Adventure Gamers - Forums

chrissie - 17 October 2014 01:06 PM

Lambonius - 17 October 2014 12:52 PM

Wow.
There are not enough butt plug articles on the internet to stem the massive flow of bullshit coming out of this thread.

I did think of a less then than lovely place to shove your butt plug articles….....

Well THAT IS what they’re meant for, so it is perfectly lovely place for it.

zane - 17 October 2014 11:52 AM

diego - 17 October 2014 11:43 AM

I think higlighting dialog choices that are relevant to progress is killing one whole aspect of the game, no matter how trivial it may seem. I’ll try to explain - many of you mentioned the “complicated” dialog system in the game, but that’s EXACTLY why I think it’s the last game where this highlighting system should be implemented: Progressing through or, exploring if you want, the dialogs in GK1 seemed to me like a world on its own - a game within the game. It completely redesigned the narrating concept with few dialog options, especially because you need to be “smart” if you want to cut your time through the babbling with selecting the right choice, and that’s where the challenge came from. You also needed to re-question what you’ve learned so far, and thus, make some “dialog backtracking” in order to proceed, all the time keeping the “dialog tension”, or puzzle if you will in the air. The new system is not without its merits - but it’s suited for games with “brief” and standard dialog systems, and even than it would be nice to have a special “dialog highlighting” button, so that would be optional. PO Studios might have invented an original and radical design concept, but they’ve chosen a totally wrong game for it.

Agreed. But it goes further than that, not only is the “path” highlighted, but some trees have been truncated or removed anyway. Like dr jon only talks about historical voodoo, he doesnt talk about current voodoo. And theres some cases here and there where you do you have to use dialogue options that arent highlighted.. which feels inconsistent.

I feel should clarify a little bit about the topic highlighting here. The first time you talk to Grace, you get a tutorial message saying “most” highlighted topics are required to complete the game. In Day1, in Grace’s subtopic list, we highlight Voodoo because that triggers the Voodoo Museum/Shop, and we highlight Messages because that triggers the Police Station, among other things. But clicking those topics are not “puzzles.” You could just as easily click-spam all of the subtopics until you exhaust all of them and something finally unlocks.

I consciously wrote “most” when writing the tutorial because not all required topics are highlighted. Specifically, topics related to puzzles are NOT highlighted. If you only click topics that are highlighted, you won’t get very far in Day2 because the two major puzzles you need to do in Mosely’s Office are not highlighted. We don’t provide puzzle spoilers in that way.

As far as the Dr John here, I’m not exactly sure what you’re experiencing, but both Historical Voodoo and Current Voodoo are definitely in the remake. Historical Voodoo is highlighted because it triggers the “Marie Laveau” subtopic and “Current Voodoo” is highlighted because it triggers the “Hoodoo” subtopic.

Also, if you only do the highlighted topics, you’re really going to miss the meat of the story. You’ll finish it, sure, but there’s so much you won’t get to see or hear.

KatieHal - 17 October 2014 01:26 PM

Also, if you only do the highlighted topics, you’re really going to miss the meat of the story. You’ll finish it, sure, but there’s so much you won’t get to see or hear.

Incidentally, I’ve watched a few people playing the game on Twitch and one thing that they all had in common was that they were clicking the non-highlighted topics before the highlighted ones. I asked one player why she was doing that, and she said it was to experience the atmosphere from the writing before working on progression.

Drusain - 17 October 2014 01:11 PM

In Day1, in Grace’s subtopic list, we highlight Voodoo because that triggers the Voodoo Museum/Shop, and we highlight Messages because that triggers the Police Station, among other things. But clicking those topics are not “puzzles.” You could just as easily click-spam all of the subtopics until you exhaust all of them and something finally unlocks.

It’s not a “standard” puzzle, sure. But you’re taking away the joy of being FAST, efficient… with right dialog topics (for example, I’m choosing the “Voodoo” as the very first topic when talking to someone based on my deduction on the previous events in game - I realize that was the very exact topic that got me deep into the game story and progress - I feel happy) by highlighting few of them.

KatieHal - 17 October 2014 01:26 PM

Also, if you only do the highlighted topics, you’re really going to miss the meat of the story. You’ll finish it, sure, but there’s so much you won’t get to see or hear.

Then why “risking” it at the first place by not including the option to turn it off?

As many have pointed out, because there’s SO MUCH dialogue in this game, it’s helpful to have, especially for new players.

Not being a programmer, I couldn’t answer as far as what’s involved in having the option to turn it off. It may be a simple thing or it may be surprisingly complex and hard to implement.

I haven’t played this game (and for that matter, I haven’t played Moebius either), but a lot of the comments and concepts that have been thrown around in this thread seem to apply to game development in general, and not just GK (or Moebius). In that regard, a lot of what the “negative” people here are saying is very much correct, imo.

cesarbittar - 17 October 2014 03:47 AM

At the end of the day, whoever called for a decision was passionate for it and that’s what really matters.

Passion does not guarantee quality, and quality is ultimately all that matters.

To make a movie analogy: Uwe Boll is so insanely passionate about film and film making that his passion approaches Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino levels, but he lacks their talent, so he ends up making one crap movie after another.
I would very much like to sit down and discuss films with him, but I would NOT like to sit down and actually watch anything he’s made.
Passion alone only goes so far…

tomimt - 17 October 2014 03:52 AM

People really don’t care that you, or anyone in your team, are enthustiastic adventure fans. In the end what people care is a product that looks like it was done by people who know what they’re doing.

We could talk a lot about how it is unfair, as I know it is. But at the same time people have done far better games than you’ve done with much smaller budgets mainly because they’ve had the right people doing the right things. That also counts for a lot.

^ This.

Passion is good as it keeps you going, but to actually make your vision work, you need skill, and you need to match your ambition to your budget.

Bogi - 17 October 2014 05:26 AM

Sometimes nothing is much better than something. I’m not sure how this “developers vs. players” war is good for the community, but I’m amazed how someone can be so blinded not to see that making bad games only hurts the genre.
And the idea that people should rally behind such a wreck (I’m sorry but it is what it is) like Moebius is setting new standards for living in illusion.

^ This.

Lambonius - 17 October 2014 05:03 AM

Are there really many recent adventure games that require a AAA budget to pull off?  I mean, in terms of realizing a concept?  I honestly can’t think of any where I have ever been like, “Because of this game’s lack of budget, it is an abject failure at what it tried to do.”  Sure there are things that could have better given larger budgets, but full-on failures?  All of these games have been very playable, even the flawed ones.

But why should we settle for merely “playable”? Is it wrong to want “actually good” instead???

Drusain - 17 October 2014 01:11 PM

I feel should clarify a little bit about the topic highlighting here. The first time you talk to Grace, you get a tutorial message saying “most” highlighted topics are required to complete the game. In Day1, in Grace’s subtopic list, we highlight Voodoo because that triggers the Voodoo Museum/Shop, and we highlight Messages because that triggers the Police Station, among other things. But clicking those topics are not “puzzles.” You could just as easily click-spam all of the subtopics until you exhaust all of them and something finally unlocks.

I consciously wrote “most” when writing the tutorial because not all required topics are highlighted. Specifically, topics related to puzzles are NOT highlighted. If you only click topics that are highlighted, you won’t get very far in Day2 because the two major puzzles you need to do in Mosely’s Office are not highlighted. We don’t provide puzzle spoilers in that way.

Wait, so the highlighting is there to “mostly” help? Based on that description it’s not helpful at all as you still don’t know for sure which dialogue options to try and which not (so you kinda still need to try all of them).
Wouldn’t it have been better just to gray out all the options you’ve exhausted (so clicking them would only repeat things you’ve heard before), and leave the rest untouched??? That would mean that new topics and topics that provide new responses are the only ones that are highlighted…