The Drunken Lizard Pub

I know I have a bad reputation for critique and criticism and negative attitudes in general, but... at the risk of furthering said reputation, I feel like I need to address narrative? In Book II?

BW: You've talked about all kinds of changes you're making with the interface, options and visuals... but how much work is going into the ongoing narrative?

The narrative is the aspect that really pulled me into games like NWN2 and the Spiderweb games. I'm not talking about background or even plot, so much... but the ongoing story, giving the player the sense that we're a part of a narrative thread, as if we were a character in a book. Theoretically I suppose you could say this disturbs the "wanderability" of the game, but face it: there are areas you just cannot access at level 5 or level 10 because they're simply too hard -- difficulty itself determines where you're allowed to wander.

NWN2 is more extreme, it's a much more strict linear thread. And I prefer that approach, but that's not what I suggest. I suggest the balanced approach.

The Spiderweb games are more balanced between the linear narrative thread and the "wanderability" that a lot of RPG gamers like. The narrative dictates where you should go but you're still allowed to wander. And still you feel like you're a part of an ongoing story.

I'm sure people will resent my saying it, but I have to: the one drawback -- besides the shortness of the game -- that I found with Book I was the lack of narrative.

Narrative, after all, in my view should be the essential thing that justifies the old-school bare-bones approach to game-production over hack-and-loot games like Diablo that're better animated and nicer to look at.
...The point should be: Sure, we don't have the money for a huge staff, but we create games that challenge more than just hand-eye-coordination and the fantasy of being insanely powerful.

Sure, more puzzles are cool, but the best thing, in my opinion, is the ongoing narrative -- making us feel that we're really a part of a story. Character development, reputation, story manipulation by the player, aspects to the story and to the world of Eschalon that get more complicated as you wander into them... these things all enhance to the game well beyond the simple aspects of visuals (and I still take my hat off to the people on the Eschalon team doing the graphics and animation -- best I've seen for this style of indy game).
So... I don't know... I guess I'm saying I'm hoping to see a lot of what's described in the last paragraph, since I didn't see it in Book I. I really wanted it, but I didn't find it.

Will there be more character development and more story in Book II?

There were people like Lily, Father Michael and the sick guy down south, the woman who lost her husband... Penelope (nothing happens with her!)... the sailor who lost his sextant (after I get his sextant he just keeps sitting there!)... these are characters that could be worked on and developed and worked into the story: the beginnings are there! I wanted to see more out of them.
Okay, that's all.

Again, I don't want to sound too critical.

It's your game, BW. It's your story. I wouldn't want to tell you how to write it, or anything.

All I wanted to say is that I wanted to see more of certain characters, I wanted more depth, more involvement. I wanted to know more about Lilith, Penelope, Father William, the sick man who knows too much, the sailor, Erubor, even the acolytes! I wanted to hear and feel their history, their lives, and interact with them more, I wanted them their lives and their personalities to affect the story, that's all.

And it would thrill me, too, if my actions had more consequence. But I would consider that an extra bonus. It's not my primary concern.

I'm just interested to know if more attention is being paid to this sort of thing? Personally I would consider it more important than updating anything else in the game. I mean: besides the disappointing brevity of the game, Book I was so good apart from the lack of narrative complexity that I would be happy to play another game just like it if only it had a complex storyline and complex characters.

I still love Book I, I'll still buy Book II, I'm only wondering.

(In fact, doesn't anyone else feel this way? Or am I the only one? I don't like feeling alone in my CRPG desires.)

From what I've read, Book II will improve on pretty much every area there is, so we should all be fine no matter what our preferences are

That said, personally, I've come to care less and less about storyline in an RPG since I was 12. I remember playing Ultima 7 as a kid and being totally awed by the storytelling. Replaying that game now, it's nothing but a neat little story, more of an excuse to play the game at all. I still do like the way the story unfolds though; that you have to chase those two Fellowship people around the world, even if it soon becomes apparant that you will only catch up to them in the end. But it was fun to know that in the next town, someone would tell you another ridiculous story of how they just left before you arrived, and that there would be some kind of quest to go with it too. It's a bit like chasing the "notes" in E1, though it seemed less static.


Nowadays, I really care more about character development, game balance, a flexible system, and ways that my character can affect the world around them. The grand scheme of things usually revolves around the big foozle anyways, nothing new there. In a lot of RPGs you can find books about the history of the game world, but it's often so generic that I can't even be arsed to read them. Also, I tend to almost ignore place names. This is a minor point, but I really do wish game designers would apply some kind of inherent logic to the languages/ names in their games, rather than make them up randomly. With Tolkien, even though all his Elvish names sounded a bit like gibberish, you always knew there was some kind of inherent logic to his names as he really had worked out the languages.

I do get my kicks from very well designed side quests though, that are like little stories all by themselves. Book II will offer different solutions to quests, even the positive-negative response (turn down a quest to open up or fulfill another quest). Now if those quests also have more than one "branch", it would be glorious. Example: someone asks you to retrieve an item, you agree. After delivering them the item, they try to kill you. You kill them instead and find a note on the body, about a coven of black mages or bandits that wanted to obtain the item and have any witnessesses silenced. Now you can find the coven/ hideout, eliminate the bandits, and loot their cave. Or maybe you can do a quest for them instead. That would already be 2-3 branches springing from the same quest, rather than the usual 1 line of fetch quests (find item, return item, get money). There's a lof of possibilities for great storytelling in these little quests, and IMO that's more interesting than the big overarching plot usually.