IMO one of the weaknesses of current game design (and I don't at all mean specifically Larian) philosophy is the "start from the beginning" approach. You start from the beginning making things really interesting and then as production goes on, you have less time to work on specific areas, you have unexpected linearity because of not thinking ahead of how the nonlinearity of the beginning limits choices later on.
Game design really needs to at the very least outline the entire breadth of game duration simultaneously/holistically.
This really effects almost every game. Right now I can only think of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Awesome beginning.. slightly worse midgame, then deteriorates into mostly combat and SEWERS!!#Q$$$#!!!
Fake edit: Actually some other examples... All of the Gothic series (including Risen), Divine Divinity and Divinity 2 vanilla (I think Flames of Vengeance balanced it better). Hell, even Planescape:
My unorthodox idea is it may be better to work from the end to the beginning - a backwards approach. Then you definitely have set an entertaining end area with more non-combat and more NPC interaction (a la Cyseal), then move towards the beginning.
Though probably best would be to focus on both the beginning and the end, and let the middle fall into place. Mostly because you still do need a 'hook' in the beginning of the game, just like any good movie or novel.
But you cannot sacrifice the rest of the game by focusing too much on the hook.
Last edited by Mangoose; 25/09/14 09:16 PM.
