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I thought part of the point of The Walking Dead was to show that in the face of a zombie apocalypse, one man's tough choices don't impact the world at all. They only matter to him (as in, you, the player). The plot doesn't care because the world done gone. Alpha Protocol cares about your choices because you are the fly in the ointment super secret agent making waves, busting conspiracies, and blowing stuff up. In TWD, you are merely trying to stay alive and out of trouble.
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Nov 4, 2013 17:41
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I haven't played TWD, but if the choices literally only affect how much of a dick your character is and how much the rest of the party likes them or not, isn't that, like, every Bioware game?
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Nov 4, 2013 19:44
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Wolfsheim posted:I haven't played TWD, but if the choices literally only affect how much of a dick your character is and how much the rest of the party likes them or not, isn't that, like, every Bioware game? There's not a completely pointless morality bar, that's the main difference. It's not like you earn rear end in a top hat points and if you have 10 rear end in a top hat points, then people call you an rear end in a top hat, but rather, for example, if you punch Person X in the face, the people who saw you punch Person X in the face will remember that you did that, and later on down the line might be like "Hey, I didn't like how you punched Person X in the face, you dick". Your choice to punch or not punch him doesn't affect the story any, but it does affect how characters react to you and it will be brought up enough for you to feel like it the game at least respected you enough to let you decide "I would probably want to punch/not punch this guy in the face".
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Nov 4, 2013 19:52
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TychoCelchuuu posted:The choice system is only pathetic in terms of being able to shape the outcome of the overall plot. But that's not the point of the choices in TWD. The point of the choices in TWD is to shape what kind of character Lee is and what kind of person Clementine sees him as. There's no way you can argue that your choices don't have a huge impact on that. They do! That the overall plot plays out in broadly the same way no matter what hardly changes the fact that who Lee is changes vastly based on what you decide. Me, I don't really get the appeal. Aleph Null posted:I thought part of the point of The Walking Dead was to show that in the face of a zombie apocalypse, one man's tough choices don't impact the world at all. They only matter to him (as in, you, the player). The plot doesn't care because the world done gone. Strudel Man fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Nov 4, 2013 |
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Nov 4, 2013 19:57
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If you don't think The Walking Dead let your choices effect the story then you didn't pay attention to how everyone felt about Kenny. Lee's relationship with that character is totally different across the entire season depending on your actions.
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Nov 4, 2013 19:59
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People say Alpha Protocol is a mess of bugs and The Walking Dead won all sorts of GOTYs, but guess which one corrupted my save file before the final chapter and I never cared to finish it.  Alchenar posted:If you don't think The Walking Dead let your choices effect the story then you didn't pay attention to how everyone felt about Kenny. Lee's relationship with that character is totally different across the entire season depending on your actions. It's not based on your "actions" plural though, if you're not on his side for the salt lick thing he'll spend the entire season whining about how you've always been his arch-nemesis, regardless of how much you chum up to him before and after that. I kept waiting for him to come around or at least address it but it's just not in-character at all, it's a really obvious switch that gets flipped and suddenly Kenny's either a total pissant or he's not.
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Nov 4, 2013 20:36
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Strudel Man posted:Only the first one. Clem doesn't behave any differently towards you over the long term because of your choices, either.
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Nov 4, 2013 20:37
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Wolfsheim posted:I haven't played TWD, but if the choices literally only affect how much of a dick your character is and how much the rest of the party likes them or not, isn't that, like, every Bioware game? Crappy Jack posted:There's not a completely pointless morality bar, that's the main difference. It's not like you earn rear end in a top hat points and if you have 10 rear end in a top hat points, then people call you an rear end in a top hat, but rather, for example, if you punch Person X in the face, the people who saw you punch Person X in the face will remember that you did that, and later on down the line might be like "Hey, I didn't like how you punched Person X in the face, you dick". Your choice to punch or not punch him doesn't affect the story any, but it does affect how characters react to you and it will be brought up enough for you to feel like it the game at least respected you enough to let you decide "I would probably want to punch/not punch this guy in the face". This plus better writing. The characters in TWD were fully-realised enough that the changes in their reactions to you felt like a real payoff.
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Nov 4, 2013 20:42
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DoctorTristan posted:This plus better writing. The characters in TWD were fully-realised enough that the changes in their reactions to you felt like a real payoff. At the very least, I imagine people can probably agree that TWD is very polarizing. You either love what they did with the choices, or you hate it.
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Nov 4, 2013 20:44
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Strudel Man posted:...depending on tastes, of course. You either made your choices in a way the writers anticipated, or you fell off the ride and hit your head on the rails. Edit: I mean, I did really like the story as it was written, and they pulled off way more of the choice stuff than most games could, but every time my actual response to something wasn't an option I could choose, or I picked something and the resulting action wasn't quite what I expected, it sort of eroded the illusion away. Tempo 119 fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Nov 4, 2013 |
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Nov 4, 2013 20:59
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Crappy Jack posted:There's not a completely pointless morality bar, that's the main difference. It's not like you earn rear end in a top hat points and if you have 10 rear end in a top hat points, then people call you an rear end in a top hat, but rather, for example, if you punch Person X in the face, the people who saw you punch Person X in the face will remember that you did that, and later on down the line might be like "Hey, I didn't like how you punched Person X in the face, you dick". Your choice to punch or not punch him doesn't affect the story any, but it does affect how characters react to you and it will be brought up enough for you to feel like it the game at least respected you enough to let you decide "I would probably want to punch/not punch this guy in the face". I dunno, Dragon Age pretty much does this; there is no morality bar and very little of what you do affects the plot's outcome, but your party members will call you an rear end in a top hat depending on how you treat them and others. I mean, it sounds like TWD does a good enough job with the writing to mask this, but it doesn't sound like the actual gameplay mechanics innovate the way Alpha Protocol does?
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Nov 4, 2013 22:00
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Wolfsheim posted:I dunno, Dragon Age pretty much does this; there is no morality bar and very little of what you do affects the plot's outcome, but your party members will call you an rear end in a top hat depending on how you treat them and others. Dragon Age is pretty much the only modern Bioware game that doesn't feature a morality bar, so yes, there is that one exception. On the other hand, it still has relationship "points" that can be easily gamed by just handing someone an item so they like you. TWD doesn't have points, as such. Even AP has this sort of system, but balances it out by also having individual decisions matter; A Marburg who likes you will have a different reaction to you going after Madison than a Marburg who hates you. TWD does away with the points system, or at least makes it behind the scenes enough to be nearly invisible, and focuses more on the specific actions. Also, as was said earlier, AP and TWD actually have very good writing behind them. Bioware, in my opinion, less so. When a thing happens in TWD, I actually care. When a thing happens in Dragon Age, it feels like a video game thing is happening.
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Nov 4, 2013 22:05
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People seem to be talking about Alpha Protocol as if you have some massive control of the arc of the story. You really don't, and I don't think that's a failing. In AP the story will follow the same basic arc no matter what you do, with the very ending changing based on choices, but otherwise the story unfolds the same every time. The big difference between AP and other games though (I can't speak for TWD or that wolf game) is that your perception of those events unfolding changes in pretty major ways based on your actions. AP allows you to only view a portion of the story and what's going on with each playthrough, with no real way to get the entire story with one playthrough. There are even aspects to the story that you never really get no matter how you play, and that helps add to the mystery. Plus, with every other game I have played, it's Choice A = Consequence A, Choice B = Consequence B. In AP it's more like Playstyle A + Choices C, D, and F = Outcome P.
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Nov 4, 2013 22:30
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TychoCelchuuu posted:The choice system is only pathetic in terms of being able to shape the outcome of the overall plot. But that's not the point of the choices in TWD. The point of the choices in TWD is to shape what kind of character Lee is and what kind of person Clementine sees him as. There's no way you can argue that your choices don't have a huge impact on that. They do! That the overall plot plays out in broadly the same way no matter what hardly changes the fact that who Lee is changes vastly based on what you decide.
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Nov 4, 2013 22:31
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Fil5000 posted:You've met SIE and Brayko and you don't think the characters are crazy enough? Pretty much. 'Coked up Russian mobster' isn't exactly breaking the mold. I guess if I want a spy game with over the top characters I should play Metal Gear Solid, but every time I try to play those games I die constantly. Speaking of crazy, I beat the game yesterday and I somehow ended up sailing off into the sunset with Steve Heck. I wish the game would let me talk to Sean after his boss fight, which I managed to win by spamming I've already started a Veteran play-through. Thinking of pouring all my points into Shotguns, Unarmed and Toughness but worried that'll make the bosses harder. I was thinking of a gimmick Mike the Cleaner playthrough where you use nothing but the silenced pistol and the Professional dialogue, but that's already close to how I played the first time. Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Nov 5, 2013 |
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Nov 5, 2013 01:23
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Count Chocula posted:
This is actually my normal build for recruit playthroughs. As long as you have a little bit of stealth and enough pistols to line up shots from behind cover it's a decent build. I once tried it with assault rifles as secondary instead of pistols and it worked really well, but I didn't like the animations of switching the 2 longarms. Shotguns/pistols/unarmed makes you the king of "nonlethal" takedowns, since shooting enemies in the legs and then stomping them in the groin doesn't count as a kill. I've gotten the 250 nonlethal takedowns perk playing this way. You're going to have to use either a pistol or an assault rifle for some boss fights, but otherwise it's quite solid. Incendiary ammo is great for bringing down armor/toughness on bosses and give you the chance to get that chainshot to damage their health instead of armor. Or you can just keep the range long, use the assault rifle, and switch to the shotgun when people get too close.
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Nov 5, 2013 01:59
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What's on the QR code that appears on Micheal's shirt in the prologue?
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Nov 9, 2013 06:21
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I think it's a nonsense code - if you scan it it links to nothing.
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Nov 9, 2013 06:53
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Crappy Jack posted:Dragon Age is pretty much the only modern Bioware game that doesn't feature a morality bar, so yes, there is that one exception. On the other hand, it still has relationship "points" that can be easily gamed by just handing someone an item so they like you. TWD doesn't have points, as such. Even AP has this sort of system, but balances it out by also having individual decisions matter; A Marburg who likes you will have a different reaction to you going after Madison than a Marburg who hates you. TWD does away with the points system, or at least makes it behind the scenes enough to be nearly invisible, and focuses more on the specific actions. Hypothetical question: do you guys think this game would be better or worse if the Reputation values and changes weren't made visible to the player? The dialogue and such would be the same, but you wouldn't see those "Reputation +1" pop ups and the Dossier section wouldn't display the number. How do you think that would affect the way the game was experienced?
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Nov 9, 2013 07:01
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INH5 posted:Hypothetical question: do you guys think this game would be better or worse if the Reputation values and changes weren't made visible to the player? The dialogue and such would be the same, but you wouldn't see those "Reputation +1" pop ups and the Dossier section wouldn't display the number. How do you think that would affect the way the game was experienced?
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Nov 9, 2013 07:12
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A lot of the dialogue will default to certain set lines regardless of how people respond to you, because they could only record so many lines. I think it would be difficult to keep track of what various characters thought of you, since they can't really respond like actual human beings.
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Nov 9, 2013 07:25
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TychoCelchuuu posted:I think it's a nonsense code - if you scan it it links to nothing. It's the text "AP", but it's also been altered so it requires some heavy-duty error correction to get anything close to that, and most scanners will just reject it out of hand for that reason.
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Nov 9, 2013 07:33
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There's merit to both its presence and absence, I think. You're playing a master of manipulation, and it can be hard to get across that you've successfully manipulated someone- with a dour rear end in a top hat like Marburg the difference between a neutral reaction and a negative one can be pretty small. "Reputation -1" lets you know you've had an effect. On the other hand it feels more "gamey" and doesn't help with immersion. I don't think the game would necessarily be better with them removed, but the option to turn them off (I think Obsidian's Project Eternity will have this option) would be pretty neat; sometimes when I play I just want to let poo poo happen organically.
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Nov 9, 2013 07:35
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I would rather have the removed. Making it a toggleable option would have been nice, I think.
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Nov 9, 2013 07:43
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Apropos of nothing in particular, I've been playing some BF4 recently and finally realized that the optics on the assault rifles in AP aren't actually wrong -- they're simply using a two stage optic system, coupling a holo sight with a magnifier. This bugged me back in the day and I'm pleased to now discover that "it's actually a thing." Granted, the in-game model more closely resembles an ACOG sight, but I'm sure the magnifier is what they were going for. Anyways, the more I know, and stuff.
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Nov 9, 2013 07:56
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Line Feed posted:I would rather have the removed. Making it a toggleable option would have been nice, I think. Someone should make a mod that emulates that one guy's glitch and completely hides all text, including the buttons when you're making a dialogue selection. Schizophrenic Thorton all up ins.
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Nov 9, 2013 08:32
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INH5 posted:Hypothetical question: do you guys think this game would be better or worse if the Reputation values and changes weren't made visible to the player? The dialogue and such would be the same, but you wouldn't see those "Reputation +1" pop ups and the Dossier section wouldn't display the number. How do you think that would affect the way the game was experienced?
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Nov 9, 2013 22:29
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Yeah as much as it makes the whole thing more gamey, I think it's important feedback that they might not have been able to convey otherwise. 
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Nov 9, 2013 22:41
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Crappy Jack posted:Even AP has this sort of system, but balances it out by also having individual decisions matter; A Marburg who likes you will have a different reaction to you going after Madison than a Marburg who hates you. TWD does away with the points system, or at least makes it behind the scenes enough to be nearly invisible, and focuses more on the specific actions. Don't forget that it also matters why Marburg hates you, which was one of those things that totally blew me away. He'll respond totally differently to you just pushing his buttons compared to you being a smug dick all the time. It's awesome.
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Nov 14, 2013 19:21
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Marburg loving owns, end of story. His walking away at the end while yellow suit is screaming for help is fantastic
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Nov 18, 2013 08:09
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Marburg's a dickbag. That's the story. First run, played a bit of a wiseass, Marburg didn't like him and the mansion scene went as bad as you think. Second time, I went professional as gently caress. Marburg offered to hire? I was polite. Basically "Thank you for the offer, I respect it, but it would involve working against American interests in a way that I'm not entirely comfortable with. I'll politely decline. I hope we can part on good terms, and thank you for your time." He STILL had his thugs beat the hell out of you. And he hires as a general policy dishonorable discharges, who are basically the worst human beings. On top of all that, he murders a hostage just to be a dick. gently caress that guy. Chainshot to the groin after making him hate you. Only option.
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Nov 18, 2013 09:01
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Two Finger posted:Marburg loving owns, end of story. His walking away at the end while yellow suit is screaming for help is fantastic Damned. I've never had that ending. He either disappears or there is a bossfight.
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Nov 18, 2013 09:14
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There's quite a few options with him MASSIVE SPOILERS You can kill him in Rome if he hates your guts 'I will END you, Thorton' You can get the him walking off ending (got it my first playthrough, still not quite sure how) You can get him to kill edit: sorry, he kills the analyst not the yellow suit. You can fight him at the end (still haven't gotten that one) And you can have a snippy conversation with him before he vanishes That's five different outcomes for one character. Why on earth don't more RPG's do this? Comrade Blyatlov fucked around with this message at 09:35 on Nov 18, 2013 |
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Nov 18, 2013 09:25
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chiasaur11 posted:Marburg's a dickbag. That's the story. It's NOT just to be a dick - he knows you're going to show up, and his plan requires a big "terrorist" act. If he'd set up a single bomb he knows Thorton is capable enough to deal with it so he presents you with a choice. If he was doing things just to be a dick they'd have left the sequence from that animated storyboard in where he's basically just going to blow up a bus full of tourists while twirling his Snidely Whiplash moustache.
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Nov 18, 2013 09:37
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Two Finger posted:There's quite a few options with him MASSIVE SPOILERS It's easier to just have the player pick between red, blue, and green endings and just use the same FMV's with different tints.
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Nov 18, 2013 09:55
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PootieTang posted:It's easier to just have the player pick between red, blue, and green endings and just use the same FMV's with different tints. Someone at EA is going to get fed to the sharks for that. I just haven't figured out who.
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Nov 18, 2013 10:14
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double nine posted:Someone at EA is going to get fed to the sharks for that. I just haven't figured out who. Why choose? Feed them all to the sharks.
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Nov 18, 2013 12:11
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They all get fed to the sharks. You get to choose what color the water is.
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Nov 18, 2013 12:43
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Red. It's still amazing how many people still end up on this thread, minds blown by how awesome this game turned out to be. It's almost like re-experiencing what it's like to play it the first and second times by proxy.
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Nov 18, 2013 16:13
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My favourite thing was when I realised you could get combinations of ending scenes. The best ending is to beat up Yancy, then get Marburg to walk away, then get ambushed by Scarlet, then get her to kill Leland, then get Though I've also got a soft spot for agreeing to work for Leland, telling Marburg that Parker was the one who burned him, then telling Parker how I countered all his plans and turning him just in time for Marburg to kill him, then beating up Yancy, then betraying Leland and leaving him to get arrested. Just outmaneuvering everybody.
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Nov 18, 2013 16:28
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