I didn't say anything about non-linearity being a problem. Linear stories can be very good - I do read books, and I also find linear games to my liking. If, however, only if the story is actually good. Maybe I misunderstood IWD, but I always felt it's story could be summed up in a very Minsc-y "there's Evil underway, draw your swords".
IWD2, for example, drew me in more storywise. It was just more engaging. I play IWD1 for it's atmosphere, the music and vistas and the possibility of having six self-made 2E characters. The story isn't that much of a driving force to me. As someone mentioned above, it's made worse by being stretched thin through combat, but even without that much combat I don't believe it would be a wholly different experience.
That being said, however, I have no problem with an optional story mode. I only doubt that it's an engaging experience in this game, especially with invulnerability. I also don't think the target audience is big.
Heart of Fury 2, is what I had expected. Games are getting similar to movies everyday. And if there is no Heart of Fury 2 , a greater challenge embedded , then there is no reason for me left to start the game again , as those many others who beat the game with it.
I, for one, really like the IWD story. The game presents it in such a way that you can ignore it if you just want to kill things, but I find it pretty interesting and compelling. It's just... not really about you, is all.
IWD2, by contrast, was the heartwarming story of how disenfranchised minorities are all murderous scum who worship a god of pointless evil and only a band of brave heroes from the seven master races can stop them. With some token "they're only evil because we rejected them" thrown in as though saying that made a difference. Yeah, IWD2 was my least favorite IE game.
Cool idea. I'm not opposed to it because there will be people that want to take advantage of it, and will see it as a feature when they get stuck. It doesn't impact me at all how other people want to play, so play on people. IWD ahoy!
(Recently, a PC game called "The Gods Will Be Watching" had a "mercy" patch with a very easy difficulty introduced to help with RNG and made the game easy....also, that game is brutally difficult)
I, for one, really like the IWD story. The game presents it in such a way that you can ignore it if you just want to kill things, but I find it pretty interesting and compelling. It's just... not really about you, is all.
I absolutely agree with you! You can click past all the dialogue, background and fluff and still get through the game just fine. But if you take the time to read everything the characters have to say, read all the journal entries, letters and diary notes, you can experience a huge and complex narrative world.
IWD2, by contrast, was the heartwarming story of how disenfranchised minorities are all murderous scum who worship a god of pointless evil and only a band of brave heroes from the seven master races can stop them. With some token "they're only evil because we rejected them" thrown in as though saying that made a difference. Yeah, IWD2 was my least favorite IE game.
I've never thought about it that way. I honestly think the developers decided it from the point of view of needing an exciting villainous force that's not undead, evil wizard, barbarian or orc-horde, or dragon we had already seen in IWD I, HoW, and the novels by R.A. Salvatore.
Maybe the game wants to be an allegory on how the exclusion of unfortunate minorities might backfire, or on how you shouldn't allow yourself to become the monster that the heartless want you to be lest six armed and violent mercenaries break your door to mess you up and take your loot. :S
More seriously however, I'm quite sceptical as to whether and how far one should even examine fantasy stuff from the viewpoint of political correctness ~ Tolkiens orcs, for instance, have over the decades been accused to represent everything from 'savage non-whites' to 'bloodthirsty WW1 Germans', or whatever prejudices Tolkien might or might not have had or have wanted to propagate. The vast spectrum of ensuing contradictions between the different interpretations indicates to me that it's ultimately up to oneself what one projects into something.
IWD2, by contrast, was the heartwarming story of how disenfranchised minorities are all murderous scum who worship a god of pointless evil and only a band of brave heroes from the seven master races can stop them. With some token "they're only evil because we rejected them" thrown in as though saying that made a difference. Yeah, IWD2 was my least favorite IE game.
I wasn't really a fan of the story of Icewind Dale 2 but I really liked its character creation. All the subraces and clerics for different gods (as well as paladins and monks having their own god/order).
IWD2, by contrast, was the heartwarming story of how disenfranchised minorities are all murderous scum who worship a god of pointless evil and only a band of brave heroes from the seven master races can stop them. With some token "they're only evil because we rejected them" thrown in as though saying that made a difference. Yeah, IWD2 was my least favorite IE game.
Well, considering it's seven master races and not just one, I say we're making progress!
IRT Topic I don't mind the inclusion of storymode. I don't mind smashing my head against the brick wall that occasionally pops up in Icewind Dale 'til it breaks but my girlfriend doesn't have my patience (though it IS hilarious to hear a sweet young lady invent new swear words on the spot and yelling them loudly at her screen). It will be a useful tool to people who play the game for fun (understanding that 'fun' means different things to different people) and/or don't like or grasp the mechanics of the game very much but still want to see the surroundings and experience the story. As mentioned, don't like it, turn it off.
Maybe the game wants to be an allegory on how the exclusion of unfortunate minorities might backfire, or on how you shouldn't allow yourself to become the monster that the heartless want you to be lest six armed and violent mercenaries break your door to mess you up and take your loot. :S
I like to believe the developers just wanted to make a game, a piece of entertainment software to bring happiness into our lives. I long for the day when all the people who try to analyze all movies and games to claim they have some agenda are put on a spaceship headed to the opposite side of the galaxy, leaving the rest of us to just enjoy entertainment that is entertaining for the sake of it
Maybe the game wants to be an allegory on how the exclusion of unfortunate minorities might backfire, or on how you shouldn't allow yourself to become the monster that the heartless want you to be lest six armed and violent mercenaries break your door to mess you up and take your loot. :S
I like to believe the developers just wanted to make a game, a piece of entertainment software to bring happiness into our lives. I long for the day when all the people who try to analyze all movies and games to claim they have some agenda are put on a spaceship headed to the opposite side of the galaxy, leaving the rest of us to just enjoy entertainment that is entertaining for the sake of it
IWD2 had pretty deeply fleshed out and understandable antagonists, and imho, the story as @Calmar points out is about how decent goals can corrupted if love and mutual respect are absent. It was a bit loaded down with some cheesey concepts/tropes, ie 'humans are the real monsters' (the mistreatment of the Cambions) and 'monolithic evil' (every bad guy is inexplicably united... if it was all supposed to be misfit crossbreeds, why are goblins, orcs, Aurilites, etc, allied? The explanations given arent... bad, but they arent great either).
IWD2 is more story based than IWD, and while very good, you really do have to dig/make the right choices in action and dialogue. IWD2 is vastly improved by acess to a good walkthrough, especially if you didnt take Wilderness Lore. Some puzzles were indeed puzzling.
I don't really see why Icewind Dale needs a story mode, even for casual gamers. All you need to beat the game is persistence. When I first played Icewind Dale, I was in elementary school and I didn't know what I was doing. When I finally beat the final boss, four out of six of my party members had died in the final battle, and I definitely was not playing on the hardest difficulty either. But I still beat the game.
Also, I feel like playing "story mode" would actually damage the atmosphere of the game for casual players. It would be hard to take the troubles that have befallen the Dale seriously if not even the final boss can kill you. Why would the enemies even bother attacking you if they can't do anything to you? In addition, what would be the fun in the combat if you can't lose? There will still be enemies even if you are invulnerable, so I think fighting them would feel kind of pointless. I mean, so what if you get experience? Even if you fight the final boss at a low level, it doesn't matter because he can't kill you.
I think that the game's easy mode could be the story mode. It doesn't need an even easier mode.
Simply put, Story Mode will allow the game to appeal to an even wider audience. Particularly as it is heading for iOS and Android, where the majority of games are (lets be honest) very simple and one dimensional. The majority of the customer base there isn't going to be interested in a game that punishes them at every turn when all they want to do is make a couple of cool sounding characters and smush stuff that gets in the way.
Simply put, Story Mode will allow the game to appeal to an even wider audience. Particularly as it is heading for iOS and Android, where the majority of games are (lets be honest) very simple and one dimensional. The majority of the customer base there isn't going to be interested in a game that punishes them at every turn when all they want to do is make a couple of cool sounding characters and smush stuff that gets in the way.
It's optional, and options are good.
IWD is challenging imho, especially if you aren't an RPG grognard. The story suffers if you need +20 reloads to clear Dragon's Eye, hence calling it 'story mode'.
IWD2 is more story based than IWD, and while very good, you really do have to dig/make the right choices in action and dialogue. IWD2 is vastly improved by acess to a good walkthrough, especially if you didnt take Wilderness Lore. Some puzzles were indeed puzzling.
Yeah that puzzling one was so very puzzly. I puzzled over its puzzliness for a great deal. Even with wilderness lore sometimes it's puzzlingly puzzlificous.
IWD2 is more story based than IWD, and while very good, you really do have to dig/make the right choices in action and dialogue. IWD2 is vastly improved by acess to a good walkthrough, especially if you didnt take Wilderness Lore. Some puzzles were indeed puzzling.
Yeah that puzzling one was so very puzzly. I puzzled over its puzzliness for a great deal. Even with wilderness lore sometimes it's puzzlingly puzzlificous.
Speaking of puzzles, I ate a puzzle piece when I was four. It tasted like cardboard. Mmm, fiber.
Another thing I should mention: in the original pre-HoW Icewind Dale, you got less experience when playing on easier difficulties. That won't necessarily be the case in the enhanced edition. I think even a casual player could probably beat Yxunomei on the easiest difficulty with a few reloads.
Maybe a good way to implement the story mode would be to have less enemies in that mode, rather than making you invincible.
IWD2 is more story based than IWD, and while very good, you really do have to dig/make the right choices in action and dialogue. IWD2 is vastly improved by acess to a good walkthrough, especially if you didnt take Wilderness Lore. Some puzzles were indeed puzzling.
Yeah that puzzling one was so very puzzly. I puzzled over its puzzliness for a great deal. Even with wilderness lore sometimes it's puzzlingly puzzlificous.
After flubbing the Glacier temple for several years (...I gave up in fury. Despite knowing what I needed to do, I couldnt make it work), so I just googled that one before my patience curled up in a corner again!
As a guy who spent five solid days* of his life during playtesting trying to get out of the Vale of Shadows with his character alive, I can tell you with no hesitation that there is an audience for Story Mode.
*It wouldn't have been quite that bad if I didn't have to deal with a bug that kept me in perpetual combat mode in the Vale. If I could have slept/recovered once in awhile, it might have taken me as little as three and a half days to get out of there. However, I never, ever, ehhhhhver would have gotten by the trolls that showed up soon after w/out SM.
What do you need high level abilities and spells for when your pure mage can stab Belhifet to death with a random enchanted dagger without dying and without spamming Mirror Image and Stoneskin?
As a guy who spent five solid days* of his life during playtesting trying to get out of the Vale of Shadows with his character alive, I can tell you with no hesitation that there is an audience for Story Mode.
*It wouldn't have been quite that bad if I didn't have to deal with a bug that kept me in perpetual combat mode in the Vale. If I could have slept/recovered once in awhile, it might have taken me as little as three and a half days to get out of there. However, I never, ever, ehhhhhver would have gotten by the trolls that showed up soon after w/out SM.
First of all, that bug probably won't be in the finished game. Second of all, what difficulty were you playing on?
EDIT: Oh, and what was so bad about the trolls? I mean, sometimes they can be really annoying because I simply don't have a fire or acid attack, but Story Mode isn't exactly going to help with that.
Comments
IWD2, for example, drew me in more storywise. It was just more engaging. I play IWD1 for it's atmosphere, the music and vistas and the possibility of having six self-made 2E characters. The story isn't that much of a driving force to me. As someone mentioned above, it's made worse by being stretched thin through combat, but even without that much combat I don't believe it would be a wholly different experience.
That being said, however, I have no problem with an optional story mode. I only doubt that it's an engaging experience in this game, especially with invulnerability. I also don't think the target audience is big.
IWD2, by contrast, was the heartwarming story of how disenfranchised minorities are all murderous scum who worship a god of pointless evil and only a band of brave heroes from the seven master races can stop them. With some token "they're only evil because we rejected them" thrown in as though saying that made a difference. Yeah, IWD2 was my least favorite IE game.
(Recently, a PC game called "The Gods Will Be Watching" had a "mercy" patch with a very easy difficulty introduced to help with RNG and made the game easy....also, that game is brutally difficult)
Maybe the game wants to be an allegory on how the exclusion of unfortunate minorities might backfire, or on how you shouldn't allow yourself to become the monster that the heartless want you to be lest six armed and violent mercenaries break your door to mess you up and take your loot. :S
More seriously however, I'm quite sceptical as to whether and how far one should even examine fantasy stuff from the viewpoint of political correctness ~ Tolkiens orcs, for instance, have over the decades been accused to represent everything from 'savage non-whites' to 'bloodthirsty WW1 Germans', or whatever prejudices Tolkien might or might not have had or have wanted to propagate. The vast spectrum of ensuing contradictions between the different interpretations indicates to me that it's ultimately up to oneself what one projects into something.
IRT Topic
I don't mind the inclusion of storymode. I don't mind smashing my head against the brick wall that occasionally pops up in Icewind Dale 'til it breaks but my girlfriend doesn't have my patience (though it IS hilarious to hear a sweet young lady invent new swear words on the spot and yelling them loudly at her screen). It will be a useful tool to people who play the game for fun (understanding that 'fun' means different things to different people) and/or don't like or grasp the mechanics of the game very much but still want to see the surroundings and experience the story.
As mentioned, don't like it, turn it off.
IWD2 is more story based than IWD, and while very good, you really do have to dig/make the right choices in action and dialogue. IWD2 is vastly improved by acess to a good walkthrough, especially if you didnt take Wilderness Lore. Some puzzles were indeed puzzling.
Also, I feel like playing "story mode" would actually damage the atmosphere of the game for casual players. It would be hard to take the troubles that have befallen the Dale seriously if not even the final boss can kill you. Why would the enemies even bother attacking you if they can't do anything to you? In addition, what would be the fun in the combat if you can't lose? There will still be enemies even if you are invulnerable, so I think fighting them would feel kind of pointless. I mean, so what if you get experience? Even if you fight the final boss at a low level, it doesn't matter because he can't kill you.
I think that the game's easy mode could be the story mode. It doesn't need an even easier mode.
It's optional, and options are good.
Maybe a good way to implement the story mode would be to have less enemies in that mode, rather than making you invincible.
*It wouldn't have been quite that bad if I didn't have to deal with a bug that kept me in perpetual combat mode in the Vale. If I could have slept/recovered once in awhile, it might have taken me as little as three and a half days to get out of there. However, I never, ever, ehhhhhver would have gotten by the trolls that showed up soon after w/out SM.
(again, it's optional.. may I suggest you don't use it? (I won't be) )
EDIT: Oh, and what was so bad about the trolls? I mean, sometimes they can be really annoying because I simply don't have a fire or acid attack, but Story Mode isn't exactly going to help with that.