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Editorial Calling Fallout 3 into question(s)

Section8

Cipher
Joined
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Messages
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Location
Wardenclyffe
Tags: Bethesda Softworks; Fallout 3

Well, that day has finally come. Fallout 3 is no longer just a speck on the horizon, and we're starting to see some vague revelations of what the game actually has in store for us. As most predicted, those who adore Fallout to the point of obsession aren't exactly overjoyed, given that Bethesda have indeed taken the route they've been hinting at for years - they're "going with what they know". So we have two sides being their predictable selves.
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But is the bleak outlook justified? An awful lot of people seem to be either instantly dismissive of the Fallout fanatics, branding their collective opinion as a kneejerk negative response to something they've made their minds up about long ago. There also seems to be a more zealous movement who derive pleasure from Fallout fans general state of unhappiness, which paints them in the terrifying light of caring more for the well-being of a company's bankroll than that of their fellow man.
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<br>
So, here's an opportunity to ask yourselves the same questions the "angry vocal minority" have asked themselves to get to this point. Maybe you'll come up with more positive responses than we did, so by all means, share them on our forums. <a href=http://www.rpgcodex.com/content.php?id=150>But firstly - Into the Wastes!</a>
 

jfreund

Novice
Joined
Jun 22, 2007
Messages
3
It's disheartening to see Bethesda slap the Fallout name on a game that has virtually no Fallout in it. I'm mystified why they would spend the money to acquire the IP when they clearly don't need it to make this game. It's almost as if they blew millions of dollars specifically to piss off Fallout fans.
 

mister lamat

Scholar
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
570
are all you ladies gonna take turns on the cross? i think jesus wants his seat back.

a few of your more angst-ridden questions get some answers...

Has anyone who enjoys first-person shooters ever found themselves wishing they could pause the game and let the computer take their headshots for them?

aimbots. next.

Conversely, has anyone who enjoys turn-based tactics ever longed for a first-person shooter mode between turns?

star trail, betrayal of kondor(?). if you're asking 'do i enjoy passivity in my gameplay?', the answer is no. the question itself has a high level of 'douchepuddleness' as you can roll over the shoulder.

Is this really "innovation" when many games previously have featured similar mechanics of using a regenerating resource to slow gameplay and give the player an advantage?

first it's a pause, now it's bullet time? is it both? is it neither? are vats actions taken out of the timeflow or do they play out at a slower pace? former, neat idea and reminds of the camera from beyond good and evil, the latter... meh.

it's all 'innovative'... silent storm tells me it's 'next gen' right on the box!

Does anyone not believe that two distinct modes of play would be difficult to balance, leading to situations where one or the other is favourable to the point of being an exploit, a la Arcanum?

you can exploit it or not. if one is more fun than the other, do that.

as for balance... almost twenty years and a guard safh still rapes the table. the same way a character with ten agility destroys everything in fallout... both are predicated on not being a complete failure when it comes to playing games.

Anyone find themselves wishing that utilitarian character generation was replaced by a lengthy tutorial mode and Fable style cuteness?

i seriously doubt you'll be kicking chickens and i'd imagine it'll be a little darker than fable... nothing wrong with creating a synergy between the player and the character by establishing some sort of background.

notepad larping is notepad larping, be it in fallout or oblivion.

Have you ever wished that Fallout's colourful dialogue trees were replaced with a keyword system where you no longer evoke any kind of character, much less Fallout's classic archetypes?

plane tickets, bitch. not cuz i wanna fight, but rather read this script you've gotten your hands on.

In short, ever wished Fallout looked less like Fallout and more like everything else?

if you're asking if i want more than 256 colours... then yea.

excessive death scenes... looks like it's a check.
shining knights... the bloom almost blinded me. check.
goofy looking supermutants... i prefered their allegorical role in the story as opposed to the art assets. an orc is an orc is an orc... unless it's an ork.

While playing Fallout, did anyone ever wish the player was given less authorship of their character? Ever wish you came with the baggage of your family and being a teenager?

advocacy of notepad larping was something i thought frowned upon? now it's good gameplay?

Are you happy to see both Super Mutants and the Brotherhood of Steel on the East coast, against all odds?

against all odds? seriously... the long march it ain't and even the chinese managed to accomplish that with really short legs.

turn down the angst.

Do you really want familiar faces at the cost of plausibility/continuity?

no.

Does the moral choice of helping a stranger detonate a nuke in the middle of a town sound like one you'd agonise over? Does it sound any less cliched than any other "shady guy in the darkest corner of a bar room, waiting for some patsy in his evil scheme" plot arc?

Decker. he was so anti-illumination he was actually under the bar.

did you write this in blood after cutting on yourself?

Is a heavily armed ticket-collecting robot an example of wry humour?[sic]

i think it's a nod to the hyper-militarized fascist shithole america had become prior to the war. dunno if it was intentional or not, but it's a neat reference to mussolini's 'making the trains run on time'.

Obviously, at the end of the day, we still know very little about what we're getting, but I had to ask. If I've missed it, what exactly are the magical elements that have folks saying "sounds great! I can't wait to buy this!" in the saner parts of the internet? Is it faith in Bethesda? Are people really that enamoured with post-apoc that they'll forgive the absence of a great deal of Fallout's unique style? Or is it simply that too many Fallout-less years have jaded us to the point where we can't see potential when it's right in front of us?

i've never not had fun playing a video game.
 

Kraszu

Prophet
Joined
May 27, 2005
Messages
3,253
Location
Poland
Conversely, has anyone who enjoys turn-based tactics ever longed for a first-person shooter mode between turns?

star trail, betrayal of kondor(?). if you're asking 'do i enjoy passivity in my gameplay?', the answer is no. the question itself has a high level of 'douchepuddleness' as you can roll over the shoulder.

You don't know what fps is? That is a game when you fight in fp view in rt games that you mention don't have that.

I said before that system when you switch between fps and tb would feel clumsy even through I like both I don't think that they would work good combined in one game.

Does anyone not believe that two distinct modes of play would be difficult to balance, leading to situations where one or the other is favourable to the point of being an exploit, a la Arcanum?

you can exploit it or not. if one is more fun than the other, do that.

What what does it have to do whit fun? If system is imbalanced it suck it is like saying:
-that fps suck it is way to easy
-oh yeah try to play it whit only a knife.

as for balance... almost twenty years and a guard safh still rapes the table. the same way a character with ten agility destroys everything in fallout... both are predicated on not being a complete failure when it comes to playing games.

Try to play somebody whit no perception or iq in FO, sure some builds are better (easier to play) then others but that is completely diferent then having two tribes in game of play style that you can switch whenever you want and one being easier then other (tb fight or fps fight for example, what worse fps will be more skill based so it will be better at start and worse at end)

Anyone find themselves wishing that utilitarian character generation was replaced by a lengthy tutorial mode and Fable style cuteness?

i seriously doubt you'll be kicking chickens and i'd imagine it'll be a little darker than fable... nothing wrong with creating a synergy between the player and the character by establishing some sort of background.

It sound boring and horrible at second go through to me, just becouse I will be feed whit that doesn't mean I will start care just like in bioware games. You should decide in general what you want to do, world to explore is something that make me hooked not some background.

notepad larping is notepad larping, be it in fallout or oblivion.

Care to elaborate? I didn't feel need to make up background of my character in FO.

Have you ever wished that Fallout's colourful dialogue trees were replaced with a keyword system where you no longer evoke any kind of character, much less Fallout's classic archetypes?

plane tickets, bitch. not cuz i wanna fight, but rather read this script you've gotten your hands on.

Todd said that dialogue will be like on Oblivion.

In short, ever wished Fallout looked less like Fallout and more like everything else?

if you're asking if i want more than 256 colours... then yea.

excessive death scenes... looks like it's a check.
shining knights... the bloom almost blinded me. check.
goofy looking supermutants... i prefered their allegorical role in the story as opposed to the art assets. an orc is an orc is an orc... unless it's an ork.

What supermutants look generic,

FO settings .... fail. Section8 already cover why.

While playing Fallout, did anyone ever wish the player was given less authorship of their character? Ever wish you came with the baggage of your family and being a teenager?

advocacy of notepad larping was something i thought frowned upon? now it's good gameplay?

You don't really get that notepad larping is referring to make up choices that aren't in game, to do something that has no effect on it I didn't made up background of my character in FO. I didn't made up that I choose to work for somebody in FO instead of his "enemy" becouse I had a choice.

Does the moral choice of helping a stranger detonate a nuke in the middle of a town sound like one you'd agonise over? Does it sound any less cliched than any other "shady guy in the darkest corner of a bar room, waiting for some patsy in his evil scheme" plot arc?

Decker. he was so anti-illumination he was actually under the bar.

did you write this in blood after cutting on yourself?

You missed the point again, Decer was normal criminal, he didn't do evil becouse he is evil , he was doing business.
 

Section8

Cipher
Joined
Oct 23, 2002
Messages
4,321
Location
Wardenclyffe
mister lamat said:
are all you ladies gonna take turns on the cross? i think jesus wants his seat back.

He's still up here. We're just impaled on his throbbing erection.

aimbots. next.

I knew someone would bring this to the table, so thanks for being that guy. So aimbots. Good? Bad?

star trail, betrayal of kondor(?). if you're asking 'do i enjoy passivity in my gameplay?', the answer is no. the question itself has a high level of 'douchepuddleness' as you can roll over the shoulder.

Those incredible examples dismantle my argument so succinctly I feel ashamed to have made it to begin with. Try again - do fans of turn-based games want action gameplay substituted for a passive off-turn?

first it's a pause, now it's bullet time? is it both? is it neither? are vats actions taken out of the timeflow or do they play out at a slower pace? former, neat idea and reminds of the camera from beyond good and evil, the latter... meh.

It's pretty much the same concept as bullet time, except it's had to-hit rolls shoehorned into it. Is there a distinction between Baldur's Gate's pause and Freedom Force's super slo-mo? Yes. Is it worth making that distinction? No. And they accuse me of pedantry. Or is that pedophilia? I can never tell.

you can exploit it or not. if one is more fun than the other, do that.

as for balance... almost twenty years and a guard safh still rapes the table. the same way a character with ten agility destroys everything in fallout... both are predicated on not being a complete failure when it comes to playing games.

So because other games have glaring, easily exploitable faults, then it's okay? I'm so disappointed in you.

i seriously doubt you'll be kicking chickens and i'd imagine it'll be a little darker than fable... nothing wrong with creating a synergy between the player and the character by establishing some sort of background.

Except it's creating a synergy between the developer and the character, and not necessarily the player.

notepad larping is notepad larping, be it in fallout or oblivion.

When did I champion notepad LARPing? Compare and contrast:

  • The player has the freedom to define their character in their imagination
  • The player has the freedom to define their character through gameplay actions
  • The character is pre-defined (to various degrees) by the developer

plane tickets, bitch. not cuz i wanna fight, but rather read this script you've gotten your hands on.

That "the dialogue is more like Oblivion's" comment from a guy who has seen it first hand is pretty telling. Here's hoping they prove me wrong.

if you're asking if i want more than 256 colours... then yea.

I think it should be EGA as way of homage to Wasteland.

excessive death scenes... looks like it's a check.

There are differing degrees and variations of excess. Fallout's violent excess is in the vein of Evil Dead, Braindead or Robocop. My money is on Bethesda coming up with violent excess in the vein of Saving Private Ryan, Aliens or Enemy at the Gates. And given that their PR methods lend themselves to "guilty until proven innocent", I'm quite happy to make that judgment.

shining knights... the bloom almost blinded me. check.
goofy looking supermutants... i prefered their allegorical arole in the story as opposed to the art assets. an orc is an orc is an orc... unless it's an ork.

I like text adventures too.

advocacy of notepad larping was something i thought frowned upon? now it's good gameplay?

Giving the player authorship != Giving the player freedom to daydream

against all odds? seriously... the long march it ain't and even the chinese managed to accomplish that with really short legs.

"Phil Collins managed to play at both shows. After his spot at Wembley, he jumped on Concorde, jetted across the Atlantic and played again in Philadelphia later in the same day."

Decker. he was so anti-illumination he was actually under the bar.

did you write this in blood after cutting on yourself?

You're just like my parents. :cry:

i think it's a nod to the hyper-militarized fascist shithole america had become prior to the war. dunno if it was intentional or not, but it's a neat reference to mussolini's 'making the trains run on time'.

It's more likely to be a nod to Total Recall's Johnnycab. Mussolini? Schwarzenegger? Much the same thing, really.

i've never not had fun playing a video game.

I'm glad I'm not the only one with standards.
 

mister lamat

Scholar
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
570
do fans of turn-based games want action gameplay substituted for a passive off-turn?

fans of turn based play were anything but passive when it wasn't their turn. it's a failing of medium in this circumstance and probably why it's a turn off to a greater number of people than real time combat is. maybe you dig feeling helpless, but i don't give a fuck about your feelings.

most fans of turn based play would also consider subtracting five from nine repeatedly a pretty banal experience.

It's pretty much the same concept as bullet time, except it's had to-hit rolls shoehorned into it. Is there a distinction between Baldur's Gate's pause and Freedom Force's super slo-mo? Yes. Is it worth making that distinction? No.

you've seen it in action? you know the rest of the gameworld doesn't stop when the action is played out? can you throw the torrent up, please?

keep your feelings in your blog, emo.

So because other games have glaring, easily exploitable faults, then it's okay?

once again, blog your 'end is nigh' shit. every system can be broken and it's pretty damn easy to figure out how. if you build it from the base to work in both formats there's a little less bloom on the faults. beth isn't exactly super tight with their coding but it ain't the chuckin' spaghetti at the wall kinda brand troika was famous for.

Except it's creating a synergy between the developer and the character, and not necessarily the player.

naw, it's meant to create a synergy between the player and the character. mebbe the fuck it up, mebbe they don't. try/pass or try/fail is only relevant to the discussion when you've rolled through it.

the 'doomsday' shit belongs in your blog, not in the content section. just put the link in your sig.

When did I champion notepad LARPing?

zero influence, zero relevance to the gameworld. i know you wanna think you're above some khajit loving furry building a life with his true love in... *insert name of oblivion town*... but you ain't.

That "the dialogue is more like Oblivion's" comment from a guy who has seen it first hand is pretty telling.

he could have been referring to how it was presented on screen... big head, little box at the bottom with words in it.

your feelings go in your blog. i will encourage you to seek out said tech demo and have a proper look yourself, however. then you will magically be in the right section!

There are differing degrees and variations of excess. Fallout's violent excess is in the vein of Evil Dead, Braindead or Robocop. My money is on Bethesda coming up with violent excess in the vein of Saving Private Ryan, Aliens or Enemy at the Gates.

i'm thrilled that you find a distinction between various types of torture porn. all i saw was a screen shot of a head exploding into wicked little bits of grey matter.

feelings ---> blog.

I like text adventures too.

i was eaten by a grue once. bunch of times actually.

"Phil Collins managed to play at both shows. After his spot at Wembley, he jumped on Concorde, jetted across the Atlantic and played again in Philadelphia later in the same day."

"Hey there, I'm Lewis"

"Nice to meet you Lewis, I'm Clarke"

"You think it'll be safe to cross the country sans power armour, laser guns and a map?"

"What the fuck is a laser gun? Dude, I can't keep my canoe from leaking."

You're just like my parents.

i am nothing if not love in it's purest form.

It's more likely to be a nod to Total Recall's Johnnycab. Much the same thing, really.

the retort straw you're trying to grab seems a little beyond your reach.

I'm glad I'm not the only one with standards.

you're seemingly the only crybaby emo putz without a livejournal though.
 

galsiah

Erudite
Joined
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Messages
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Location
Montreal
mister lamat said:
every system can be broken and it's pretty damn easy to figure out how.
Utter nonsense (or vacuous, irrelevant crap - take your pick), and a pathetic excuse for lazy design.

beth isn't exactly super tight with their coding but it ain't the chuckin' spaghetti at the wall kinda brand troika was famous for.
This has nothing to do with coding, and everything to do with design. Bethesda are a fucking embarrassment when it comes to designing balanced systems. The "balance" they do include is full of clumsy, incoherent arbitrary limits - yet still manages to fail much of the time. (their systems are occasionally broken by bugs too - but usually they were already broken by design)

Troika's coding errors might have been fixable with extensive testing and polish (though a higher rate of bugs is a natural consequence of having the game world actually respond to the player's actions - non-trivial game worlds need non-trivial testing).
Bethesda's frequently absurd design could be fixed by one guy with a spare weekend, some sense, paper and a pencil.
 

mister lamat

Scholar
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
570
Utter nonsense (or vacuous, irrelevant crap - take your pick), and a pathetic excuse for lazy design.

no it's not. within every system there are going to be far end variables. ones that will utterly suck but might be fun to play and ones which are just so insanely overpowered nothing can honestly stop them.

like i said, almost twenty years and a guard safh still rapes the table. nothing you can do about it either. ain't fun to play with or against but it does break the system. fourth edition and they still haven't a clue as how to fix it. neither do i.

i can break ja, ja2, ss, s3, h&s, d&d, special, gurps and a helluva lot of other tactical combat games and rpgs just by looking at the system. it's not hard. it's also not fun. all linear equations with known values... figure that out and the outcome is guaranteed from start to finish.

if you know of a system that doesn't have a 'fuck you, i win' build or tactic lemme know. some take a bit of skill to pull off, but it's the broken math that's kickin' the other players ass.

Troika's coding errors might have been fixable with extensive testing and polish

most would have been corrected with proper spelling or paired coding... or just, you know, not forgetting to do stuff. just a problem of too much freedom and not enough 'stand up to the publisher stones'.

if you can fix beth's system and make it not suck in a weekend go for it! i know random guy from the internet will have all the answers!
 

galsiah

Erudite
Joined
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Messages
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mister lamat said:
no it's not.
Is it really that hard to hit shift?

within every system there are going to be far end variables. ones that will utterly suck but might be fun to play and ones which are just so insanely overpowered nothing can honestly stop them.
First, you are talking bollocks.

Second, balance is a non-trivial issue.
A system where you can pick certain characters which are less challenging than others is not "broken". In single player games, there is no reason for all characters to have the same level of difficulty - just so long as any reasonable character is entertaining to play. If you managed to create a great character build, and had an easier time playing, you did not "break" the system - you simply played an easy build.

Variety in challenge between character builds and game paths is not necessarily a problem (so long as all paths entertain). The larger problem is the type of idiotic imbalance you find in Bethesda's worlds - for example, the lack of balance in economy, the lack of balance in alchemy, the lack of balance in item power. I'm not talking about item X being better than item Y here - I'm talking about mechanics allowing item combinations that can make the player literally invulnerable to any enemy (e.g. 100% chameleon), fortify intelligence potions that create a feedback loop allowing a character to get into the millions in any stat....
The PC levelling system also sucks horribly, and demonstrates another variety of Bethesda "balance" - stale uniformity. Every character tends towards almost exactly the same end position, regardless of initial setup or action. This is both incoherent, and extremely dull.

If a system supports a coherent game world, and provides interest, variety and entertainment, it's balanced (whether or not you can use your uber-min-maxing to create the BEST BUILD EVAR).
If a system destroys the coherence of a game world, or serves to make things dull and unentertaining, it's not balanced (even if it's fair and uniform).

like i said, almost twenty years and a guard safh still rapes the table. nothing you can do about it either. ain't fun to play with or against but it does break the system. fourth edition and they still haven't a clue as how to fix it.
I have no idea what you're talking about. If it's some "D&D is broken, therefore everything must be" argument, then you're still talking bollocks.
Most P&P systems are poorly balanced in many areas, since they favour extensive (often sloppy) design over tight design. Refinements to future versions are also made difficult - both by the tendency of some fans to prefer to cling to their favourite rules/builds, rather than see balance, and the wisdom of others to know that imbalances can be fixed on-the-fly by any DM/group with sense - so better to spend time on creative expansion.

i can break ja, ja2, ss, s3, h&s, d&d, special, gurps and a helluva lot of other tactical combat games and rpgs just by looking at the system. it's not hard. it's also not fun.
First, I doubt that you're using a sane definition of "break" - see above.
Second, so what? Listing a group of broken systems implies nothing about the possibility of producing one that isn't broken. If you can't see that possibility, you are stupid.
Your statement was an absurd sweeping generalization. It's nonsense in general (e.g. try breaking Chess or Go). Creating an RPG system which is well balanced (in important senses) might be harder, but it isn't impossible.

Even if one were to accept your absurd notions of impossibility, that would be no reason not to identify a balanced system as an aim. There are more degrees of balance than simply "broken" or "not broken". Deciding that you can't do something perfectly, and therefore shouldn't try to do it at all, is stupidity.

if you know of a system that doesn't have a 'fuck you, i win' build or tactic lemme know. some take a bit of skill to pull off, but it's the broken math that's kickin' the other players ass.
Again, you have an idiotic notion of what it means for a system to be broken. That you have the leet skilz to create a SPECIAL character that makes the game less challenging than others does not make the system broken - it simply means that your character creation choices affect game difficulty.

To take some examples:
Fallout's levelling - some perks are more effective than others; a few aren't useful at all (in powergaming terms). Considerable variety is possible. Incentivizes killing stuff and doing quests. Not perfect, but not broken.

Morrowind's levelling - all characters end up almost identical. Skill choices make little difference. Choices at level increase make almost no difference. Incentivizes repetetive pointless actions (casting 1 point spells at walls). Incentivizes absurd actions (e.g. stabbing enemies to death with a cheap, blunt mace). Incentivizes nonsensically ordered skill increases, with tactically timed sleeping. Has order dependence in attribute increases, further incentivizing absurd play. Broken.

Fallout's economy - keeps most players relatively poor for quite a while. Allows skilled players to take advantage of gambling. Generally reasonable, if not perfect.

Morrowind's economy - allows every player to get absurdly rich, regardless of skillset. Allows any player to exploit the barter system to gain all a merchant's money, regardless of skill. Allows any player competent in speechcraft/mercantile to buy from a merchant, then sell THE SAME ITEM back for more money a few seconds later. etc. etc. Broken.

In both of these areas, Fallout provides variety (though less than it might), and allows the player to play more effectively in coherent, interesting (for a while) ways. Morrowind provides no variety, is incoherent, and incentivizes very dull gameplay.

In the end, the goal is entertainment - not uniformity. Fallout doesn't achieve this perfectly with its systems, but it makes a reasonable attempt (e.g. the perks system is not itself broken - though a few individual perks are). Morrowind's systems do a horrible job, and are largely inherently broken - it's not one item, one birthsign, one merchant... that creates the imbalance: it's the stupid design of the central mechanics.

Most RPGs are going to have content that's more or less broken. In practice, that might be almost unavoidable. They certainly don't need to contain broken core systems - which Morrowind does in abundance.

most would have been corrected with proper spelling or paired coding... or just, you know, not forgetting to do stuff.
You are still talking bollocks.
It's simply a question of time. Spelling errors are spotted with enough testing of the area where they occur. That area gets more attention in games with non-branching systems.

I don't know where you're going with "paired coding" - presumably an attempt to look knowledgeable. If you think it's either a bug prevention panacea, or something you'd do to avoid spelling errors in dialogue, you're deluded.

if you can fix beth's system and make it not suck in a weekend go for it! i know random guy from the internet will have all the answers!
The absurd design can mostly be removed with a few moments' thought. Some of it isn't absurd, but could be improved - it'd take longer to get it right. The weekend + sense would get you only as far as not utterly incoherent crap.
In a small area I've already done this (for Morrowind's levelling system). Improving the design is very easy. Implementing it with a scripting system not designed for the purpose is hard.

I'm not sure I could produce a good system for core game mechanics in a weekend (certainly not one I'd be satisfied with); I'm very sure I could produce one that'd be better than Morrowind. That's not because I'm a great designer - it's because it's difficult to find aspects of Morrowind's core systems that aren't horribly flawed.
 

mister lamat

Scholar
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
570
break, as in ride the math and by that be able to ignore the nature of gameplay and purpose of the game, yet succeed.

sweet magnum opus. maybe someone else will read it.
 

galsiah

Erudite
Joined
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Messages
1,613
Location
Montreal
There I go again - thinking that there's more to an idea than can be summed up in a trite, flawed one-liner.
 

Severian Silk

Guest
OccupatedVoid said:
They did it for marketing. That way the "gaming journalists" will say OMG TEH SEKUEL TO EPIC RPG FALLOUT!
Also, post-apoc is automatically less popular than fantasy [edit: for RPGs only?]; and, by making it a part of a legacy they convince buyers who might otherwise overlook the game due to the setting.
It's pretty much the same concept as bullet time, except it's had to-hit rolls shoehorned into it. Is there a distinction between Baldur's Gate's pause and Freedom Force's super slo-mo? Yes. Is it worth making that distinction? No. And they accuse me of pedantry. Or is that pedophilia? I can never tell.
I don't remember FF having super-slo-mo. It just had Pause, like BG.
 

mister lamat

Scholar
Joined
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Messages
570
There I go again - thinking that there's more to an idea than can be summed up in a trite, flawed one-liner.

technically, it'd be a three liner. flawless like a diamond.

one more post and you'll change the entire game industry though. they're watching you.
 

Section8

Cipher
Joined
Oct 23, 2002
Messages
4,321
Location
Wardenclyffe
keep your feelings in your blog, emo.
once again, blog your 'end is nigh' shit.
the 'doomsday' shit belongs in your blog, not in the content section. just put the link in your sig.
your feelings go in your blog.
feelings ---> blog.
you're seemingly the only crybaby emo putz without a livejournal though.

It's like watching a Skinnerbox rat hitting an "emo blog lolz" button over and over. Except he's probably getting rewarded for his efforts. What's your angle?

fans of turn based play were anything but passive when it wasn't their turn. it's a failing of medium in this circumstance and probably why it's a turn off to a greater number of people than real time combat is. maybe you dig feeling helpless, but i don't give a fuck about your feelings.

  • keep your feelings in your blog, emo.
  • once again, blog your 'end is nigh' shit.
  • the 'doomsday' shit belongs in your blog, not in the content section. just put the link in your sig.
  • your feelings go in your blog.
  • feelings ---> blog.
  • you're seemingly the only crybaby emo putz without a livejournal though.

Whether you give a fuck or not, you seem to have something of a fixation on them. Wanna talk about it?

you've seen it in action? you know the rest of the gameworld doesn't stop when the action is played out? can you throw the torrent up, please?

Here you go.

every system can be broken and it's pretty damn easy to figure out how. if you build it from the base to work in both formats there's a little less bloom on the faults. beth isn't exactly super tight with their coding but it ain't the chuckin' spaghetti at the wall kinda brand troika was famous for.

Actually, I get the impression Bethesda's coding has really improved over the last few years. I had no dramas at all playing Oblivion unpatched. But then again, the simpler the design, the less potential for fuckups. Sad thing is, I think Bethesda could even underdesign a "Hello World" module.

naw, it's meant to create a synergy between the player and the character. mebbe the fuck it up, mebbe they don't. try/pass or try/fail is only relevant to the discussion when you've rolled through it.

It sounds like more of Todd Howard's "emotional link" bullshit to me. Problem is, rather than letting the player define their own emotional ties, it relies on vicarious association with a predefined relationship. I'm sure there are arranged marriages where both parties wind up being head-over-heels for one another, but that doesn't prove they're a decent way of establishing a meaningful link between two people.

zero influence, zero relevance to the gameworld. i know you wanna think you're above some khajit loving furry building a life with his true love in... *insert name of oblivion town*... but you ain't.

Where did I say zero relevance? Where did I even allude to it? It takes true commitment to ignorance to fail at multiple choice.

he could have been referring to how it was presented on screen... big head, little box at the bottom with words in it.

Sounds like Fallout to me. Why make the distinction then?

i will encourage you to seek out said tech demo and have a proper look yourself, however. then you will magically be in the right section!

I like magic.

i'm thrilled that you find a distinction between various types of torture porn. all i saw was a screen shot of a head exploding into wicked little bits of grey matter.

Yeah, not quite as funky as blasting a big circular chunk of flesh out of someone's side. We'll see, but as I said - Bethesda make it all too easy to apply a guilty until proven innocent rule to their PR shit.

i was eaten by a grue once. bunch of times actually.

I sniffed a grue once. No wait, that was glue. Apparently it turned me emo.

"What the fuck is a laser gun? Dude, I can't keep my canoe from leaking."

"I wonder if this large green chap can help us?"

the retort straw you're trying to grab seems a little beyond your reach.

True. If only my hands, and ergo my cock, were bigger.
 

mister lamat

Scholar
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
570
Whether you give a fuck or not, you seem to have something of a fixation on them. Wanna talk about it?/quote]

not content. use the other sections.

It sounds like more of Todd Howard's "emotional link" bullshit to me. Problem is, rather than letting the player define their own emotional ties, it relies on vicarious association with a predefined relationship. I'm sure there are arranged marriages where both parties wind up being head-over-heels for one another, but that doesn't prove they're a decent way of establishing a meaningful link between two people.

i didn't define my relationship with my parents, nor did i have much choice in the matter. it's the most basic and common of relationships. the bonds of family are deeply resonating literary theme as it's completely relatable to people from the start, as opposed to an arragned marriage.

Sounds like Fallout to me. Why make the distinction then?

because one is a decade old which may or may not be familiar, the other is fairly recent. head, box, words... might as well go with one your audience will recognize.

Yeah, not quite as funky as blasting a big circular chunk of flesh out of someone's side. We'll see, but as I said - Bethesda make it all too easy to apply a guilty until proven innocent rule to their PR shit.

only if you listen. can't recall ever reading anything they've said on anything. never even been to ign. just played the games and they seem to have a pretty graphics fetish...

"I wonder if this large green chap can help us?"

they took a five foot tall underage indian chick to help...
 

Section8

Cipher
Joined
Oct 23, 2002
Messages
4,321
Location
Wardenclyffe
not content. use the other sections.

Oh, you mean like the forums?

i didn't define my relationship with my parents, nor did i have much choice in the matter. it's the most basic and common of relationships. the bonds of family are deeply resonating literary theme as it's completely relatable to people from the start, as opposed to an arragned marriage.

So let's pretend a day comes where you're reunited with your biological parents, having been switched at birth. Who do you have a stronger relationship with, the ones you've never known as anything other than mum and dad, or the strangers you've never met before?

You also have to bear in mind that game narrative is effectively second-person literature, where you have to be very careful about what you force upon the reader, especially with regard to their motivations. And doubly so when there are interactive responses to your actions and motives.

The "bonds of family" may be a resonating theme in conventional literature, but we're talking about a medium where player authorship is arguably more important, and both rigid definition and forced motives get in the way of that. An author needs blank space to write their own tale, and if the page is already filled with someone else's story...

because one is a decade old which may or may not be familiar, the other is fairly recent. head, box, words... might as well go with one your audience will recognize.

Q: Is this another Oblivion but with a Fallout theme?

A: In short: no. Sure, Fallout 3 plays primarily from a first-person perspective like Oblivion, and conversations with NPCs use a similar style of dialogue tree, but combat, questing, character creation and most importantly the tone and style of the gameplay shares more in common with Fallout 1 and 2 than Oblivion.

Context is a wonderful thing. Seems you missed it while tripping over yourself to make a "Fallout 3 isn't be made for you" barb. Oops.

only if you listen. can't recall ever reading anything they've said on anything. never even been to ign. just played the games and they seem to have a pretty graphics fetish...

What bliss.

they took a five foot tall underage indian chick to help...

Cool. Sounds like a Prince song.
 

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