11-18-2009, 08:25 PM
I've always thought that in general, game elements should make sense unless there's simply no other solution to a problem.
Kinda like I was telling Dustie when he was talking about his desire to see line formations in game, like you'd see in a real life battle. Figure out why people did it in real life and then you can figure out why it's not working in the game. (e.g., real life has player collision and it's damn hard to block your front and your side at the same time, so lines that protect your side are the best way to go. If real life didn't have body collision or flanking bonuses, real battles would be mobs of people hacking wildly at each other, just like MMORPGs)
Ditto for magic. You can't make flinging fireballs "work like reality" but you can still make it "realistic" in the sense that its behavior can be explained and makes sense within the physics of the game world. Star Trek is famous for this - everything has a reasonable, even if entirely fake, explanation for why it works the way it does.
Anyway, I'd have to think about languages in a game. I don't know that there's a really compelling reason to have characters speak in different languages. What does that add to the gameplay? Does letting two people not talk to each other add to the gameplay?
I also agree with "no tells across factions", though. Mostly what that adds to the game is annoying enemies crying to you in tells after you kill them.
Kinda like I was telling Dustie when he was talking about his desire to see line formations in game, like you'd see in a real life battle. Figure out why people did it in real life and then you can figure out why it's not working in the game. (e.g., real life has player collision and it's damn hard to block your front and your side at the same time, so lines that protect your side are the best way to go. If real life didn't have body collision or flanking bonuses, real battles would be mobs of people hacking wildly at each other, just like MMORPGs)
Ditto for magic. You can't make flinging fireballs "work like reality" but you can still make it "realistic" in the sense that its behavior can be explained and makes sense within the physics of the game world. Star Trek is famous for this - everything has a reasonable, even if entirely fake, explanation for why it works the way it does.
Anyway, I'd have to think about languages in a game. I don't know that there's a really compelling reason to have characters speak in different languages. What does that add to the gameplay? Does letting two people not talk to each other add to the gameplay?
I also agree with "no tells across factions", though. Mostly what that adds to the game is annoying enemies crying to you in tells after you kill them.