• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


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What do you wanna see?

B

BlackFootRoberts

HoO Team Member
3D Artist
Provisional
What do you wanna see when you first play a pirate game? Do you want it multiplayer? Or single player?

Difficult melee?
First person or third? Or even isometric.
Quest with ease or speaking to ai to find without markers saying they have a quest?

What makes it interesting for you to play a pirate game?
 
Single player, enjoyable melee (think Star Wars Jedi Knight), third(!) person.
No silly markers floating above NPCs' heads please.
 
Single player is essential for me; multi-player is optional.

I'm no use at quick reaction games - even the slightly more advanced melee system in "Age of Pirates - Caribbean Tales" caused me problems. The system in PoTC suits me perfectly.

Generally I prefer third person because it's easier to see around you, so you can see things which in reality you'd know about by a quick turn of the head but which in first person you need to swing around to see. But the ability to switch at leisure between first and third person is nice, then I get the immersion value of first person plus the overview value of third person when needed.

For me, isometric is really only for pure strategy games.

Quests should not be blatantly signposted. The punctuation marks floating over NPC heads in AoP were just silly.

All of which are contributing factors to the conclusion that what I want to see when playing a pirate game is the PoTC New Horizons loading screen. :D

Back to quests, though - does anyone else remember the old game "Mercenary" on the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST? Nothing to do with pirates - this was a sort of science-fiction adventure game with first person wire-frame graphics. Then there was the sequel, "Damocles", with fully shaded graphics. The plot in "Damocles" was that a comet was going to smash into a planet and you had to stop it. The way to do so was very clearly signposted. Except that if you dug a bit deeper, you could find several completely different ways to achieve the final objective which weren't signposted so well, or even at all. Writing a quest in a similar way, with one blatant way to do the job and four or five other ways to do it that aren't so obvious, would be a pretty good trick, but would make the story much more interesting, especially if you've played it through once and are wondering what to do next time you play the game.
 
In regards to quest markers, I don't really see why so many folks pretend to like the old style. A big deal was made out of the Elder Scrolls. Morrowind did not have quest markers, and it had a huge world, forcing you to wander for hours from cave to cave until you found the right one. Skyrim gave you an exact location with a quest marker. Guess which one sold better? Games are getting more casual for a reason.

Frankly, I see a game without quest markers and I think 'child' or 'basement dweller'. Your average adult has roughly 4 to 6 hours of gameplay a day. I myself have around 3 and I have no kids and no wife. Jobs make the old school games not overly practical unless you have REALLY good directions. The simple fact is we hold on to nostalgia because as a child we could wander around for 2 whole hours and feel good about it. Nowadays I'd rather get to the good stuff. I play video games to escape, NOT to question 30 people in a crowd until I find the right one. A mistake Sea Dogs To Each his Own made.

What do I like to see?

Adventure. A small ship. Opportunities for a captain. The ability to make choices, to do what I want to do within a vibrant living world. Pirate games let me be a merchant, naval officer, pirate, courier, explorer, etc. A variety of ways to make money and really be the captain of a ship.

So... basically Sid Meier's Pirates with a little more depth.

The flip side of that coin, is specifically piracy in and of itself. I love reading about those pirates who declared war on the world, and tried to live in a sort of anarchist republic. A place free of government where men take what they want. Men who defied all laws for several years before being killed by the law itself. That appeal of doing whatever the hell you want consequences be damned. It also helps that I've played alot of open ended space sims. It was during a trade run in a space sim where I lost money because I wasn't fast enough and didn't account for the docking fees that I threw a little fit and turned to piracy to survive. Much more exciting than trading. I've always preferred combat and taking risks to the monotony of trading.
 
I think quest markers are very "Arcade". That can be a good or a bad thing based on personal preference.
If they're there, I reckon it is good for there to be a toggle.
 
I suppose a toggle works. I still have PTSD from Morrowind's lack of quest markers and godawful directions.
 
I think quest markers do break immersion if they are floating above characters with whom you should talk for a quest. However a marker to indicate a vicinity where you should go for a quest on a map would have my preference. Or at least someway to indicate where I should be going, either through verbal clues of people talking in the streets or written notes/books which could indicate points of interest.
 
If you want quests where things are mostly signposted and you're told where you need to go and what to do there, then storylines are probably for you. There are several to choose from, so you should find one to suit your play style. I always regarded the sidequests as something extra which you can find if you go looking for them.

Watch for people who don't behave quite the same as everyone else. For example, normal citizens wander around, so if you find one who stays still all the time, that may be someone involved in a side quest. (Especially if you're in St. Pierre port area...) Or a soldier who does wander around when all normal soldiers stand still at their posts may also be someone of interest. Basically, there are ways to indicate that someone is significant to a quest without having a flag over his head saying "I'm special".

As for written books and notes - check your questbook. ;) Once a quest is in progress, that may tell you where you need to go next, or at least give a clue.
 
Well it's not as much signposted as just having a general sense of direction. Searching for sidequests is fun, I actually like the way DA:I did it. If you go past it in relative close proximity you get a marker on your map, if you don't come close that marker will not be there so you have to explore the world a bit. To my taste however you could stay too far away from the quest to show up on the map.

And with books and notes I mostly meant just collectibles that could tell you for example a point of interest, if you read carefully.
 
I like the idea of "hidden content" that rewards players who go and explore or investigate things more than might normally be the case.
So simple players could enjoy the basics of the game and be guided through the main elements without needing to do much figuring out on their own.
But if they DO decide to figure out stuff on their own, they can find secrets, new quests or alternate paths.
 
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