Tutorial Red Mary

[Camel Pirate]

So this thread is about recruting red mary from the justice island (city of abandoned ships) . When you get teleported to the island insted of going out by the door go through the hole to the right then swim to the front of ceres smity or whatever its name is . If you did anything else you cant recruit her .

 

[omeskeren]

her specialty: she does not have any ship skill at first but boy does she's a fast learner

 

[JohnV]

Good you mention this. I just did the most obvious thing, that of entering San Augustine and get cought by Cad Chapper. Then I noticed in the walkthrough on the russian site, after translating it, that there was such option with Red Mary. I was surprised and reloaded my save before Justice island, to follow that path.

That made me think about HoO. How could we go with quests? Linear or not? If we go for no linear, like SDTEHO here, then everyone will be searching for the best possible way to follow... so non-linear becomes pointless somehow...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

That made me think about HoO. How could we go with quests? Linear or not? If we go for no linear, like SDTEHO here, then everyone will be searching for the best possible way to follow... so non-linear becomes pointless somehow...

Linear or non-linear should depend on the story. Everything linear is a bit boring, but everything non-linear would be a ridiculous amount of work.

We have had some hugely extensive brainstorming about quest writing for Hearts of Oak in the past.
That is still available on the forum, though it may only be accessible to members on the Quest Writing team.

And of course then there is the example of PotC: New Horizons, which has a very wide range between "extremely linear" stuff and the exact opposite.
Both approaches can be excellent in their own way.
And the best is that there isn't any real need to stick to just one of those two options for everything in the entire game.

 

[ad5ian]

Non linear is good if the rewards are comparable for every path you take. In the case of Mary, the other paths are just for those that don't read the dialogues or don't want to follow good advice. Just like in life.

The best example from SDTHEO of a quest with different paths possible is False Trace. Some chose to help the pirate's wife, because they "could not refuse a women that asked for their help", I liked to chose the lesser evil and that pirate was just like our character, a pirate, he didn't deserved to be punished for wanting his wife back, while his wife it was revealed in one of the paths to be a liar, treacherous, bloodthirsty and manipulative person. More dangerous than her husband. In fact, there were hints about her character from the moment she started talking.
So, everybody must have thaught they made the right decision, some for helping the woman, some for helping the pirate, some for punishing both.
That's amazing writting for such a small side quest with these subtle hints about what is wrong and what is right.
Dutch Gambit too, working for Lucas, we get the idea after a while that the guy is evil. The other two sides, the secret organization and the English privateer are most likely just other shades of gray.

 

[JohnV]

Non linear is good if the rewards are comparable for every path you take. In the case of Mary, the other paths are just for those that don't read the dialogues or don't want to follow good advice. Just like in life.

The best example from SDTHEO of a quest with different paths possible is False Trace. Some chose to help the pirate's wife, because they "could not refuse a women that asked for their help", I liked to chose the lesser evil and that pirate was just like our character, a pirate, he didn't deserved to be punished for wanting his wife back, while his wife it was revealed in one of the paths to be a liar, treacherous, bloodthirsty and manipulative person. More dangerous than her husband. In fact, there were hints about her character from the moment she started talking.
So, everybody must have thaught they made the right decision, some for helping the woman, some for helping the pirate, some for punishing both.
That's amazing writting for such a small side quest with these subtle hints about what is wrong and what is right.
Dutch Gambit too, working for Lucas, we get the idea after a while that the guy is evil. The other two sides, the secret organization and the English privateer are most likely just other shades of gray.

I see. You are right. The only thing that bothers me with non-linear is that I can't conclude easily on which way to follow. I always fear I didn't get everything the game could give me, lol. I think that probably depends on the player. some of you might not feel this way and non-linear is perfect for you.

Yes Lucas is evil, but like you said others could be evil too in another way. So, maybe the choices are indeed balanced.

@Pieter Boelen, I will hop in this conversation about quests, I think I might have some ideas and see what others think. I may not be a quest writer yet, but I am really eager to become one, after I finish with the most difficult part on terrain. However, terrain should still be my primary focus.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The only thing that bothers me with non-linear is that I can't conclude easily on which way to follow. I always fear I didn't get everything the game could give me, lol.

That's "replay value" for you! If something is linear, you'll get all content on one go.
That is certainly a valid approach to a game (or story), but does mean that once you've played through it once, you're finished with that game (or story).

Another approach is to put so much potential content in there that there will virtually always be something left to do differently another time.
It is this second approach that we've been aiming for with general play in PotC and I think should be the main approach for HoO as well.
Of course there can be strictly linear quests if the writers decide that is the way they want those, though.

@Pieter Boelen, I will hop in this conversation about quests, I think I might have some ideas and see what others think. I may not be a quest writer yet, but I am really eager to become one, after I finish with the most difficult part on terrain.

@Dario is in charge of the quest writing team, so if you're interested in being involved, he's the one to talk to.
I'd recommend copying in @Armada as well, just in case Dario isn't around to respond at the moment.

 

[ad5ian]

I always fear I didn't get everything the game could give me, lol.

Yeah, I kind of feel the same. That's because most of the games, if not all, that offers you several alternative paths, have only one of the path that is the right way, while the others are just poor choices. Other games offers choices between good and evil, and I think the vast majority of players never chose evil. So those games offer useless alternatives.
There really should be different paths that are all the "right" and "good" choice, depending on the player character and outlook. Like there is the case with several quests in SDTEHO

 

[Pieter Boelen]

PotC: New Horizons has got completely different branches for its "Hoist the Colours" storyline.
There is nothing bad or good about any of then; they're just alternates.
Some of the branches are based on the films and some are "what if" scenarios.
Pretty cool, if you ask me!

I do think having both "good" and "evil" as an option in the game is pretty cool too.
Most games that I know encourage "good" and penalize "evil", but games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic allow you to play as "evil" as much as "good".
Being able to do that is the very core of an RPG being a ROLE playing game. You are given the choice to play a completely different character than your real self.
Which is awesome!