Best posts made by Nausicaa

That moment when a character clicks in a scene and both dialogue and prose fits. It may be a quip, a pose, a look to someone else, but the moment when you realize you are typing for minutes on autopilot and it is all perfectly in character and it is all something you are very proud of.

I don't really mind FCs in general. They can be fun if handled properly. I think my main hold back is only that Hawke is a playable FC. Hawke is basically a blank slate with an identifiable name. In DA2, S/he could look like just about anything, had completely customizable stats, and react in a myriad of ways. Letting someone play Their Version of Hawke is off putting to me as mine was, most likely, very different. It's not like picking up Tony Stark on a comic game. Everyone may play him differently, but you essentially know the essence of that character.

Varric, Merrill, Fenris, etc. all changed depending on your interactions with them, but they also had defining characteristics in the beginning with which you would immediately identify. Like @Kanye-Qwest's avid love of Varric attests, those characters aren't blank slates, they're just moldable. Having those guys involved could be interesting.

The point of Hawke is that the name is important for the history of the Ferelden world. If the game will not be using all that history and will, instead, be changing it and using Hawke much like a regular character, then the name loses all meaning and turns the character into an OC that happens to have an OOC famous name. At that point, it makes more sense just to use OCs and elevate them to that level of importance. However, if they will be keeping most of Hawke's history as being the Champion of Kirkwall, then I don't see how they will be able to avoid having that FC in particular take over the game-changing and important plots.

I do love DA and I may still check the game out, but the Hawke thing makes me wary.

From what I've seen, there is no exact formula. A big thing seems to be for you to be the newer game in an area that people wish to play in. You can subscribe to every 'this is how to do it best' and still fail. You can also just shoot and pray and get a game that lasts awhile. Honestly, this is the only reason I can imagine that BNW survived as long as it did.

However, from what I can see, the main thing is to make a game with a theme you adore. Then, you have two or three staffers that you trust to help make it. You have to entrust them to make game changing decisions with plot or policy on any given day. No matter how many newsfiles you make, no matter how much you plan, there will be the one asshole who will weasel through all files in order to try and do what they want and they will most likely do it when you - as the head staffer - are not there. If you trust each and every one one of your staffers to make the right call when that thing happens? You're good. If you can trust them to abide by the rules of the game and not be that one asshole who will find loopholes? You're good, too. From what I can tell, a lot of games suffer from inter-admin fighting or a complete disillusion wiht the playerbase and making the game about themselves in order to make their efforts worthwhile.

You need to love the game and the idea, because players will generally suck the life out of you. It's not anyone's fault. Everyone wants their piece of the pie and most players will want to contribute, but there are the few that need to be The Best or Not Understand and it will drain you. So, you need to be all in and realize that they're there because of an idea you created. The art of knowing when to say No is very important.

Honestly? I feel like you won't know how to run the MU* you want to run till you're actually doing it. It's different for every game. But, the main things - to me - is love the subject, be willing to suffer fools, and learn to compromise in a way that makes the majority of people happy but does not sacrifice the vision of the game.

It's not the FCs in general I mind, or even that staff may have some of those FCs. If someone created a game that is Based On a Source Material and put it in a certain time period that has those FCs, well, that staffer most likely has an FC they would like to play.

My viewpoint may vary because my first games were of the Elendor/Harry Potter/Buffy era. This may just be a thing that I am just used to or encountered so early I accept it as how it is, but I take staff wanting certain FCs as the cost of doing business. I want to play a game set in the Buffyverse I want to play in - after the fall of Sunnydale? Well, one of the staffers is probably going to be Buffy. Another is most likely going to be Spike. If the FC I love the most/want to play is unavailable or played by someone I find does not have a proper grasp of that character, I don't play there and internally hope that game fails because I am a petty, petty person. Otherwise, I've had some of my favorite characters that wove themselves around limited available FCs and became part of the plot.

From what I've experienced, playing an FC is not always because you want to be better than everyone else or want to have an edge over other characters: it's because you love that character quite a bit and want a chance to play them. Sometimes, the only way to do that is to actually to make the game yourself. That I get. However, the problem is, I know that playing an FC can give you an unfair advantage. People already know your character and can decide how to interact with them because they've read/watched the source material. FCs are a lightning rod and can be a very powerful tool in a game. You can turn them into a force of great RP and plot points. Because of their universal identification, they can be used quite effectively due to the fact that they are out actually connecting with other people and weaving a complete storyline through social connections and small character points. Squandering that is basically character story crime.

Basically, I agree with @Thenomain. Staff FCs should be common knowledge. Even if they are not, I imagine it will become clear pretty quickly. All in all, that's not what I have a problem with. I have no problems with Fenris being a character or Varric, no matter who plays tham. Again, it's the Hawke thing that bothers me. It shows me that staff hasn't actually thought of the repercussions of FCs and how they effect players. Or even what an FC really means for the game and how they effect other people.