Let's Talk About Hickory Branch

Discussion in 'General Modification' started by Gaear, Mar 25, 2008.

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  1. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    I pretty much despise them personally - both reading them and writing them. :blegh:
     
  2. maggit

    maggit Zombie RipTorn Wonka

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    Pfff... I don't know about you but I thought they were great in Fallout and Arcanum.
     
  3. Tyrannar

    Tyrannar Wanderer in the dark

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    I agree..

    "huh you silly guy me smash you down"
    No capital letter, no commas or full stops, hilarious!
    But I never seriously played with retarded characters, I always have good INT and Speech skill, and often good CHA too.
     
  4. thearioch

    thearioch Need More Cowbell

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    In Fallout and Arcanum, you only have one main character, which pretty much means if it's written, and you're low int, it gets used. In TOEE, if you don't like a -7 line, you just have another character talk. Also, given that 3.5 Int controls stats, and most parties have "face" characters, "dumb" lines only get called out for casual amusement if at all. This makes the reward for writing the lines pretty low, unless a party plays *all* stupid.

    If we are considering cleaning up all dialog to have a certain consistency, it hurts to have to either break character by letting -7 int reuse 8+ int dialog or effectively double the dialog writing effort for very little return (based on percentage of dumb dialog that will be seen if party can choose to use dumb character or not to talk).

    I'd suggest removal of all -7 dialog entirely (not necessarily check for barbarian dialog, though). If there's interest, someone could always make a Forrest Gump mod.

    --thearioch
     
  5. Jesse Heinig

    Jesse Heinig Established Member

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    Incidentally, it might be amusing to have a level in which the PCs get hit by a trap that sacks everyone down to -7 int, then forces them to engage in dialog with NPCs on the level. But that would certainly be way, way outside the scope of the regular Temple or Keep modules.
     
  6. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Something like that would be the only really worthwhile reason to do it, imo.

    That said, I don't think we should uniformly eliminate all -7 dialogue from ToEE. If someone actually goes through the game to see all that stuff, or even if they just get their grins by seeing it now and again, well fine for them I suppose. I just can't see how there's any payoff in that routine since the material's generally all so flat, repetetive, and uninspired, but meh, to each his own.

    On the other hand, I certainly don't blame anyone for not including -7 dialogue in new material if they so choose. I personally only put it there if there's precedent in the existing dialogue, and then only grudgingly (and equally flatly), and even then not all the time.

    It brings up an interesting question though: do people really play ToEE for the lolz? If so, that in itself may be more telling than any other of Troika's failures.
     
  7. Jesse Heinig

    Jesse Heinig Established Member

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    It's true that since ToEE includes the party dynamic, it is unlikely that a low Int character will be forced into the dialog position. You can get some amusement value by putting in easter eggs that require the player to use a low Int dialog to access - for instance, you could have a small orc encounter in which the orcs will respect (and give special rewards to) a strong half-orc character. Since most 25-point half-orcs are barbarians with 6 Int, this means that the player would have to deliberately make that choice to pursue the low Int dialog. Still, with groups of 5-8 character,s, it's much harder to shoehorn in cases where an encounter hits a particular weakness, because *someone* in the party can usually cover for it. You really have to go out of your way to engineer such material.
     
  8. thearioch

    thearioch Need More Cowbell

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    In such as case, one would hopefully limit the maps which had this effect, and moders could focus on the dialogs for chars on those maps with a genuinely optimistic expectation that the dialog would be used.

    --thearioch
     
  9. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    It doesn't look atm like the crypt map will be forthcoming, so I'm contemplating using the CN vignette dungeon map as the HB crypt. I'm also thinking of using a series of existing ToEE maps for the above-ground HB, linked by area transition icons as it were, like we already have for the wilderness areas surrounding the temple (and not unlike Allyx did for the Verbo underdark). These would/could include:

    • various random encounter maps (most likely the forest ones)
    • the CE vignette map (wrecked shacks and such inhabited by humanoids)
    • the abandoned farm and ruined house ToEE area maps, as I believe was previously suggested by HK.
    This notion of laying the maps out in such a linear fashion would actually be quite attractive to me upon reflection, as it would suggest moreso a 'gauntlet' of sorts that you'd have to run instead of just a free-form open area that you liesurely navigate at your discretion and which contains random groups of idling monsters.

    Any thoughts? Love it? Hate it? Don't care?
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2008
  10. thearioch

    thearioch Need More Cowbell

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    Sometimes you know you have to get someplace a mile away. At a minimum, you hit 3 1/4 mile markers on the way.

    If you don't have interesting nonlinear map choices, just make the map sequence linear. As long as the game overall has a good mix of linear and nonlinear, don't feel obligated to make each sequence nonlinear.

    Besides, you can always break up any "monotony" by allowing a few branches (high Survival / Tracking finds interesting side map that avoids a straight-up combat map); select creatures with low spot/listen to allow all-sneak parties a way to avoid combat; etc.

    Just because everybody has to go through the same physical environment doesn't mean each game/party will have the same experiences.

    Baldur's Gate (et seq.) suffered a bit (in my opinion) with too many unavoidable scripted encounters, especially ones that involved a lot of triggered creatures joining the fight.

    -thearioch
     
  11. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Teaser time! Been working on maps the last couple days ... here's one of the new HB models. :)
     

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  12. Half Knight

    Half Knight Gibbering Mouther

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    Whoa!
    that map looks awesome, Gaear! :nosebleed
     
  13. Shiningted

    Shiningted I want my goat back Administrator

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    Very nice indeed! :clap:
     
  14. maggit

    maggit Zombie RipTorn Wonka

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    Whoa! That's really good Gaear!
     
  15. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Thanks guys. That's slotted to be a little slum-like encampment on an island in a swamp where some of Mathel's humanoid troops reside ... betwixt his own abode in the 'HB Ruins' map (overlying the crypt) to the south and the 'HB Bog' map to the west. It's all coming along surprisingly well. :)
     
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