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The great Baldur's Gate/Fallout-like nomination thread

Glop_dweller

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ROLEPLAYING
  1. You must be able to create your own character or group of characters. This means attributes, skills, feats, pretty much anything, regardless of whether you are assigned a given name or not. What's important is that you are given a degree of freedom when creating
Why was this included, and why would it matter at all? This has nothing to do with roleplaying. If you have a defined character, then you have a role. The above would only apply if the player demanded a say in what role they were expected to play.

Even Fallout has pre-defined characters; as does Planescape.
 

Strange Fellow

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Moving the goalposts :shittydog:
Not moving anything. I'm saying that if a poll called "Fallout/Baldur's Gate-like games" includes Wizardry 8 then the requirements for inclusion have been stretched so wide that the name of the poll is inaccurate and misleading. Call it "best CRPGs" instead.
So a defining feature of Fallout/Baldur's Gate-like games is that the characters can move as far away from each other during battle as they want? If your party in Fallout was forced to stay within thirty hexes of each other (for example because of hardcoded companion AI), it would no longer be Fallout?
That's Sigourn's criterion. His poll, his rules. I'm more bothered by the first person perspective, to be honest. You're welcome to post that picture of the minimap again if you like, which apparently makes the game top-down to you. That's clearly not what Sigourn is looking for, however. Again, if you want Wiz 8 in on a technicality that's fine by me. It's his prerogative to include whatever he likes.
 

BEvers

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You're welcome to post that picture of the minimap again if you like, which apparently makes the game top-down to you. That's clearly not what Sigourn is looking for, however. Again, if you want Wiz 8 in on a technicality that's fine by me.

The criterion is "It has to happen in an overhead perspective, allowing a clear view of the battleground." That fits Wizardry 8. If the requirement was "the game must be top-down", I'd ask for clarification on whether the game would be allowed to present other perspectives concurrently with the top-down perspective.
 

Strange Fellow

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
299224-wizardry-8-windows-screenshot-the-crystal-unicorns-are-beautiful.jpg

What perspective do you see?
"Overhead perspective," says the contrarian Codexer. That thing in the bottom left corner is a goddamn minimap. You can't control anything using the minimap. Clicking it pulls up the map, same as every minimap ever. Does every game with a minimap have an overhead perspective? Does the combat of, say, the Stalker games happen in an overhead perspective? C'mon, this is the definition of a technicality.
 

BEvers

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You can position your party during combat using the top-down interface in the bottom right of the screenshot you posted; your party members will pick their targets and attack them automatically. Long-range movement is controlled through hotkeys, using the overview in the bottom left for orientation.

You cannot select specific targets using that interface, but that shouldn't be a prerequisite; plenty of BG/Fallout-likes require you to move your mouse out of the top-down viewscreen to perform certain combat actions. In Wizardry 8's case, you will only need to move your mouse out of the top-down window to select targets, which will only rarely be necessary when playing on one of the lower difficulty levels.
 
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Sigourn

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Why was this included, and why would it matter at all?

I thought "why not?".

Pre-defined in your case means "established story", while I'm talking pre-defined as in "pre-defined stats".

Moving the goalposts :shittydog:

Necessary in this case, because while not a "defining feature", it is definitely how combat works in those games.
 

laclongquan

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Prelude to Darkness.

This one fit to a T.
You can position your party during combat using the top-down interface in the bottom right of the screenshot you posted; your party members will pick their targets and attack them automatically. Long-range movement is controlled through hotkeys, using the overview in the bottom left for orientation.
I see what you did there and I am not amused. Wizardry 8 fit the proposed criteria like a square peg on a hole.
 

Sigourn

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Be my guest, make a poll about games you like. But I maintain my opinion that you're making a post-facto rationalization to stick those 2 titles together and as far as any possible methodology goes, it doesn't make much sense.

Truth is those two titles and many more play similarly, and that's as much of a reason as I need to make a poll about more of those games. Especially because the last Codex poll, as it turns out, had its top five occuppied by games of this kind. Which to me was a good enough of a reason to ask people to nominate more of these kind of games into a huge poll.
 

Serus

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Be my guest, make a poll about games you like. But I maintain my opinion that you're making a post-facto rationalization to stick those 2 titles together and as far as any possible methodology goes, it doesn't make much sense.

Truth is those two titles and many more play similarly, and that's as much of a reason as I need to make a poll about more of those games. Especially because the last Codex poll, as it turns out, had its top five occuppied by games of this kind. Which to me was a good enough of a reason to ask people to nominate more of these kind of games into a huge poll.
Yes, computer role playing games play somewhat similar to other computer role playing games. Duh. And the whole point is that there is no "this kind" other than "two random CRPGs from the past I happen to like". That's not a basis for claiming that there is a "kind".
 

Sigourn

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Yes, computer role playing games play somewhat similar to other computer role playing games.

Gothic doesn't play anything like Baldur's Gate, and last time I checked it's both a computer game and a roleplaying game.

And the whole point is that there is no "this kind" other than "two random CRPGs from the past I happen to like".

Except for, you know, the dozens of games already nominated that play the same. Obviously Icewind Dale isn't 1:1 with Fallout, but all the elements are there, mixed in different quantities.

I could have added another requirement, non-linear gameplay, and Icewind Dale would have been disqualified. But that to me isn't exactly a requirement.
 

deama

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Neverwinter nights 2 + storm of zehir + mask of the betrayer?

Tale of Wuxia?

Tyranny
 

Glop_dweller

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Pre-defined in your case means "established story", while I'm talking pre-defined as in "pre-defined stats".
No, no.. I did mean pre-defined stats; that they are defined sets the boundaries of the role; same as if the player had defined them themselves.

Mutable starting characters are always a welcome feature in roleplaying games, but they are not a requirement for it to BE a rolelplaying game.
_____________

To the topic: Obviously Temple of Elemental Evil and Obsidian's recent titles are Fallout/BG-like... but there are very few RPGs that can match the best work of Bioware & Black Isle—they cannot even best themselves anymore. Pool of Radiance 2 is sort of like them, but not nearly as polished or as in depth.
 

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