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Originally posted by Lorenoth:
**Let this post die... they're not gonna give us an answer. Just wait until the engine comes out, check the site, and it will say yes or no. As for faking a party.. I think that it is more realistic if u cannot control your party members fully, although many will disagree with me.. I mean giving your party members a suggestion is one thing.. but controlling every little bit of their movements, attacks, when they retreat, etc... is different. If you have a brave party member, they're not gonna run if they're wounded. If you have a haughty wizard, they will not take your suggestions for spells. This adds a bit of realism, in that you stay as your character, and the other people are not you.. unless you're making a game that requires that. Programming the AI for each NPC in your party would be difficult of course. ... . but what can ya do?

**

Although I respect your views and your decisions, and agree that neither Beenox nor Ambrosia will likely give us an answer to this question soon, how many times has it been iterated that the purpose of gaming is "fun", not "realism". Frankly, it's just funner to tell your party what to do, I hated the AI in Baldur's Gate, however neccessary it was for the game's battles.

Saphfire

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I would've liked BG a lot more if Minsc had targeted the spell caster about to wipe my party off of the sword coast with his bow instead of the damn kobolds! I was too busy handwalking Dynaheir through her poison removal skill on Branwen that was busy trying to heal herself and dodge a wyvern's poisonous tail to talk Minsc into interrupting the caster. Frankly, with a party of around 6 you almost need to have your party members be intelligent, unless you don't have the handy pause feature, that is.
We should use previous games as lessons, what worked, and what didn't.
Since this game is real-time, there probably won't be a pause-and-assign feature, I kinda doubt there will be party members. It would be too hard to assign targets etc and still win a battle. But... can anyone tell me if a cursor is in anyway involved in Coldstone when playing a game? The existinence of pointless speculation hinges on it!

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"Time is unimportant.. to one such as I.."

It's not impossible to manage an entire group, especially if you keep the size down (I want to have 12 total characters, assigned to groups of 3). You can create fast paced action and clever strategy with the use of special hotkeys and clever targeting AI. My game will be vaguely reminiscent of the turn-based console RPGs, with very little quirks that may complicate things, such as effects. It will be mainly magic-based, so I really see no problem in controlling the full party. Besides, computer gamers have an arsenal of keys at their fingertips, it's not too hard to multi-task. One of the lackluster features of Baldur's Gate's battle engine was reliance on the mouse, although that relationship did help with movement.

Saphfire

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Quote

Originally posted by Lorenoth:
**Let this post die... they're not gonna give us an answer. Just wait until the engine comes out, check the site, and it will say yes or no. As for faking a party.. I think that it is more realistic if u cannot control your party members fully, although many will disagree with me.. I mean giving your party members a suggestion is one thing.. but controlling every little bit of their movements, attacks, when they retreat, etc... is different. If you have a brave party member, they're not gonna run if they're wounded. If you have a haughty wizard, they will not take your suggestions for spells. This adds a bit of realism, in that you stay as your character, and the other people are not you.. unless you're making a game that requires that. Programming the AI for each NPC in your party would be difficult of course. ... . but what can ya do?
**

-29 °

exactly my point, It makes no sense to control their every move, beacause if it it's like that you might as well just have three "turns/moves" in battle and that's just fine if you can't whupp someone up with one...but having you're companions/party members fight independently is a lot more fun, example:

who remembers in FF7 when you fought along side Sehiroth, that was fun admit it!...

... S o S ays T he C hill !

+29 °

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-4,-3,-2,
am I becoming a good guy???

Whoa Whoa Whoa! Wait a minute, a party member you can't fight as is almost as bad as only NPCs! I won't have any of it! Sure, it was fun playing as Sephiroth, but that was because I liked his big sword! C'mon! I know this is a PC editor, with people who play PC games, and the ability to make PC games, but at least give me a chance to bring the wonderful world of good console RPGs to the masses.

Saphfire

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What would be really nice is a choice to whether or not you want to control your character. Flexibiliity is never a bad thing.

An interesting twist would be personalities instead of AI, so that you could instruct your character, but they could ignore you depending on their tastes and their relationship with the leader. This could make things very tasty.

Saphfire

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well I still doubt that party members will be included, and even if they are, I'm betting not in the original release. Expansion set? who knows..?
And fighting alongside Sephiroth was indeed fun! It's a shame at the end of the game those dragons are so weak. :frown:
Ah well...

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"Silence, Dog! Your only purpose is to die by my hand."

Quote

Originally posted by Lorenoth:
**well I still doubt that party members will be included, and even if they are, I'm betting not in the original release. Expansion set? who knows..?
And fighting alongside Sephiroth was indeed fun! It's a shame at the end of the game those dragons are so weak. :frown:
Ah well...

**

Don't tell me you're losing hope! You were, and to my knowledge still are, a firm supporter of party support. Oh well, I hope parties are supported in one shape, form, fashion, or another, as they are pinnacle to my blockbuster hit.

Saphfire

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It seems to me that a lot of this debate has focused on whether one can maintain a decent plot with only a single controllable character. Why not? one could easily bring out scripted npc's whenever the plot needed it (like in FF1-7 where you walk around as one person, but when you need to have a conversation with someone in your party, they just kinda materialize out of you). So that the only time your alone is when your navigating a dungeon.
Granted it is fun to develop different characters with different classes and have them all fight next to each other, but really, this is just a game play issue (and one that I think won't really effect the development of games).
Also, someone said that it's hard to tell a story if you only use one players perspective. To this I say that I'm pretty sure that you can change the graphics of your PC so that it looks like another character. At that point it's up to the script writer to convey that the character is really someone else. Since I don't have any experience with coldstone itself, I can't say for sure if this will work, but if coldstone is worth anything, it should let you change the graphics of characters during the game. Even RPGmaker 2000 can do that!

Quote

Originally posted by atsumori666:
It seems to me that a lot of this debate has focused on whether one can maintain a decent plot with only a single controllable character. Why not? one could easily bring out scripted npc's whenever the plot needed it (like in FF1-7 where you walk around as one person, but when you need to have a conversation with someone in your party, they just kinda materialize out of you). So that the only time your alone is when your navigating a dungeon.
Granted it is fun to develop different characters with different classes and have them all fight next to each other, but really, this is just a game play issue (and one that I think won't really effect the development of games).
Also, someone said that it's hard to tell a story if you only use one players perspective. To this I say that I'm pretty sure that you can change the graphics of your PC so that it looks like another character. At that point it's up to the script writer to convey that the character is really someone else. Since I don't have any experience with coldstone itself, I can't say for sure if this will work, but if coldstone is worth anything, it should let you change the graphics of characters during the game. Even RPGmaker 2000 can do that!

Really, plot and story are vital, but what's the single most important aspect of a game? Gameplay of course. I can see no reason why multiple characters fighting side-by-side should not be supported. Even RPGMaker2000 can do that. Name one recent or legendary tried and true blue blooded RPG without party support. Note that this does not include hack and slash (Diablo) or Adventure (Zelda Series) games.

Saphfire

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Quote

Originally posted by saphfire:
**Don't tell me you're losing hope! You were, and to my knowledge still are, a firm supporter of party support. Oh well, I hope parties are supported in one shape, form, fashion, or another, as they are pinnacle to my blockbuster hit.

Saphfire

**

Someone notices me!!!! Well I'm not losing hope, it's just that I'm broadening my game plans to include the inability to work have party members.
I'm afraid I have to cut some of my newer party members, they just had no purpose. So long Larthen(what a terrible name.. I will never forgive myself for coming up with that god-awful name)!!!!

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"Silence, Dog! Your only purpose is to die by my hand."