As far as "name one quest where you can go off script" - "Escape From Chidna Mine"
Spoiler I worked with the Forsworn leaders to escape the mine, but I do not agree with the Forsworn or their ways. After escaping from the prison, when they decided to stand against the Markarth guards, I slaughtered all the Forsworn from the prison. The quest intends for you to fight alongside the Forsworn. I did no such thing, I aided the Markarth guards and slaughtered each and every last Forsworn that I found. I went off the script.[spoiler]
And you'd notice that the gamesas crew were kind enough to actually script the quest to account for exactly what you did. You didn't go off script, you simply chose an understated but always intentional path. To work with the Forsworn to get out and then betray them first chance you got. If you think none of the gamesas testers did the exact same thing, you're having a laugh. If you think the designer who came up with that quest didn't once consider that one might play along as long as it was opportune and then start slaughtering the Forsworn, you're having a laugh.
it also brings me to my point about equivalence classes. [spoiler]It really doesn't matter much when you attack the Forsworn, with respect to the ultimate quest outcome, as long as you attack them at some point along the way. There are three outcomes, really. With the Forsworn. Against the Forsworn. Against both the Forsworn and the guards.
That's all the devs would have to account for. The specifics along the way could safely be ignored. This is your prize example of "going off script" and even then there are a mere three endings to consider.
To respond to a few other remarks - what would I do if an employee goes missing? Not much, really. It'd be considered job abandonment, and that would be that. As a person who's been in a position of management, I've watched it happen quite a few times.
So your response to people who go completely missing, and mind you this isn't in New York or some other city with possibly tens of thousands of citizens, is to do nothing? Not ask anyone "hey, did you see X?" or ask visitors to tell X, if they see him, that he's fired and doesn't need to come back? Not even posting a notice about a job opening or hiring someone else?
As far as giving Bethesda a pat on the back for missing the simple [censored], no, I'm not. I'm giving them a pat on the back for making the best RPG's I've ever played.
And you're doing this despite the fact that they're missing the simple [censored]. NPCs are acting like chatroom bots, are not responding much at all to anything happening around them, and have absolutely no memory. Any action you take has between no and microscoping influence on the world, even the "save the world" level quests. This is despite the fact that a few dialogue fragments here and there would go a long way in providing the feeling of actions having an effect.
Release a blank book and call it the best ever? Please. You keep accusing me of not understanding your point, but you continue to not understand mine.
You keep talking about RP'ing in your head rather than having the game hold your hands. Well, read in your head rather than have the actual book hold your hands, why don't you? That's the point I'm trying to make here. I can RP plenty without the game holding my hands. RP'ing in Morrowind wouldn't have been much fun otherwise, would it? I just want the world I'm supposed to be RP'ing in to reflect my actions to a reasonable level. Not a perfect level, not a realisticic real-world level, but a reasonable level.
If I'm playing a role in a civil war then I want to feel as if there's actually a civil war going on. I want Stormcloak families to hate me for killing their sons and daughters. I want Stormclaok merchants to shun my coin because I'm their enemy. If they know enough to not let me join their faction because I'm Legion, then they know enough to hate my guts and more or less openly want me dead. That's not hand-holding me in my RP, it's the game-world actually reflecting the events that the game claims are going on.
The fact is, the player character is but one person in a world. Not every action one person makes is going to have sweeping, wide spread consequences. It is unrealistic to expect as much, both from a practical, technological stand point, as well as a "what actually happens in reality" stand point.
Who has ever said that everything has to have "sweeping, wide spread consequences"? I'd like you to quote the person who said that or admit that you just made it up. It is not particularly impractical for actions to have consequences and it's not much of a problem to program either either. And yes, in reality every action does have consequences at some scale.
If I turn in Saadia to the Alik'r, it is simply put not realistic that the entire town of Whiterun would stop in their tracks to find out what happened to her.
Nobody has said that the whole town should stop in its tracks, but why doesn't her employer even notice she's gone? It's not a huge town, after all, and she's working in an inn, having plenty of contact with other people. Effectively, you're attacking a strawman here.
If I murder somebody in silence, it's not realistic for her family to know that it was me, and refuse me service.
If you walk into a room, close the door, walk out, and then suddenly there's a corpse inside the room, it's very, very realistic for people to come to the conclusion that you're a murderer, even if they didn't see it. If they did see it and you then pay the fine or go to prison, it is very, very realistic for the family to not forget and not ever do business with you again. Yet another strawman.
It is not realistic for the citizens of Whiterun to be aware of the inner dealings of the College of Winterhold. Hell, even people in Winterhold might not be aware of it. Yea, Farengar continues to tell me that I should join the College of Winterhold, well after the fact that I've joined. But, considering that he was not at the College, how exactly would he know that I had joined the College of Winterhold?
Magic is effectively a supernatural science in TES lore. Scientists talk. As it happens, the need for scientists to talk business with one another is how HTML came to be. Surely you don't think that mages wouldn't talk with one another and keep at least a tiny bit informed about who joins and who doesn't, who advances and who doesn't, who becomes arch-mage and is wearing an outfit that looks very much like the official arch-mage outfit? Particularly in an area with relatively few members, it seems puzzling as hell to hear mages think I'm not even in their guild when I'm actually the head of it.
Could world recognition be better? Probably. But the fact is, it's still pretty damned hard to code all the different possibilities.
And my implied question from before remains, do you actually know anything whatsoever about what is and isn't hard to code? I don't think it is and I'm not even a good programmer. What's your justification for saying it is difficult?
» Sun Jun 03, 2012 1:16 am 
