Author Topic: Tactics Mod  (Read 22660 times)

Eocine

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« Reply #25 on: October 22, 2002, 08:12:15 AM »
Well I was playing as an evil P.C so needless to say when Bondari returned having "reloaded", I went slayer on his ass again.                    

L_Jonté

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« Reply #26 on: October 22, 2002, 09:49:01 AM »
You know, I've tried running an evil character but I just can't do it.   :(                    

L_Jonté

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« Reply #27 on: October 22, 2002, 09:51:47 AM »
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I actually thought it was quite funny, but yes, it is a bit disruptive of the flow of the game.  :o
The part that I thought was funny was the self-referential geek humor.  Bondari and crew were perfect portraits of what so many D&D characters used to be all about.  

But that Slayer/reload thing... ugh.  [_[                    

Offline jcompton

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« Reply #28 on: October 22, 2002, 09:54:32 AM »
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The part that I thought was funny was the self-referential geek humor.  Bondari and crew were perfect portraits of what so many D&D characters used to be all about.  
Which means it still fails my purity test.

What the hell are they doing there? They're there to be totally out of place examples of first level characters managed by 10 year old boys. Yes, I was there, I remember, now can I have my freaking epic back before you ruin... wait, too late, thanks a ton, Bioware.                    



[!--EDIT|jcompton|Oct 22 2002, 10:55 AM--]
Cespenar says, "Kelsey and friends be at the Pocket Plane? Ohhh yesssss!" http://www.pocketplane.net

L_Jonté

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« Reply #29 on: October 22, 2002, 01:16:08 PM »
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Yes, I was there, I remember, now can I have my freaking epic back before you ruin... wait, too late, thanks a ton, Bioware.

Uh-oh, sound like somebody needs a cookie.    ^_^

Fortunately, we neither of us need to revive Bondari and crew.  We've seen the joke and can thankfully give it a miss next time through.                    

Rassadihn

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« Reply #30 on: October 24, 2002, 05:34:48 AM »
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The obvious target is the significant use of non-Realms literature, from poetry to the Princess Bride. Now, mind you, I understand that some people are very very happy about this (someone on Usenet was just praising Wes for ascending to great-writerhood by knowing what to appropriate), but I notice it, that's all.
Someone wouldn't say he was "very very happy" about it, but he did notice it, thought it was clever/cute, and inserted praise accordingly. OK, it was just a wee bit ironic because the reusing is so blatantly obvious (except for the Imoen banter, but by now I now where credit's due :-) but I still liked it.                    

Offline jcompton

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« Reply #31 on: October 24, 2002, 07:42:30 AM »
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Someone wouldn't say he was "very very happy" about it, but he did notice it, thought it was clever/cute, and inserted praise accordingly.
                   I wasn't making an oblique reference to you, there are plenty of people who very actively like it and gush over it.                    
Cespenar says, "Kelsey and friends be at the Pocket Plane? Ohhh yesssss!" http://www.pocketplane.net

Rassadihn

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« Reply #32 on: October 25, 2002, 02:42:18 AM »
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Someone wouldn't say he was "very very happy" about it, but he did notice it, thought it was clever/cute, and inserted praise accordingly.
I wasn't making an oblique reference to you, there are plenty of people who very actively like it and gush over it.
                   My bad, then; chalk it up to my general overestimation of my importance. Moving right along... :-)                    

FlatulentOne

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« Reply #33 on: October 26, 2002, 04:57:49 AM »
Hmmm...my opinion would be, keep "additional tactical encounters" lumped together with the improved runies etc. Had I known I'd be bumping into Kuriosan (sp?) I most likely would have given Sanchudokku (sp?) a miss. Same with that cheating illusionist on the docks. And a valid point was made in a prior post: the mod makers are getting alot more exposure from the Sola mod than they do on there own. Personally, I would prefer an Uber mod with all your stuff whammed together. As for making Bohdi abducting Sola avoidable...well, it IS your mod, but I think it's a bad move. I find that it balances Sola recieving Tsuki no Ken later quite well. I am probably the worst tactician playing now, but I managed to slog through the undead sola fiasco reasonably well, despite having Bohdi take both Sola and Aerie (I wasn't TRYING to romance her, it was an accident). Perhaps key it to Sola's romance affect instead if you plan to change it, but don't give me a choice in the matter!                    

Offline weimer

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« Reply #34 on: October 26, 2002, 01:16:04 PM »
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but don't give me a choice in the matter!

I'm sorry, but I'm philosophically opposed to that sort of argument. The idea that I could globally make a better choice for everyone concerned than everyone could locally is abhorrent to me.

In fact, the idea that I should think *for you* is very high on my list of ultimate sins. If I could make every piece of all of my mods optional  (thus allowing the user to pick exactly what she wants and no more), I would. In fact, this is already the case if you know how to program :-). Until then, however, I am quite content to make more or less anything people want to be optional, optional.

Even if I make something optional, you are not required to skip it. In my mind, suggesting that you "lack the willpower" or somesuch to make the right choices is insulting. To suggest that you somehow lack the ability to make the right choice for yourself boggles the mind. Especially when I have provided a framework in which you can try it one way, see if you like it, reload, and try it the other way.

Children are often unware of their own desires and best interests. Children are often tired and hungry ... and yet unaware of it. In such cases the parents step in and force decisions or behaviors on them. Fine, children can't really think for themselves or make rational evaluations.

You can.

My mods are not targeted at children.

[ For those of you keeping score at home, this is why Quitch's "solaufein fix" and Jason's "solaufein romance not invisible to kelsey" components don't bother me. This is also why I offered to host the "solaufein romance not invisible to others" mod option here on my sight. As long as the end-user gets to choose, I don't care. ]

Freedom is very, very precious. Please do not ask me to take it away from you.                    

Offline weimer

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« Reply #35 on: October 26, 2002, 02:41:34 PM »
Jason has pointed out that my last message may make it seem like I am "agitated" at some poster in particular. That is not, in fact, the case.

I just honestly feel strongly about this. The only reason that I do not have a separate y/n question for every Sola lovetlk, as some have suggested, is that it would take me a bit of programming effort and the installation would be tedious. However, I include that (vaguely out of date) bit in the README specifically so that you can skip around by setting global variables. In my mind, it was the next best thing. And that section has been in the manual for ages -- this isn't some new fad of mine, this is something I have always believed.

Some have suggested that giving the user that much choice is not doing any favors for storytelling. I disagree. If you want the story as I inteded it, just say "yes" to everything. You have that choice.

This can be a difficult concept to grasp, but it is almost invariably better to get "the choice of X or not" than "X". Just consider a few examples and it starts to make sense: would you rather be forced to take a one-week expenses-paid vacation to the bahamas, or have that option? Sure, most of the time you'll take the vacation, so they seem the same. But the one time when your mother is dying in the hospital and you don't to leave the country, you'll be glad to have the choice.

Basically, the only time when "the choice of X" can be worse than "always X" is if the person is making the choices suboptimally. If you know for certain that I am always going to make better decisions than you are about what you like, than having me set "always X" is better than giving you "the choice of X".

As I started before, I don't believe that to be the case for anyone here. And since it is not, "the choice of X" is always the better call.

Consciousness and (the illusion of?) free will are some of our greatest gifts. Without the ability to think for yourself (and optionally change the world according to your will), consciousness is merely a curse that allows you to be aware of the fact that you are a slave. It is in making decisions that we define who we are.

I will not make decisions for you.                    

Kiki

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« Reply #36 on: October 26, 2002, 08:59:01 PM »
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The only reason that I do not have a separate y/n question for every Sola lovetlk, as some have suggested, is that it would take me a bit of programming effort and the installation would be tedious.
Did someone actually suggest this? Why on earth would anyone want that? There's almost always a dialogue option to tell Solaufein to stop bothering you, if all you want is to play with a silent fighter/mage.

The only reason I play BG2 now is to try new mods. I try to avoid learning anything about them until I actually play through. I hate knowing what's going to happen before it actually does, and would never play a mod that looked like:

Sola: In a couple of minutes, I'm going to talk with you about Phaere. Is that OK with you?

PC: No, I'm sick of hearing about her. What's the lovetalk after that?

Sola: Well, I thought I'd ask you to take a walk with me.

PC: I don't like walking. Why don't we just cut to the chase and jump in the sack?

Sola: As you wish, my friend.


If someone doesn't like the way you write the dialogue, they should just cut Sola dead in the first conversation. I also believe in encouraging people to not be sheep, but at some point you have to draw the line between preserving people's freedom to choose and absurdity. They always have the choice of uninstalling.                    



[!--EDIT|Kiki|Oct 27 2002, 04:06 AM--]

Offline weimer

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« Reply #37 on: October 26, 2002, 10:26:29 PM »
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The only reason that I do not have a separate y/n question for every Sola lovetlk, as some have suggested, is that it would take me a bit of programming effort and the installation would be tedious.
PC: No, I'm sick of hearing about her. What's the lovetalk after that?

Sola: Well, I thought I'd ask you to take a walk with me.

If someone doesn't like the way you write the dialogue, they should just cut Sola dead in the first conversation. I also believe in encouraging people to not be sheep, but at some point you have to draw the line between preserving people's freedom to choose and absurdity. They always have the choice of uninstalling.
                   OK, that was hilarious.

Anyway, the point was not to give all of these choices *in character*, but to allow the human player to pick them before the game started.

Clearly there is no *in-character* way of saying that you don't want to play with Kuroisan -- if you are a person living in the forgotten realms, Kuroisan either exists or he does not. However, as a human player sitting at a computer you can certainily decide that you don't want everyone's favorite acid kensai.

Let me see if I can make this even clearer. Imagine that there are only three possible options for the Sola mod, and the "default" configuration that gives the whole deal as I inteded it is "yes; yes; yes". Suppose that someone out there (let's call him "Jason", choosing a name uniformly at random) thinks that the story is paramount and that I should not even have options here -- I should just always make the mod install as if the user had said "yes; yes; yes".

That's great, and it makes Jason happy (and probably most others as well). However, let's consider another hypothetic user (call him "Gebhard", to pick another name uniformly at random). Gebhard would rather have "yes; no; no", and the story is not quite as important to him. If I follow Jason's suggestion, Gebhard will always be somewhat unhappy.

However, if I just leave the choice up to the user, everyone can be happy. Jason can say "yes; yes; yes" and get what he wants, Gebhard can say "yes; no; no" and get what he wants, and people who have no idea can just say "yes; yes; yes" and go with my default.                    

FlatulentOne

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« Reply #38 on: October 27, 2002, 01:11:36 AM »
My point was, I thought that Bohdi abducting Sola was a rather important element in the Imp. Bohdi setup. Allowing the player to tell Solaufein to NOT be kidnapped isn't very realistic, and breaks the story. If you feel you must give people a choice in this, it would make more sense to key it to the romance active thingy. Those who aren't taking Sola for the romance likely are the ones who don't want the undead Sola fight. Besides, when you romance one of the Bioware NPCs, you DON'T get the opportunity to say, hey, don't get turned into a vampire, ok? Besides, I hit the wrong buttons WAY to often anyway, and more choices makes it happen more often   :P                    

Kiki

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« Reply #39 on: October 27, 2002, 09:54:01 AM »
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My point was, I thought that Bohdi abducting Sola was a rather important element in the Imp. Bohdi setup. ... Those who aren't taking Sola for the romance likely are the ones who don't want the undead Sola fight.
Hm, I think I would disagree with this. If you are in it just for the romance, you probably wouldn't want the inconvenience of the abduction. If you're in it because you're a glutton for punishment and want to fight a vampolich, you're probably smashing the space bar to get through the dialogue. This is a Weimer mod, right? People download stuff just to see how much suffering they can take.

Personally, I don't think the abduction is a vital part of the narrative structure; it just indicates that Bodhi and Weimer both think Solaufein is incredibly cool (which he is). (Unless future, yet-to-be-written dialogues will build on his attraction to the Dark Side.) Apart from causing an immediate sense of injustice at Chain Contingency: Spell Immunity x 3, Undead Sola didn't do much to (or for) me; he instantly got blown into bits by level-25 Anomen.


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Gebhard would rather have "yes; no; no", and the story is not quite as important to him. If I follow Jason's suggestion, Gebhard will always be somewhat unhappy.
Pfft. Gebhard can take a Quaalude if he gets that worked up about it. Or he can tell Sola to shut up at any time, or go into the dialogue files and write his own narrative. At some point, the user gets what he/she gets.


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Anyway, the point was not to give all of these choices *in character*, but to allow the human player to pick them before the game started.
I know ... it just occurred to me what an IC presentation of choices might look like, and it amused me.

Hey, if this is about making everyone happy, you'll never get there anyway. So you might as well just do what makes *me* happy. :)                    



[!--EDIT|Kiki|Oct 27 2002, 05:55 PM--]

Hendryk

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« Reply #40 on: October 27, 2002, 10:11:13 AM »
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I will not make decisions for you.
A fine sentiment.  So how come Sola invited Drizzt & Co. into Bodhi Dungeon II on me without a by-your-leave?  I like the fellow but I have haven't loaded him since because I don't know what else he might come up with.                    

Offline weimer

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« Reply #41 on: October 27, 2002, 10:21:31 AM »
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I will not make decisions for you.
A fine sentiment.  So how come Sola invited Drizzt & Co. into Bodhi Dungeon II on me without a by-your-leave?  I like the fellow but I have haven't loaded him since because I don't know what else he might come up with.
                   You are confusing "Weimer will not make choices for you" with "Solaufein will not act in character" :-). I personally will not tell you side with Drizzt or force you to side with him in any way. However, Solaufein is completely in-character  in asking a well-known hero who just happens to be another turncoat drow for his comments about the surface and his help with recent difficulties.

However (as above), if there were some easy way to make the interface, I would have had it so that you could skip that part if you wanted to. I guess what I really want is a Ken-like AI interface where you can say something like "Hey, I want the Sola mod, but drop the abduction and keep him quiet near Drizzt" or somesuch. Wouldn't that be great? Then I could license it to the BG2 people: "Hey, I want BG2, but give Aerie a backbone, give Anomen some introspection and ironic distance, give the game a coherent ruleset, etc..."                    

Offline weimer

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« Reply #42 on: October 27, 2002, 10:26:56 AM »
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Personally, I don't think the abduction is a vital part of the narrative structure; it just indicates that Bodhi and Weimer both think Solaufein is incredibly cool (which he is).

Pfft. Gebhard can take a Quaalude if he gets that worked up about it. Or he can tell Sola to shut up at any time, or go into the dialogue files and write his own narrative. At some point, the user gets what he/she gets.

Hey, if this is about making everyone happy, you'll never get there anyway. So you might as well just do what makes *me* happy. :)
                   Vital? It's not clear what is "vital" in the narrative structure. I did think it was a nice way to bring back some of the "brooding" and "darkness" elements that were perhaps overshadowed by Sola's "I'm a nice guy" demeanor.

GB could well go into the D files, but most users are not up to that. For example, Hendryk could have done that and comment out the Drizzt interjection (it's even commented) ... but did not. In some sense the "pick what you want" interface is already there ... if you are a programmer (as I mentioned above).

Anyway, the "make Kiki happy plan" is tempting ... if only because you've got the cutest avatar here (who could say no to a Miyazaki heroine? ... well, excluding the one from Umi Ga Kikoeru).

Remind me again -- what was your platform? Have Weimer forget about user choice and concentrate on writing more dialogue?

                   

Hendryk

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« Reply #43 on: October 27, 2002, 11:56:36 AM »
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However, Solaufein is completely in-character  in asking a well-known hero who just happens to be another turncoat drow for his comments about the surface and his help with recent difficulties.
By this logic, you could turn the PC into just another NPC and let the game play itself.  When it's over, the computer could let me know who won.  My point here is that there is a difference in a computer RPG (as opposed to a live PnP game) between character development (Sola urging the PC to take Drizzt & getting ticked if I don't) and having an NPC from an add-in mod making decisions for me in non-mod parts of the game.  That I would classify as a design choice rather than character development.                    

L_Jonté

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« Reply #44 on: October 27, 2002, 12:27:11 PM »
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My point here is that there is a difference in a computer RPG (as opposed to a live PnP game) between character development (Sola urging the PC to take Drizzt & getting ticked if I don't) and having an NPC from an add-in mod making decisions for me in non-mod parts of the game. That I would classify as a design choice rather than character development.

I'm confused.  If you find all this so distressing, why not simply uninstall the mod?  :huh:

                   

L_Jonté

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« Reply #45 on: October 27, 2002, 12:29:28 PM »
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Remind me again -- what was your platform? Have Weimer forget about user choice and concentrate on writing more dialogue?

If it isn't Kiki's platform it's sure as heck mine!  Even if my avatar is insufficiently cute.  :P                    

Hendryk

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« Reply #46 on: October 27, 2002, 12:45:59 PM »
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I'm confused.  If you find all this so distressing, why not simply uninstall the mod?  :huh:
I did uninstall.  Here, I'm just complaining about the reasons for uninstalling what, in previous versions, was my favorite NPC.                    

Offline weimer

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« Reply #47 on: October 27, 2002, 12:46:53 PM »
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However, Solaufein is completely in-character  in asking a well-known hero who just happens to be another turncoat drow for his comments about the surface and his help with recent difficulties.
game) between character development (Sola urging the PC to take Drizzt & getting ticked if I don't) and having an NPC from an add-in mod making decisions for me in non-mod parts of the game.
                   First, I don't see any part of the game as Non-Sola once you take him into the party. Same with Kelsey or Valen. Improved Ilyich may be limited to Chateau Irenicus, but that's hardly the norm.

Do you have much experience with tabletop rpgs? Sure, there are often "party leaders" or whatnot, but I have never seen an rpg party that follows the leader as blindly as the Friends-of-the-Bhaalspawn follow [CHARNAME] around. I don't find it very realistic at all. There are a number of places in the vanilla game where the NPCs strongly disagree with the PC: I think that number is *far*, *far* too small. ( And far too many of them are Jaheira being NG instead of TN).

I don't see any compelling reason for Sola to leave all of the decisions to the PC -- especially since Sola is very smart (high INT) and very self-assured (high CHR).

The argument you are making is fine at the level of "you, a human, playing a CRPG". If you don't want to play a CRPG where the NPCs make take an active role (rather than passively responding to your decisions), fine. That's the bit where you don't install the Sola mod (as you have done, so you're already all over this). Or the bit where I make my AI-installation system and you can say "Install Sola, but leave out his backbone". However, once you take on the role of your character *inside* the game, there's no reason to find Sola's behavior at all strange. Bodhi is a vampire matriarch that is terrorizing the city! Even if you don't care about smiting her, Sola does. Drizzt's life and heroism on the surface are clearly issues near and dear to his heart. Why wouldn't he take the time to talk to him directly?
                   

Mael

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« Reply #48 on: October 27, 2002, 12:59:37 PM »
I have to agree, I think it adds a great deal to the realism of the game when characters make decisions for themselves. And really, I found Sola's conversation alot more interesting then running through the same dreary PC/Drizzt dialogue.  ;)                    



[!--EDIT|Mael|Oct 27 2002, 09:01 PM--]

Hendryk

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« Reply #49 on: October 27, 2002, 02:44:41 PM »
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First, I don't see any part of the game as Non-Sola once you take him into the party. Same with Kelsey or Valen. Improved Ilyich may be limited to Chateau Irenicus, but that's hardly the norm.

Do you have much experience with tabletop rpgs? Sure, there are often "party leaders" or whatnot, but I have never seen an rpg party that follows the leader as blindly as the Friends-of-the-Bhaalspawn follow <CHARNAME> around. I don't find it very realistic at all. There are a number of places in the vanilla game where the NPCs strongly disagree with the PC: I think that number is *far*, *far* too small. ( And far too many of them are Jaheira being NG instead of TN).

I don't see any compelling reason for Sola to leave all of the decisions to the PC -- especially since Sola is very smart (high INT) and very self-assured (high CHR).

The argument you are making is fine at the level of "you, a human, playing a CRPG". If you don't want to play a CRPG where the NPCs make take an active role (rather than passively responding to your decisions), fine. That's the bit where you don't install the Sola mod (as you have done, so you're already all over this). Or the bit where I make my AI-installation system and you can say "Install Sola, but leave out his backbone". However, once you take on the role of your character *inside* the game, there's no reason to find Sola's behavior at all strange. Bodhi is a vampire matriarch that is terrorizing the city! Even if you don't care about smiting her, Sola does. Drizzt's life and heroism on the surface are clearly issues near and dear to his heart. Why wouldn't he take the time to talk to him directly?
                   It's a non-Sola part of the game in the sense it happens whether he's in the party or not.  I have no problem on earth with the whole party living or dying depending on how he does with Archryssa because that's a Sola-specific and wholly logical development.  I could also quibble with it being "in character" for an NPC still relatively new to the group and completely new to the surface to be so assertive but that's all it would be; a quibble.  The character argument is actually quite strong.  As far as table top gaming goes, I've done some and my experience agrees with yours.  No one follows anyone "blindly".  I've seen staunchly unwilling-to-follow people literally foam at the mouth - some quantity of beer involved there.  I also know that don't nobody else complain, you ain't gonna change it.  Why should you?  I simply am very strongly averse to being railroaded into things and I think you could have made the point in another way.  Have him urge seeking Drizzt's help but turn the decision back to the PC.  Then there's got to be a game variable which determines whether Drizzt shows up in Bodhi's lair or not.  Use that to determine Sola's reaction.  He could just get huffy, he could leave the party to join Drizzt, he could even turn hostile.  

Ah, hell.  This is really pointless because it's just a difference of opinion on where the line gets drawn between realism and playability - and you're the author.  Have a good one.                    

 

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