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RPG Codex and Quarter To Three

Vandal

Novice
Joined
May 9, 2004
Messages
43
Location
Edmonton, AB, Canada
hmm... Dweller... I just think PS:T is one of the only games that doesn't get routinely bashed around here. No? Maybe I'm just reading the wrong threads.
It's been awhile since I saw you folks profess enjoyment for a game...
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Vandal said:
It's been awhile since I saw you folks profess enjoyment for a game...
You've mastered the elusive art of selective reading! Your certificate is in the mail.
 

sheek

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 17, 2006
Messages
8,659
Location
Cydonia
Vandal said:
Vault Dweller said:
You've mastered the elusive art of selective reading! Your certificate is in the mail.
That's definitely a possibility. It's tough to find much outside of Bethesda-bashing these days.

There's so much Bethesda-propaganda polluting the rest of the internet we got to take it on ourselves to balance it out a bit. If you don't want to hear the criticisms you know where to go.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Recommended reading:

The top 10 list

You might also want to check Dragon Age/Bioshock/Gothic3/Witcher news threads, if you are looking for positive reactions and enthusiasm. Even Dave was surprised.

Dgaider said:
Hmm. No vicious mockery of my forum posts? Am I in the right place?

*wanders around dazed and confused*
 

Vandal

Novice
Joined
May 9, 2004
Messages
43
Location
Edmonton, AB, Canada
Vault Dweller said:
Recommended reading:

The top 10 list

You might also want to check Dragon Age/Bioshock/Gothic3/Witcher news threads, if you are looking for positive reactions and enthusiasm. Even Dave was surprised.

That's totally fine and dandy... I was referring to games that are already available, not upcoming games. But fine - you've convinced me that the Codex is a haven for RPG lovers of all sorts.
 

Hazelnut

Erudite
Joined
Dec 17, 2002
Messages
1,490
Location
UK
metallix said:
Great work!
I think we should have this survey regularily updated and either pinned or even posted as a site feature.

(from the top ten thread)

Maybe it's time for an update?
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Vandal said:
That's totally fine and dandy... I was referring to games that are already available, not upcoming games.
From the recent games, some folks liked KOTOR 2, and some folks liked Bloodlines. We do have our standards and there are plenty of games that we criticize, but statements like "oh, those jerks like only Diablo/Fallout/Torment/Daggerfall" (unfortunately, there is no consensus on that issue) are utterly moronic.
 

FrancoTAU

Cipher
Joined
Oct 21, 2005
Messages
2,507
Location
Brooklyn, NY
As far as recent stuff, I think we were the only place nice to Hammer & Sickle. Space Rangers 2 got a bunch of praise here as well. That's 2 out of the last 3 recent RPG releases I think.... the 3rd one isn't much liked though :)
 

Jora

Arcane
Joined
Mar 14, 2003
Messages
1,115
Location
Finland
Briosafreak said:
Is that the Tom Ohle that used to do PR for Bioware?
Yes. Apparently he's now independent and hypes The Witcher (among other games).
 

FrancoTAU

Cipher
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Messages
2,507
Location
Brooklyn, NY
Vault Dweller said:
You might also want to check Dragon Age/Bioshock/Gothic3/Witcher news threads, if you are looking for positive reactions and enthusiasm. Even Dave was surprised.

Most here seemed pretty interested in NWN2 also. You gotta give us credit for being open minded when the first game was so bad.
 

Jora

Arcane
Joined
Mar 14, 2003
Messages
1,115
Location
Finland
FrancoTAU said:
Most here seemed pretty interested in NWN2 also. You gotta give us credit for being open minded when the first game was so bad.
I wouldn't give any credit for that considering that at the moment the worst side of the game seems to be that the the backstory has one silly idea in it.
 

Zomg

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 21, 2005
Messages
6,984
I think that there are typically a few really boring and stupid people in the Codex forums that just kind of hang around repeating shit other people have said, but less articulately. People who cruise here for a while start mentally filtering them out, but if you go down a thread and see all the stupid things that get said by (for example) some of the ESF migrant dalits without your filters on you'd think this place was worse than it is.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
"I wouldn't give any credit for that considering that at the moment the worst side of the game seems to be that the the backstory has one silly idea in it."

Let's not forget about the proposed/rumoured KOTOR style 'death' rule which i think worked for a KOTOR style game; but doens't in a DnD style game...
 

obediah

Erudite
Joined
Jan 31, 2005
Messages
5,051
Jora said:
FrancoTAU said:
Most here seemed pretty interested in NWN2 also. You gotta give us credit for being open minded when the first game was so bad.
I wouldn't give any credit for that considering that at the moment the worst side of the game seems to be that the the backstory has one silly idea in it.

The worst aspect of NWN2 is that NWN was miserable to play through. If we get a BG -> BG2 type improvement, I'll be really happy. More realistically, I'm hoping for the story/rp opportunities to be good enough for me to make combat an absolute cakewalk and play through the campaign.
 

Saint_Proverbius

Administrator
Staff Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2002
Messages
11,475
Location
Behind you.
Vandal said:
hmm... Dweller... I just think PS:T is one of the only games that doesn't get routinely bashed around here. No? Maybe I'm just reading the wrong threads.
It's been awhile since I saw you folks profess enjoyment for a game...

Actually, there's a lot good in PS:T, but it's also pretty damned overrated. My biggest complaint, which I've made countless times on this forum, is that a lot of the dialogue isn't interactive really. It's more where the NPC is spouting on and on about something and the player only gets options to continue the spouting or end it abruptly. Most people praise the dialogue of the game, but I thought it was one area were the interaction was sorely lacking.

However, the setting was fantastic considering it's one of the few examples of a D&&D CRPG where the setting was something other than Forgotten Realms. The combat was fairly MEH unless you're a spell caster, which I don't normally play. The story was interesting, but the game was way to focused on telling the set story, which made it highly linear. I would have prefered if there were more of an open access type thing to the city. It would have been great if there were pieces of the Nameless One's past sprinkled all over the city and you had to piece them together with a decent enough journal system to handle that. That's where the one-sided reading part of the game should have come from rather than NPCs talking about themselves.
 

glasnost

Augur
Joined
Mar 14, 2006
Messages
202
Location
spurious messiah camp
Saint_Proverbius said:
It would have been great if there were pieces of the Nameless One's past sprinkled all over the city and you had to piece them together with a decent enough journal system to handle that. That's where the one-sided reading part of the game should have come from rather than NPCs talking about themselves.
Could you elaborate on how you would want it to work?

Personally, I hate exposition in journals. It either puts words in the character's mouth that I, as the player, don't want to see there (especially when it tries to tell me how I/the character react to or feel about narrative events), or it b) clarifies poor ingame exposition/does the player's thinking for him by spelling things out that should have been made clear within the game itself: in conversation, notes, etc. Baldur's Gate in particular was really bad about both of those.

Really, my ideal 'journal' is just a detailed list of objectives (no narratives, just revealed relevant facts), a conversation log (searchable would be nice!), and a basic editable notepad. It's a meta tool, not part of the gameworld, a potentially more useful abstraction of the pad of paper I scribble stuff down on as I play. It's really only there to organize/spur thoughts and analysis, things that happen on a 'player' level; the bulk of a game's 'reading' should take place ingame: books, notes, lengthy onesided conversations, taking place on a 'character' level.

So I guess we are at odds!
 

obediah

Erudite
Joined
Jan 31, 2005
Messages
5,051
glasnost said:
Really, my ideal 'journal' is just a detailed list of objectives (no narratives, just revealed relevant facts), a conversation log (searchable would be nice!), and a basic editable notepad.

Holy Shit, that's brilliant. I really wish I was being sarcastic, but it's one of those duh pitfalls that just about every game with a journal has fallen into.
 
Joined
Oct 31, 2005
Messages
64
How sad. I used to respect Desslock - back in the pre-blog days when Usenet reigned supreme, he was one of the only sources of intelligent RPG criticism. It's too bad he's "progressed" into mind-numbing reactive fanboism in much the same way that RPGs are "progressing" into Oblivionism.
 

Jora

Arcane
Joined
Mar 14, 2003
Messages
1,115
Location
Finland
obediah said:
The worst aspect of NWN2 is that NWN was miserable to play through.
But NWN was a different game made by a different studio in a different country in a galaxy far, far... anyway, the things that connect the sequel to the first game the most are the toolset and the great multiplaying component. There's nothing inherently bad about them.

I'm sure Obsidian have had years to read every single complaint about the original single player campaign. They know it sucked. Even Bioware admits it to an extent. They also know what people thought about the rushed KotOR2. There's simply know way they aren't fully focusing on making the single player experience better.

They're also known to love role-playing options. Even IWD2 was great in that area even though the focus of the game was combat. KotOR2 is a great as a role-playing game.

But I do agree with Volourn. The idea of companions rising from the dead if a member of the party survives is silly and belongs to the same Bad ideas in Knights of the Old Republic category as not being able to attack non-hostile creatures or being unable to pick pockets. I want to see a complete return of the times of more realistic gameworlds (even the not so interactive ones like the land of Baldur's Gate)
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
"They know it sucked. Even Bioware admits it to an extent."

No, they don't. They admit that they don't feel it's as good as some of the other games. that doesn't mean they think it sucks.

And, the OC doesn't suck. Most people who have played it don't think it sucks either - don't let the over vocalites brainwash you into thinking that it's the popular opinion 'cause it's not.


"They're also known to love role-playing options. Even IWD2 was great in that area even though the focus of the game was combat."

IWD2 was *horrible* in this regard. A few token lines in reaction to one's race is nothing more than fluff.

KOTOR2 was great in using skills in dialogue; but its role-playing was good. About equal with KOTOR1. Not that impressive of a comparison (of course, it uses skills in dialogue betetr than KOTOR1). Of course, KOTOR1 has the advantage in characters and dialogue quality so it evens out.
 

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