The role-playing paradigm in the post-Oblivion era

[Imbecile]

I haven't played Oblivion yet. Is it any good? I hear some people like it. Has Vault Dweller played it? I'd really be interested in hearing his comments about the game.

Dont think he was terribly positive

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=129

 

[PorkaMorka]

After botching character building (including your core magic vs tech concept) and combat(in a game full of combat), it's very hard to come back and earn a high rating from anyone who is being honest about it.

How could you botch your character build this badly unless you were going for something incredibly exotic? Give me some examples. I cannot think of any build that has one of these areas downpat that cannot finish the game handily. I can think of a few clueless builds that someone could make in order to make sure they fail, but that is about it.

The combat is flawed, no doubt about it. It isn't the worst I have come across though. The called shots at least allowed some measure of difference, little as it is. They should have just had a full up copy of the Fallout system in this regard if they couldn't make something better at the time.

I didn't botch my build, my build was awesome in terms of power.

Troika botched the character building mechanics, though, as well as the combat system, leaving the game broken and un-fun as a result.

I picked an Orc or half orc fighter/mage, with the idea of using healing and utility magic to experience more of the game and justify not tanking my mental stats but keeping them decent, as I knew it would be a talky RPG.

That's right, he wasn't even min maxed.

However, he was far too powerful, so in turn based mode the fights generally turned into tedious exercises without any thought or challenge. Back then I was a persistent young lad, so I kept going instead of quitting.

But to speed things up, I turned it to real time mode, which made the game into some kind of horrible challenge-less Diablo, without the stuff that supposedly made Diablo interesting.

But it did speed up my inevitable victory. Such that I barely remember anything of the plot, except that the end boss was the incredibly original

Spoiler

guy in robe who turns into big monster

Admittedly, I played it before any of the patches so maybe they improved things and it's possible as a tech character I wouldn't have been so bored, but it's really incredibly poor design when a standard, unoptimized character archetype like fighter/mage breaks the game so badly on release.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Admittedly, I played it before any of the patches so maybe they improved things and it's possible as a tech character I wouldn't have been so bored, but it's really incredibly poor design when a standard, unoptimized character archetype like fighter/mage breaks the game so badly on release.

This is actually a very common thing I have seen with Arcanum. Many who seem to dislike the game play Magicians, while many people that played tech straight off the bat seemed to have enjoyed it immensely. There are probably exceptions, but I have seen this many times now.

 

[Gobbo]

Admittedly, I played it before any of the patches so maybe they improved things and it's possible as a tech character I wouldn't have been so bored, but it's really incredibly poor design when a standard, unoptimized character archetype like fighter/mage breaks the game so badly on release.

This is actually a very common thing I have seen with Arcanum. Many who seem to dislike the game play Magicians, while many people that played tech straight off the bat seemed to have enjoyed it immensely. There are probably exceptions, but I have seen this many times now.

A very good point. Even now I can't get over and play a magician. All my playthroughs were tech.

 

[Roguey]

Just steer clear of his blog and you'll be fine. I'd recommend giving the Exile trilogy and Nethergate a try if you want a more gameplay and setting focused experience, and Geneforge for a good story, atmosphere, and C&C-fest.

But his blog is a joy to read. I can respect his loud and proud "I'm a casual and I'm not ashamed" attitude despite his unkempt appearance. I'm planning to try the Geneforge 5 demo first, then Avernum 6 and I guess I'll give the ones you recommended a go as well. Nothing to lose but time.

I see tons of hate for Arcanum, which is weird, because its basically Fallout:Fantasy Edition in terms of design. What's the delio, bros? It's easily one of my top 10.

I think the setting has a lot to do with it. As Josh Sawyer's mentioned in his formspring "traditional fantasy setting TURNED ON ITS HEAD / WITH EDGE!!" is a "one-way ticket to dullsville" and that would accurately describe "trad.fantasy going through an industrial revolution with half-ogre rape rooms and fantastic racism"

As for me, I love Arcanum but I'd love it a lot more if it felt like the combat density wasn't designed with real-time mode in mind (i.e. a whole lot of filler getting from point A to point B unless you're making a build with the specific purpose of avoiding all or nearly-all combat). Also doesn't help that real-time mode is the default. I also suspect that a lot of people who played it didn't read the manual thoroughly enough because I've surprised people in the past by telling them that you can make called shots and give orders to companions during combat. VIRGIL BACK OFF (All-caps larping)

The way scrolling works is also weird and uncomfortable. I recall I had problems with not being able to scroll far enough away from my character and you have to adjust to the fact that the easiest way to move around is to set up those way points on the map then click go and watch your character move around without any additional input. It was a pretty good feature though, even though I really really hated all those bottlenecks in Tarant that forced me to make all those twists and turns when I just wanted to go in a straight line.

To this day I still don't understand what the hell is up with the UI without directly referencing the manual and I'm one of the few who think Fallout had an all right interface that just needed some additional tweaking (which have been mostly provided for quite nicely in AoD).

The pacing's also pretty weird. The multi-layered city/settlement quests dry up once you make it to evil elf town though that's when the good/evil plot branch starts. And they lost something by making the main quest a straight-line though it cuts down on "guise I broke Fallout 1/2 by savescumming my way to the glow/navarro, game sucks".