Friday, August 03, 2007

Chapter 2

Despite feeling my creativity sapped by work stress and lack of sleep, I'd had some ideas for Chapter 2 development and execution. This chapter was always going to be more heavily H&S - you're trying to pin down the head of the militia, a military leader surrounded by his men.

I liked the H&S segments in chapter 1 - breaking the pace nicely, was my intention. But I'm wary of Chapter 2 becoming less focussed on my intention - and losing some of my 'philosophy' behind it. So I've been working up ways to add in roleplay. Seich will have a lot more to say as his character develops, as will Contessa. I've also come up with ways to add more variety to how a stronghold is stormed. Traditional in RPGs it's a case of finidng a disused secret entrance and storming form the bottom up - but I'd like to build a bit more colour and originality into that.

That said, the combat when it happens needs to be fast, frenetic and furious - high drama. Personally, I don't like mods where fights that arent showdowns with villains or pushing the plot forward get too hard - you lose realism if you have to leave a house to rest, then go back in to finish killing off the guys you just attacked - you would be hunted down and slaughter whilst you rested. So when you storm a stronghold - you shouldn't expect to be able to rest up after each level ready to face a new one. But this is going to be difficult to pull off effectively.

Some commented on the linearity of Chapter 1 - thing is I'm loathe to add in side quests just for the hell of adding sidequests. and to me side quests don't make something non linear - they just add variety, which is different. And too much can get silly- there's only so much that can happen in one place. Also, why someone with the motivation and goals in Dark Avenger - distracitons shouldnt matter as much. But i'm hoping to offer the player different approaches to storming the stronghold that will get that variety in there.

1 comment:

Lariam said...

I like your ideas with regard to storming the stronghold.

Also, I agree that side quests quite often are funny in that there's the urgent main quest, and at the same time...you know. If you can really give the adventure some genuine feel of urgency, that's pretty cool. And various ways of dealing with central parts of the main quest should really add some of the needed variety/roleplaying elements there.

Nothing against side quests; of course I like them. But I can easily see justification for not having much of them included in certain kinds of circumstances.

Cheers...