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A:EftP - Old timer (?) somewhat rambling rant about RPGs


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First off I'm 26, so I find it absurd and disturbing that I'm an old timer. But not as disturbing as the dumbing down of RPGs that has been going on since the late great CRPGs back in the day when C for computer was still a necessary distinction.

 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I found this picture on another board that sums my rant up nicely, so if you don't want to read my thousand words, you can look at this picture:

 

1299754913574.jpg

 

Exile II was the first RPG I'd ever played and I was in 5th or 6th grade, I think. Still my best RPG memory is playing Baldur's Gate 2. Man that was awesome. It came on 4 CDs! It was huuuge! And the plot and character development, and it even had Drizzt and company!

 

But I digress. There were things I love about those old games that just can't be found anymore, even in the recent labors of love like Jeff's.

 

First is the 6 man party. You had your tank fighter, priest, mage, thief, archer, and your main character. And in BG2, they'd all interact with each other and have their own quests and it was the coolest thing ever! I mean an adventuring party was a party, not just a couple buddies out on the town!

 

When Jeff switched to a 4 man party, I was bummed, but with the unlimited flexibility of the leveling system, I could still have all the options I wanted. But then came Avadon.

 

3 man party? No class flexibility? Noooooo! And like the other thread here, I also miss the library of spells the original Exile games had to offer. Now it's buff or blow up. That's pretty much it. I loved the old field spells, and even the random scatter fields. It added so much more depth of game play.

 

And the crystal souls were the icing on the cake! I remember spending like half an hour loading/reloading to capture a copy of Sulfras' soul! Man that turned out to be an epic summon spell!

 

It's RPG gaming you just can't find anymore. After Dragon Age Origins, I had high hopes... Then came Dragon Age II.

 

I hate to say it, but even Spiderweb games are getting that copy pasta feel to them. They just lack the soul of the originals. So when I saw Jeff was doing a ground-up rewrite of the original Exile, I was excited.

 

I must say the Avadon skill system and 4 man party (at least not 3) is certainly not the glorious return of the golden age of RPG I was hoping for. Jeff, I love ya and the great pastime your games have provided, but please stop the madness! Your games have been taking on the attributes of the cardboard commercial RPGs, and that is very definitely not a good thing.

 

RPG quality/depth (d)evolution:

 

1 like reading a fantasy book

2 like watching a 2 hour movie

3 special effect movie Boom stuff blowing up!

4 half hour tv procedural

 

RPG's now: Jersey Shore, I seriously expect to find a Snooki class one of these games.

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You are 100% right about all this. New games are all about action, but in a different way. People nowadays have no problem wasting 500+ hours on 1 game such as wow which has no ending, no purpose unless you are pvp. Everything is about graphics too, to the point where the actual game could suck so long as the graphics were good. Jeff is probably the only guy that actually makes games with a purpose. Even avadon (while lacking some of the luster of the previous games series) still had a great world and story. I can play one of his games, and actually finish it. Everything else nowadays is just claiming to be rpg, but its really action. The 3rd fallout was a good example. Fallout 3 was a disgrace that claimed to be rpg. Its a fps all the way. Such a sad state of affairs.

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That's not a great comparison. Planescape is one of the most lauded RPGs of all time. Dragon Age II is... not. But Dragon Age I has a party complete with interactions and personal missions. Spiderweb games never have until Avadon, which at least gives your party members a quest and some personality.

 

—Alorael, who agrees that Jeff's games are taking on characteristics of mainstream, modern RPGs. That's okay! There are good ideas in there: not being able to wreck your game with bad build decisions, less need to go running off to heal constantly, less inventory management. These are all things that some players love, but many don't. Jeff moves with the times. As for party size, spell list, and completely open stat system, well, ease of balancing has trumped old-school style.

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Avadon is selling far above average for a Spiderweb game, so any simplifications to its gameplay obviously haven't reduced the number of players interested in it. Unfortunately, you may have to come to terms with the fact that the world has passed you by and most current players want different things than you. I'd rather see a future where the RPG industry tries to be another Hollywood than one where it tries to be another model train industry, because the latter approach means that RPGs will die out with their fans.

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Eh, I think that while adopting many of the "modern" ideas of RPGs is all fine and good, it gets to the point where Jeff's niche market appeal fades and he starts looking less like a classic cRPG vendor and more like he's just a low budget wannabe.

 

Ultimately, while I'm alright with many of the modern directions many RPGs have taken, I do really think that in a lot of his recent games, Jeff's strayed too far from what I'm assuming his niche market is hungry for. Too much simplification, too much "streamlining", and too much ease over depth.

 

Our vertical male OP may sound like a curmudgeon to an extent, but to an equal extent, I'm inclined to agree. I'm all for keeping up with the times, but that should be balanced with celebrating a game genre's roots.

 

Avadon was an interesting experiment to me, and I really do like the greater character focus. I'm now in agreement that there was a little more area recycling/revisiting than I would care for, and that at the time of my first playthrough I was way more forgiving for having just gotten off DA2, but I digress.

 

Jeff's games will continue to evolve so long as he makes them, and as any question of evolution, you cannot discount the environment it occurs in. That environment is the gaming industry, and where it goes, all developers will follow. I just hope Spiderweb's games don't get completely washed away in the flood and are still there for those of us who want a BIG game with a very mature and deep system with dizzying options and breathtaking potential.

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Originally Posted By: Lilith
Avadon is selling far above average for a Spiderweb game, so any simplifications to its gameplay obviously haven't reduced the number of players interested in it.


Avadon was sold for the ipad, was available at the mac app store and steam too. Jeff's previous games were not, so I don't think you can just attribute increased sales to his new simplified style, when steam alone has opened him up to a much bigger market.
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I'm really perplexed as to what these supposed "simplifications" and dumbing-down aspects are. Avadon's skill system has generated an equal amount of analysis and min-maxing as any other, and careful investment of every point available is still critical on the higher difficulties. It's true that previous games had skills with no caps that you could invest in in any order, and that they had more skills accessible per character -- although fewer skills accessible overall. However, a large chunk of those skills (in previous games) were immediately brushed aside as useless or almost useless, by those of us who like thinking hard about these things. A4-6's race/trait system was simply an opportunity for those uninitiated in the system to pick wholly and significantly sub-par options that did not sound that way basde on their descriptions. For those in the know, it was a chance to click on the same couple of boxes time and time again. Maybe this could have been more complex or more interesting in theory; in practice, it wasn't. A:EFTP looks like a bigger version of Avadon's system, so it seems to me things are moving in a positive direction from the perspective of making game mechanics more interesting to explore and to make choices among; rather the opposite of dumbing them down.

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The weapons, armor, and general item robustness has been sliding down hill since Avernum. Axes, maces, clubs, crossbows, two handed swords... Now it's a grossly simplified system of "Sword goes in one hand, Spear goes in two." Items are lucky to even have a description half the time.

 

Alchemy became increasingly simplified until it was completely thrown out as a skill. Weapon Poison has been missing since A1.

 

The spell systems have lost everything from utility spells to field spells to others in the name of "streamlining".

 

In later Avernums, the bestiary went from clear and progressive to an obnoxious parade of increasingly menacing adjectives leading to more recycling than a Captain Planet after school special.

 

Yes the "skill" system has retained a measure of complexity, even growing larger in many ways. Still, Avadon's sealed class system is yet another set of rails to lock down progression. Avernum won't have that, but at this stage that's the only example of this specific system we have.

 

"Traits" were admittedly poorly explained, balanced and implemented, but the concept was sound, and added a level of character customization. Avadon's greatest sin of all was having NO character building, personalization, or creation beyond a class and name. For a Spiderweb game, that's a disturbing precedent.

 

I will admit that some of the changes since Exile have moved to make Spiderweb's products more accessible, but I think much of the simplifying simply goes too far. So what if I didn't ever have a character specialized in "Darts" back in Exile? I only use a specific set of four portraits, should the rest be thrown out as well? The fact that other options exist, even if they're roads never traveled, expands a game by itself.

 

Another issue is that when you DO have respecing capacities, like Avadon and I'm guessing AEftP might feature, it makes having more options all the better for exploration purposes. Go ahead, TRY maces or axes. Maybe this time Throwing Weapons won't be such a disappointment. When you've fewer characters on the roster, I can see limiting the roles somewhat, but once roles are no longer static, so too is the need to curtail content around that fact.

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I wholly agree with Slarty here. Furthermore, one thing I liked about the Avadon system was how abilities were handed out. Unlike previous games, you never really ran out of new abilities to unlock, even late in the game. In previous installments, late game skill increases led to marginal improvements in party strength/capability at best. I personally like the system where my choices matter throughout the entire game and not just the first two-thirds.

 

Granted, I still have some issues. The specializations were particularly bad in that the center column was almost exclusively the best choice. I'd like to see those dumped, or the abilities/mechanics modified such that it actually makes sense to invest in either side column. The new method of getting traits seems to hold promise here.

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Quote:
The weapons, armor, and general item robustness has been sliding down hill since Avernum. Axes, maces, clubs, crossbows, two handed swords... Now it's a grossly simplified system of "Sword goes in one hand, Spear goes in two." Items are lucky to even have a description half the time.


The options of bashing weapons and crossbows were really just different versions of the edged/pole and bows respectively. We would need to make a more complex system to differentiate between them. This is an option, but anytime you add complexity and options, that is one other knob to balance.

Quote:
Alchemy became increasingly simplified until it was completely thrown out as a skill. Weapon Poison has been missing since A1.


Alchemy was really just another way to make the same potions you could just buy from a merchant, which is generally a lot easier anyway with the prolific amount of money available. I see this as an added complexity without a real added capability.

Weapon poison was an interesting ability, but I'm not sure how often it really got used past the early game where monsters were low enough HP for it to matter. This could be brought back, and has somewhat with the Shadowwalker in Avadaon.

Quote:
The spell systems have lost everything from utility spells to field spells to others in the name of "streamlining".


I'm not sure what "utility" spells you are referring to. If you mean unlock doors, then I think it's good that is gone. Before, the spell was simply easier than tool use and made rogue-like builds suboptimal. Field spells would require a bit of work with the new pathing algorithms.
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Different damage types is indeed a classic way to differentiate between them, and what I was generally referring to above. It definitely adds more variety and complexity, but whether or not it is actually better is a matter of debate. I have mixed feelings on whether or not that system is fun.

 

Past a certain point, more is actually less. The difficulty is actually identifying the location of that point.

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Originally Posted By: *i

The options of bashing weapons and crossbows were really just different versions of the edged/pole and bows respectively. We would need to make a more complex system to differentiate between them. This is an option, but anytime you add complexity and options, that is one other knob to balance.


It's less a question of mechanics and more a question of art and presentation. Even if a sword and axe of the same value is 100% operationally equivalent, people will still have a preference over one vs. the other.

Asking for another "knob" to balance... well, sorry, but I don't have any sympathies for that argument. Any base mechanic will add a dose of balancing demands, but it's not a revolutionary idea to have more than two melee weapon types in a game, nor is it anything Spiderweb hasn't done in the past/wouldn't be capable of.

I really don't see and can't buy why it's so much to ask for melee weapons to have more than just two flavors.

Originally Posted By: *i

Alchemy was really just another way to make the same potions you could just buy from a merchant, which is generally a lot easier anyway with the prolific amount of money available. I see this as an added complexity without a real added capability.

Weapon poison was an interesting ability, but I'm not sure how often it really got used past the early game where monsters were low enough HP for it to matter. This could be brought back, and has somewhat with the Shadowwalker in Avadaon.


Again, practicality vs. depth. And... actually, here it's more practicality.

Yeah, you CAN buy Alchemical products, and even hire an alchemist to do the work FOR you later on, but that's both comparably expensive and inconvenient. If I find I need more Elixirs of ... whatever, and I'm miles away from civilization, peering over the pits of Hades, trudging back to civilization is annoying as all get out. Plus, I like the idea that your characters can do more than just hit/blast things.

For me, personally, however, the only reason why I'd ever use potions was because I was able to either make them cheaply, or found them. I don't care how awesome Knowledge Brew is, it's a small house payment for ONE! And that's from Silverlocke, the most nice-little-old-ladyish magical practitioner in all Avernum! I have skills and spells to buy!

I'll go forage for fungus berries in the swamp before I pay that.

Originally Posted By: *i
I'm not sure what "utility" spells you are referring to. If you mean unlock doors, then I think it's good that is gone. Before, the spell was simply easier than tool use and made rogue-like builds suboptimal. Field spells would require a bit of work with the new pathing algorithms.


Unlock was one, sure.

Dispelling
Scry Monster
Identify
Magic Map
Detect Life
Firewalking/Safe Travel
Move Mountains/Shatter
Flight
Word of Recall
Manna
Location
Light
Fire Barrier
Force Barrier

These are all non-combat based spells that all fell by the wayside at some point between Avernum 1 and Avernum 6, and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Back then, magic was more than just a weapon or med-kit, it had a variety of uses that went beyond the generic and overtly predictable "combat spell" list you find in every modern RPG game ever.

As for the field spells requiring more work, well... again, yeah. Adding a feature requires work. What of it?
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Quote:
It's less a question of mechanics and more a question of art and presentation. Even if a sword and axe of the same value is 100% operationally equivalent, people will still have a preference over one vs. the other.

Asking for another "knob" to balance... well, sorry, but I don't have any sympathies for that argument. Any base mechanic will add a dose of balancing demands, but it's not a revolutionary idea to have more than two melee weapon types in a game, nor is it anything Spiderweb hasn't done in the past/wouldn't be capable of.


I think we have a fundamental disagreement here. I see much beauty in simplicity. I dislike redundant features that add complexity solely for the purpose of being different. I would not be opposed to lumping maces and such into the melee group to give the appearance of variety. As separate build options that are identical, not so much.

If you make bashing weapons different, they must be balanced. Balancing takes time and costs money, and that's a limited commodity in these games if Jeff wants to stay in business. Not the answer we like to hear, but it is reality.

Quote:
Yeah, you CAN buy Alchemical products, and even hire an alchemist to do the work FOR you later on, but that's both comparably expensive and inconvenient. If I find I need more Elixirs of ... whatever, and I'm miles away from civilization, peering over the pits of Hades, trudging back to civilization is annoying as all get out. Plus, I like the idea that your characters can do more than just hit/blast things.


I see it as less convenient to make the potions for separate ingredients. I guess we just have to agree to disagree on this. If we bring back alchemy, I would rather it do something different than we can find in stores, and be something different than our standard magical effects.

Quote:
As for the field spells requiring more work, well... again, yeah. Adding a feature requires work. What of it?


Yes, and work that will detract from other aspects of the game because of limited time available to produce the game. In this case, I'm not sure how you make a smart pathfinding algorithm that can appropriately handle fields. Should it always avoid fields? If not, what conditions should exist for entering a field? I don't think there are correct answers. I can see loads of complaints here about the pathfinding doing something that the player did not intend.
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Originally Posted By: goblindolf

Avadon was sold for the ipad, was available at the mac app store and steam too. Jeff's previous games were not, so I don't think you can just attribute increased sales to his new simplified style, when steam alone has opened him up to a much bigger market.

That's not what she said though. She wasn't attributing the increased sales to a simplified style--she was saying the simplified style didn't affect or harm sales. Significant difference between the two statements.
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Originally Posted By: *i

I think we have a fundamental disagreement here. I see much beauty in simplicity. I dislike redundant features that add complexity solely for the purpose of being different. I would not be opposed to lumping maces and such into the melee group to give the appearance of variety. As separate build options that are identical, not so much.

If you make bashing weapons different, they must be balanced. Balancing takes time and costs money, and that's a limited commodity in these games if Jeff wants to stay in business. Not the answer we like to hear, but it is reality.


I agree that there's value in simplicity, but only so long as it translates to elegance. In this matter, all I really see is incompleteness.

Separate build options might not be optimal, but even the term "Melee Weapons" by default goes beyond just "One handed swords". Axes, maces, the always underappreciated flail… Even if all these amount to is a slight tweeking of damage ranges, I still feel they'd add enough to make their inclusion worth while.

Too much simplicity costs too much variety and diversity.

Originally Posted By: *i

I see it as less convenient to make the potions for separate ingredients. I guess we just have to agree to disagree on this. If we bring back alchemy, I would rather it do something different than we can find in stores, and be something different than our standard magical effects.


It's possible – I'd just be happy seeing it make a return in any incarnation. If the system is more robust and creative than before, well... that's what I want for thew new games anyways.

Originally Posted By: *i

Yes, and work that will detract from other aspects of the game because of limited time available to produce the game. In this case, I'm not sure how you make a smart pathfinding algorithm that can appropriately handle fields. Should it always avoid fields? If not, what conditions should exist for entering a field? I don't think there are correct answers. I can see loads of complaints here about the pathfinding doing something that the player did not intend.


In terms of fields, I'll grant that the mechanic would require a lot of balancing and counter balancing along the question of pathing, but I'm still of the belief that it would be worth it, and that the games are lesser for their exclusion. On top of that, seeing as it's a mechanic Jeff threw out, rather than something new, I'm less swayed by the, "oh, that's just too hard/takes too long" excuse.

Maybe, however, it's something better saved for the next Avernum remake, when Jeff has more of a standard system to work off of, rather than having to reinvent the wheel with this first installment. This time around, I do understand that things are going to be limited by the fact that he's already got a newish engine on his plate.
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One thing you're overlooking: quite a lot of the weapon simplifications are due to graphics. As the graphics get better, they get more expensive. Putting in mace and axe sprites would bump up the sprite count quite a lot, making the cost a little higher and the download size a little larger.

 

In any case, look back at Exile. Everything that was not a sword or a spear was invariably worse. Now, you could call that a fixable problem, but I think Jeff has been working on cutting down the number of options and trying to make them all more reasonable. Has it been completely successful? No. Do I support it? Yes. As Slarty said, making subpar options available isn't good design, it's just obnoxious.

 

—Alorael, who also thinks the unforeseen consequence balance problem is substantial. It's easy to balance damage, buffing, and debuffing. The quirkier spells are more likely to slip through testing and then have someone (Slarty?) figure out a game-breaking exploit with them.

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Eh, I'm in the "role player" crowd. To clarify what I mean by that, I'm more concerned about plot and story - be it programmed in or embellished by my own imagination as I play the game - than I am about game mechanics issues. One of the things I dislike most in an RPG is when I feel like I am being forced to play someone else's character. Lack of choices is the fastest way for a game to feel that way for me.

 

The vast majority of Spiderweb's games have not made me feel like I'm playing someone else's character. It's probably why I've played and replayed Jeff's games more times than I'd care to confess. Avadon is something of a shift from that. It doesn't feel like a game I'd want to replay to death, in part because of simplification.

 

Don't get me wrong, as far as a piece of game programming goes, many things in Avadon are an improvement on previous titles, but the things that Avadon improves is not why I play Jeff's games. If an RPG game lets me immerse and let my imagination free, I'm pretty tolerant of less accessible game engines; once I figure them out, the reward is worthwhile. Oblivion was like this for me. I thought the game mechanics were terrible, and in many respects I still do. But it lets me do more than I ever dreamed as far as actual role-playing is concerned. Consequently, I did two playthroughs in a row (that's 200+ hours people) before I realized I was horribly addicted and forced myself to do something else with my life. >_<

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Difference with Avadon from Avernum is that your party members now have their own personality. Nonetheless, the main character remains "you" in the role-playing sense.

 

I suspect game mechanics is one of those things where a good skill system cannot hurt a game, but a bad one can seriously damage it. Avadon has removed many of the bad builds that will make it impossible to proceed. I doubt you can so horribly mess up your characters prior to reaching the Beraza Woods that you cannot fix the problem and have to quit or use the "retrain" cheat.

 

Note that I almost did exactly that while beta testing G4. My skill allocation was so suboptimal (too invested in leadership/mechanics) that Jeff had a hard time figuring out how I could win against the Salasar(sp?) fight. Thankfully, I had a few uninvested skill points, and he did (I suspect made the battle easier too), but it would definitely be frustrating way to end the game for a player.

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Gah... All of G4 remains a blur to me. Really, I don't know why, but so much of the Geneforge series has bled together in my memory...

 

Honestly, my problems in Geneforge seemed to arise from being -too- min/max focused, and ending up with a Shaper who could forge worlds, but would die under pressure of a light breeze. In the end, the solution was dropping the -endurance +int n' stuff charm, but I digress.

 

The capacity to rebuild a character is something I think is one of the better "modern" innovations offered in these latest games. Before that, sub-optimal was really par for the course for me because, even if I KNEW better, I still wanted to at least see what I could do if I trained whatever "new" skill/stat was offered.

 

While I'm not sure making respeccing completely free and clear is necessarily the best answers, it's an option I'm glad exists.

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I consider myself an avid fan of RPG's - that is, Role-Playing Games. And because of that emphasis, on playing a role, I am not troubled by the direction Spiderweb has gone with Avadon. Challenging combat, tricky puzzles, min-maxing, pretty graphics, etc. are all nice, but they all are second priorities to the story, world, and thus, role-playing aspect of the game.

 

Consistently, with Exile, Nethergate, Geneforge, and now Avadon, Jeff has created from nebulous concepts as foundations a new world capable of complete immersion. In doing this, he has structured epic plot arcs, unsettling moral and ethical questions, and fleshed-out characters, and allowed us, via the PC's, to play a role in, and shape these worlds.

 

Obviously, the mechanics, graphics, etc. all need to be there to insure the game is enjoyable, and that I'm not just reading a book. But, for me, they need only to facilitate the role-playing, and never become so complicated that they get in its way.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Hello!

 

I must say that Im also one of those old timers who curse at the new videogamers (who skate on my lawn) and I agree wholeheartedly with OP.

 

I remember as a kid getting Exile 2 on a demo disc from my fathers work and hell did I play that much! However, the last game I bought was Blades of Exile as the demos for Avernum didnt do much for me (the isometric view wasnt what I expected I think, I'd rather go with the simple 2D one, besides going from 6 to 4 characters bummed me out too).

 

Anyways, my point is this seeing that Spiderweb are doing a remake of the old Exile games (I hope they will do II and III too?) I really hope they're going back to its roots only using an updated engine. Sure I can get used to the isometric view and the 4man party but OP is correct, the fact of the matter is that I've read a handfull of forumposts similar to him about Avadon and I dont even know if I should give Avadon a try (I prolly will though) because of what has been said about it.

 

Seems like the majority of players today dont want to read in their games, they dont want storytelling, they dont want character depth or complexability. They want games like DA2? Well not really, DA2 may have its fanbase but overall the community who bought it are frustrated over how bad it was. So what does that mean? Go back to the roots! I sincerely hope that Jeff and his crew stand true to the Exile saga and dont "dumb it down" like most other game developers do.

 

Also I saved that picture you had OP, I see the filename and know where you got it from, kudos fellow anon! Oh and let me add: TERRIBLE CONSOLE PORT DUMBED DOWN FOR ADHD KIDS, RAAASGH GO FOR THE EYES BOO, GO FOR THE EEEYEES.

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Hey, if you don't like the game that's fine (though I'd encourage you to at least try the Avadon demo before forming an opinion), but just so you know I've had to bowdlerise your post a little to remove the swearing. There are kids who read this forum, so watch your language in future.

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Originally Posted By: Lilith
Hey, if you don't like the game that's fine (though I'd encourage you to at least try the Avadon demo before forming an opinion), but just so you know I've had to bowdlerise your post a little to remove the swearing. There are kids who read this forum, so watch your language in future.


Im sorry, I forget sometimes about the hypocrisy of the americans and their fear of dirty words (while killing in games is a-okay!). What really is the problem with saying s**t rather then crap? ITS THE SAME THING. Also its okay to write s**t as long as you censor it, even if a 12 year old kid understands what im writing... Anyway, I digress from the point.

You are right though, I shouldnt form an opinion of Avadon w/o trying it first. I will try it once I get time for it, I was just pointing out that many people have issues with it that I can relate to. Im no big fan of how the mainstream gaming handles this new wave of RPGs and to me it seems like Spiderweb wants to get in on that too.

At the same time, I cant blame people for making money (cos it does, people will buy those kind of games) but I cant help but be abit disapointed when games stops catering to my needs. Maybe Im too old for games but then again we had an 18 year old post in this thread agreing with OP so.
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Originally Posted By: In memory of the forgetful
Actually, no, here it's not okay to right censored profanity either.

—Alorael, who doesn't see it entirely as hypocrisy. Some of it is about wanting to promote civility. Granted, that's not the motive here, but it could be!

thats write! or right or something anyways
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Originally Posted By: In memory of the forgetful
Actually, no, here it's not okay to right censored profanity either.

—Alorael, who doesn't see it entirely as hypocrisy. Some of it is about wanting to promote civility. Granted, that's not the motive here, but it could be!
When I was a soldier, I cussed as a soldier. When I became a civilian, I had to become more civilian. civility... civil!
It may seem silly, or hypocritical to some, to use profanity in private, and refrain from it where minors are concerned, especially since the theatres are full of movies that are full of violence and profanity. But it certainly doesn't hurt us to try to be more polite to each other.

Back on topic... I have had a little experience with First Person Shooter games, and have found them to be repetitive and boring. DOOM, Hexen, Heretic. Once through and I was done. Exile, Avernum, Myst. They get replayed so much I've worn the shiny off the bits. I've even put together a few maps for other players to enjoy. Give me more story, more thoughtful encounters. These, I relish.
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All these puns have the homophones whirling in my head. Next time I'll make sure to use the right one. No pun intended or enacted.

 

—Alorael, who has mixed feelings about FPS. On the one hand, some are true gems. He thinks he'd like System Shock, Bioshock, Deus Ex, and Fallout 3 (on a roughly ascending scale of RPG-hybridization). Unfortunately, he suffers from the combined problems of inability to navigate 3D landscapes (virtually or in real life) and inability to click when the reticle is on something he wants to shoot. He did manage Mass Effect, though. Maybe he should give a few more a chance.

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Interestingly, land navigation is one of the skills they taught me in the army. I developed the knack of 'seeing' a two-dimensional topographic map in 'three' dimensions. In fact I had the highest score in my training company. Of course, I was a lot younger and a lot more fit back then. ;-)

If fact, I even had hair on top of my now bald pate! :-D

But you know what they say...

Click to reveal..
Hare today, gone tomorrow.
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Actually, I thought Fallout 3 and especially New Vegas were excellent RPGs. They require a lot of interaction with the world and characters. And they got even better in New Vegas where decisions had very significant consequences. Those games are far from FPS's.

 

Now back to being glum, there is also the issue of MMOs. I've played my share of MMOs but they are no RPG replacement. None of them have characters or plots. Supposedly Bioware has tried to do that with the KoToR MMO, but I'm skeptical. MMOs only have the regular people behind toons, and regular people are not interesting. That is why we read books, play RPGs, and watch movies made by people more creative than us.

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The tragedy of MMORPGs is that real people can be interesting, and in an emergent way that is unlike fiction. They could be like giant games of improvisational acting with rules, but they aren't. They go for grinding.

 

That's not even necessary, really. There are MUDs (like MMORPGs, but all text, since the idea basically predates graphical games) that have plots, and while to some extent they rely on a much lower ratio of players to administrators, there are also enough that have player-run, player-driven plots that the proof of concept exists. Some of them are explicitly all about roleplaying, but not all.

 

—Alorael, who thinks Shadowbane came closest to trying to have something besides the built-in plot and grind, with players able to build and rule cities, wage war, and destroy cities. It had a brief period of success, but it didn't rise to become a major MMO player. Maybe it had too many gameplay or balance flaws. Maybe it was just crushed in the shadow of WoW.

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Originally Posted By: Gone Phishing
The tragedy of MMORPGs is that real people can be interesting, and in an emergent way that is unlike fiction. They could be like giant games of improvisational acting with rules, but they aren't. They go for grinding.


and then you have UO and EVE, which are giant games of improvisational sociopathy with rules
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Originally Posted By: The Upright Man
Actually, I thought Fallout 3 and especially New Vegas were excellent RPGs. They require a lot of interaction with the world and characters. And they got even better in New Vegas where decisions had very significant consequences. Those games are far from FPS's.


The problem with the notion of RPG is that that there is no clear definition of it. If you mean a game where you play a character defined by mathematical attributes, then that is every single AAA computer game title today.

Fallout 3 is an excellent example of what separates the different types of RPG players. If open world exploration is the most important defining attribute for you, then it is a great RPG. If storyline is more important for you, then it is okay, but not as good as a BioWare game. And if tactical combat and game mechanics are what define an RPG then Fallout 3 is one of the worst RPGs ever made.

While I do not deny Fallout 3 is an RPG, the latter issue made me quit the game in disgust. No controller abilities to speak off. The mechanics actively discourage you from teaming with companions (because they take you XP if they kill it first; is this the 1980s?). And VATS is the most horribly designed tactical mechanic to ever exist (the mathematics make it so that it is almost never advantageous to do anything other than a headshot).
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Originally Posted By: Walker White
And VATS is the most horribly designed tactical mechanic to ever exist (the mathematics make it so that it is almost never advantageous to do anything other than a headshot).


In fairness, this was true of Fallout 1 and 2 past the first few hours of the game as well: once your combat skill was high enough to hit the eyes 95% of the time, you'd pretty much always want to aim for them (or maybe the head, if you had the Better Criticals perk and wanted to go for the chance of an instant kill.)
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Quote:
In fairness, this was true of Fallout 1 and 2 past the first few hours of the game as well: once your combat skill was high enough to hit the eyes 95% of the time, you'd pretty much always want to aim for them (or maybe the head, if you had the Better Criticals perk and wanted to go for the chance of an instant kill.)


Agreed. Balanced and enjoyable gameplay has never been the Fallout series' forte. The first two were just inoffensively broken, but I quit 3 early on because of the gameplay.

RPG hybrid systems can work well, though. I've recently been playing Mass Effect 2, and while I was terrible at it at first (shooters aren't my forte), I've really warmed up to it. I've also heard good things about the Deus Ex series.
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Originally Posted By: FnordCola

RPG hybrid systems can work well, though. I've recently been playing Mass Effect 2, and while I was terrible at it at first (shooters aren't my forte), I've really warmed up to it. I've also heard good things about the Deus Ex series.


I was a hardcore RPG player that had never played shooters before ME. That game really challenged me to rethink RPGs. I am a serious fan of the changes in ME2. I love the controller abilities in biotic characters. But the thing that really makes that game is tactical pause. You can play it real time as a shooter, or paused and looking about the room to line up a shot. THAT is what VATS could/should have been and was not.

I finished DE:HR recently. Nice game, but questionable design choices. It really plays up the multiple ways to solve a mission, but stealth offers an order of magnitude more XP than anything else. Complete stealth appears to be the only way to max out praxis points in the game. This crap is why mission XP has become more popular than per kill XP - it only cares that the mission was completed, not how it was done.
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I was a hardcore RPG player that had never played shooters before ME. That game really challenged me to rethink RPGs. I am a serious fan of the changes in ME2. I love the controller abilities in biotic characters. But the thing that really makes that game is tactical pause. You can play it real time as a shooter, or paused and looking about the room to line up a shot. THAT is what VATS could/should have been and was not.


I held off on buying ME2 for a while because I wanted to play the first game, well, first. I still think it's a shame that I haven't, but I'm not about to buy an XBox or a Windows computer just to play one game. On a related note, system balkanization is a tremendous pain in the ass. Less so than it was a decade ago, but nevertheless.
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Is Fallout 3 an RPG? I'd really say it is. The perspective is first-person, but that's been true of some RPGs for a long time. You're still defined by numbers, you still get the roleplaying choices beloved by the the stalwarts of RPGCodex (or, well, no you don't and they hate the game), and you can play quite well without having much in the way of twitch reflexes.

 

Is Mass Effect an RPG? You've got stats. You can pause. You still have to be able to aim, though, and if you can't do it without pausing it's a little difficult. The second installment goes even more shooter and less statistical. But I still think it can make it into the solid hybrid category.

 

Is Skyrim an RPG? I haven't played it, but from what I've seen, a substantial amount of player skill and reflexes enter into the picture. You have to be able to actually aim anything ranged, which makes it shootey, and you have to be able to target some fairly agile enemies with melee weapons, which looked infuriating. Is it an RPG? It's in one of the biggest RPG franchises, but I'd call it less of an RPG and more of a shooter than Fallout 3, the game where you're actually shooting guns.

 

—Alorael, who has been informed that you can milk the most experience out of the newest Deus Ex by finishing a mission by stealth, then killing everyone. That's terrible design and grinding put together.

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Originally Posted By: Everything is Impossible

Is Mass Effect an RPG? You've got stats. You can pause. You still have to be able to aim, though, and if you can't do it without pausing it's a little difficult. The second installment goes even more shooter and less statistical. But I still think it can make it into the solid hybrid category.


Powers autotarget; you move the reticle until the target is surrounded by a red box, so aiming is easy. And while it is hard to play a soldier pausing all the time, it is very easy to do so with an adept. In fact, playing an adept in ME2 felt more tactical than playing a mage in Dragon Age 2. So a lot of the "is it an RPG" can actually depend on the class.
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