Thoughts on when too much is being told.

[x4000]

I have two suggestions in hand that I've been thinking about, and I wanted to explain my rationale for not doing either of them -- at least not for now.

NPCs to be documented in terms of "where to find"
-- Professor Paul1290

A description somewhere of the who/what/where/when/why of getting new people into your settlement, how that affects you, and why you should even care.  Right now it's one of those 'explore as you go' things and its REALLY annoying, unlike other things that you explore and go OH NEAT!  I should look forward to finding a new NPC, not look at him and go "Why the heck do I care about you?!"
-- Wanderer


In terms of Professor's original comment, the need for that was because those missions were so darn rare.  But as of a few versions back, they are now way more common.  So people are just naturally going to be finding them in caves and buildings.  And to some extent, I'm not sure how people were missing them in the caves in the first place, since you have to go down there to find gems and then will wind up seeing the missions.  So in terms of documenting where to find NPCs... I think that's already pretty much worked out.

Then thinking about Wanderer's suggestion.  On the surface I like it -- both of these suggestions come from really sharp commenters, I should say, so this isn't a commentary on them in any way.  However, the thing is... isn't that suggestion getting a bit cart before the horse? 

When you meet a person in the wild and they need to be saved from death, is the first reaction really "what's in it for me?"  If so, my inclination is to let the player just let the NPC die.  Then later if they realized they actually wanted that NPC around, that's a little subtle life lesson.   Not that I'm trying to be preachy here, and of course it's just a game and again this is really NOT a comment on Wanderer specifically in any way.  But it seems to me that in the context of games, you can assume that rescuing somebody leads to something good, even if you don't know what.

And that's what I mean about the cart before the horse.  It's an exploration game.  We sure do tell you a lot of things in advance, but at the same time some things are better left for you to find.  That's why I've been so back and forth about a monster list included in the encyclopedia parts of the game.  It's a lot more fun to just go out and find that sort of thing in particular, is my personal belief.  The frustration comes when you need X and you have no idea where to find it in a giant world, and that's where the wiki comes in for Minecraft and the in-game encyclopedia comes in for us.

By the time you actually need NPCs -- aka, finding guardian power scrolls -- it tells you that you need them.  By then you've probably passed some NPC rescue missions, and maybe even rescued a few.  So you probably have a pretty good idea what to do to go find some more NPCs.

I was talking about the monsters list thing in particular with a reviewer a few weeks back and asked his professional opinion; his response was that he felt like it's definitely possible to tell too much, but that we seem to be striking a good balance at the moment.  This is somebody whose opinion I really respect, so I've been reluctant to stray too far from that line, so to speak.  Anyway, that's my rationale.

[Bluddy]

Regarding the monster list, the way it's done in some games is that you only see stuff on the list once you've encountered it. Then you can open your bestiary and read up on the monsters and their backgrounds.

I think it would be even cooler if details emerged only once you've discovered them. For example, if you hit a skelebot with fire, you're never going to have information in your bestiary saying that the skelebot is vulnerable to electricity. But if you do happen to hit a skelebot with a lightning attack, it'll then show up in your bestiary.

As another example, the text backgrounds could be missing until an NPC happens to mention information about said monster. If you've heard the info AND seen the monster in the wild, the monster will show up in the bestiary not only with its picture, but also with the background info you heard.

In this way, the bestiary becomes a journal about the monsters that you very slowly flesh out. I do think the concept is cool but obviously it's not something that necessary.

[x4000]

Long-term on the bestiary, that sort of thing is exactly where I was thinking it would go, too.  Final Fantasy games have been doing Bestiaries something along those lines pretty well for a few years now; particularly in their GBA remakes of their classic SNES/NES titles.

That becomes more of a nice-to-have ultimately, though, because it doesn't help anyone learn the game -- it just helps them remember the game if it's been a while since they've seen a monster.  So I think that sometime post-1.0 that's going to suddenly make a ton of sense, but for now that's another reason I deferred on that one.

[Hyfrydle]

A besitiary like this would also help with the anachronism missions.

[Toll]

They'd probably make anachronism missions a bit too easy.

[x4000]

They'd probably make anachronism missions a bit too easy.

Yep, that's info I'd withhold from the bestiary for sure, I think.

[Wanderer]

Pressed for time at the moment but thank you for the explanation Chris.

I think, perhaps, there could be a balance there though.  I'll think about your decision and see if I can think of a way that will stick with your philosophy there and still help to not make it feel quite as bump and stumble in the dark as I felt when I first started.

[x4000]

NP, and my pleasure.  Pressed for time here as well, so it works out.

[Wanderer]

I still don't have a reasonable compromise, unfortunately, as to my request and your preferred approach, Chris.  It's one of those catch-22s.  How do you give a new player something "in the dark" and still let them know what they're chasing.  My personal aggravation stemmed from a feeling of flailing around in the dark as to what NPCs (and my any possible glyph scrolls) would actually do for me... this not being the real world and not equating to saving children from burning buildings in realtity (mostly to your earlier comment for the rest of the world... I agree but the rest is best discussed over beers, the rest of the planet may not understand in a simple statement).

What I personally would like is a better understanding of how NPC's fit in.  When you first run across them it seems (from subtext, not anything actually said) that you want to swap who's "saving the world".  For me, and I figure a lot of new players, the frustration was that I didn't understand how to use these new settlement folk effectively.  If somewhere I found "Find new people and they'll help you with more powerful guardian spells", that would probably be enough as it was a statement from "on high".  My personal floundering came from trying to figure out what the devs MEANT them to be versus what they were in ACTUALITY.  Part of that comes not from Arcen but from trying to decipher games in general.  Most aren't as thorough as I've found Arcen to be.

Giving a new (or reasonably confused) player a better concept of the intent would go a long way to pushing finding a new NPC into the "OH NEAT!!" category.