#and the amount of lore available to them/ how they interact within each faction - the wardens- the wardens if the hof was an elf-

[rivilu]

I don't know, aside from what I said in last tags, I feel like something about her is just giving classic dragon age the most out of all the companions, and I LOVE that

This run is making me love Neve even more which i didn't think was possible

[pandoriasbox]

Jade’s SSO Rambles - 7 Cartography

(Please keep in mind that these are my thoughts and opinions at the time of writing these rambles. I may change my mind in the future.)

This ramble is more of an idea for a fun side system to integrate much like how Mary’s lost animals have been added but a lot more Jorvik wide exploration in mind. I’ve had this idea since spring but felt I should cover quite a few other topics first before delving into a new side system idea. If anyone knows me well they will know I adore exploration in games and my idea for a cartography “system” is yet another way to pull more of that into SSO’s beautiful and expansive world.

Overview

Cartography is a daily activity players can participate in where they receive missions (mini quests) each day that incentivize them to go out and explore the whole map and interact with different aspects of the world. It would be a good addition for both new and end game players as the former will have more reasons to explore and learn the map while the latter will receive something else to do to stay invested and entertained within the game. I also think it’s something the team could easily build upon if they wished to integrate it into other gameplay aspects. (And is definitely something explorers like me would love to interact with.)

The cartography mechanic would be set up to be found and completed in the world without visiting an NPC. The player can still visit the NPC to get a hint on where to look for the activator (given that the areas can get quite large) but over time they should get an idea of the spawn points. Some of the cartography quests could even have semi-unique gameplay such as mini games or having different ways of interacting with the world. Lore wise I think the person in charge of the cartography may have markers set out for you or send you a message daily on where to perform the cartography work so as to avoid forcing the player to visit them first. Some characters could use this and some could require you visiting them first as well.

I imagine Chiron and Mario would ask you to place down markers whereas Nic and Evergrey ask you to photograph and survey the landscape in order to fill in a map. Druids (and Evergrey) may end up having you collect samples or the druids could potentially have you seal small budding rifts that don’t require the same amount of work as the larger ones that pop up in the storyline or soul riding.

Areas & NPCS

Silverglade & Mario

Mario is still not willing to leave the observatory so he needs the player to go out and set up equipment throughout Silverglade for him to adjust star maps. (Doesn’t need to be cameras, could be an updated version of calibration for the telescope.)

This can be a simple setup similar to Nic’s original map marking quest or it can require a mini game or some additional work on the player’s part.

I imagine this would be the first cartography quest the player gets and so should be the simplest for them to complete. This would also give them a higher paying and higher rep reward with the AAE Astronomical subset.

Dino Valley & Nic Stoneground

Nic requires the player to fill in blank spots on the map

Could use a similar setup to the existing mini quest just instead it’s a daily event that requires you to visit different parts of Dino Valley. Could also use updated gameplay mechanics and work more like a mini game.

I think while this is a once a day quest for Nic it would be the highest paying quest and reward a large amount of rep (and progress) to the expedition/camp itself. If possible, after maxing the rep with Nic’s group I think rep for this should spill over into increasing the general AAE reputation if possible.

Epona & Professor Chiron

Chiron is looking for additional areas across Epona that may be potential interesting dig sites or places to study.

This might involve a slightly modified version where the player must put out markers for Chiron that denote the edges of the area. (The team would need to be careful in how they set this up and especially with any updates to terrain too.)

Again it gives a once a day high paying quest that would provide a big boost to AAE rep.

Full Map (Minus Dino) & Avalon/The Druids

Avalon (or some other druid if he’s not available for whatever reason) would request the player to inspect pandoric activity across the currently unlocked part of Jorvik besides Dino Valley.

This could have some really interesting game mechanics or mini games and could even bring back the player needing to close rifts. Overall I think this would be a nice way of further making the player feel connected to the druids and as though they are truly a part of the faction. For an example of gameplay perhaps the player would need to record the flora (and fauna?) that is being affected or cropping up from pandoric activity before sealing the tiny rift that has sprouted up.

This would pay well and give a large boost to the Keepers of Aideen rep.

Pandoria & Evergrey

Evergrey is interested in mapping Pandoria and sending you to study it as he can no longer access it without endangering himself. He assures you that the momentary visits will not injure you as you won’t be staying for prolonged periods. It would be intended as end game cartography.

This is open to some interesting mechanics and could involve actually gathering samples of parts of Pandoria (flora, crystals, ect) for Everygrey to study.

Again, high pay and high rep. I personally love the idea of this being something only for Evergrey so it leaves him as kind of still a semi independent element. I think this could be a neat way of adding a rep system to him and if implemented then a reason to expand upon his character and give him more interactions with the player. (Such as teaching/training or sending them out on his own quests.)

System Ideas

The team could either have it where it’s always in the same place per day of the week but I think a “semi random” system similar to the druids and Mary’s missing animals could be far more interesting. There are a limited number of locations so players can eventually learn all potential spawn spots just like how the druids always have their events in the same spots but it’s somewhat random per day.

I also think having the system favor a certain area depending on the day of the week would be nice though. For example if all of the goldenhills quests are on Fridays then I think Avalon/the druids cartography quest should be available there.

I think the Rangers could also request the player to survey Mistfall or map out Northern Mistfall but that may be something added to a more ranger based mission system.

Another potential future idea is once you go up past Northlink into Wild Warden territory you have to use your cartography skills to build your own map.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my idea for a cartography system as much as I enjoyed writing it! I would adore seeing something like this implemented into SSO and even if it isn’t I know I would certainly love to make my own game with it in it. Let me know what you think or if you have any further ideas on how cartography could work in SSO via a reblog, reply or ask. As always, likes are also appreciated and again thank you for taking the time to read my rambles!

[morshtalon]

Shin Megami Tensei

(Definitely part 3 of a series of posts on the entire franchise)

For the end of MegaTen II, Atlus pulled out all the stops in terms of who you'd meet and what their importance to the lore was. While the ending arguably did leave some room for further escalation, by choosing to continue the story as it was, they'd be agreeing to keep being derivative works in relation to the books that originated their backstory. Sure, it was hardly the case anymore, what with the extreme departures MegaTen II took from the novels, but still. I guess the relative corner the writers got themselves backed into, combined with the clamor to have a more independent franchise on their hands, prompted them to scrap their established continuity and kick off a new one of their own. Whatever the real case was, it was definitely a smart choice, and thus was born Shin Megami Tensei, a way for them to keep their profitable series going. Also probably a much better game than a MegaTen III would have been.

Anyway, with a new continuity, possibilities were endless. They could better retread grounds they had already covered in the previous two games (well, really just MTII, since the first one barely even had anything going on), and expand upon ongoing themes while not having to worry about the usual expectation for a sequel in terms of magnitude and impact. Given that, it's unsurprising that, in comparison to MTII, this game dials things down a notch, relegating most of the more classical power fantasy stuff to the third act and preferring to engage in more character-driven events while leading up to it. None of the final enemies in SMT are as powerful as the ones in MTI and II (in story terms, actual battle stats notwithstanding) and the influence of cosmic forces that would have been enemies fought directly in the titles so far takes on a distant, more psychological approach (for the most part), unable to be challenged by the player. This helps build them as respectable overarching threats, and keeps the setting more subdued and the stakes higher, since it feels like characters are acting under the banner of things so powerful the player shouldn't even think themselves able to scratch them. It's good not to stat things sometimes, and it's quite impressive that they exercised this restraint way back in 1992.

For the demons that ARE fought, though, the artists really put their all into it this time. Even compared to games in the series's near future, I think this is the best looking they would be for a while. I mean, sure, Majin Tensei later on would have more detailed graphics, but I feel the art itself was worse there, with some weird proportions and a lot of palette swaps, while this game keeps things more consistently good overall.

Naturally, one longstanding tradition of the franchise introduced in SMT was the philosophical axis of Law vs. Chaos and the branching story that allowed the player to sit in any one point of the spectrum, with a modified final act depending on your decisions up to a certain point and where in the axis they would leave you once this point is reached. This system was partly a logical progression of the two endings from MTII and partly a way to integrate gameplay significance into what was already the grand point of SMT's storyline. While a good idea on paper and certainly innovative for its time and context, the warring faction-based story meant that as far as the plot is concerned, Law vs. Chaos pertains more to which of the factions you're appeasing with your decisions rather than any particularly lawful or chaotic behavior. There are some things that shift your alignment that have to do with being lawful or chaotic, but those lie mostly outside of the plot, in small actions that only serve to bring things one way or the other on infinitesimal increments and are meant more as an extra level of thought put into the system to label certain actions that were always there. The parallelisms between one faction and the other (i.e. temples that are identical in functionality; quests that consist of killing the other faction's quest-giver or vice-versa), together with certain easily exploitable ways to shift the alignment variable any way you want (so that you can play the game being entirely chaotic up to the crucial point where your alignment is locked, then right before that, exploit the mechanics to bring yourself to Law without having done anything lawful throughout the rest of the game), make the whole alignment system feel arbitrary, or at least the actual coded-in gameplay layer of it. I feel like maybe having only the unrepeatable story decisions actually affect alignment could help mitigate this somewhat. Then again, as I said, the story stuff doesn't feel much like the player being lawful or chaotic, so... I don't know.

Regardless of which path you take, you are going to get into a lot of fights. The game plays basically exactly like MTII, with an overhead top-down overworld and first-person dungeon crawling once you enter an area. This time around, very few areas are safe from enemy encounters, which makes sense since you're mostly just walking around Tokyo and a lot of first-person areas are just sections of the city that are populated (and besides, all of Tokyo is under threat from the demons). It made me realize that it's actually the typical RPG that opts to be nonsensical about the no-monsters-in-towns rule, but I'd be damned if that's not a smart choice on the part of the typical RPG. There are so many random encounters in this game, it's a common occurence for you to get several 1-step fights in a row. When I play an RPG, there's usually a point where I get really bored of always fighting enemies, then I finally escape the dungeon I'm in or go into a town and it's a big relief, like I can finally walk around and talk to people without having to stop dead in my tracks to fight the same enemy I already proved I can beat five hundred times before. Not so much in this game, and you'll definitely be crying out for an Estoma or a Fuma Bell most of the time. If you even know these two things act like repels in Pokémon and realize how useful they are.

If you don't know, however, you're going to need a lot of patience, because once again the game is very easy. Aside from, once again, a difficult earlygame, especially if you didn't put the right stat points into your protagonist (read: vitality and speed), the same basic problems from the previous two games' core concept of walking around and fighting dudes can be found here, but this time guns have ammo. Ammo doesn't actually count how many bullets you have left, it's just an extra thing you can equip that gives your gun attack an extra property such as more damage or a status effect. Thing is, status effects have an absurdly high hit rate in this game, work on most bosses, and there's a type of ammo that causes the "enthralled" status effect, which makes the target attack their own allies. Once you've got your hands on it, the game has been effectively turned into an interactive movie, even easier than the NES ones. Even without it, magic always seems to go before physical attacks, and both lightning and ice spells can stop an enemy for the current turn, so you'll likely always find a way to trivialize encounters within your disposal if you're just playing the game normally, even if you didn't realize it. With good speed, lightning or ice spells at your disposal and some status effect ammo, nothing will ever be able to stop you, no matter how hard they try. Once again, it's a preparations game, and that auto-battle button will get an intense workout this time around. I actually cleared the entire final dungeon under the effect of consecutive Fuma Bells, because of the combined effect a high encounter rate and the knowledge that the bosses could not stop me had on my brain. It's all about knowing which things are actually useful and which aren't, so it's actually just about struggling until the point you figure it out, then blazing through the game's fights half-asleep.

Still, battles notwithstanding, I think the exploration is more masterful than ever this time around. There isn't any significant portion of the game where you're clearly going after McGuffins, the whole story is pretty tightly paced and the balance between open-endedness and plot progression is well kept. There is a clearly evolving status quo for the entire setting of the game, and each time a major change happens new areas are made available while others are locked away. You can feel the effect the events of the narrative are having on the whole scenario, and the progression creates a bit of a disorienting effect as you attempt to find your way to the next significant location (which can and very well may cause you to get hopelessly lost on occasion, but that's part of the experience, I think). It's a pretty admirable blend of elements working together to create a continuous experience. This bleeds over into the characters themselves, who have evolving arcs and, for the most part, continue to be relevant and to have all sorts of crazy things happen to them through the course of the game. Consider it a much more mature attempt to do the sort of character-based revolving scheme that Final Fantasy IV also tried to do.

Overall, this is a game that further plays around with story concept brought over from MTII, experiments somewhat with new ways to go through some of its story beats, and creates a character-based narrative that goes through admirable amounts of change, to the point you can feel the whole cast working through their arcs as things escalate and reach a fever pitch. The gameplay is significantly less refined, though, and, admittedly, even the respectable things in SMT have struggled to stand the test of time, especially when you consider what later SMTs and SMT spinoffs would go on to do. I think this earns the original a 6.5 out of 10, my first non-integer score. It's damn respectable and admirable for 1992, but it has so many outdated things in it that it's hard to actually get oneself into the proper mentality to admire it unless you actually make the conscious decision to play the series in chronological release order. But who would be masochistic enough to do that, right?