How conservative are you? What new shit do you want?

[Pablosdog]

אַ
Interesting, did this poll come from the dream you had last night?

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

Acroding to Awor Szurkrarz Troika wanted to do an Action game
Troika did an action game. But it was first-/third-person.

I dont think Awor Szurkrarz was talking about Bloodlines. It sounded like he was talking about a game that was never published.

You don't know shit about what you are talking about, do you?

I played every one of those games on the PC and Oblivion on both. I played Morrowind on both platforms and it had a better interface and controls than NWN, Arcanum, and ToEE.

You you liked NWN's camera, Arcanums menus and ToEE's pie menus? All three of those games were ciritised for having crap controls, or interfaces. It certainly wasnt just me. I'll take it step forward and add Dragon Age. That game has a better interface than those PC exclusives. I dont buy this mutiplatform BS. Thats stunted old defeatest thinking that has and done nothing for western devs.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

Kaanyrvhok, bro, please tell me: are you really insane or just trying too hard?

Maybe a little insane. Not a lot. I'm a well adjusted father of three. I'm a Forgotten Realms freak who loved Gold Box games. Working at Nintendo with Final Fantasy fan who never heard of Pool of Radiance, or thinks BG is a base Gauntlet did drive me a bit mad. It made me question what was the last D&D RPG to grace a console.

I'm sick of panzy ass excuses for not spreading some western RPG gospel. Fucken interfaces. That PAN Z. Like PC exclusives dont get ripped for the same thing. These are RPGs not RTS and Sims. Then again I think Total War should see a console if that Natal camera takes off.

 

[MetalCraze]

Man if you find it easier to use a gamepad to dig through the Oblivion piece of shit inventory than using mouse to comfortably selecting options and keyboard to use shortcuts in ToEE you must be disabled or something, probably in the head.

Then again I think Total War should see a console if that Natal camera takes off.

There is already a Total War game for consoles. You control only one unit (lol!). No jumping like a retard in front of the camera will ever beat racially pure keyboard and mouse in a RTS. The same reason why there are no console RPGs where you control a party. Do I need to say more?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Any D&D RPG should be multiplatform. There hasn't been a console D&D RPG since the NES. I worked at Nintendo too. I did a building poll where I asked that question about the most recent D&D RPG. I framed it by eliminating BGDA because its a boring actionless adventureless game and KOTOR because its Star Wars. Oblivion won the poll big. Pool of Radiance had one vote out of more than 60 people.

Oblivion is D&D now?

Though Oblivion and FO3's interfaces DO work pretty well on the console. Never had a problem with them. iirc, the inventories are different on PC and consoles. Oblivion / FO3 console ones can be fiddled with very quick, using the triggers. Seems they focused on making good inventories for the consoles and made a shit one for PC versions

 

[Twinkle]

Then again I think Total War should see a console if that Natal camera takes off.

Natal is built for toys, not games.

 

[MetalCraze]

Natal is built for nothing. It's just a hoax. Just look at its hype videos, what a load of BS. It will be Eye-Toy take 3 at best.

 

[Raghar]

Acroding to Awor Szurkrarz Troika wanted to do an Action game
Troika did an action game. But it was first-/third-person.

I dont think Awor Szurkrarz was talking about Bloodlines. It sounded like he was talking about a game that was never published.

They tried to add action elements. Do you remember all these respawning enemies?

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Acroding to Awor Szurkrarz Troika wanted to do an Action game
Troika did an action game. But it was first-/third-person.

I dont think Awor Szurkrarz was talking about Bloodlines. It sounded like he was talking about a game that was never published.

I was talking about Bloodlines. Note, that Bloodlines has sold the least from all the Troika cRPGs.

And by the way - the Troika guys weren't really tied to the concept of Fallout-like games.
Both Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson were working on Stonekeep - an RT LARP simulator (which was designed by Chris Taylor). Leonard Boyarsky said that one day he wants to make a non-Fallout FPP RPG in one of his interviews.
Tim Cain declared wanting to make a party based dungeon crawler in one of his early Fallout interviews.

These guys had pretty eclectic tastes. And judging by the sales of their games, their fans didn't.

 

[JarlFrank]

Acroding to Awor Szurkrarz Troika wanted to do an Action game. I'm not suggesting an MMO. I'm suggesting 4 player co-op with 2-4 joinable slots for the CPU. That would give you a 4-8 player party. Maybe Ninja Gaiden style combat without the long combo strings unless you have a sick high level monk. Make it a short 25 hour game some C&C inbetween quest. Lots of solo stuff in the city and towns so the devs could focus on combat with humanoids.

Port it to the PC a few months later with polish, updates, improved graphics, and who would feel alienated? Beats the alternative. Western devs alinated more than half the market by letting the Japanese produce the only RPGs for the better part of two decades. That was a more damaging sin against the industry.

And yes its a more marketable concept than ToEE. I mentioned why ToEE was a lousy choice for a tactical CRPG but there were other reasons.ToEE should have been multiplatform. With the pie menues it was kinda consoleish anyway. Speaking of interfaces ToEE's clunky on the PC. Oblivion and FO 3 had a better interface than ToEE NWN, and Arcanum.

Any D&D RPG should be multiplatform. There hasn't been a console D&D RPG since the NES. I worked at Nintendo too. I did a building poll where I asked that question about the most recent D&D RPG. I framed it by eliminating BGDA because its a boring actionless adventureless game and KOTOR because its Star Wars. Oblivion won the poll big. Pool of Radiance had one vote out of more than 60 people.

Okay, man. Let's do this again.
ToEE was a party-based dungeon crawler. It was a game that the devs wanted to make. It was a game any oldschool RPG player who liked RPGs in the 90's would have loved to play. It did have a market. A solid niche on the PC.
Also, who would've been alienated if the game was released on consoles first, then ported to PC? Are you serious? EVERYONE! Everyone who loved Arcanum and expected something similar, everyone who was looking forward to a party-based dungeon crawler, everyone who knew that Troika developers were people who made hardcore RPGs, generally just Troika's complete target group. Most Fallout fans were heavily disappointed by Bethesda's Fallout 3 because it was a consolized dumbed down version of their beloved series, but at least Bethesda had the decency to release the PC version at the same time as the Xbox version. Imagine the shitstorm if Troika had made an action multiplayer ToEE and released it on consoles first, then made a PC-port. They would've lost their entire fanbase.

Also, your idea doesn't solve anything. Yes, Troika might have survived, but instead of giving us the games we want they would have become yet another mediocre/shitty console-centred developer like Bethesda.
Oh, and most RPGs in the last 2 decades were made by the Japs? Seriously? Maybe on consoles, but not on the PC. Heck, most Jap RPGs haven't even been ported to PC which means that they don't exist for a PC-player like me. For me, all RPGs in the last 20 years have been produced by Americans and Europeans. Ultima, Might and Magic, Wizardry, Baldur's Gate, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Gold Box games, Bard's Tale, Eye of the Beholder, Dungeon Master, Icewind Dale, Realms of Arkania... do you see any Japanese title in there? I don't. They're all Western RPGs made by Western developers for the PC. And there has always been an audience for them. Why should Troika try to reach the console players if they have their audience right there?

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Imagine the shitstorm if Troika had made an action multiplayer ToEE and released it on consoles first, then made a PC-port. They would've lost their entire fanbase.

They have lost a half of their fanbase by releasing ToEE anyway. And then they have lost a half of that half with Bloodlines.

 

[JarlFrank]

Imagine the shitstorm if Troika had made an action multiplayer ToEE and released it on consoles first, then made a PC-port. They would've lost their entire fanbase.

They have lost a half of their fanbase by releasing ToEE anyway. And then they have lost a half of that half with Bloodlines.

Yeah but that's because those games were buggy messes, not because they were bad games.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I wouldn't be so sure. Bloodline reviews that I've read when it came didn't even mention bugs, but simply accused it for not being RPG enough.

Personally, I haven't even considered buying ToEE or Bloodlines when they came out because they were from different sub-genres than Fallout, Fallout 2 and Arcanum. It's not unthinkable that a part of the people who liked Fallout, Fallout 2 and Arcanum would like them for being role-playing heavy and wouldn't be interested in dungeon crawlers and action-RPGs.

 

[.Sigurd]

I wouldn't be so sure. Bloodline reviews that I've read when it came didn't even mention bugs, but simply accused it for not being RPG enough.

Personally, I haven't even considered buying ToEE or Bloodlines when they came out because they were from different sub-genres than Fallout, Fallout 2 and Arcanum. It's not unthinkable that a part of the people who liked Fallout, Fallout 2 and Arcanum would like them for being role-playing heavy and wouldn't be interested in dungeon crawlers and action-RPGs.

 

[Pablosdog]

Umm, bloodlines was pretty roleplaying heavy, and toee is one of the most classic dnd modules in existence. So uh what the fuck?

 

[Dnny]

Imagine the shitstorm if Troika had made an action multiplayer ToEE and released it on consoles first, then made a PC-port. They would've lost their entire fanbase.

They have lost a half of their fanbase by releasing ToEE anyway. And then they have lost a half of that half with Bloodlines.

Yeah but that's because those games were buggy messes, not because they were bad games.

I love Troika but you have to admit the only game they made that deserves very high praise is Arcanum. ToEE had really nice combat and I LOVE truly turn-based D&D (not RTWP shit) but it was a shit as a game and entertainment. The story, the characters, the encounter design, the dialogue, ToEE had nothing that was compelling enough to keep you coming back at it. I enjoyed playing ToEE but I can understand why this kind of game bombs in the market, you need more than fun combat in a RPG to make it tick.

As for bloodlines, it wasn't just a buggy mess. It was using an old, badly handled edition of the source engine and had terrible, terrible, terrible loading times and tested my patience a lot. Since I've heard the fact that they used Python as their scripting engine I can't help but wonder whether this shit had something to do with the slowness because Python is shit for anything that isn't about handling database requests on a server, people complained against Java but wait until you execute one of those "nice" Python GUI apps.. like Chandler. Kill it with fire.
That's for the technical side of it but Bloodlines wasn't really the kind of RPG I was looking for either. It wants to be mature but fails to understand what maturity is about, it was mature in the same way a fourteen years old idea of the meaning of maturity is. Extremely vulgar game of poor taste to which maturity means lots of scantily clad wymyn, prostitutes everywhere, references to porn and snuff movies, quests that could be taken from the "Scary Movie" horror comedy and turn from feeling like an RPG into a pure first person shooter in the middle of the game with little if any sidequests and long corridors filled with ton of enemies. Once you reach the sewers this game no longers feels like the RPG hybrid made by Troika it's supposed to be, it becomes a pure and very boring shooter.

Umm, bloodlines was pretty roleplaying heavy

Only in the first half of the game. The other half turns into mindless FPS.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

toee is one of the most classic dnd modules in existence. So uh what the fuck?

It's a dungeon crawl. Contrast it with a big world with multiple towns/cities in Fallout, Fallout 2 and Arcanum.
A lot of people like these games mainly for stuff that happened in towns/cities, so moving to a dungeon crawl-style, alienates a part of the audience.

 

[King Crispy]

What if Fallout 3 shifted to iso, truly turn-based combat as soon as it started?

Hell, what if you could switch on demand at any time, even in combat, between first-person, iso, VATS/RTwP, and true turn-based? The company that does this first shall rule the universe.

SSI had the right idea with Gold Box, they were just 15 years too early.

 

[PorkaMorka]

Hell, what if you could switch on demand at any time, even in combat, between first-person, iso, VATS/RTwP, and true turn-based? The company that does this first shall rule the universe.

It's rather unrealistic to think that a game which programs in four different methods of control will manage to make them as good as if they focused on just perfecting one method of control.

Not to mention this will raise development costs and time.

In short... "Please".

 

[King Crispy]

It's closer than you think.

VATS is almost turn-based. People just can't stand it because it doesn't take it all the way, that's all. Plus having to enter VATS through a twitch-based method (hitting V or whatever during realtime combat) is self-defeating if nodding to turn-based is what they intended. But it's not inconceivable that the engine could be tweaked to allow for exclusively turn-based combat through VATS, relying solely on AP throughout the entire fight if that's the style the player preferred.

Fallout 3 already supports 3rd person, so a camera shift up to iso can't be that hard. Fairly minor issue there, imo.

I agree melding all those aspects into one game smoothly without screwing them all up would be challenging, almost revolutionary, especially being able to transition between the turn-based version of VATS and realtime in the middle of a fight (say, to just speed it up when fighting weak opponents).

But, the thread poses the question, not me.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

Man if you find it easier to use a gamepad to dig through the Oblivion piece of shit inventory than using mouse to comfortably selecting options and keyboard to use shortcuts in ToEE you must be disabled or something, probably in the head.

Stop playing stupid and acting like I’m telling you something you haven’t heard before.


http://www.caltrops.com/review0026p2.php

The radial character menu is clunky and overbearing (although the variety of options is interesting) and adds an unexpected tactical element when you accidentally click whatever was under the radial memory on screen, and your fighter suddenly runs to the other side of the room in the middle of a large battle.

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk ... 36268.html

06-18-2007, 12:45 PM
I dislike the radial interface - seriously, does anyone enjoy reading text sideways? - and info displays are not very, well, informative, IMHO. Plus I miss having customizable toolbars. It just feels clunky compared to, say, NWN.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic ... x/544217/1

No more mouse radial menus, which was a really awkward and annoying thing in the NWNs (and also ToEE, by the way)

http://www.amazon.com/Temple-Elemental- ... B00009MGVE

The radial menu available to all characters is a bit unwieldy in that mousing ... the option you want to choose for your mouse wavering all over the place.

www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9753.phtml

The radial menu can be a bit irritating to use outside of combat.

reviews.cnet.com/pc-games/the...of.../4505-9696_7-30804405.html

The mouse cursor moves jerkily about the screen, which makes it difficult to navigate the radial menus and click on some of the small text required,

There is already a Total War game for consoles. You control only one unit (lol!). No jumping like a retard in front of the camera will ever beat racially pure keyboard and mouse in a RTS. The same reason why there are no console RPGs where you control a party. Do I need to say more?

I played the demo for it. It was surprisingly good. It was more like a superior fun version of Dynasty Warriors than Total War. It was Total War in name only.

There are plenty console RPGs where you control large parties. Blazing Heroes, and Fire Emblem had huge parties. KOTOR could have handled 6 if Bioware had such ambitions.

Natal is built for nothing. It's just a hoax. Just look at its hype videos, what a load of BS. It will be Eye-Toy take 3 at best.

You were the one that wanted a RTS with voice rec. If its Natal you are going to shit on it no matter how good it is. This thread has come full circle.

sniip

D&D RPGs

Oblivion is D&D now?

Tamriel and Azaroth or whatever the Diablo WOW world is called. To the average casual gamer D&D is still top dog on the PC. You ask them what the last D&D RPG was on a console they are going to name pop fantasy.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

Okay, man. Let's do this again.
ToEE was a party-based dungeon crawler. It was a game that the devs wanted to make. It was a game any oldschool RPG player who liked RPGs in the 90's would have loved to play. It did have a market. A solid niche on the PC.
Also, who would've been alienated if the game was released on consoles first, then ported to PC? Are you serious? EVERYONE! Everyone who loved Arcanum and expected something similar, everyone who was looking forward to a party-based dungeon crawler, everyone who knew that Troika developers were people who made hardcore RPGs, generally just Troika's complete target group. Most Fallout fans were heavily disappointed by Bethesda's Fallout 3 because it was a consolized dumbed down version of their beloved series, but at least Bethesda had the decency to release the PC version at the same time as the Xbox version. Imagine the shitstorm if Troika had made an action multiplayer ToEE and released it on consoles first, then made a PC-port. They would've lost their entire fanbase.]

Troika didnt have the market share to afford being conservative and they weren't conservative anyway so the only thing they could do was expand. The only way to do that was to go multiplatform or find a publisher that could crack the Korean market. They should have learned that from Black Isle. Their fan base was insignificant compared to what they needed. It should have started with Bloodlines. The game was a year away from being a 360 launch title. How does that not happen? Thats million dollar franchise easy.

So they develop one action Ninja Gaiden style RPG thats console first. Thats not going to alienate their fan base. B real Even the PC CRPG crowed is not a hardcore gaming demographic. Most of the people that bought ToEE didnt know what Greyhawk was or who Gary Gygax was. I doubt more than 50K people would have given a damn if Troika devloped a couple RPGs that were released console first.

Also, your idea doesn't solve anything. Yes, Troika might have survived, but instead of giving us the games we want they would have become yet another mediocre/shitty console-centred developer like Bethesda.

How do you make that reach?

Oh, and most RPGs in the last 2 decades were made by the Japs? Seriously? Maybe on consoles, but not on the PC. Heck, most Jap RPGs haven't even been ported to PC which means that they don't exist for a PC-player like me. For me, all RPGs in the last 20 years have been produced by Americans and Europeans. Ultima, Might and Magic, Wizardry, Baldur's Gate, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Gold Box games, Bard's Tale, Eye of the Beholder, Dungeon Master, Icewind Dale, Realms of Arkania... do you see any Japanese title in there? I don't.

Stop playing stupid. You know what I was talking about. If you dont rewind and think about it.

They're all Western RPGs made by Western developers for the PC. And there has always been an audience for them. Why should Troika try to reach the console players if they have their audience right there?

Black Isle

 

[Dnny]

The game was a year away from being a 360 launch title. How does that not happen?

And compete with games like Condemned ? no way the xbox 360 tards would have bought a source engine-level game when launch titles featured stuff like Condemned. You have to understand that market before thinking you could wave your magic wand and make millions. Apart from the nice character faces Bloodlines was technically subpar. It had huge loading times and would practically have taken a rewrite to stuff it into the 512 mb of xbox 360 ram, even if it didn't run on a full OS like PC games.
To go by your plan Troika should've fired most of their developers and hire competent graphic wizards.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Bloodlines > DA

 

[JarlFrank]

Okay, man. Let's do this again.
ToEE was a party-based dungeon crawler. It was a game that the devs wanted to make. It was a game any oldschool RPG player who liked RPGs in the 90's would have loved to play. It did have a market. A solid niche on the PC.
Also, who would've been alienated if the game was released on consoles first, then ported to PC? Are you serious? EVERYONE! Everyone who loved Arcanum and expected something similar, everyone who was looking forward to a party-based dungeon crawler, everyone who knew that Troika developers were people who made hardcore RPGs, generally just Troika's complete target group. Most Fallout fans were heavily disappointed by Bethesda's Fallout 3 because it was a consolized dumbed down version of their beloved series, but at least Bethesda had the decency to release the PC version at the same time as the Xbox version. Imagine the shitstorm if Troika had made an action multiplayer ToEE and released it on consoles first, then made a PC-port. They would've lost their entire fanbase.]

Troika didnt have the market share to afford being conservative and they weren't conservative anyway so the only thing they could do was expand. The only way to do that was to go multiplatform or find a publisher that could crack the Korean market. They should have learned that from Black Isle. Their fan base was insignificant compared to what they needed. It should have started with Bloodlines. The game was a year away from being a 360 launch title. How does that not happen? Thats million dollar franchise easy.

So they develop one action Ninja Gaiden style RPG thats console first. Thats not going to alienate their fan base. B real Even the PC CRPG crowed is not a hardcore gaming demographic. Most of the people that bought ToEE didnt know what Greyhawk was or who Gary Gygax was. I doubt more than 50K people would have given a damn if Troika devloped a couple RPGs that were released console first.

Why could they not afford to be conservative and why do you think they weren't, anyway? Their games didn't have AAA+ production values so they could afford it. They didn't spend a shitload of money on graphics, animations and famous people as voiceactors. They tried to appeal to a niche, and they failed because of delivering buggy products, having shitty project management and their publishers sucked, not because they didn't aim at a broad enough audience.

Also, of course their PC fanbase would be pissed. And the games Troika made were PC-centred anyways. They had gameplay that was well known and loved by PC players but unknown on consoles. The Troika devs themselves are PC players, not console players. They know how to design good PC RPGs. They don't know how to design a good console game because they have no experience developing them. It would be like telling the makers of Ninja Gaiden to suddenly make Arcanum 2 with tactical turnbased combat, lots of C&C and a branching storyline. Or like telling an engineer who specialized on repairing factory machines to repair a spaceship for a change. The end result would be shit.

Also, your idea doesn't solve anything. Yes, Troika might have survived, but instead of giving us the games we want they would have become yet another mediocre/shitty console-centred developer like Bethesda.

How do you make that reach?

Because the game you suggest ToEE should have been is something I wouldn't really like to play. Mostly because of its multiplayer focus. I don't mind action RPGs, I like them as long as the combat is fun, but if your version of ToEE had been released, the Codex wouldn't like it as much as it does now.

Oh, and most RPGs in the last 2 decades were made by the Japs? Seriously? Maybe on consoles, but not on the PC. Heck, most Jap RPGs haven't even been ported to PC which means that they don't exist for a PC-player like me. For me, all RPGs in the last 20 years have been produced by Americans and Europeans. Ultima, Might and Magic, Wizardry, Baldur's Gate, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Gold Box games, Bard's Tale, Eye of the Beholder, Dungeon Master, Icewind Dale, Realms of Arkania... do you see any Japanese title in there? I don't.

Stop playing stupid. You know what I was talking about. If you dont rewind and think about it.

Yes, you're talking about console titles. Fact is, I don't care about consoles and neither do many other PC gamers. Another fact is that PC exclusive RPGs did sell really well for over 20 years.

They're all Western RPGs made by Western developers for the PC. And there has always been an audience for them. Why should Troika try to reach the console players if they have their audience right there?

Black Isle

Black Isle went down because Interplay went down, Interplay went down because Herve pulled some retarded shit like making console action spinoffs (BG Dark Alliance, FO Brotherhood of Steel) and canceling the RPGs that the fanbase would've liked to play. Van Buren and BG3 would have made a lot more profits than those shitty spinoffs.