RPG of the Decade - Developers' Choice

[-=DarlSephiroth666=-]

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivionercantile

A Journeyman can sell any goods to any vendor.
Vendors can also sell any goods to a Journeyman of Mercantile. This unlocks a few unique items carried by merchants who don't otherwise sell items of their type.

Really? Is it actually in the game? What unique items it unlocks?

Yes, it's in. Most merchants offer a unique magical item. Some are pretty powerful, like this one.

 

[Silellak]

Just being fair - some people didn't play the game or didn't pay much attention while playing, so some things that are in the game weren't noticed.

Hard to blame them. It's a game centered around exploration in which exploration is almost entirely a boring waste of time.

 

[-=DarlSephiroth666=-]

the entire game is a cake-walk because everything is scaled exactly to your level.

You keep repeating this in many threads, so I wonder have you actually played Oblivion past level 15 or so? The game isn't easy because everything is scaled, it's hard. The game becomes much harder as you progress, and it's very easy to make a gimped character if you don't keep your combat skills high.

When Daedroths and Spider Daedras start popping up you'll get your ass handed to you a lot.

Oblivion IS a cakewalk at levels up to 10, so many people get the wrong impression that it's super casual. It's not. The casual players play Oblivion with the difficulty slider all the way to the left.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Fallout's perks were very badly balanced. Most were simply worthless, and some were overpowered (ActionBoy, Sniper, etc).

I disagree. Sure, some were worthless and some were superior to others, but overall you had plenty to pick from and there were different perks for different play styles.

Lvl 3

* Awareness
* Bonus HtH Damage
* Earlier Sequence
* Faster Healing
* Healer
* Night Vision
* Presence
* Quick Pockets
* Scout
* Smooth Talker
* Strong Back
* Survivalist
* Swift Learner
* Toughness

Lvl 6:

* Bonus HtH Attacks
* Bonus Move
* Bonus Ranged Damage
* Educated
* Empathy
* Fortune Finder
* Friendly Foe
* Ghost
* Heave Ho!
* More Criticals
* Mysterious Stranger
* Pathfinder
* Rad Resistance
* Ranger
* Sharpshooter
* Silent Running
* Snakeater

Lvl 9:

* Animal Friend
* Better Criticals
* Bonus Rate of Fire
* Dodger
* Explorer
* Flower Child
* Master Trader
* Mutate!
* Pickpocket
* Scrounger

So, for example, you could go with Smooth Talker, Educated, and Empathy, or Sequence, Sharpshooter, Bonus Rate of Fire, or load up on More and Better Criticals, or go with Bonus HtH damage, bonus move (to get closer), and bonus HtH attack. Etc. Tons of options just with the first 3 selections.

Was Mercantile a handy skill?

Yes. More important at low levels, though.

Explain. In both Morrowind and Oblivion making a lot of money fast was a design flaw. A skill that helps you make more money is useless by default.

Yes, for the characters without Illusion. There are many quests where you have to raise an NPC's disposition to persuade him/her to do something for you.

So? You play the retarded mini-game.

Hand to Hand?

Why not?

Why yes? Why would you play a hand to hand fighter in a game that doesn't give you any HtH items? Finding better equipment has always been an important game aspect. Offering you to play a class or type that doesn't use items is a design flaw.

Yes, it's in. Most merchants offer a unique magical item. Some are pretty powerful, like this one.

You're right. My mistake.

 

[Silellak]

the entire game is a cake-walk because everything is scaled exactly to your level.

You keep repeating this in many threads, so I wonder have you actually played Oblivion past level 15 or so? The game isn't easy because everything is scaled, it's hard. The game becomes much harder as you progress, and it's very easy to make a gimped character if you don't keep your combat skills high.

When Daedroths and Spider Daedras start popping up you'll get your ass handed to you a lot.

Oblivion IS a cakewalk at levels up to 10, so many people get the wrong impression that it's super casual. It's not. The casual players play Oblivion with the difficulty slider all the way to the left.

Yes, I finished the game and pretty much everything in it. It's far from the worst game I've ever played, and it was entertaining while it lasted, but a good RPG it is not.

I died maybe a dozen times most; there was nothing remotely challenging about it, even at the higher levels. Pretty much every time I died it was due to a stupid mistake I made, rather than the difficulty of the game itself. Runs into Oblivion became so trivial as to be boring after the first dozen or so.

 

[Vault Dweller]

People on the Codex defending Oblivion.

Whelp, now I've officially seen it all.

The prophecy is coming true. The end must be nigh.

 

[Mastermind]

Yeah, well, it was stated already that you can get all skills pretty easy. Thus, broken character system too.

Correction, you think it's broken. And acquiring the skills (and if you're into power gaming, acquiring the skills in the right order to prevent your character from becoming permanently gimped compared to an optimal skill raising path) is a lot more time consuming than it is in fallout. It's easy in the sense that it doesn't take a genius to know how to raise them fairly easily, but then again it doesn't take a genius to press the + button in more traditional character development.

No, that's LARPing. If the game doesn't respond to your choices then it's all in your head.

The game does respond to your choices. Just not through playable faction on playable faction conflict. At the same time, the game does not respond toy our choice to be evil and secretive (like the DB requires) because of the secretive part. If you get caught, there are consequences, and you're doing the whole secretive part wrong.

Pretty much like how in Oblivion you can also LARP an fighter or a mage or whatever the fuck. Since you can get all skills what the fuck stops you from doing it?

Why should a game inexplicably prevent you from becoming a mage if you're also a fighter? Pretty much every rpg lets you advance at an extremely unrealistic level, both in real time and in-game time. I got 200 in 2 skills aftero 40 days in fallout, why can't i get 200 in all of them after 400 days (or something)? Oblivion just cuts out the bullshit forced restrictions and lets you learn whatever you want if you want to spend the time doing it.

btw, larping IS role playing, so I'm not sure why you keep saying it's not role playing, it's larping. larp means live action ROLE PLAYING. maybe find a different word? Role playing is player driven character development. This includes choices and consequences, but it's far from limited to just that, and games that allow the player to define his boundaries are just as much of a role playing game as a game that sets up and enforces some restrictions.

 

[Murk]

To return back to the topic:

This took a while to think about. The article was great, the posts here were good (up until Drog started up his diva/prima donna bullshit) and now I guess I'll add my own entry to the list.

It seems that I almost have some kind of subconscious push to say Arcanum, but the truth is that it is not my RPG of the decade despite being one of the best RPGs I have ever played - but for all its glory, splendor and style, much of it failed to capture me. Maybe it was because dialog was entirely floating text or because every combat encounter was a snore for anyone who had even a passing level of experience with RPGs, but I just can't bring myself to name it the game of the decade. In many ways I'm glad, because Arcanum really is somewhat of a no-brainer as a pick for RPG of the decade.

A game however that I can and want to give this respect to is Gothic 2 (NotR included, but even without it...). A wonderful living world with plenty of exploration, a combat system that was as dependent on your skill as it was on your character's build, proper choices and consequences, hidden quests and secrets, a very lush populated environment with scenery that still puts modern games to shame, and wonderful quest design. It also featured the best fucking expansion pack ever, and despite the shoddy stitching on the VO for some of the expansions added lines, it had not only another great mini world to explore but involved a huge tie-in with the original game and offered amazing challenge and reason to replay. Pretty much EXACTLY what an expansion should do, and it did it in spades. If not for the bugs, I'd say it is almost perfect... but I never had any issues with bugs, so I will say it. It is almost perfect, and the reason I say 'almost' is because our local philosopher and scholar Volourn schooled me hard that one time about how nothing can be perfect (I think it was something like "ffs moran roo-nothing is perfect-fles" or so. I have difficulty understanding his language at times, so forgive me for the bad translation.)

So yeah, I agree with some of the others that Gothic 2 was pretty much the RPG of the decade.

 

[-=DarlSephiroth666=-]

Not sure about the Fallout perks, my memory's pretty hazy, but IIRC there was only a few working combinations: you either increase your AP (Finesse + ActionBoy, etc) OR you increase your Critical Chance.

Was Mercantile a handy skill?

Yes. More important at low levels, though.

Explain. In both Morrowind and Oblivion making a lot of money fast was a design flaw. A skill that helps you make more money is useless by default.

In Oblivion the loot is scaled, so it's shit at low levels, and you'd want to sell it for as much as possible.

Yes, for the characters without Illusion. There are many quests where you have to raise an NPC's disposition to persuade him/her to do something for you.

So? You play the retarded mini-game.

The point is that the skill isn't useless after all.

Hand to Hand?

Why not?

Why yes?

As a back up skill in case your main weapon breaks.

 

[Mastermind]

It's game breaking because it renders the discussion here entirely pointless. It doesn't matter how well-developed your character system is or how many unique items you can buy with X points in Y skill if the entire game is a cake-walk because everything is scaled exactly to your level.

Except the game becomes progressively harder for people who don't know what they're doing because skills can only go up to 100, and while that might make you a god at level 10-20, when you hit 40-60 you'll be facing proportionally stronger monsters but your skill will still be stuck at 100. It's why so many people complain about it: because you're not some uberhaxorgod who can wave a finger and have 50 people drop dead by the time you get to that level.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Oblivion just cuts out the bullshit forced restrictions

Wow, thank God for Oblivion for this monumental breakthrough.
You don't seem to know what an RPG is, do you?

and lets you learn whatever you want if you want to spend the time doing it.

Again, what is the point in doing any of them if you can do all? They could've just gone the FPS way and "cut out the bullshit" with skills and whatnot.

Not that Oblivion doesn't play like a FPS anyway, being able to finish it at level 3 or whatever. Another reason why leveling up in this game is pointless, except to play pretend.

larp means live action ROLE PLAYING.

Well, thank you, but this is exactly what I meant. All the "role-playing" goes on in your head, not in the game.

 

[HardCode]

Now compare this to Fallout where increasing skills only meant a higher rate of success.

Quote of the year.

 

[Silellak]

It's why so many people complain about it: because you're not some uberhaxorgod who can wave a finger and have 50 people drop dead by the time you get to that level.

Weird, I thought people complained it because ruined the exploration part of a very exploration-centric game.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Mastermind is a troll, right?




... right...?

 

[Azrael the cat]

It's game breaking because it renders the discussion here entirely pointless. It doesn't matter how well-developed your character system is or how many unique items you can buy with X points in Y skill if the entire game is a cake-walk because everything is scaled exactly to your level.

Except the game becomes progressively harder for people who don't know what they're doing because skills can only go up to 100, and while that might make you a god at level 10-20, when you hit 40-60 you'll be facing proportionally stronger monsters but your skill will still be stuck at 100. It's why so many people complain about it: because you're not some uberhaxorgod who can wave a finger and have 50 people drop dead by the time you get to that level.

No, I complained about it because it meant I would have the same monster progression if I ran around in circles as I would if I went around exploring every deep dark dungeon.

 

[latexmonkeys]

btw, larping IS role playing, so I'm not sure why you keep saying it's not role playing, it's larping. larp means live action ROLE PLAYING. maybe find a different word? Role playing is player driven character development. This includes choices and consequences, but it's far from limited to just that, and games that allow the player to define his boundaries are just as much of a role playing game as a game that sets up and enforces some restrictions.

No.
They aren't.

This ranks right up there with-
"Well, you play a role, so it must be a role playing game!"

Imagining content that isn't there is kind of creepy in an antisocial,
lives with their mom at 40, incapable of making friends kind of way.
I find it hard do believe that adults actually play the game as you describe.

 

[kris]

No skills in oblivion felt useable at all. In fact every character plays more or less the same.

 

[kris]

btw, larping IS role playing, so I'm not sure why you keep saying it's not role playing, it's larping. larp means live action ROLE PLAYING. maybe find a different word? Role playing is player driven character development. This includes choices and consequences, but it's far from limited to just that, and games that allow the player to define his boundaries are just as much of a role playing game as a game that sets up and enforces some restrictions.

LARPing isn't roleplaying if you don't do it with others. In fact even then it is more akin to acting. If you "LARP" in a game on your own, then you are just pretending and that you can do in any game every made. I can go around playing NWN pretending I am a pretty princess, but that has nothing to do with the game unless the game recognise that.

 

[entertainer]

what the fuck is going on in this thread

 

[kris]

the entire game is a cake-walk because everything is scaled exactly to your level.

You keep repeating this in many threads, so I wonder have you actually played Oblivion past level 15 or so? The game isn't easy because everything is scaled, it's hard. The game becomes much harder as you progress, and it's very easy to make a gimped character if you don't keep your combat skills high.

When Daedroths and Spider Daedras start popping up you'll get your ass handed to you a lot.

Oblivion IS a cakewalk at levels up to 10, so many people get the wrong impression that it's super casual. It's not. The casual players play Oblivion with the difficulty slider all the way to the left.

Which obviously is completely backwards as far as realism go. On relative terms you are more likely to become less powerful the more experienced you become. Instead of having more opportunities, you might get less.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Which obviously is completely backwards as far as realism go. On relative terms you are more likely to become less powerful the more experienced you become. Instead of having more opportunities, you might get less.

Well, if realism is an issue, meeting gradually stronger opponents as you advance in the game's regions is also gamey as hell

and Drog is not totally correct - it's actually a little hard to make a gimped character, since all skills are related to combat (even speechcraft raises personality which can be used for illusion magic). You can't even focus on a non combat skill that will fuck you when you're forced to fight, like in Fallout.

You get stronger opponents as you level up, but all the resources (spells, equipment, etc) you gathered will still give you an advantage over them. I was never in that situation where I'm jumped by unkillable enemies, and I'm not anal about efficient leveling at all

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

what the fuck is going on in this thread

welcome to the Bethesda fan boards.

 

[latexmonkeys]

Let me introduce you to religion.

Point taken.

LARPing isn't roleplaying if you don't do it with others. In fact even then it is more akin to acting. If you "LARP" in a game on your own, then you are just pretending and that you can do in any game every made. I can go around playing NWN pretending I am a pretty princess, but that has nothing to do with the game unless the game recognise that.

I for one often larp alone playing Ms. Pacman.
A deranged transsexual popping "bennies" chasing after the ghosts of fallen lovers. If that ain't rpg goodness i don't know what is!
You see, the truly brilliant rpg designs are more about what isn't there than what is, and your mind supplies the rest.

 

[-=DarlSephiroth666=-]

and Drog is not totally correct - it's actually a little hard to make a gimped character, since all skills are related to combat (even speechcraft raises personality which can be used for illusion magic). You can't even focus on a non combat skill that will fuck you when you're forced to fight, like in Fallout.

A simple example:
Let's say you're level 7. You raise your Sneak, Mysticism and Alchemy each by 10 points and they're your major skills, so you become level 10. The enemies now do more damage/have more health, but your combat abilities are still the same, so you only gimp yourself by such leveling strategy.

As a rule of thumb, if you don't have at least 70 in your main weapon and armor skills by level 15, you're probably screwed. The enemies scale to your level, not your combat abilities.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1035608180
http://rampantgames.com/blog/?p=299



Better have this in one thread.