the frailty of station NPC population(s) and smalltalk take-2

[RAVEN.myst]

Traditionally, throughout the history of the X-games (no, not THOSE "extreme sports" X-games - I mean the space sims that we here all know and love), over the course of a game there is generally a progression wherein a player does things oneself at first, then perhaps does it remotely but still more or less micromanaged, and then gradually phases over to automating that task while increasing the scale on which it is done. (Examples: Trade: Maybe do some "first-person" trading, then perhaps run a MORT for a while, then end up setting up trade networks of UTs and/or CAGs. Fight: start off in M5 or M4, upgrade to M3, then if not upgrading personal ship to M6, get a TM and a second M3 set as wingman, and eventually end up fielding M7C or M1 with wing of fighters while you fly your Hyperion or Griffon or whatever - either of which can carry fighters too; additionally, you set up autonomous ships on patrols at important locations.) This isn't merely a tradition, but it's a natural and necessary progression - as one's task grow in scope and scale, we mature into more of a management role - we are no longer cleaning the toilets or typing the memos or calling the clients or whatever - next we are telling people to do those thing, and then when there are too many of those we get other people whom we tell to take care of that stuff - we build and ascend a hierarchy.

Unfortunately, the use of the "smalltalk" "mini-game" breaks this tradition in that it is still done the same way regardless of how far along your game is, but the frequency of your need to use it keeps increasing (well, except for trade agents, but you keep getting new "waves" with each new system you enter and start exploring.) This means that this tedious, menial task which may have some small charm at the start of the game, quickly degenerates into the sort of thing that has you looking around for the razor blades...!

[eMYNOCK]

Why in the Hell aren't the Mods that will follow just Vanilla?

If you would ask me what kind of Mod for more immersion i would suggest.... well you know.. beside my own mods and my complete list of Mods i would ALWAYS suggest these:


- Copilot Convo
- Buy Trade Subscriptions

(or - Auto Trade Agents with the changes i made for my self ofc.. highly increased Reputation requirements)
- NPC Gain XP

And that is just an example of my personal Station / NPC related favourites... i bet there are some mods that will force the player to pay a hourly or daily fee or what ever for each NPC that works for him... i personally did not found one that fits my needs.

Regards

[pref]

Placeholder = substitute for real FP content.
It's 'overall' because there was no time to further expand the game in this direction, so smalltalk was used in many places.
Forced onto actions where its not appropriate, pretty incoherent and implemented in an annoying way, having to listen through the same few lines, then do the clcky (which is way too much dependent on fps/input lag).

Having real conversations, with characters that are interesting and have some personality would be much more entertaining. I could go without minigames entirely.
Having it voiced is secondary to good writing imo.

[RAVEN.myst]

(which is way too much dependent on fps/input lag).

Agreed - on my ageing but still oomphy system it's usually smooth as buttered silk - and yet, inexplicably, it can turn choppy without warning (sometimes while in progress, starting perfectly smooth but suddenly choking up just before the hotspot.) And perhaps further than that - surely if the "minigame" is supposed to test charisma (for conversations) or intelligence/tech-know-how (for hacking), then having it reflexes-based makes little to no sense?

Having real conversations, with characters that are interesting and have some personality would be much more entertaining. I could go without minigames entirely.
Having it voiced is secondary to good writing imo.

Yes, good writing is key. I don't mind if it's voiced poorly (hey, people have accents, and people across MULTIPLE STAR SYSTEMS? I'd think even more so!). In fact, I think I'd prefer it text-only, tbh - then it would be down to the player's reading speed (and familiarity with repeated text), allowing much faster progress through, instead of waiting for the NPC to finish saying what we already know he/she will be saying for the next 5-10secs. Of course, this "buzzword generator" (Google it, if you've never seen one ) way of linking together conversations is rather lame, but structuring believable dialogue that makes sense yet with a sufficient amount of diversity is no easy challenge, and will eventually become tiresome no matter how much is created - ie. perhaps it's a waste of time and resources to even try? Surely there are much better alternatives available both for resolving repetitive tasks (trade agents, hacking, etc), and for exposition of world lore.

EDIT: Also, I think the NPCs would gain much in the way of "personality" by the very simple and shallow expedient of them not all being clones... Just saying

[donzi]

I have no idea how much NPC interaction in XR was intended.

Although I do play some of the RPG/adevnture type games which have lots of story, NPC interaction, etc.; if 'rebirth' meant/was intended to head that way and to what extent, I have no idea.

An x + morrowind + witcher + sandbox mashup would be interesting. It's been ages, but the original wing commander game was kind of like that IIRC, without the sandbox though.

I do know that what really hooked me with X2/X3 was the flight sim and the ability to pretend being a pilot of so many craft.. plus the other stuff I liked, building and some story to follow for a while until ruling the sandbox.

That's not to say I'd object to ES being the group to provide more, but it's clear the expectations the previous X games created needs to be catered to satisfactorily when adding additional game play that extends audience appeal beyond and/or in other directions than the expectations they'd already created.

All in all, I'm just going to roll with it. Although it's not totally accurate, I have despite of everything, clocked over 1700 hours in XR according to the steam figure.

..and I'm not totally thrilled about it, but I'd guess a good chunk of that time represents running around stations for one reason or another, with a lot of that time being related to smalltalk.

I have to say, the (RPG/FPS/ETC) diversity in XR of what the player can do, while not without it's ups and downs, is probably what keeps my attention.

What the FPS needs now is a few hand held plasma guns so I can slaughter some of the NPC that annoy me every now and then.

OR (!) ..going on boarding ops in FPS. Would be kind of cool maybe.

[pref]

It would be fine for me without any FP at all. Actually the first thing i did was eliminating smalltalk, the most voiceovers in the game and automate all the todos related to smalltalk.
For me the game opened up a bit because of that, i could play much more smoothly, and could do the sim part without forced interruptions.
Made the game much better for my tastes, without any feeling of loss.

What i mean is that FP makes little sense without NPCs having personality, or anything interesting about them. If its in the game, and players have to use it repeatedly, then it should add something to the experience.
Or the FPS route could be another way to make some use of it, but i think a more detailed background and lore would help the game more then FPS minigames.

Or if they left this part as it is, just to keep the experience of arriving somewhere after a lengthy space travel, perhaps enhance the bridge experience a bit - and focus more on the sim part instead thats also good.
Perhaps the best option.
Just not force an action a couple hundred times per playthrough that isn't much fun only to provide a reason for going FP.

[RAVEN.myst]

If its in the game, and players have to use it repeatedly, then it should add something to the experience.

+1! Instead of sucking away many hours, lol. I'm very into my vanilla (in all games) - I'm a purist of sorts in that regard. And yet, I HAVE been tempted to use something like TAF, or to try find something that gets rid of smalltalk altogether. Ultimately, though, I ended up solving this another way - went back to X3AP. Again!

What the FPS needs now is a few hand held plasma guns so I can slaughter some of the NPC that annoy me every now and then

LMAO!

[donzi]

@pref, it'd be interesting to know if there were more or different plans for the FPS aspect of XR.

Somewhat a balance act I guess on how much FPS to have. It surly takes away from time I'd prefer to spend flying I think.

Hard to say, the skunk gets a bit boring and riding cap ships just isn't the same as flying one.

X2 spoiled me with station features which were lost in the X3 line. Eventhough the station walking was only plot and very brief, the ability to spacewalk and going inside the stations (manual docking, etc) was sort of enough to satisfy the my wish for more like the FPS of XR.

The ability to dock and get out of the ship which XR brought is... I dunno exactly, just sort of comforting in some way. FPS AI and/or enhancements, while it could be nice, goes well beyond the basic satisfaction I get being able to be out of the ship for a bit.. and perhaps it's the 'safe' feeling of knowing there are some automatic defenses and protection that I don't have to think about while on the station.

Sort of like the invulnerability (IIRC) when hooked up to the docking clamps in X3.

Anyhow, now that I've 'checked off' the plot of XR vanilla, will be moving on the the DLCs soon I guess. After that maybe I'll still have energy for the game to pick some of the reccomended mods.

[RAVEN.myst]

the basic satisfaction I get being able to be out of the ship for a bit.. and perhaps it's the 'safe' feeling of knowing there are some automatic defenses and protection that I don't have to think about while on the station.

Sort of like the invulnerability (IIRC) when hooked up to the docking clamps in X3.

Actually, while docked at stations in XR you're not *quite* as safe as you may think - I've died at least twice while docked. The one time I'm pretty sure was at Core Dig, which is totally undefended, or maybe it was at that PMC station at Dormant Bear or whatever - similar to Core Dig, anyway, in that it also has no guns. Another time was at a "proper" station, though - there was a big-ass fight going on outside, and I thought I'd be safe docked while I did some stuff - a couple of minutes later 'GAME OVER' - no warnings from Annoyisha on either occasion! (I think that in 1.0 or 2.0, in such situations at least the "shields low" warning was issued.) I'm pretty sure there was another time or two (in recent versions, I mean - in 1.0 and 2.0 it happened quite a lot), but I don't recall the details. Suffice to say that when last I played, if I planned to go AFK while docked I would pick a dock that's sheltered, not one that's very exposed.

As for X2 - refresh my memory, but wasn't it possible to climb into parked ships in those docking grids (which are now used for URV launchpads at stations, hahahah)? Hmmmm.... if I can't remember such details, maybe I'm overdue for a re-play of that one... I recently found my old X2 boxed set... Hmmm, actually, I think it's time for me to fill in the only remaining gap in my X-timeline, BtF and Xtension...

[donzi]

Yes, I am aware the protection in XR while docked isn't full, just the added defenses, particularly with an arms tech fab (and depending on location) can be pretty close to 100% safe.

Habitats and low dock counts are higher risk since if the dock surface element the player used gets whacked, so does the player.

I know the X2 plot starts off with a ship theft, but can't recall for sure about stealing ships outside of the plot.

I'm thinking that we could not, in vanilla anyhow.

X2 is totally worth the time to play it again IMO. It is a fair bit different than everything after though, particularly the UI. I wonder how much will become familiar again with a couple/few hours of X2. Without a doubt I'll have to start from scratch -- I can just see me trying to learn it again with one of my last saved games. lol

..total deer in the headlights I bet. Same thing I get when I load up my X3R empires.

[RAVEN.myst]

"total deer in the headlights" - lol!

Yes, the interface will take some getting used to again (a bit less so, as I've been playing X3AP again, but X2's interface is much more like X3R's than TC/AP's - after that, for TC, it was improved quite a lot.) It's going to feel a little odd to go back ANOTHER "redesign" in terms of ships (especially Teladi - from XR radial symmetry design, to X3's bits of the industrial sector of Cold War era East Berlin with engines strapped on, to X2's fairly smooth and conventional designs - Falcons and Ospreys that actually have wings and such) but I will really welcome my all-time favourite shape of Argon TL. Interestingly, thinking back on it, some of the Argon designs in XR (non-OL) remind me a little of their X2 styles - compare Arawn to Argon One, for example - there's a vague similarity.

Oh, there's one thing I'm not looking forward to, heheh - the not-always-logical ship stat progressions, mostly WRT speed - M3s faster than M4s, LOL! I remember now that in X2 M4s were basically not worth having.

[pref]

Mmm... you guys make me wana try X2. Maybe it could last until the next release..

Weird that you get destroyed while docked. While in a hacker drone skunk is invulnerable. Maybe in others too..?
Stole a few ships like that, leaving the skunk out there for turret distraction while wandering around between hack points.

[RAVEN.myst]

While in a hacker drone skunk is invulnerable.

I'm afraid not so - I've been killed while in the Trojan for the plot mission to hack the PMC station (once, in a previous version - this may have changed), and nearly killed and forced to abandon (or even reload) many times (as recently as 4.0). Also, this has happened to me in the final bit in that Xenon "core" zone while hacking there for the campaign.

As for X2 - as long as you go into the experience with the understanding that you are playing something released just months after Freelancer (ie. a loooong time ago), you are unlikely to be disappointed. It's also from back in the days when story was important (yes, Rebirth has a story, but it's pitifully short, IMO). Also, great for filling in earlier parts of the story, which you may have inferred second-hand. I intend to do something similar, but going even farther back, to X:BtF, as I missed that installment - maybe I'll do an "all of X from start to today" epic playthrough...

[pref]

When the drone gets killed, you will die instantly usually.
It means returning to the skunk without shields - and hull gets wasted before the VR animation finishes if there is enough firepower against you.
If you manage to disable the target, it will be fine as noone will attack the skunk when you return.
Did this several times in 4.0, but havent really played in the past few months so it might got patched.

Wonder why X2:TT's description says Win 10 is the min required OS in ES's webshop..

[donzi]

If win 10 becomes the min req for anything I'm out. That being forced by MS and intel is one thing, game developers (and every other kind of software/hardware) need to get out of that herd and use their own herd to push back IMO

re: x2 UI, one thing for sure over XR, once adept at it's use, the player can thrash though it like crazy without worry it'll just go dead like I have with XR (..for whatever reason).

[RAVEN.myst]

Since X2 came out before Vista, I seriously doubt that min requirement - typo, or just mind-vacant data-field filling by some mindless functionary. I can't imagine that they recoded it for Win10!

Yes, the X2 and X3 interfaces, though some may call them difficult, are very powerful - in a similar way to how command line is usually more powerful than an OS's GUI, at least for technical IT professionals (this trend has, however, been changing, so it's no longer a perfect example.) XR's UI doesn't eliminate many (if ANY!) keystrokes, adds some MANDATORY mouseclicks (FFS!!! URGH!) here and there, and is sluggish - I had to keep slowing myself down by ~half for it to keep up with me, WTF. Needless to say, I'm thoroughly enjoying my return to AP, and am very much looking forward to my upcoming X-Nostalgia Tour (ALL the titles, except XR of course, in sequence from first to last - particularly looking forward to X2 and X3TC with its seriously meaty plots)