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The suspension of your suspension of disbelief

Jack Of Owls

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Ever play very highly rated cRPGs only to have severe immersion-breaking events in the early game absolutely destroy your desire to continue? This happened with Gothic 3. I discovered a cavern of a fairly large group of well-armed bandits or whatever the hell they were, and they didn't attack me on sight. "Bonus!" I thought. "They like me, they really like me!" I reasoned with Sally Field-accepting-her-Oscar levels of happiness. I can explore the side caves in this cavern, and my bandit bros will have my back. So I went down this long passage and encountered a group of goblins. Realizing that I was way too early level to challenge them, I did a 180 and hightailed it outta there and back to the main cavern where the bandit bros were. One of the runty little goblin-bastards chased me and I rubbed my hands in glee, thinking: "Hah! My bandit-bros are gonna beat your ass down then make ham stew outta your skinny little goblin glutes cookin' in that caldron they have in the middle of their cavern! PREPARE TO DIE!" So this wee little goblin finally converges on the group of well-armed bandits and what happens? They can't make a nick in the goblin. So much hacking and slashing from all sides and not a dent! Neither goblin nor bandit were being hurt in any way. I uninstalled right then & there. Say what you will about Oblivion but at least the radiant AI had some cool, believable features, like luring a tough foe to a group of guards or tavern patrons and have them make short work of them to help you along in the early levels. Sorry for this virtual stream-of-consciousness post. I'll stop now, having vented.
 
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kain30

Cipher
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Aug 7, 2014
Messages
543
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spain
i was reading, but the mention of oblivion makes me want to throw up on you. the radiant AI was a shit as big as a fucking city. olbivion was bland, generic LEVELED fantasy... people went even oh god, soil erosion! >_<. i better stop ranting or i will never end
 

Jack Of Owls

Arcane
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Massachusettes
i was reading, but the mention of oblivion makes me want to throw up on you. the radiant AI was a shit as big as a fucking city. olbivion was bland, generic LEVELED fantasy... people went even oh god, soil erosion! >_<. i better stop ranting or i will never end

Stop that right now, girlfriend. Elder Scrolls IV was playable and fun with mods. You know it, I know it, and the people at home know it.
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049

Jack Of Owls

Arcane
Joined
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4,279
Location
Massachusettes
Ever play very highly rated cRPGs only to have severe immersion-breaking events in the early game absolutely destroy your desire to continue? This happened with Gothic 3.

Ever play very highly rated cRPGs only to have severe immersion-breaking events in the early game absolutely destroy your desire to continue? This happened with Gothic 3.

...very highly rated...Gothic 3...

Wow, my observation was so profound you had to post it in triplicate. I feel honored. But seriously, this is... sarcasm? I honestly thought G3 was generally well-regarded by the cRPG crowd after the community patch, but it's not? Hmm. My mistake then. Well, I thought it was shit for sure. But to give the G3 fans the benefit of the doubt, maybe it would have gotten better if I had, like, played for more than half an hour? Naaaaah. There was that epic immersion breaking moment. Shit for sure.
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
Well, sorry, I couldn't let it pass ;)

Now personally I think Gothic 3 is alright after the community patch and before you encounter the million orcs of Nordmar. But I wouldn't call it very highly rated even with community patch, at least not generally so.
 
Weasel
Joined
Dec 14, 2012
Messages
1,865,661
Memes and general 4th-wall breaking shit.

Agree in general but sometimes.... it's worth it.


1jMn7qU.jpg
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
1) As the very opening battle in G3 demonstrates, the kind of luring you were doing would normally work very well in G3 - and indeed is one of those things PB games do better than most. Not sure what happened there.

2) I'm so used to shitty stories & worlds that I don't get 'into' in the first place, I only get such breaks when the gameplay hollows out and doesn't even pretend to be anything other than makework. I don't need to believe my gaming is artistic or productive or meaningful in some other way, but when you realise, for instance, you can set a dude on fire in Dishonoured on hard difficulty and the other dude right next to him doesn't give a fuck, that's when you move on.
 

Gnidrologist

CONDUCTOR
Joined
Aug 30, 2005
Messages
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is cold
So, goblins and bandits fought perpetually without doing damage to each other. Would they continue the eternal fight when you'd return there in the last chapter at lvl 70? Should've continued game only to make sure.
 

octavius

Arcane
Patron
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Bjørgvin
Except for the extreme butthurt I had the same experience when trying to lure monsters to a bandit camp in Dark Sun.
 

crawlkill

Kill all boxed game owners. Kill! Kill!
Joined
May 9, 2012
Messages
674
No ... No it wasn't.

It really wasn't.

Past the shitty writing, past the godawful engine, past the (also immersion-breaking) bugs, the real reason I cannot tolerate Oblivion and Skyrim is because the way that I would actually choose to behave is so often not supported.

Actually, there was an exact moment specifically like this in Oblivion when I realized it was total dogshit and all of the hype was by braindamaged people. I'd been playing it, hating it, but looking for the spark. I get to the assassin missions--what are they called, the Night Brotherhood? Now, I'm an instinctual good guy in games most of the time, but I decide, alright, I'll join their little cult, then at the last moment, I'll strike and destroy their leadership! Deal them a solid blow!

I committed heinous acts to get in, and a subplot revealed itself. Those of you who suffered through it may recall that there was a traitor in the Night Brotherhood, whose plan it was to take down the Night Mother. Aha! thought I. A kindred spirit! I will join him, and together, we will carve out this cancer!

I meet the Night Mother, finally. The traitor strikes. And...

I have no option to join him.

Again and again I play this encounter, and I just can't keep him alive, can't take the Night Mother down. Eventually, I bring out the console. I highlight the Night Mother. I type "kill."

The Night Mother has been knocked unconscious.

My immersion, my involvement with the game, what little I had, was finally obliterated forever. I actually stopped playing. People say these are games where you can "do anything," but they really mean you can do tiny, petty things like "walk a long way" or "pick butterfly wings." When it comes to actually making decisions, even incredibly obvious ones, you're totally hamstrung and locked into the bullshit little "option A and maybe sometimes option B but not really" rivulets carved for you. More than invulnerable goblins, that's what breaks my immersion: when there's a choice I should be able to make, a choice I want to make, a choice that would make perfect sense, and I'm not allowed to make it.

Massively repetitive dungeon and cave architecture and geology didn't help, either. Nor did psychic theft victims sending mercenaries to kill me for stealing their apple while they slept. Nor did enemies who get stealthshot in the head and survive... then decide there's nobody there. But it pales beside never feeling like I'm able to make my own decisions in a game whose rhetoric and fanbase trumpet that that's what the game's all about.
 

Daemongar

Arcane
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
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4,706
Location
Wisconsin
Codex Year of the Donut
characters randomly delivering a polemic on behalf of the 20-something writer who's decided he's now an expert on everything
This, this was my biggest problem with DA:O other than the fights, story, inventory, getting tricked into buttsex, that broad singing in camp and not being able to exit out of it, and the npcs.

The biggest deal-breaker though, is not being able to do what your character WOULD do. The writers will only allow you to do what will advance their crappy story, so even though your best bet is to not do anything. I always think of the end of FO3. My only option is to sacrifice my life... urgh... Lord... to save the wasteland. However, I have this big guy (Fawkes) who is immune to radiation and he's standing right next to me. Also, there are robots around... (I will give them points for letting people kill 3 Dog.)

There are other examples, but I played FO3 through and just kinda sat there and stared at the screen at the end...
 

Jack Of Owls

Arcane
Joined
May 23, 2014
Messages
4,279
Location
Massachusettes
Memes and general 4th-wall breaking shit.

Agree in general but sometimes.... it's worth it.


1jMn7qU.jpg

What an unflattering avatar representation of Cleve. He looks like Clint Howard after 6 consecutive weeks of playing WOW, reaching lvl 80 with 6 different characters and sadly musing, "I was television's Number 1 childstar. I was Gentle Ben's little side kick. I WAS FUCKING BALOCK! And look at me now?!!! *weep* weep* *weep*"
 

Jack Of Owls

Arcane
Joined
May 23, 2014
Messages
4,279
Location
Massachusettes
No ... No it wasn't.

It really wasn't.

Past the shitty writing, past the godawful engine, past the (also immersion-breaking) bugs, the real reason I cannot tolerate Oblivion and Skyrim is because the way that I would actually choose to behave is so often not supported.

That's why I only played with mods after an initial run-through with the vanilla game. I remember a quest mod called MALEVOLENCE, I think, that not only allowed you to play a totally evil shit, but also, unbeknownest to me, changed an important game mechanic. Using a certain power enabled by the mod, I could drain the life force of any NPC and increase attributes upon the death of that NPC, but at a terrible cost. After killing a guard in a secluded area, I entered a town and instead of being greeted by his brethren with "STOP RIGHT THERE, CITIZEN!! COME WITH US!" arrested and placed in a cozy dungeon where I was sure I would be able to buy my way out by crossing their palms with a little gold, I was condemned and hung by the neck until dead. Well, at least I got to play Elder Scrolls IV the way I wanted to play it, for a little while. Guess I should have installed that "No Psychic Guards" mod, eh? Mods are God.
 

sser

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1,866,662
Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim are hiking simulators at heart.

Oblivion has copy-pasted meadows upon meadows with which are largely uninteresting to explore and thus fundamentally fucking fails at being what it's supposed to be.

Characters, plot, graphics, animations, or, ergh, combat, are not enough to save that game. Not even close.

I feel like one of the few people who walked outside that prison and immediately saw the massive fuck up they had made with Oblivion.

Wanna talk about suspension of your suspension of disbelief? How about not having the Microsoft background for a game setting.

Maybe Morrowind's abstract, alien world spoiled me, but Oblivion's generic realm was simply unbearable. The idea of getting so far as to actually completing quests in that game is beyond me.
 

Night Goat

The Immovable Autism
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[redacted]
Codex 2013 Codex 2014
Skyrim turned me off before the tutorial began, when Alduin just happens to show up in the nick of time to inadvertently rescue one of the two people in the world who can kill him. I thought maybe it was part of Alduin's plan - but no, it was just a contrived coincidence. Then the other Dragonborn sends a pair of useless low-level cultists to attack you for no reason, setting in motion a series of events that will lead to you killing him - whereas if he hadn't fucked with you, you'd have no reason to get involved with his plan that doesn't affect you in any way.

Stop that right now, girlfriend. Elder Scrolls IV was playable and fun with mods. You know it, I know it, and the people at home know it.
youreafag.gif


Finding vampires in Fallout 3. That's when I realised there is no hope
Vampires in a post-apocalyptic setting could be cool, if they were real vampires instead of FO3's larpers.
 

Jack Of Owls

Arcane
Joined
May 23, 2014
Messages
4,279
Location
Massachusettes
Vampires in a post-apocalyptic setting could be cool, if they were real vampires instead of FO3's larpers.

No, real vampires in a post-apocalyptic setting is pure Twilight-True-Blood homo-ism. They must be science-fictional, radiated vampires or quasi-vampires caused by radiation, you godforsaken sodomite! Think Richard Matheson. I can't remember the vampires from FO3 but I do remember the lesbian ghoul. She was a real GILF (Grandma-I'd-Like-To-Fuck).
 

Carrion

Arcane
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Lost in Necropolis
- The emperor's bodyguards being all like "okay, dude, it's alright, you must be the chosen one or something" after they find you next to the emperor's dead body with his amulet in your pocket in Oblivion
- Bandits wearing full glass armor and still asking for a hundred septims in Oblivion
- Half of the population being able to take an infinite amount of damage without dying in Oblivion
- A fourth-wall-breaking magical compass telling you where to go even if you have no actual means of knowing it in Oblivion
- Every NPC looking like Mr. Potatohead regardless of their race in Oblivion
- Mudcrab conversations in Oblivion
- Every person having the same voice actor in Oblivion
- Beggars switching between their beggar voice and a city guard's voice during the same conversation in Oblivion
- People being fucking retarded and still somehow surviving in a world where you'll most likely get attacked by a minotaur or something when you go take a piss in Oblivion
- The lack of outhouses in Oblivion
- The Adoring Fan respawning over and over again after you've murdered his sorry ass in Oblivion
- Everything else in Oblivion
 

Nyast

Cipher
Joined
Jan 12, 2014
Messages
609
No ... No it wasn't.
My immersion, my involvement with the game, what little I had, was finally obliterated forever. I actually stopped playing. People say these are games where you can "do anything," but they really mean you can do tiny, petty things like "walk a long way" or "pick butterfly wings." When it comes to actually making decisions, even incredibly obvious ones, you're totally hamstrung and locked into the bullshit little "option A and maybe sometimes option B but not really" rivulets carved for you. More than invulnerable goblins, that's what breaks my immersion: when there's a choice I should be able to make, a choice I want to make, a choice that would make perfect sense, and I'm not allowed to make it.

Right, but this begs the question: what games aren't like that ? All games are designed by humans, the number of choices that are offered in a quest are necessarily limited, there will always be some options that you might want but that will not be available.
 

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