repetive," and I was only to level 40 after about six months of playing, I knew a couple of people who got to 60 in like three or four weeks. I decided just to ditch it. Maybe one day when Blizzard pulls there act back together I'll play again but until that time I'm content with Multi-player Neverwinter Nights and other single-player games.

[invertin]

E.G3 same situation, this time you help the raiders by knocking out the trader then helping them loot his things...

I want some sort of "Fear" that increases with evil deeds and decreases when you be heroic

E.G4 You kill everyone you see coming out of a town, then go into the town. People scream, children run. And guards try to stop you, but you let their brain say hello to their spine (Killing them horribly and brutally) more screaming.

This would get annoying if you just want to buy a sword and the shopkeeper gets his things and runs. Or if you are constantly hindered by guards. But if David does put this in, he'll know what he's doing.

[GaGrin]

Like Reputation? It can go negative too, and likely alot faster than up

I agree with what you're saying invertin I just think that much of this can be simplified into an invisble "general like/dislike" (Reputation) and Fame.

I also think that reputation should be localised as it is in Darklands. You can be known as heroes in one town and villains in the next - but as your Fame rises, your reputation will spread as your tales pass from settlement to settlement. It won't ever become truly grey, but if you've got a very good reputation in one town and very poor in the next, the spread might reduce both to merly good and poor respectively.

Maybe.

It sounds good to me at the moment but I'm tired.

However - I DO think that individuals should remember you outside of the general reputation system. I believe I stated this before - but even if generally you are regarded as a hero, you can still get people to hate you without turning the whole population against you. Likewise you can have very good friends even if you are widely regarded as a criminal.

[Colicedus]

Oh, Will Ever Friendly NPC Have a particular personality Like Avernum? or will it be like GTA? if its more like Avernum then i think that will be a good idea... you could use a system like the Sims 2 there. How ever. how will you be able to talk to other Rabbits? will there be the Menu like in Hit man when something goes into you're Cross hair, will there be a Cheep Cross hair for aim? Or will you run into, or will it be like the last one? If thats the case how can you attack them? what if you wanted to be hostile to some one to take there Goods and Rob there shop, and Kill them? and will they Respawn after 10 minutes?

[GaGrin]

Colicedus:
As far as NPC's go I don't think we've had very much information - other than Jeff mentioning that conversations were likely to work in a similar manner to Broken Sword with the icons for topics.

I might have a look at Avernum to get a better understanding for exactly what you mean - but for the moment I'll settle for two ways of handling NPCs.

Key Characters (Actors)
Nameless sods to fill the world (Mooks)

Personally I think that games would be better off mixing these methods without making it clear who is who...

Okay, firstly I should make it clear I'm a fan of random generation and dynamic worlds. IMO its more fun to see the world around you change as you travel rather than be stuck in some kind of stasis like the vast majority of games. Oblivion tried to aim for something more dynamic but was so worried about breaking the game that they practically killed the dynamic nature of the NPCs. Breaking the game is a worry unless you have faceless npcs/mooks like GTA. Doesn't matter how many you slay cos you can always replace them and its going to be fine.

I recently played Dwarf Fortress and I think the its way of handling things is superb.

It knows how many of what are where and it knows who the key players in the world are. Everyone else is faceless until you meet them. If the player fights, talks or interacts with that character they get marked as important and are tracked as part of the dynamics. If they die, a nameless character may or may not take their place as part of the dynamic world.

Personality can be randomly generated for all filler characters this way and they can then become more important npcs in their own right as the plot develops.

As for initating hostilities...

If you sneak up on someone with a weapon I think the game can assume you want to threaten/kill them - You could grab them if they aren't already hostile and enter a conversation with the option of killing them.

If you approach them in the street it could assume you want to talk - but have a conversation option to insult/attack them after which you get an initial strike (like the 2nd area in Lugaru) and the combat just continues as normal with folk joining in or staying out of the fight as required.

Of course David and the Team may have some other super cool method - or simply resort to another key

If anyone has played Way of the Samurai you'll know what I mean, but I loved the way you didn't ever have you say anything in that game - it just told you that you had the option, so you could interupt character or totally ignore them at will .

For those that don't know, you had an icon on the screen when you could talk and a button was assigned to talking. If you pressed the button the game would pause. Left and right changed who you talked to, while up and down changed what you said. You didn't have to say anything and the game didn't pause for you - if you wanted to say something or interrupt someone you hit the button - the conversation options constantly changed in the background depending on what had just been said. A very short game, but the number of ways it could be played was superb.

Actually that had a neat feature - because the game was so short if you died that was that. Game over, you have to restart. But from the very start it didn't force you to fight anyone. You saw thing happen and you got involved when and where you wanted. Once you started however it cut off options and mad life more dangerous, but because death meant game over you really had to think about what you did. Very cool game.