Reply From Salvatore (spanner in CS work)

I got a quick reply from Salvatore, which is fantastic. After this email however i am going to have to change, the layout of my presentation. Due to the final part being that he didn't have much of an input towards the game. He was more involved in the creation of the world that they braced it around the game


 "Very simply: since technology isn't at the point of "realism," where everything looks as it actually would look, where everyone reacts to situations appropriately, and where, well, you get things like "lag," the technological aspect of video games limits the storytelling and emotional immersion. 

With each not-so-subtle reminder that you're playing a game, the player is thrown from the story. Also, video games are, of course, interactive, and the idea of a story that truly allows you to change events in a meaningful way, including the lives of the characters with which you interact, is potentially groundbreaking. But the computing "reaction" power is nowhere near to that level yet, and most "choices" in video games are illusions...a side road that will take you where the designers needed you to go in the first place. 

 I didn't have that much of an influence on KoA, actually. My work was on building the world and on the MMO game, which was never finished. The BHG team did a great job with Kingdoms, and I helped a little, but all credit goes to them. "House of Ballads" blew me away - great storytelling there, I thought. They did a very clever thing: the only real choice was at the end - to kill or not to kill - and either choice made moral sense, depending upon which faction you believed in. When I completed that section of the game, I spent many hours wondering if I had done the right thing. That is good storytelling!"

 I am now going to decide weather to follow. this title or change my title, to a different topic. Before i settled on this idea i wanted to play with the idea of tabletop RPG's like world of darkness and dungeons and dragons. And how they create a ever changing narrative for the player, and how all game designers can learn from this. I want to decide by the end of the night to go with kingdoms of Alumar and R.A Salvatore or dungeons and dragons with a completely adaptable and interactive narrative.