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Each citizen belongs to a faction, and has a reputation. When that citizen dies, the corresponding faction blames your presence, and your reputation with that faction suffers by the reputation of the deceased.
For example:
The faction of Uriel is Haafinheim Partisan. The reputation of Uriel is 1. [These two sentences are actually code for the game. I love Inform 7.]
9:18 am >help rep
unemployed 0, mage 0, fighter 0, rogue 0, merchant 0, craftsman 0, undead 0, ruler 0, army guard 0, farmer 0.unaligned 0, Eastmarch 0, Falkreath 0, Haafinheim 0, High Rock 0, Imperial 0, Northshore 0, Pale 0, Reach 0, Redoran 0, Rift 0, White Hold 0, Winter Hold 0.
Uriel just bleeds.
…
9:23 am >z
Time passes.Uriel just bleeds.
Uriel dies.
9:24 am >help rep
unemployed 0, mage 0, fighter 0, rogue 0, merchant 0, craftsman 0, undead 0, ruler 0, army guard 0, farmer 0.unaligned 0, Eastmarch 0, Falkreath 0, Haafinheim -1, High Rock 0, Imperial 0, Northshore 0, Pale 0, Reach 0, Redoran 0, Rift 0, White Hold 0, Winter Hold 0.
Added a repute command to report your reputation. In this example, I backstabbed, looted, bound, and killed someone in a faction, and shouted myself from a city to a village.
9:22 am >repute
Army guard.
Assassin.
Rogue.
Tongue.Disliked in Haafinheim.
You have a reputation with each skill, group, or faction.
The 14 skills are unemployed [beggars], alchemist, army guard, assassin, craftsman, fighter, healer, mage, merchant, reader, rogue, ruler, tongue, and undead.
The 13 factions are unaligned [mediators], Eastmarch Partisan, Falkreath Partisan, Haafinheim Partisan, High Rock Partisan, Imperial Partisan, Northshore Partisan, Pale Partisan, Reach Partisan, Redoran Partisan, Rift Partisan, White Hold Partisan, and Winter Hold Partisan.
The 13 groups are ungrouped [negotiators], Mage’s Guild, Necromancers, Imperial Legion, Bandits, Dark Brotherhood, Morag Tong, Fighter’s Guild, Divine Clerics, Elder Council, College Faculty, Thieves’ Guild, and Greybeards.
A definite step towards roleplaying.
9:17 am >help me
You can seek help about status, fame and infamy, chaos and order, good and evil, which directions to go, combat, commands, and tone in conversation.For more information about the game, see http://spearthane.wordpress.com/
9:18 am >help tone
act … sets a tone to your part of conversations. The tones are dominant, actively submissive, passively submissive, angry, fearful, defensive, aggressive, suspicious, relaxed, tense, happy, hunting, and playful. Some people respond differently to certain tones, or only respond to a specific tone.9:19 am >help act
act … sets a tone to your part of conversations. The tones are dominant, actively submissive, passively submissive, angry, fearful, defensive, aggressive, suspicious, relaxed, tense, happy, hunting, and playful. Some people respond differently to certain tones, or only respond to a specific tone.9:20 am >act stupid
That’s not a tone you can put across to an animal. You’re currently relaxed.9:21 am >ask jocien about me
The census-taker requests, “Please tell me your name, usual whereabouts, age, race, and trade.”9:22 am >act fearful
Your tone is now fearful.9:23 am >ask jocien about me
The census-taker explains, “Look, I’m not trying to draft you. I just need your name, usual whereabouts, age, race, and trade for the tally.”
I’m pretty proud of this: I feel it’s a definite step towards roleplaying, since you can set a general mood for your character, and people (that are coded to) will respond differently.
This is one of those features that takes a lot of work (to write out different responses to the same topics), but adds a lot of depth and replayability to the game. For example, if you ask someone about the same thing in a different ways they might offer to help you, kill you, send you on a quest, offer you membership in their faction, or ignore you completely.
Each of these options may preclude the others, so this is another mechanism for branching storylines and (ir)revocable acts that help change how people perceive you, along with faction rep, alignment, and general fame and infamy.
From a thread on the Bethesda boards.
Crni Vuk: No fighting Zombies anymore PLEASE! We got enough of them … seriously. If they are just with you to give fire support I will not care about them. Give Characters – Voice *Dont let them sound all the same. Boring – Comments *They should have opinions about your actions and express them! – Personality *Good characters might not like and follow you if youre doing bad things. – Realistic movement *Why should females walk/act like males … – Optic *If it is possible to give them weapons and armor they should use it and it should be possible to see that as player. (- Maybe own quests you can do with them)More inteligent, more comments, own oppinions, own unique apearance and personalities. People should remember them. No one says that you (the player) has to fall in love to them even when I would think it is a nice adition but at least they should start conversations with you when something happens they either really like or disslike. Maybe a comment from time to time like the first time you use a Power Armor or when they blow up some head from hard enemies.)
bronzepoem: I won’t hear the funny argument between teammates… Most importment, they should be interactive with whale the environment. Talking with other teammates,with NPCs, have their opinion on a quest or a affair. A benemoth may be discriminated by some unfair NPC, of course he have his approach to deal with such things. A native teammate will be surpirised on high-tech item. Also a hooligans teammate must like some corruption citys, and he won’t like protagonists behave too honourous. That is fallout style, which ten year old game could give us.
Vainglorious: I agree. The vast majority of characters in Morrowind and Oblivion simply regurgitated the same generic topics, although quest-givers usually had interesting stuff to say. The number of truly unique and memorable characters was fairly small, though, compared to the original Fallout games… or at least, that’s the way it seemed from my point of view. Sure, in F1 and F2, there were generic townspeople. But of those NPCs you could talk to, almost all of them had memorable, distinct, and unique personalities, and they didn’t share any generic dialog with each other. Even bartenders and mechanics had interesting personalities. Also significantly, the companions had personalities and back stories. Sulik was my favorite… he had a funky accent, a gnarly ‘tude, a cool back story, and a unique way of phrasing sentences. That is for me one of the biggest indicators that Fallout had more memorable characters than Morrowind/Oblivion: I can easily remember Sulik, the village Elder, Tandy, Myron, Marcus, Cassidy, First Citizen Lynette… but I can barely remember any NPCs from Oblivion, or even Morrowind, which I am playing as we speak. I really hope they give a lot of the NPCs in F3 unique and memorable dialog and personalities. No more foot-long dialog menus with the same thirty topics, to which fifty other NPCs will give you the exact same response.
Daigoro: Not only is this the loss of multiple, intruiging party members, and the depth that their interection added, but it also nerfs Charisma in a major way. Eliminating the limitation for NPCs based on CH is reducing the potence of CH. That’s neutering it.
Since I’m not doing stats yet, number of teammates depends on whether you’ve earned them, whether they’ll work together (a new unpopular one could make all the old ones leave, eg Adoring Fan), whether you keep them happy (eg, some might have care or feeding requirements), whether you avoid attacking them or getting into situations where they become (or are forced to become) aggressive to you, whether they stay alive against the enemies you fight (need to make enemies with multiple attacks target friends too, and all enemies target you if you attack in around, otherwise your buddies), and whether they accept your alignment (this will do the most to limit powerful sentient friends). With all these limitations, why use a stat roll against a number that only reflects min-maxing at the start of the game, or grinding up skill levels with boring repetition of non-plot-advancing actions? Anything that changes the game from role-playing to stat management should be avoided. I’ve been able to do a lot by linking health to stealth, that avoids having to program in levels, dexterity, and thief-skill percentage tables.
Maia: I really hope that there is on-the-fly Hold/follow me command for the NPCs. Every game that lacked it just drove me up the wall. I still have nightmares
about (temporary) followers in MW, the Gothics and even Fallouts that would attack something totally out of our league or annihilate my PC with area spells/weapons.
Done.
dagoth jeff: There should be no limit to companions. In such a trashed world, we’ll need something to make us feel less alone. Of course, having such an option early on would ruin the overall gaming experience, and mood settings.
The hunting buddy is in there early now just for testing. Once I write his intro, he’ll move somewhere else.
But money talks LOUDLY. Anyone physically able, and fit for the position would surely offer themselves up for hire (if asked.) Perhaps you saved someone’s life, and he feels the need to offer himself up as your bodyguard in return.
You initially won’t have any money, and tagalongs will either require: (1) coins for food, gear maintenance, and hazard pay; or vice versa, for the player to get coins as a mercenary, and handle it when he gets stiffed because of payer death or hate or dishonesty; (2) interest in where you’re going or a sense of duty or obligation, or (3) happens to be going there too, met either by coincidence or from talking to other NPCs. There should be a big pilgrimage to Windhelm for the Feast of the Dead for weeks before the appropriate day, and then a return back, both of which flood the roads with travelers. (A person can be a pilgrim to the Feast of the Dead.)
My point is, ONE isn’t very satisfactory. Two or three wouldn’t be. Why not cook up randomly generated no-name mercs-for-hire in infinite supply? We all know that when someone is rich, they’re powerful. If you got the cash, you should be able to surround yourself with hired guns. If you’re saving the world, that should make you “important.”
To preserve any sense of game balance (leads to challenge leads to accomplishment leads to fun), quantity of follower must be inverse to quality (eg, conscripts have few HP, and no silver or magical weapons to hit undead or magical creatures).
At least in Morrowind (and I fear I’d use that phrase often) you can Command any NPC into following you. If you’re powerful enough, you could have many NPC’s under your spell. As far as hiring goes, there’s only one merc. And you can find a little tagalong help here and there on quests. As far as pets go, it’s useless in vanilla Morrowind. Little critters.
Dungeons & Dragons based your maximum number of henchmen on your Charisma. This was always acceptable to me. And their henchmen didn’t stop at just ONE. I think at 25 (god-like) you could have up to 50. Sure, 50’s a lot – but let’s put it in terms of average mortal man – ten to twenty. Isn’t that better than one? And pets in D&D were a dime a dozen. If you had the cash, you could buy guard dogs, war horses, anything. Buy a dozen chickens if you want to. (But ask your DM first if he’ll give you XP for killing those.)
No XP, no leveling. With appropriate buffs, not sure its needed. We’ll see how long this lasts.
Pets in Fallout would CERTAINLY add to the atmosphere. You’re creeping up a dark alley with your faithful dog, and suddenly he growls at something. You don’t know what’s up ahead, but now you’re ready for anything. He charges up ahead for the attack, and surprise! You’re attacked from behind, by another creepy something. Pets would mean a lot in a world like this. Without pets, there really is no one else you can really trust.
I like this. 
princess_stomper: Each has to have a script on them to give specific instructions – first of all to stop them getting stuck behind the furniture (Grumpy’s “warping”), then to tell them to copy the player in any of their actions (e.g. levitating, water breathing), or whether to move aside if they’re in the way, and then to give options on combat style.
Most of this is abstracted away by text, which only occasionally reports what companions are doing.
Then you get to what you really need from a companion. To really make it worthwhile, you need personality as well as functionality. Oblivion touched on this with Mazoga the Orc but that was quite a brief if memorable encounter. The really good companions – of the likes of the aforementioned Emma ‘n’ Grumpy/Qarl/Kateri mods – have a simply staggering amount of work behind them, requiring far more resources than Bethesda are likely to allocate to something like this. Example: Kateri’s Julan companion mod for Morrowind had two thousand lines of dialogue. That’s just one companion. Now start talking about six, and you see why they might not be so willing to incorporate such a feature.
dagoth jeff: You don’t need thousands of lines to present a player with a viable party member. Who cares that he/she doesn’t comment on the weather? If you can give out a few commands (stay/follow/fight with melee/fight with missiles) and access their inventory, isn’t that enough?
princess_stomper: The more scripts that you throw in, the more processing power is required, which restricts the number of people who can enjoy the game. In order to please you, they’d have to pee off everyone else, effectively speaking. Plus, even though you might want to have half a dozen meat shields in tow, in practice they get in the way, get stuck behind the furniture, get lost, and all sorts … really and honestly you’re better off with just one detailed companion who is actually any use.
The trouble is that we’re not agreeing here on what good companions are. Let’s think about two mods here that I’ve played: (1) One had dozens of companions, each of which had various point-and-click options in which to increase that companion’s disposition towards you and move the relationship up to the next level. It was all fiddling with menus, with just information about classes and types – there was no reaction, no individualisation and no personality. This mod was one person’s idea of a role-playing style that left me absolutely cold. I had zero interest in playing anything like this, because all I was doing was pushing buttons. There was no sense of engaging properly in a conversation. This is exactly what a lot of people are looking for. (2) Then there is another mod, in which there is one companion for your character to build a relationship with. It took one person one full year to write. The mods with companions of that type are mods where the companion is the centre and focus of that mod – not just casual strangers with whom the player may or may not approach to join their party. As far as I know, most games only have one companion of this type. I know my friend goes on about KOTOR, but she only ever mentions one character. I don’t know of any adventure RPGs that have multitudes of fully fledged companions – only of the depth-free variety that left me cold with the other mod.
You dont neccessarily need to have a different MQ for each race, but different stroy routes would be great. If an item is in a “Dunmer Only” Night club and you’re an orc, you might have to go in swinging an axe or sneak in.Not being allowed to stay the night in an Inn owned by an Anti-Argonian person might force you to ask for room and board at someone’s house, and they might require a favor like vandalizing a neighbor’s property which forces you down yet another path. Or you might opt to camp in the surrounding woods, at which point you meet a small band of fellow outcast beastfolk who want you to help them terrorize the town.
Being whisked away to start the game in a slave camp isnt a terrible idea, infact all the above ar ok ideas, as long as eventually you end up on the same MQ, in the same yet unique story line.
The whole point of this type of “dynamic plot” is REPLAYABILITY. If you ever play Arcanum (an awesome RPG) you will understand the value of REPLAYABILITY. Going through a game and having the anticipation of different experiences depending on who you are and the choices you make each time is a huge advantage.
I understand that a lot of people like to RP and so, playing through the same Oblivion over and over is ok with them, but not everyone loves RPing. AND even for RPers, the garuntee of different experiences should be something to look forward to.
Every time I play through the game, I would love the experience to be unique. Objectively unique.
I can remember when I played arcanum the 3rd time, as soon as I got to Tarant I went straight to my favorite pub, and I was screamed at and told to get the [censored] out. you know what was different? that 3rd time I decided to be a half-orc. I thought that was the coolest thing I had ever experienced in a video game. (although this could (and should) be avoidable/negotialbe by simply working hard to have high charisma and personality traits.
Also, dragon, the Oblivion construction set and the “plugin” concept proved that differing plot lines doesnt take up lots of space on a CD. You’re not really creating NEW material. just different story lnes, different dialogue, etc.
For there to be different tracks, each track must in some way advance the main plot, close the scene in one of several different ways. Scene ends when thing restored or thing destroyed or thing given or thing tossed in the sea or thing kept; however it got there, stolen from living person, looted from corpse, stolen from nightstand, bought, bartered, given as reward for favor; but how it was retrieved and how it was disposed of determines some thing about the environment, politics, factions rep, quests available. Similar considerations for non-fetch quests.
Some things you do should be relatively fatal to the main or many side quests: for example, if you kill a child of a certain race, no-one of that race will talk with you to give you a quest, instead they’ll actively hunt you down you until you’re dead. Even attacking a child of a certain race should make everyone in that race aggressive towards you.
I sure hope there will be many easter eggs to seek out in the wilderness. I enjoy exploring the wilderness also. It’s one of the things I love about non-linear video games. I see that mountain off in the distance, and I can go climb it. Leviticus
Include the example code that lets you see other rooms, esp. while in the overland.
The names of the Five Hundred Companions are still recited, every Thirteenth of Sun’s Dawn at the Feast of the Dead in Windhelm, as the Nords link their current people to their ancestors.
This rite is a pale shadow of the Falmer “Naming the Passed”, which channels their ancestor’s wight-magic (no soul-gems) into objects of their finest craftsmanship: you have to know the name of the dead, what magicka imbued the body of the dead, and match the magic to an appropriate item. Falmer started regularly recycling their spirits for the Night of Tears, when they needed strength to commit genocide. The Falmer fell because these ancestor spirits were no longer available to guide them as a race. The Falmer queen who made this decision became a banshee, who protects the secrets and story.
Each room has a coldness. Each piece of clothing and armor has a warmth. If the total warmth of your clothing is less than the coldness of the room, every three turns (D&D WSG) you take as many points of damage as the lessor of (1) the difference and (2) one-tenth your current hit points, but at least 1 in any event. You can layer clothing and armor, but only one piece of armor in each area.
Read the “magic posts” in the TES V suggestion thread.
Still haven’t (needed to) put any magic in game, in the form of spells. Can probably shout health. Probably need to put a hoarseness factor in, which regenerates like HP, and different types of shouts wear your throat at different rates. Or, have a cooldown period after any shout (n number of turns), where if you shout again, n increases. Since most shouts are (so far) binary effects, the shout would have to fail in addition to increasing the cooldown period. Either way, need some feedback to user when it’s okay to shout again.
Competitors for Quests need to brought in TES V. Since Skyrim is in Turmoil, there could be a bounty hunter type system asking you to track down – for example- a Necromancer terrorizing local inhabitants. But if you don’t get the bounty quick, another Bounty Hunter may take the kill and you fail the quest. If you wanted to bring Choices and Consequences into this, a bounty might revolve around a political target, but when you arrive, it seems like he is the victim of a political purge and you may get several options with what to do with him.A. Sorry, But I need the money *NPC’s name*. I’ll have to kill you.
B. Come on, hand yourself in to the authorities, they will find you anyway. -Requires Speechcraft Check.
C. Hmm, you seem to be the victim of a purge and a decent guy. My principles won’t allow me to kill you. I will take my leave.
D. This is wrong. Come on I’ll help you escape. (Truth) – Requires Speechcraft Check
E. This is wrong. Come on I’ll help you escape. (Lie)- Requires Speechcraft Check
F. I just like the killing part hahaha. – For the Psychos amongst us.Its badly written but you get the idea. The “good” options will probably disgrace you as a Bounty Hunter but you may gain reputation with certain groups for your actions. Whereas the more selfish options will increase your Bounty Hunter Rep but make certain groups despise you and even try to kill you. This could make for a fluid political setting. Tyrion1
“The player has a number called faction reputation.” Increase for quests succeeded, enemies attacked, enemies killed, enemies robbed (when donated to faction), people recruited to faction, property donated to faction. Decrease for faction members attacked, faction members killed, faction members robbed (when they catch you), quests failed, property stolen (as opposed to shared) from faction houses, property destroyed from faction houses.
