The Elder Scrolls

[Hawking]

Generally, I agree with �ak, in most cases scenarios for good characters are more extensive: practically all RP games before "Fallout", "Baldur's Gate", "Gothic", "Neverwinter Nights", "Dungeon Siege", "Might and Magic" , "Dragon Age" ...

For example, "Baldur" - a nice quest with a circus at the start, but commissioned by a kid whose mother died in a tent. There is no alternative for a bad character, he can enter by himself, which will end up being a rescue anyway. Similarly, in "Dragon Age" most quests start with positive characters. It's not so bad if they are at least ready to pay or you can force them to pay (not infrequently). In "Skyrim" also rather good ones commission quests and only sometimes you can request a reward or say "Fuck!" (in the sense of a dialogue option).

The exceptions are: "Fallout" (ideal), "Planescape" (I'm not sure here), "Arcanum" (ideal) and "Mass Effect" (which, for me, is not a crpg, but an interactive fps- about an extensive scenario). Where both the world and the plot are morally dichotomous.
Everything we wrote is true. And it doesn't change the fact that the game is fucking awesome. I am a bit pained by poor coherence / interaction, average number of guilds and their poor spread (in "Morrowind" each had several outposts), but the world smashed me so much that for the first 20 hours I couldn't tear myself away from "Skyrim". Ba! I still want to penetrate her and do quests. Overall, the game could have been epic, and it's "just" very good.

Just do not munchkin ... Because you can stick in a blacksmith with enchantment at the start and have 20-30 lvl in the White Gran. But it will kill all the pleasure. How to play here, Spell? How to play here?

[Onirke]

I do not know? If we were dealing with a proprietary game from beginning to end, probably yes // spell. But from the production side, the engine and the scenario are completely different fairy tales, the only common denominator for them is the finite budget for a given project; There is no other way to shift the production capacity from the engine to the scenario, because one team is working on the technical side, another team is working on the visuals, and yet another one is working on the scenario, and I do not know what it is about devoting fully to the scenario. If you look at the "Participated" list, there must be a fart of people working on Skyrim productions, not counting outsourced subcontractors from India. These aren't the times when games were played with a basement swagger. I would see a problem in marketing - cymes like Torment today have a problem breaking through the shieldwall of marketing types with their battle cry "But it won't fucking sell!" . For one truly innovative and original game there is a flood of production people (which is not surprising since we are dealing with the entertainment industry). The fact is that with Baldur, Neverwinter etc. maybe there was less work with the mechanics, because borrowing the whole AD & D / d20 is less trouble than creating the mechanics from scratch, but I do not see a direct translation into the quality of the scenario. It would be good to consult someone who knows the problem from the point of view of the organization of production, because so far we are probably operating in the sphere of our own imaginations. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaagh.

[Eredin]

Orc, in your argument you have omitted one but this is the most important issue, which is important in the production of modern games. The scenario is created independently, but the first one arises. So that even the voice-actors could move because they would not work independently, possibly they would record a coarse ruffle.wav and zloworogipomruk.wav. In the past, this was not a problem because dialogues were written - now spoken issues are becoming a standard - and notice how this limits the script itself, because the written dialogue can be modified in trimiga, and you will not change the spoken dialogue without bringing the vioceaktor back to the studio. The same graphic designers need to know what to drink to get drunk. That's why it's not like that each team works independently and then magic is a game. It is the scenarists who have to slide in like little steam locomotives so that the rest of them can start their work and they are under the greatest pressure. Because, unfortunately, the game currently has to slander a person for the first half an hour and does it not with a scenario that is appreciated in the perspective of hours of play. I remember 8 years when we fired up with the Morrowind boys for the first time. We were most passionate about water.

The situation is different when the developers know that the first part has been successful and people will buy their next game even on a graphically outdated engine. Then you can devote yourself to the script, hire more people, give them more time. And the cymes comes out. How many games were broken on Baldur's engine?

[Pensmug]

I laughed because, as far as I can remember, Vvardenfell, Morrowind's play area, was bigger in the game than Cyrodill, Oblivion's play area.
I predict a bit from coffee grounds, but I think that general assumptions are enough for the production to start. The most important are the concepts on the basis of which, for example, graphic designers can start their work. And the actors are already in the late stage of production, actors usually have a given scene in front of them in the game and also provide a voice.

[Devil Baby]

But it is a question of the proper organization of production; dialogues, music or sound effects can be added, as in the case of films, at the post-production stage. The scenario can be created completely independently of the rest of the game, it can lie on a shelf together with art projects for years before the tops decide to implement it - the more that the "material" cost of creating a plot, characters, and quests is negligible, because you do not need to do it. take up the computing time of company mainframes, a small team can sit on it and the script, unlike the engine, doesn't get old ("Okay man, so far we have seven projects in progress, but you have a nice idea, wait 20 years, we'll release it at last"). Modifications of the script already at the stage of production (and not design) happen, they are possible, and probably and necessary, but you do not need a horde of scriptwriters looking over the shoulder of the rest of the team and working 36 hours a day until their ears start to run out . All these steps do not have to run in parallel. Of course, it cannot be that each team works for itself, but it is a matter of coordinating the work of individual departments and I do not think that any company can afford downtime under the title "Ok, we wait two months for the scenario to be completed". The script has to be written first, only its completion in the draft marks the beginning of the actual work - but the time pressure comes when the first part is successful and you need to quickly release the sequel while the hype continues. If we have full-time scriptwriters, the sequel scenario is created even before the release of the first part - but, as I will repeat ad nauseam, it's a matter of organizing production. If the organizational side collapses, the writers will have little time. As in the rest of life, if not for the deadline "for yesterday", nothing would have been done.

I counted 5 games on the Baldur engine. Two cool (BG, BG 2), one outstanding (P: T) and two mediocre (ID, ID2). All of them used a ready, described and outlined in all ways world and ready mechanics served on a tray. The engine is only a tool, whether an outstanding role-playing game or a production game will be created on its basis, it depends on the creativity of the authors and how much space will be left for them by the decision-making division. But, as I already wrote, I would love to hear the opinion of someone who really knows what it looks like, because we can just pretend to die.

[Poison Ivy]

I have a friend who did blood splatter in Dead Island, maybe? //thinks

[Sylfil]

Well, paper will accept anything. But translate it into a functional game, scripts, AI. The writers themselves don't do that. Neither are the technicians. Cooperation.
The time pressure is rather when releasing the first parts that have to prove themselves (and not go to the fame of the series - whether deservedly or not is another matter) and they must do it as soon as possible before the competition dazzles people with something else, and competition in this sector is extremely spicy. Fallout 3 continued a decade later.
Icewinds is just a special case, where, by definition, the creators decided not to intricate the plot and make a playground for munchkins and lonely dedicators who plan at night how to get one more dice in injuries. And the fact that the game had two parts + extras means that someone was playing it.

[Irakhash]

But this is already the assembly stage, if there is an industrial analogy to it. If at this stage there is no storyboard on the one hand - not even a script, plus at least advanced sketches of the entire graphic side, and on the other hand a functioning graphics engine, it's high time to find a dry branch for the project manager.
Because the Van Buren // writers project was suspended. And now we can return to the whimpering that there are no longer such cRPgs as in the past, and for today's youth only some shit in the head: a cart:

[Veldrin]

All we have to do is tap our heads, acquire amnesia and go Arcanum // spell

[Alfa]

But I'm a technologist, because we burn up the swordsman with magic, this is the most porn in the history of cRPG // thinks