Opinion Ask Janus!

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Schulzenfest said:
In all seriousness, I would play the s**t out of this if you could somehow pull it off.
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There's at least...hmmm....9 completely different endings, based on how you play it, with subtle variations as to the motivations behind each of the 8 (e.g. in one ending you might end up destroying the city a certain way, but in another it might be someone else doing the exact same thing because you pissed them off too much.) The 9th is the 'ultimate' playthrough and the hardest to achieve because it requires a tight rope walking act between honour, humility, sacrifice, compassion, justice etc...basically the path of the Avatar in Ultima (but it's never expressly told what you need to do in certain situations...it's more hinted at through stuff you read about the people you are dealing with).

I doubt anyone will be noble enough to find it - Richard Garriott (the creator of Ultima) said that the reason why he made Ultima 4 was because he got letters from people who played Ultima 3 who found that the best way to min-max the game (minimum time spent to complete it) was to kill his alter ego Lord British and kill everyone in the villages. So he created the Path of the Avatar as a way of trying to teach players to be virtuous.

My question is: if he had allowed people to still act in the same manner as before, but given them a completely different ending...what would have been the outcome? That's what it's about. The game isn't about plot...it's about character. Who you are and who you want to be. Max Landis explains what I'm trying to go for in this video about Superman:



"And at the end, a hero stands tall as all of society has crumbled behind him. That isn't a hero to me, a guy who stands there after everyone else is dead. That's more like a rockstar."

I want to know how many people want to be heroes vs how many people want to be rockstars.
 
Janus said:
Deus Ex + Fallout New Vegas + Ultima 4/5/6/7 = my game. I’m tired of dumbed down bulls**t. Games are too formulaic now. “The player can choose to talk, sneak or fight his way to the objective.” Pffft.
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It's a dying (if not already dead) breed of game. It breaks my heart, tbh
People like Warren Spector try to keep it alive, but the current hand-holding way of single player games has been drilled in to most people who picked up gaming from the mid-2000s onward.

It's why I replay older games moreso than picking up new titles. I could just be becoming the vidya gaem version of a old man yells at clouds too.

Janus said:
I guess it’s an RPG mixed with an old school adventure game, really.
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It sounds like a big work load for one person, but I really like the sound of it. Definitely seems like my type of game.

Look forward to hearing more about it as you progress.
 
StuMan said:
It's a dying (if not already dead) breed of game. It breaks my heart, tbh
People like Warren Spector try to keep it alive, but the current hand-holding way of single player games has been drilled in to most people who picked up gaming from the mid-2000s onward.

It's why I replay older games moreso than picking up new titles. I could just be becoming the vidya gaem version of a old man yells at clouds too.
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It's more the fact that publishers want developers to focus on the maximum amount of sales so they make easier for young kids to play. That, coupled with unrealistic turnaround times, means that it's just easier to put cookie cutter quests into games (go to X, do Y, get reward from Z) then anything with a branching story.

I read an article about The Other Worlds and Cyberpunk 2077 both having the same sort of quest system and the author saying that they are tired of playing the same game dressed in different clothes.

StuMan said:
It sounds like a big work load for one person, but I really like the sound of it. Definitely seems like my type of game.

Look forward to hearing more about it as you progress.
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I couldn't trust it to anyone else. They'd ruin it with some minigame bullshit or release it buggy as * like Spector and his team did with Underworld Ascendant...which is what happens when you rely on crowdfunding for money - people will always bitch and moan about how long the project is taking. Let's put it this way - in about two months I've just managed to get the subway station to the point where I'm satisfied with it enough to use it as a prefab around the map...and I've still got to alter each of the 52 stations with different names, adverts etc. And I'll still probably tinker with it later anyway.

I know what sort of game I'd like to play, and what is acceptable and what isn't. As John Carmack said - "It's done when it's done."
 

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So I have a development question:

What would people consider a good ratio of good/evil quests? Like, the majority will be able to completed by players of any playstyle, but there will be some where your alignment will make it impossible for you to receive a quest (but you can still do the quest - it just won’t tell you what to do).

I’m thinking a 3 selfless/6 neutral/3 selfish ratio...because 9 the number of ego and if you’re super special and able to convince evil people into doing good, 12 is the number of divinity.

7 quest hub locations per act, 6 acts + end game.

That would be...hmm...450 quests for either alignment, 600 quests all up if you're god tier and can actually get 100% completion (which probably would require to play through both alignments unless you can think a certain way). At 15-30 minutes per quest...that makes it 112.5-225 hours per alignment and 200-300 hours to complete everything. And that's if you knew what you were doing and never got killed.

Don't worry, I've got an epic story lined up for quests. Here's a sample:

At the start of the game, you're working as a courier. You see, in the future, because of certain legislation that has passed, it's very easy for the government to scan electronic transmissions and then use sensitive information against companies or patent products themselves. So for high security, high risk jobs, people employ the services of an information courier - which is really just a way of people getting others to do whatever jobs they don't want the city's surveillance system to know about.

At the start, you get shitty jobs - the kind of stuff a regular courier would get. Pick up documents from here, deliver them to there. But eventually, when you make enough money to purchase a weapon, then you start to qualify for 'Dangerous Goods' deliveries - which is basically code for 'you can get killed'. Keep doing more missions, and you get upgraded to 'Biohazard' deliveries....and this is where the quest idea I've got kicks in.

At one point, you're asked by a surgeon to go pick up a delivery of a live human heart that is needed for transplant from an organ donor that has just died. The heart is going to a young girl who is terminally ill. If you go to the hospital reception desk and simply wait like a good little courier, ignoring the odd sounds that are coming from further inside the building, eventually the receptionist will give you a suspended animation chamber with the heart inside and you can take it back to the surgeon, he performs the surgery on the girl...you've done your good deed for the day.

Right?

Wrong.

If you decide to do a bit of snooping, you find out that it's not a hospital at all - it's a warehouse with a section cordoned off as a makeshift surgery room, and the 'organ donor' is a very much alive middle aged man. It's a black market organ donation ring where people matching the required criteria are abducted and murdered.

So you're left with a choice - you can a) let the poor man be murdered and save the little girl (which leads to another quest from the surgeon) or b) save the man from being murdered and condemn the terminally ill girl to death (which leads to a quest from the middle aged man).

Honour vs Compassion. A no win situation.

Of course, there's a third choice...but it requires you making another choice to accept a quest earlier in the game where another doctor asked you to do the exact same job these guys are doing. He gives you an organ harvesting drone (nicknamed Harvey, who has a dark sense of humour kind of like HK-47 from KOTOR) and tells you to deliver a heart to the surgeon.

Now, you can either a) do that first mission and bypass the whole hospital quest (you evil campaigner) b) reject the mission based on your holier-than-thou moral code....or again, a third choice - take the mission, but instead of carrying it out, let the potential victim go.

Both B and C result in the hospital mission.

If you reject the earlier mission because you think 'I'm not a murderer' (Option B) instead of thinking 'If I don't take this, someone else will and this person is going to die' (Option C), you don't get the harvester drone, so you can't harvest the heart of one of the guys you kill (who Harvey tells you is an exact match to the blood type of the girl, but he needs to be killed with a headshot) to save the potential murder victim and save both the middle aged man AND the little girl. Therefore showing Justice, Honour and Compassion.

That's how every quest is. A series of gates you have to open in the correct sequence...not some lame 'you can sneak, fight or talk your way through this mission!' Quests with gravitas that present moral dilemmas that can be solved by actual outside the box thinking where there is always a middle path....but it's cramped and narrow, and few are the ones finding it.
 
Game update: I've decided that since this is a futuristic dark world, it's going to be constantly raining just like Blade Runner...due to climate change ******* up the weather cycle, there are parts of the world where their are constant cyclones, which sends rain bands through the city one after another.

Plus, rain effects and ambient sound in a first person game when you go outside just look and sound cool and it makes the game feel more lived in. Especially with all the LED lights and neon that's going to be around the city.
 
I've got this idea - you know how in GTA5 you could buy stocks in LifeHack or whatever the * it was called after it tanked and make a lot of money?

Well, what I want to do is make up a dynamic stock trading system where you actions across the game world can make the stock price rise or fall. Let's say you've bought 1000 shares in Vapula Industries - which is a genetic engineering firm - for $100 each. A pretty sizeable investment. Then in one mission you discover that the CEO is involved in a child trafficking ring and has stolen next generation technology from a rival competitor.

Do you a) kill him like he probably deserves, therefore tanking the stock price to a point where it will never recover?, b) allow him to come up with a convenient exit strategy, letting him get away with his bullshit and therefore increasing the price of your stock to $1000 per share...or c) turn him over to the police, take the stolen tech, sell your shares in Vapula before the story about his crimes gets to the media...and invest in Vapula's rival before handing back the stolen tech to them as the rightful owner?

Or do you consider that insider trading and an illegal activity?

Would that be something people would be interested in when it comes to world depth? It would be a different way to make money and teach players how perception drives the stock market at the very least.
 
Janus said:
I've got this idea - you know how in GTA5 you could buy stocks in LifeHack or whatever the fu** it was called after it tanked and make a lot of money?

Well, what I want to do is make up a dynamic stock trading system where you actions across the game world can make the stock price rise or fall. Let's say you've bought 1000 shares in Vapula Industries - which is a genetic engineering firm - for $100 each. A pretty sizeable investment. Then in one mission you discover that the CEO is involved in a child trafficking ring and has stolen next generation technology from a rival competitor.

Do you a) kill him like he probably deserves, therefore tanking the stock price to a point where it will never recover?, b) allow him to come up with a convenient exit strategy, letting him get away with his bulls**t and therefore increasing the price of your stock to $1000 per share...or c) turn him over to the police, take the stolen tech, sell your shares in Vapula before the story about his crimes gets to the media...and invest in Vapula's rival before handing back the stolen tech to them as the rightful owner?

Or do you consider that insider trading and an illegal activity?

Would that be something people would be interested in when it comes to world depth? It would be a different way to make money and teach players how perception drives the stock market at the very least.
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Very cool, but how long would it take you to develop that?
 
Janus said:
Working on my game...it’s not gonna make itself :p

Right now I’m putting in the subway system because it has a real time timetable and making up pretend news reports and advertisements that play audio when you activate them. Stuff like peptide enhanced energy drinks, AI pets that are already house trained etc.

You know, the stuff that builds world depth.

The fun bit is going to be making the morality system that fluctuates between virtue and vice - humility vs pride, love vs lust, peace vs wrath etc - depending on your actions in the game. Unlike other games, it will be your previous actions that influence what dialogue options you get, not some bulls**t perk. A criminal isn’t going to relate to a goody two shoes at all in reality, so why would they relate to them in a fantasy world? Why would they even ask someone like that to do a job for them?

But if the goody two shoes proved they weren’t so clean cut by giving the criminal a stolen item that the player just happened to know the criminal was looking for after overhearing a conversation between two underlings...then things would be different.

fu** being pushed into always being the hero - in this game, you can be the hero who turns into the villain if you feel like betraying everyone for your own ends. Or the anti-hero if you want. But everything has consequences. Cause and effect.

Deus Ex + Fallout New Vegas + Ultima 4/5/6/7 = my game. I’m tired of dumbed down bulls**t. Games are too formulaic now. “The player can choose to talk, sneak or fight his way to the objective.” Pffft.

How about a game where you can increase your knowledge of chemistry to mix reagents that creates a knockout gas which you can then combine with a portable fan and place into the fresh air duct of a building and incapacitate everyone? What if in that same building it’s possible to hack into the fire alarm and set it off, and get what you need in the resulting panic? Or what if, due to your previous actions, you’re in a position to already have access to the item because you’ve seduced the manager when you were working in a brothel and she gives it to you when you ask...and you bypass that entire quest?

I call it fractal questing. Instead of 3 ways to complete a quest which all work, there are going to be infinite (not really, but it will seem like it) ways you can try to complete it, and your success or failure is based on your competence. Just like in real life.

I guess it’s an RPG mixed with an old school adventure game, really.
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Ok.. I'm interested..
 
So I've just had this cool yet quirky idea.

You know how in most RPGs there's a weight limit for how much stuff you can carry, and you'll slow down if you become encumbered? And everyone hates the fact that you've got to manage your inventory, but no games ever actually use it for anything other than resource management?

Well, in the future, items aren't carried around. They are uploaded to an personal implant (as in inside your head) server! So when you want an object, you just go onto your datapad, select what you want, and if you drag it into the world it will instantiate. So instead of weight limits, the inventory screen has a data limit - and you can purchase increased storage capacity.

But here's the catch - data is data - so if there's a mission where you have to transport some mission critical files that take up 2 TB of a 3 TB inventory server, that means you can only take 1 TB worth of equipment with you. And the closer you get to your file limit, you begin to move slower because of increased processing times. Conversely, if you have no data on you at all, you'll move faster.

So it's like this:

No data - 1.5x speed
10% data - 1.4x speed
20% data - 1.3x speed
30% data - 1.2x speed
40% data - 1.1x speed
50% data - normal speed
60% data - 0.9x speed
70% data - 0.8x speed
80% data - 0.7x speed
90% data - 0.6x speed
100% data - half speed

This dynamic could be used in a part of the game where you are being chased out of a secret weapons laboratory and you really want the advanced prototype, but it takes up 80% of your data allocation just by itself...and if you'd just been nicer to that data scientist from another quest, you would have gotten increased storage capacity...
 
To give you a little taste of the virtue system...here is the very first action in the game. A conversation. It might be a little hard to follow, but hopefully you'll get the idea:

"If you want to live, do exactly what I say and don't ask any questions. They are coming for you. I don't know how long you have, but since we are talking, it means you're in grave danger."

Dialogue choice 1.1: Who is coming for me?

"The Mjolnir Initiative. I told you, don't ask questions." (-1 Faith, -1 Prudence)

Dialogue choice 1.2: *keep silent*

"I'll fill you in on the details later." (+1 Faith, +1 Prudence)

"Right now, our main objective is to get you out of that facility. From what I've been told, there is a morgue not far from your location. I want you to go there and find a body type that matches yours...and strip them of their battle armor."

Dialogue choice 2.1: Understood.

"Hmm. I expected you to kick up more of a fuss about this..." (-1 Justice, +1 Pride)

Dialogue choice 2.1.1:

2.1.1(a). I don't like it, but I understand that my survival depends on it.

"Exactly the point. Nobility will just end up with you dead. It's good that you're aware of this lesson already." (+1 Prudence)

2.1.1(b). They're dead. Why would they care if I took their clothes?

"I guess I figured you'd be more respectful of the dead." (-1 Charity, -1 Justice, -1 Hope, -1 Fortitude)

Go to end dialogue.

Dialogue choice 2.2: You want me to steal the clothes off a dead body?! That's abhorrent!

"Would you rather join them? Because that's what will happen if you try walking around the facility you are being held in without a disguise." (+1 Justice, +1 Wrath, +1 Pride, +1 Charity)

Dialogue choice 3: I guess you're right...but I still don't like it.

"We all have to do things we don't like in order to survive. Believe me, this won't be the worst of it." (+1 Prudence, +1 Temperance)

End dialogue - "Once you've found the battle armor, equip it. That will keep you safe for a while. I'll call you again once you're in the clear. Remember, the guards WILL shoot you on sight until you're incognito. Good luck."


Of course, the player won't know the virtue system is adding and subtracting numbers from each attribute through their conversation choices/actions. So in the first five minutes of the game, the player could have +1 Faith, +2 Prudence, +1 Charity, +1 Wrath, +1 Pride, +1 Temperance and +1 Justice if they chose the "true path" answers...or they could have -1 Faith, -2 Justice, -1 Hope, -1 Fortitude, -1 Prudence, 0 Charity, 0 Wrath, +1 Pride if they chose all the "wrong" answers.

So straight away, your actions are determining the path you're going to be walking down. These are the qualities and why they are important:

Seven Virtues

Faith - NPCs with quests based around trust require a high Faith score. Acquired from believing things on face value and accepting the word of others.

Prudence - NPCs with quests based around discretion require a high Prudence score. Acquired from having a 'look before you leap' attitude.

Charity - NPCs with quests based around goodwill and empathy require a high Charity score. Acquired from being kind to strangers etc.

Temperance - NPCs with quests based around diplomacy require a high Temperance score. Acquired from using violence as a last resort.

Justice - NPCs with quests based around revenge/retribution/equalisation require a high Justice score. Acquired from doing the right thing.

Fortitude - NPCs with quests based around strength in the face of adversity require a high Fortitude score. Acquired from sticking to your guns.

Hope - NPCs with quests based around instilling belief in others and inspiring them to become better require a high Hope score. Acquired from acting heroic.

Seven Vices

Wrath - NPCs with quests based around violence require a high Wrath score. Acquired from violent and aggressive behaviour.

Envy - NPCs with quests based around desiring things from others require a high Envy score. Acquired from covetous behaviour (including stealing).

Lust - NPCs with quests based around sex require a high Lust score. Acquired from being flirtatious and paying for sex.

Pride - NPCs with quests based around their social status require a high Pride score. Acquired from having a high sense of self-worth (certain items will increase pride when worn).

Gluttony - NPCs with quests based around over consumption and hoarding of any kind require a high Gluttony score. Acquired from not being charitable when the opportunity arises (i.e. not sharing money, food or medical supplies with strangers)

Greed - NPCs with quests based around making excessive amounts of money require a high Greed score. Acquired from always demanding payment for services rendered, even when it is not required.

Sloth - this is the only stat that doesn't have an effect on quests...because it's a stat that increases if you pass on certain quests and tell NPCs to get someone else to do it. Basically increases the more you can't be bothered.

To get 100% completion will require a player to choose every right answer and do every right action - which seeing there will be close to 400 quests with dialogue trees similar to this one, means you've got a 1 in 1600 chance of seeing everything on the first try.

It's more a personality/psychology test disguised as a game.
 

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I’m going to get my big tough mate and film him bashing people playing your game.

It’ll be the final personality test.
 
Janus said:
To give you a little taste of the virtue system...here is the very first action in the game. A conversation. It might be a little hard to follow, but hopefully you'll get the idea:

"If you want to live, do exactly what I say and don't ask any questions. They are coming for you. I don't know how long you have, but since we are talking, it means you're in grave danger."

Dialogue choice 1.1: Who is coming for me?

"The Mjolnir Initiative. I told you, don't ask questions." (-1 Faith, -1 Prudence)
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Mjolnir is an underground, viking themed bar about 100 metres from where I live. "Secret" door, decent cured meat platters, beer in curved horns, fancy spirit based drinks each with a page full of silly mytho-psycho- dialogue just like... yeah well you know, that kind of stuff.

If anyone is plotting down there, it's probably a clique from Tanya Plibersek's office, a couple of doors down. The loons from the Surry Club hotel on the other side don't usually manage to find the door on their slouchings past, and even if they did, the poor phone reception in the cellar would interrupt the hold music from Centrebank so they probably wouldn't feel comfortable.
 
dirty2 said:
Gonna be +100 lust in the first 30mins ;)
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You’ll be able to become a Master/Mistress and have a sex slave that you can visit at a brothel (he/she becomes a great source of information in the game). That will max out the lust score regardless of what else you do.

It will take longer than 30 minutes though :p
 
Schlez said:
What is the story behind this?
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I'm not sure, but I think it's something to do with my clinically diagnosed psychopathic friend who has a tendency toward violence and an idea we had to go into country pubs wearing mildly offensive t-shirts and then challenging the best fighters that would then be filmed and posted on YouTube.

He's got this obsession to get me into a fight for some reason. I don't really go for that sort of thing unless I feel there is honour in it (i.e. protecting someone you love etc), and I've told him that several times.

Not sure why it has anything to do with what I posted though?
 
Janus said:
I'm not sure, but I think it's something to do with my clinically diagnosed psychopathic friend who has a tendency toward violence and an idea we had to go into country pubs wearing mildly offensive t-shirts and then challenging the best fighters that would then be filmed and posted on YouTube.

He's got this obsession to get me into a fight for some reason. I don't really go for that sort of thing unless I feel there is honour in it (i.e. protecting someone you love etc), and I've told him that several times.

Not sure why it has anything to do with what I posted though?
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I’m fairly sure that’s not how you presented that story initially.
 
JimmyBeerCans said:
Just needs an 80's power ballad as a Patrick Swayze-esque geezer finally fights for love at the end.
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What an awesomely underrated movie that is.
 
Janus said:
I'm not sure, but I think it's something to do with my clinically diagnosed psychopathic friend who has a tendency toward violence and an idea we had to go into country pubs wearing mildly offensive t-shirts and then challenging the best fighters that would then be filmed and posted on YouTube.

He's got this obsession to get me into a fight for some reason. I don't really go for that sort of thing unless I feel there is honour in it (i.e. protecting someone you love etc), and I've told him that several times.

Not sure why it has anything to do with what I posted though?
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🤡
 
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