Theme-based campaigns?

[New Horizon]

If anyone needs a voice over for their mission, send me the script and I'll have Brodie macrae, the guy who did our player grunts record it for you.

[Midnight]

I gave it a quick read...what kind of feedback were you looking for?

 

I guess the main feedback was whether there's anything in there that would contradict the universe that the team imagines, and whether any of it would be useful for adding to that universe.

 

The main worry I guess is the section about the plague quarter, which in my text predates the necromancers. The wiki mentions the quarter was only contaminated 20 years ago, so I wasn't sure whether the necromancers and mages were imagined by the team as being ancient factions.

 

Reading through the wiki I had the feeling that there was a lot missing, which is one of the reasons I was writing further background to the universe. I do realise that this is likely intentional as it gives FM creators more freedom to create their own history etc, but one of the things that seemed particularly lacking was the universe beyond the city, which I think is limited to the island of Menoa. This is why I created the city of Blackrock.

 

[Edit: I see you've added a map to the World At Large page, so I guess there still some fleshing out that will occur.]

Edited January 28, 2010 by Midnight

[Baddcog]

If anyone needs a voice over for their mission, send me the script and I'll have Brodie macrae, the guy who did our player grunts record it for you.

 

It would be great if he could do a bunch of random lines like Garrett had that are universal.

 

'Nope, can't go this way'

'Locked... Gotta find a key'

'hmm, sewers again'

'Alot of guards on duty tonight'

'need to get up there'

'need to find a way in there'

'I don't have a good feeling about this'

'this should fetch a fair price'

'better be on the lookout'

....

 

Just random lines that fit the overall gameplay, would help people get used to a similar voice.

 

Brodie McCrea huh? Sounds like a good name for a taffer lol.

[Springheel]

I guess the main feedback was whether there's anything in there that would contradict the universe that the team imagines, and whether any of it would be useful for adding to that universe.

 

To be honest, a lot of it did seem difficult to use. Some of it does directly contradict what is written on the wiki, and other stuff just didn't seem to fit at all.

 

The main worry I guess is the section about the plague quarter, which in my text predates the necromancers. The wiki mentions the quarter was only contaminated 20 years ago, so I wasn't sure whether the necromancers and mages were imagined by the team as being ancient factions.

 

Yes, both groups would be much older than 20 years, and I don't think it makes a lot of sense for either of them to arise from disgruntled Builders.

[Fidcal]

Yes, I'd like to see this with two player options:

 

Enable/Disable player speech clue/info, eg, 'need to get up there'

Enable/Disable player speech (atmosphere)

 

It would be great if he could do a bunch of random lines like Garrett had that are universal.

 

'Nope, can't go this way'

'Locked... Gotta find a key'

'hmm, sewers again'

'Alot of guards on duty tonight'

'need to get up there'

'need to find a way in there'

'I don't have a good feeling about this'

'this should fetch a fair price'

'better be on the lookout'

....

 

Just random lines that fit the overall gameplay, would help people get used to a similar voice.

 

Brodie McCrea huh? Sounds like a good name for a taffer lol.

[Baddcog]

Guess i never really saw Garrett's comments as 'clues' but I guess that could work too.

In thief it was always pretty evident imo what you were supposed to do, but having Garrett say something just added a bit to the mission.

 

That would probably mean some cvar in the editor to designate on a speaker by speaker basis, rather than just having a standard one trigger speaker.

 

Would be more work for authors to add 'audio clues'.

 

I guess I could see having an option for audio clues, just in case someone didn't want to spoil it, but really can't see a reason to disable player voice. That's like disabling music, or lights that are meant for ambiance. If the author wants it there it should be there. In the case of 'clues' the author would know a player didn't want any spoilers and would be aware player has choice to turn them off.

 

But what if the players voice is crucial to the mission and the player decides they don't wnat to hear it, so they miss clues. Then the mission gets labeled as difficult or buggy because it's hard to figure out what to do...

 

So I'd say yes on a choice for speakers labeled as clues, but not to player voice altogether.

[Fidcal]

If a player choose 'no audible clues' then they can't complain can they?

 

Clues can be light and helpful: "I should try to get up there" (door on balcony that seems impossible at first but clue emphasises yes it's possible and you should) or they can be hard: "Jaskwich told me to look for a hidden lever; this must be the room..."

 

No need for speakers just a trigger_once at each location where needed can call a script which can play a sound in the player's head.

[STiFU]

'Nope, can't go this way'

'Locked... Gotta find a key'

'hmm, sewers again'

'Alot of guards on duty tonight'

'need to get up there'

'need to find a way in there'

'I don't have a good feeling about this'

'this should fetch a fair price'

'better be on the lookout'

Yep, stuff like that would be very, very nice. Makes the player character more personal, which is still kind of missing in TDM until now. Giving him a name would also help. I'd still prefer 'I have a baaaad feeling about this' instead of 'I don't have a good feeling about this' though, just for old time's sake. Here are some other lines of a quick brainstorm:

'Uhh shiny'

'Time to introduce my friend Black-Jack'

'Better find an exit soon'

'Bastard'

'Never trust anyone but yourself'

'Too bad I know your secrets now'

'Need to find my gear'

'Your hammer is useless if you can't see me'

'Armor won't protect you against the dark'

 

Being able to identify with the character you play is important in games I think, at least if you want to tell a story.

Edited January 28, 2010 by STiFU

[Serpentine]

Glad I wasnt the only one thinking it would be nifty to have them

[kaldor]

Yep, stuff like that would be very, very nice. Makes the player character more personal, which is still kind of missing in TDM until now.

hehe.. You guys have put me down, when I suggested that audio comments as clues in the "unopenable doors"-thread! But anyhow, I still think they will greatly add to the game.

But that also means, there is only one hero. If a mapper/designer has his own ideas, he must record his own voice-files

 

 

To the topic: I guess, having no "official" campaign is a problem. A story lives with the strong characters. But inventing those characters into the void can be hard and spawns a lot sub-universes. So, maybe there could be some official top-people (chief of the inventors, high priest of the builders ...) and some informations, that make them suspicious or somehow interesting. Mappers could then refer to them in their missions.

Edited January 29, 2010 by kaldor

[stumpy]

I've based all my missions in a city 6 weeks away from Bridgeport via the fastest steamship, called it 'Lunarium' due to specific key city structures that couldn't be plonked into Bridgeport. I've also called my rogue Reg.

Edited January 29, 2010 by stumpy

[Tels]

Yep, stuff like that would be very, very nice. Makes the player character more personal, which is still kind of missing in TDM until now. Giving him a name would also help. I'd still prefer 'I have a baaaad feeling about this' instead of 'I don't have a good feeling about this' though, just for old time's sake. Here are some other lines of a quick brainstorm:

Being able to identify with the character you play is important in games I think, at least if you want to tell a story.

 

Only if you can disable them, either by user-setting or by mapper. and the user-setting must overrule the mapper setting.

 

For the user: Because it will annoy some people.

for the mapper: if your main character is f.i. a girl, male voice is unacceptable.

[Baddcog]

hehe.. You guys have put me down, when I suggested that audio comments as clues in the "unopenable doors"-thread! But anyhow, I still think they will greatly add to the game.

But that also means, there is only one hero. If a mapper/designer has his own ideas, he must record his own voice-files

 

 

To the topic: I guess, having no "official" campaign is a problem. A story lives with the strong characters. But inventing those characters into the void can be hard and spawns a lot sub-universes. So, maybe there could be some official top-people (chief of the inventors, high priest of the builders ...) and some informations, that make them suspicious or somehow interesting. Mappers could then refer to them in their missions.

 

 

Well, these forums have miles and miles of posts... I would have never put down the idea of having a players voice as clues. It was somehting I enjoyed from Thief and used in all my missions and see no reason to not have a voice set for TDM.

Whether it's 'generic' or 'Farrell' or Farrell and random thieves seem to have a very simialr voice maks no difference to me. But IMO would be a welcome addition by most authors just to have a based 'accepted' character voice for voice overs.

------

We actually have a topic in team discussions about what type of stuff to add to the Wiki, names, characters, etc... and what we want the community to contribute to it and how.

It just ended up veering a bit off topic...

[Baddcog]

Only if you can disable them, either by user-setting or by mapper. and the user-setting must overrule the mapper setting.

 

For the user: Because it will annoy some people.

for the mapper: if your main character is f.i. a girl, male voice is unacceptable.

 

Well, I have never heard of any complain about Garrett voice overs in Thief ever. Typically a mission will only have about 5 voice overs total, so to say it's annoying might be strectching it.

I'm not talking about having a charcter that likes to talk to himself constantly, just a few comments that lighten the mission, add some depth... A very standard occourance in Thief missions.

Having some voice overs available in no way means that any one will use them, it's purely an authors decision.

 

So to point 2, if you have a female main character why would you add male voice overs in the first place? This isn't something that would be forced on authors, it's not like the character is gonna say 'damn, locked' at every locked door they come across, only at ones that an author wishes them to say it at. (probably at most one door in a map if at all, that's why a wide variety of sayings is needed).

 

I still think that voice overs shouldn't have a toggle. If an author wants to include something why should we put toggles on that stuff. Should we toggle loot? Should we toggle whether or not doors are locked? Should we have a toogle for creativity?

But Fidcal's idea of having a seperate catagory for 'clue voice overs' would be cool. So the player would say 'oh, not sewers again' as that's not a clue, but the author and/or player could choose whether or not specific things like 'I need to climb that pipe' would play.

The author would either choose it as a voice over (plays no matter what) or a clue (plays if player has audio clues turned on)

[Crispy]

I agree it makes very little sense to go to all the trouble of adding a user toggle and making sure it works properly and so on. Voiceovers are an integral part of the experience created by a mission author, why would anyone ever want to switch them off?

 

And of course the mission author has full control over them since they'd all be manually placed and triggered in levels.

[Ishtvan]

Yeah, having them be optional would also complicate beta testing. If the author wanted to put some puzzle-hints in the form of player vocals, they would have to have people test both with and without the hints, to see if they could figure out the puzzles. Letting the author fully control what vocals to play sounds reasonable to me. If their player character is female, they can choose not to put in player vocals, or add their own female ones.

[kaldor]

I would have never put down the idea of having a players voice as clues.

Really?

 

Maybe if you frob a non-openable door he could say "It´s stuck!" or "Not a chance!" ... something like that. In the Thief-Games, I remember Garrett talking often to himself

That gets confusing if you have a visual clue that says door opens (frob highlight) only to have that highlight be a trigger for an audio clue it doesn't open. It's going out of your way to make it a pain in the ass and confusing.

Never mind!

 

 

@topic:

In the old discussion, I remember the idea that clues could be bound to difficulty. So someone that plays on "hard" does not get the additional clues, but one on "easy" hears them.. How about that?

[aidakeeley]

In the old discussion, I remember the idea that clues could be bound to difficulty. So someone that plays on "hard" does not get the additional clues, but one on "easy" hears them.. How about that?

 

[Baddcog]

OK kaldor, got me, but that's also out of context.

 

That discussion was about doors highlighting and whether or not people thought they should highlight at all, have door knobs or not, have regular textures or not and was a 'mod wide' discussion. A discussion about doors that aren't used for anything more than decoration.

 

 

I wouldn't want to have a player clue on every decoration door that said it couldn't be opened.

 

All I stated in this thread is that we need voice overs from the players perspective for authors to place here and there as they see fit. If they want to have a door trigger a sound it's one thing. But in the context of that thread I took it as having the player say that on every single door that didn't open because it is there for decoration.

 

My opinion on that hasn't changed at all, decoration doors should NOT be frobbable, should not trigger an 'I can't go there' audio clue, should

use regular textures and I don't care if they do or don't have handles.

 

Typically the 'It's locked' voice over is for a door that needs a key, or maybe is jammed by something and you have to find a way to the other side. In which case it IS useable afterwards. The clue then would be to let the player know that specific door IS useable at some point, just not right now.

[Forje]

We actually have a topic in team discussions about what type of stuff to add to the Wiki, names, characters, etc... and what we want the community to contribute to it and how.

 

Question: Does this mean that you have a lot of details already nailed down that you just have to decide how or when to add to the wiki? Or that this is stuff you are deciding what topics next to better flesh out in order to add it to the wiki?

 

I've been trying for a couple hours now to find a concise approach to this topic. I still don't know that I've found one, but I think we can make an overly broad categorization into: 1) authors who overtly intend to create something completely original using these tools and 2) authors who overtly intend to create something in line with the team's concept of The Dark Mod universe. We're obviously not talking about the first group, at all. So to echo the OP, what group 2 is wanting is a Dark Mod universe identity to link up with or emulate. That much, I think, is understood.

 

I will try to make my points by example. To the effect of having a great deal of "canonization," it would depend on what we mean by that really.

 

Example: The Lord Mayor of Bridgeport is Brodie Macrae. The Lord Mayor of Bridgeport is John Jacob Jingleheimer-Schmitt. I don't see any reason why both of those statements can't be true for separate FMs, even ones that are supposed to take place at the same time; I don't see something like this as a problem. But that there is a Lord Mayor of Bridgeport, rather than a King or President of Bridgeport is what's important... something that ought to be "canonized," so to speak. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.

 

I guess my point is that I actually would like to see more "canon" in the wiki, but static facts that we can refer to, not static characters. I think what people are really wanting is a more coherent framework on which to hang their characters. And we do have a good bit of that already, but perhaps not what a person might specifically be looking for in a given story that's being worked on.

 

By way of another example: Let's say that I have a villainous City Councilman that I want to, by devious means, work his way into the office of Lord Mayor. He has to get elected somehow; I remember that much, but here I might turn to the wiki to find answers to some further questions. Who gets to vote? "aldermen" Ok, cool. How many aldermen are there? What's the difference between an alderman and a regular councilman? How do the aldermen become aldermen? How many total Councilmen are there? How do they vote? Do they need a simple majority? Two-thirds? Unanimous? Do the candidates even have to be Councilmen to begin with? And so on; the possible questions are endless. The point being these are some of the things that must be dealt with before I conceive how this character is going to bring his plan to fruition, i.e. How many bribes, for example, will be enough to win?

 

Now, I'm not suggesting that the team even have or provide answers to any or all of these questions, but I do want to highlight a potential issue with having a wiki outlining possible answers to these questions. Continuing with the above scenario, I choose all of the answers to those questions, make my FM, release it, and later someone else makes a different scenario, but referencing the same types of questions with completely different answers and this second set of answers is what goes into the wiki. Being someone who specifically intends for my mission to align with the teams vision from the start, I might be a little put off by this. Wah, wah, tough cookies, right? Eh, I believe it is a legitimate concern.

 

Again, I don't think it's at all fair to expect the team to have all of our answers immediately, and I don't think it would actually require a campaign or even a small series to accomplish this. I think it is entirely possible that as a community we can devise a list of topics that we'd like clarification on in order to adhere to the team's version of The Dark Mod universe and perhaps start a thread dedicated to it, where we ask questions, discuss possible answers, and most importantly get feedback from the team, i.e. "the answer is X, Y, or Z", "yes/no that fits/doesn't fit" or "we haven't worked that out enough yet. Stay tuned and we're happy to hear suggestions." This way, I think, current non-team mappers/storytellers have an outlet to ask the questions they believe are pertinent to their missions as they crop up, get some answers, and the team doesn't have to deal with what may be sort of a "where to begin?" feeling, to address them in the order presented or an order they see fit.

 

There should be some way to delineate what is or isn't an appropriate topic for wikifying, though I'm not sure how to go about articulating that, but I would suggest at least this much as a guideline for us:

 

Make your questions specific.

 

Examples:

 

Vague question: What are the Builders like? Answer: Read the wiki on it.

 

Inappropriate question: Who is the Archbishop of Bridgeport? Answer: Who do you want it to be?

 

Specific question: What is the ranking system in the City Watch?

 

Does that make sense?

 

Does this sound like something that people would like to participate in? And does this sound like something that the team would like to consider?

 

Is this all crazygonuts insane and I'm overanalyzing?

[Fidcal]

I agree it makes very little sense to go to all the trouble of adding a user toggle and making sure it works properly and so on. Voiceovers are an integral part of the experience created by a mission author, why would anyone ever want to switch them off?

Because they hate them. They break immersion for them and feel illogical because *they* *are* the player character. To suddenly hear a disembodied voice just doesn't work for some players.

 

Beta testers will be instructed that they *must* have voice enabled. Where appropriate, the FM should be issued with "voice clues" or "voice clues but not critical." Anyone who turns them off has to accept they might miss a clue.

 

A voice clue must be defined as an absolute clue that the player could not know otherwise. A hint such as "I need to get up there." might not be enough (depending on situation) because many players would prefer to figure that out for themselves.Strong but vague hints should be included such as "must be something around here to open that door." where there is a hidden lever and there is no way the player could know that. This is a grey area and suggests there should be a cvar strength so the player can set player voice to either: atmosphere, weak hints, strong hints, critical clues. The last would be very rare so there may be a view that they should not be turn-offable. "If I jump down into that water there is no way back. I must find a rope arrow first." Bad example because an FM author should never create such a situation.

 

This is yet another example of why I have emphasised over and over that we should have mapper created options on the difficulty screen. If they were already in place we would not need to implement anything new. They are general purpose spawnargs that at its simplest just determine whether something is spawned or not. That gives massive power and flexibility to both mapper and player. In this case you could play on expert yet still have all player voice speeches. Or you could play on Easy and have all player voices off. Lots of combinations. Diluting the possibilities to make things easier for beta testing is not good imo.

[STiFU]

Forje, your post is too long!

 

Linking clues to the difficulty imho sucks. I always play on expert and I wouldn't want to miss out on any voiceovers, which I always find pretty comforting. Fidcal's suggestion is ok for me, but I do think, that making it optional creates more problems than it actually solves. It could also just be implemented later, so that you ship a set of recorded lines with the next update... How about we create a poll over at ttlg to see what players think about garrett's voiceovers?

[Tels]

Well, I have never heard of any complain about Garrett voice overs in Thief ever.

 

Because you are not a girl and don't mind playing a _male_ character. Think about it That is why players should be able to toggle them off. (We do allow the player to toggle off ambient music, afterall).

 

So to point 2, if you have a female main character why would you add male voice overs in the first place?

 

That is why a _mapper_ should be able to disable them. If you say "he should be able to selectively enable them", thats fine, that is the same just in reverse (e.g. "he can just not enable them, hence disable").

 

As for the "it is difficult to implement." others mention. Huh? Its dead easy. Either make them spawnargs that play a specific voice-over, the code that plays it can have a volume slider (like the ambient menu has). Or add a special speaker entity.

 

For technical reasons we want to have a volume slider for both solutions, anyway. And if we have a volume slider, the player can set it to 0, hence disable them. I don't see anything extra we need to do for this.

[Tels]

Yeah, having them be optional would also complicate beta testing. If the author wanted to put some puzzle-hints in the form of player vocals, they would have to have people test both with and without the hints, to see if they could figure out the puzzles. Letting the author fully control what vocals to play sounds reasonable to me. If their player character is female, they can choose not to put in player vocals, or add their own female ones.

 

But why should the *player* be forced to be play as male, when the mission could easily have both? It is just like the ambient music, why should the player be forced to listen to the ambient music *if the player doesn't want to*? Easy, we let him disable it. Same with voiceovers. Player is in control.

 

(If your mapper mentions the name of the main character and it is male, well, I consider that bad mission design

[Tels]

How about we create a poll over at ttlg to see what players think about garrett's voiceovers?

 

The'll ask "when will you add them to TDM" and then we have to kill them all. Not a good idea.