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Hello forum. Basically, I've been thinking here lately and a few ideas have come floating to me; I thought I would share.

My thread title really says it all. Generally speaking, could this idea work? I was thinking of making a game based
VERY heavily on story and player choices. I think I'm not alone here when I say Mass Effect 1 and 2 are
both some of my top favorite games. The question really is, why? Well because the story and customization to it is unmatched
compared to a lot of other games out there. I want to make a game where you are given several options throughout the game
but the ripple effects don't just end with you dying in 5 seconds after choosing the wrong door (or comparable situations).

I already understand its now possible to skip levels and load others (and go back to levels) without following a certain
predetermined sequence. Are different game endings plausible for this or perhaps, you might have a certain suggestion to
go about doing it?

I know you can put more then 1 win zone in a level but thats not exactly the case I'm talking about. You will have to
forgive me but I don't exactly catch the "level skipping" idea as a whole at the present either.

Thinking about it, I might want to rephrase where I'm going with this. I'm sure its just all in the means of coding to
say that 1 level will be the last just as you tell the engine which one is first. I was thinking that you have a game and
certain levels are automatically a given but (based on your actions of decisions) some levels can be playable or unplayable.

I don't want it to boil down to a final level either where its always the same. I'm talking about potentially more
then two endings and perhaps more then 1 level potentially being the last a player will end up.

I hope someone can get what I'm saying. It is a little late here so me being tired probably didn't help.
If anyone can relate to me on this, I would be grateful. I really feel that a great story game with player freedom would
be a great way to go now-a-days.

[Edited by BlackFox]

I can confirm that the "nextlevel=" action is within v118, there are also two conditions "levelequal=" and "levelnotequal" which test the number of the current level.

Making a player's choice need not only change the level progression. You could keep the level progression the same, but change which enemies spawn to greet you or which objects spawn to change the level for the player.

For example:
In level 1 the player accepts mission M1 and kills person NPC1. This makes team T1 the enemy in level 2 and causes path P1 to be blocked.
If the player re-plays the game and this time accepts mission M2 and saves NPC1. This makes T1 allies and T2 enemies in level 2 and causes path P1 to be unblocked, but access to Room R2 to be denied.

The team allegence can be achieved with DAI.

The path blocking can be done by spawning crates based on a variable ("varequal=NPC1 1:settargetname=CrateP1,activatetarget=1").

Door access can be achieved in a similar way using variables.

Clearly doing this in v117 is more difficult due to the limitations with the variables, but it should be possible.

Doing this should make your game have different endings and experiences as you progress through the game.

So I have a similar question then: If you leave level "A" and are on level "B" could you accept a side mission that would then be spawned back on level "A"? An example would be a game like Borderlands. You may find out on level "B" that a NPC on level "A" needs you to do something for them. Then you return to level "A" and the NPC dialouge, etc. is different.

I'm new and a terrible scripter (so far) but with the nextlevel= script couldn't you have have several places you could go based on which win zone you end up at? (again, if you played Borderlands think the fast travel system) You could also make a "level" seem even bigger by loading each section (a new fpsc level). Or am I way off the mark here?

It would be very possible to make a game with multiple ending on each level, but that would limit the number of possible levels one player would experience while keeping the final game size reasonable. If each level has just one ''split'', then the final file size will obviously be double. While I haven't reached the level limit with FPSC, I'm sure it will begin to struggle eventually.

Thanks for the input guys. I'm currently helping fuel an early Portal 2 launch but after the hype dies down... I
may start working on a very new game of my own. We will just have to wait and see, won't we?

Sorry for the off-topic nature of this, but what are you doing for Portal 2? I can't wait to fire up my 360 with that game

I spent time and money all for nothing. Valve pulled a fast one on everyone and the game launched at 12 AM EST time Tuesday.
The game didn't release early and I got tricked. Portal 2 was good fun but I can't help but wish my other $34 wasn't spent.