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[Ivefan]

This is interesting, but I'm not quite sure I've fully got what you mean. Surely by this logic - do you only play sandbox games? An FPS, say, with different levels is in the way you've described it no different from a food/corruption/whatever timer - you have to move forward, you cannot do everything/whatever you want. As I read it, you're basically saying you dislike non-sandbox games? Which is obviously totally fine! I'm just interested in whether I'm reading that correctly.

I play most any kind of game but I would say you are wrong in the case of a FPS game, one cancan do everything/whatever one wants.
Its just that there isn't anything else to do than to move forward, because looking at the details of the room can't be that interesting for long.

I was thinking of rpg games in my last post, and out of the old goodies i can only recall fallout having a timer which didn't matter unless one spent a lot of time traveling on the overworld map.
When i play a good crpg game I go through the area to find all the things I can find and the only content that I do not see is the content that gets locked out due to the consequences of my choices. In a good RPG with many choices that might be up to 10% perhaps, But in recent RPG games the consequences of the players choices tends to matter so little that there barely is any difference between the playthroughs.

I might pull out a good game again, Just like re-reading a good favorite book. Maybe I find some more content, but mostly because I've forgotten most of the dialogue and want to do it all again.

Did I make more sense out of it this time?

[Retropunch]

the only content that I do not see is the content that gets locked out due to the consequences of my choices. In a good RPG with many choices that might be up to 10% perhaps, But in recent RPG games the consequences of the players choices tends to matter so little that there barely is any difference between the playthroughs.

Yeah it seems as though this is going as more of a 'choice based' (in the most flexible sense of the word) timer where you just can't do everything due to time, rather than a just a case of not being able to enjoy yourself and relax in wandering around.

It's hard to speculate, but I'd say 20-30% of stuff is probably about the right amount of stuff to have to miss. I think more than that and the player might feel a bit cheated/try to break the rules, but less than that and It'd be a bit meaningless.

Regardless, making a choice which causes something else to be locked out completely is something that I really enjoy in RPGs - it gives a lot of weight behind choices, especially if you can't undo it. I'd really like to see that kinda thing in URR.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

I play most any kind of game but I would say you are wrong in the case of a FPS game, one cancan do everything/whatever one wants.
Its just that there isn't anything else to do than to move forward, because looking at the details of the room can't be that interesting for long.

I was thinking of rpg games in my last post, and out of the old goodies i can only recall fallout having a timer which didn't matter unless one spent a lot of time traveling on the overworld map.
When i play a good crpg game I go through the area to find all the things I can find and the only content that I do not see is the content that gets locked out due to the consequences of my choices. In a good RPG with many choices that might be up to 10% perhaps, But in recent RPG games the consequences of the players choices tends to matter so little that there barely is any difference between the playthroughs.

I might pull out a good game again, Just like re-reading a good favorite book. Maybe I find some more content, but mostly because I've forgotten most of the dialogue and want to do it all again.

Did I make more sense out of it this time?

Ahh, I do see what you mean. Interesting, and that makes total sense. You're definitely right modern games don't generally exclude certain parts of content if you go a certain route; I think I would have see that as a flaw, though. If you only exclude a little through player choices it rarely seems "worth" a second playthrough, and I think that's a mistake - game-design-wise, I think it makes sense to either have a game where your choices have a massive effect on the content you can/cannot access, and you can only see a small portion of the content in one release, or just don't bother. Take Skyrim - I haven't really played it, but from what I hear the civil war choice is basically pointless. That seems daft. URR will definitely be the former - and this leads me onto the next answer - but I'll definitely have a game where large sections are unlocked/locked based on your decisions.

Yeah it seems as though this is going as more of a 'choice based' (in the most flexible sense of the word) timer where you just can't do everything due to time, rather than a just a case of not being able to enjoy yourself and relax in wandering around.

It's hard to speculate, but I'd say 20-30% of stuff is probably about the right amount of stuff to have to miss. I think more than that and the player might feel a bit cheated/try to break the rules, but less than that and It'd be a bit meaningless.

Regardless, making a choice which causes something else to be locked out completely is something that I really enjoy in RPGs - it gives a lot of weight behind choices, especially if you can't undo it. I'd really like to see that kinda thing in URR.

You're said it perfectly in the first sentence. This is going to be especially relevant to the "factions" in URR - I've started adding religions and cults and nations, for instance, but I have others planned, and which you are allied with should affect where you can safely move, what allies you can recruit, whether some areas are safe/dangerous, etc. That's part of the strategy layer and I think should be an interesting one, especially as the politics of the world shift as time goes on.

[Retropunch]

In response to 'THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT', I firstly want to say congratulations! I'm incredibly excited both to see the progress, and that you've got the chance to work on it for a years time - living the dream!

Although I have no idea about your situation, one thing I'd suggest (what I did!) if you are trying to live frugally is to consider moving to a cheaper country. I know it seems painstakingly obvious, but moving to somewhere like Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania can basically double your finances and are fantastic places to live. Also, even if you aren't going down the KS road, I'd suggest at least allowing donation - DF does fantastically out of it, and I'm sure many people would be willing to give you at least some money for soy milk.

And to think, just 3 or 4 years ago you completed Nethack for the first time!

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

In response to 'THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT', I firstly want to say congratulations! I'm incredibly excited both to see the progress, and that you've got the chance to work on it for a years time - living the dream!

Although I have no idea about your situation, one thing I'd suggest (what I did!) if you are trying to live frugally is to consider moving to a cheaper country. I know it seems painstakingly obvious, but moving to somewhere like Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania can basically double your finances and are fantastic places to live. Also, even if you aren't going down the KS road, I'd suggest at least allowing donation - DF does fantastically out of it, and I'm sure many people would be willing to give you at least some money for soy milk.

And to think, just 3 or 4 years ago you completed Nethack for the first time!

Haha, thanks! I'm going to post it properly here in a little bit (and a couple other forums). That's a very interesting idea, but that's certainly not happening this year - I'm moving to another (albeit cheaper) place in the UK with my closest friend for this year! As for the donations idea, I'm vaguely considering a Patreon to support me living (a fraction!) less frugally this year. I'm still reluctant, though, but we'll see how it goes.  Ha, yeah, it's pretty weird. I'm... 24 now, I first discovered and won Nethack a few times when I was 18, moved to DCSS after a year or two, started URR when I was 21, and now I'm here. I'm just amazed by how awesome a community I've managed to build up in the last few years . I'm genuinely really humbled by how much interest/support people have shown.

[Ivefan]

Ahh, I do see what you mean. Interesting, and that makes total sense. You're definitely right modern games don't generally exclude certain parts of content if you go a certain route; I think I would have see that as a flaw, though. If you only exclude a little through player choices it rarely seems "worth" a second playthrough, and I think that's a mistake - game-design-wise, I think it makes sense to either have a game where your choices have a massive effect on the content you can/cannot access, and you can only see a small portion of the content in one release, or just don't bother. Take Skyrim - I haven't really played it, but from what I hear the civil war choice is basically pointless. That seems daft.

When i play skyrim i dont even bother with quests unless theres a good item reward or similar benefit. or just because i want a target to try my character against. Because really, the plot sucks and the dialogues is on the level of SNES japanese RPGs.
If you have time, try playing Planescape tornment, fallout 1 or 2 or Baldurs gate. I recommend Planescape.

URR will definitely be the former - and this leads me onto the next answer - but I'll definitely have a game where large sections are unlocked/locked based on your decisions.

This is good because that gives the player the impression that his choices matters.
Perhaps what i wanted to have said about the timer is that I do not want the timer to drive me on to a new area before i am done exhausting the stuff i can do in the current one.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Ahh, I do see what you mean. Interesting, and that makes total sense. You're definitely right modern games don't generally exclude certain parts of content if you go a certain route; I think I would have see that as a flaw, though. If you only exclude a little through player choices it rarely seems "worth" a second playthrough, and I think that's a mistake - game-design-wise, I think it makes sense to either have a game where your choices have a massive effect on the content you can/cannot access, and you can only see a small portion of the content in one release, or just don't bother. Take Skyrim - I haven't really played it, but from what I hear the civil war choice is basically pointless. That seems daft.

When i play skyrim i dont even bother with quests unless theres a good item reward or similar benefit. or just because i want a target to try my character against. Because really, the plot sucks and the dialogues is on the level of SNES japanese RPGs.
If you have time, try playing Planescape tornment, fallout 1 or 2 or Baldurs gate. I recommend Planescape.

URR will definitely be the former - and this leads me onto the next answer - but I'll definitely have a game where large sections are unlocked/locked based on your decisions.

This is good because that gives the player the impression that his choices matters.
Perhaps what i wanted to have said about the timer is that I do not want the timer to drive me on to a new area before i am done exhausting the stuff i can do in the current one.

Hmmmmmm, exhausting... that's so hard to judge, as what does one define as an "area"? A town? A nation? A city? A particular dungeon or area? Not nitpicking, I think that's a serious point about how much one expects before moving on. But I don't think there's really much more for me to say on this, other than: it'll become clear in a few versions time! And when it does, I'll be working very hard on getting the balance just right.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Now, the big announcement as cross-posted from my blog:

So, last week I hinted towards a big announcement that had come through about URR’s future, and today I’m actually able to talk about it.

Short version: I’m going to be working on URR full-time for the next year, starting around September! And not a Kickstarter to be seen.

I’ve been thinking about this a while. As regular readers will know, URR has rapidly become the project in my life I care the most about, and whilst I’m currently doing a doctorate in one field of social science, I want to move into game studies before my first academic job. It started to seem that taking a year “out” would be the perfect way to combine these objectives – I could finally work on URR full-time and push ahead with it, whilst simultaneously having time to start publishing in game studies in anticipation for jobs further down the road. With a full year I know I can easily finish the entire worldbuilding segment within a year’s full-time, and that’s hugely exciting to me, and I really want to finish this block off. This means adding currencies, ships, ocean travel, mountain passes and caravans, and not to mention building interiors, NPCs, and weapons, armour, and combat mechanics!

However, even if I was fixed on the idea, there were still questions of where I was going to live, how I’d get by financially, and so forth. At first I considered doing a Kickstarter or similar – I’ve been critical of many KS campaigns in the past, and I continue to feel it can turn into a very problematic situation, but that was what I first considered. However, through a combination of trying to live frugally and the kindness of a family member, I’ll be able to survive this year. I recognized I could still have tried a Kickstarter instead, and I feel I would have had a high chance of success, but now I’d been given this option I specifically decided not to go the KS route. Sure, it would boost the publicity of the game somewhat, but it would also take several months to start the campaign, run the campaign and do the rewards (even  if they were all virtual/game ones). Having been given the option not to, I don’t want to “waste” months of my URR year not actually working on URR! I also didn’t want to blur the line somewhat with URR and the involvement of money – right now it’s free, will always remain free, and I didn’t want to introduce money to the equation if I didn’t have to.

Another reason to not do KS, alas, is that in the next few months I’m not going to be able to do much URR work. Through no fault of my own the completion of my doctorate has been dragged out beyond what it should have been, and the next few months (July/August and probably September) are going to have to be very thesis-heavy. It’s annoying that this might eat slightly into my URR year (as I’ll be moving house in early September), but there’s nothing to be done, and focusing on my academic work now means that as much of next year as possible will be free. Doing a KS would just further eat into the year, and as above – now I’m lucky enough to have the option to not KS, I think the arguments for KS falter against the arguments for not doing one and starting URR coding the moment my thesis is submitted.

I’m… more excited than I can say about a year of full-time URR coding with some game studies on the side. I’m amazed things have come together after what was probably the hardest year of my life (for reasons I may post in a later blog entry and that had nothing to do with my PhD) and I’m already now figuring out the right order to go about the coding in this next year in order to achieve the worldbuilding-completion goal. There’s also a second half of the announcement I can’t say until next week, which – whilst very significant from my perspective – is secondary from the perspective of you fine blog-readers, but is just to do with my living arrangements for the next year and my continuing academic shift into game studies.

There you have it. The next two or three months will have unfortunately have little URRing due to a very unfortunate position I find myself in academically, so 0.6 will be pushed back a few months, but from the screenshots I’ve been posting in the last few entries, I hope you’ll all agree it’s looking like it’ll be worth the wait. The next few months will therefore have some URR updates when there is stuff to update you on, but also probably a greater number of general games criticism pieces than usual. After that, hopefully starting at some point in September, I’ll be working on URR full-time for a year! I cannot wait. Thanks to everyone for your support thus far, and I hope you’ll join me in the UNCONTROLLABLE HYPE for next year.

[Retropunch]

Well I remember you telling me about the first time you completed Nethack and discussing the pros and cons of different RLs as I was firmly in the DCSS camp - I'll leave you to ponder who I am and where you know me from - it gave me quite a surprise!!

[Dutchling]

That's awesome! And definitely better than kickstarter. Those always seem to have more cons than pros.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Well I remember you telling me about the first time you completed Nethack and discussing the pros and cons of different RLs as I was firmly in the DCSS camp - I'll leave you to ponder who I am and where you know me from - it gave me quite a surprise!!

Well now I am puzzled & intrigued . How long ago, roughly?

That's awesome! And definitely better than kickstarter. Those always seem to have more cons than pros.

Agreed! Very happy with how things have worked out for it.

[Retropunch]

Roughly 4 or 5 years ago, before I went off to Finland.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Roughly 4 or 5 years ago, before I went off to Finland.

I have figured it out...

[aristabulus]

... Sure, it would boost the publicity of the game somewhat, ...

I think the guys over @ RPS have your back on that note. 

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

... Sure, it would boost the publicity of the game somewhat, ...

I think the guys over @ RPS have your back on that note. 

RPS are the greatest.