RE: Are characters gone in DW2? (Full Version)

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SirHoraceHarkness -> RE: Are characters gone in DW2? (3/8/2021 9:10:21 PM)

I hope the characters this time around are more focused on being useful instead of the random dice roll we got in DWU. I had to go through and make a set for each race manually with a balanced set of bonus and negatives to get better games since a set of really terrible characters could gimp an AI so badly it never expanded at all or did it poorly.




OldCrowBalthazor -> RE: Are characters gone in DW2? (3/8/2021 10:39:18 PM)

I always enjoyed how so many of my ship captains turned into drunks....could be a failure of leadership and example on my part! [:D]




Tanaka -> RE: Are characters gone in DW2? (3/11/2021 4:54:41 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: OldCrowBalthazor

I always enjoyed how so many of my ship captains turned into drunks....could be a failure of leadership and example on my part! [:D]


What is it with you and drunk ship captains! In the Pacific too! [sm=character0085.gif]




Tanaka -> RE: Are characters gone in DW2? (3/11/2021 4:56:00 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

It's worth noting that characters were not in the original DW1, we added them in the expansions. With that said, characters are in DW2. [8D]


Very relieved! One of my favorite aspects of Distant Worlds! Roleplaying!




Kull -> RE: Are characters gone in DW2? (3/15/2021 6:30:51 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Franky007

When playing as a pirate, spies where critical in finding the location of other pirate bases or stealing their tech.


Amen to that. Spies are an integral part of Pirate gameplay. Otherwise characters were just....nothing. Aeson put it very well in his post - they are bonus adders but you NEVER had the feeling that these were sentient creatures that one should invest even one iota of feelings toward. I might mourn the loss of a good spy, but even then only because he was useful in an important way.

If DW2 makes me care about them as individuals, then kudos to the devs. Otherwise, meh.




Galaxy227 -> RE: Are characters gone in DW2? (3/15/2021 8:40:17 PM)

Perhaps for you, Kull, characters deserve no better than "meh," but I'd personally beg to differ.

Take Stellaris for instance. You'll often find players role-playing the lives of various characters in Stellaris (recent example here), even though they are even more abstracted than in Distant Worlds. Characters in Stellaris do not exist physically in the galaxy as they do in Distant Worlds (on ships, stations, and planets). More so, characters in Stellaris only have one or two traits, whereas Distant Worlds characters have multiple traits and can improve over time. Lastly, each character in Distant Worlds has a history log, tracking the events they've participated in, whereas in Stellaris they do not.

Point being, if players can fantasize about the lives of abstracted Stellaris characters, ones without a physical location, history log, and less personality traits... that says something about the potential role-playing that can be done with Distant Worlds characters.

So, Kull. You don't like role-playing, but that doesn't mean other players don't. Characters, to me at least, were an important part of the playing experience.




Kull -> RE: Are characters gone in DW2? (3/16/2021 1:53:18 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Galaxy227

Perhaps for you, Kull, characters deserve no better than "meh," but I'd personally beg to differ.

Take Stellaris for instance. You'll often find players role-playing the lives of various characters in Stellaris (recent example here), even though they are even more abstracted than in Distant Worlds. Characters in Stellaris do not exist physically in the galaxy as they do in Distant Worlds (on ships, stations, and planets). More so, characters in Stellaris only have one or two traits, whereas Distant Worlds characters have multiple traits and can improve over time. Lastly, each character in Distant Worlds has a history log, tracking the events they've participated in, whereas in Stellaris they do not.

Point being, if players can fantasize about the lives of abstracted Stellaris characters, ones without a physical location, history log, and less personality traits... that says something about the potential role-playing that can be done with Distant Worlds characters.

So, Kull. You don't like role-playing, but that doesn't mean other players don't. Characters, to me at least, were an important part of the playing experience.


Don't get me wrong, I LOVE role playing. But you can't do that with DW1 "characters", because they are worse than 1-dimensional. There's no personality of any kind. New traits appear almost randomly, and they have little to do with existing "personality type" (of which there isn't one, anyway).

Real characters? Interesting? Ones that you can actually care about as individuals? Bring it on. More of the DW1 type of character? Spare me.




OldCrowBalthazor -> RE: Are characters gone in DW2? (3/16/2021 5:36:51 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Tanaka


quote:

ORIGINAL: OldCrowBalthazor

I always enjoyed how so many of my ship captains turned into drunks....could be a failure of leadership and example on my part! [:D]


What is it with you and drunk ship captains! In the Pacific too! [sm=character0085.gif]


Tah...yo ho ho...and a bottle of rum!...or saki in your case. [:D]

Anyway...space navy or wet navy, its the solitude of command, boredom of a backwater port, no women (hardly), and a few defeats that can send a Kapitan to the bottle.




Miletkir -> RE: Are characters gone in DW2? (3/16/2021 9:14:03 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Kull


quote:

ORIGINAL: Galaxy227

Perhaps for you, Kull, characters deserve no better than "meh," but I'd personally beg to differ.

Take Stellaris for instance. You'll often find players role-playing the lives of various characters in Stellaris (recent example here), even though they are even more abstracted than in Distant Worlds. Characters in Stellaris do not exist physically in the galaxy as they do in Distant Worlds (on ships, stations, and planets). More so, characters in Stellaris only have one or two traits, whereas Distant Worlds characters have multiple traits and can improve over time. Lastly, each character in Distant Worlds has a history log, tracking the events they've participated in, whereas in Stellaris they do not.

Point being, if players can fantasize about the lives of abstracted Stellaris characters, ones without a physical location, history log, and less personality traits... that says something about the potential role-playing that can be done with Distant Worlds characters.

So, Kull. You don't like role-playing, but that doesn't mean other players don't. Characters, to me at least, were an important part of the playing experience.


Don't get me wrong, I LOVE role playing. But you can't do that with DW1 "characters", because they are worse than 1-dimensional. There's no personality of any kind. New traits appear almost randomly, and they have little to do with existing "personality type" (of which there isn't one, anyway).

Real characters? Interesting? Ones that you can actually care about as individuals? Bring it on. More of the DW1 type of character? Spare me.


It's true that your imagination has to do most of the work in DWU, but that's no different from most other generated (and not scripted) characters in strategy games. In this case, the roleplay is based on:
- What your character actually ends up doing in the game;
- What their skills are.
In the case of skills, DWU provided an interestingly large and variable array that actually, taken together, shaped unique characters - something that Stellaris doesn't have, with instead a much larger variety of avatars (cool, but not rich in terms of actual character design). And I think this is still the best way to do it for generated characters, because it would be very time-consuming to create a pool of variable dialogs based on potential character personalities, or otherwise would be frustrating to have just a few tailored characters you would get to use in every game. Sure, that's what happens in, say, Star Wars titles, but then the story that unfolds is much less your own.

Total War games - Attila in particular - are very good at character design, because they add XP and rpg-like skills to their characters. DWU also provided character skill progression, but I wouldn't actually want to have trees with skills to choose from, because choosing a character's evolution is less immersive to me than just watching it as actions unfold. So, in that sense, DWU's system is still top of the line for me. It might just need tweaks when it comes to presentation (including avatars) and the relevance and immersion of dialogs.




woos1981 -> RE: Are characters gone in DW2? (3/23/2021 3:45:41 AM)

Does the character have loyalty? Is there a chance that the characters will mutiny or that the characters under your control will band together to force you to change regime?




valleytheman -> RE: Are characters gone in DW2? (3/27/2021 10:11:25 PM)

I like characters for flavor and role playing but I agree that generally they don't add too much to 4X games.

I would like to see a game implementing some mechanism like an Academy, which would produce a number of crude cadets per time (I think Aurora 4X has something like that). The player should allocate then for low tier jobs and, as they get experience, promote just a few of then. Building top tier characters would take time and resources (promotion could be expensive somehow) and if the player is wise (and lucky) he would produce some game-changing leaders like an Ender Wiggin or Paul Atreides.

This kind of system could become a lot time consuming but I think could be funny if well implemented.




Siddham -> RE: Are characters gone in DW2? (3/29/2021 4:24:02 AM)

Excellent suggestion valleytheman; I hope Elliot & Eric will read and consider.
Something like you suggest would give the player more active involvement with the character system.
Characters ought not be over-powered but should make a sufficient difference to make engagement with the system worthwhile & rewarding.
We all know how having the right individuals in the right places in real life can make a significant difference.




U235 -> RE: Are characters gone in DW2? (4/2/2021 9:36:15 PM)

While characters are fine, especially at command or management levels that matter, I would prefer that individual ships performed based on training, experience, morale. Sure a Captain Kirk to save the day might be fun if you could see the effects somehow, but anyone that has served on a real ship knows that a good crew is what makes the vessel perform great or poorly. A ship with a green crew, thrown directly into battle (typical of many 4X space games) cannot expect to do well against an experienced crew of similar, and sometimes even lesser class. I believe that this is why there is a drive by many players to rush capital ships and treat the rest as fodder. Can one man/woman/being make a difference? Sure, but I'd say it's mostly a team effort. Let Kirk come down with a case of the space herpes from that alien kiss. I'll take a dozen Scotties instead. [:D]




Searcher7 -> RE: Are characters gone in DW2? (7/28/2021 10:23:39 AM)

I'm very new to this franchise, but find characters in DWU to be useful, if not overly engaging. Assigned to specialized fleets or colonies that need them, they're just additions to facility/ruin bonuses or help with things I have less control over, like corruption levels (20% reduction in corruption can be a big income jump on the right planet, for us newbs that still need it.) I'm glad to see them in DW2.

But, I do wonder why so many of them turn to alcohol and drugs. Maybe a stint in the Medical Complex for rehabilitation should be an assignment option. [;)]




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