Okay, I'm a little late, so I might be saying one or two things already covered by BN. Sorry 'bout that.
If you don't like the game requiring you to seek training for getting better that's one thing, but it does have that detail - and that detail is more realistic than a character just gaining new spells because they killed enough gnomes.
But he does get new spells by killing gnomes doesn't he? He qualifies for training in spells by whacking gnomes with his staff. Don't fucking make a feature that's a simple as "Pay gold. Level up." more complex than it is.
And just for the heck of it, let me use some demagorgy for good ol' fun: You know what has a more realistic leveling-system? Oblivion
(And that system fucking sucks, proving the point of good design > realism.)
Then what are you arguing about? If you don't care about the game's world and characters then pick a faction based on what class and skills it makes available.
Infallable logic. The game tries to make me care about the factions, and attempts to set up a moral dilemma and it wants me to make a choice. It actually gets huge credits for this, it's just sad it fails miserably. But back on track: Since it so obviously believes in itself, what's the need to throw something so core gameplay-related into it? As Brother None so finely pointed out, there's absolutely no reason to have that consequence if you can make the other one good enough.
My guess is the design-choice is done purely on making the replayability go up.
Dude, you're evaluating quality. That's subjectivity. That's opinion.
Are you saying it's impossible to evaluate anything then? 'cause that's what I'm hearing, and I disagree very, very much. It's perfectly possible to evaluate good or bad writing to the degree that mechanics have been set up in the history of literature. Why else would there be fields of study on the subject?
Risen's writing is packed with cliché, it fails at "show don't tell," it does not flesh out its characters and it's riddled with inconsistency. This is bad writing.
Out of interest: Do you think Risen has good writing?
Uhh I thought it was fine. Would I have liked more character development options? Yeah but that can be said of damn near every game, including Arcanum which had one of the most extensive character development systems to date.
There's a big difference about characterizing and the character development. Risen's character development is incredibly shallow, to the point I don't think I've actually played any high profile-RPG with a character development quite so bad. But that wasn't my point: You should be able to define you protagonist, or, alternatively, the game should do it for you, a la VtM: Redemption. I mean, who is this guy? The game basically does not lets you do this. It swings back and forth trying to do the job itself, and the next minute it tries to make an attempt at letting you do it.
I agree, and it's a damn shame, but in terms of comparing Risen's NPCs to the average of the current RPG catalog - it's above average.
No, it is not. Perhaps it's above average in the sense that there's 900 million JRPG's out there with characters so shallow they make you puke. But if you attempt to bring Risen into the "RPGs worth playing"-club, it is below average in almost every way, except a potentially mysterious and worthwhile setting.
Easy example of a character that's different than they seem - Alrec the staff trainer at the monastery. He talks the clean game and preaches discipline yet he favors certain people, is a drug dealer, and even resorts to murder in order to keep his cut of the money. Not terribly original but it has some depth to it, and requires an entire investigation to ferret him out.
I was just about to bring him up actually
He is about the only guy they attempt to go deeper with. He is on par with the aforementioned club at least. But that's one example. I fail to see others. Risen reminds me somewhat of a Joss Whedon movie without the pizazz. It has three categories: Good badass, bad badass, and pitiful. Half the signature-quotes of one character could be said by any character in the game without you thinking: "Hey, that's weird. He wasn't characterized as such."
no, I'm saying that each faction using their skills that are unique to their faction is a pretty obvious way of showing how the factions and characters are different from one another.
Then I respectfully reserve the right to say that that's fucking retarded
This part is still murky to me as it seems to say that Risen had good ideas that would have worked in another game/setting?
personally I thought they worked good in the current game/setting. But eh, taste and all that jazz
Let me clarify: I think Risen is complete and utter crap. I think it is one of the worst RPGs I've played recently, to the extent that it fails even worse than Neverwinter Nights 1. It has ideas than are good on paper, but fail miserably in execution. I have rarely been so bored out of my skull with a game.
The personal opinion here, is my dislike of the gameplay. This is purely personal. But if you notice that, I haven't made a single comment about that, because I know it's my personal opinion.
What I argue hasn't got shit to do with personal opinion is bad design and horrible, horrible writing.
I agree that it would require a sense of meta-gaming if you want to experience the faction, but I still find the realistic approach of requiring you to balance goals and beliefs with resources. This is how reality is - if you want to be a pilot you join an organization that trains and specializes in flying - you don't join a naval organization because you agree with their ideals then complain that the boats don't fly.
Bullshit. In real life you can just leave your faction, suffer the consequences, and fly for someone else. You can't do that in Risen. I don't fault them for that, I fault them for trying to achieve realism that only serves as a nuisance because higher levels are impossible.
Oh, nevermind, seems Brother None already said it:
"This is how reality is" means I would also have to spend several ingame years slowly crawling up the ranks and arduously training (which I think Grunker also referred to). In game design, "reality" should never take precedence over good design.
