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Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
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" I don't think either BG game had as much dialogue or as well-written dialogue as Fallout or either KOTOR game."

Quality wise you could make ana rgument; but quantity wise, the BG series had LOTS of dialogue.

I do agree that comparitively speaking, BG1 isn't in the other games' league as far as quality dialogue is concerned. But, BG2 on the other hand, does have as good dialogue as the other two games though again not as open ended as FO's was nor did it have skill use in dialogue as a manner of course ala FO or KOTOR (the one big improvement for BIO dialogue wise from their earlier games)...
 

Twinfalls

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Messages
3,903
Keldryn said:
Yes, because Quake and Halo are the equivalent of a game like Skies of Arcadia or Chrono Trigger. I might add that the often highly-regarded Betrayal at Krondor is just as limiting in terms of pre-defined character roles as any console RPG, but I suppose that being a PC game makes it immune to such criticisms.

No, and so what? I was referring to his dumbassed statement that:

there are games where the character defines the role, and games where the role is pre-determined. This forum leans heavily on the former while either dismissing or outright ignoring the latter, but by strict definition they're both role-playing games.

- and to the comment and inference that its somehow wrong, biased or 'elite' for this site to spend less discussion on the latter - ie not discussing jrpgs is some great big fucking sin. You will note that he makes a blanket comment ("by strict definition") to which your example of BaK is irrelevant.

I'd have to side with New Bethesda as making better games. I'll take Morrowind's design over Arena's or Daggerfall's any day.

So you love Morrowind. I'm very happy for you. But to have any relevance here, you must be suggesting that Morrowind is evidence for Fallout 3 not sucking. Which is quite objectively wrong, and rather stupid to boot.

Still disagree with you on all points. It's not going to be the same design team that worked on Oblivion, as they will likely be working on Elder Scrolls V and the Oblivion expansion packs. I'm not saying Fallout 3 is going to be great, but it is simply too early to know at this point.

Goodness sakes man. No-one is saying they 'know'. What's with all the goddam straw men? What we are saying is that the evidence very strongly points to Fallout 3 being doomed to suckage. If you know what makes Fallout such a good RPG, and you are familiar with what Bethesda do, you will come to the same conclusion.

Everyone said that Metroid Prime was going to suck ass too, and it turned out to be a great transition of the 2D Metroid games into 3D.

What relevance does that have here? Why was 'everyone' saying MP was going to suck - was it because of a proven track record of suckiness by the developer, of tearing up what was good in other IPs it possessed, and no indication whatsoever of a desire to change?

Of course, that's a console game, so it automatically sucks.
What are you, Tintin's alt?
 

ad hominem

Scholar
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Here, there, and everywhere
@Twinfalls,

Did you wake up on the angry cunt side of bed this morning or something? I was writing in response to Keldryn's post, and therefore limited the scope to what he was originally espousing. Do we need to have discussion on the meaning of context? I don't really care what gets discussed here; I registered here, but I'm not so stupid as to try and change the hive mind.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
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Messages
28,024
Keldryn said:
There are many "action RPGs" with depth. Deus Ex. Jade Empire. Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Ultima Underworld. Ultima Underworld II. Arx Fatalis. The Elder Scrolls. System Shock 2. Are they as deep as the Gothic series? I would say so. Obviously, Gothic has aspects that the other games don't -- NPC schedules come to mind -- but the other games, in turn, have aspects that Gohtic doesn't have. I wouldn't consider any of the games that I just listed as shallow.
I didn't say that all action RPGs are shallow. The questions was "Also, how many "action RPGs" can you name that have the depth of the Gothic series?" The answer is very few. Certainly not Deus Ex, Jade Empire, Arx or even System Shock 2. Not sure about Bloodlines with its little claustrofobic hubs and few NPCs. I wouldn't consider UU an action RPG. Every RPG has combat that usually plays a large role, which doesn't make each game an action game. And as for The Elder Scrolls, that's too generic. DF had plenty of depth, MW had some, and OB is a shooter.

And while its RPGness is questionable to many, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker rivals a lot of open-ended RPGs in terms of its gameplay structure. The six major dungeons do have to be completed in a certain order (due to items or spells required to gain entrance), but once you have your boat (after the 1st dungeon), you can pretty much travel anywhere in the world that you want. And it's a pretty vast, continuous world, with many places to explore and many secrets to uncover. Many of the characters in the main town actually do have daily routines, which is a necessary part of a couple of sidequests (Majora's Mask did this as well).
Open-ended is not a synonym of depth.

I'm only a few hours into Invisible War, but I'm finding it just as compelling as the original Deus Ex ...
Good for you. You've just joined a very exclusive club of people who actually liked DX2. Try Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel next. I've heard it's pretty good and as compelling as the original game.

<...long speech about how awesome console games are...>
From that list, the only game that had some real choices is Chrono Trigger and that is a very, very, very, very old game. The rest of the post is amusing to say the least. Some memorable quotes:

So I quite enjoyed the 18 to 20 hours that I spent with Fable... it kind of sucks being limited to walking on the paths. But there is still a lot of freedom to wander about, many choices to make in character development, and many fun ways to just play in the sandbox.
Phantasy Star III... at the end of the first two generations, you had to choose which of two women your character would marry. Thus, you played 3 of 7 possible protagonists in one playthrough of the game. Unfortunately, a lot of the events in each generation didn't really change that much, or only occurred in a different order.
Even a game like Final Fantasy X possesses a lot more depth... It's an extremely linear game that doesn't give you any real choices as to how the story progresses. However, the game does possess a remarkably deep character advancement system that really does allow for a lot of choices as to how to customize your character.
And so on, and so on. Sounds like you enjoy exploring and upgrading your character more than you enjoy role-playing, which is fine. Let's not confuse adventure / character upgrade aspects of games with role-playing aspects though.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
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Messages
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"The questions was "Also, how many "action RPGs" can you name that have the depth of the Gothic series?" The answer is very few. Certainly not Deus Ex, Jade Empire, Arx or even System Shock 2."

Jade Empire is deeper than the Gothic series. Hell, it's deeper than most RPGs. Period.

Of cours,e some lameo will point at JE's 'inventory' system and will say that's 'proof' that it's not deep. However, I'd argue that inventory tetris ala KOTOR or FO is NOT depth. :roll:
 

Drakron

Arcane
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Messages
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You are so funny Volourn ... you dont even know what "Inventory Tetris" means.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
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Messages
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"You are so funny Volourn ... you dont even know what "Inventory Tetris" means."

Sure, I do. While Kotor's inventory may not force one to rearrange the inventory in blocks ala NWN, BG, or Diablo; there is still a mlot of 'messing around with inventory for no good reason'. In fact it does it worse. Because the inventory is such a mess that it's like playing tetris 'cause you spend have your time rearranging your inventory so it's a tad more logical. The stupid holodisks or whatever they were were a great example of it.

Inventory tetris may be a term that wasn't created for a KOTOR type inventory; but it sure as hell fits it.


Game over, POR2 Lover. :twisted:
 

Hazelnut

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Vault Dweller said:
Keldryn said:
I'm only a few hours into Invisible War, but I'm finding it just as compelling as the original Deus Ex ...
Good for you. You've just joined a very exclusive club of people who actually liked DX2. Try Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel next. I've heard it's pretty good and as compelling as the original game.

Jeezus you can be so needlessly patronising VD. He's only a few hours in and my guess is that he'll need to play a lot more to see the shallowness - I know I did because I really wanted it be be as good for me as the original was. At the end of the day there is no one idiotic thing which they changed that ruined it on it's own, it was simply the weight of so many little idiocies.

Smile.

:D
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Messages
28,024
Hazelnut said:
Jeezus you can be so needlessly patronising VD. He's only a few hours in...
Well, if he's only a few hours in, perhaps, he should play the game a bit more before he starts making "as good as the original!" statements, no? Am I missing something here?

...because I really wanted it be be as good for me as the original was.
I've seen many people who have succesfully ignored huge design flaws only because they really wanted [insert the name of a particularly crappy title] to be good.
 

Hazelnut

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Vault Dweller said:
Hazelnut said:
Jeezus you can be so needlessly patronising VD. He's only a few hours in...
Well, if he's only a few hours in, perhaps, he should play the game a bit more before he starts making "as good as the original!" statements, no? Am I missing something here?

Yep he said "but I'm finding it just as compelling" rather than "as good as the original!" - doesn't sound like he has closed his mind yet, but then I'm a generous good natured person.. isn't this where I'm supposed to cast some aspersions about your reading comprehention abilities? :lol:

Vault Dweller said:
...because I really wanted it be be as good for me as the original was.
I've seen many people who have succesfully ignored huge design flaws only because they really wanted [insert the name of a particularly crappy title] to be good.

I've been guilty of that to a lesser degree I think. Usually there has been something of worth there that can be enjoyed though, even if it doesn't satisfy all the pure RPG requirements.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Messages
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Hazelnut said:
Yep he said "but I'm finding it just as compelling" rather than "as good as the original!" - doesn't sound like he has closed his mind yet, but then I'm a generous good natured person.. isn't this where I'm supposed to cast some aspersions about your reading comprehention abilities? :lol:
Be my guest. Imo, trying to differentiate between compelling and good is splitting hair.
 

Hazelnut

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Vault Dweller said:
Hazelnut said:
Yep he said "but I'm finding it just as compelling" rather than "as good as the original!" - doesn't sound like he has closed his mind yet, but then I'm a generous good natured person.. isn't this where I'm supposed to cast some aspersions about your reading comprehention abilities? :lol:
Be my guest. Imo, trying to differentiate between compelling and good is splitting hair.

Oh dear. :? This from the man who spits out reading comprehension put downs regularly. You must be working too hard on AoD I reckon - which is a good thing by the way. :)

Anyway, the difference to my mind is quite large and revolves around the word 'finding' rather than 'compelling'. :cool:
 

TheGreatGodPan

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Messages
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Keldryn said:
Fair enough, but if I said the same thing about Gothic, Planescape: Torment, or Ultima VII, I would be immediately leapt upon with assertions that I was ADHD and that I need to give the games a fair chance. Or any other PC RPG, I'm sure.
I'm not familiar with any PC RPG that forces you into a battle that cannot be lost. Admittedly, I've played fewer than just about anybody on this board.

Keldryn said:
Skies is a really great game, with characters that I found pretty appealing. They're pretty upbeat and adventurous, which I thought was a very pleasant departure from the angsty navel-gazing that goes on in most contemporary JRPGs.
Skies did seem too upbeat to me (pirates should be more yarr than tee-hee), but I agree that angsty characters are just annoying. The Nameless One doesn't count, and you can play him as you want, to a degree.
 

Keldryn

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Twinfalls said:
No, and so what? I was referring to his dumbassed statement that:

there are games where the character defines the role, and games where the role is pre-determined. This forum leans heavily on the former while either dismissing or outright ignoring the latter, but by strict definition they're both role-playing games.

- and to the comment and inference that its somehow wrong, biased or 'elite' for this site to spend less discussion on the latter - ie not discussing jrpgs is some great big fucking sin. You will note that he makes a blanket comment ("by strict definition") to which your example of BaK is irrelevant.

My example of Betryal at Krondor is not irrelevant. He stated that this forum either dismisses or outright ignores the games where the character's role is pre-determined. And yes, most Japanse RPGs fall into this category. I was only trying to make the point that BaK seems to be highly praised, despite the fact that it is just as limiting in terms of pre-defined characters as any JRPG. If the type of RPG that JRPGs represent are not what this forum likes to dicuss, then a game like BaK shouldn't be either.

As to whether it's elitist... well, the name of the site is "RPGCodex," not "Open-Ended Non-Linear RPGs Where You Create Your Own Character Codex." Oh, and I'm pretty sure it isn't called "RPGs that Twinfalls and Vault Dweller Like Codex." :p


So you love Morrowind. I'm very happy for you. But to have any relevance here, you must be suggesting that Morrowind is evidence for Fallout 3 not sucking. Which is quite objectively wrong, and rather stupid to boot.

Err, I didn't say I love Morrowind. I don't love Morrowind. I can enjoy it in small doses, but I still find it to be rather dull, repetitive and soulless. It just happens that it is far less dull, repetitive, and soulless than Daggerfall, in my opinion. I wasn't using Morrowind for evidence of Fallout 3 not sucking; you were asserting that the Bethesda that made Morrowind and Oblivion is incapable of making a good RPG... The tone of your commments, plus what I've read from other posts of yours, indicate that the Bethesda that made Daggerfall knew how to make good RPGs. And I'm disagreeing with that. I think that Daggerfall was more poorly designed than Morrowind in nearly every aspect.

Also, that Morrowind is evidence for Fallout 3 not sucking is "objectively wrong." But it is also objectively wrong, and rather stupid to boot, to assert that Morrowind and Oblivion are evidence for Fallout 3 sucking.

Goodness sakes man. No-one is saying they 'know'. What's with all the goddam straw men? What we are saying is that the evidence very strongly points to Fallout 3 being doomed to suckage. If you know what makes Fallout such a good RPG, and you are familiar with what Bethesda do, you will come to the same conclusion.

Guess you're wrong then. I am quite aware of what makes Fallout a good RPG, and I am familiar with the games that Bethesda has made. But I'm not coming to the same conclusion. Why?

Because Bethesda hasn't made a Fallout game yet. They have made Elder Scrolls games. And the Elder Scrolls games all share a number of aspects and design philosophies with each other. And much of that is what I don't care for in the Elder Scrolls games. I like large worlds to explore, but I find ES games worlds too large and sprawling. The games have never felt lovingly crafted to me. Everything feels very big and impersonal. Characters are repetitive, landscapes are repetitive, quests are repetitive. One of the guiding principles of the ES games is to present a fantasy world on a massive scale, where we're not talking about a dozen towns, a couple hundred NPCs, and such. It is difficult to build games on that scale and maintain the same touch that you find in games like Ultima VII, Serpent Isle, PS: Torment, or even Fallout. And that's what I find unappealing about The Elder Scrolls, and what stand out as weaknesses of the series in my mind are usually directly related to the scale of the game. Yes, this is relevant...

Bethedsa hasn't tried to make a game like Fallout yet. The Elder Scrolls are a very particular type of RPG, and that's what they have focused on -- a type of game that I find to be inherently flawed. Whether they pull off the ES games well or not is sort of irrelevant to me, because we're not talking about The Post-Nuclear Scrolls here; we're talking about Fallout. Chances are, many of the designers at Bethesda have played and enjoyed Fallout. They haven't made the ES games more like Fallout because that's not the type of game that TES has ever been. If they'd already tried to make a game like Fallout and screwed it up, then I would be more willing to predict that Fallout 3 will suck. But I haven't seen them try to make that type of game yet, so I'm withholding judgement until I know more.

What relevance does that have here? Why was 'everyone' saying MP was going to suck - was it because of a proven track record of suckiness by the developer, of tearing up what was good in other IPs it possessed, and no indication whatsoever of a desire to change?

It is relevant simply because people were saying it was going to suck without knowing anything about the game other than it would be 3D and play from a first-person view. (The original Metroid games were 2D side-scrolling action/adventure games) Retro Studios was developing it, and they were more or less unknown -- the fact that it was an American developer and not a Japanese developer was all the more reason for many to say it would suck. It's just an example of fans of an existing franchise jumping to conlusions about how the new installment will suck because a different company is making and "they're turning it into a first-person shooter!!"

What are you, Tintin's alt?

Who the hell is Tintin?
 

Keldryn

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Vault Dweller said:
Keldryn said:
There are many "action RPGs" with depth. Deus Ex. Jade Empire. Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Ultima Underworld. Ultima Underworld II. Arx Fatalis. The Elder Scrolls. System Shock 2. Are they as deep as the Gothic series? I would say so. Obviously, Gothic has aspects that the other games don't -- NPC schedules come to mind -- but the other games, in turn, have aspects that Gohtic doesn't have. I wouldn't consider any of the games that I just listed as shallow.


I didn't say that all action RPGs are shallow.

No, but I think there is a definite connotation here that they are. Especially when people define "action" RPGs as being about combat and lacking choices.

The questions was "Also, how many "action RPGs" can you name that have the depth of the Gothic series?" The answer is very few. Certainly not Deus Ex, Jade Empire, Arx or even System Shock 2.

Probably not Arx, but I haven't played it enough. I would argue that Deus Ex and Jade Empire come close; I haven't played through enough of SS2 to say for certain. But it also depends on what criteria you are using to judge the "depth" of the Gothic series.

Not sure about Bloodlines with its little claustrofobic hubs and few NPCs. I wouldn't consider UU an action RPG. Every RPG has combat that usually plays a large role, which doesn't make each game an action game. And as for The Elder Scrolls, that's too generic. DF had plenty of depth, MW had some, and OB is a shooter.

Ultima Underworld is as much of an action RPG as System Shock 2, Deus Ex, or Gothic. The combat takes place in real-time, you have direct control over your character's actions, and you initiate each action singularly in real-time. The player's skill is a significant determinant of the outcome of combat. That sounds like an action game to me. The term "action game" is not mutually exclusive with deep, intelligent, meaningful content.

Open-ended is not a synonym of depth.

No, it isn't in and of itself. But if you take the open-ended gameplay aspect out of Gothic, how exactly does it possess more depth than Deux Ex, for example?

Good for you. You've just joined a very exclusive club of people who actually liked DX2. Try Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel next. I've heard it's pretty good and as compelling as the original game.

Yeah, not even a remotely relevant comparison. Fallout:BoS wasn't made by the same people who made Fallout, and there was no intent to build anything upon the orignial game design. It wasn't a sequel, just some quick one-off to make money using that Dark Alliance Engine.

Invisible War is a proper sequel to Deus Ex, and it builds on the design of the first game. Yes, some things have been streamlined from the first game. There is no skill system, but a slightly more involved augmentation system than the first game. The area maps are not quite as wide-open and are split into smaller zones. Instead of many types of ammo, there is a universal ammo. However, I'm not sure why that universal ammo is such a sticking point of the anally retentive. In the first game, one of your augmentations was able to construct a flying spy drone from nanites, complete with an EMP attack and remote control. Yet these same nanites can't synthesize projectiles? Give me a break.

If these things can ruin your enjoyment of a game, then you're placing an undue emphasis on aspects of the game that are trivial. So far, DX2 has a deep and involving storyline, and offers a lot more choices to make than did the first game. So... everyone on this board harps about how important meaningful choices are in an RPG, and when Invisible War focuses intently on such choices, it gets ripped apart because it doesn't use skill points and different ammo types. Cool.

<...long speech about how awesome console games are...>

No, a long list of recommendations of some of my favourite console titles that open-minded Codexers might enjoy.

So I quite enjoyed the 18 to 20 hours that I spent with Fable... it kind of sucks being limited to walking on the paths. But there is still a lot of freedom to wander about, many choices to make in character development, and many fun ways to just play in the sandbox.

Yeah, so? You're harping on the fact that you can't stray too far from the path, on the principle of it. But there isn't anywhere in the world that the paths don't go, there isn't anything you can't reach. It would be nice to be able to stomp on the flowers, but it isn't game-breaking. There's still a lot of fun, free-form gameplay to be had. While, intellectually, I would like to be able to walk off the damn path onto that patch of grass, it wouldn't actually add that much to the gameplay itself. If the world were a continuous map and not a number of connected nodes, then it would be a lot more limiting. Given the nodelike structure of the world, however, it doesn't really limit what you can do.

Doesn't feel any different than wandering around outdoors in Wizardry VII, actually. A lot of the older 3D RPGs had outdoor areas that were basically dungeon passages with a dirt floor and trees painted on the walls.

Phantasy Star III... at the end of the first two generations, you had to choose which of two women your character would marry. Thus, you played 3 of 7 possible protagonists in one playthrough of the game. Unfortunately, a lot of the events in each generation didn't really change that much, or only occurred in a different order.

I'm not entirely sure why you think that throwing this in my face proves a point. I mentioned it because I thought it was a pretty cool concept. I didn't say it was without flaws, and I came right out and specified what the flaw was. What is the point in underlining it?

Even a game like Final Fantasy X possesses a lot more depth... It's an extremely linear game that doesn't give you any real choices as to how the story progresses. However, the game does possess a remarkably deep character advancement system that really does allow for a lot of choices as to how to customize your character.

And so on, and so on. Sounds like you enjoy exploring and upgrading your character more than you enjoy role-playing, which is fine. Let's not confuse adventure / character upgrade aspects of games with role-playing aspects though.

No, I don't. I'm not confusing exploring and character upgrading aspects of the game with role-playing aspects. In that FFX example, I said that it looks pretty shallow, being extremely linear without any real choices to make in terms of story progression. But that, unlike a lot of JRPGs, it actually have a very deep and flexible character advancement system. Of course that isn't a role-playing aspect, but nowhere in this discussion was it stated that we were talking only about "depth of role-playing aspects." We were talking about Gothic as an action RPG and of the depth of the series, and Gothic's open-ended exploration and character advancement system are but two of many aspects that give the game its depth.

I bring up console RPGs in these discussions because I think they get treated a little unfairly here. Not the least of which are the constant "consoles are for stupid lowest-common-denomenator ADD kids" type of comments. Those games certainly deserve some criticism for the linear gameplay and lack of meaningful choices, but there are good aspects to some of those games as well, and some of which show a surprising amount of depth. I don't see anything wrong with bringing some new suggestions to the table. "Hey, you don't normally seem to like these kinds of games, but you might like this one if you give it a fair try."
 

Keldryn

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Hazelnut said:
Jeezus you can be so needlessly patronising VD. He's only a few hours in and my guess is that he'll need to play a lot more to see the shallowness - I know I did because I really wanted it be be as good for me as the original was. At the end of the day there is no one idiotic thing which they changed that ruined it on it's own, it was simply the weight of so many little idiocies.

Smile.

:D

So, if I don't see this shallowness once I've played through the game, does that make me a bad person. :D

I've hit the Arcology in New Cairo now, and still finding it very engrossing. There really has been very little for me to complain about so far. The only thing I'm really missing from the first game is the ability to log into all of the computer terminals and read peoples' e-mail. But that's not a huge deal. Well, and the loading times are kind of long, but I am playing the Xbox version and not the PC version. I remember on my old Pentium II system, the original Deus Ex has excrucatingly long load times -- as does the PS2 version. Load times are non-existent on my current PC though.
 

Keldryn

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Vault Dweller said:
Well, if he's only a few hours in, perhaps, he should play the game a bit more before he starts making "as good as the original!" statements, no? Am I missing something here?

I'm allowed to have an opinion after playing a few hours, and I'm allowed to compare it to the original, which seems like the logical thing to do.

I wrote "I'm only a few hours into Invisible War, but I'm finding it just as compelling as the original Deus Ex ..." Is it really necessary for me to put in the disclaimer "but I haven't finished it yet so my opinion may change?"

I think that goes without saying.

But if it makes you less grumpy,

I am only about 9 hours into Invisible War, but SO FAR I'm finding it just as compelling as the original Deus Ex."

I've seen many people who have succesfully ignored huge design flaws only because they really wanted [insert the name of a particularly crappy title] to be good.

*ahem*UltimaIX*ahem*

No matter how much I wanted to like that game, the more of it I played, the more its flaws became apparent.
 

FrancoTAU

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Okay, where are you seeing U9 supporters? I've never seen that game praised. Hell, i'm a huge Ultima fanboy and I've never had the courage to even play it for fear of ruining my appreciation of the series.
 

Hazelnut

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Keldryn said:
So, if I don't see this shallowness once I've played through the game, does that make me a bad person. :D

Nope, I wont care one little bit. I will, however, be surprised given what I've seen of your postings. I also spent several hours (it was a while back) enjoyably playing before all of the changes and 'idiocies' (IMHO, but a bad choice of word) in the design suddenly seemed to have formed an army to stop me from enjoying it. I can't think of any one thing that did this, but I think it was when I'd decided to fuck over one of the factions, who then didn't care, that really did it for me. I may well not have been as forgiving as when I played the first game, and I am absolutely sure that the loading times, which were an issue for both games, were completely crippling for me given the smaller areas.
 

Keldryn

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FrancoTAU said:
Okay, where are you seeing U9 supporters? I've never seen that game praised. Hell, i'm a huge Ultima fanboy and I've never had the courage to even play it for fear of ruining my appreciation of the series.

They're around. We have one amongst our regulars at the Horizons Tavern that absolutely adores it -- and he's a longtime fan of the series. There were quite a few supporters on the old Wayward Avatar forums too, but I think those are gone now.

Quite a few people who either didn't play the earlier Ultimas or only played one or two of them a little like Ultima IX.

Six years after the fact, I can actually look at the game for what it is, and not keep getting stuck on how it wasn't what I expected and wanted it to be. There are some things that it does well. Still a lot of things that suck about it, but it does have some redeeming features, and can be somewhat enjoyable to play, in an Ocarina-of-Time-knockoffish way. The story still sucks, the dialogue is terrible, the voice acting is terrible, and the game is too linear, but it does have a lot of fantastic worldbuilding. It is fun to explore the landscape (the parts that are available to you that is), and there are a lot of cool little things to discover that are totally unrelated to the story. That part is very Ultimaish, at least. Unfortuntely, it will forever be a terrible conclusion to the story arc that was building in The Black Gate - Labyrith of Worlds - Serpent Isle - Pagan. But given that it was put on indefinite hold at one point, and was re-designed at least twice, it isn't surprising how it turned out.
 

Keldryn

Arcane
Joined
Feb 25, 2005
Messages
1,053
Location
Vancouver, Canada
Hazelnut said:
Nope, I wont care one little bit. I will, however, be surprised given what I've seen of your postings. I also spent several hours (it was a while back) enjoyably playing before all of the changes and 'idiocies' (IMHO, but a bad choice of word) in the design suddenly seemed to have formed an army to stop me from enjoying it. I can't think of any one thing that did this, but I think it was when I'd decided to fuck over one of the factions, who then didn't care, that really did it for me. I may well not have been as forgiving as when I played the first game, and I am absolutely sure that the loading times, which were an issue for both games, were completely crippling for me given the smaller areas.

Well, we'll see. I'm having a great time with it so far. I might have seen a little about what you're talking about with the factions though. I didn't kill the scientist who created the Mag Rail (as instructed by the Order) and took the gun for myself, allowing the WTO to gain the schematics. The Order contacted me right after that and said that I would be forgiven for my betrayal if I accomplished this other task in Cairo for them... It does strain believability a bit, but I guess the designers didn't want to limit your options too early in the game. And I can appreciate that. I understand the point of view that holds that it creates opportunities for replayability if you are presented with mutually-exclusive options, but I don't mind if you can do almost everything in one playthrough, as I don't have time to play through all the games that I have, never mind play through some of them multiple times.

I played through half of the first Deus Ex on the PS2 when my wrists were too sore to use the computer, so maybe I got used to those loading times enough that IW's loading times aren't ruining the game for me.
 

Drakron

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
You can betray then again and again and they will always forgive you, only in the last mission but guess what?

You can betray then again.
 

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