amorax said:
No, I just can't stand it when a bunch of self-righteous losers hate on a game that's looking as though it's shaping up quite nicely for incredibly trivial reasons.
Incredibly trivial? Dialog and the player's controlover it to shape the personality of the character is trivial? In an RPG? What the....
and because you're 'hardcore', you can never be wrong?
Where the hell did I say that?
And also, I do realise that gaming has been dumbed-down lately. However, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Uhhhh....yes it is. When things go almost completely ass backwards with little hope of shifting to the right direction it's most certainly a bad thing.
It's just making games more easily accessible for new-comers. What's wrong with that?
By very definition, dumbing down is needless, wasteful, gross oversimplification. That isn't required to attract newcomers. Hell, I would venture a guess that it isn't simplified mechanics that attract new customers as much as the huge social and societal paradigm shift as far as modern culture's attitude towards video games were. Liking video games used to be like being a gay guy in the 80s; a one way ticket to social pariahdom, but now is a mostly accepted thing. Like all mediums of art, society hates it, then slowly assimilates it. It just so happens that idiot design committees see a correlation between dumbing down and game sales, automatically feel this correlation implies causation against all scientific method, and forget the huge lurking variables, especially the aforementioned one.
And besides, it's not like there were that many 'true RPGs' in the first place.
Perhaps because so few ever get past "dungeon crawler", "hack and slash", or "barely interactive jap shitfest" due to the wonders of dumbing down.
Heck, the very first RPG's were more dungeon crawlers than anything.
And thankfully they got better. Imagine if dumbing down had gone on then instead of advancement. Not pretty.
What? I never said I didn't like video-games from 90's. Nice straw-man there pal, but you're going to have to try a little harder I'm afraid.
Way to misinterpret and attribute way too much damn creativity to me. I wasn't thinking anything special, the 90s remark was purely coincidental, and all I was trying to impart was the simple fact your insult sucked ass.
Excuse me? I was showing how incredibly and unrealistically pessimistic you people are. Now how you're so 'real' and 'down-to-earth'.
You said something about bitching, moaning, and doing nothing like it was an aberration. I said welcome to Earth as that's the primary pastime of everyone here.
Alright, I take it back. I don't come to the codex because I expect a fair and unbiased opinion. I come here because, despite a lot of exaggeration and bias, the codex does provide a different perspective. though not necessarily an accurate one. And it can be fun to read at times too.
Fair enough.
The idea of what defines an RPG has shifted rapidly over time, so just because they say it's 'a role-playing game first and foremost', doesn't necessarily mean it's your kind of role-playing game.
Oh great.....this bullshit. Anywho, let's assume I agree partially with your statement, that the definition shifts over time. Even so, wouldn't games like Fallout, Arcanum, Torment, etc. have shifted the definition over that way and more to our view? Because "modern" games are the ones digging back into the past. Oblivion is a neutered roguelike, Mass Effect is a shinier, yet less developed Shock/Baldur's Gate hybrid.
I really hope you aren't arguing the "majority opinion makes right" case though.
Also, why does one action-RPG having a good dialogue tree render my previous statement invalid?
Sets a precedent. It showed that it is possible, so we as consumers should hold companies to make the best product they can. Basically there's no longer the "It's an action RPG" excuse.
You didn't actually answer anything here and instead told me to 'just read the thread'. Well as a matter of fact, I have, and it mostly consists of people bashing the game for no good reason.
Then you didn't read it enough.
I mean, you haven't even seen any dialogue in the game yet.
Check the dialogue example with a "Scarlet Lake" character in the scans. You can find them either in my second post in this thread or further in when someone decided to link them outright mention them. Again, actually read the thread.
How can you be making judgements like the ones above already?
While we don't have the script, we know the system for the most part, and we can easily see that it holds back progress and inhibits player influence in speaking with NPCs.
I for one am basing my current opinion of this game of Obsidian's record, which IMO, is quite good.
KOTOR 2, a mediocre game saved by good writing.
Neverwinter Nights 2, a shitacular game with terrible cliche plot and characters.
Mask of the Betrayer, good game with loads of choices and consequences, good writing, and a non-cliched setting.
And now we hear some rather disconcerting hype that could have just as easily been out of Bethesda's or Bioware's hype playbooks. I don't know what to think. Obsidian is no Troika,that's for sure.
And how exactly do you know it's 'all bullshit and illusory C&C a la KOTOR' eh?
I'm just saying it could go either way and assuming, "just because it's Obsidian it will be good" is foolhardy.
Way to prove the very point you were arguing against, genius.
Que? Was? What?
That was just an expression. I didn't actually mean games can't use mechanics from the 1990's, just that RPGs shouldn't stick to mechanics that are both outdated and unneeded.
Dialogue trees and character interaction that the player has control over is outdated and uneeded whereas cutscenes are cutting edge? The fuck are you on?
Just because a game doesn't use a 'pick-an-answer' style dialogue system doens't mean it's bad.
Of course not, but doing something clearly inferior does mean it is bad.
In fact, I think you should be applauding Obsidian for daring to try something new in a market that ruthlessly punishes games that stray from the norm.
By dumbing down Mass Effect's dialogue wheel and making a game almost a clone of it they are doing something new? The hell?
