View From The Road: Flash Frozen
I recollect information technology's a matter of public record by this point that I am truly, really looking forward to BioWare's massively multiplayer take connected the Star Wars world. It's a beloved setting in the work force of a popular and talented developer, and just about everything we've seen looks pretty damn assuredness and so far. If there's one arena where I'm not primed to drink the Kool-Aid til now, though, it's BioWare's stated end of making a fib-settled MMOG, which is both a problem and the most ambitious part of what they're trying to fulfill.
I'm not talking about the standard argument of "OH, how can we feel equivalent the hero of the floor when we know that every other Level 26 Jedi Knight has done the right same matter," either. All information technology takes to get around that is good presentation and many willing suspension of disbelief connected the part of the thespian, which International Relations and Security Network't as big a hurdle as it may seem. Rather, I'm speaking about the axenic mechanics, specifically the idea of "Flash Points."
Flash Points, atomic number 3 outlined by BioWare, are moments in the taradiddle where your tasty leave make a difference. Do you usher clemency and spare the life of someone, or do you kill them for their noncompliance? Every choice opens up new paths and avenues for the story – on paper, anyway. If this sounds like old news show to you, it's because that this form of thing has been in every BioWare game in recent memory. IT's standard, it's well-tried-and-true, and IT works…
…exclude for when you have multiple people calling the shots. This is my main hang-functioning with the idea, one that was driven home last weekend while playing Army of Two: The 40th Day.
Piece it may appear funny to compare a shallow, uber-masculine third-person shooter slaughterfest to an verse form sci-fi fantasy MMORPG, it's non quite American Samoa crazy atomic number 3 you think. Army of Two had a minor storytelling mechanic very similar to TOR's Ostentate Points, where the protagonists Salem and Rios would personify given the chance to make a major choice once per level. If offered a hefty bonus to eliminate the person they'd been working with up until that pointedness, would they spare his life and rent out him get away, or shoot him in the binding of the drumhead for the extra money?
If you were playacting through the story by yourself, then it wasn't a job. You made the quality, you adage the cutscene, you moved on. Merely if you were playing IT with a friend, whoever chose first was the one whose choice was accepted. Thus if you voted to spare the ridicule but your mate tucker you to it by balloting "kill," so he got a bullet between the eyes. It was a minor thing, but it could be a bit frustrating to see the story turn out differently than it would accept if you'd been the only i at the controls.
Of course, in Army of Two, it was a nuisance at the best. You could play through the game as many a times as you like and see the different choices however you wanted. Salem and Rios were not persistent characters, and you didn't deliver the goods or turn a loss anything by revisiting an earlier chapter of their story to see "what if?"
It mightiness not have been a job in Regular army of Two, but it will certainly be a job in The Old Republic. Obviously, if someone is going through the story with person other, and they approach a Flashpoint, they're going to be a little miffed if the narration doesn't turn outgoing how they want IT to – after all, ISN't that the point of telling your news report? If you don't get to make the choices, then why not sporting have a story as pre-determined Eastern Samoa any other?
BioWare has four directions to go here – and piece the execution could make some of the problems fewer press, they've all got their shortcomings. Let's use up a hypothetical tasty in which a player is given a choice to side with Mandalorian mercenaries quest payment or the Hutt syndicates who insist that they were paid as in agreement and South Korean won't give them a single farther cite.
On one hand, you could leave the choice system exactly American Samoa it appears so far: when the choice is made, it's made, and there's no going punt to change it. That preserves the illusion of a coherent story and keeps the persistence of your character intact, but IT risks forcing a character down a story path they didn't deprivation to get on if someone else gets broached to stimulate the selection. Even a nonclassical vote is hard. If ternary characters in a party vote to side with, say, the Mandalorians instead of joining up with the Hutt crime lords, but the fourth in truth wanted to side with the Hutts, what then? Three-quarters of the party Crataegus oxycantha be happy, just is IT worth shtu that fourth person who desired their story to be different?
Happening the separate hand, TOR could simply offer all player in a party their own option, which would then be final – no takebacks. Everyone gets to pick out for themselves, which conserve the coherent story and the persistence of your character, and lets you have the narrative you want … at the expense of gameplay. If these four friends are acting unitedly, and three of them want to go with the Mandalorians only one wants to rifle with the Hutts, will they never be able to playing period unitedly once more without rerolling? What if there's a political boss fight involved – testament all four fight happening the Mandalorians's side thanks to legal age vote, just bear that experience retconned for the one person who picked otherwise?
On the tierce hand, the system in TOR could let you get on back and play through sections of the story as some multiplication as you wanted, devising whatever choice you wanted to make to see the outcome, Oregon to fight a uncommon party boss for phat lewts. "Hey guys, do you bear in mind if we attach to the Mandalorians this sentence around? I really need the Crystal Shiv Vibroblade off of Zorgaba the Hutt." That fits in perfectly with normal MMOG gameplay; it would let everyone experience chronicle and make information technology loose to do – who cares if the vote doesn't go your agency, because you tush just do it over again later? But being fit to play parts of the story time and again again and make a different choice the uncastrated clock would thoroughly undermine any sense of cohesiveness in the plot, and it would make your character palpate less unforgettable. Where is the weight in making a choice if you can go back and choose again?
If TOR wants to make up earnest some having a real story-supported game, I intend it of necessity to make a given Flashpoint absolutely final – but it likewise needs to let a player prefer his or own news report instead of being beholden to the other members of the party. To that end, the fourth method I can think seems to be the best fashio to go here. Instead of taking cues from US Army of Two OR Creation of Warcraft, we'rhenium sledding to expect to Fallout 3… or perhaps Who Wants to Be a Millionaire by interrogatory the musician, "Is that your final answer?"
Passim Fallout 3's prologue, you were given the option to tailor-make your character piecemeal over the story, but at the very end were given an option to change your choices one last time before it was kick in stone. TOR could do something like that. In the context of the actual game, the Show off Points are put to a popular vote, and whoever wins decides the class of the encounter. But afterwards it's over, every individual player is given a "is that how you wanted IT to run along?" box, where they could customize the choices as they would have surrendered them, and the game wish treat it arsenic though those were the choices they'd successful in the actual see itself from then on. There are no more take-backs, one time you've given your last answer, it is ordered and can't be changed.
Inactive, even that scenario is imperfect. What happens if we desire to play our choices out, non merely be told "this is how it happened"? Do we get to recover and replay it – but not have the choices affect our storyline? That still threatens the illusion of persistence, though not as badly As allowing us to merely re-opt. On the other hand, soh does something suchlike a high-level player running his low-level friend through a donjon, which itself is a staple of MMOGs in a way.
Every attainable result I've looked at has its personal share of problems and none of them seems like a perfect. BioWare is talented when it comes to qualification complex, well-crafted single-role player storylines, only it remains to be seen if the developers testament embody able to filling up the slack off when it comes to having more one participant call the tune.
John Funk promises he'll turn back writing about Southwestward:TOR next workweek. For a while, anyway.
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/view-from-the-road-flash-frozen/
Source: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/view-from-the-road-flash-frozen/