Alpha Protocol - Obsidian's new RPG

[Pavlos]

To paraphrase, if I'm not mistaken, Pavlos, while the system looks undeniably like the Mass Effect conversation wheel, it also looks worse, since the choices have been reduced to voice tones, instead of short phrases, interjections and [actions].

I don't remember saying that but I do have a memory like a sieve. Anyway, Brian Mitsoda -- former creative director, of Bloodlines fame -- actually designed the dialogue stance system before Mass Effect was announced. 'Cause I'm a creepy stalker I'll reference that with a link to his MySpace page:

 

Source

Over the last few weeks I’ve gotten some emails/rumors concerning my work on certain projects, so I thought I’d clarify. Firstly, to those who were wondering – I wasn’t affected by anything related to layoffs at Obsidian, chiefly because I haven’t been at Obsidian for a very long time now. In relation to this, for good or ill, I have nothing to do with Alpha Protocol as it is being developed currently. I was working on the creative direction, story, and dialogue for previous iterations of the game, but outside of a dialogue system I created (before Mass Effect was announced) for an earlier version of the game, my (and Annie Carlson’s) original dialogue and plot – again, for good or ill – are not being used for the game. Any characters I’m attributed with creating bear only a superficial resemblance to the ones in my original story.

 

Besides, the two systems are quite different. One reworks the old wordy responses of ye olden days RPGs into a short "idea" and the other does away with the concept of specific choices and places an emphasis on personality-driven responses; so rather than making the specific choices you decide on what mood you wish to take. The idea is to make conversation branches more organic and less obvious.

 

The success or failure of that can only be judged when the game comes out.

 

Edit: I don't particularly like the idea of either of them; though I might have been enthusiastic at some point. They both seem rather... vague at times. I cannot speak for Alpha Protocol but Mass Effect's changes were mostly cosmetic and they did very little to enhance the richness (there's a nice vague word for you) of the dialogue. By that I mean: encounters were still pretty much the same as we'd seen from BioWare before (with the exception of that choice you have to make on Virmire). To nick a method of arguing from Gerard Manley Hopkins: if you were a BioWare developer you could imagine writing Mass Effect. If you were Shakespeare you couldn't possibly imagine writing Hamlet.

 

Which is not to say that I don't find Mass Effect fun; I just don't think it's worthy of all the gushing praise it receives. I'm not sure if I'm making sense... I'm quite tired.

[jrrtoken]

When you take an entire new game and shape it after another it's fine'; we call it inspiration. When you copy most of it's aspect changing setting, story and another characteristics that may very well be branded gimmicks on this case, we have a problem.

Seeing as Obsidian's writing is always better than anything that BioWare can come up with, I'm pretty sure that AP will have much more expansive plot than ME.

 

Other than that, I don't really see the problem. Mass Effect was nowhere close to being innovative, no matter what everyone else says. BioWare took two things and put them together, and called it a new. I'd say that it would be more of a gimmick to simply shorten dialogue options into simple phrases, rather in AP's case, it's more or less introducing more physical choices, i.e. actions.

[Rake]

Like someone earlier said, I really don't like the timed dialogue thing. Hopefully they give you the choice of putting a timer on it, and the choice of not putting one; for I love to explore my options and to really think of them before I click on an option.

[DarthParametric]

They don't want you to think, they want you to instantly react. Supposedly selecting from a limited pool of predetermined vague "moods" is akin to a real conversation. Personally I think both systems (AP's and ME's) are rubbish. It's just one more concession to the action crowd that continually water down the RPG genre.

[Emperor Devon]

Personally I think both systems (AP's and ME's) are rubbish. It's just one more concession to the action crowd that continually water down the RPG genre.

 

I disagree on Mass Effect's. At its core, it's really just having the player's dialogue options spoken aloud.

 

Apart from making the atmosphere more cinematic, I think it also forced BioWare to give the player larger amounts of dialogue (if indirectly). Most of the time in RPGs (Obsidian's included, though to a lesser extent) the player selects responses that are several sentences long and listens to an NPC ramble for paragraphs.

 

Although giving the player a closer amount of dialogue to what NPCs got and spoken lines isn't a novel concept, no developers did it until Mass Effect. For that, at least, I think BioWare deserves credit.

 

I agree with you on AP's dialogue system, though. I don't think all possible responses the player could have to a situation can be boiled down to single emotions, even if that does make selectable responses less confusing than Mass Effect's (though I think that could be remedied with clearer writing).

 

Seeing as Obsidian's writing is always better than anything that BioWare can come up with

 

I know that it's now cool to bash BioWare at every turn, but seriously, play some more of both their games (is more than 2 a good number?) before making such blanket statements. Irenicus' writing in BG2, for instance, puts most of the dialogue in NWN2's OC to shame. There's a number of other instances in which Obsidian's writing has been less than stellar. AJ's dialogue in MotB was terrible, and that was in the midst of an otherwise amazing game.

[Miltiades]

They don't want you to think, they want you to instantly react. Supposedly selecting from a limited pool of predetermined vague "moods" is akin to a real conversation. Personally I think both systems (AP's and ME's) are rubbish. It's just one more concession to the action crowd that continually water down the RPG genre.

All of this to serve a better cinematic experience. I'm not following BioWare's (and with this title, Obsidian's) reasoning. I want a gaming experience. If I wanted a cinematic experience, I'd watch a movie.

 

One of the issues I had with Mass Effect was that in their dialog system (which isn't any different from other branched dialog systems), the option you'd choose would sometimes surprise you when your PC would execute it. The keywords that replaced the full sentences were vague, and I think Alpha Protocol's take on it is an improvement, where you choose your attitude towards a character, and you're far more likely to get the result you want. Still, both systems start from the idea that it should give gamers a cinematic experience, and as a result, neglect the gaming experience, or rather, the RPG experience.

[stoffe]

I disagree on Mass Effect's. At its core, it's really just having the player's dialogue options spoken aloud.

 

Spoken dialog does make your character come more alive than when it is mute, even though it leaves less to the imagination. Generally I like it. The biggest problem I has with the Mass Effect dialog choices were that some of them were very hard to figure out in advance what type of actual conversation they would result in.

 

I remain highly skeptical of the dialog system in Alpha Protocol as it has been described, since it would clash strongly with my preferred playing style.

 

Although giving the player a closer amount of dialogue to what NPCs got and spoken lines isn't a novel concept, no developers did it until Mass Effect. For that, at least, I think BioWare deserves credit.

 

Deus Ex and Invisible War did, all of Denton's dialog was spoken there. Though it had a lot more limited choices compared to more recent RPGs.

 

(Have you played Deus Ex yet? )

[Emperor Devon]

Still, both systems start from the idea that it should give gamers a cinematic experience, and as a result, neglect the gaming experience, or rather, the RPG experience.

 

The RPG experience = seeing your character's lines in text over audio format?

 

@the stoffe: eventually. I finished Bloodlines, so you know that doesn't mean 'never'!

[Totenkopf]

Spoken dialog does make your character come more alive than when it is mute, even though it leaves less to the imagination. Generally I like it. The biggest problem I has with the Mass Effect dialog choices were that some of them were very hard to figure out in advance what type of actual conversation they would result in.

 

 

I sort of liked having the PC speak for a change (after the KOTOR games anyway). The one good thing about that wheel was that the vo didn't match verbatim the dialogue, but mostly the attitude behind it. Frankly, as long as the vo does a reasonable job, it's not so bad. Does limit things a bit (sort of hard to pic Shephard's vo coming out of some of the nonwhite faces--male and female--that I used), but not a deal breaker.

[Miltiades]

The RPG experience = seeing your character's lines in text over audio format?

Getting yourself into a role, and as a player making choices that fit that role. While choosing an attitude may improve the cinematic experience (and indeed gives your player a voice, which, if you don't like it, you'll have to put up with for the rest of the game), choosing an attitude can result in many different situations, and (like in Mass Effect, though, as I mentioned, perhaps to a lesser degree) your character may do something you didn't actually want him to do. If, for example, you choose the option "Aggressive", this could mean taking a charged approach in the conversation, or it could mean your character takes his conversation partner by the throat and smashes him against the floor. An RPG is about what you want to do, but your freedom is taken away here, and the only thing left to do is choose how you'll behave during a conversation, and those choices are open for interpretation.

 

Full lines, while restrictive itself, are clear in what they will make the player say.

[DarthParametric]

The ME system is just a cheat to hide lines of dialogue recycled multiple times under different tags on the wheel. There is very little difference for the most part between renegade and paragon dialogue. Most of it is reused for both paths, it's just labelled differently. The reason is of course because VO work is expensive, so they sacrificed more diverse dialogue choices in the name of the "cinematic" experience. Bleh. Personally I'd prefer text if it meant more dialogue and more options.

[jrrtoken]

I know that it's now cool to bash BioWare at every turn, but seriously, play some more of both their games (is more than 2 a good number?) before making such blanket statements. Irenicus' writing in BG2, for instance, puts most of the dialogue in NWN2's OC to shame. There's a number of other instances in which Obsidian's writing has been less than stellar. AJ's dialogue in MotB was terrible, and that was in the midst of an otherwise amazing game.

No, I definitely agree that BioWare has showed some great writing in the past. They've also been increasingly improving their writing talents, and you'll definitely notice the evolving improvement if you play KotOR, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect in order. Now, each game may not be leaps and bounds better than its predecessor, but it's the subtle differences that can stand out.

 

As far as audio over text, I'd definitely prefer text over audio for the PC, for several reasons. Since ME used only one voice actor for each gender, that limited diversity, and in turn, didn't really let me, IMO, identify with the PC. That, and there's also narrowing down your last name, which also puts hindrance on immersion, no matter if you're named Shepard or Thornton.

[Ctrl Alt Del]

About the wheel system discussion that seems to have spawned on the recent topic, I have pretty much mixed feelings.

 

Was it an improvement from the traditional, rarely voiced and showing it's entire content before you click on it method? I can't answer that, mostly because I believe it's a parallel system, which has a different proposal to deal with the same situation. I can say it's not quite there yet. It's far from perfect - which was expected, since it was unprecedented - but the direction Alpha Protocol is taking it, we can hardly say it's an improvement of any kind, or that it contains enough discrepancies to be considered an entire new category.

 

While the cinematic feel could be given using the traditional convo system that they always used (not saying it would be effective, but it would work), the part of the Wheel that really stands out is the fact it's an honest way to progess on the dialogs. So what if the bad boy answers are always on the down side of the wheel or if conversation ending choices are normally lined on it's right side? The point is that you focus on the dialog it's subjects, not on the options positioning. And why call it honest? Why, didn't the older convos did just that? Didn't you knew which options would probably trigger an agressive or gracious response?

[DarthParametric]

I wouldn't call the ME/AP systems parallel to the traditional system. Under the hood they are all the same system - branching dialogue. It's just the window dressing that is different. Now if Obsidian continue development for the new system they were building for the Onyx engine and the scuttled Aliens RPG, perhaps we will have a true parallel system. Something that operates differently in a mechanical sense to achieve the same end goal. Possibly a version of it could show up in New Vegas, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Miltiades]

Was it an improvement from the traditional, rarely voiced and showing it's entire content before you click on it method? I can't answer that, mostly because I believe it's a parallel system, which has a different proposal to deal with the same situation. I can say it's not quite there yet. It's far from perfect - which was expected, since it was unprecedented - but the direction Alpha Protocol is taking it, we can hardly say it's an improvement of any kind, or that it contains enough discrepancies to be considered an entire new category.

Calling the system in AP something new would indeed be wrong. Whether it's an improvement on what Mass Effect brought, however, is something else. We will have to wait and play the game for that. In any case, it's a system I'm not particularly fond of, and while the 'traditional system' has its flaws as well, I prefer it. But I do encourage trying out new things, so there's a thumbs up for that. On the other hand, as DarthParametric said, they're basically all just one and the same system - branched dialog. I'd love to see developers break away from that system, how hard that may be.

[jrrtoken]

E3 Trailer #1

 

Probably the best trailer of AP I've seen yet. Whether or not Obsidian will be able to include that many options in every quest is yet to be seen, but it is promising and titillating.

[dowon]

1UP interview/gameplay footage video

 

Not bad.

[Achilles]

Pre-order bonus stuffs were announced this week.

 

Assault Pack if you pre-order from GameStop.

Stealth Pack if you pre-order from GameCrazy.

[SpaceAlex]

Pre-order bonuses? How annoying.

[jrrtoken]

Pre-order bonuses? How annoying.

Exactly. It's essentially cheating, but in a friendlier way. Obsidian probably didn't have much control over it to begin with, IMO.

 

Either way, at least this does confirm ammo variations.

[Achilles]

Obsidian probably didn't have much control over it to begin with, IMO.

 

Based on some of the posts I've seen from Obsidian employees, I get the impression that the quote above is pretty much on the money.

[DarthParametric]

Yeah that would be all Atari's doing. EA is planning on doing the same for Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age judging by a recent survey they sent out.

[Jason Skywalker]

So, quick question about this: can you customize Mike's appearance?

[jrrtoken]

So, quick question about this: can you customize Mike's appearance?

From what I know, you can. Not only can you customize facial features at the beginning of the game, but there's also clothing and accessories that you can buy and equip later on. One video had Thorton flaunting frame-less glasses like he was a Gucci model.

[DarthParametric]

That's interesting. I assume then they are doing the same thing Bioware did with ME promotion with their default male Shepard. I hadn't heard anything about customisation in AP and just assumed they were going with a preset character for story purposes.

 

I don't think Obsidian have promoted the game very well. Seems like all they've done so far is show off how much of a ME clone it is. I really wish they'd feature some of the unique stuff I've heard whispers about.