Aside from featuring an amusing strip re. KotOR 2, today's Penny Arcade newspost offers up some typically curmudgeonly Tycho observations on RPGs.
On Troika:
On MMORPGs:
On Troika:
On MMORPGs:
-
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Penny Arcade today
- Thread starter suibhne
- Start date
Sol Invictus
Erudite
MMORPGs are like that. Most of them hold the 'promise' to be different than all the others in the market, but none of them manage to fulfill it. They continue to make this promise even after the game enters the retail market and the naive players who indulge themselves in the promise believe that a 'future patch' could transform the game into what they want.
Spazmo
Erudite
What I don't get is how anyone finishing KOTOR could fail to try the both endings given that all you'd have to do is reload a savegame from where you make the single plot decision in the entire game in that Bastila dialog.
Old Scratch
Liturgist
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2004
- Messages
- 190
I don't think developers should have to hold the players hand and only allow them a path to a specific ending which only reflects what they've done. That's really up to the player, if you're really trying to role-play a character at all.
The player should have already defined who their character was by the time they reach the end of a game and maintain some consistency. Why, if your character acted in what could be considered a compassionate, or humane manner throughout the majority of their journey, would they all of a sudden decide to do something incredibly immoral? Other than a sudden onslaught of an anti-social personality disorder or something.
For that reason, being able to choose which ending you can do at some juncture doesn't matter. If you throw role-playing out the window just so you can watch another cut-scene, that just being...munchkiny, and one can't really fault the developers of the game for it.
Like in KOTOR, I never saw the evil ending because my character wasn't evil. If I did want to see it, I would make a character prone to the dark side. The game wasn't quite good enough for another run-through though. Same with Bloodlines; even though there's a couple set points where you can decide how it's going to end, I chose the path best suited to my character and let that be the ending for him. Now I'm going through with a more agressive bastard.
That said, it would still be nice if somehow what you did was totaled up and directed you to a specific "ending", but I don't think it's something that's necessary. Even better would be the Fallout route, where you get a report on the effect you had on the game world, but developers don't seem to like to do that.
The player should have already defined who their character was by the time they reach the end of a game and maintain some consistency. Why, if your character acted in what could be considered a compassionate, or humane manner throughout the majority of their journey, would they all of a sudden decide to do something incredibly immoral? Other than a sudden onslaught of an anti-social personality disorder or something.
For that reason, being able to choose which ending you can do at some juncture doesn't matter. If you throw role-playing out the window just so you can watch another cut-scene, that just being...munchkiny, and one can't really fault the developers of the game for it.
Like in KOTOR, I never saw the evil ending because my character wasn't evil. If I did want to see it, I would make a character prone to the dark side. The game wasn't quite good enough for another run-through though. Same with Bloodlines; even though there's a couple set points where you can decide how it's going to end, I chose the path best suited to my character and let that be the ending for him. Now I'm going through with a more agressive bastard.
That said, it would still be nice if somehow what you did was totaled up and directed you to a specific "ending", but I don't think it's something that's necessary. Even better would be the Fallout route, where you get a report on the effect you had on the game world, but developers don't seem to like to do that.
FrankHorrigan
Liturgist
Their sometimes accurate observations aside, penny arcade is not fucking funny.
FrankHorrigan
Liturgist
The distinction fucknut, is im not trying to be funny.
Sol Invictus
Erudite
Penny Arcade should just drown.
Sarvis
Erudite
Yeah, because obviously your tastes are the only ones that matter and anything you don't like sucks and should be shut down!
Asshats.
Asshats.
Otaku_Hanzo
Erudite
While I don't particularly care for Penny Arcade, I've still gotten a chuckle or two out of it now and then. I prefer VGCats anyways. Hilarious stuff.
They just hit another one out of the park. This time they discuss steel thongs, a garment that's quite often seen in RPGs too.
TheGlow
Novice
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2004
- Messages
- 12
Penny Arcade is pretty fucking funny sometimes. If you know of a better online comic, by all means post it.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?d ... -2-23&res=
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?d ... 2-31&res=l
Those aren't even the ones I wante; I couldn't find them. Fuck it's funny.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?d ... -2-23&res=
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?d ... 2-31&res=l
Those aren't even the ones I wante; I couldn't find them. Fuck it's funny.
miserychick
Novice
Sarvis
Erudite
dojoteef
Self-Ejected
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2004
- Messages
- 970
Sarvis, that comic does have some funny shit. The most recent one has this little banter going on (oh and since I don't know their names I'm going to be very generic):
Character 1: "You... sacrificed... children for power?"
Character 2: "Of course. If I'd done it for no reason, I'd be a sicko or something. So, we gonna make out or what?"
Character 1: "You... sacrificed... children for power?"
Character 2: "Of course. If I'd done it for no reason, I'd be a sicko or something. So, we gonna make out or what?"
Sarvis
Erudite
dojoteef said:
*snicker*
If you played Final Fantasy you should know their names.
That's White Mage and Black Mage! (No, they don't have real names.)
It's an ongoing thing with those two... In one of the earlier comics Black Mage kept trying bad pick up lines on her, and she just kept hitting him with a giant hammer.... hehe.
axel
Liturgist
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