JE talked about the character development statement MCA had the other day and here's what the man said:<blockquote>Will this feature be in Van Buren:<blockquote>To the extent that they were to be used in Jefferson? No, not even remotely close.</blockquote>Why not in Van Buren:<blockquote>It was my decision. The dialogues in Jefferson were extremely complex -- not in terms of sheer displayed text, but in terms of the number of nodes, node texts and replies that made the dialogues up. Dialogues varied according to a huge amount of tracked information: ability scores, skill scores, deity, race, (and sometimes skin color, hair color, and hairstyle), positive and negative reputation with six factions, and the positive and negative reps with each of those six factions' two sub-factions... and also the positive and negative reps in regions. Oh, and then the sixteen or so epithets. It was a lot to track and a lot for the designers to deal with. At times, it was overwhelming.
Van Buren will still track a lot of data, and its dialogues will still check that data frequently, but not to the same extent as Jefferson. Just keep in mind that "the extent" of Jefferson was, IMO, greater (though not necessarily "better") than any RPG I've ever seen.</blockquote>Then Gromnir ilKhan asked this: "Is the reduction a matter of choice or a matter of necessity? is you streamlining to improve quality or just to save time and resources?"<blockquote>This is a sliding scale. Given a fixed amount of time and effort, the more things you have, the less attention each thing gets. Jefferson had a projected development cycle of three years, and even after extensive revisions, still had more areas on the list than BG2. On top of this, every area required extraordinary effort to get done. Even Avellone, who generally likes writing dialogue, was getting burned out on the "second" (largest) area of the game.
More content at a lower quality is not something to aim for, IMO. This includes things like sliding scales tracking repetitions of subtle behaviors. I worked on Jefferson for two and a half years. Many of the other designers had been working on it for over a year. It's hard to throw the passion of every day and night into something new after that. This is one of the reasons I am involved more in the technical aspects of Van Buren than the creative aspects; I just don't have much more to give. And when it comes to technical aspects, I'm usually the first person to recognize logisitcal problems in how things are set up. Tracking all of that stuff in Jefferson drained a lot of the flow out of writing dialogues. So much attention went into how they were set up and engineered that it wore the designers down. I'd much rather have them deal with less technical stuff in their dialogues and focus on making them solid in terms of writing.</blockquote></blockquote>Too bad this feature doesn't see the light of day in Van Buren..
Link: Thread@IPLY Boards
Van Buren will still track a lot of data, and its dialogues will still check that data frequently, but not to the same extent as Jefferson. Just keep in mind that "the extent" of Jefferson was, IMO, greater (though not necessarily "better") than any RPG I've ever seen.</blockquote>Then Gromnir ilKhan asked this: "Is the reduction a matter of choice or a matter of necessity? is you streamlining to improve quality or just to save time and resources?"<blockquote>This is a sliding scale. Given a fixed amount of time and effort, the more things you have, the less attention each thing gets. Jefferson had a projected development cycle of three years, and even after extensive revisions, still had more areas on the list than BG2. On top of this, every area required extraordinary effort to get done. Even Avellone, who generally likes writing dialogue, was getting burned out on the "second" (largest) area of the game.
More content at a lower quality is not something to aim for, IMO. This includes things like sliding scales tracking repetitions of subtle behaviors. I worked on Jefferson for two and a half years. Many of the other designers had been working on it for over a year. It's hard to throw the passion of every day and night into something new after that. This is one of the reasons I am involved more in the technical aspects of Van Buren than the creative aspects; I just don't have much more to give. And when it comes to technical aspects, I'm usually the first person to recognize logisitcal problems in how things are set up. Tracking all of that stuff in Jefferson drained a lot of the flow out of writing dialogues. So much attention went into how they were set up and engineered that it wore the designers down. I'd much rather have them deal with less technical stuff in their dialogues and focus on making them solid in terms of writing.</blockquote></blockquote>Too bad this feature doesn't see the light of day in Van Buren..
Link: Thread@IPLY Boards