What is it about BioWare...

[udarnik]

Since we're talking about a combat-heavy crpg, I'll mention that I've been trying to finish Wizardry 8 this past week. It takes a certain calm and passive mindset to play long stretches of Wiz8. Sometimes I'll initiate a turn and then walk away and brew some coffee while the 50 monsters each take their turn. Still, the Wizardries have all had the most addictive level-progression of any game I've played, and perhaps the most tactical combat of any crpg, so I'm having a lot of fun. I've a whole list of games I need to finish before I can get around to looking at PoR2, and by then ToEE will probably be out.

 

[triCritical]

Since we're talking about a combat-heavy crpg, I'll mention that I've been trying to finish Wizardry 8 this past week. It takes a certain calm and passive mindset to play long stretches of Wiz8. Sometimes I'll initiate a turn and then walk away and brew some coffee while the 50 monsters each take their turn. Still, the Wizardries have all had the most addictive level-progression of any game I've played, and perhaps the most tactical combat of any crpg, so I'm having a lot of fun. I've a whole list of games I need to finish before I can get around to looking at PoR2, and by then ToEE will probably be out.

The Wizardries and Might and Magics have always been about phat l00t and level progression. Thats why I was a bit dissapointed with the lack of levels and phat l00t in the latest wizardry. But what SirTech has over Might and Magic is combat. They have turned it into an art. There games seem to be built around combat and the most integral aspect of the game mechanics is combat. You gain levels to be better at combat, and in combat you get better that is the vicious cycle. To enjoy wizardry you really have to enjoy combat.

BTW, remember that you can speed up the monster animations significantly in Wizardry. And remember to avoid combat when you see lots of monsters on the radar. It is very possible. Also remember to use the environment as your ally, and monsters will normally march right into a massacre.

 

[Zetor]

Be sure to get Wiz8Fast, it helps a LOT. [it makes all monsters move instantly, kinda like the 'fast turnbased' mode in Arcanum.. the animations still play, though]

-- Z.

 

[udarnik]

Yeah, I've already shifted the animation speed slider. When I see all those red blips on the screen, though, I just steel myself and dive right in. After all, if I didn't want to get into fights I wouldn't be playing Wizardry, right?

I've actually restarted the game four or five times already because of my slowly dawning knowledge of how the combat works and how I like to fight. It wasn't until I got to the swamp that I realized the importance of ranged fighters. It wasn't until Bayjin that I realized the importance of fast defensive casters. And so on. And of course, all the times you start a party and get five levels in when you realize that you really should have done THIS. Or wish you had THAT.

And I haven't run into any phat l00t yet. Hell, I'm having problems even getting enough throwing knives and such for my characters to use.

I need to finish IWD, too. I remember getting as far as Yxunomei (who has got to be my favorite villian of all time). But then quit. It seems all crpgs are about 10-20 hours too long for my attention span. I thought Fallout was the perfect length, actually.

 

[Elwro]

Wizardry 8 has to be one of the most boring CRPG experiences I had (I don't mean "most boring CRPGs I've ever played"). I played for 25-30 hours and dropped it. I shifted the sliders properly at the beginning and still the fights were taking an insane amount of time. You're saying that the game is about combat and tactics - well, if my all party has to stand in one place, it's almost like playing a FPS with a multiheaded hero. [I don't say I didn't like EOBs, DMs etc., but one wouldn't praise strategic values of these titles]. I will try this fix Zetor proposed, maybe it will help.
I also really wanted to explore some original features of this game, e.g. the tinker class, which proved really useless with the game being all about H&S and the gun dealing very small amount of damage. I'm not sure but I think that if I had 6 macho-fighters, I wouldn't have a problem in this game.
I agree that the experience system was good. I liked lockpicking, too. Magic system was interesting. But for example the wilderness areas were sterile and just dull. That's one thing I like about M&Ms - interesting and picturesque areas for exploration (and also that they don't melt in your hands). The combat may be too extensive, but I get some (small) rewards for it in terms of discovering some secrets etc. Too bad there's no dialogue at all. IMHO the dialogue in Wizardry was comparable to Morrowind.
I also don't like when I have to move in turns because something had seen me from 1 km and began to attack.
So, I'll check if the fights are faster with the above fix. If so, I'll try again. Maybe I'll eventually dig to some real CRPG waluse of Wizardry 8.

 

[triCritical]

I've actually restarted the game four or five times already because of my slowly dawning knowledge of how the combat works and how I like to fight. It wasn't until I got to the swamp that I realized the importance of ranged fighters. It wasn't until Bayjin that I realized the importance of fast defensive casters. And so on. And of course, all the times you start a party and get five levels in when you realize that you really should have done THIS. Or wish you had THAT.

Creating a party is probably the single funnest thing to do in a wizardry game.

And I haven't run into any phat l00t yet. Hell, I'm having problems even getting enough throwing knives and such for my characters to use.

This was a dissapointment for me. You won't really get anything until you reach the rapax, and nessie.

 

[Jed]

Oh, Tri, you didn't read your manual: if you turn the combat round speed all the way down, it disables the timer!

 

[udarnik]

You're saying that the game is about combat and tactics - well, if my all party has to stand in one place, it's almost like playing a FPS with a multiheaded hero. [I don't say I didn't like EOBs, DMs etc., but one wouldn't praise strategic values of these titles].

You and Monte Carlo are being really loose with the term FPS, which stands for "first person shooter", by the way, and is used for games where you point at a creature in order to shoot it. Wizardry 8 uses a first person perspective, but the combat is entirely based on number crunching. The fact that your party must move together in a formation rather than being able to split up certainly takes away one level of tactics (overlapping fields of fire, flanking or surrounding, etc.) but there are certainly other tactics that Wizardry does allow you to use. (using the environment for cover, choosing attacks based on your enemies weaknesses, etc.)

I also really wanted to explore some original features of this game, e.g. the tinker class, which proved really useless with the game being all about H&S and the gun dealing very small amount of damage. I'm not sure but I think that if I had 6 macho-fighters, I wouldn't have a problem in this game.

This demonstrates my point. Tinkers can be very powerful, but using one is a tactical decision - do you want to do a maximum amount of damage, or do you want to inflict the many many status ailments that a tinker deals out in order to cripple the enemy? My tinker is just starting to come into his own, actually. Ranged combat and magic are very powerful in this game but they have to be carefully built by a player who knows what they want their characters to specialize in. And although I am sure that you could get through it with six fighters, I am also confident that there are many areas in the game where those fighters would get owned. Remember I mentioned the Bayjin? Being mentally raped by psionic spells will give you new appreciation of the weakness of a group of big dumb fighters.

Anyway, those are just the areas that I disagree with you in. But I can understand someone who thinks the game is boring, because the battles do last forever. I just think you're missing out on the rewards that make it enjoyable for those who are able to live with the game's combat/puzzle oriented character.

 

[Zetor]

'Zactly. Gadgeteers are far from underpowered -- they can cast 'spells' with their gadgets for free [and frequently at power level 7] and they're unaffected by silence / antimagic fields, unlike bards. It's generally better to have the gadgeteer use gadgets [the lightning rod] until you get a repeater attachment at level 12-ish. After that, load up on hex darts [80% hex], impaling stones and eventually high-end arrows/bolts.. quite devastating.
That's the aspect I like most about Wiz8 - it's extremely polished and balanced. Every party will have its difficulties, but they'll all be able to complete the game with the right tactics.

The game does take dedication [and lots of it] and I can certainly understand someone getting frustrated by the endless fights. I bought the game because I liked the tactical combat / character development aspect of W6-7 and wanted more of the same. And I definitely got my money's worth.
Plus, W8 is one of those rare games that didn't need a patch at all other than a 39kb texture file they forgot to burn on the gold disk; the patches they did release address minor balance issues like pickpocketing. Releasing non-vital patches for a game after the company's gone bankrupt... now THAT is dedication. Bioware, are you listening?

-- Z.

 

[Elwro]

You and Monte Carlo are being really loose with the term FPS, which stands for "first person shooter", by the way, and is used for games where you point at a creature in order to shoot it. .

Why, of course. I didn't buy my computer yesterday and I know what "FPS" means . I used this expression because the majority of fights I went through were fought with some distance between my party and the enemies. (I found out that the best tactics for my party is to run, cast spells and shoot; I thought that a Valkyrie, Lord and a Fighter (or was it a Samurai?) would be enough for melee, but I was proven wrong). Than, it looked just like a turn-based FPS. (I don't say M&M didn't).

I failed to notice any 'status damage' dealt by my tinker except for VERY occasional stunning/blinding or what it was (can't remember). Perhaps it would change had I played more.

I agree that I must have missed the majority of the 'number-crunching' experience. I normally crave for such things, but the manual in this game is far from perfect and I couldn't fully grasp the fight system (and types of weapons); to be honest, I didn't try too hard because I was also playing Morrowind then.

So perhaps I have to make a different party and start again. But imo having to play the game a few times in order to know which types of character are truly needed is suitable for roguelikes... I have too few clues in the manual concerning what could be the future benefits of the "non-standard" classes, like e.g. the tinker. One of my friends finished FO2 having Endurance 1. I hear playing 6 halfiling barbarians will be a way to beat ToEE. But it seems to me that in Wiz8 you have to more or less make a party in a proper way just to be able to play the game with pleasure... enough, I'll try again.

 

[Elwro]

That's the aspect I like most about Wiz8 - it's extremely polished and balanced. Every party will have its difficulties, but they'll all be able to complete the game with the right tactics.

Whoa, your post appeared when I was writing mine, so I didn't see it. All I can say is that you are more and more encouraging me to replay Wiz8. Thanks for the tips; after my exam session, and after I finish Exult and Geneforge, I will perhaps play Wiz 8 again.

Plus, W8 is one of those rare games that didn't need a patch at all other than a 39kb texture file they forgot to burn on the gold disk; the patches they did release address minor balance issues like pickpocketing. .

It's funny to hear that. In Poland they released a translated version, but they forgot that one has to use diacritical signs in some words to ask for them. I heard that the game was impossible to complete because you were unable to ask about the "Temple" ("Świątynia" ). But they released a patch soon.
BTW, I rember playing Wiz7 some years ago. I had fun with it, but I prefered Magic Candle. This one contained a big handful of interesting ideas, considering its size. It only weighs a few hundred kilos and can be downloaded from www.the-underdogs.org
I really liked the idea that I can enter the city, make the mage and the cleric go to sleep in the inn, and explore the streets with the rest of the party.

 

[Zetor]

Hope ya' have fun with W8 -- I got lucky and the Hungarian distributor decided not to localize the game [other than translating the manual in a rather crappy way ], heh. I still think Wiz7 is a better game, all things considered, but W8 does have quite a few things going for it, like the carefully-balanced gameplay I mentioned [no more 'class-change-10-times -and-turn-into-stealthing -critical-hitting-spell-casting -invulnerable-juggernauts' ala w7].

Magic Candle... man, that takes me way back, to the C-64 days. The editors of the local computer magazine were completely nuts about it and published ~40 pages of hand-drawn maps along with a [80% complete] walkthrough and hints, but they still couldn't figure out how to progress after a point. That game was an amazing feat of design, both in the technical sense (a HUGE gameworld with literally thousands of NPCs on a C-64 -- yeah I know, the original Lords of Midnight was even more impressive in this area, but MC is a lot more complex) and it had quite a few innovations as well (as you mentioned, one could leave the party members in a city to work for $$$ / study spells / learn skills, but the game had a hard time limit). The sequels aren't bad either, though they aren't anywhere near the genius of the original.

-- Z.

 

[udarnik]

... to be honest, I didn't try too hard because I was also playing Morrowind then.

I got Morrowind, Wiz8, and Might and Magic 9 all around the same time, and to be honest, I thought that Morrowind crushed everything else. The detail alone is awe-inspiring and I appreciate the fact that the very environment told a story (an overturned bottle, a dismembered and gnawed on arm near a rat), and what an environment! But Morrowind, like Daggerfall before it, is not a beautifully balanced masterwork of gameplay. That doesn't bother me much because I love the story and the exploration, but Wizardry is quite a different kind of game and it has taken me a while to appreciate the polish that went into it.

As for MM9, well that was a huge disappointment. I hadn't played a M&M game since World of Xeen, but this last one was the most amateurish game I've ever purchased. Blah. I played it for a few hours and haven't touched it since.

edit: Wiz8's manual was very good (though not very well edited); although it was short on technical details it told you everything you really needed to know with a good sense of humor. Unfortunately it seems like the copies going out now only have the manual on the cd, which is a pity because browsing through rpg manuals was always one of the pleasures of the genre.

 

[Elwro]

But Morrowind, like Daggerfall before it, is not a beautifully balanced masterwork of gameplay.

Yup. You can for example realise after having played a half of the game that some of your primary skills are ridiculously difficult to increase by practicing (e.g. Block, Armorer). I generally dislike buying skill advances. That's one thing you have to learn while playing; and you would have to restart to change the skills' assignment of your character (which is actually quite reasonable).
As far as I remember, Daggerfall was better balanced when it comes to skills. Except for the language skills, every skill could become important and could be increased by practice in a similarway. Buggerfall is still a great game today; so many hidden mysteries...
Anyway, Morrowind was my favourite CRPG of last year, and one of my all-time-favs (perhaps; I'll see after a few years). I still couldn't get Tribunal but I will do it on June the 5th and my jouneys will continue...


But speaking about manuals, Morrowind's is truly a horribly sorry excuse for one.
.[/quote]

 

[Jarinor]

I'm going to replay Wizardry 8 once my exams finish...I had a really well balanced party the first time I played through, but I forgot to do some stuff, and hence ended up with the boffo ending, and a distinct lack of some of the cooler items from the high-end side of the game.

Still, my Dracon tank kept my ass alive in that huge battle with the Rapax...he was the only one left alive, and took out 3 of those big tree bastards himself . Thank god for Resurrection powder...

I also found Rangers to be very useful. The ability to get instant kills whether or not you were fighting with fists, melee weapons or ranged ones is brilliant. It's a very sophisticated combat system in my opinion.

 

[Rosh]

And the arbiter of what constitutes idiocy would be you, I suppose?

I think it would be anyone who could figure out where exactly your head was up your ass when you made the "an IWD style, vanilla D&D H&S" comment about ToEE, when even a basic understanding of what was given out about the game was already pretty much akin to what people expect from Troika's games. Especially when it can create an enviroment that would cause some players to create about a dozen characters or so to see how the enviroment responds to them. I seriously doubt that the D&D setting will lower any of this.

That's fine, ignore the points, just keep going on with your "you = fanboy, therefore you don't listen" bullshit, kid. When you try to paint people like that, try not to make such laughablly idiotic comments.

Then going on, it just flows along with what is essentially a troll and pernicious sidestepping from looking at the material, instead going to the equasion given above.

So far, Troika has shown that while some technical points might have been poorly done given trying to put RT into TB (while some parts were bad and it turned out to be pretty linear, Acranum did allow a fair more variety to play different solutions to quests than anything BioWare and BIS have done, not to mention had an NPC schedule that is quite similar to that of Gothic and Ultima 7), they also have a lot of experience on their team and know how to do role-playing enviroments rather than the laughable nonsense of BioWare's munchkinfests and who knows how well anything from BIS is going to turn out now (especially with Titus at the helm and recent mistakes made). Reflexive needed some coaching, and was shown what people wanted instead of some lame "Diablo meets Fallout's stat system set in the past" and are doing such.

As far as the Inbred Engine, it was pretty much limited to a few uses and did a poor job in doing those. The IE hosed up one of the main important aspects of D&D and I've hinted to it a time or three before (and it's been mentioned in another thread by SP). Do you have enough sense to figure out what it might be?

Interactivity with the environment was laughable in the IE games. Hell, while the Infinity Engine area backgrounds are colorful and unique to the area, the engine is complete ass when compared to most of Jeff Vogel's work - and he's one guy where BioWare has huge teams! Most of which are used to publically pat each other on the back. On a technical point, Arcanum really came out ahead of the IE. I think that was the point of the quoted sentence you took and decided to point yourself the fool every post thereafter.

As far as I'm concerned VtM:BL is a FPS action/RPG hybrid. The developers have admitted as such. It uses a FPS engine (and a superlative one at that), and it is clearly aimed at being a cross-over hit trying a bit of ingenious genre-blending.

A laughably idiotic argument, yet again someone beat me to pointing out how either naive or illiterate you were, when there's a number of other great FP RPGs and the only thing is pretty much the mechanics and the degree of control implemented.

So, Fallout used an isometric view. Does that mean it's like Crusader?

If ToEE is as good as many here predict then I'll (happily) eat my hat. But I've seen too much front and not enough substance from the CRPG industry recently to give anybody the benefit of the doubt.

"an IWD style, vanilla D&D H&S"!

=============

So, in short, come up with some real points and stow the fanboy labeling garbage if you want to begin being taken even remotely relevent.

 

[Storn]

I've never understood why people are rarely able to disagree and yet stay civil ...

Monte Carlo does have a few valid points; Temple of Elemental Evil will be a fairly combat-heavy game - this is pretty much well-known by folks who have played the original module in PnP (which I own). I don't necessarily agree that it can be compared to Icewind Dale (especially since the game has not been released yet), although it will be mostly a dungeon romp (which I happen to enjoy from time-to-time as well). What I am most looking forward to with Temple of Elemental Evil is the turn-based implementation of the 3E rules; while I don't rabidly hate real-time as much as many of the posters here, I do prefer turn-based play and am starting to get weary of real-time games, of which there seem to be an endless supply.

I also think it's pretty obvious that folks here do tend to give Troika the benefit of the doubt, more so than they possibly deserve. They only have one game under their belt - Arcanum - and while it was mostly enjoyable, it did have a lot of problems (primarily with real-time & balance issues). I have high hopes for Troika, though; I hope that Temple of Elemental Evil is a resounding success, and that it reinvigorates interest in turn-based, single-player CRPG's. But I don't think we can heap accolades on games that haven't been released yet, even if they are being developed by Troika; similarly I don't think it's fair to announce the defalcation of Knights of the Old Republic (which many claim as a statement of fact already) before its release simply because it is being made by the much-hated Bioware

I also think that the slack some folks here are willing to cut for games such as Vampire: the Masquerade and Pool of Radiance (where you couldn't even choose skills or feats as you advanced) is pretty odd. I consider myself a veteran world-builder; I've been constructing modules ever since Starcraft was released with a world editor. I'm not an expert programmer, but I do know some (C, Visual Basic, etc)... the world builder that came with Vampire: the Masquerade (actually, it did not come with it as it was supposed to, we had to download later) was simply impossible for me to comprehend. The DM client was hideous as well. It was an ambitious idea, and there were some people who were able to beat it into submissiom, but I don't think the comparison between Vampire and Neverwinter Nights is valid.

As far as Troika's Vampire game; I am not excited about this game at all, but that is mainly because I don't like first-person-perspective types of games. I did not like Morrowind for this reason (that and the click-to-swing stuff). I'm just partial to top-down 3rd-person games ... that's my own personal preference

Anyways, that's my spiel ... feel free to flame at will




Storn

 

[Sabotai]

Whoa,
I visit Russia a couple of days and coming back I find the Bioware thread exploded from 2 to 6 pages, Monte Carlo and Rosh at eachother's throats and fizog retreated to the IGN-boards...

As for the discussion at hand, for the most part I have to agree with Storn. Most posters at RPGCodex give Troika the benefit of the doubt, maybe more so than they possibly deserve based on only their one game: Arcanum. But taking other "Tim Cain" games into account this is probably warranted. And as Storn mentions, Monte Carlo has some valid points regarding the combat-heaviness of ToEE.

As for the KOTOR part I remain highly sceptical. As stated in a lot of earlier threads somehow BIOware has a real creativity problem. Reading through the GameSpy interview with Trent Oster c.s.:

It's the adventurers school again. This whole "learning to be a hero" setting is just, well unimaginative.

Trent Oster: The story has you starting off as a new adventurer. The timeline is roughly parallel to the events in the original campaign. While things are ongoing in Neverwinter, you start out in the small village of Hilltop. You are a student at a magic-user school. Drogan, he's basically teaching young, sometimes hopeless recruits how to be an adventurer. Hopeless in the case of Misha, one of the other students you meet at the start. She's young, hopefully she goes somewhere. You basically start off, anxious to learn about adventuring, anxious to become a hero. You've got a couple classmates at the school. Dorna Trapspringer, she's a dwarven thief, and we've got Xanos, who's a half-orc sorceror, which is kind of an odd combination. But Xanos is actually one of my favorite characters in the expansion because he's an arrogant ass (laughs). He's well done for an arrogant ass, though.

And:

So you start off as an adventurer and early in the story, suddenly, the entire school is under attack by a swarm of kobolds. Nobody is quite sure what is going on and your master, Master Drogan, he's wailaid. And that's how the story starts.

It's attack on the Neverwinter Academy all over again. How uninspired can you get? If it were a different company making this game they would be accused of plagiary.

Just like with the lightsabres in some KOTOR interviews, the emphasis on cool items and neat stuff was just too damn.... I33t (after reading the world cool for the sixth time I stopped counting). To illustrate my point, a few quotes from the interview:

Trent Oster: No shield surfing! (laughs) You get to run around. You get to do some incredible things with your bow. You shoot magical arrows. You can shoot a whole volley of arrows. You can do a seeker arrow. All really neat stuff.

Darcy Pajak: And we also have the Shadow Dancer and the Harper Scout. Now, the Shadow Dancer is this real cool spy -- kind of get in there, find out what you can, infiltrate, and if you get caught, get out. Being able to hide in shadows right when somebody is attacking you is pretty slick. Someone's like swinging a sword at you, you just go "Whoop! I'm in the shadow. Bye-bye!"

Trent Oster: The hide in plain site ability is really cool.

Darcy Pajak: Yeah. That's a really cool one. I have a lot of fun playing the Shadow Dancer.

IMO SoU is a powergamers wet dream.

 

[Storn]

I think it's pretty obvious that Bioware tries to appeal to as many denominators as possible, which seems a purely financial issue to me. I would bet that after noticing the astounding number of copies of Diablo that were sold, someone in the Bioware head office circulated a memo saying, "Find a way to appeal to Diablo gamers!" I've accepted this and I pretty much know what I get (or rather, what I won't get) when I buy a Bioware game: lots of tedious stereotypes, cliche's galore, linear plots, etc. But I still enjoy their games: I liked BG 1 & 2, and I still play NwN (I'm lucky enough to be with a group of terrific roleplayers & mod builderS). I don't expect Bioware will ever break the mold, especially since breaking the mold would probably break their banks ... I don't begrudge them wanting to earn profits, being the capitalist pig that I am

The Troika team seems to go against this grain, though, which is pretty evident with Arcanum; most of the enjoyment I had with that game was with the novelty of the world itself. If Arcanum had been a standard fantasy, Forgotten-Realms setting, I think it would have been horrible. But Troika does deserve credit for bucking the popular trend - and that is why I hope they're successful with Temple of Elemental Evil (though making a D&D game might not be considered 'bucking the trend'). I would love nothing more than for turn-based games to become en vogue again.

But in this world of high-speed internet access, it seems pretty much everything has to have a multiplayer aspect in order for it to sell; and I don't believe that any multiplayer game which is turn-based will be popular.

Anyways ... here's to hoping

 

[Astromarine]

The point that Montecarlo and, well, you seem to miss is that RPGCodex members are NOT, repeat NOT against combat. Most here like Avernum, which is pretty much a hack-n-slash game. Most respect Diablo, worship X-Com, enjoyed JA-2, dug the Wizardries, etc.

It's easy, when a site like this is (rightfully) proud to be selective to the point of being considered elitist, to misunderstand it's points. the Codex hive mind does NOT think all RPGs should be a fantastically-woven story with little combat like Torment, and it is not against combat. Pretty much the only requirements for an RPG to pass the Codex hivemind test are

1) Good design. This is the only REAL must. A game cannot be half-assed in any of it's parts. A game should grip you in the beginning and only let go after several complete runs throught it. None of the components should be there only as marketing gimmicks

2) Non-linearity. This is not as important as the first one, but it's still a Good Thing. People can enjoy relatively linear games if they have a good design, but they will only remember fondly and tell their grandchildren about the non-linear masterpieces like Fallout.

That's it. All other perceived prejudices are perceived wrong. As I said, some people here enjoy action RPGs like Diablo or hacknslash fests like Avernum. Their issue with BG or NWN is NOT the existence of combat, it's the IMPLEMENTATION of it. The Inbred Engine, they call the things. The bastardization of a good, well-tested combat system like D&D to become a RTWP lame hybrid. The incredibly boring non-interactivity of NWN and Dungeon Siege. The stupid, stupid, stupid NWN campaign. The emphasis on 3D graphics and particle 3PH3KT0RZ of titles like NWN, FOOS and the like. The introduction of skills and half-assed "choices" of Deus Ex which are there simply to allow an RPG categorization. The endless marketing spiel trying to pull woll over our eyes...

Troika does none of that. Sure, they only made Arcanum and Fallout. One is a pure freaking masterpiece, and the other is a VERY nice game with some failings. The point is that AFAIK Troika has *admitted* those failings and is being level with us with TOEE. We know it's going to be a combat-heavy game. We know it's gonna take place mostly in dungeons. Who cares? We know the designers are "real" enough and care about their games enough (unlike Bioware and co) to learn from mistakes and one-up themselves in the next one. We know we are being told upfront what the game is, instead of being buried in hype. And for this, we are grateful and hopeful.

As for Vampire, yeah, it will require more of a leap of faith. Still, it will come out after ToEE. By the time it ships, we will have much more info about it than now, and will have 3 instead of 2 games to judge Troika by. If they continue their track-record of openness about their games it's perfectly possible we will enjoy it, even if it's 60% FPS and only 40% RPG. Because we will *know it in advance*.

Astro

 

[Vault Dweller]

Damn! Last thing I remember is that I was reading some very irresponsible comments on Wiz 8, then nostalgia kicked in, and I just realized that I've been playing the damn thing for 3 days As the fun and excitement slowed down after dealing with endless waves of monsters, I gathered enough willpower to click uninstall and thus ended my torment.
Anyway, as Sabotai noted this thread have grown and mutated, so here is my 2 cents.

I've never understood why people are rarely able to disagree and yet stay civil ...

The thing is that when people disagree it happens for one of 2 reasons: either they reached a different opinion after considering, thinking, and researching the subject or they decided to bypass the whole "considering, thinking, and researching" thing and jumped straight to the opinion. In later case the result is usually something stupid that is often offensive to a more intelligent community such as RPG Codex as it distracts people from "considering, thinking, and researching" other matters :D
So before you jump and start defending discriminated people with different opinions, check the opinion in question.

I also think it's pretty obvious that folks here do tend to give Troika the benefit of the doubt, more so than they possibly deserve

The reasons of our affection for Troika have been explained many times here. Think about Fallout and Arcanum, think about other games, try to see the difference.

similarly I don't think it's fair to announce the defalcation of Knights of the Old Republic (which many claim as a statement of fact already) before its release simply because it is being made by the much-hated Bioware

It's not because it is "being made by the much-hated Bioware", but because of the many features and focus of the game that also have been discussed here many times.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

One thing I noticed about NWN was that BioWare doesn't even bother trying with crafting a dungeon anymore. They mix and match monsters just for the sake of variety, like the dungeon in Chapter 2 that was filled with undead and trolls. I really can't see trolls and undead getting along since they'd most likely be out to eat one another, but in NWN, they're all there in one spot, living happily together.

What Astromarine said is correct, there is a difference between a well designed dungeon crawler, like Demise and Avernum 3, and something like NWN which seems to follow the idea that traps + monsters = dungeon goodness with no other rationale behind the picking and placement of things.

 

[Eldar]

...And futhermore, just because you don't like heavy combat in a CRPG doesn't mean that you can't appreciate a well crafted dungeon crawler. The sheer amount of combat in Wizardry 8 drives me crazy. I find it detracts from my experience that I can't walk two steps without a random encounter. However, I see the effort as well done regardless of my tastes in combat.

Anyhow, who here had a hard time with any of the combat in NWN without resorting to a player created mod? I mean, I went through the whole thing without a henchman beat the crap out of everything I saw. Hell, I came, I saw, I kicked it's ass. Even Klauth, the uber dragon who was so ancient and powerful that even gold dragons quaked, went down on hard with maxed cones of cold and cones of cold.

I mean, at least the combat in Diablo can be challenging in certain areas. Of course, you have folks who say, "if the game is too easy, just don't use all the spells, equipment, or special abilities available to you." NUTS! They're telling me that it's my responsibility to balance the game because the designers did such a poor job? Stupid. The only area I really liked was the trial area in chapter two. Even then, the writers were so heavy handed that I felt like I was constantly being pounded with "subtle" clues. On the other hand, I'll admit that I thought the team did a good job with the atmosphere and backstory for that segment.

 

[Spazmo]

The only reason the castle trial place in Chapter 2 was hard was because the whole fucking thing was jam-packed with monsters that not only could summon more of themselves, but could also respawn unto infinity. Great design there, BioWare.

 

[Eldar]

Yeah, but it still wasn't hard so much as tedious. It's like Wizardry 8, it's not that the combat is too difficult, althought I thought Nessie was damned tough, but rather that there's so much of it. Those Slaad weren't game stoppers, but they were a swarming bunch of pests. ...And I was stuck with more tongues than I could carry.