Other Games. Playing, Getting & Tribute - All Discussion thread

[iloveyouXWORLD]

Originally Posted by Fluffis

This is the manga/anime school of thought. Just check Naruto, for instance, or for a worse example; Dragonball. People just become more and more powerful, until the point where they can level whole countries. This isn't a challenge, to me. It's war of attrition.

It would be far more fulfilling, to me, if when I sneak around a level, I suddenly stumble on this complete bad-ass of an enemy. I can weigh my chances, count my resources and try to take him down; or I can decide to save my resources (say it would drain too much of them, because of my own limited skill in combat), and deal with my goal another way. Or I can be a lean, mean fighting machine, who can't sneak his way past an enemy to save his life, with all that entails.

If I can be a lean, mean fighting machine who can tip-toe around any enemy, (hack any computer, in that sort of game) and has a silver tongue... well, I just can't pretend that I'd find something like that interesting.

yeah but like you said before you have to work for your power. so scenarios of sneaking around bad-ass enemies will happen before you get all the power yourself.

[Fluffis]

Originally Posted by iloveyouXWORLD

yeah but like you said before you have to work for your power. so scenarios of sneaking around bad-ass enemies will happen before you get all the power yourself.

You misunderstand me a bit. I want those kinds of situations even after I've levelled up. I want my choices in personal development to have real consequences. If I focus on stealth, I want to not be a walking tank as well.

I'm in the "Choose - but choose wisely" school of thought. Where the choices you make actually disqualify you from becoming a master at something other than your primary focus.

[iloveyouXWORLD]

Originally Posted by Fluffis

You misunderstand me a bit. I want those kinds of situations even after I've levelled up. I want my choices in personal development to have real consequences. If I focus on stealth, I want to not be a walking tank as well.

I'm in the "Choose - but choose wisely" school of thought. Where the choices you make actually disqualify you from becoming a master at something other than your primary focus.

i see. i suppose im ok with this, as long as i can still do everything (sneak, pick locks, use swords, bows, magic) but only master one or two.

[flunkorg]

Originally Posted by Jerion

I enjoyed the game for what it was.

For me it blew me away. I knew for a fact that they couldn't do another "portal 1" because frankly thats impossible. They'd have to make a completely new game. So instead, they decided to turn portal 1 into a full fledged game. And honestly, its one of the best games they've made in years. The puzzles where challenging yet never felt impossible. The pacing was flawless. The voice acting was brilliant. The writing is probably the best I've ever seen in a game. Hell, nothing, not even movies, shows, books or other games made me laugh that hard at the dialogue! And the co-op was absolutely brilliant. Unlike most other co-op games actually working together to solve solutions was necessary. You actually had to rely on your partner to succeed. Its something I've seen CO-OP only games not do.
Honestly, I wasn't expecting much. I was expecting essentially portal 1 style environments for 5-8 hours. What I got was much more then I could have ever imagined. Its definitely not half life 2 material. But its up there. Currently my GotY at the moment. Only time will tell if I find DE:HR to be better. But from what I've experienced in the preview, its gonna at least be damn close thats for sure.

[Rindill the Red]

I think the main problem with Skyrim's new style of character development is that it gives the character unlimited potential in a generic package. In Morrowind and many other class based RPG's (D&D foremost comes to mind), picking a class was an economic a choice. If you choose to be a mage you don't get to be a knight with arms, armor and shield, but you do get to use spells. You gave up other special abilities and talents to acquire certain others. Whatever you did in the game, whatever abilities you had, they were special, and characterized. Human beings are realistically and intriguingly born with certain aptitudes and natural talents as well faults, which are reflected in starting stats, which gives the role-play humanity and depth. It also gave the character an identity. A mage is an archetype. So is the knight. Role-playing an archetype whether typically or atypically is fun. Now, granted, I suppose the Dragon Born is supposed to basically become a God... so it makes some sense that he have god-like power progression.

[MaxxQ1]

Originally Posted by Fluffis

Just check Naruto, for instance, or for a worse example; Dragonball.

I'll pass, TYVM. Gimme Gantz, GitS, Akira, or Death Note, among others.

Originally Posted by Fluffis

I'm in the "Choose - but choose wisely" school of thought. Where the choices you make actually disqualify you from becoming a master at something other than your primary focus.

Ditto.

[Pinky_Powers]

Originally Posted by Jerion

I enjoyed the game for what it was. I wish the puzzles were more inventive and challenging, but it was entertaining throughout and featured a fantastic ending.

Agreed... save for the ending bit; I have not beaten it yet so I wouldn't know.

[cartridge]

Originally Posted by MaxxQ1

I'll pass, TYVM. Gimme Gantz, GitS, Akira, or Death Note, among others.

And give me Hokuto no Ken *looks at Kenshiro in my av*, and Phantom of Inferno and Darker than Black. I also really enjoyed Spice & Wolf and Sacred Blacksmith, although they're completely unrelated lol.

[Riddik116]

Originally Posted by Rindill the Red

I think the main problem with Skyrim's new style of character development is that it gives the character unlimited potential in a generic package. In Morrowind and many other class based RPG's (D&D foremost comes to mind), picking a class was an economic a choice. If you choose to be a mage you don't get to be a knight with arms, armor and shield, but you do get to use spells. You gave up other special abilities and talents to acquire certain others. Whatever you did in the game, whatever abilities you had, they were special, and characterized. Human beings are realistically and intriguingly born with certain aptitudes and natural talents as well faults, which are reflected in starting stats, which gives the role-play humanity and depth. It also gave the character an identity. A mage is an archetype. So is the knight. Role-playing an archetype whether typically or atypically is fun. Now, granted, I suppose the Dragon Born is supposed to basically become a God... so it makes some sense that he have god-like power progression.

well see in oblivion the class you picked didnt really matter since you could do anything, but ofcourse they could of fixed that in skyrim but instead they decided to go another route. From what ive been reading on the new leveling system, it atleast makes it sound like everybody will have more diverse characters end game where as in previous games characters were more diverse at the beginning. Theyre really making the point you are what you play, which i think is atleast better than oblivion. Could they have done it alot better? ofcourse but they seem to be getting away from the rpg aspects of the game so im not too surprised by skyrims new system.

[Pinky_Powers]

Originally Posted by Fluffis

You misunderstand me a bit. I want those kinds of situations even after I've levelled up. I want my choices in personal development to have real consequences. If I focus on stealth, I want to not be a walking tank as well.

I'm in the "Choose - but choose wisely" school of thought. Where the choices you make actually disqualify you from becoming a master at something other than your primary focus.

I like those games a lot too. But I encourage some variety in game design. As long as it still requires the player to dedicate their time and XP to leveling, what could be wrong with a title that allows you to choose from the full catalog? They still have to work for it, and they still have to make the tough decisions as to what to upgrade and when. It's like Deus Ex - Human Revolution.

Large, open-world games with hundreds of hours of content really lend themselves to this approach. You could play for fifty hours being a soldier, wielding sword and shield. But then your interests broaden, and you can spend another fifty hours building up your roguish stealth/thieving abilities.

Every one of us has the ability to learn a new skill set. Long, open-world games make it a plausible function of the character-building.

If only the narrative was strong enough to carry me through it, I might someday beat a Bethesda game. But alas, that's unlikely to ever happen.

[Zoet]

I think that Skyrim's skill system sounds quite good: if you use all the skills, you could become an archer/mage/warrior hybrid, but it also mean that you would be at a lower level in all those skills than say someone who played in a more specialised way, who would have a maximum level in a smaller number of skills. That is my understanding anyway.
And who says wizard's can't use swords effectively? That never stopped Gandalf!

[II J0SePh X II]

[QUOTE=Pinky_Powers;1645151]
Large, open-world games with hundreds of hours of content really lend themselves to this approach. You could play for fifty hours being a so

[Fluffis]

Originally Posted by MaxxQ1

I'll pass, TYVM. Gimme Gantz, GitS, Akira, or Death Note, among others.

Me too, tbh, though those are fairly poor examples of my point. (Though I haven't actually read/seen Gantz)

Originally Posted by Pinky_Powers

Large, open-world games with hundreds of hours of content really lend themselves to this approach. You could play for fifty hours being a soldier, wielding sword and shield. But then your interests broaden, and you can spend another fifty hours building up your roguish stealth/thieving abilities.

That's what the "New Game" function is for, Pinky old sport.

Now, I'm not saying that people should necessarily be stopped from doing this. I'm just saying that I can't find the challenge in being the meanest, toughest guy around.

To me, perfection is boring.

[pringlepower]

Originally Posted by Rindill the Red

I think the main problem with Skyrim's new style of character development is that it gives the character unlimited potential in a generic package. In Morrowind and many other class based RPG's (D&D foremost comes to mind), picking a class was an economic a choice. If you choose to be a mage you don't get to be a knight with arms, armor and shield, but you do get to use spells. You gave up other special abilities and talents to acquire certain others. Whatever you did in the game, whatever abilities you had, they were special, and characterized. Human beings are realistically and intriguingly born with certain aptitudes and natural talents as well faults, which are reflected in starting stats, which gives the role-play humanity and depth. It also gave the character an identity. A mage is an archetype. So is the knight. Role-playing an archetype whether typically or atypically is fun. Now, granted, I suppose the Dragon Born is supposed to basically become a God... so it makes some sense that he have god-like power progression.

Sure you had a class in Morrowind, but it was hardly binding. All a class was was a collection of major and minor skills - the only difference between these and other skills were faster level ups and an initial boost. You could level up any other skills as much as you wanted, and could even find and pay trainers to give you instant skill levels. In fact, due to the stats system on level up you were even encouraged to train non-major skills.

My glass armor wielding sword and shieldsman-mage-alchemist-enchanter-archer-lockpicker-sneaker-smith I stuck 200 hours into Morrowind for was a direct result of that system.

This concept is not new to Skyrim.

[Riddik116]

Originally Posted by Pretentious Old Man.

Bethesda games are about as buggy as Obsidian games at launch. Fallout 3 gave me WAAAAAAAAY more trouble than New Vegas ever did, and was a far, far inferior game in my view. New Vegas is the game FO3 should have been. I know you're a console player, but don't you guys get patches? I've never had a single bug from New Vegas (I bought it about 6 months after launch)



The Witcher 2?

6 months after launch already had 2 patches (one that fixed some of the main bugs on pc and a few on 360). It was the 3rd patch that made my 80 hour save unplayable (and also caused my most recent saves not to load until i loaded an earlier save before, in other words i had to be playing the game before i could play my newest save).... and as far as bethesda games go the only bugs i ever see are just fall through floor type bugs or just weird stuff with the physics, nothing to the poin of broken (quest, freezes, etc.).

FONV had many good things that were better than FO3 imo (overall story and gameplay mechs and choices) but a couple things it really failed to do was have an interesting world, I just cant stand the completely baren desert (it was better than oblivion atleast), and the intro of having you play as a courier. I feel they completely messed up the courier part by not really explaining the story (then again i havnt beaten the game by mr. houses way yet so it might add some to the story then).


--------

Also on TES, most of the game design choices are made for very specific reasons mainly for goin with the theme of the TES series being "be who you want to be". For instance, removal of classes, it was taken out because you play who you want to be so if your a theif play as a thief. Another, Auto-lvling is in the game so it supports the be who you want to be and go where you want to go.

But I have to say Tood Howard has the issue of over hyping his games with features that dont end in the final version of his games (100 different endings in FO3 anyone?). Atleast he isnt as bad as Peter Molyneux.

[Amitush]

Originally Posted by Shralla

Is it scripted bull like the E3 demo was?

Of course, it's impossible to tell unless they showed the same section of the game to somebody else, and played it differently. A couple of my friends are just complete suckers for Bethesda for some reason, and I told them I didn't think the game was going to be as good or as interesting as they're hyping it up to be, and my main point was that they're hyping up how dynamic the game is, and then they literally showed the same scripted demo to every single publication at E3.

If anybody else is in a Bethesda-hating mood right now, I've been trying to dig up some of the stuff that Todd Howard lied about prior to the release of Oblivion. Can anybody help me out?

Scripted or not, you must agree that it looks very impressive, I think it has much potential..
Ofc, it might turn to be as shallow as Oblivion, but Oblivion was quite good depsite that fact, so I have no reason to complain

[Vallux]

New Vegas felt odd after FO3. Maybe it's just the Radio DJ's. Say what you want about Three Dog, but at least he hasn't tested his charisma on a Vit-O-Matic Vvvvvvvigor Tester.

[Amitush]

Originally Posted by Vallux

New Vegas felt odd after FO3. Maybe it's just the Radio DJ's. Say what you want about Three Dog, but at least he hasn't tested his charisma on a Vit-O-Matic Vvvvvvvigor Tester.

Is it a worthy sequel? I'm having a blast with FO3, but duno if I want another of the same

[Pretentious Old Man.]

I never considered that there would be this much support for the "be an archer-mage-thief hybrid" school of thought. I've always found that totally counter to the point of being an RPG. If there are no limiting factors, (and spells/hits can't even fail any more) then as far as I'm concerned it's a simple hack and slash.

I like the Daggerfall system best, where you pick bonus powers and then need to pick negative factors to balance it out (for example, you are a master swordsman, but are afraid of the dark so fight badly at night). That, to me, is a roleplaying system. Also, a mage in plate mail is just...wrong. It's unbalanced. (Just like Oblivion was).

As an aside, I truly hated FO3's world. Firstly, it was nothing like the DC that I know. Secondly, there were far too many linear paths produced artificially by stacking up cars and so on, funneling the gamer into super-mutants. Thirdly, there were way too many linear subway sections that you had to use to get around. I liked some of FO3's writing and most of its gameplay, but I found the world unbearable.

[Kvltism]

Originally Posted by Amitush

Is it a worthy sequel? I'm having a blast with FO3, but duno if I want another of the same

The writing is much better in New Vegas, and the game is more of a challenge than FO3. You also get more choice and consequence. That was a major winner in my book.

[Amitush]

Originally Posted by Kvltism

The writing is much better in New Vegas, and the game is more of a challenge than FO3. You also get more choice and consequence. That was a major winner in my book.

Bah! too many good games around, I'm broke and alrdy pre ordered bfbc 3, dx (ofc) and skyrim..well, gotta compromise I guess

[Viktoria]

Do you play different games simultaneously?
That's interesting. I'm the exact opposite. I like to start and finish one game before I install and play another.

[Pretentious Old Man.]

Originally Posted by MyImmortal

I like to start and finish one game before I install and play another.

Same here.

[Amitush]

Originally Posted by MyImmortal

Do you play different games simultaneously?
That's interesting. I'm the exact opposite. I like to start and finish one game before I install and play another.

Well, Ill receive DX by september, BF3 and Skyrim only 3 months from now, so it does not overlap
I usually prefer to focus on one game, but BF3 is for mp and doesnt really have an ending...

[Kvltism]

Originally Posted by MyImmortal

Do you play different games simultaneously?

Absolutely. Some games can feel like such a grind if you try playing for extended periods of time, eg: Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Oblivion, etc. Switching to another game is a nice change of pace.