Podcast about Next Generation games with Todd Howard

[Claw]

He was "designing" a tiny parcel of those 1000+ random dungeons. That is dungeons are proceduraly generated in a workstation then hand-tweak to check for inconcistencies.

Hmm, I heard many dungeons in Daggerfall had serious issues like unreachable areas, making it impossible to finish some quests.

I guess we know how to thank now.

 

[dongle]

In that case the game will definitely suck, only because Speedtree looks like shit compared to Planta! (I suggest everyone to download the demo videos, and the high res if possible)

Gah. That looks awful.

The leaves are horrible. Especially the ones that are supposedly in bloom. They look like a spastic kid's crayon drawing of the Oblivion "trapped in a painting" quest. The tree trunks look like miniature plastic models cranked out my the millions in backwater China. Not even -close- to bark. The leaf sprites move in stupid little circles, no where near realistic animation. Tons of clipping and pop-in shadow issues in the leaves. And this is a pre-rendered movie, not even a demo I can walk around in and see how bad it -really- looks.

The tech is nothing at all new. The same lofted tree trunks and annoying 2D leaf sprites as Speedtree. Just a cheap knockoff of the Speedtree system. Problem is; A full Speedtree license (as used in Oblivion) is only $8,495 per title. How much can you save by going with a cheap knockoff?

To be fair; The level of detail looks good in Planta. Trees fade into the distance without any sharp line between high quality and low. But then again; the Speedtree demos do this very, very, well too. It's only as implemented in Oblivion where it looks bad, and that's the limitations of the Gambryo engine, not Speedtree. Also; the Speedtree demos don't have particularly good looking leaf or bark textures either, but they are -miles- beyond the Planta demo. (I do have to say, the Oblivion bark textures are quite well done)

Seriously. What about Planta looks any better than Speedtree?
(or than the nice weather in Santa Barbara)

 

[dongle]

- Outdoors exploration ...
- Artistic and design creativity...

Agree, but both elements are related to graphics.

I would submit that an area to explore, even tho it's built with polygons and textures, can qualify as more than "the graphics".

Stripped down to it's most basic element a maze would an example of a gameplay element based on a 3D space. (A "game" thousands of years old, actually) Blown up, expanded upon, and organtic-ified, you could look at an island like Vvardenfell the same way. A network of roads, valleys, and mountain ranges. Player needs to explore and plan in addition to just finding their way; Some areas you can skip along and meet nothing more fearsome than a crab or rat, go to the Ashlands unprepared and die. Requires managing your stats and inventory for certain tasks.

At it's best a well-crafted 3D space can offer lots of gameplay opportunities. By, say, offering different routes through one area with differing styles of enemies and challenges the designer can create paths for differing character builds and/or role-playing styles. Or make some areas accessible only to certain characters, whether by level or class. Enemy placement - giving them differing vantages to attack the player from, or differing routes for the player to confront/avoid them - is of course a cornerstone of gameplay.

By all accounts Daggerfall (haven't played it, I'm ashamed to admit) dungeons had a fair bit of challenging 3D spaces to confront the player with. Not so with the outdoor spaces. When Ghan says the Morrowind outdoor environment offered more challenges to the player, I feel it's giving that design element short-shift to dismiss it as "teh grafiks". Polygons tho they are. :D

 

[denizsi]

Seriously. What about Planta looks any better than Speedtree?

Well, since most of this arguement is related to graphical qualities, personal preferences and not difference of programming or rendering techniques, I guess it might be a little pointless to debate over it, but still, Planta looks ways better to me than Speedtree.

The leaves are horrible.

If we were to agree that Speedtree leaves look equally horrible if not more, then I'd agree with that. However, I don't think that neither looks necessarily horrible, especially on close look. Speedtree leaves however, look a lot more pronounced in their repetitiveness to me, which is a bad thing.

Especially the ones that are supposedly in bloom. They look like a spastic kid's crayon drawing of the Oblivion "trapped in a painting" quest.

I was thinking that Speedtree and Oblivion's implementation of Speedtree are the ones looking like a spastic kid's oil pastel drawings, with all those sharp greens and browns. A matter of personal preference apparently.

The tree trunks look like miniature plastic models cranked out my the millions in backwater China. Not even -close- to bark.

Now that is an exaggeration. The most drastic difference between them are the textural qualities.

The leaf sprites move in stupid little circles, no where near realistic animation.

It didn't bother me.

Tons of clipping and pop-in shadow issues in the leaves.

That is to be expected I think, from a new starting middleware, and especially for that, it looks good to me. I wonder what Speedtree looked like when it first came out and had no portfolio to show just yet.

And this is a pre-rendered movie, not even a demo I can walk around in and see how bad it -really- looks.

It's not a pre-rendered movie, it's a video recording of a real-time movie, which is obvious I'd think. Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, Toy Story, Ice Age, a multitude of game cut-scenes like Diablo II's or Final Fantasy games'; these are pre-rendered movies.

The tech is nothing at all new. The same lofted tree trunks and annoying 2D leaf sprites as Speedtree.

Better get used to it for that tech will be around and popular for quite a while.

Just a cheap knockoff of the Speedtree system.

I wouldn't say that. Especially not since Planta looks better at least to my eyes. Additionally, similar comparisons have been made greatly in the past, between game engines, and today it's apparent that they were all pointless. Competition and variation is good.

Problem is; A full Speedtree license (as used in Oblivion) is only $8,495 per title. How much can you save by going with a cheap knockoff?

Completely free for non-commercial use, without the source. No conditions. $800 for commercial use without the source. $4000 for commercial use with the source.

$4,495, not a big sum? Then you're welcome giving it to me.

To be fair; The level of detail looks good in Planta. Trees fade into the distance without any sharp line between high quality and low. But then again; the Speedtree demos do this very, very, well too.

I agree that LOD looks good, but it also looks a lot better than Speedtree demos and Oblivion's implementation. In both of those, it's a horrible sight to watch as trees fade into 2d sprites. They scream out "Look at me! I'm a 2d cardboard and I do my best to make sure you notice it!". Absolutely not "very, very, well".

It's only as implemented in Oblivion where it looks bad,

No doubt about that.

and that's the limitations of the Gambryo engine, not Speedtree.

So what position are we in to know what the limitations of the Gamebryo engine are? Answer: it's the limitations of Bethesda's incompetency.

Also; the Speedtree demos don't have particularly good looking leaf or bark textures either, but they are -miles- beyond the Planta demo. (I do have to say, the Oblivion bark textures are quite well done)

Textural quality of trunkls is better in Speedtree and especially in Oblivion, that's for sure. But nothing miles beyond Planta. Additionally, lighting and real-time shadowing is definitely better in Planta. However, I must admit that despite the low quality of Planta's trunks, I actually like the subtle look of them, as it's obvious that trees aren't that old. Something ST and OB can but doesn't do. In those, it's like all trees are at least 30-40 year old .

Everything in Speedtree and Oblivon's implementation, pronounce the repetitiveness of the tech, especially with the bushes and leaves. They look like amateur crop works made in Photoshop devıid of depth. Looking at Planta, I get less of that; it looks a lot subtle to me, better depth and the colour levels attain a more satisfying and mature look for me, and as opposed to ST and Oblivion's sharp colours with oil pastel look.

Finally, from a completely technical standpoint, depth, lighting and shadowing (that can be projected on other bushes, trunks and leaves, which I don't remember seeing in either OB or Speedtree demos) are what looks to be better in Planta.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

DF was great, but there was nothing in the scope and detail of what MW had for fleshing out the local culture and history of Morrowind.

That was because the scope was to portrait the politics of the noble and the events that lead to the actual configuration of Daggerfall political map. There is much in the scope of politics that matched Morrowind politics prety.

http://til.gamingsource.net/tsod/df_narrative.shtml

That linked page is actually from the DF spoiler book, not ingame. If you look at the list here:
http://til.gamingsource.net/dfbooks/
and compare to
http://til.gamingsource.net/mwbooks/

it should be obvious how limited the actual ingame lore regarding history was in DF. It was there, and what was there was great, but I think it's a fact that MW had more, and did more with it - e.g. they played nicely with the varying and dissenting accounts of past events, which created a great sense of "real" history.

Each game has it's virtues in terms of lore and both rock compared to Oblivion. Morrowind is mostly dependent of MK and KR contribution. With KR hands tied and MK not working for Beth anymore i think it was predictable what Oblivion would be. They coudn't even figure out that the vegetation around cyrodill capital city was mostly jungle from reading the lore.

Maybe so, but Tedders posted that he and I believe MK still contributed, and VXSS posted about how TES is still all about the lore. And I am by nature an optimist. So I chose to hope for the best, sue me.

Yup you missed consequences implemented with reputation and faction relationships. Every quets in Daggerfall and mostly the main quest is linked to reputation. You can't even finish the main quest if your rep with the law isn't big enough.

I wasn't aware that changing a faction rep now qualifies as consequences according to RPGCodex standards. That's really not much. I think the different endings in DF were a good start, but no more than that. It was another half-implemented feature that DF has so many of. It isn't a big factor in the game and shouldn't be overrated when comparing the game against the others in the series. That MW had no alternate endings, not even a simple good / evil routine was bad. But I am talking about my overall assessment of the game, and in the end, since I don't replay an 80-hour game all that often, and had expansions to play around in, it wasn't such a big deal to me.

It looks like the biggerst innovation for you is adding storylines. At least you recognize that the game become much more linear and inconsequential or at least i hope so. Perhaps what you realy like to play are action-adventure sandboxes with a good story. That's not a problem at all. The problem is people thinking that role-playing is the same thing as action-adventure. The worlds are usualy different, even when storylines are added (and Fallout had storylines that would tie together) the gameplay is usualy completely different. Game designers need a good undertsanding of gameplay and that's usualy what these new age wanna be designers don't wan't to have the trouble to learn. It's much easier trying to sell bullshit like role-playing is all about a guy in an horse killing things than doing your job.

Storylines are as much part of good RPG design as other elements are. In fact you will find very few RPG's with the coveted nonlinearity even among classic games in the genre, but most being very story-driven. On the other hand ther are many adventures or action adventure without much of a storyline (Tomb Raider). You will even find that a lot of people (outside this site) that consider themselves hard-core RPGers will put storyline as their number one feature they care about in a RPG.

I think it would be helpful to accept that "CRPG" is a broad and multi-faceted genre and concentrate on what features are important for you and why, instead of labeling everything you dislike as "not an RPG" with the ensuing endless discussions about semantics and definitions.

So yes, I preferred that added backround and storyline and accepted the increased linearty as price to pay. I don't think that makes me an Action adventure sandbox player, because background and storyline are really more hallmarks of RPG's than Action Adventure games. In fact the only Action adventure with a decent story and background I ever played was Outcast, and for that reason I have alwasy seen it as at least half an RPG.
Back to DF and MW: Between endlessly repeating random quests with no aim, I preferred the sense of actual events unfolding in MW. Therefore I am not so sure it made it more inconsequential. Since there was little consequence to DF's quest and faction system, I fail to see how it could be much more inconsequential than before. And there was no true nonlinearity in DF factions since all quest are disconnected , because of this lack of conseqeunces (there was in the main quest, although very limited). It was just freeform gaming fun.
However, as you have pointed out yourself with your reference to Fallout, and as we were discussing in my thread on nonlinear design, it is quite possible to have an open design and yet have plot progression and something like storylines. And it is certainly possible to increase nonlinearity integrate some branching and consequences. Oblivion however did the opposite and in fact eliminated the last remnants of nonlinearity from the guilds (the parralel guild questlines in each guildhall), and that went too far for me.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

So I wonder why you think its objective for you to think that Gothic has a good track record (and I actually agree) but think I am mistaken when I say that FOR ME, TES also had one and that that was a strong incentive for me to expect another good game, just like you do for Gothic 3. That's why I say the whole track record thing is in the eyes of the beholder, and just doesn't cut it as a "shut up and realize the TRUTH, stupid git" catch-all argument as you like to use it. "Track record, stupid!!!!"

Context is the key here. Should we expect great dialogues, decent combat, indepth character system? No. Why? The track record. Should we expect multiple quests solutions, goal-based quests, non-linearity, choices & consequences, reactive AI, great atmosphere? Yes. Why? The track record.

First you argued I shouldn't confuse personal opinions and track records, yet you agree that the meaning of the track record is based on personal opinion. Glad we cleared that up.

Worse though, as I argue above, track records are both ultimately poor indicators because they can change without notice AND are ultimately subjective anyway. So if you say track record at least say what you actually mean. Thanks for doing that above. That's why I took issue with your "track record stupid. I've played the previous games" - it doesn't mean a thing.

Both of which is beside the point. As you know there is plenty of people who liked MW and dislike OB, and even the other way round.

And? What does that have to do with what we were discussing?

Just another example of how subjective track record is. To me the track record of DF and MW seemed fine, some was good a few things were bad, but I found it easy to dismiss those. Based on that track record I expected OB to be at least as good as MW. I was wrong BECAUSE I trusted in the track record, not becasue I ignored it. You looked at the games and saw mainly the reduction in RPG elements and saw a bad track record and told us to expect a bad game. The reason that O is a bad game to me have however little to do with what you saw in the track record.

And why should they have fired Todd, when DF was such a good game?

*sigh* What's with your logic today? Was Todd directly responsible for the success of DF or for some outstanding features that made the game great?

What does that matter? You said they should have fired him. Again, why? By scrying his future design decisions? Admit it, it was just a jibe and does nothing to further the discussion.

The point is, neither does personal continuity guarantee continuity in the product nor does changing the team always guarantee that the game will be entirely different (take the CIV games, I think they had various project leads, but they haven't really changed much).

Poor example. The Civ games have changed, and changed a lot. The core remains the same, of course, much like the KOTOR games have the same core - visit planets in random order using your ship as a base, level up, gain companions & itamz, when you visited all the planets, the final planet appears on your map, do some ass-kicking and finish the game; while the design is very different.

I'm not that deep into CIV, but I had the impression that the people who liked the original, basically still like and paly the latest version. Therefore, despite the personal changes, the game seems to cater to the same people and the "core" you talk about seems good enough for that. But again, that's just my impression.

No, neither have much to do with graphics per se, not in the "flashy to wow" sense it's usually understood. The exploration factor is mostly a design thing, not a graphics one. It has to do with the scaling and the world design, more than anything. And creativity != shiny graphics. Oblivion has plenty shiny Gfx, but much less creativity. Gfx is a superficial presentation thing, style, design, art, creativity actually transport game content and have a part in creating a coherent and interesting gaming experience.

I didn't say that graphics = flashy, so let's not assume here. The exploration is the graphics factor, and I can prove it by quoting an expert in this field:

Ghan the explorer wrote earlier: "Outdoors exploration was vastly improved from DF to MW. It was something I desperately wanted to do in DF, but that was very boring there. MW offered varying landscapes, allowed you to actually discover places on your own."
I wonder why it was boring. Surely, nothing to do with teh graphics, eh?

I agree that MW also had a much better design that either DF or Oblivion, but that still falls under "graphics". Artsy vs Generic crap.

To cite VD: "sigh". If you are willing to put map layout, map scaling, enemy placement, placement of side quest givers, dungeon placement, design and implementation of the travel system, the use of landscape to hide things, the design of quests to search for things in the landscape, the exitance of a relationship between the local climate vegetation and landscape and the portrayal of the local populace, their way of life, architecture under "graphics" than yes, it is graphics. I'd call that game design though. It had nothing to do with the draw distance, FPS, polygon count, art design, texture quality, animation, or any other thing connected to graphics though. Or in other words, MW's world design in DF's graphics would have made it just as good an exploration game. Or in other words again, no, it really had nothing to do with graphics. At all.

DF was great, but there was nothing in the scope and detail of what MW had for fleshing out the local culture and history of Morrowind.

See elander's response.

I was talking about joinable factions / guilds. Consequences? They are narrative only, or did I miss something?

See elander's response.

So please see mine to his.

Which I obviously think is the case, or I wouldn't have put it here, don't you think?

You actually admit it? How embarrassing for you. Yes, find some mushrooms or kill [insert name] are fine examples of superior design. Sure, there are decent quests in MW, but they represent probably 15-20% (I'm being very generous here) of the overall quests. Well, guess what, DF also had very decent handcrafted quests, so there is no real gain here.

Please read what I write or if you did, stay on topic: I was talking about world design, not the quests. Even though, find some mushrooms is no worse than "collect those mummy wrappings me (THOSE mummy wrappings we specifically hid in the lowes room, none of the 24 others you find on the mummys will do!!!). Both are quests for beginners in the guild, and fitting as thus. Only I have to collect the mushrooms only once... There are some nice and fitting random quests in DF, and I want that system back, but only as a supplement. Next to that, I think a line of quests that actually traces actual development in the game world is more attractive, it just is better suited to bring the world alive. Things change. In DF by design everything has to remain episodic. Ultimately it's therefore a better basis to create unique quest narrative and even choice and consequences. Which never happened to any great extent, but it's another reason why I thought that change held promise.

Was I supposed to prove beyond all reasonable doubts that the game you like is utter shit? (which isn't that case here). Why? You like it, and I'm sincerely happy for you. The end.

You do usually give that impression. But, always glad to make people happy. My pleasure.

 

[elander_]

That linked page is actually from the DF spoiler book, not ingame. If you look at the list here:
http://til.gamingsource.net/dfbooks/

Thats becuase i wanted to link to the DF text that explains the main quest. LOL

and compare to
http://til.gamingsource.net/mwbooks/

I don't want to judge the lore by counting links. They have put in there all the message scrolls and letters you can find in Morrowid, together with Daggerfall, Redguard and Battlespire old books in the mixture. If you count the 36 lessons of Vivec it's more 36 one or two page books so i don't think this means much. Morrowind lore is still not much different than Daggerfalls one if you give it a closer look.

I wasn't aware that changing a faction rep now qualifies as consequences according to RPGCodex standards.

I don't speak for the entire codex lol. The consequences come from the fact that quest givers are aware of reputation and may refuse quest offers iin same quests. In others they may be aware of other minor details like if you are a menber of the thieves and receive special quests. There is even one quest where being a vampire will have a completely different outvome. These may be basic consequences like you say but it's something to be improved upon not to be discarded like in Oblivion.

I don't consider the endings too important becuase they imply too much emphases on a main story. Look at Fallout for example where you add a movie detailing the outcome of each city as a consequence to your actions. You can't realy talk about different endings there becuase it doesn't make much sense in a crpg. You could say that each city has multiple endings but this is a crpg and it doesn't make sense saying that.

Storylines are as much part of good RPG design as other elements are. In fact you will find very few RPG's with the coveted nonlinearity even among classic games in the genre, but most being very story-driven. On the other hand ther are many adventures or action adventure without much of a storyline (Tomb Raider). You will even find that a lot of people (outside this site) that consider themselves hard-core RPGers will put storyline as their number one feature they care about in a RPG.

I can start to understand what is your confusion with crpgs and adventure games. This is a most common mistake. Good old crpgs including Fallout had stories without being story-driven. Daggerfall for example had the sub-plot between Elysana and Helseth against each other to control Wayrest throne and that later tied to the acolytes of the Underking to control the Numidium again with Helseth and Elysana disputing the players atention. However we can't see the game as being story driven here. It his a story allright, a chain of events which unfold by your actions, but your progression doesn't depend on this. At most it may shift your reputation with some factions and cause some nobles to send assassins to kill you but thats it.

I think it would be helpful to accept that "CRPG" is a broad and multi-faceted genre and concentrate on what features are important for you and why, instead of labeling everything you dislike as "not an RPG" with the ensuing endless discussions about semantics and definitions.

Why would i want to do that? I know what is a crpg feature from the pnps i played and the crpg classics i played and by listening to what other people who played the classics think. We aren't helping ourselves by pretending everything is a crpg and make people forget about the classics. That's elevating todays role-playing games by lowering standards and thats what Oblivion did.

So yes, I preferred that added backround and storyline and accepted the increased linearty as price to pay. I don't think that makes me an Action adventure sandbox player, because background and storyline are really more hallmarks of RPG's than Action Adventure games. In fact the only Action adventure with a decent story and background I ever played was Outcast, and for that reason I have alwasy seen it as at least half an RPG.

I think you have answered yourself a bit here:

However, as you have pointed out yourself with your reference to Fallout, and as we were discussing in my thread on nonlinear design, it is quite possible to have an open design and yet have plot progression and something like storylines. And it is certainly possible to increase nonlinearity integrate some branching and consequences. Oblivion however did the opposite and in fact eliminated the last remnants of nonlinearity from the guilds (the parralel guild questlines in each guildhall), and that went too far for me.

What price in linearity? Making quests non-linear is a narrative advantage not a price to pay. A crpg is not a game or a movie it's a completely different kind of media. Consider a writer who wants to write a book, he is limited by it's media in a way that a crpg writer is not. A crpg writer can create dynamic narrative that reacts to the players actions and makes it look that it was the player choices that decided that turn of events and not some pre-scripted sequence. Of course that this is all psycological since everything is somehow scripted but i think you understand. This of course makes crpgs completely different games than action-adventure games.

You have to pay a linearity price but that is only the necessary minimum to chain quests and tie plots together and that doesn't even comes near to the exageration they have done with Oblivion where the minimum amount of guilds were reduced to a complete linear plots. A character needs to solve problems in a style that goes with his character creation choices and by opurtunity or necessity caused by the world. That is social rules, benefits and prejudices towards the player character. Thats only the building bricks. At some point of the game you must be able to branch the narrative creating a different outcome that swits the player character and changes world reactions and player status in the world in some specific way that makes sense with the players decisions.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

Thats becuase i wanted to link to the DF text that explains the main quest. LOL

Not the most useful link in a discussion on ingame lore, then.

I don't want to judge the lore by counting links. They have put in there all the message scrolls and letters you can find in Morrowid, together with Daggerfall, Redguard and Battlespire old books in the mixture. If you count the 36 lessons of Vivec it's more 36 one or two page books so i don't think this means much. Morrowind lore is still not much different than Daggerfalls one if you give it a closer look.

You don't have to count links, you are welcome to read the texts, too I have, and I have related the conclusion I came to; That the historical and political lore in MW is better fleshed out than in DF. I am happy to debate that, but we will have to go into more detail for that, and I am not sure if you are interested in such a discussion?

I don't speak for the entire codex lol. The consequences come from the fact that quest givers are aware of reputation and may refuse quest offers iin same quests. In others they may be aware of other minor details like if you are a menber of the thieves and receive special quests. There is even one quest where being a vampire will have a completely different outvome. These may be basic consequences like you say but it's something to be improved upon not to be discarded like in Oblivion.

I know what faction standing does, but it's a very indirect feedback. Often you will not fully know what actually caused that behavior, it's not commented on. As to potential, I fully agree, it's one source of my dissapointment with Oblivion. I was merely making the point that DF is not strong enough in this aspect to really vastly elevate it above later games, IMHO. It's a good example of the things DF "promised" for later TES games that never came to pass though, as you say. But this discussion was about why I prefer MW to DF, and one facette of that is that the nonlinear aspects in DF were not so strong that I was expecting this to be a major point in MW (track record! A linear dungeon romp and a very mildly nonlinear one), and so I was only mildy dissapointed in the main quest structure in MW, partly because while the structure was simpler, the background (see above) was more fleshed out and more involving.

I don't consider the endings too important becuase they imply too much emphases on a main story. Look at Fallout for example where you add a movie detailing the outcome of each city as a consequence to your actions. You can't realy talk about different endings there becuase it doesn't make much sense in a crpg. You could say that each city has multiple endings but this is a crpg and it doesn't make sense saying that.

Well, I also didn't think they were too important. But VD cited them as an example of DF's awesomeness, and you seemed to agree. They were a nice touch, something I would have been happy to see being built upon. Which did not happen. All I was saying is that that change likewise, was not bad enough to make me dislike the game, since other aspects that I mentioned had improved.

I can start to understand what is your confusion with crpgs and adventure games. This is a most common mistake.

Don't patronize, makes you look foolish.

Good old crpgs including Fallout had stories without being story-driven. Daggerfall for example had the sub-plot between Elysana and Helseth against each other to control Wayrest throne and that later tied to the acolytes of the Underking to control the Numidium again with Helseth and Elysana disputing the players atention. However we can't see the game as being story driven here. It his a story allright, a chain of events which unfold by your actions, but your progression doesn't depend on this. At most it may shift your reputation with some factions and cause some nobles to send assassins to kill you but thats it.

There were story-driven and non story driven RPG's from the beginning. I'd consider most of the ultimas story driven, including the Ultima underworld series. Baldurs Gate is certainly story driven, as is Betrayal at Krondor. Planscape too, from what I hear (it's on my to do list). Bard's tale, Fallout, and if you chose to ignore the plot, DF, were not.
As to your DF example I both agree and disagree. I agree that DF was not story driven. In fact I was happy to almost exclusively play it as a sandbox and ingored the main quest for 95% of my time playing the game. I disagree however that the main quest itself is not story driven. The branching is limited and mostly serves to enforce setting and your progress ultimately does depend on it. The quests you cited are optional, and actually rather constitute sidequests thematically tied to the main quest, since, as you said, they have no further impact on the main quest progression. So the actual main quest is very much story driven, unlike Fallout, where progression is much more free.

Why would i want to do that? I know what is a crpg feature from the pnps i played and the crpg classics i played and by listening to what other people who played the classics think.

So do I. Yet, strangely enough, we do not seem to be in 100% agreement on what constitutes an RPG.

We aren't helping ourselves by pretending everything is a crpg and make people forget about the classics. That's elevating todays role-playing games by lowering standards and thats what Oblivion did.

I wouldn't want to go as far as the "everything is an RPG" crowd, which would render the term meaningless. But neither do I think it is useful to be too strict in the definition. I think it's for the most part (nat always) usefult to accept the developers label, and to judge them as being good or bad RPG's, and to go and detail the type of RPG they are. I think it's a good thing that there is variety in RPG's. There is room within such a broad genre for more story diriven,and more freeform, for more action oriented and turn-based. For combat and dialogue oriented, first person single character and party based games, etc. There is room for all those styles. People will lean more to one or the other, or like me like games across the entire spectrum. I'd call a game a RPG when I aproach it as one and have reason to believe that I will be able to flesh out a role in the game. That leaves a vast amount of space to how good an RPG it is however.
It's just my observation that using the definition argument tends to stall and stiffen arguments, and usually degrades into namecalling quickly, instead of a more useful analysis of the actual features, and the importance that each individual attaches to them.

What price in linearity? Making quests non-linear is a narrative advantage not a price to pay. A crpg is not a game or a movie it's a completely different kind of media. Consider a writer who wants to write a book, he is limited by it's media in a way that a crpg writer is not. A crpg writer can create dynamic narrative that reacts to the players actions and makes it look that it was the player choices that decided that turn of events and not some pre-scripted sequence. Of course that this is all psycological since everything is somehow scripted but i think you understand. This of course makes crpgs completely different games than action-adventure games.

Well, I think it makes for good role playing games. But I think it doesn't help to ignore that CRPG's have implemented that freedom on very different levels, and rarely to the extent we'd probably want. Most have limited it to character choice, and a "when to go where" choice. Some allow some freedom in the story you pick. Some offer a lot of content and allow you to take your pick. So you are wrong: in truth, there is a very gradual continuum from CRPG's to Action Advneture.

You have to pay a linearity price but that is only the necessary minimum to chain quests and tie plots together and that doesn't even comes near to the exageration they have done with Oblivion where the minimum amount of guilds were reduced to a complete linear plots.

No argument here. But I was talking about MW, not oblivion. For Oblivion, I might even be able to forgive them that and enjoy it as a RPG with very linear (but optional and sometimes nicely written) sublplots. But they have also greatly reduced the lore, and gimped the exploration aspect, so there isn't much left for me, either.

A character needs to solve problems in a style that goes with his character creation choices and by opurtunity or necessity caused by the world. That is social rules, benefits and prejudices towards the player character. Thats only the building bricks. At some point of the game you must be able to branch the narrative creating a different outcome that swits the player character and changes world reactions and player status in the world in some specific way that makes sense with the players decisions.

Again, that's all signs of a good RPG, but I contest that they are necessary components. Branching is great, but e.g. a freeform RPG like DF can get away with very little or none of that and still be a RPG. I can't remember if there was any branching in UUWII, I certainly didn't care at the time, yet it's a favourite RPG of mine (and ohters). I am not sure if there was branching in BG. It's no fafourite of mine, but it's a fovourite of many, including ardent RPG fans.

 

[Twinfalls]

That MW had no alternate endings, not even a simple good / evil routine was bad. But I am talking about my overall assessment of the game, and in the end, since I don't replay an 80-hour game all that often, and had expansions to play around in, it wasn't such a big deal to me.

I have never understood this mentality - "I only played the game once so it didn't matter that there were no major decisions to make"

 

[Lumpy]

There were two different mods which both allowed you to join Dagoth Ur.

 

[FaranBrygo]

There were two different mods which both allowed you to join Dagoth Ur.

There was also a mod that made the game wanker ready.

 

[elander_]

But this discussion was about why I prefer MW to DF, and one facette of that is that the nonlinear aspects in DF were not so strong that I was expecting this to be a major point in MW (track record! A linear dungeon romp and a very mildly nonlinear one), and so I was only mildy dissapointed in the main quest structure in MW, partly because while the structure was simpler, the background (see above) was more fleshed out and more involving.

The Mw main quest structure is a good example. Anyone with a good pnp experience, both with solo pnps and others would know exactly what to do and to avoid in there. I didn't need to play Fallout or Daggerfall to recognize their role-playing virtues, even if more basic in Daggerfall.

The Mw main quest is completely linear with Caius Cosades. It wouldn't be too hard to had multiple solutions to make use of other skills besides combat to some quests. Having alternative quest choices in here would not be bad either. There is another trick used in Mw later that was divide the main quest into trials the player has to finish before progressing to the next step. This helps a lot, the main quest imideatly becomes a lot less heavy. But it was used ad nauseum in Morrowind main quest, the Tribunal Temple quests and later in Oblivion.

With all the obvious gameplay problems in Mw of skills that were put to no use and worthless and crumpy dialog (that in Oblivion was even worst than basic Daggerfall system game mechanics wise) i think it's kind of obvious that TH and the people who work for him don't have a clue about role-playing and crpg mechanics. Of course that Tedders won't say anything but Mara for example has already cryticised Oblivion for it's linearity and lack of good rp quests and im sure if KR and MK would wan't to say something (at least KR said something) they would have a lot to tell.

There were story-driven and non story driven RPG's from the beginning. I'd consider most of the ultimas story driven, including the Ultima underworld series. Baldurs Gate is certainly story driven, as is Betrayal at Krondor. Planscape too, from what I hear (it's on my to do list). Bard's tale, Fallout, and if you chose to ignore the plot, DF, were not.

These are only part of game evolution towards role-playing computer games. Did you asked the pnp community what they think of all those games you mentioned being called crpgs by the game press? I guess no. I have seen games with just 4 atributes and 3-6 skills where you don't do nothing except combat to unfold a single linear story being called crpgs by the press.

Ultima 7 - Only played a bit. I heard it doesn't have too much quests but that they are very well writen. For what i played it seams like there is a main plot but you are not dependent on it to play the game and have fun.
Ultima Underworld - Only played it a bit too.
Betrayals of Krondor - Certainly story driven.
Baldurs Gate - A lot of the game can be played without touching the main quest. I can explore my companions relations and do all sorts of side quests that explains what is happening to the world or details other aspects of the world. Sure there is a main quest but there is a good bunch of other quests you can play that don't depend on it.
Planscape - What applies to BG also applies to Planescape and in brutal quantities of well writen dialog.
Bards Tale - A tactical combat game like FT not a crpg.
Fallout - A true crpg. You can do the main quest in 10 minutes acording to the latest speedrun video or you can do it in more than 40 hours if you take your time to explore the world.
DF - A friend of mine hated the dungeon crawling and the main quest part. He still loves the game and as spent an absurb amount of time playing it. Certainly not story driven.

For story driven games you could have also included: DeusEx1 and DeusEx2.

I disagree however that the main quest itself is not story driven. The branching is limited and mostly serves to enforce setting and your progress ultimately does depend on it.

Daggerfall main quest does have a lot branching which makes it more interesting to play. The branching is even a bit dynamic like i explained above with Elysana and Helseth example depending on your reputation and how you deal with these two the main quest graph will slightly change and the world will react apropreatly. The ultimate end is not important. It was very easy to make the main plot quests less dependent but it was probably too much for the scripting capabilities of Df at that time.

If you play some solo pnps you will notice that there is a chapter at the end for where everything converges. There are certain points in the book where a lot of chapters converge. This is necessary for every game. You just can't have a narrative branching all the time.

I wouldn't want to go as far as the "everything is an RPG" crowd, which would render the term meaningless. But neither do I think it is useful to be too strict in the definition. I think it's for the most part (nat always) usefult to accept the developers label, and to judge them as being good or bad RPG's, and to go and detail the type of RPG they are. I think it's a good thing that there is variety in RPG's. There is room within such a broad genre for more story diriven,and more freeform, for more action oriented and turn-based. For combat and dialogue oriented, first person single character and party based games, etc. There is room for all those styles. People will lean more to one or the other, or like me like games across the entire spectrum. I'd call a game a RPG when I aproach it as one and have reason to believe that I will be able to flesh out a role in the game. That leaves a vast amount of space to how good an RPG it is however.
It's just my observation that using the definition argument tends to stall and stiffen arguments, and usually degrades into namecalling quickly, instead of a more useful analysis of the actual features, and the importance that each individual attaches to them.

Im sorry but i see new crpg as lowering the quality of what was achieved before and it won't help anyone by just taping their backs like good buddies and pretend everything is great. Daggerfall was the first game i know where the developers tried to bring more to a computer of what was being done in pnps. Fallout did it even better. What TH, MSFD and the rest need to do is to learn something about role-playing game mechanics because they don't have a clue and it shows in every game they do there efforts are not put in grasping it. They are more interesting in knowing what the casual gamer wants and redefine the genre according to profit demands and Pete insights. It would be much better if they just change the genre of the game they are trying to make than to pretend they are making crpgs. Call it Generic games or All-In-One computer games like one of those vacuum cleaners that do everything but don't screw up with crpgs. No pitty for them or any devs who don't bother study the classics or playing pnps (i recall MSFD saying once he played a pnp, he is so cute isn't he, he played a pnp lol).

So you are wrong: in truth, there is a very gradual continuum from CRPG's to Action Advneture.

Ooohhh that was a good one!

But I was talking about MW, not oblivion.

Morrowind certainly qualifies as a crpg but with completely flawed role-playing mechanics. The leveling pace is out of control, most skills can't be put to any good use. Dialog is too messed up and lacks options, etc.

Again, that's all signs of a good RPG, but I contest that they are necessary components. Branching is great, but e.g. a freeform RPG like DF can get away with very little or none of that and still be a RPG. I can't remember if there was any branching in UUWII, I certainly didn't care at the time, yet it's a favourite RPG of mine (and ohters). I am not sure if there was branching in BG. It's no fafourite of mine, but it's a fovourite of many, including ardent RPG fans.

What i mean is dynamic narrative that is aware of the players actions, chargen choices and player status in the world and dynamicaly branches the story acordingly to make changes and create adequate reactions. This is fundamental for crpgs gameplay.

The character system, guilds, factios and the world setting in general are a crpg static model and thats something TES usually does well. The graphics in the latests episodes are great except for some dumb screwups with the terrain and char faces. The lore has been great until Oblivion that still has a lot of books and TP new pocket guide. Despite what people think we can't say the Oblivion char system is mediocre when compared to other games. It's considerably mainstreamed without real purpose and is only a sub-set of Daggerfall great char system which is in turn a sub-set of GURPS and D20 mixed together.

If you look at NeverwinterNights for example or Vampire Bloodlines they used the obliged parts of the respective char systems (D20 i think, im not a expert in this system) and the Whitewolf whatever it was and adapted them where they had the freedom to do so to the computer game. I think it worked very wll. At least Neverwinter Nights fun for me was mostly playing with the char system. Bioware and Whitewolf would never allow them to screw up that and change anything they wanted and give a bad image to their pnp business.

Quests or adventures, reactions, reputation and faction offsets, encounters, random events, world events, dialog roleplaying, the dynamic model in general is where they screw it up in big. I realy don't understand why it is so hard, for someone who knows anything about pnps and role-playing that is, to do a decent role-palying. I think the hard part is to have a good writer and a someone with a deep understanding of role-playing at the same time.

Honeslty i only see one solution: fire Todd Howards ass, fire MSFD ass, fire Mark Nielson ass, fire anyones ass with stupid ideas like "you wont notice the game is linear unless you play it twice" MSFD TM, "lore isn't sacred" Mark Nielson TM, "role-playing for me is riding on an horse and killing things" TH TM. And by the way fire whoever is administrating Zenimax because obviously they are only interested in counting the money.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

That MW had no alternate endings, not even a simple good / evil routine was bad. But I am talking about my overall assessment of the game, and in the end, since I don't replay an 80-hour game all that often, and had expansions to play around in, it wasn't such a big deal to me.

I have never understood this mentality - "I only played the game once so it didn't matter that there were no major decisions to make"

Why should I put a game down that entertains me, just because it doesn't have "major decisions to make"? Don't get me wrong, I love games that do that. I think good RPG's should have the ambition to do it. I have lobbied for branching storylines for TES for the last 5 years. But it's not an on/off switch for my enjoyment. MW has enough little freedoms, some branching decisions (houses), and simply enough content to keep me very happy for many hours. Likewise, it wasn't the little bit of branching in DF's mainquest that made me love that game - it was the freedom to play a role and to just go adventuring outside of any story, branching or not.

Maybe I can't make you understand that any better than I understand people that play roguelikes, or golf games, but I tried

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

snipetty!

Look, I was a P&P player for many years, and I have no trouble calling those games CRPG's. They may aspire to the ideal of P&P roleplaying, and most fail in one way or another. In fact I have even met people who think there is NO computer role playing game, because no game truly succeeded. I am just saying that such extreme points of view are not very useful as a basis of discussion in my opinion.

For the rest of your post you seem to want to convince me of how much Oblivion sucks. Don't wast your breath, I have alaready said I don't like it myself, and for a lot of the same reasons. I can't explain any better than I did why MW worked for me and Oblivion didn't. It's really the background and the things it added, in exploration. Oblivion has not added anything that would allow me to overllook it's problems, and the problems seem more glaring. So maybe we should leave it at that.

 

[Kraszu]

I would not agree thought that there is no difference if you play game that have some decisions and different posibilities to solve problems when you play it only once. Usually it is transparent you can't actually give options that lead to the same outcome and make it all believable.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

I would not agree thought that there is no difference if you play game that have some decisions and different posibilities to solve problems when you play it only once. Usually it is transparent you can't actually give options that lead to the same outcome and make it all believable.

I agree. But it matters less if the game is not very story-driven to begin with.

 

[Hazelnut]

So what, teams change all the time, sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn't.

First, it always matters. Compare Fallout to Fallout 2, KOTOR to KOTOR 2, Daggerfall to Morrowind, etc. Second, I meant more than just people. The vision, the goals, motivation, atmosphere, etc - all that counts too. As I'm sure you are aware of, the Daggerfall team made the game they wanted to make, despite the publisher's wishes. They *misled* the publisher. The game was more important than how much it would sell and how much money everyone would make. I hope I don't need to explain how different this approach is from what Neo-Bethesda does these days (see the podcast interview)

Whilst I don't really want to enter into this dicusssion due to a lack of time (since the fallow period at work is well over now, and it's the world cup, so my posting flurry is over - for the present at least), I am really interested in the bit in bold VD. I was certainly never aware that they misled the publisher. I thought that, even back then, they were their own publisher. I will freely admit that I know only slightly more than zero about Beth development prior to following the development of Disapointivion, since I also liked MW (for similar reasons to GBG) as well as DF and really (naively) thought/hoped that Ob would take the strengths of both and move forward, along with great visuals.

I guess that, in hindsight, with the toddling in charge that was about as likely as England winning the world cup if they carry on playing as they have so far in the WC.... :evil:

Anyway, you got any links or background to your statement that you could toss into the thread without much time wasted looking?

 

[Twinfalls]

Why should I put a game down that entertains me, just because it doesn't have "major decisions to make"? <snip>

I was not saying that - the best game in the world could be linear. Rather, I was referring to this concept:

in the end, since I don't replay an 80-hour game all that often... it wasn't such a big deal to me

ie the notion that you only notice a branching plot if you play the game more than once (the MSFD world-view).

This is catastrophically wrong. You cannot substitute a linear MQ for a non-linear or at least multiple-path MQ. You cannot fake the frisson that presenting the player with genuine alternative paths through a game gives him or her - even if they aren't mutually exclusive (ie the player could technically do all of them).

Likewise, it wasn't the little bit of branching in DF's mainquest that made me love that game - it was the freedom to play a role and to just go adventuring outside of any story, branching or not.

Case in point. DF didn't just have a 'little bit of branching'. It had some seriously different path options for the player to take his MQ, right from the start. Do I help Prince Lhotun's mob steal the painting, but put Wayrest offside? Do I help the King of Worms? Is this the path I want to take? Do I do what Gortwog asks and go with him?

Each of these offered its own path through to the final decision.

Compare with the railroads that TES MQs have become since then.

Bully for you if you just loved DF because you could 'wander about' and do other stuff. The fact remains that branching, alternative MQ paths was a key element of that game - which has since been chucked right into oblivion by Neo Beth.

 

[elander_]

I am just saying that such extreme points of view are not very useful as a basis of discussion in my opinion.

An extreme point would be considering that no computer game can be a crpg. My point of view among people who know something about pnps and crpgs cannot be really considered extremist.

There was allways this divergence between pnp players. There are those who consider pnps just a variant of writing and an incentive to make people read and there are those who consider pnp a different media. Something capable of creating dynamic narrative and experimentation. I supose that in the codex most people don't see rp as just a different kind of book with pictures and fights in middle. Sue me.

For the rest of your post you seem to want to convince me of how much Oblivion sucks. Don't wast your breath, I have alaready said I don't like it myself, and for a lot of the same reasons.

For the reason i pointed above i don't think Oblivion as a crpg sucks completely only the dynamic aspects of rp that are lacking.

I can't explain any better than I did why MW worked for me and Oblivion didn't. It's really the background and the things it added, in exploration. Oblivion has not added anything that would allow me to overllook it's problems, and the problems seem more glaring. So maybe we should leave it at that.

I was never criticising Mw for it's role-palying. Maybe you will be surpised but i consider Mw a crpg however one with serious game balance issues without any mods. Which is what i wrote i think.

 

[elander_]

Likewise, it wasn't the little bit of branching in DF's mainquest that made me love that game - it was the freedom to play a role and to just go adventuring outside of any story, branching or not.

It's allways funny when you try to desvalorize Daggerfall virtues even when you know better.

I supose that you are on the side who thinks crpgs are just improved books. You enjoyed Daggerfall perhaps like a book with independent or semi-independent stories we can pick and experience as we please. I enjoyed that part too but mostly i enjoyed when Daggerfall would dynamicaly branch the narrative acording to the players actions and create a slightly different story.

What i don't understand is why you dislike Oblivion linearity if for you playing a crpgs is similar to reading a book. Perhaps it was the quality of the writing or the lack of concistency of the world with Conan the Barbarian being arch mage of the guild (that allways kills me of lauging). It's not quite clear your disliking of Ob if the game is a crpg to you.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

Likewise, it wasn't the little bit of branching in DF's mainquest that made me love that game - it was the freedom to play a role and to just go adventuring outside of any story, branching or not.

It's allways funny when you try to desvalorize Daggerfall virtues even when you know better.

Maybe. I loved the game to pieces, but I sometimes think it's glorified beyond it's merits. I just happened to like MW too which I often find reviled by people here and elsewhere that nevertheless liked DF. So I am arguing why I like what I like, and try to put things in perspective, from my point of view. If it's any consoltation, DF is definitely one of my personal top five games.

I supose that you are on the side who thinks crpgs are just improved books.

Not really, no. What gives you that idea?

You enjoyed Daggerfall perhaps like a book with independent or semi-independent stories we can pick and experience as we please.

That would be more true of MW than DF. But overall the book comparison doesn't fit. I like freedom and decisions (even inconsequential ones). I like shaping a character and acting him out. I like world simulation aspects. I don't think any of these are very book-like.

I enjoyed that part too but mostly i enjoyed when Daggerfall would dynamicaly branch the narrative acording to the players actions and create a slightly different story.

Well, I liked the branching per se, but I disliked how little basis the game gave me to make a decision. I like games that challenge me mentally, but I will be honest: The DF mainquest left me mostly confused the first time through. Since the quests were spaced out (and I have never had the time to play games on end, so game sessions were spaced out too). I only really undestood and appreciated what was happening after reading the walkthrough/ storyline.

What i don't understand is why you dislike Oblivion linearity if for you playing a crpgs is similar to reading a book. Perhaps it was the quality of the writing or the lack of concistency of the world with Conan the Barbarian being arch mage of the guild (that allways kills me of lauging). It's not quite clear your disliking of Ob if the game is a crpg to you.

For the reasons stated above I prefer to consider it a CRPG. Just like you do MW, one with many failings.
There are many reasons why I dislike it. The increased linearity of the guild quests. The lack of lore. The poor dialogue. The lack of progress as a realistic fantasy world simulator. The handholding. The inhomogenous presentation (from GFX to RAI). And unlike MW it brings nothing new to the table that would capture me. The limited content makes the linearity stand out much more than in MW. There are things I like about it, but as a whole I found myself not feeling any motivation to roleplay the game.

 

[dongle]

Well, since most of this arguement is related to graphical qualities, personal preferences and not difference of programming or rendering techniques, I guess it might be a little pointless to debate over it, but still, Planta looks ways better to me than Speedtree.

OK, I'll agree a lot of this is subjective. Being a 3D modeler I realize I look at things differently, and am more critical of some things that the average gamer. And really, the texture quality of the bark and leaves means nothing when we're selling middleware like this. Obviously the game artists will make their own textures.

And this is a pre-rendered movie, not even a demo I can walk around in and see how bad it -really- looks.

It's not a pre-rendered movie, it's a video recording of a real-time movie, which is obvious I'd think. Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, Toy Story, Ice Age, a multitude of game cut-scenes like Diablo II's or Final Fantasy games'; these are pre-rendered movies.

OK, it's a pre-rendered real-time movie. What I mean is it's not a tech demo where I can walk around and look at for myself. It's carefully selected footage to show off the tech in its best light. As a rule one expects games to look worse when you actually get to play them, when compared to the marketing materials. Compare the Oblivion pre-release screenshots to the reality. So when I see a movie (however it was rendered) that looks bad I expect the reality to look like shit.

Problem is; A full Speedtree license (as used in Oblivion) is only $8,495 per title. How much can you save by going with a cheap knockoff?

Completely free for non-commercial use, without the source. No conditions. $800 for commercial use without the source. $4000 for commercial use with the source.
$4,495, not a big sum? Then you're welcome giving it to me.

Anyone know the total development budget for Oblivion? I know 100 devs worked on it for four years. Say we pay each of them an average $50k a year, we're talking $20 million right there.

No, $4,495 is not a big sum in that light.

To be fair; The level of detail looks good in Planta. Trees fade into the distance without any sharp line between high quality and low. But then again; the Speedtree demos do this very, very, well too.

I agree that LOD looks good, but it also looks a lot better than Speedtree demos and Oblivion's implementation. In both of those, it's a horrible sight to watch as trees fade into 2d sprites. They scream out "Look at me! I'm a 2d cardboard and I do my best to make sure you notice it!". Absolutely not "very, very, well".

The leaf sprites move in stupid little circles, no where near realistic animation.

It didn't bother me.

Hrm, I think we're about two different things here. You Oblivion, me the Speedtree Trees of Pangaea demo.

I just played Pangaea again for a bit to re-calibrate my eyes. I stand by my statement that the level of detail is very good. There are several levels of 3D tree model before you get to the 2D sprite. Keeping my eye on one tree in the far distance and walking up to it the transition is not detectable at all. The 2D thing only happens in the far, far, distance - close to obscured by fog. True, Oblivion has an abrupt transition at 20 paces from the player. How Bethesda managed to fuck it up that badly I'll never know, because SpeedTree alone does not do that.

Notice also that that's the major thing we -don’t- see in the Planta movie. Yes, we hop above the tree canopy for a bit and see into the distance, but we don't move at all. So we really don't know how well the transition between low detail and high detail is. Since they don't show us, I assume it's bad.

Now, the animation is one area where the SpeedTree demo shines. The tree trunks sway with the wind. You can -see- gusts of wind blow through the scene. You can use the controls to adjust the wind speed, and everything reacts accordingly. When the helicopter blows by you can see the downdraft hitting the leaves, trees, grass, everything. In the Planta movie you see the 2D leaf sprites move in a little semi-circle - bink, bink, bink - that's all.

Don't get me wrong, there's lots I dislike about SpeedTree. Planta tho brings nothing new to the table, and looks worse.

 

[dongle]

There are many reasons why I dislike it. The increased linearity of the guild quests. The lack of lore. The poor dialogue. The lack of progress as a realistic fantasy world simulator. The handholding. The inhomogenous presentation (from GFX to RAI). And unlike MW it brings nothing new to the table that would capture me. The limited content makes the linearity stand out much more than in MW. There are things I like about it, but as a whole I found myself not feeling any motivation to roleplay the game.

Do you think with that layer of hand-holding taken away it would have been a decent game to play? I don't mean a fully codex-worthy masterpiece, but a fun diversion to spend a few hours on from tine-to-time. Or were the other flaws you mention too fundamental to prevent that?

 

[yipsl]

Summary.

Sure, my name is Todd Howard, I know what gamers want--shinny graphics--also we can't do everything well--actually, we can't do anything well--so we'll focus on a few areas and still manage to screw them up, did I mention pretty graphics?

Haven't listened to the podcast and I'm somewhat critical of Bethsoft's game development, while somewhat tolerant of market reasons they've changed things; but of this I am sure.

Every game aims for the best graphics of it's generation. Arena had high end graphics and so did Daggerfall. The only reason a friend sold me my second copy of Daggerfall way back when was because he did not like the lack of support for his Voodoo add in card. Daggerfall had great graphics for 1996, despite lack of Glide support.

So, the beauty of Oblivion's graphics has absolutely nothing to do with the simplification of the game system, the remaking of the lore or the handholding. I've found that I don't mind the compass arrow, but I do mind the little icons in the compass for type of location. Aiding in finding a moving target NPC is useful, but identifying the type of location just off the road is a bit too much.

The game's graphics are necessary. What are not completely necessary are the Havok physics engine and 100% voices. Eventually, I think we'll see completely voiced games that allow for greater branching, just as we'll see 3D worlds the size of Daggerfall's, but right now smaller world sizes and completely voiced games do an injustice to immersive RPGs. One can't be helped, the other can be avoided if they just stop pandering to focus groups.

My problem with the physics is that I have an easier time dispatching an ogre than I do setting the table in my house in Leyawin. Of course, I'd want to replace the pewter with filched silver sold and bought back from the Argonian fence, but that's a bit of roleplaying that FPS addicts who are the second half of today's Morrowind and Oblivion fanbase just can't wrap their thoughts around.

The graphic goodness of Oblivion, or any other game is a given; in any generation. It's when gamers start thinking that there's no gameplay just because a game's graphics are older generation that problems arise.

So far, I'm experiencing the game with a Radeon 9800 Pro with medium settings (but resolution pushed up to 1024 x 768 instead of 640 x 480). When I get that X1900GT, or an X1800GTO, for my PCIe Pentium 4 630 system, then it will look a bit better. Right now, I don't trust the X200 onboard to handle it, so I"m playing on the 2.8 Northwood, which will get an X1600Pro if I can't swing even more money for a 7800GS this fall.

So call me a graphics whore, but I'm really an immersion courtesan dedicated to the House of Dibella.

 

[Kraszu]

There was nothing special about Dagerfall grafix. It was made from sprites (yes normal in 1996) but the point is that they are much cheap to make and there was not big difference in grafix beetween titles in that time (except for some 3d games). The % of resource that goes to grafix was much smaller buck then.