(Suggestion) Guards with Personalities

[Brento666]

I would love-love-love any kind of extra depth as long as it doesn't make the game more buggy, much harder or having to over-manage things!

But yeah, more unity in the entities interfaces would be very welcome from modding perspective... And also if they started fixing some of the newly added values which show up nil the whole darn time !!

[ronnie4444]

Why not just make it an option, like events and gangs? If you don't want super micromanagement, then don't pick "Guard Personalities". However, I would love nothing more than to see (at the very minimum) guard names and perhaps procedurally generated bios, with 3 separate parts picked from a text file (ie. childhood, teenage years, and adulthood), which affect the guard's personality (if the option is enabled). I genuinely believe that Prison Architect is so focused around the prisoners, and the guards are left neglected, and I think that guard names would be cool.

[ronnie4444]

Right now you barely care that you lost a guard.

That is 100% true. If you lose 10 guards, you click "staff", click "guard", and plop down 10 more, which makes losing a guard nothing more than a minor nuisance. I think that (optionally, via the create-a-prison menu) we should have to train guards over time, and they become better at their job as they go on, meaning that losing a guard is a problem because he happened to be really well trained. Also, it goes without saying that this is a simulation game, therefore micromanagement IS a good thing (for presumably a lot of people).

Also, if it's too much for someone, why not make it optional? Options are everything in games like prison architect - The devs said that they don't want to put any bias into their game, so who's to say no one wants to micro-manage their guards? Quite frankly, I'd love the ability to train my guards in different skills, so that they can become better at their job. Once again, nobody said it would be forced upon everybody. Personally, I turn on gangs and events, just because I love the extra challenge of sorting out my prisoners, and having the ABILITY (key word there) to specialize my guards in different skills would be fantastic. Also, when I say ability, I mean "Options, options, options!", because who doesn't like having the OPTION to do something these days? :p

//Ron

[xander]

Also, if it's too much for someone, why not make it optional?

Because giving the guards personalities, even if they are only optional personalities, runs counter the to the narrative of the game.

xander

[Brento666]

Also, if it's too much for someone, why not make it optional?

Because giving the guards personalities, even if they are only optional personalities, runs counter the to the narrative of the game.
xander

Set Narrative ~= Sandbox (!)
What a shortsighted thing to say to us dreamers!

[xander]

Set Narrative ~= Sandbox (!)
What a shortsighted thing to say to us dreamers!

You seem to believe that "sandbox" means "no narrative." That is not at all true.

Consider, for example, the original SimCity. In that game, you could completely eliminate all traffic by building only rail lines and no roads. Your citizens would never complain about bad traffic and pollution would be greatly decreased, hence it was to the player's advantage to build rail as soon as they could afford to do so. This design decision was a narrative decision---it reflected a belief by the developers that trains were/are inherently better than cars. In that case, game mechanics reflect a narrative decision.

I don't see how Prison Architect is any different. The folk at IV have a world view that is reflected in the game that they have produced. This point-of-view permeates the game, including the sandbox mode.

xander

[Brento666]

Hi Xander, I get we're not running the show here, we're merely suggesting things we'd like in the game...

I personally love to customize as much as possible, and would love any kind of extra level / depth in gameplay!
-> Prsion Architect is about prisons, guards play a pretty essential role in prisons... Why be against more (optional) depth there?!

[xander]

Why be against more (optional) depth there?!

I am not against additional depth. I am pointing out that the design decision to give the guards no individual personality is a narrative decision, and that it is entirely justified as such. It has been suggested repeatedly over the last several years that guards should be given more personality. I am quite certain that IV are aware of those suggestions. I am quite certain that they could implement such suggestions if they wanted to. The fact that they haven't indicates fairly strongly that they don't want to. You can either continue to ignore that and call me "shortsighted" for pointing it out, or you can recognize that Prison Architect is the game that IV have made, and not the game that you would have made.

xander

[Brento666]

or you can recognize that Prison Architect is the game that IV have made, and not the game that you would have made.
xander

Fact is IV say they will continue adding to PA, maybe not every month.. but still.. Are you happy with a brownish box with 'sack/follow' options... Really?
Also, I make it the game I want it to be, far as IV let's me anyway! If I come around to it, I will add at least a randomly generated name to each guard, I'm currently busy on surgery amongst other efforts...

I am getting tired of people feeling they need to defend 'narrative decision making' choices of the almighty IV. Why take time to spout your perceived 'truth'? This isn't religion, Software CAN evolve !!

-> Please stop changing the topic to 'why it's not going to happen', I could appreciate the SimCity (1980s!) game comparison, talk some more on that, or something...
Stop bringing me down

http://i.imgur.com/BOXVH65

[ronnie4444]

The folk at IV have a world view that is reflected in the game that they have produced. This point-of-view permeates the game, including the sandbox mode.

It goes without saying that IVSoftware have said that they DON'T want to impose their beliefs/views on the game, so they have implemented punishment AND reform, no matter what their view is. (citation: Alpha 18 video)

//Ron

[dareddevil7]

Why has the symbol for this thread changed?

[xander]

-> Please stop changing the topic to 'why it's not going to happen',

You are quite argumentative and hostile, aren't you?

I have offered a point of view that suggests that the lack of individualized guards is, perhaps, a narrative decision. You have not engaged on that point at all. Instead, you have brought up unrelated arguments, attacked me personally, and told me to shut up. I get that you want customized guards. Bully for you. Do you have any response to the argument that maybe---just maybe---IV made a conscious decision *not* to allow the player to customize the guards because they wanted the players to focus on the prisoners?

Actually, ronnie4444 responded to that a bit (kind of): IV have said that they don't want to force players to have only one optimal play style (vis-a-vis reform vs punishment). That in no way addresses the question of whether or not IV want the narrative focus to be on the prisoners or not. Given that they have been emphasizing the prisoners from the start (what do you think that Name in Game package is?), and have never really emphasized the staff (aside from the wardens, to an extent), I'm not sure that the argument generalizes. That is, I'm not sure that IV's desire not to force either punishment or reform on players generalizes to IV having a desire to let the players do anything they want, or to IV having no desire to have a narrative perspective.

Finally: In response to your question "Are you happy with a brownish box with 'sack/follow' options... Really?": Yes. I am quite happy. But this isn't about me (or you, for that matter).

xander

[dareddevil7]

-> Please stop changing the topic to 'why it's not going to happen',

You are quite argumentative and hostile, aren't you?

I have offered a point of view that suggests that the lack of individualized guards is, perhaps, a narrative decision. You have not engaged on that point at all. Instead, you have brought up unrelated arguments, attacked me personally, and told me to shut up. I get that you want customized guards. Bully for you. Do you have any response to the argument that maybe---just maybe---IV made a conscious decision *not* to allow the player to customize the guards because they wanted the players to focus on the prisoners?

Actually, ronnie4444 responded to that a bit (kind of): IV have said that they don't want to force players to have only one optimal play style (vis-a-vis reform vs punishment). That in no way addresses the question of whether or not IV want the narrative focus to be on the prisoners or not. Given that they have been emphasizing the prisoners from the start (what do you think that Name in Game package is?), and have never really emphasized the staff (aside from the wardens, to an extent), I'm not sure that the argument generalizes. That is, I'm not sure that IV's desire not to force either punishment or reform on players generalizes to IV having a desire to let the players do anything they want, or to IV having no desire to have a narrative perspective.

Finally: In response to your question "Are you happy with a brownish box with 'sack/follow' options... Really?": Yes. I am quite happy. But this isn't about me (or you, for that matter).

xander

everybody needs to stop arguing about possible features

[Brento666]

-> Please stop changing the topic to 'why it's not going to happen',

You are quite argumentative and hostile, aren't you?

I have offered a point of view that suggests that the lack of individualized guards is, perhaps, a narrative decision. You have not engaged on that point at all. Instead, you have brought up unrelated arguments, attacked me personally, and told me to shut up. ...
xander

HI Xander,
sorry for being an argumentative arse, but in no way do I mean you should remain quiet (and I definitely didn't tell you to "Shut up").
If reading my post feels like a personal attack, you should perhaps read my post again.

Maybe I could have been clearer in my motivation to ask you to "stop brining me down"; This topic is called "(Suggestion) Guards with Personalities"... You weren't exactly adding to the topic... I even felt you were seriously derailing our discussion.

Still not angry, just annoyed. What did tick me off a bit was you saying the magic words "FACT" and "IGNORE"... Quote;
"The fact that they haven't indicates fairly strongly that they don't want to. You can either continue to ignore that ..."

(The fact that they haven't indicates to me that they have other things on their mind, or other priorities, that's all it says to me.)
I brought up my own 'factual truth' about PA not being fully finished, because it's in development still; as a direct opposition to your point. ...That's all...

Please don't think I have anything against you personally!
-It's just that this kind of situation; were people chime in on topics with reasons why we shouldn't want the topical discussion point(s) we want... Just irks the heck out of me! And I've seen it happen here on suggested topics too many times!

I'm not going to read back, but it may well have been YOU on those occasion as well Xander
->You only have 16 THOUSAND+ posts (This is merely meant as a joke/pun. And a remark to your crazy amount of posts; not an attack.)

Please don't hate for going against your points; you've clearly got higher-merit and seniority around here.

@dareddevil7:
-Why has the symbol for this thread changed?
- I think that happens automatically when a topic reaches a certain number of posts.
-everybody needs to stop arguing about possible features.
-Agreed: going silent (to focus on releasing my next mod TODAY)

[xander]

Maybe I could have been clearer in my motivation to ask you to "stop brining me down"; This topic is called "(Suggestion) Guards with Personalities"... You weren't exactly adding to the topic... I even felt you were seriously derailing our discussion.

So when a suggestion is made and a person feels that the suggestion is a bad one (for whatever reason), expressing that point of view is derailing the topic?

I, personally, don't like the idea of individualizing the guards. I don't want to deal with the micro. I think it would tell a very different story. I don't think it would actually add anything to the game other than needless complexity. Other people in this topic suggested that it was overkill on the micro; I gave a different point of view. I don't see how that derails the topic. It seems quite on-topic, to me.

xander