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vanny

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  1. Of the different boxes mentioned here that side quests should fill, I am quite interested in the second one: that they present the player with an interesting and important choice. This brings up the question of what makes a choice important. Of course it can be a lot of things, and what probably matters most is making the player feel like the choice was important, like it had weight and the stated consequences of their choice in the games fiction actually happened. Say if you were meeting with a visiting king from an african nation, and you can make a decision to teach him about greek philosophy or something like that. If this choice is then presented in a well-written and authentic way, then the player might feel like it had an impact, even if this king and his country never appear again in the game. But of course the other way to have important choices is for them to actually lead to substantive consequence, to cause things to change in the game for the player in clearly apparent ways. To me that kind of choices are pretty enjoyable and it's always nice to have them in a game, branching decisions being a natural way of implementing choice & consequence. Even if it's just presented as a single frame in an epilogue slideshow, some kind of reactivity to their choice being shown to the player can really elevate a side quest so that it feels like an integral part of the story you experienced. It's something I hope will be present in Expeditions Rome.
  2. The mechanics of controlling the legion sounds and looks really interesting! I hope the narratives and missions that are tied into it feel similarly deep and worthwhile compared to the quests and writing in the rest of the game.
  3. A couple of thoughts and concerns occur to me when reading this diary. Starting out from the premise of a historical RPG in Rome, I am interested and excited in the game. Some of the things mentioned or omitted here do stand out to me. First, I'm a little disappointed to read that the game is always about a patrician's son/daughter. It would have been a really cool choice to make the game have multiple different origins that the player can choose from. Considering what a diverse society Rome was at this time, being able to see more of it and experience it's different sides from multiple perspectives through starting the game in different social circumstances would go a long ways to making players stay with the game longer and encourage replayability, a la Dragon Age Origins or Age of Decadence. I mention these examples not to say exactly what I think this game should be like or anything, but just mentioning the prior history of these kinds of aims being tried in video games, and which I can imagine people will compare future releases to. I think they performed well at being RPGs in a similar vein, and thus give context to the experience of Expeditions Rome and how good it will be compared to it's peers. The second thing I wonder about is the game having a faction system of some kind, measuring how the different groups and cliques of the world are aligned towards the player character. I worry that if this was going to be included than it would have been mentioned, but I could be wrong. The reason I want this so badly is related to the vision statement about having an immersive story RPG with player choices. I think that is a very good goal to have, and it aligns with my own values when it comes to answering the question "What makes a good RPG?". But the thing about choices is that if they are all the kind of choice where the player's decision directly impacts the world and what is going to happen in huge ways, that can feel kind of samey. Not to mention limiting. Sometimes it's good for the player experience if there are also choices that don't pretend to have this "huge moment of decision" vibe, and instead are simply about expressing themselves and their goals. I don't mean making false choices that don't affect the story, like what colour eyes to have. Rather I mean choices that deal with your perspective, and about how the different organizations and classes that make up the games' society look on you. For such a politically intricate time as the roman republic, it would be very strange to me to make a game that doesn't let the player explore the different groupings, like the optimates and the populares, the proletarii and the latifundia-owners. I think of games like Fallout New Vegas or Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. My third and last thought is pure praise. I love the idea of commanding armies and taking charge of the leadership of an actual conquest, rather than only the standardfare, humdrum of combat encounters for the player party. Having the ability to make decisions that affect a whole army, as well as the progress of a real war, seems like an extremely rich experience for the player, and opportunity for the devs to make an immersive experience. I can think of two kinds of choices that this would lend itself to: 1) the kind that affect the army immediately, in terms of what you can see as the player, like investing in different types of soldiers or a better camp; and 2) the kind that are strategic, and deal with the carrying out of the war on the scale that may be too large for the isometric camera to engage in, and instead relegated to the world map as a separate mode. In terms of what I think I want as a player, this is pretty much it. My mind goes to the conquest prologue in Tyranny for an example of this kind of thing being simulated in a game.
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