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This was, needless to say, an accident.
I’m hoping I can pass it off as, like, a theme.
Basically I decided I want to kick it a bit oldschool and have one of those old Baldurs Gate style areas that are vast with stuff in. To be fair, it’s optional stuff so the more plot-orientated player could easily be “I scorn your stuff, let’s move on.” But, as I was saying in my last post, I like the idea that if you enjoy exploring and poking around then you get something out of it – something, I hasten to add that doesn’t make it mandatory behaviour, as there’s nothing worse than feeling obliged to do something because you need the rewards. I suppose the trick is to key the rewards to the activity – so if you like exploring, the opportunity to discover something is a suitable reward, but a +3 Sword of Arse Kicking is not.
Anyway, I’m quite proud of my totally retro area. The Lake District made me briefly insecure because it seems God really has this area design thang down to a fine art. But it looks vaguely like England, and there are waterfalls (waterfalls!!!) so I’m pleased with myself.
click to embiggen mah waterfall!!
There are also a bunch of quirky side-quests hanging around in this area as well – since Chapter 2 is very heavily Anglo-Saxon I thought I’d make this more Medieval but given that a lot of Arthurian stories involve hot babes and wild beasts it has rapidly degenerated into the bestiality themed area. Oh fail. And seriously not my intention. I mean you’d think there’d be a limit to bestiality-themed side quests but APPARENTLY NOT.
Lesson learned at least.
Also did I say: waterfalls?
Truthfully I’m slightly anxious about the nature of the area in general, even putting aside the bestiality issues. It is very retro. I’m not sure people even want to go tromping round the countryside looking for cloaks in the cloakwood like they used to. Also given the rest of the module is quite self-consciously linear and limited it’s probably got a bit of a “what mushrooms did you eat this morning?” feel to it.
Unknown State in Compiler 
“I’m not sure people even want to go tromping round the countryside looking for cloaks in the cloakwood like they used to.”
Not true. One of the reasons I think Rift is proving so popular is that exploration pays off. (Sometimes with shinies, but they’re peripheral).
Cloaks in the Cloakwood actually reminded me of someone tromping off to look for a treasure chest that had an arrow buried in it. Poor choice of words. “Heart” would have saved a lot of confusion.
I don’t think it’s so much that people don’t want to look for cloaks in the cloakwood, but rather that the sophistication and the streamlining of RPGs as increased substantially. I mean I was genuinely shocked when I went back to BG that most of the quests are things like “hey, go get my boots” with very little context to them at all. And equally I remembered Torment as being full of insanely sprawling and complicated conversation trees … only to re-discover it has basically the usual “3 options” dialogue options in most conversations, and if not they alternatives are questions.
Also … chest with an arrow buried it…took me a while to get that but … haha.
Late by a month, but ha!
There needs to be context to the arrow and the treasure chest. No one will understand it otherwise.
Back in the day (1989 – it’s been a while) when computer games came in English (none of that fancy localization stuff), Curse of the Azure Bonds was released. It was a brilliant game, with a rather compelling story line. Unfortunately, I was roughly 13 years old and had studied English in school for 3 years. My grasp of the language was … hmm… suboptimal.
One of the first “encounters” in the game has the party of player characters ambush the royal carriage (a side effect of the Azure Bonds tatooed on their arms – which shows that tatooes are evil and that the title of the game is referenced early on (Right, Pools of Radiance?!)). After the attempt, the players flee into the sewers. They are pursued by both the thieves and assassins guild (And I cannot remember who was on my side). In a large, all-out, mindblowing battle (well .. you can use Fireball for it’s full effect. Yay! And hopefully not fry your party or allies.) the first chapter ends. At the end of the battle the text description read: “You see (leader of friendly group) being hit by an arrow right in the chest”.
It took me _years_ (seriously, our English classes did not pay much attention to anatomy) to grasp that he had not, in fact, been hiding inside one of the spacious treasure chests like a thieving coward.
In my imagination that had made a lot of sense back then.