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It's simple.
Kurwak is an enjoyable game, but not a really good RPG.
Since it still can be defined as RPG, because it has RPG elements, people just vote for it in the RPG category, because they like the game.
This way Kurwak becomes the best RPG, while not even being a good one.
It didn't just reduce my options. It set me on a path of forced choices I had no intention of doing. Let me try to pinpoint exactly what is the problem here. First the game took control out of my hands and forced me to wear centurion armor - I don't like it when games do that - especially games which are so punishing. It's my character, so I should be deciding what to do. This a repeating theme in your game. I can't count the number of times where my character was being hand-held through conversations by asking questions I had no intention of asking while at the same time being denied asking questions I thought would be reasonable. There are many dialogue screens where you just have 1/1 dialogue option - and again... I hate it when games do that. I understand that sometimes you have to do it in order to guide the dialogue into certain direction, but you could have at least added some flavor and variation to it, so it doesn't feel so hand-heldy.
But anyway, I am going into other issues now, so lets get back to the dead centurion... Then I am forced into another two options which I didn't want to do. Now yes, you can say, "AHA! Well you didn't do X and Y and Z, so you didnt get options C, D and E", but my point is that these things require a certain amount of meta-knowledge. For example when you say: "You can sneak all over the palace as you are never forced to fight..." Great! I wish I had the pre-knowledge that the centurion won't cause problems down the line - since, sometimes NOT killing someone can also lead to problems - but then you will say... well if you had a high enough perception bonus you would have gotten a hint that the guy was going to be trouble. Yeah! Thanks for that! I wish I knew that when I was making my character. Same thing with the main quests. You will tell me: "You can finish the main quests with all builds unless you do something stupid!". I will tell you "Great! I wish I knew the game was designed that way, because then I wouldn't bother with dangerous side quests out of fear that I will be missing a crucial piece of information, item or skill in the main quest."
After a while playing your game, you become paranoid that every character, every small detail is important and can get you killed, so when an opportunity arises to kill someone... yeah.. in a hindsight it was a stupid decision, but then again not killing a character may lead to the same outcome. I don't know... I haven't designed the goddamn thing! Do you see what I am getting at?
The information is obfuscated by the very own strength of the game. Its a paradox of sorts, so you will often times find yourself hitting a brick wall, reloading... relocating your skill points differently, getting the missing equipment you had no idea you will need and then doing the same mission again without a problem. Or maybe next time you will go left instead of right and find a different solution which wont get you killed, but will trigger some other event that will just kill you later. In games like Fallout, this is not the case, which is why I don't like certain design choices in your game. Fallout never shoe-horns you into a situation where there is absolutely no way out. It might shoe horn you into a more difficult situation, but there is always a way out. Now you may say that this is not realistic and what not, but I find the realism argument ironic since it usually comes from people who are save-scumming their way through your game - as if save-scumming is realistic.
Now, an occasional reload... that is fine. Especially if you die in combat. But the number of times I had to reload simply because my character didn't have a particular item or a skill is staggering. And again often times you are shoe horned into these situations not by gameplay, but by dialogue events which you have no idea where exactly they will lead.
I think your design is guilty of a false dilemma fallacy where you as a developer are assuming that the options you have given to the player are the only few options that are logical in that particular situation - and that people won't try different things that might be logical, but that you as a developer didn't predict.
This is an extremely subjective area. There are people who really like our design and people who don't because they prefer different gameplay. You claim that things you dislike are bad (they must be otherwise you'd surely like them), which is kinda silly.
Yeah, and there are people who like Oblivion design and gameplay, and then there are people who claim their design is bad. Its all subjective. I can't wait to read the comments from retarded fanboys who will twist my words into: "Oh my god... did he just compare AoD to Oblivion?!
A) The writing is certainly not "great" - it's clunky and feels like it was translated from Russian or some other Slavic language. B) That is certainly not the game /everyone/ wanted, just people who really like C&C and stat checks, which admittedly is quite a few here.
But by no means are you mandated to like it if it's not your cup of tea. It's certainly not mine.
How could you know if you didn't play the game? If I ask Prima Junta why the writing in Tyranny sucks, he can present one thousand reasons. You on the other hand, have nothing but blank assertions without argumentation. If you think you are going to convince other people to avoid the game that way you are delusional. Instead, you are just giving VD free publicity. Every other person in this forum that badmouthed the game in the past and decided to play it, is now praising it. You just can't accept that a codexer can make a great cRPG and you are trying to rationalize your ass because you are so arrogant that you think you can dictate other people's tastes. That's all. I will repeat this one more time: the amount of games you played means nothing if you don't have a choerent and principled way of analysing things. Posters like you are arbitrary and ignorant. You think you can praise a classic for its character building, while dissmissing other game that does the same thing for personal reasons; you think they can dissmiss games like Oblivion and praise a popamole game like TW3 just because some of your colleagues is doing the same. Bunch of simple minded frauds. People like you are here to remind us that you can spent years on the Codex and don't learn a thing.
I think that, in order to approach a solid definition, we could try and study the properties of a game eligible for the title of an RPG, much like in physics we can't exactly say what mass is, but we perceive its properties through various phenomena and interactions.
So let's try to find some common characteristics:
An RPG is a "Role" Playing game. So we are playing a role. But what role is it? There are thousands of character archetypes and stories, laid before us from the world's treasure that is known as literature, to be explored and expanded upon. Could we be the ingenious Engineer Cyrus Smith form Jule Verne's The Mysterious Island, who managed to deduce the island's geo-location using two fucking sticks and the sun? Or perhaps, could we be someone like the Strugatsky bros Stalker? Fuck no. You will probably end up a Wizard. Or a Fighter. Or a Thief. And most definitely a Person of Great Destiny. So...
Key Element 1: Wizards! Fighters! Rogues! Vanguards! People who bash heads with different movesets and titles!
Some "Deep" RPGs have been detected in some experimental Large Autism Colliders for containing Factions. You must have the Blue Faction who has money, the Red Faction who uses magick, the Yellow Faction who are mercenary fighters, the Purple Faction who is an obscure cult of super-secret assasins and so on and so forth. Obviously, since this is not enough, and almost noone has bothered to study and figure out that, especially in nonmagical settings, societies are not run by voluntaristic factions that sperg out against each other waiting for the key hero to tip the balance, we need to add something more to the mix to obfuscate the inevitable dialectic clusterfuck we have created: A Greater Evil™. It usually has to be ugly or alien and mostrous, because we haven't really evolved beyond Manichaeism now, have we? Then, some factions will ally with this Greater Evil, while others may oppose it. I believe that such notions are groundbreaking, not anti-dialectic at all, and totally haven't been explored since 1000 BC.
Key Element 2: Factions! Ugly Final Bosses! Excitement!
Now a very common element is the inclusion of races: Horse races, rabbit races Elves, dwarves, half-giants (half the polygons) and many never seen before humanoid amalgamations, such as half-centaur, half-diabetic and half-a-penny. Because not all teenagers can fap successfully to other humans, an RPG, even a futuristic one, must contain at least some of the ready-to-recognize races like Elves and other species who became mainstream by a Master Autist almost a century ago. What? You don't know who I'm talking about? His name is James RR Tolkien. Jeez, you live under a rock or sumfin? Now some foundation-shaking RPGs tend to make serious subversions by OMG MAKING THE ELVEN RACE THE POOR ONES!1!!11!
Key Element 3: Elves! Dwarves! Gnomes! Celestials! Half Quarter of an eighth Minotaurs! FAP FAP FAP FAP
One particular property of a solid-state RPG is the attraction of scattered, high-mass particles known as Elite Spergs. They tend to congregate around "deep" and "complex" RPGs, being vehemently repulsed from the low-mass, numerous Mainstream Sperg particles, who are in turn strongly attracted to Minecraft and Roblox servers. Now there is a hypothesis that we are actually talking about the very same particle and the only difference is the (meat)spin value. Experiments are being conducted as we talk. Deep and complex issues tackled by solid RPGs are: What is a human life worth (encountered after we have slain over 9,000 mooks), pull lever A and kill the ugly Elf or pull lever B and kill the beautiful Dwarf, what people can sacrifice to achieve their goals (totally not explored since a fuckton of centuries ago, but one needs to have read something other than Salvatore to know this), and many more deeply philosophical conundrums, such as what chick to bang with our romance options.
Key element 4: Deep themes! Moral Conundrums! Nobody gives a fuck!
Now a small, independent team of researchers states that the purest form of an RPG should contain Hard Skill Checks (known as numbers going up and down) and Choices and Consequances (known as digital choose-your-own-adventure). They are mainly countered by another group stating that RPGs of the olden days didn't involve such doohickeys and thus the former group is falsely identifying one genre with another. Of course, the latter group fails to realize that the laws of evolution permeates the entire spectrum of human intellectual creation and that evolution tends to organize creation in a higher order of complexity, instead of backtracking to dialogues with binary answers, token identities and backstories, and spell buttons with cooldown effects.
Key element 5: Check my stats! Show my ending slides!
CONCLUSION
After running a high-capacity neural network with more than a million training sessions, I was able to deduce the only game that perfectly combines the above key elements.
Key element #1: Has Standard Classes: Plumber, which historically meant an apprentice Artificer, and also Prestige Classes: Super Plumber.
Key element #2: Has various factions like Koopas, Goombas etc. Obviously features an ugly, reptilian, Greater Evil, end game boss.
Key element #3: You play as a dwarf and can switch to half-giant with a mushroom which is a reward of a quest involving banging your head on a ? block (one of the first fetch quests actually, since you fetch the block your head).
Key element #4: Will you sacrifice a nearly-extinct reptilian species to put some fingers in that sweet Peach Pie? Or will you stand idle and watch the time counter reach zero?
Key element #5: Hard skill checks: Gaining a life requires a coin skill of 100. Jumping those gaps in 8-1 require some mad skills bro. Also, you get your ending slide with the princess, but if you choose to die you get an alternate(!) Game Over slide.
A) The writing is certainly not "great" - it's clunky and feels like it was translated from Russian or some other Slavic language. B) That is certainly not the game /everyone/ wanted, just people who really like C&C and stat checks, which admittedly is quite a few here.
But by no means are you mandated to like it if it's not your cup of tea. It's certainly not mine.
How could you know if you didn't play the game? If I ask Prima Junta why the writing in Tyranny sucks, he can present one thousand reasons. You on the other hand, have nothing but blank assertions without argumentation. If you think you are going to convince other people to avoid the game that way you are delusional. Instead, you are just giving VD free publicity. Every other person in this forum that badmouthed the game in the past and decided to play it, is now praising it. You just can't accept that a codexer can make a great cRPG and you are trying to rationalize your ass because you are so arrogant that you think you can dictate other people's tastes. That's all. I will repeat this one more time: the amount of games you played means nothing if you don't have a choerent and principled way of analysing things. Posters like you are arbitrary and ignorant. You think you can praise a classic for its character building, while dissmissing other game that does the same thing for personal reasons; you think they can dissmiss games like Oblivion and praise a popamole game like TW3 just because some of your colleagues is doing the same. Bunch of simple minded frauds. People like you are here to remind us that you can spent years on the Codex and don't learn a thing.
I don't have to play the entire game to judge the writing style. The demos and screenshots were more than enough, thank you.
Also point out where I "praise" the Witcher 3. My vote for it is more a grudging admittance that out of all RPGs released that year, it comes closest to being half-way decent on merits of world-building and acceptable writing alone.
I wish you'd just get over it already. Not everyone is going to like the writing style in AoD. Not everyone is going to like Nabokov, not everyone is going to like PS:T's writing, not everyone is comfortable reading Ulysses. Stop projecting your own faults on me.
We've simply become tired of "analyzing." I have done that plenty - 7, 8 years ago. I'm tired of repeating the same fucking points for every new generation of newfags. Fuck off, sincerely.
I mean... Wizardry 1 - not an RPG, no stat checks in dialogue. No C&C...
Witcher? Does that even have stats?
Rogue - there's stats and combat but no stat checks...
Knights of the Chalice (one of the most celebrated RPGs on the Codex) - not a single stat check in the entire game, it's all combat...
This list reminds me of the Codex Top 50 in that it almost feels correct but the #1 and #2 are reversed. Fallout should edge out ahead of Planescape and AoD should edge out ahead of the Witcher 3.
I mean... Wizardry 1 - not an RPG, no stat checks in dialogue. No C&C...
Witcher? Does that even have stats?
Rogue - there's stats and combat but no stat checks...
Knights of the Chalice (one of the most celebrated RPGs on the Codex) - not a single stat check in the entire game, it's all combat...
I do have the feeling Jasede referred to stat checks as in "in dialogues", not the general fact that stats are present (which are then obviously checked in some form, usually combat).
this nigga thought he could get away with dialog
"diplomacy", look where it got the dog
skills to check? there ain't a catalog
my glock writes your life's epilogue
In regard to "nationalist conspiracies" and unfair competition methods I had the impression that there was an "HUGE" artificial overhype with The Witcher 3, but maybe the polaquitos are not guilty...
For example the pre-release lie about the "map size" that even nowadays is the usually cited size is created by a american reddit user. The same (not specifically for americans, but simply "not polish") with the exagerations or misinformations about the lines of dialogue, combat mechanics, etc.
It's true that critics unanimity is suspicious, but come on guys! The pre-Witcher 3 cd Projeckt Red was not EA... I higly doubt that they bribe every "critic".
Searching for national patterns on steam vote we can find interesting data:
For example the polish language reviews of TW3 are only a 1,4% of the total, being the polish language users on steam a 2,25% right now... Still there are only 12 negative polish language reviews (0,5% of negative total), so yes, the polish people on steam vote positively their national "treasure", but don't seems to exist a great "nationalist campaign".
Well, searching for patterns in steam votes we could find more interesting examples than The Witcher 3, for example Age of Decadence... Are they canadians? Well... Surprisingly, many canadians seems to hate AoD, some of the most rabid negative comments are from canadians... I did a non exaustive search (only searched in the most recent, old and "most useful" negative comments...) and I count at least 10 canadian downvotes, > 5% of negative reviewers only in that little search... That's for sure more than the % of canadians in Steam or the usual % of "national dislike" specially on indie games.
Not sure why there's so much shirt-rending over Witcher 3. Whether or not it deserves the top spot (I have no clue; never played it), the bigger issue is all the Codexers playing games like Dragon Age: Inquisition and Fallout 4 while ignoring a lot of the good stuff in the green and grey areas. It's not so much that the incline didn't happen, it's that most of the Codex ignored it because they preferred to play AAA games they claim to hate.
Well, searching for patterns in steam votes we could find more interesting examples than The Witcher 3, for example Age of Decadence... Are they canadians? Well... Surprisingly, many canadians seems to hate AoD, some of the most rabid negative comments are from canadians... I did a non exaustive search (only searched in the most recent, old and "most useful" negative comments...) and I count at least 10 canadian downvotes, > 5% of negative reviewers only in that little search... That's for sure more than the % of canadians in Steam or the usual % of "national dislike" specially on indie games.
Lol are you seriously being apologetic about liking Bloodlines more than AoD? AoD is a decent indie game blown out of proportions in here because VD is a longtime member/ex mod and he's got a bunch of obsessive autists shilling and sucking his dick 24/7. Any Troika game shits all over the top 5 of this supposed ''incline'' list.
Hell no, I'm not apologetic. I mentioned AoD and VS:T because I've played them in addition to the mass-market stuff, so I can say firsthand that none of these games are anywhere near Maximum Incline.
Bloodlines is great and one of my fav RPGs, definitely top5, but let's face it, it was very flawed too. Man, two street cities, weak combat, not enough story branching, le spooky effects, tape recorder journals, the fucking sewers, rushed ending...
AoD is the only game that went full in with the stat check dialogue branching story, and this is something people here have wanted since Fallout came out (remember, that series that's the #2 AND #3 RPGCodex game of all time?). So no, it's not blown out of proportion, it's a one of a kind game. With great writing and no filler to boot. Now you can argue about personal tastes, but you're just trying to be edgy right now.
Like I said, Bloodlines checks all the wrong boxes, suffers from flawed design & execution, yet the overall result is pretty good. As expected from a top-notch veteran dev team.
AoD checks all the right boxes (except graphics, but who cares) but the gameplay is "meh". It's CYOA with little areas you can walk around and fight in. I guess VD went too far in that direction to make the branching storyline work. I understand the dilemma. Like SitS, it was a decent early effort from a promising indie dev.
AoD is a decent indie game blown out of proportions in here because VD is a longtime member/ex mod and he's got a bunch of obsessive autists shilling and sucking his dick 24/7. Any Troika game shits all over the top 5 of this supposed ''incline'' list.
On the contrary. AoD is a new classic that doesn’t get half of the attention it deserves because it is an indie game made by a codexer. If he were a nobody without a past inside this forum, with all the bickering and butthurt associated with it, or if he were an intern of Obsidian, the reception would be more positive. I found out about the game before joining the Codex. In fact, I found the Codex because of AoD and I’m pretty sure that the more than 80 thousand people who bought the game are not solely Codexers. Troika games are classics because they implement some things right, but they are uneven for many reasons. VTM:B has nice atmosphere, skill checks and exploration, but the combat system is a joke, the game is mostly linear, etc. You play the haunted house for the first time and it is so cool. You play a second or a third, no so much. Arcanum has great setting and cool details, but the gameplay is broken and the combat is an aberration. AoD has great combat system, excellent writing, amazing reactivity, abundant stat/skill checks, great itemization, etc. But hey, let’s ignore the facts because CYOA and Troika games are better because grafixs! If Tim Cain or Avellone had made the same game you would say that AoD is an awesome classic, but since it’s VD, is just a nice indie game. Who care about facts, when you only care about developer’s pedigree, am I right?
Not sure why there's so much shirt-rending over Witcher 3. Whether or not it deserves the top spot (I have no clue; never played it), the bigger issue is all the Codexers playing games like Dragon Age: Inquisition and Fallout 4 while ignoring a lot of the good stuff in the green and grey areas. It's not so much that the incline didn't happen, it's that most of the Codex ignored it because they preferred to play AAA games they claim to hate.
The two things are associated, no? TW3 would never have this reception if they weren't used to play popamole games with a straight face. It only takes a small group of peers, some knee jerk reaction and crazy things like nationalism to come to this. It's dishonesty and lack of criteria, pure and simple.
The only things Witcher 3 have that are alot superior to Fallout 4 without question are the writing, the world building and graphix. On a technical level, Witcher 3 is an impressive game and Fallout 4 is a joke. However, if you are a storyfag or some nerdy guy that has hard on seeing shiny graphix, if you only care about the package of a game and don't care at all about gameplay, yes Witcher 3 is a much superior game to Fallout 4.
However, on a mechanical level, both games are uther AAA garbage, I played worse popamole games than Witcher 3 and even enjoyed them but I have no illusions like you guys are hell bent into believing that CDProjekt isn't selling popamole like everyone else and is somehow incline. Actually, they are going on a path that I really fear but isn't only them but pretty much all AAA studios that make AAA "RPGs".
I know how it is tradition here on Popamole Codex to mock the question of "What an RPG is?" but to anyone that likes to mock this so much you must be aware that there is a slippery slope. Look to New Vegas a few years ago, it was a popamole action RPG like the Witcher 3 is but there was skills, attibutes, skill and attibute checks on dialog and all sort of stuff. The game had some handholding but handholding is reaching a new level on the last few years, Witcher 3 is dangerous close to a game that play itself, actually the best parts of the game you are a passive watcher instead of interacting with the game. There is a diluting of RPG qualities to a point where on the future there won't be action/RPG but action/action.
People are here on Popamole Codex are defending games that are stripped of very basic RPG mechanics as they were incline. To me, there isn't much of a difference between Dragon Age Inquisition, Fallout 4 and Witcher 3. If you hate SJW stuff, you wont like Inquisition, if you hold a grudge with Bethesda or just can't stand their retarded worldbuildng and writing, you won't like Fallout 4, if you are POTATO STRONK! and like "Epic Grand Adventure on Edgy Fantasy Land." with kinda decent writing, you will like Witcher 3. But in terms of actual gameplay, they are pretty much similar. Single player MMOs with tons of filler content to waste your time. Of the three, Witcher 3 is the better one but it still is a single player MMO.
