Scorpia and Baldur's Gate, a discussion from 2006

[Roguey]

In the new XCOMs they had to cheat the RNG in your favor because most people don't understand how they work.

 

[Grauken]

but it's 90%, it can't fail ten times in a row :ehue:


people and math

 

[Farmer Brun's Dead Son]

People should use this

"RANDOM.ORG offers true random numbers to anyone on the Internet. The randomness comes from atmospheric noise, which for many purposes is better than the pseudo-random number algorithms typically used in computer programs."

Tr\/e randomness!

 

[Grauken]

I got a 100, I win

 

[Hobo Elf]

but it's 90%, it can't fail ten times in a row :ehue:


people and math

I guess it's weird for some people, especially new gamers. Back in the day 90% meant 90% which means that there's always the 10% chance that you don't hit, and with awful luck it can happen many times over. However in newer games some developers have adopted an easier system system where 90% chance to hit means that within 10 shots 9 of them will always hit and then one will miss and it will keep repeating this cycle. In real time action oriented games they may even go for a system where X amount of hits and/or crits may occur within a certain time frame, say, a minute. As an example, let's say you have 30% crit chance. It means that within a minutes time frame it keeps rolling the 30% to see when you will crit within that time frame, so it seems more random as it can happen any second, however if you keep failing the roll then it will forcibly give you a crit in the last second before starting the process all over again.

So yeah the way that new games fudge the math in the players favor it will seem pretty odd to them if they go back to old games where it's true RNG.

 

[Fowyr]

However in newer games some developers have adopted an easier system system where 90% chance to hit means that within 10 shots 9 of them will always hit and then one will miss and it will keep repeating this cycle.

So they brought gambler's fallacy into real life.

 

[Lhynn]

Powergaming always takes the fun off rpgs.

This is false.

 

[Neanderthal]

Can see where she were comin from, lot o ways BG were a regression from what had come afore. But this is whole point o decline innit? The new is always better, the old is shit (even when you ant played it) an journalists an devs are always pursuin regression an simplification that they call innovation.

 

[pippin]

Powergaming always takes the fun off rpgs.

This is false.

Powergaming is Press X To Win by other name. Where's the fun in not being able to lose?

 

[Lhynn]

Powergaming is Press X To Win by other name

Nope, powergaming is getting there.

 

[animlboogy]

People should use this

"RANDOM.ORG offers true random numbers to anyone on the Internet. The randomness comes from atmospheric noise, which for many purposes is better than the pseudo-random number algorithms typically used in computer programs."

Tr\/e randomness!

My first number was 6. I believe that mathematically guarantees my death within the day.

 

[Sacred82]

oh lol


rolling 1-4 out of 20 for several minutes =/= missing three times with a 90% hit chance

 

[Monkeyfinger]

I've always been kind of underwhelmed by her analysis -- it was certainly more nuts-and-bolts and informed than many mainstream reviewers, but if you compare it to the similar review style on the Codex, her work seems really lacking. She seemed incapable of thinking of how others would play the game, and things that to me seem quite small (or simply incorrect) would be of intense importance to her. For example, her comments about the RNG in BG -- the combination of self-aggrandizement and certitude about something that is almost certainly incorrect is pretty lame: "The RNG is cheating!!!!" is one thing to exclaim in the privacy of your own home when you a point-blank burst in X-Com or Fallout, but it's kind of dodgy in a formal review.

My exposure to her was mostly through the CRPG Addict, where her reviews almost always seem to miss the forest for the trees -- her bottom line is often right, but for the wrong reasons. I think she also commented once on an article I wrote for The Escapist, and it seemed to me she hadn't actually read the article but had very firm opinions about what was wrong in it. So maybe I'm biased.

WHEN YOU A POINT BLANK BURST

 

[MRY]

I need someone to start ringing a bell and shouting, "Shame! Shame!" at my typography.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Gaming journalism used to be eclectic. You can see how somebody like Scorpia would become alienated as it got taken over by the familiar specialized caste of urban liberals and money men.

I remember this guy Sandy Petersen, who I think used to work as a games reviewer back in the day, and he would give a lot of games (even really good ones) very shitty scores. Then he went on to work on Age of Empires 2, and would give amusing interviews/updates on their forums.

 

[Dyspaire]

Not sure if it's already been posted in this thread, but I am sure that many reading this are already familiar with this website. In any event,

http://www.cgwmuseum.org/index.php

Under Galleries you'll find pdf versions of all those great old issues of Computer Gaming World a lot of us remember reading back in the day, Scorpia included.

Nostalgia is a helluva thing, but it's the only gaming publication I think I've ever purchased, and even now, reading through those old issues, it just seems head-and-shoulders above 99.9% of modern gaming journalism.

Written by gamers at a time when you could count the community by the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of millions. The games were different, the journalism was different, and all change and all progress is not necessarily positive in the long run.

Very glad I was there at the beginning.

 

[Lilura]

I remember Amiga gaming journalism as being shockingly shallow and biased in the early 90s... Cannon Fodder on the Amiga was massively overrated, too: the Amiga hosted far superior titles than that!

I think current gen journalism is superior to those days, overall, because it isn't limited to a few monthly magazines.

Mmm... maybe I will start covering Amiga games. I know more about them than I do RPGs.

 

[pippin]

Games journalism was always crooked, precisely because it was a small business. And you never knew because you only saw the final product. You might never even play half of the games mentioned and reviewed in a magazine, but if the person saying it's cool, it has to be cool, isn't it? After all, they are gamers just lke us...

So yeah, games journalism was always bad because it is journalism and, in the grand scheme of things, one more cog in the marketing machine. That's why games journalism is undergoing a crisis right now: they aren't needed anymore.

 

[oldmanpaco]

CGW was the only game magazine I read back in the 90's (or ever) and Scorpia was a draw. One of the clearest reviews I remember her writing about how shit U8 was. Damn she hated that game. I had stopped reading CGW by the time BG1 came out and missed out on her end.

 

[Dyspaire]

I remember Amiga gaming journalism as being shockingly shallow and biased in the early 90s... Cannon Fodder on the Amiga was massively overrated, too: the Amiga hosted far superior titles than that!

I think current gen journalism is superior to those days, overall, because it isn't limited to a few monthly magazines.

Mmm... maybe I will start covering Amiga games. I know more about them than I do RPGs.

The game on the screen in that picture is the least important element it contains, and is irrelevant to the reason I posted it.

The image should evoke a time and a place that will ring quite familiar to any who witnessed it first-hand, and the memories it hopefully rekindles in the viewer were/are my sole motivation.


Your blog is quite good, and you are definitely making a welcome and very positive contribution to the community with it. Your work would not have been out-of-place in the pages of CGW during its heyday.

 

[Jaesun]

Gawd I miss my Amiga 500. Good times.

 

[Mexi]

Powergaming always takes the fun off rpgs.

This is false.

Nah, it's true.

 

[PhantasmaNL]

Is that pic a raytrace btw? Also something from the old days when creating a shiny purple ball floating above a mirror would take 16 hours of processing time from your 386dx.

Written by gamers is the crux i guess. I did write for a small games magazine a long time ago and everybody there was a gamer, each with their specialization (the irony is, in hindsight we could have used a non gamer, lets say an actual business person or someone who at least knew how to sell ads and stuff) and quircks, basically a stereotypical bunch of enthusiastic nerds. I did get to write the original Fallout preview (liked it, but buggy, dont remember the details) and also an article on one of Larians first games plus an interview with Sven. Yeah, at that time i saw myself as having a carreer in playing games and writing about them. Instead i ended up writing business software. Oh well. Nostalgia indeed.

 

[Lilura]

Your blog is quite good, and you are definitely making a welcome and very positive contribution to the community with it. Your work would not have been out-of-place in the pages of CGW during its heyday.

Thanks for those kind words, Dyspaire. And yeah, the pic does indeed invoke memories of those times. The only thing it lacks is two friends playing a game together, both with joystick in hand. Oh, and several diskboxes packed full of pirated diskettes.

 

[laclongquan]

Sounds like she was a fucking hero.

Here are some snippets from her article:

And here is the dissenting sidebar where the editorial staff publically stabbed her in the back:

About the biggest problem I have with her review is the argument concerning fatigue after a journey.
It's hard to say.
On the one hand, it's realistic. This is medieval setting, people move by foot. Long journey equal rest upon arrival. On the other hand it's no fun pressing rest immediately entering a new map after travel. So generally I give BG1 a rest about that feature.

Although I agree with the assessment of Scorpia being a Codexer without Codex. She got VIEWS, but that does not get challenged by other Codexers and supplement upon by other like-minded individual. Well, at that time, Codex is the starting era of that pile glittering gems of hatred so I am not sure we could help.