Is it trendy in RPGCodex to dislike Bethesda, Bioware, etc?

[Angthoron]

They use MS Paint to generate their graphs? Talk about backward cheap-ass bastards.

 

[Gord]

But it totaly works! I'm so impressed that I now actually understand that spending the peoples money on things that actually help them is the wrong thing.

Instead we should transfer it over to the not-at-all overblown defence budget, what with all the bad terrorists out there...

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

Get this GD shit out of GRPG. I don't care if this is a drog thread

 

[Mastermind]

But it totaly works! I'm so impressed that I now actually understand that spending the peoples money on things that actually help them is the wrong thing.

Except the money doesn't go on things that actually help them. It pads liberal interests' pockets (which in turn result in generous campaign contributions), unionized grossly overpaid government workers and the creation of a welfare slave caste that votes liberal in return for eating the crumbs that fall from their master's table. Most of these people get used to never having to find a job for money to the point where they become incapable of even adapting to a work environment again. The democratic party merely modernized the plantation slavery gig it used to hold back in the day.

Instead we should transfer it over to the not-at-all overblown defence budget, what with all the bad terrorists out there...

Most of it shouldn't be transferred to anything, it should be cut from the budget outright. Military operations would cost a lot less if the US didn't have a retarded policy to try and civilize everyone whose ass it kicks.

Back when Britain was hardcore capitalist it had a massive invincible empire that spanned the entire globe. Nowadays they're mostly just a fading bundle of losers, rapists and and retards.

 

[Mastermind]

Get this GD shit out of GRPG. I don't care if this is a drog thread

Why? It's tangentially relevant to the topic.

 

[Monocause]

Back when Britain was hardcore capitalist it had a massive invincible empire that spanned the entire globe. Nowadays they're mostly just a fading bundle of losers, rapists and and retards.

Yeah, those were the days when a quarter of the planet was ripped off by hardcore British early capitalists and aristocracy while the common man worked 14 hours a day or more and still found himself undernourished and often living in extremely cramped conditions. But hey, it was their fault after all. No one stopped them from being capitalists, it was their choice to become poor-as-fuck factory workers, farmers or craftsmen. If you let others to rip you off - you deserve it, so I say, sir!

 

[I_learn_inglish]

Well, to be fair, DrogOP-kun, what did you expect? If you'll go to Bioware or Bethesda boards and proclaim that their games are shitty, you'll get just as flamed as here. Only there would be less swearing, more whining and you'd be banned and/or your tread would get locked.

http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=55773



Also:

Oblivion was a massive improvement compared to Morrowind. I played for more than 100 hours creating two characters, an archer and a wizard.
Fallout 3 was ok but not as good as Oblivion. You had to visit underground intersections(metro) to gain access to new locations.
Dragon Age was pretty addictive and had a cool story(i liked the part where you negotiated with demons) but the filler combat destroyed this fine game(same thing with the first Drakensang).

fucking newfags

Fucking oldfags!

 

[Mastermind]

Yeah, those were the days when a quarter of the planet was ripped off by hardcore British early capitalists and aristocracy while the common man worked 14 hours a day or more and still found himself undernourished and often living in extremely cramped conditions.

Yeah Africa was a prosperous paradise before the British came.

Capitalism is not a direct cure for poverty. There is only one cure for it, and that's overwhelming technological advances. We don't get overwhelming technological advances from communism, we get them from capitalism. It's no coincidence that the modern prosperous west arose from the capitalist master race. It's too bad both europe and the US are shoveling it all down the toilet in favor of encroaching ruinous socialism.

But hey, it was their fault after all. No one stopped them from being capitalists, it was their choice to become poor-as-fuck factory workers, farmers or craftsmen.

Nobody forced them to settle for those things either. Most people simply don't have the brains or resolve to take advantage of what capitalism has to offer. In that respect capitalism is the ultimate Darwinian equalizer. What capitalism does is provide such a huge economic efficiency boost that as the technology that capitalism spawns evolves, living conditions from everyone, including the lower classes, improve. There are worse things than 14 hour factory jobs even today, let alone centuires ago. You generally find them in non-capitalist countries.

 

[denizsi]

Comrades, our superior master elite cunt race is dying out, being replaced by these gaming cretins who take everything for granted while spitting on our values. Will we sit idle and watch till it all becomes a memory?

Servitus Codexus NOW!

It's time we took control of these plebs and taught them to take nothing for granted.

 

[Elzair]

Re: Is it trendy in RPGCodex to dislike Bethesda, Bioware, e

Yes I am kind of late to the party. I am a classic RPG fan dating back to the early Ultima days on the Commodore 64. While I have been registered here a while I still chuckle at the utter rudeness that goes on here but RPG Codex has developed it's own culture here of whining, elitist CRPGS fans who overly embrace nostalgia. And yet at times I am like this too...

I wonder though, why all the hate for games like Fallout 3, Dragon Age, Oblivion and the like? If someone showed you a glimpse of these games back in 1985 as you waited 5 minutes for Ultima IV to load you would be blown away by everything. And yes, that includes the writing.

I think it has become a trend to make fun of or ridicule the writing in a lot of these games. I do agree mostly about the Mass Effect series which I feel is overrated.

I know I am late to the party, but I want to say my piece. Donjin, you say you are an old-school gamer? Cast your thoughts back to 1999 and a game called Ultima IX.

When that game came out, the graphical detail blew practically everything else out of the water. Personally, I did not see a computer game that looked anywhere near as good until Morrowind came out three years later. Ultima IX also featured many other new or newish things: wind simulation, waves, blood decals, a (buggy) physics system, FULL voice acting (this was back in the days when it was still impressive, ESPECIALLY for an RPG), and expensive-looking FMVs.

How did the Ultima fan community react to the series finale of their favorite game? Were they blown away?

Great tech does not make a great game.

But have you guys played Oblivion with the overhaul mods? Also, what is to not like about the open-ended nature of walking through Fallout 3, wondering what that next empty triangle location is and what is around the corner? Is it because these games are so mainstream? Is that why we also love Divinty II lately so much? Risen as well?

I understand that I am about to have heat unleashed down upon me like crazy, but I just feel that I had to say this.

I think I covered Fallout 3 well enough in my post in the other thread. I will leave the Oblivion-bashing to others.

Look, I know why we all love Arcanum. I love it myself. I also love Gothic 3 tremendously. But Fallout 3, New Vegas, Oblivion and Dragon Age are not bad games.

Personally, I like New Vegas and find Arcanum to be banal, shit, boring. I like Gothic 3 well enough. As for Oblivion, see my LP, and as for Dragon Age: Origins, see my review.

 

[denizsi]

Re: Is it trendy in RPGCodex to dislike Bethesda, Bioware, e

Ultima IX was already looking like shit by the time it came out. And none of those things were "newish" by any means. At all. None of them. Ok, maybe the "waves". Plus U9 had shitty art direction. But what really disturbed me with what you said is this:

blood decals

WHAT

THE

FUCK

?

 

[donjn]

Re: Is it trendy in RPGCodex to dislike Bethesda, Bioware, e

Great tech does not make a great game.

Did you actually just say that Ultima IX was great tech? Well, it was an ATTEMPT at great tech. Big difference. Yes I have a plae in my heart for Ultima IX however it was a tech nightmare at launch. It wa sunplayable with anythign other than a Voodoo card and even then the framerate and choppiness was unbarable. It was one of the buggiest games ever released.

Great tech?

Unfortunately it COULD have been great tech if EA didn't rush the release date on Origin.

 

[DraQ]

I like Fallout 3 and Oblivion because I am absolutely addicted to open-ended games.

Does not compute. Can't speak about FO3, but Oblivious is an absolutely lousy as an open ended game, with monotonous, heavily scaled, copypasta content and most of the freedom boiling down to which quest will you do next.

I love that in both of these games my own personal quest, is to check out that compass and see what little place I can discover next. To me, this is what an adventure game is all about. Exploration.

Which is one of the exact things oblivious lacks. Overland is easily traversible and features almost no hard to get to places you could be rewarded for finding. There is also compass you mentioned that reveals locations long before you can actually see them, which robs the exploration of any involvement - you just move across the map and keep an eye on your compass instead of, you know, surroundings, in case an icon with inverted colour scheme appears indicating a place you haven't visited yet. It's about as engaging as wiping the fog of war off the map in BG. Or watching paint dry.

When it comes to interior exploration, OB dungeons are laid out with unobstructed flow in mind. They have clearly discernible path for you to follow, often looping onto itself to save you the hassle of backtracking. They have no hidden, hard to reach nooks and crannies and virtually no interesting stuff that can be found by going out of your way.

Morrowind
Daggerfall

Ok, now explain to me - how is it possible to like oblivious if you like both Morrowind and Daggerfall?
Because it just doesn't make sense.

Anything that is basically "on rails" does not work for me. I need to feel free, to go anywhere I want, at any time.

I don't share this sentiment, at least not in such a strong version, but I can definitely understand the allure of freeform games. Still, oblivious is a sandbox with no sand and all toys either stolen or broken, it's small (like Morrowind), feels small (unlike Morrowind), is homogeneous (like Daggerfall) and has virtually no redeeming qualities (unlike Daggerfall).

Our problem with Oblivious? In short - it sucks.
In slightly longer form - it sucks as a TES game because it dramatic failure instead of improvement on all fronts, perhaps except for ability to poison weapons, more involved stealth (still shit), schedules (still shit), and slightly better implementations of armorer and acrobatics. It shits on TES lore and it's rather glaring that the devs didn't even try. Oh, it also sucks as an RPG and as computer game, not just as TES IV.
Even longer? - use fucking search function, I won't repeat myself to cater for some herpaderping newfag who might be an alt.

Mods? Yes if you double the volume of game's files with carefully selected mods, including script extender and all kinds of stuff created specifically to work around the limitations and idiocy of the original game you may end up with something mildly enjoyable. Neither bethesda nor vanilla oblivious have anything to do with the parts that actually make this new whole salvageable, so it doesn't detract from the fact that bethesda's brainchild is raw sewage.

Also, protip, if you like open ended games, go check Frontier and FFE instead of wasting your (and our) time with oblivious.

Fallout is a classic tactical, isometric, turn-based RPG. You simply cannot make quality RPGs that are real-time because this kind of breaks that fourth wall and makes your character's abilities rely on your own button-mashing twitchery capability.

Itz like this thing DraQ was talking about - in short, no, unless you were given a loboTony.

You couldn't make a real-time game out of Wizardry, but out of Fallout, why not? You don't control more than one character in this game which is perfectly doable in RT and 3D FPP can, in principle, allow for much more sensible weapon ranges and less retarded grenades.

 

[Mastermind]

Ok, now explain to me - how is it possible to like oblivious if you like both Morrowind and Daggerfall?
Because it just doesn't make sense.

I hate daggerfall but Morrowind is a good contender for best game ever on my list. I liked Oblivion too. The basic gameplay is more restricted in scope but better polished. It may be worse than morrowind overall but it's still better than most of the shit out there. A better question is how can somebody like the repetitive shitty gameplay in daggerfall but dislike the repetitive mediocre gameplay in Oblivion. Oh yeah, daggerfall had horses, werewolves and tits. I'm sold.

 

[Nael]

Ok, now explain to me - how is it possible to like oblivious if you like both Morrowind and Daggerfall?
Because it just doesn't make sense.

I hate daggerfall but Morrowind is a good contender for best game ever on my list. I liked Oblivion too. The basic gameplay is more restricted in scope but better polished...

Stopped reading > Laughed > Moved on

 

[DraQ]

Ok, now explain to me - how is it possible to like oblivious if you like both Morrowind and Daggerfall?
Because it just doesn't make sense.

I hate daggerfall but Morrowind is a good contender for best game ever on my list. I liked Oblivion too. The basic gameplay is more restricted in scope but better polished. It may be worse than morrowind overall but it's still better than most of the shit out there. A better question is how can somebody like the repetitive shitty gameplay in daggerfall but dislike the repetitive mediocre gameplay in Oblivion. Oh yeah, daggerfall had horses, werewolves and tits. I'm sold.

Well, it's not that strange that someone may like oblivious AND Morrowind but NOT Daggerfall, or oblivious AND Daggerfall, but NOT Morrowind. Oblivious carries over the bland and originally derp aspects of Daggerfall as well as dumbed down aspects of Morrowind without retaining their highlights, so a derp person can perfectly reasonably like Oblivion and one of the other games.


Oblivion carries over repetitive gameplay of Daggerfall, but doesn't build on its scale, scope politics, or involved mechanics of the gameworld.
Similarly it carries over Morrowind's small scale and simplifies the mechanics even further, but it fails to preserve originality, rich lore and the way Morrowind's mechanics just happen to click together better despite being overall less complex than its predecessor.

Unfortunately polishing a turd doesn't really make it any less of a turd, though its thus induced glistening shine may fool less perceptive persons.

 

[Mastermind]

Well, it's not that strange that someone may like oblivious AND Morrowind but NOT Daggerfall, or oblivious AND Daggerfall, but NOT Morrowind. Oblivious carries over the bland and originally derp aspects of Daggerfall as well as dumbed down aspects of Morrowind without retaining their highlights, so a derp person can perfectly reasonably like Oblivion and one of the other games.

I also like Arena though, which is a smaller but better polished and better defined Daggerfall.

Oblivion carries over repetitive gameplay of Daggerfall, but doesn't build on its scale, scope politics, or involved mechanics of the gameworld.

I don't care much about politics involving cardboard cutouts (TES NPCs never had any personality whatsoever) or scale for the sake of scale. And the extra mechanics are mostly shallow and meaningless. Oblivion has a number of things going for it that Daggerfall doesn't too. Small dungeons compared to the nightmarish rage inducing derp fests in daggerfall (also something Oblivion shares with arena, whose only nightmarish big dungeons were the MQ ones, but they had unique tilesets so I can forgive that ). Oblivion was also better balanced, with magic actually being reasonably playable thanks to mana regeneration. Not to mention the excellent stealth gameplay (something that was also a huge from morrowind). Daggerfall does have some good parts (excellent paper doll inventory, greatly useful melee combat). They also both share some shitty gameplay elements (like crap archery). Daggerfall has more skills but the skills are more shallow due to oblivion's unlockable abilities. Also, oblivion had morrowind's alchemy system + poison creation.

Similarly it carries over Morrowind's small scale and simplifies the mechanics even further,

Good sir you must be smoking something. Morrowind's mechanics are not more simplified than Daggerfall's. Fewer skills does not make them more simplified overall. Daggerfall was full to the brim with useless/shitty skills. Morrowind had no skills that were virtually useless (though they were not all equal in value). The same can't be said for Daggerfall. Good crafting too in the form of enchanting and alchemy. Only from daggerfall to morrowind was the spell system. I prefer daggerfall's x*lvl spells as you could get reasonably useful offensive spells out of it. Morrowind, not so much. Though morrowind has more spell effects than daggerfall (largely due to summoning) and the ability to play primarily via magic without sucking thanks to enchant. Only thing I can think of that was simplified from daggerfall was the merging of critical hit and backstab into sneak attacks and the dumbing down of melee combat, both insignificant changes. Oh, and horses, but IIRC there are no horses lore-wise in morrowind so it's excusable.

 

[Fowyr]

Oblivion was also better balanced, with magic actually being reasonably playable thanks to mana regeneration.

Potions, rest and spell absorption is your friends.

 

[Jaesun]

SO basically Mastermind is Todd Howard?

 

[Elzair]

Re: Is it trendy in RPGCodex to dislike Bethesda, Bioware, e

Ultima IX was already looking like shit by the time it came out. And none of those things were "newish" by any means. At all. None of them. Ok, maybe the "waves".

What other 3D action/adventure/rpg-style game had a physics engine? Okay, Trespasser had one, but that game came out less than a year before. Here is a developer's list of features of the engine:

* The type of armor you wear determines your buoyancy in water
* The wind in the world has an intensity & direction; the amount that a sign swings is determined by the angle the wind hits it
* The wind sound is synchronized with the objects' responses to it
* The wind intensity (and sound) is determined by the weather
* Footstep sounds depend on the terrain type
* Footprints!
* Bloody footprints!!
* Sun glare
* The sun glare is occluded by objects that come between you & the sun
* The sun moves across the sky
* The sun changes color & intensity with the time of day
* Both moons move through the sky; they have halos, and their halo intensity depends on the phase they're in!
* The moons smoothly transition through their phases
* The sky perfectly transitions from day to sunset to night & back; the storm sky perfectly transitions with any of those states.
* Raindrops make little splashes.
* Rain (mostly) doesn't happen indoors
* Plate armor has specular highlights!
* Lightning draws in the world (not just a light flash)
* The thunder is delayed from the lightning, based on distance!
* The windmill turns to face the wind
* Torches & lanterns can be carried (yup, this was added about 2 weeks before we shipped)
* Torches & lanterns go out if you swim
* Torch flames & light intensity die down, and change color, as the torch dies out.
* Eye-blinking & mouth moving! We added this pretty late; never thought we'd get it in.
* NPCs turn their heads to look at you (and other things)
* Arrows attach to what they hit!
* Weapon motion & blood trails
* The weapon gets bloody after you use it
* Magical weapons & armor!
* Mixing potions!
* Having objects fall! Some objects end up still "floating" in midair, but this generally works pretty well--and it was a last-minute add.
* Flame arrows
* Smashing barrels & crates
* When you enter a cave, the lighting gets darker
* The 3D book. Richard wanted this in; the programmers didn't, and planned for a 2D book. But, we discovered it wasn't really too hard; so, the 3D book made it in.
* The lighting on the book actually is taken from the lighting in the world near the Avatar.
* Shadows! Didn't have them for a long time; figured out an easy way to do it, and they generally look pretty good.
* The "blurry" clipping plane. Thank you, Carnivores!
* Ocean waves!
* The Avatar moves up & down with the waves in the water, as does the camera!
* The underwater camera distortion effect
* Trees have shade! Not just shadows; they actually shade.
* Water get less translucent the further it is from you, making it look much more realistic
* Weapon & Armor bars
* The ship rocks; and you can walk around on it while it does so!
* The camera pulling way out when you drive the ship (originally it was much closer in)
* Support for multiple resolutions
* Support for S3TC textures
* Vultures swoop in & eat the remains of things you kill
* Conversations are accompanied by gestures & camera angles wherever possible, make them much more cinematic
* Sleeping in a bed passes time rapidly
* Sitting in chairs! A somewhat pointless but cool feature.

Plus U9 had shitty art direction.

Huh? I think the game looks fantastic for it's time. Many of it's problems stem from the developers making cool-looking things that are nonsensical and/or do not fit the setting. I thought the sunken city of Ambrosia, the transparent domes in Magincia, Moonglow, Stonekeep, Yew, and the various marble ruins looked particularly good. Sure, the models are a little blocky, and the ground is clearly a texture, but, come on, it came out in 1999!

But what really disturbed me with what you said is this:

blood decals

WHAT

THE

FUCK

?

I was thinking of the little coating of blood that appeared on unsheathed blades after you have attacked something with them.

Did you actually just say that Ultima IX was great tech? Well, it was an ATTEMPT at great tech. Big difference. Yes I have a plae in my heart for Ultima IX however it was a tech nightmare at launch. It wa sunplayable with anythign other than a Voodoo card and even then the framerate and choppiness was unbarable. It was one of the buggiest games ever released.

Great tech?

Unfortunately it COULD have been great tech if EA didn't rush the release date on Origin.

Yeah, I know all about the bugs. The damn thing still looked good. I did not have all that many problems running it with an ATI (Rage 2?).

 

[Sceptic]

Re: Is it trendy in RPGCodex to dislike Bethesda, Bioware, e

Many of it's problems stem from the developers making cool-looking things that are nonsensical and/or do not fit the setting.

I would say that is part of the "shitty art direction" equation (ie art direction that does not fit the world it is being applied to), but YMMV and the problems there are not due to art direction alone; the very fact gargoyles would build an underwater city and call it Ambrosia is pretty

Agree with most of your other points though. Looking at the list kinda makes me sad, I have to say. Funny, Garriott was always more technically minded as far as Ultima was concerned (and many other Origin big names had a similar mentality; see Chris Roberts and Warren Spector). I remember back when he was making Ultima 5 he said in an interview that he always started with the engine, and then once he'd added as much as computers at the time could take he'd then build a plot and gameplay with what the engine could do (this was also behind the "no line of code ever carries over" mentality with the game engines). But somehow he managed to always get the technical/game aspects to work together, at least until Ultima 8. It really is so easy to blame it all on EA.

 

[DraQ]

I also like Arena though, which is a smaller but better polished and better defined Daggerfall crude prototype and not really a full TES game.

Fixed and I rest my case.

I don't care much about politics involving cardboard cutouts (TES NPCs never had any personality whatsoever)

True, and that, along with combat never being TES's forte, and lore and world building always being one of its strong points is the exact reason why the kind of plot revolving around large scale political intrigue and powerplay works in TES, while a derp actiony plot about Sean Bean thwarting demonic invasion with aid of a mentally impaired console gamer does not.

or scale for the sake of scale.

Scale, even when not properly utilized still helps convey the sense of, um, scale. Extra detail can balance it off, but oblivious has neither.

Oblivion has a number of things going for it that Daggerfall doesn't too. Small dungeons compared to the nightmarish rage inducing derp fests in daggerfall

Small, usually linear action romps, compared to nightmarish spaghetti that required some orientation, means of tackling obstacles, and posed real risk of getting lost, you mean, with neither of them being in any way individualized or made part of the world. I will still go with the latter. Or Morrowind with tons of hidden stuff and hidden information.

Oblivion was also better balanced, with magic actually being reasonably playable thanks to mana regeneration.

Oblivion was not balanced. Period.

For all Daggerfall's problems regarding balance, comparing it with the pile of manure that was oblivious is a travesty.

Not to mention the excellent stealth gameplay (something that was also a huge from morrowind).

Excellent? Hardly. It does, however have some actual, environment dependent stealth, if only it actually relied on stats, and didn't involve ridiculously retarded radiant AI, it might have been worth something, especially when combined with schedules, crude as they may be.

They also both share some shitty gameplay elements (like crap archery).

Daggerfall's archery is still infinitely superior to oblivious backpedal-while-shooting abomination. At least in Daggerfall bows actually do make damage and are lethal weapons.

Daggerfall has more skills but the skills are more shallow due to oblivion's unlockable abilities.

Unlockable abilities which themselves are mind-bogglingly shallow, generic and arbitrary and mostly serve as a lazy attempt to make skills at least nominally important? 'k.

The only skills with somewhat reasonable sets of perks were acrobatics (dodging, enabling attacks while in air) and armorer (the only skill in oblivious I would consider properly, or even well implemented).

Also, oblivion had morrowind's alchemy system + poison creation.

No, it had derp alchemy system + poison creation. Oblivious alchemy featured no failure, gave player ability to discern first effect right from the start, and made old recipes inexplicably unworkable due to side affects at higher skill levels.
True, Morrowind's alchemy has drawback of being vulnerable to meta-knowledge on subsequent playthroughs, but oblivious alchemy succumbs to its own stupidity on the first one.

Good sir you must be smoking something. Morrowind's mechanics are not more simplified than Daggerfall's.

Yes they are. In particular, the mechanics tying world and gameplay took a hit. In Daggerfall we had summoning days, holidays, faction mechanics, better fatigue, time that mattered, autonomous regions, seasons, legal system that didn't suck, banking, diseases that mattered, awesome chargen and so on. Also some purely gameplay mechanics were infinitely superior to everything since - see enchanting.

Fewer skills does not make them more simplified overall. Daggerfall was full to the brim with useless/shitty skills. Morrowind had no skills that were virtually useless (though they were not all equal in value). The same can't be said for Daggerfall.

Fewer skills do make them more simplified although I partially agree, most of the reduction was caused by merges that were at least semi-sensible (unlike claymore+dagger), though some should have stayed separate, and cutting out several barely implemented language skills.

Good crafting too in the form of enchanting and alchemy.

Have you actually *seen* DF enchanting? MW enchanting is embodiment of the decline in comparison. Of course, it's the same with OB enchanting compared to the one in MW.

Only from daggerfall to morrowind was the spell system.

Not really. Daggerfall allowed for more consistently useful spells, but lacked diversity of effects and effect-chaining opportunities of Morrowind. Plus it had absolutely atrocious and useless spell and spell purchase menus.

Lastly, oblivious is a game that has NPCs exchanging such gems of wisdom as the one regarding how good it would be if everyone knew security and no one would have to carry the keys.

SO basically Mastermind is Todd Howard?

Derp minds think alike.

 

[Excommunicator]

I am pretty much with Elzair on this one. I loved the look of Ultima 9 at the time, with the biggest artistic problem IMO being the miniscule world which exaggerated the inconsistent cultural/architectural diversity of the world.

Many RPGs go to the same (rather ridiculous) extent in terms of trying to throw in a lot of cultures in a small area, but that was much worse in a world that was not only extra small to begin with, but presented through an over-the-shoulder/FP view.

There are many things in that game (as Elzair listed) that aren't even being revisited in games today, which says something about the vision behind the technical design, although most of which was lost amongst the technical problems of the release.

I would have been very eager to see other developers polish and refine the tech that U9 used, but it is simply all too common in this industry to have good ideas and foundations wasted in the tunnel-visioned pursuit for money

 

[Jaesun]

I am pretty much with Elzair on this one. I loved the look of Ultima 9 at the time, with the biggest artistic problem IMO being the miniscule world which exaggerated the inconsistent cultural/architectural diversity of the world.

Many RPGs go to the same (rather ridiculous) extent in terms of trying to throw in a lot of cultures in a small area, but that was much worse in a world that was not only extra small to begin with, but presented through an over-the-shoulder/FP view.

There are many things in that game (as Elzair listed) that aren't even being revisited in games today, which says something about the vision behind the technical design, although most of which was lost amongst the technical problems of the release.

I would have been very eager to see other developers polish and refine the tech that U9 used, but it is simply all too common in this industry to have good ideas and foundations wasted in the tunnel-visioned pursuit for money

The main complaint of Ultima fan's was not about the gameplay or design other than it has NOTHING to do with the Ultima series at all. Nothing. Even the writing and story forgot the entire series as a whole. It's like Bethesda suddenly acquired the liscence and made an Ultima game.

What happened was the original Bob White plot which more than likely stuck to all the Ultima lore and setting was for some reason scrapped and we were left with the shitfest that is Ultima IX. There was a very specific reason the Armageddon spell suddenly started showing up in Ultima VI...

 

[Excommunicator]

Yeah, nothing to do with it is a pretty accurate description.

Still, I know I wouldn't have been very happy with that other plot version simply for the fact that it was also written as a conclusion to the series. The Ultima series still has/had a lot of unexplored potential I think.