461 réponses à ce sujet

[Lunatic LK47]

Terror_K wrote...


What the hell are you talking about? I despise JRPGs. Can't stand the things: they're too linear and don't offer enough proper roleplaying and defining of your character, and tend to want you to build their characters in a certain way. Not to mention usually having awful storylines and stereotypical and shallow characters.

Uh, I meant using the same old formula, *MINUS* the awful storylines. Reading comprehension that difficult for you?

Then don't play RPGs. Play all the genres out there that don't do this. Why does every genre have to suit the same audience? The very things in RPGs that alienates you are the same things in RPGs I enjoy. And that's the problem when BioWare come along and mainstreamline their games part the way through the series: they red rid of the things that put off the casual gamer, but those are the very things that the RPG will often like.

Elitist attitude is elitist attitude, ****. I never even heard much of Western RPGs before KOTOR 1, and even by the time I did find out about these games, they are needlessly complicated up to the point it felt like I have to go to school just to learn how to play the game. No game should ever be like that, but apparently, you like to have a weird mindset about it. . KOTOR 1 is my first BioWare game, and I felt that it pushed things to new levels, problems with the D&D formula aside. .

Based on the way they went about it and what they've said. This whole "simple = better" approach, particularly from Christina Norman, speaks volumes to me. That rather than improve an existing aspect they'd rather just scrap it and reduce it to its simplest elements as the solution. The fact that rather than letting players have full control of things they'd rather automate far too much to the point of making it pointless and so that it requires next to no input or thinking from the player, especially with regards to the research/upgrade system which just God-mods everything to the max with no need for a player to choose or even pay attention.

Uh, how about the fact that inventory was too ****ing timeconsuming, and the Mako had **** controls for the Xbox 360? Newsflash, the game was developed for that system long before you got your precious PC version.

[Terror_K]

You have no idea what you're talking about, Jigero. I've given plenty of legitimate reasons for ME2's failings in the last year or so, but judging from your post you haven't read any of them, and I'm already sick of reiterating them every few months for people new to this, so I'm not even going to bother with somebody with an attitude like yours. It'd just be a waste of my time.

[Lunatic LK47]

Terror_K wrote...

You have no idea what you're talking about, Jigero. I've given plenty of legitimate reasons for ME2's failings in the last year or so, but judging from your post you haven't read any of them, and I'm already sick of reiterating them every few months for people new to this, so I'm not even going to bother with somebody with an attitude like yours. It'd just be a waste of my time.

Have a Microsoft Word document handy? The message board only does "last twenty messages" at a time.

[Lumikki]

Terror_K wrote...

To me all these factors say that Mass Effect 2 shifted from being aimed more at newcomers and mainstream casuals rather than their existing players, and that the game was tuned more in line with satisfying and appealing to them than it was in fixing ME1's issues properly.

I'm not sure.

ME1 inventory system with all junk items and how skills affected to TPS side weapon based combat, was problem what annoyed most of players in ME1. These stuff did get fixed in ME2. So, the problem isn't really that they did not fix stuff, but they started to change stuff what did not need to be changed. These stuff are more connected players ability customize many stuff and impression details, than gameplay it self.

[Terror_K]

Lunatic LK47 wrote...

Terror_K wrote...

You have no idea what you're talking about, Jigero. I've given plenty of legitimate reasons for ME2's failings in the last year or so, but judging from your post you haven't read any of them, and I'm already sick of reiterating them every few months for people new to this, so I'm not even going to bother with somebody with an attitude like yours. It'd just be a waste of my time.

Have a Microsoft Word document handy? The message board only does "last twenty messages" at a time.

Why?

Look, the best I will do rather than to simply go over things again and again with in-depth reasons is to post this topic I made a while ago. Even people who generally disagree with me on these boards about ME2 have agreed with much of what I've said here:-

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/105/index/5152644

This is more of a "ideas of how things could be done better for ME3" but it does include some of the reasons I thought ME2 was a weak RPG within them.

[Gatt9]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Gleym wrote...

Doesn't mean I have to accept it if the change is dumb as bricks. Mainstream =/= Good. If something being popular in the mainstream and won awards meant that something was a genuinely good product, then we'd be repainting the Sistine Chapel to look like Edward Cullen reaching out to Bella.

Of course mainstream != good. Mainstream often means generic to such a degree that the widest possible audience enjoys it.  Liking something because it's popular is as lame as hating something because it's popular. Like what like, hate what you hate.

But the unavoidable reality of the matter is that very good indy bands will inevitably go mainstream for the money. And hardcore RPG developers will inevitably adopt popular game mechanics because they're popular. It just so happened that I enjoyed the result of the RPG storytelling and you didn't. I accept you didn't like it, I appreciate that you didn't like it, I think the reasons you don't like it are fully legit and I won't criticise them. I just wish you extended me the same courtesy.

I still believe that CRPGs can move beyond the old turn-based, THACO based, stats-driven, 1970s Gary Gygax wargaming models. Maybe you don't. Or maybe you disagree with the direction Bioware took. But I hope for a bit more depth to our forum dialogue than "ME2 sucks because it doesn't have an traditional inventory system".

Actually,  they can't.

The defining factor of an RPG is that you are taking on the Role of your character.  I will once again explain this using a well-known analogy (Thank you James Cameron!)

In Avatar we have our main character functioning through the body of a host creature.  This clearly shows us the difference between a Role and an Avatar...

If Jake entered the body,  and it had no skills,  language,  or characteristics of it's own,  only those of Jake,  then it is an Avatar.  We see this is true because the body doesn't know how to jump from tree to tree,  or use a bow,  or ride a horse-thingy,  or even speak the language.  It only knows what Jake knew.

If Jake entered the body,  and it knew how to speak the native language,  use the bow,  ride the horse,  then Jake had taken on the Role of the body.  The body possessed knowledge Jake did not,  Jake just directed it while the body itself acted out the general directions.

This is what defines a Role-playing game,  *your* ability to point the mouse is largely irrelevant.  The character's ability to shoot the gun is what matters.  Etc.

The other genre defined by our alternative,  an Avatar,  is one of two:  Action-Adventure(Oblivion,  Tomb Raider,  Uncharted) or a Shooter(Half-Life,  Doom,  Dead Space,  etc).  In those types of games it is your ability to use the mouse that matters,  and the character himself has no bearing on whether or not you hit.

To play a Role-playing game you must assume a Role.  Which means your abilities don't matter.  Any game in which your abilities are the defining factor is decidedly a different genre.

To put it succintly,  no P&P RPG determines your character's attack as a hit or a miss by whether or not you personally can punch your DM in the face.  Only by what your character can do as demonstrated through die rolls.

To head off the arguement,  once again,  dialogue doesn't matter unless suddenly Wing Commander 3 is an RPG. (It isn't,  not by even the loosest of definitions.)

So in hungering for a system not based on assuming a Role,  what you actually want to play is a Shooter or Adventure game,  not an RPG.

Elitist attitude is elitist attitude, ****. I never even heard much of Western RPGs before KOTOR 1, and even by the time I did find out about these games, they are needlessly complicated up to the point it felt like I have to go to school just to learn how to play the game. No game should ever be like that, but apparently, you like to have a weird mindset about it. . KOTOR 1 is my first BioWare game, and I felt that it pushed things to new levels, problems with the D&D formula aside.

No offense,  but here we have a problem.  It seems you do not like RPGs.  An RPG is complicated by nature,  it is a Role playing game,  where the Role is represented by a Character,  and the Character's qualities and abilities are explained by a system.

Complaining that RPG systems are too complicated and should be made so simple as to become Adventure games or Shooters (Oblivion,  ME2,  Fallout 3,  Fable 3),  is akin to going to a flight sim board and complaining they are too complicated and should be made to play like Wing Commander.  That's not what the genre is,  RPG isn't Adventure/Shooters.  Sims are not Arcade games.

This subject is becoming a truely massive problem today.  I saw this on Fallout's boards,  I see it here.  People want to be RPG Players,  but they don't understand RPGs,  and they don't want to understand them.  Which just baffles me.  What is it about being an RPG player that makes it so desireable that everyone wants to be one,  but people don't want to actually learn what an RPG is to play it?

Or is this the end result of Final Fantasy and Oblivion?  That we've let marketing departments abuse the descriptor to the point where people actually believe that those games really are RPGs?

I also have to point out,  it's not being "Elitist",  it's telling the truth.  RPG's are computerized implementations of Pen and Paper games,  just like computer Monopoly is a implementation of the boardgame Monopoly.  It's implementing a well establish and very well defined type of game.  There's no "Reinterpretation",  no "Change",  an RPG is an RPG.  Not ME2,  not Oblivion. 

Truth is,  I don't even blame the "Mainstream effect",  because these games aren't actually selling all that well,  According to wikipedia,  Baldur's Gate 2 sold 2 million units.  ME2 sold...1.6 million units.

So clearly,  the whole simplifying approach isn't all that effective,  if it's selling less untis than a 10 year old game did on a much smaller installed base.

[Haadurin]

Gatt9 wrote...
According to wikipedia,  Baldur's Gate 2 sold 2 million units.  ME2 sold...1.6 million units.

Are you kidding me? You're a freaking moron if you think that's the actual sales numbers. From Wikipedia: "Mass Effect 2 was a commercial and critical success, selling over
two million copies within its first week of release and garnering more
than 30 perfect scores in video game websites and magazines. "

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Effect_2#Reception

Modifié par Haadurin, 14 février 2011 - 09:29 .

[spernus]

Mass effect 2 sold more than 2 million copies at this point (probably between 2 and 3 million),no doubt about it.Bioware doesn't release numbers often however.Mass effect 3 should be the best selling version yet,since it will also have the PS3 as a platform which can drive more sales in Europe than the Xbox 360.

The closest thing we have to official numbers for a game is VGchart (not precise).Mass effect 2 is at 2.52 million for the Xbox 360 and 180000 for the PS3.We do not have the PC numbers (probably around those PS3 numbers),but you could guess it's around 3 million overall.Granted,a lot of those sales might be with the game costing 20$...

Modifié par spernus, 14 février 2011 - 10:10 .

[Jebel Krong]

gatt - there are many different definitions of role-playing/ casey hudson himself stated that mass effect series is (and never was) a traditional stat-type rpg - if you want that, go play dragon age. so many people wanting to change the series from what it actually is to something that fits what they (and pretty much only they) want, and to fit their specific definitions and classification boxes - it's pathetic and depressing.

[Lunatic LK47]

Gatt9 wrote...

No offense,  but here we have a problem.  It seems you do not like RPGs.  An RPG is complicated by nature,  it is a Role playing game,  where the Role is represented by a Character,  and the Character's qualities and abilities are explained by a system.

Uh, except the system is non-sensical in Mass Effect's standards. Shepard= Special Forces Marine= Should be hyper-competent with combat. Mass Effect broke away from the mold and tried to break into new ground.

This subject is becoming a truely massive problem today.  I saw this on Fallout's boards,  I see it here.  People want to be RPG Players,  but they don't understand RPGs,  and they don't want to understand them.  Which just baffles me.  What is it about being an RPG player that makes it so desireable that everyone wants to be one,  but people don't want to actually learn what an RPG is to play it?

Uh, if a game is complicated enough to require a week to learn the game, no one is going to be inclined to play it. I shouldn't have to spend days of my life reading magazine-sized instruction manuals just to know what my available skills are and accidentally pick the wrong ones. I gave up on Dragon Age: Origins not just because of a ****tier inventory system, but the difficulty spikes stem from very questionable game design(i.e. Navigating through three menus just to access Spell #10, or "LOLZ, Zombies are immune to cold spells, DIE!") 

Or is this the end result of Final Fantasy and Oblivion?  That we've let marketing departments abuse the descriptor to the point where people actually believe that those games really are RPGs?

I never got into Final Fantasy, and that's a good thing thanks to Noah "Spoony One" Antwiler. I have a very low tolerance for non-sensical stories just for the sake of making it convoluted. Olbivion, I never got into it because I am not a big fan of the fantasy genre, not to mention I got turned off by Fallout 3 just because the world itself is ****ing bland with Z-list actors.

[Gleym]

Just curious here, Lunatic.. outside of Mass Effect 2, are there any RPGs you don't hate? 'Cause so far it just sounds like you hate RPGs and ME2 is the exception due to having less RPG-related things for you to hate in it.

[CroGamer002]

Silmane wrote...

lol that is NOT funny<_<

[Whatever42]

Gatt, I don't recall reading anywhere that anything involving player skill nullifies a game as a roleplaying game. An RPG is a game in which you assume a role other than your own. I assure you that I am not Commander Shepard and I assure you that I never really shot anyone. Or never really fetched Liara's data. Or never shot Condrad in the foot. Or have a girlfriend named Miranda.

The tabletop wargaming rules traditionally involved in P&P RPGs does involve player skill as well. It's simply that the skills are tactical and do not involve anything remotely twitch based. But my character may have an 18 intelligence but I'm still as dumb as a stump and keep fireballing the fire-immune fire elemental and inadvertently killing my party. As you describe it, I should simply be able to tell the computer that my super smart character tries to kill the monster and then sit back and let the computer play it out for me.

And I said that they tried to go mainstream.. Attempts aren't always successful. But ME2 has sold several million units - let's not have another thread breakdown into us dragging up wildly inaccurate estimates from a variety of sources - that made the game profitable enough that they will still flog the hell out of ME3 so we can still expect more. DA was also very successful so they will make more of those as well.

But sorry, there is no high priest of all geekdom to decide what is allowed to be called an RPG and what is not.

Modifié par Whatever666343431431654324, 14 février 2011 - 12:41 .

[Capeo]

@gatt

Even being a role playing snob myself I'd never try to deny Morrowind, Oblivion or the Bethesda Fallout games aren't RPGs. That's crazy. They're the very definition of RPGs. Everything is based on invisible dice rolls. Just because they're first person games they aren't RPGs? That's ludicrous.

Modifié par Capeo, 14 février 2011 - 06:34 .

[Lumikki]

I have to agree with others, just because table top RPG is most common and orginal way to build RPG in computers, that doesn't mean it's the only way to do it. Gatt you really should read what role-playing really means. There is more in role-playing than just the orginal way how computers started to simulate RPG's. In many role-playing games player does something by him/her self, like use his/her own intelligent or even physical tasks like in LARP's. So, player using mouse for targeting, doesn't mean it's not roleplaying as long role has been taken.

Role-playing games

I think it's question of differences what is role-playing and what we consider as role-playing game. In my opinion any game where player takes role and has ability choose different kind of roles to play, is role-playing game.

Sure, someone could think like Tomb Raider Lara Croft is role-playing too. In some way it is, but there is only one role to play. In Mass Effect you can how ever choose what kind of Shepard you will be, so there is classes to select. I quest that's why Tomb raider is consider as adventure game and Mass Effect as role-playing. Some First person shooters there isn't even character, it's more like player is playing him/her self.

Where's the limit of what is RPG?

Hard to say, because role-playing only means taking role of something else than your self. I my self would put limit of RPG as if player can only play one role as no able to choose class or any other way customize abilities of his/her character, then it's not really much of roleplaying game. Now how good some game is in role-playing as providing option, doesn't restrict game still to be role-playing game. So, ability choose items doesn't make game to role-playing game, it's more about characters ability have more than one role to play.

Modifié par Lumikki, 14 février 2011 - 08:56 .

[Lunatic LK47]

Gleym wrote...

Just curious here, Lunatic.. outside of Mass Effect 2, are there any RPGs you don't hate? 'Cause so far it just sounds like you hate RPGs and ME2 is the exception due to having less RPG-related things for you to hate in it.

KOTOR 1 is the only one I remotely like out of the entire library of available RPGs for consoles. The rest of the console RPG market is full of  the same old repetitive JRPG crap.

[Lunatic LK47]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Gatt, I don't recall reading anywhere that anything involving player skill nullifies a game as a roleplaying game. An RPG is a game in which you assume a role other than your own. I assure you that I am not Commander Shepard and I assure you that I never really shot anyone. Or never really fetched Liara's data. Or never shot Condrad in the foot. Or have a girlfriend named Miranda.

Ding ding ding. Epic win there.

And I said that they tried to go mainstream.. Attempts aren't always successful. But ME2 has sold several million units - let's not have another thread breakdown into us dragging up wildly inaccurate estimates from a variety of sources - that made the game profitable enough that they will still flog the hell out of ME3 so we can still expect more. DA was also very successful so they will make more of those as well.

But sorry, there is no high priest of all geekdom to decide what is allowed to be called an RPG and what is not.

Another person added to the free beer list.

[AlanC9]

Terror_K wrote...

For someone who's usually scrupulous about acknowledging that people have different tastes in games, you seem to be awfully certain that Bio's designers agree with you about their changes. You really think that they didn't consider the changes to be improvements? On what evidence?

Based on the way they went about it and what they've said. This whole "simple = better" approach, particularly from Christina Norman, speaks volumes to me. That rather than improve an existing aspect they'd rather just scrap it and reduce it to its simplest elements as the solution. The fact that rather than letting players have full control of things they'd rather automate far too much to the point of making it pointless and so that it requires next to no input or thinking from the player, especially with regards to the research/upgrade system which just God-mods everything to the max with no need for a player to choose or even pay attention.

 If Christina Norman really believes that "simple = better", then the choice she's making simply isn't between "improving" an aspect and "reducing it to its simplest elements." To her those are the same thing. You shouldn't characterize other people's decision-making in terms of your own evaluation of their alternatives. Results you can characterize any way you want.

On top of it all, the overall shift in style from something that seems to be aimed at old-school sci-fi fans as a homage to sci-fi from the late 70's to early 90's into the more bombastic, over-the-top "Modern Hollywood" approach more aimed at today's teenagers. Add to that the babying and oversimplification and in-in-your-face nature of the inferfaces as well as the gameplay (Large simple weapons loadout screens, "Mission Complete" screens that overexplain, large on-screen prompts and large, candy-like pop-ups, etc.) give the whole thing both a "retooled by the network" feel combined with a "Fisher Price: My First RPG" approach. To an experienced RPG player it's like BioWare suddenly decided to throw a bib on me with the Cerberus logo on it, shove me into a high chair and start going "here comes the RPG! Zoooo-ooom!" with a little spoon.

Again with the "experienced RPG player bit"? I expect that sort of nonsense from Gatt9 or Gleym, not you.

As an experienced RPG player myself, I thought that the interface wasn't a very good port, true -- not as bad as KotOR's, but not great. (I forgave Bio for this because at least ME2 doesn't blow up my sound card or crash my rig repeatedly the way ME1 does). As for the rest, I simply don't see it. I think we've talked about "Mission Complete" screens before. I prefer them. I wish all CRPGs handed out experience this way, which is the way the better PnP systems handle XP. Kill XP is not only juvenile, it provides bad incentives. The weapon loadout interface suits the system that's there. And so on.

As for the syle shift... too subjective for me to get into.

[AlanC9]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...
The tabletop wargaming rules traditionally involved in P&P RPGs does involve player skill as well. It's simply that the skills are tactical and do not involve anything remotely twitch based. But my character may have an 18 intelligence but I'm still as dumb as a stump and keep fireballing the fire-immune fire elemental and inadvertently killing my party. As you describe it, I should simply be able to tell the computer that my super smart character tries to kill the monster and then sit back and let the computer play it out for me.

Well, you can do exactly that in Dragon Age with the Tactics system. Except the currently controlled character doesn't use his Tactics in DAO, thought some folks have requested this.

Gatt's point can still work if we arbitrarily declare that tactical command and other "executive" abilities should come from the player but all other skills should not, and then forget that this was an arbitrary line. Maybe it's Cartesian dualism popping up?

Edit: Of course, we accept dialogue skills rather than make the player be diplomatic, etc. himself.Though that's just because nobody wants to wrtie dialog trees complicated enough to make this work.

Modifié par AlanC9, 14 février 2011 - 10:10 .

[Capeo]

Lunatic LK47 wrote...

Gleym wrote...

Just curious here, Lunatic.. outside of Mass Effect 2, are there any RPGs you don't hate? 'Cause so far it just sounds like you hate RPGs and ME2 is the exception due to having less RPG-related things for you to hate in it.

KOTOR 1 is the only one I remotely like out of the entire library of available RPGs for consoles. The rest of the console RPG market is full of  the same old repetitive JRPG crap.

Bethesda's RPGs are on consoles and they're some of the best RPGs out there.  About as far as you can get from JRPGs.

[Lumikki]

AlanC9 wrote...

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...
The tabletop wargaming rules traditionally involved in P&P RPGs does involve player skill as well. It's simply that the skills are tactical and do not involve anything remotely twitch based. But my character may have an 18 intelligence but I'm still as dumb as a stump and keep fireballing the fire-immune fire elemental and inadvertently killing my party. As you describe it, I should simply be able to tell the computer that my super smart character tries to kill the monster and then sit back and let the computer play it out for me.

Well, you can do exactly that in Dragon Age with the Tactics system. Except the currently controlled character doesn't use his Tactics in DAO, thought some folks have requested this.

Gatt's point can still work if we arbitrarily declare that tactical command and other "executive" abilities should come from the player but all other skills should not, and then forget that this was an arbitrary line. Maybe it's Cartesian dualism popping up?

Yes, but where's the limit when player is and isn't role-playing anymore, because if too many stuff is out of player abilities. Like if players real life IQ isn't enough for characters decission making, does it mean game has to do it for player or does it just mean bad role-playing, because real life limitations. If we make character AI so good that player does only few tactical choises, I would not call it anymore role-playing. More like controlling character in tactical game. Too much automated features in role-playing will kill ability call it role-playing. While too much direct control is limited by players own ability role-play the character. So, I think game could help player to role-play, but game should never play the game for player.

Modifié par Lumikki, 14 février 2011 - 10:24 .

[AlanC9]

Lumikki wrote...

Yes, but where's the limit when player is and isn't role-playing anymore, because if too many stuff is out of player abilities. Like if players real life IQ isn't enough for characters decission making, does it mean game has to do it for player or does it just mean bad role-playing, because real life limitations. If we make character AI so good that player does only few tactical choises, I would not call it anymore role-playing. More like controlling character in tactical game. Too much automated features in role-playing will kill ability call it role-playing. While too much direct control is limited by players own ability role-play the character.

Well, the way I'd settle that question is to simply design a game I like and not worry about how it's classified.

I found that I kind of like having the NPCs do their own thing. In DAO I hardly even touch the NPCs. But I still prefer playing my own character all the time. I'd just as soon let him fight the trash fights on his own, but that's a problem with trash fights themselves.

[Lordgleen]

More RPG elements is a most. less shooter more rgp. Also no amo.

[Cra5y Pineapple]

 It'll probably have more of both, but it's not likely that they'll return to the inventory of ME1 or the "excessive amount of weapons that all look and feel the same" effect.

Modifié par Cra5y Pineapple, 15 février 2011 - 12:21 .

[Terror_K]

AlanC9 wrote...

If Christina Norman really believes that "simple = better", then the choice she's making simply isn't between "improving" an aspect and "reducing it to its simplest elements." To her those are the same thing. You shouldn't characterize other people's decision-making in terms of your own evaluation of their alternatives. Results you can characterize any way you want.

The thing is though, simplicity is good, from a certain point of view. But just like one can make something too unnecessarily complex, one can also make it too simple. This is why I always feel ME2 went too far with its "streamlining" and moved beyond that into the "dumbed down" territory. Overall it overcompensated for ME1's failings far too much. For example, ME1 had an overcomplicated inventory for systems that should have been fairly simple, while ME2 had too simple a one.

The whole point in streamlining something is to retain functionality and depth, but make it as easy as possible for the user to use it. Simply put, you want to make the interaction and use of the mechanic simple but keep the complexity and depth of its functionality in tact. ME2 failed to do this entirely by just being completely simple in all aspects. Everything pretty much falls on your lap without any real effort, there's far too little to actually customise, tweak and play with and far too much that's simply automated and takes no real effort or thought on the part of the player. This has left the systems shallow, tedious and just plain unsatisfactory. The research/upgrade system of ME2 is a textbook case of this. If you ever see a thread about weapon modding coming back you'll see pretty much universal agreement amongst the fans for its return, even those who are largely pro-ME2 and like most of the changes.

Yes, simplicity is good, but only when to apply it to the right areas and know when to stop. Christina and co. clearly didn't know when to stop judging from how ME2 turned out. Some players approve, but many just feel the entire process to be shallow and unsatisfactory to the point where they may as well automate everything completely without any input or choice from the player at all if they're going to reduce it so much. Some players don't necessarily need to be able to tweak all these aspects, but many of us find the game's mechanics horribly shallow, linear and dull when we don't even really get the choice.

Again with the "experienced RPG player bit"? I expect that sort of nonsense from Gatt9 or Gleym, not you.

As an experienced RPG player myself, I thought that the interface wasn't a very good port, true -- not as bad as KotOR's, but not great. (I forgave Bio for this because at least ME2 doesn't blow up my sound card or crash my rig repeatedly the way ME1 does). As for the rest, I simply don't see it. I think we've talked about "Mission Complete" screens before. I prefer them. I wish all CRPGs handed out experience this way, which is the way the better PnP systems handle XP. Kill XP is not only juvenile, it provides bad incentives. The weapon loadout interface suits the system that's there. And so on.

Sorry, but that's just how I feel. Mass Effect 2 feels like opening a big childrens book at every turn, not to mention it's constant need to pull me out of the game by constantly popping things up and reminding me that it's a game (which is ironic considering BioWare claimed they "streamlined" the RPG-ness out of the game to make it more immersive...) and never letting me just lose myself a great sci-fi experience. Everything is so big and bright and in-your-face, when it doesn't need to be. Especially when one compares the pop-ups in ME2 that take up about a quarter of the screen with big pictures attached to the original ones that just showed a tiny rectangle and only the bare minimum of needed information. Also ironically, the main HUD doesn't give enough information and is another case of a modern more-than-minimalist HUD that's poorly designed and confusing.

"Mission Complete" screens bug me not so much because they're an RPG factor or not, but because they just jump at you and break the flow of the entire game, while simultaneously taking me out of it. It makes everything feel likes levels rather than a constantly flowing narrative and beyond that overexplains what we should already know, while (again, ironically) giving absolutely no context at all to what that big lump of XP is and where it came from. I don't feel like I'm in a massive, living, breathing world, I feel like I'm going from Blue Illium Zone 3 to Tuchanka Ruins Zone 1, etc. especially when it automatically bamfs me back to The Normandy without any say, or has me stuck in a small area with a conversation-wheel covering "Press the key you've changed but the programmers were lazy and couldn't program in a simple reference to leave!" On top of that, it's always the same no matter what I did or how I approached the mission. How do I even know it's really XP for my deeds and not some arbritrary number BioWare made up and threw at me with no real meaning that just happens to make me level up exactly after each mission. A little convenient, isn't it?

XP doesn't need to be given out for kills, but there should be some context rather than a meaningless lump sum (I've liked the idea of certain quest milestones giving you it gradually) and there has to be a better way of presenting it than like that (I've liked the idea of a post-mission briefing on The Normandy where you go over things. Somebody once even suggested improving immersion by having Kelly walk up to you once you returned to The Normandy with a datapad before you saw the screen). As it stands XP feels pointless, and I even question whether ME2 is an RPG if the level-up and XP system is as shallow and arbritrary as it seems. Funnily enough while this is a PnP RPG trope it's actually one of the few that should go, merely for the immersion factor if nothing else. Most prior cRPGs have done away with it, and yet ME2 brings it back in another case of ironic misplacement. Yet I'm willing to bet all those who cry for "out with the old RPG stuff, in with the new action-oriented, simple approach!" will likely be its biggest supporters.

And people wonder why I feel ME2 is a very schizophrenic game overall.

Of course this is all meaningless if the real reason (and I suspect this is the case) for all the "mainstreamlining" and oversimplification is not so much to make a better Mass Effect but to pull in all those players out there who are put off by RPG mechanics. As far as I can tell BioWare don't want to make a good, deep RPG with the Mass Effect series any more; they just want to create the "perfect" formula for bringing in the most players by twisting it more in the style of the Call of Duty, Halo and Gears of War games while still trying to retain their old audience. The problem is, much of the stuff that puts off the big fans of the former is the same stuff that old-school RPG fans love. But when it comes down to it, old-school RPG fans are a minority, so if anybody is going to lose out it's them. After all, the only time people comes before profit is in the dictionary.