sea said:
Gnarles Bronson said:
I've got one:
Planescape: Torment.
Wtf did those people do all day? What did they eat? The whole economy seems to revolve around collecting dead people, but where are all these dead people coming from that people are just leaving around? Really? No one bothers to take their deceased to the morgue? It's just like "grandma died today. Oh well, stick her in the corner."
I don't know if that made it a worse game or not, or if there were farms or whatever if it would have been better.
Except that Planescape is a setting whose fundamental nature is that it is unknowable. Therefore it is much easier to take on faith that these sorts of "problems" have solutions but are not necessarily relevant to the work. Torment implies plenty of answers without needing to overtly state them, and because it does have a setting, story and characters with internal logic that makes sense, we don't ask those questions because we trust the author to not violate the rules of the work.
In other words you'd might as well complain that physics in Super Mario Bros. are messed up or that a creature like a goomba would never exist in nature, or that there isn't a scientific explanation for why a mage in a fantasy game can throw fireballs.
Not to mention the visuals and how they are presented is very different. In Fallout, Planescape etc. you knew that the grids you had on the world map did not represent its "true" size. The same also true for the locations, like the cities. Many of them had borders or other places which gave you the feeling that there was more then you could see on the screen, like farms, shacks etc. but there was no reason for the player to explore those places, just as how you dont have to design an world that actually is really as big like an whole state. You had the world map and it took you days to travel around. Everything was stylized and thus only representative.
As soon you create a game that is throwing you in the "first person" perspective though, things need emidiately more detail, more content to make it plausible and believable. Thats why it doesnt work so well to have only a place with 4 people and calling it a "village" ... Third person and even more first person games need strong visuals to make them appealing. Thats how it was some 15 years ago and it is still true for today. A game like Morrowind for example emidiately makes more fun and is more immersive if you have locations of different size, showing farms, big and small cities etc. It doesnt matter if all the NPCs have "text" or "personality". They dont need it. They have to be there to give you the "illusion" of size.
Fallout 3 lacks that completely. The world is stuning, no doubt about that, the first time you get out of that stupid vault, watching over the ruined landscape. But thats only the surface. Even Megaton is "somewhat" entertaining. Untill the point you realize that the biggest population in the wasteland are raiders ... that Rivet City is made by 10 People. That the locations in the game make no sense and so on ... I mean seriously. A town full of children? I am still curious who was responsible for that.
Gnarles Bronson said:
Per said:
Maybe you should just do some research.
Wow, or maybe you could just not be a troll and actually contribute something useful to the conversation.
Did ... Did you just call him a troll when he just pointed out your errors? That you did not even cared to really get in to the details of Planescape or what made that game interesting in the first place where it sounds like you didnt even played the damn game?
If you say that Planescape was not an believable setting, then I think you didnt even played the game. As the world and its design, sure was one of the GOOD things about the game.
Hence why per is right. As usual. Do some research about PT, why it was made, and particularly why the chose to do the game in that way. The people which made PT did a lot of the things with an purpose in mind, where the main character for example cant simply "die" and its part of the whole story, where undead creatures are usually the friendliest creatures you encounter compared to other games where they are simlply evil, where rats can be the strongest enemy, the more rats are around, the more inteligent they become, capable of using magic even. Or how an NPC is "created" with your name if you decide to lie about your history telling people a name for your character when NPCs ask you for your name. PT was in many ways a weird game, but it was like that on purpose.
And PT has an economy, just not your "typical" economy - remember, its a seting with immortal creatures, very powerfull beeings roaming around, like Baatezu and Tanar'ri, powerfull deamons and devils caught in their eternal conflict (Bloodwar), an setting with "9" hells, and you expect the "world" to be comparable with our world? PT features an brothel where people dont pay for sex but for mental challanges for example. And there are many other places where other "weird" needs are satisfied.
I think as far as Planescape goes the "economy" in the game is awesome, because it is strange but interesting in its own way and it fits the world the developers created.
