Meeting Minutes - 2007/02/09

Souvarine · Post by **Souvarine** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 5:21 pm

how about nothing at all instead of "a creature"

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 5:22 pm

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 5:24 pm

The debate started when considering what to do if we didn't have the ability to show DMs more information than Players; with either a DM GUI providing this, or the relevant engine fix it's not much of an issue at all. Without it - and this is the context of the discussion - then DMs need the information in the creature name. Nothing isn't really an option there.

ç i p h é r · Post by **ç i p h é r** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 5:45 pm

It might help everyone sort things out if I post screen shots of how things actually look. The goal is for players to not be given any creature names (except where models are not sufficiently unique to distinguish them) but for DMs to have all the creature info at their finger tips, from a one line description to a full blown character sheet with stats. This is achievable.

Audark · Post by **Audark** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:48 pm

I don't want anyone to misconstrue my words about emphasizing ease of use for DMs. Even though I'm building a server, I am not a DM and have never DMed. I'm not looking at things from the perspective that DMs are inherantly more important than players.

My main concern was this: DMs tell the story of the server

We need a system that gives the DMs all of the information they need to quickly and accurately spawn what they want. This GUI thing now gives us the option to give DMs lots of information they need, while giving players significantly less.

As for players, I personally don't care about meta information. If you decide to cut it all out and have no names that the groups decision but names in nwn1 were always misleading and I never felt safe attacking something just because of its title. Since in NWN2 you can't just 'tab' and see all the floaty names its even less of an issue. My priorities are DMs having the tools to tell their stories and players having a coherant and well thought out world. I'm not interested in a debate over what knowledge level 1 characters would have or not, it depends on their background, what about ranger racial enemies, what about starting regions, what about a million other considerations.

When it comes down to it I see no reason to go to any effort to hide meta that is so utterly insignificant. Saying somethings female may be redundant but it hurts no one. Saying somethings race can give players cues on how to RP things, but ultimately it is the players choice on what they know and what they don't. We'll never be able to police our players saying "hey you've never encountered an orc yet you aren't allowed to call it by name" nor should we. Give the DMs the tools they need, and leave the RP decisions to the players, we should all realize that none of us know best and simply give creatures simple but effective names. The players themselves can sort out the rest without us sticking our noses in.

ç i p h é r · Post by **ç i p h é r** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 6:14 am

Here's a basic example of how it all looks (please excuse the crudeness):

Right click on an unspawned creature in the DM creator and get the full character sheet for it.

Right click on a spawned creature and select Identify to learn more about them. This can be anything from the name of the creature to the race and even regional origins, if we apply these as feats. I don't quite care how far we take it. It's not a necessity - we can exclude this - but an in game use for knowledge skills can benefit certain classes, paticularly sages and scouts.

indio · Post by **indio** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 6:44 am

You make good toys cipher. That's awesome.

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 2:30 pm

Sweet.

ç i p h é r · Post by **ç i p h é r** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 5:34 pm

Rusty in another thread wrote:We're opting to {hide} generic spawn names, but do we want to do this for named NPCs?

My initial reaction has been to say {hide} generic NPCs and name unique NPCs, but this probably needs settling definitively, and soon.

Great question and your take is sensible, Rusty. Unique = famous = well known. But I could also see the argument we applied to general spawns being applied to uniques. The reputation comes with the name. Not everyone will know who an NPC is from appearances alone, though they may have a reasonably good idea. Obscurity could be something which plays into the hands of DMs.

What say the rest of ye?

fluffmonster · Post by **fluffmonster** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 7:17 pm

I have little hope of recognizing an NPC, whether my PC knows them or not, based soley on its appearance. I'd be totally depending on other cues to be able to recognize 'familiar' faces. Without those cues, its not certain I'd be able to correctly RP recognizing NPCs my PC should know.

Blackwill · Post by **Blackwill** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 8:21 pm

PCs aren't customizable enough to make them unique. So for the love of god, let us have the Unique NPCs with visible names.

HEEGZ · Post by **HEEGZ** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 9:29 pm

I would strongly prefer to have named NPCs show up with their actual name.

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:13 pm

I suppose if creators are careful enough with their descriptions and appearances, we could have {hidden} unique NPCs, but I think we're likely better off without, as much as I like the immersive potential.