Official wish list for King's Bounty 2 - Page 8

RichardTyler · #71 11-29-2010, 10:49 AM

Some really good comments here. I both enjoyed and benefited from reading these.

@Jah: I actually spent some time with the editor (just for the heck of it) and it's not as bad as people say here. At first it looks complicated and weired, but once you follow the attached documentation carefully it all starts to make sense. True, there seems to be a nasty bug with the textures, but you can find a way around it. So making a new, custom scenario is not more daunting than in any other game. Don't get me wrong, it is daunting in every game.

You can't help it.

Hours spent with 3D Max, textures, models, dialogs, storyline, scripts... blah blah blah.

Perhaps that's the reason why there is always a limited number of participants in fan-made editor contests, no matter what game. It's a heck lot of work!!!

VO: I see your point. Yes voice talents must be expensive to be hired and they would either do a partial vo (only some main dialogs) or limit the text or get same actors to do multiple chars. All are bad solutions. Still, imo VO adds a lot to the game, if done properly.

@onepiece: With all due respect, I disagree. I believe that a good storyline makes or breaks the game. I mean I hear you that whan a game has a lot of technical bugs, inventory problems etc. you can't evaluate the storyline (first things first). Yet I see a game as a form of storytelling (similar to the movies, books, comics etc.)

What attracts people in games? Is it only how fast you shoot or how good the technical fireworks look? I'd say that a storyline catches your attention and you either stay with the game or stop playing it due to the lack of further interest in the storyline.

onepiece · #72 11-29-2010, 10:07 PM

@RichardTyler; well that depends if the story is the most important part of the game (as in an RPG). NO ONE plays shooters, FPS, racing games, etc. for their story since is just an excuse to do things in some a defined order. What's important in them is the gameplay.

It doesn't mean that AP has a bad story (is not that bad) but KB made a better one and felt more ambitious and fun, although AP felt faster and better executed since the game is shorter and also has better gameplay.
Would Bioshock be that great of a game if the art, artistic value, the decorations, story and all of that makes Rapture so unique and well executed, from a story point of view, was the only good thing about it and the game sucked as an FPS or had horrible gameplay? I don't think so.

A good storyline always help but if the game has a bad story or none and yet the execution of the game, the gameplay and the rest of it is great, does it matter that much? Some games are not played because of their great stories but because of how fun it is to just play them not mattering if the story is good, bad or just silly.

I agree with you that a good games deserves a good story but AP wasn't that bad. It didn't have a BAD guy but, do every story have them? It just makes it easier for people to feel anger and want to accomplish the goal if there is one (the amount of games without a BAD guy is so small that is good to have some games that just care about adventure without bothering about a ridiculous excuse to advance, such as killing a random dude).

Without more comments waiting for your answer.

Jah · #73 11-30-2010, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by onepiece

I agree with you that a good games deserves a good story but AP wasn't that bad. It didn't have a BAD guy but, do every story have them?

I think Demenion and Baal would both qualify as "bad guys".

I basically agree that while it would be great to have both good gameplay AND a good plot, the thinness of the plot in the KB games never really bothered me too much. Essentially, I consider KB to be a strategy game with RPG elements, rather than a pure RPG in the traditional sense, and strategy games tend to be pretty light in terms of plot anyway. I think it also has to do with the light, not-too-serious style of KB in general; in a game full of puns and intentional silliness, I wasn't really expecting particularly deep characters or thought-provoking plot developments. While it's possible that the developers simply didn't care enough about the plot to put much effort into it, I think one could also argue that its lightness may have been at least partially a conscious stylistic choice.

Mandea · #74 11-30-2010, 09:51 AM

I would love to have a KB2 that wouldn't make KB1 obsolete. They should be complementary one to the other so we would still play KB1 after KB had been released.

RichardTyler · #75 12-02-2010, 07:43 AM

A word of warning: This post came out longer than I think I originally intended, so please take it easy.

@onepiece: Of course, you are right. Certainly there are different types of games and sometimes you just fancy a good shooter or some crazy cars action (e.g. Need for Speed series). You don't need a storyline for these at all. More than that, I believe that some games might have non-orthodox storylines, might be impressions or a bunch of quests, which are not connected. And it's fine. It all depends on the type of the game.

However isn't it that a good storyline makes a game complete and mature? Isn't it that there is a difference between a shooter and a game with an interesting (often deep) storyline?

Perhaps it's good to know the canon to deviate from it, criticize it or modify it? Certainly one can be a storyline genius and might come up with a good script "just like that". Although, to be honest, I usually found that when I try to write a script "just like that" I am stuck and cannot do it right (sometimes even begin). On the other hand, certain story elements and a pre-defined story structure is there to help you. So when you start with a vision of a script, based on the canon, you usually have a storyline ready and you just fill in the slots. And it's not true that your storyline is not interesting if you make it that way.

What I'm trying to say is that I believe that people are hard-wired for stories. And the folks from Hollywood have good reasons to follow storyline patterns, because those paterns work.

TBH I didn't play Bioshock (drat, I will get it and play it, since you say it has such a deep story) Yet, many games just amazed me with interesting storylines. Take Lara Croft series or Indiana Jones or Star Wars... You still have all the technical stuff in such games, yet take those brilliant storylines.

I remember that some long time ago I discussed the issue of computer game elements with some of my friends. Other than the storyline, as far as I recall, the following elements were mentioned:

eye-candy architecture
good, realistic models (how you present a model with a certain "polygon budget")
textures
playability (some bad looking games might be damn playable)
music and ambient sounds (often neglected)
VO

Might be something else, I don't remember.

Concerning KB, I certainly liked it and enjoyed playing it. What I was saying is that I believe such a game could benefit a lot from having a storyline script, which is more according to the canon. I found KB text-heavy. Yes, I read it all as well and found it interesting, but not everyone will. Look what they do in movies: they cut some great scenes and remove it from the movie entirely, simply to keep the pace (there is no time in the story to fit certain scenes in, despite how great they are).

You have a main KB quest, yes. All fine, but to me it's "just another quest", rather than a full storyline. So KB is a set of quests, usually not connected one to the other.

The bottom line is, it's nothing which development team couldn't do. It's more like they didn't think it was right.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jah

I basically agree that while it would be great to have both good gameplay AND a good plot, the thinness of the plot in the KB games never really bothered me too much. Essentially, I consider KB to be a strategy game with RPG elements, rather than a pure RPG in the traditional sense, and strategy games tend to be pretty light in terms of plot anyway. I think it also has to do with the light, not-too-serious style of KB in general; in a game full of puns and intentional silliness, I wasn't really expecting particularly deep characters or thought-provoking plot developments. While it's possible that the developers simply didn't care enough about the plot to put much effort into it, I think one could also argue that its lightness may have been at least partially a conscious stylistic choice.

That is a very interesting approach. What you say: "its lightness may have been at least partially a conscious stylistic choice", it's well said and I take your point. Yet I still say that the game would benefit much from a better storyline. KB was silly in parts (fine, I enjoyed it a lot), but consider that some parts were not that silly. Or rather they were based on hard facts. You can't argue that Baal attacking the city and Amelie desperately searching for a remedy is light and silly, isn't it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jah

I think Demenion and Baal would both qualify as "bad guys".

Alright, but there is a difference between a well developed 3D character, a flat 2D one and a "background character", which is there to fill the emtpy space. It's a matter of how these characetrs were developed, how their role in the storyline was presented. And even more, it's about the whole storyline approach.

What do we know about Baal other than it's a demon, who attacked the city?

onepiece · #76 12-04-2010, 02:27 PM

I will give a more proper answer in 1-2 days when I have more time. In the mean time, good critic. It shows you care about the game and would like it to become a greater game.
I think the "reason" of the game (collect the 7 stones, find Gil and kill baal) is very simple and one tends to forget about it. Hell in zelda: a link to the past, the important thing was to defeat the dungeons (great game BTW) and zelda was just an excuse.

I think this game is more of like: adventure, creatures, items, magics, strategy and the context is just to give some coherence to what and why you do it. That being said, it doesn't mean I would like it to be more full and richer and a bit more complex (not that much since that is also part of it's magic).

It's true that one would want a BIG and EPIC story with a BAG guy and a GIRL (hot somewhat naked and very exotic) but that also is cliche. When you go on a field trip; you care about the reason for going or just enjoy the time there doing whatever you feel like doing?

Hell why don't we start a thread in which we create a new story and try to make a mod using it as a base?

RichardTyler · #77 12-08-2010, 05:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by onepiece

Hell why don't we start a thread in which we create a new story and try to make a mod using it as a base?

Good idea. I might contribute.

Perhaps developers pay some attention to it and -at least- give it some thought what they might take from it and incorporate into the next editions of KB. (I hear they go mmo? too bad, I somewhat see KB as a single-player game)

onepiece · #78 12-09-2010, 11:45 PM

I shouldn’t be writing this (got too much work to do) but since I can't think of something else, may as well try this idea for a KB story XD. If there are some mistakes (mostly since English is not my mother tongue and it got a little difficult to write this) people point hem out to correct them. Thank you for reading.

Let's get on with the setting. After finally beating Demon Lord Baal and being crowned Queen, Amelie finally enjoys her time doing what all queens loved by their people do (enjoy expensive and pompous parties, forgetting about their people welfare, letting vile politicians take control on matters such as law and taxes, taking bad decisions biased by envious and corrupted advisers, start a military expansion damaging the relations with peaceful kingdoms, squandering money on exotics and expensive gifts, etc.) so the country has grown weak, the people are starting to riot against and even some voices are starting to claim the queen's head, with the said individual being toss into jail or executed in public.

Meanwhile, the remaining eight Lord of Hells, seeing as one of their own has been obliterated by a puny human, start their own civil war, since some lower demons feel the eight Lords are not that powerful and want to rise in power, so several factions arise against each other. One of this factions, leaded by demon Sakara, a powerful and cunning black fire demon (a demon made from a different kind of fire than a normal demon) has a very "special" idea. He wants to imbued himself with the blood of the vanquisher of Baal (Amelie) as to increase his already powerful and strange abilities and gain the powers of "The child of the gods". For this, he has devised a plan in which he would thrown the world of Endoria into a full global war, in order to weaken the bonds that hold their realms apart and finally gain access to Amelie, while throwing the demon realm into a full war against Endoria, with the excuse of stopping their civil war allowing each faction to have complete control over a region of Endoria, while plotting to weaken their ranks and conquer two worlds in one move.

As this happens, disease and death spreads into the once colorful land of Endoria, launching the people into anarchy while the monarchy collapses as the only son of Amelie, Eolo, dies. With no successor to the throne, and no king either, power avid politics, knights, noblemen and clerics try to seduce the queen, in order to be their consort for her to harbor their child, as to gain more power and for their bloodline to succeed the crown line. One of this men is Soma, a rogue demon living on Endoria since hundreds of years ago, contacted by Sakara to gain the queens favor and get her one step closer to him.

With the "Discworld" in this state, our story begins when a young man wakes himself on distant shores after recovering consciousness from a shipwreck...