Are characters gone in DW2?

[Miletkir]

ORIGINAL: Whiskiz

Turns out people were fretting over a problem that didn't exist, based on very limited information.

Can we please not do that, just this once.

Well, I just started out asking. I think everyone was aware we still needed confirmation. This thread turned out to be more of an opportunity for people to spell things out about how they viewed the role of spies and characters.

[Whiskiz]

Actually you started by saying it was already "eating away at you" and the need to "make a full thread about it" and that because you couldn't see something in the limited information given, you were "suspicious" then went on to say how it'd be a shame if it wasn't added etc.

You finished your post with a question, after all that, asking if there will indeed be characters as if to underline your point of it being bad if not more than anything else.

That's definitely fretting [:'(]

[Erik Rutins]

Well, it's true that (at least at this point in development) there's no top level button for characters, so I understand why folks wondered. They are one level down and the final interface organization is still subject to change based on testing and feedback.

[Miletkir]

ORIGINAL: Whiskiz

Actually you started by saying it was already "eating away at you" and the need to "make a full thread about it" and that because you couldn't see something in the limited information given, you were "suspicious" then went on to say how it'd be a shame if it wasn't added etc.

You finished your post with a question, after all that, asking if there will indeed be characters as if to underline your point of it being bad if not more than anything else.

That's definitely fretting [:'(]

Fine... Guilty as charged.

Anyway, thanks Erik for sharing that piece of info with us. No more freaking out until the beta is announced.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Aside for captains in DW1 I usually enjoyed the characters as they gave allot of flavor. Captains on the other hand had too little impact on the game as a whole and wasted a bit of space in the character screen. From a role-play perspective I think you could enjoy captains but even then I think it had some limitations.

[Retreat1970]

Exactly. All my captains were drunks. A good ambassador was useful. A good spy was game breaking and needs nerfing. My last posted AAR had an uber spy that almost won the game for me by himself.

[Siddham]

Well after all the fuss there it is [:)]
I'm glad there will be characters; I find overall they do add another layer of immersion
Thank you for clarifying Erik

[Hyperion1]

About characters I profite to orbiting around the subject but there are still in 2D, 2D animated or 3D?

It's for prepare myself psychologically with the amont of modding necessary. [:'(]

[boolybooly]

I dont mind characters but I dont dwell on them.

I think there are different styles of play, one is roleplay which the more forgiving fans enjoy because they accept any eventuality and turn it into a story.

The other is gameplay, which is what I enjoy, where one uses the rules of the game to construct or create something emerging from them to effect change in the game.

As a gameplayer I like mechanics but dont appreciate RND events and really loathe the random drunk event because it and its ilk just happen too often.

Even from a role playing perspective I hate it, why appoint a ships captain if they are drunkard lowlifes but worse than that it screws up my ships carefully balanced to make speed 35 to best take out Kaltors. Suddenly a captain is puking all over the console and ship ship goes slower and gets torn to shreds? No I dont think so, when maneuver goes down the only gameplay option I have is they are dismissed, no rehab, no court martial, why have an event if you cannot respond to it effectively? RND drunk happens so often I either edit or dont have any captains. It was funny once, OK? Ditto leaders, IMHO balance is way off and there are too many negative events for characters which contribute nothing but "embuggerance", to coin a Terry Pratchet phrase, in DW1.

If you have characters in DW2 and RND events changing their traits, I would really appreciate it if one of the game conditions could be an option to stipulate no negative trait events, like the no disasters setting, which I definitely have on in my games. A negative trait is no fun when it means you have to dismiss or edit your characters or save surf all the time. I just dont enjoy it. ALternatively if there were creative remedies available then OK it might be fun. Just dropping a cowpat in your lap every 50 seconds, not so much.

[Rising-Sun]

Characters can be useful or annoying to have, idk i guess it alright. When i played Master of Orion III, i did enjoy having them, but i didnt like the ideas that it was random. Like you are playing the a specie that has something doesnt belong there.

It can bring in some insight to the game, but its not really important, unless you planning heavy into roleplaying.

Like in Stellaris, you gotta have so much gold bars to support a science vessel and leader to operate it, limited of what you can have. That i didnt like.

[SirHoraceHarkness]

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]

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]

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!

[Tanaka]

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]

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]

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.

[Anonymous]

[Deleted by Admins]

[Kull]

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]

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

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!

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]

ORIGINAL: Kull

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.