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Game News NWN2: DnD redefined - I live ... again!

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
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"Do you understand the word "focused", Gambler? K2 was a game that had decent "dialogues and other gameplay challenges". Much like IWD2, K2 was focused on combat, especially the last areas."

Wrong. Good or bad, KOTOR2 was focused on story. The fact that it alos had lots of combat is irrelevant here.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Volourn said:
"Do you understand the word "focused", Gambler? K2 was a game that had decent "dialogues and other gameplay challenges". Much like IWD2, K2 was focused on combat, especially the last areas."

Wrong. Good or bad, KOTOR2 was focused on story. The fact that it alos had lots of combat is irrelevant here.
Yeah. "Find 4 Jedi Masters to reveal teh secret hideout" story. Anyway, we were talking about game mechanics here: combat vs non-combat.
 

GhanBuriGhan

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Vault Dweller said:
Volourn said:
"Do you understand the word "focused", Gambler? K2 was a game that had decent "dialogues and other gameplay challenges". Much like IWD2, K2 was focused on combat, especially the last areas."

Wrong. Good or bad, KOTOR2 was focused on story. The fact that it alos had lots of combat is irrelevant here.
Yeah. "Find 4 Jedi Masters to reveal teh secret hideout" story. Anyway, we were talking about game mechanics here: combat vs non-combat.
Story-focus doesn't necessarily mean the bare skeleton of the story has to be good. The story of LOTR is "walk to mordor and throw the ring in the fire". The story of fallout is "find the water chip and deal with the evil supermutant plot".

Still, it's clear that KOTOR (I and II) focus on storytelling. That's why they have these cutscenes, essential characters, romance, etc. It's a valid angle on the RPG genre, although you may, as usual, disagree.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
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You were talking abouut focus. The game's focus is story. I'm not even arguing wheteher or not the story was good or bad here. IWD2's focus was combat. KOTOR2's focus was story. The fact that KOTOR2 had a lot of combat is irrelevant here. Game mechanics is irrelevant. You are irrelevant. You will be assimiliated. We are Borg.

P.S. Oops.. I've been watching too much ST:TNG lately.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
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@ Ghan: Again, it wasn't about the story and how good or bad it was. It was about whether or not the gamePLAY was focused on combat or dialogues/non-combat stuff.

Edit:

Volourn said:
IWD2's focus was combat. KOTOR2's focus was story.
Would be curious to see a more detailed explanation, like with facts and points, if you are up to the challenge.

Game mechanics is irrelevant.
Well, if you put it that way...

You are irrelevant. You will be assimiliated. We are Borg.
Of course you are, honey.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
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It was focused on story. Everything, including combat and dialogue, was all a part of pushing the STORY forward.



You post the following:

"Find 4 Jedi Masters to reveal teh secret hideout" story"

yet claim the following: "Again, it wasn't about the story and how good or bad it was."

For some reason, I just don't believe your sincerity.


P.S. Afterall, many books are story focused yet many books also suck the big one. Imagine that!
 

Vault Dweller

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Volourn said:
It was focused on story. Everything, including combat and dialogue, was all a part of pushing the STORY forward.



You post the following:

"Find 4 Jedi Masters to reveal teh secret hideout" story"

yet claim the following: "Again, it wasn't about the story and how good or bad it was."

For some reason, I just don't believe your sincerity.
The conversation in this thread wasn't about the story, you silly person.
 

GhanBuriGhan

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Vault Dweller said:
@ Ghan: Again, it wasn't about the story and how good or bad it was. It was about whether or not the gamePLAY was focused on combat or dialogues/non-combat stuff.
Don't RPG's always have more than a single focus? If you read the second sentence in my not-very-lengthy post, you will find a few non-exhaustive examples where the focus on telling a story is evident in the KOTOR design/gameplay.
 

Vault Dweller

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Sorry for not being clear. I'm at work and being constantly interrupted by selfish people who don't seem to care that I could be in the middle of a Codex post.

Anyway, the "it" referred to the discussion, not the game. I agree with you, of course, that a game could have more than one focus and KOTOR2 is a good example of that.
 

Gambler

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Vault Dweller said:
The conversation in this thread wasn't about the story, you silly person.
It was about focus of the game. Which is storyline and character development in case of KOTOR2. Which justifies companion auto-resurrection, because storyline and character development requires your companions to be alive.
 

Volourn

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"Which justifies companion auto-resurrection, because storyline and character development requires your companions to be alive."

No. It doesn't. Moron.
 

AlanC9

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Aug 12, 2003
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Sol Invictus said:
Even in World of Warcraft which some people seem to think is an easy game (at least early on), there are deaths, and wipes, and they are painful. Monsters respawn, and your equipment breaks down. By the time you get back, you're 5 gold poorer and totally pissed off that you couldn't accomplish what you set out to do

Which has nothing to do with PC SP RPGs. I can't think of a single one that had a severe death penalty, unless the player is too stupid to save the game. How is having someone just get back up that much less challenging than reloading and refighting the battle?
 

Volourn

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That should be obvious. One involves the need for more thinking. I'm sure you can figure out which is which.
 

Surgey

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Huh?

(Hi. Just registered. I've liked to visit these forums to read every once in a while.)

Yeah, some of these design decisions just seem a little rediculous. It's not super-important to a game, but the Max HP per level thing is lame, in my opinion. To me, it makes no damn sense to randomize damage, but NOT randomize HP. If you max HP and not damage, all the battles will just turn into 8 hour-long beatfests with people just wailing on eachother forever until one just drops. Plus, chances are, if your HP is maxed, so are the enemies, and D&D monster HP was never meant to be maxed, not even their first level hit die. Do they know how much hit die some of the beefier monsters have? Honestly, if you want games to be tougher for players, instead of "evening" things out by giving max HP, how about do something else besides extra HP to make a battle tougher? Like, I don't know, make an enemy require a certain method to kill instead of just "You have to hit him three times more than normal because he has even MORE HP! Unique battle, huh?!"

Besides, the HP will even out over time. Don't think that it won't. The chances of rolling 1's on your hit points every single level for 5 levels straight is almost negligible. And if you want more hit points, get a better Constitution or take a feat, WOW WHAT A CONCEPT.

Also...

"If I were making my own campaign, people would drop like stones, you'd have a level cap of eight, and no prestige classes."

And that would be a campaign I'd never play. Capping level at 8? So you're saying almost everything else in the world is ten times more powerful than I'll ever be? I can NEVER get more experienced beyond that? If you make sure I'm not above level 8, you better sure as hell make sure nothing else gets above level 8, because I don't play games to feel like a small little jackhole ("You can't go above level 8, but this guy can, he's waaaay cooler than you!"). And no prestige classes? Want to castrate me some more? Prestige Classes are almost why the Fighter stays in the fighter class for so long! So what if we don't want to be cookie-cutter greatsword beatstick fighter, what if we want to actually be a bit more unique and do something that doesn't suck balls?

"Drop like stones"? Do you get a kick out of making us feel small?

32-point buy... honestly, I don't have a extremely big problem with that. While it does kind of get rid of some character development, it also helps to alleviate the problem of dumping-ground stats (Charisma, yay!). Random stats (on a more average scale, of course) tends to alleviate dumping-ground stats a little, but I know it's still always there.

I do agree with most of the listed "improvements" being lame, though. The instant revivification is just stupid. "Whew, woah, I almost just stayed down for more than a minute there!" Without the threat of death, the game just, once again, feels like a hack-and-slash beatfest with occasional breaks because someone hit you real hard and knocked you down.

Ahem. Anyways, that's my rant. I just had to register and say something after hearing about this stuff.
 

Sammael

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Re: Huh?

Surgey said:
And that would be a campaign I'd never play. Capping level at 8? So you're saying almost everything else in the world is ten times more powerful than I'll ever be? I can NEVER get more experienced beyond that? If you make sure I'm not above level 8, you better sure as hell make sure nothing else gets above level 8, because I don't play games to feel like a small little jackhole ("You can't go above level 8, but this guy can, he's waaaay cooler than you!"). And no prestige classes? Want to castrate me some more? Prestige Classes are almost why the Fighter stays in the fighter class for so long! So what if we don't want to be cookie-cutter greatsword beatstick fighter, what if we want to actually be a bit more unique and do something that doesn't suck balls?

"Drop like stones"? Do you get a kick out of making us feel small?

32-point buy... honestly, I don't have a extremely big problem with that.
You are retarded. If the campaign is meant to cap at 8th level and is well-designed, it means the progression will be slower and level 8 will feel like an accomplishment, unlike with the current NWN insta-power system where levels mean NOTHING. Even though BG1 is a sort of a bad example because you can hit the cap long before the game ends, the amount of playing you have to do before hitting the cap is about 5 times longer than any RPGs currently on the market. As for there being people tougher than you in the game world, seriously dude, what sort of complexes do you have? Because there are living, breathing great wyrm red dragons in FR with CRs in the 30s-40s, do you feel that you should be entitled to play a great wyrm red dragon? Fuck no.
 

Surgey

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No reason to start name-calling. I don't think having an opinion makes me retarded. But anyways, I suppose yeah, if it's well-made, sure I wouldn't mind a cap of 8. I mostly meant in a pen and paper sense (because it doesn't make sense to just stop there, because there's plenty more the DM can make for you to fight), but I wouldn't mind it in a video game. It's not exactly a complex of people being tougher than the character. I'd like to be able to beat them, though. I mean, there really isn't much point to putting in a bunch of guys you can't beat unless you're REALLY not meant to (or the game is just trying to make you feel small). I also really don't mind guys tougher than me in the game, as long as they aren't throwing them in front of me to help me or fight just because they're iconic or something like that.

For example, if I can't go beyond level 8, I really don't think I'd be fighting a bunch of level 20 things. Obviously, this probably wouldn't happen, but that's what I was getting at. I was mostly a ticked at the "no prestige classes" thing, so I went ahead and went off about the level cap thing. It's like throwing out a customization option just because you don't want players to do damage or be cool or something. I wouldn't mind throwing out the stupid prestige classes (yay hexblade! or... not), but people probably wouldn't play them anyways... unless they're stupid. But cool ones like Weapon Master, Warshaper, and such? Those are neat!

When he said the word "Cap" it felt like he was implying that about half-way through the game, you'll be level 8 and will just stay that way for the rest of it. If you're about level 7-8 when you get to the end, sure, no problem. I would've understood a bit better if he said "You'll get to about level 8." or something to that effect.

And yes, levels in NWN felt like nothing. "Oh I levelled. Hm, I get a new feat. I guess I'll take Reflexes because I already took all the cool feats and the rest are stupid."
 

Vault Dweller

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Play ToEE, Surgey. 10 levels cap, no prestige classes, best pure DnD game.
 

DemonKing

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I think the problem with NWN is a problem with D&D v3.0+ - you do level rather quickly. I just started a new PNP campaign and my players all hit level 2 after two sessions since the only need 1000XP to do so (although admitedly the monsters are generally a bit tougher than in earlier versions) and to be honest they spent almost as much time arguing/discussing strategy as they did actually getting through encounters.

Earlier versions required you to accumulate between 1250-2750XP to level up depending on class. Thus making it to level 2 in BG feels like an achievement.

My preference would be for a game with longer level progression and a slow build-up of power but I fear the majority of the WOW generation want level 20 badasses with +5 UberSwords of God Slaying and a glowing golden aura and they want it now.
 

Jim Kata

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When I saw "The former is scripted and the latter is simply how we chose to give out XP. Raise Dead/Res. are not irrelevant in the OC; I use them regularly to bring back allies in combat. A wipe is still a wipe. " I guess I jumped to too much of a conclusion. It's still sort of stupid, but not as stupid as saying that's a great design.
 

Volourn

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"Play ToEE, Surgey. 10 levels cap, no prestige classes, best pure DnD game"

10 levels, 20 hours, +3 (and othe rbonuses on top of that) equipment, +6 stat boosters (something the NWN OC didn't have even though it went to level 20), combat (easy combat at that) vs gods, super demons, and a billion bugbears, and even more bugs!


GO GO TOEE... not.

And, no, TOEE is nowhere near the 'bets pure D&D game'. Any D&D game that doesn't allow yout o play with other PCs, allows you to hgave multi head monsters, and no DM CANNOT be the 'best pure D&D game'.

Moron.
 

Voss

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DemonKing said:
I think the problem with NWN is a problem with D&D v3.0+ - you do level rather quickly. I just started a new PNP campaign and my players all hit level 2 after two sessions since the only need 1000XP to do so (although admitedly the monsters are generally a bit tougher than in earlier versions) and to be honest they spent almost as much time arguing/discussing strategy as they did actually getting through encounters.

Thats a flaw in how you're running the campaign and giving out XP, not the system.


Anyway I'm moderately impressed that Obsidian actually managed to make the OC even worse than earlier previews suggested with that stupid as shit storyline. This level of bad decision making takes some serious fucking effort.

"Hurr, Hurr. We's got this story, see, but the NPCs are absolutely required to go through the checklist of required plot-points. Because the game shouldn't be about the player's decisions. They all just want to see what happens when we pull shit out of asses and smear it all over the walls. So, because we don't want to put any effort into either, lets just make all the NPCs immortal. Just like how we didn't bother to see if this story holds up to the standard resources available to various adventurers/villains in FR. Yeah, so these immortal characters thats just a flag and a short script (which we can just steal from KOTOR 2... now that we've done that, lets stick small animals up each others asses. Cuz that would be cool."


Knowledge skills. Too much effort. Can't have that.

Petrification. Theres a relative handful of things that use this. Hmm. Full effect (a non-standard death effect, essentially), leave it out, or do it half-assed? This is obsidian! Half-assed it is.

32 point buy. Eh. A little high but within the range of FR campaigns if the campaign is difficult. And given this is going to essentially be a single player game with a couple poorly scripted henchlings, acceptable since the system itself is balanced for 4-5 characters.

Max hit points. A clickable option/slider couldn't take *that* much effort, could it?
Could do it with point buy, too, really.

Up to level 20. In a single campaign? Kinda stupid. But then computer games have often taken the stupid ass crap of hordes of dragons, swarms of beholders and other shit like that in the endgame. Chalk this one up to a continuation of bad campaign building.

Sawyers takes
parry/discipline/knockdown- But the character had to have special powahz! And rez scripts for all! No time for basic rules!

Raise dead and Res in combat? More rules getting shitcanned for no apparent reason (see casting time). These are combat spells, dumbass.

knowledge skills- hey, heres a novel thought. Make all skills useful in some way. Oh, wait. Thats too much effort again. Even with a basic set like knowledge :arcana, religion, history, nature. Cuz there aren't synergy bonuses or anything like that aren't already worked out in the skill rules. (spellcraft, turning undead, bardic knowledge and survival, respectively). And clearly those skills are going to be more rare than immortal NPCs.

proficiency... You've got time for ' a you can't wield this' script/interface response, but a simple check of IF nonproficient THEN -4 Attack is too hard? The fuck?

and finally. Its not my fault, it wasn't my decision I don't want to hear about it, LALALALALALALA.
But you knew you'd have to deal with shit like that when you took the job. Don't want to deal with this shit? Don't take over a lead position towards the end of a project.

Its the Pool of Radiance 2 effect all over again. 'We switched lead designers, so the fact that the game is crap and we made a shitload of bad decisions isn't our fault!'
 

kingcomrade

Kingcomrade
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This is probably a good place to ask:

What is the benefit of a wizard over a sorcerer? As far as I can tell sorcerers are like Wizards +1, is there something I'm missing? It just looks to me like wizards are kinda superfluous.
 

Voss

Erudite
Joined
Jun 25, 2003
Messages
1,770
scribe scroll feat coupled with an unlimited spell selection, bonus feats every five levels, and if you aren't a dumb ass and speciailize you're only down 1 measly spell per level when compared to the sorcerer. And your metamagic isn't gimped.

And you get spell levels a character level earlier (a sorcerer is forced to wait until 4th to get 2nd level spells, and it skews their progression forever)

Sorcerers are actually wizards -5, unless you're going for a specific build or picking up a few spellcasting levels on the side.
 

Jim Kata

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Sorcerors are good for multiclassing and munchkining, basically, and that's it.
 

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