1216 réponses à ce sujet

[Ziggeh]

AlanC9 wrote...

As for length, I think it's pretty clear that Bio doesn't consider this to be a useful way to measure quality. The ME2 changes, and maybe DA2's as well, seem to pretty much be aimed at removing the elements that gave lots of gameplay hours for little development cost. Collection quests, Mako driving, probes and whatnot on procedurally-generated planets, inventory fiddling.... these things come cheap. ME2 had more and better individual areas than ME1 did.

Indeed, I'm not sure additional tedium is something people should request.

[upsettingshorts]

BobSmith101 wrote...

Because it's cheaper to do.

Prove it.

Prove that Lowtown and Hightown over the course of ten years and day/night are cheaper to produce than say, the Dalish encampment and Lothering.   Just to pick a couple examples.

BobSmith101 wrote...

What you call focused I call cheap, we won't agree and you can't you can't show anything that will change my mind.

You don't need to tell me you're closed-minded, that was already obvious.

BobSmith101 wrote...

I just read over the VA list and it just re-inforced what I already thought.

Ah, confirmation bias.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 06 mars 2011 - 10:09 .

[AkiKishi]

Grunk wrote...
I'm disagreeing in that I don't see how you're concluding from the assumption that they wanted BG2 to be amazing, they don't want DA2 to be amazing. Making DA2 very similar to BG2 (which isn't what I think you're saying here) wouldn't make it incredible, it would make it a clone.

I don't find the length of BG2 to mean it's incredible, but I also really hated the BG games, so I'm probably not the person to talk to about that. I preferred Fallout and, although I had beefs with it, Icewind Dale 2. I guess the main thing here is that they were always doing stuff for the money, and the length of BG2 doesn't make it more of a lovechild than DA2. And the really major difference is that I don't think another BG2-style game could be made in the current market environment by a major developer house; costs have skyrocketed tremendously since the days of BG2. It's possible that BG2 was large precisely because it was so much cheaper to make it large than it would be today and still have it be a AAA title.

You may be right, although when a developer does something that is not required it tends to make the doing it for the money argument less compeling.

Thats why I used the game hours rather than saying how great BG2 was.

Depends, we may see something interesting from Skrym. They tend to excel at the open world stuff not so much at the character stuff. But they seem to be showing a lot more ambition than Bioware right now.

[Sylvius the Mad]

AlanC9 wrote...

As for length, I think it's pretty clear that Bio doesn't consider this to be a useful way to measure quality. The ME2 changes, and maybe DA2's as well, seem to pretty much be aimed at removing the elements that gave lots of gameplay hours for little development cost.

Wasn't ME2 longer than ME?  It certainly was when I played it.

And I even spent a bunch of extra time driving around in the Mako, because it was my favourite part of the game.

[moilami]

AlanC9 wrote...

In Exile wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
IIRC the only reason NWN1 had any kind of companions was because of heavy adverse reaction on the old forums late in development, which is why the NWN1 OC implementation is so clunky. Apparently the devs thought that people would be OK with soloing or playing MP.

Is that how it went? To be fair, I'm not surprised as that seems consistent with their idea of NWN as an MP client versus an SP game.

Yeah -- the companions are just NPCs with a special script that makes them of the same faction as the PC and sets them to follow him around. You couldn't access their inventories in the original game, so their stuff levelled up as they did. Modders added configuration and inventory access later, and Bio picked that up in the expansions

And I think there wasn't going to be any player-controlled pausing at all, originally. In MP only the DM could pause because there's only one clock for the entire module.

This pausing thing, in single player I like I can carefully and in peace execute, plot, and enjoy my strategies. The game is more about the skills my chars have than I have. in MP that is too much to ask. Because of that arcade gameplay is what I prefer in multiplayer especially in competitive setting but for immersion too.

[AkiKishi]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

Prove it.

Prove that Lowtown and Hightown over the course of ten years and day/night are cheaper to produce than say, the Dalish encampment and Lothering.   Just to pick a couple examples.

You don't need to tell me you're closed-minded, that was already obvious.

Ah, confirmation bias.

You prove it. See I can do that too.

Right back at ya.

Aditional evidence.

You want to give Bioware the benifit of the doubt, that's your choice. I'm going with the evidence.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

confirmation bias.

Only one of the many reasons why faith is dangerous.

edit: Oh, wait.  I was talking about faith in a different thread.  Oops.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 06 mars 2011 - 10:13 .

[outlaw1109]

More complaints over the length of the game?

Wow...they shortened the game to give us more detail with the content we get.

There's that or they can give us a 60+hour game with less detail and a lot of 'fluff'.

Origins was great, but its time to move on....

ME 2 was originally said to be shorter than ME1, but I can play it longer than what they had said...

Modifié par outlaw1109, 06 mars 2011 - 10:16 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Ziggeh wrote...

Indeed, I'm not sure additional tedium is something people should request.

Exploration is not tedious.

[upsettingshorts]

BobSmith101 wrote...

You prove it. See I can do that too.

Right back at ya.

"Right back at ya" doesn't really work as your implicit admission that you can't answer the question was what I was trying to show anyway, and your claims require it. 

My point is that you don't have any.  I didn't claim I did, but I'm making no financial arguments, simply pointing out that yours are based on nothing at all.

My arguments are based upon what a focused setting can do for a story.  It'd be true of DA2 just as its true of TW1 or fiction in general.  It stands on its own.  People are free to dispute that such a story focus detracts from roleplaying, or just simply isn't the kind of story they like - or whatever, that's fine - but it's not a financial argument and I can't recall someone disputing that narrowing/focusing the story in such a way can accomplish the things I describe in a way an open ended story could not.  You're free to do so, however, you'd just be the first I can remember.

BobSmith101 wrote...

I'm going with the evidence.

What evidence?

So you've seen their internal memos and financial statements then?  Perhaps their development bible where they say focusing the story in Kirkwall is being done primarily as a cost-cutting measure and not part of the narrative?

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 06 mars 2011 - 10:17 .

[upsettingshorts]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Ziggeh wrote...

Indeed, I'm not sure additional tedium is something people should request.

Exploration is not tedious.

It can be.  Or it can be fun.  Depends on the game and what you might find.  

[Sylvius the Mad]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

My arguments are based upon what a focused setting can do for a story.

Limit its scope and potential?  Yes, I'd agree with that.

I know what you're trying to say, but I want to point out that your story-based arguments only work if you define the story as being limited to BioWare's authored narrative.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

It can be.  Or it can be fun.  Depends on the game and what you might find.  

And not all people agree.

Again, I thought the Mako was the very best part of Mass Effect.  Driving that thing across the uncharted worlds - figuring out how to climb specific hills and scour the entire map - that was fun.

Clearly some people disagree.

[upsettingshorts]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I know what you're trying to say, but I want to point out that your story-based arguments only work if you define the story as being limited to BioWare's authored narrative.

I'd say limited by cooperation with BioWare's authored narrative.  Like all their other games.  But we can dispute that another time.  

[AkiKishi]

Upsettingshorts wrote...
So you've seen their internal memos and financial statements then?  Perhaps their development bible where they say focusing the story in Kirkwall is being done primarily as a cost-cutting measure and not part of the narrative?

That would be proof not evidence.

[upsettingshorts]

BobSmith101 wrote...

That would be proof not evidence.

A lack of evidence is not a kind of evidence.  Circumstantial evidence is open to interpretation.  

There are no eyewitness accounts - like Mike Laidlaw or Stan Woo coming here and saying it's about cost - or physical evidence, like the documents I gave as possible examples.

So, what kind of evidence do you claim to have anyway? 

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

And not all people agree.

Again, I thought the Mako was the very best part of Mass Effect.  Driving that thing across the uncharted worlds - figuring out how to climb specific hills and scour the entire map - that was fun.

Clearly some people disagree.

This may come as a shock, and it's entirely unrelated to the discussion, but your comments on exploration and such make me think you might actually enjoy - as much as you and I can enjoy the same games, in this case I'm referring mainly to the lore and premise - the pretend Dragon Age sequel I've been dreaming up in my head.  I'll be sure to PM you some of it when I actually have something coherent.  At the very least for our amusement, heh.  

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 06 mars 2011 - 10:27 .

[moilami]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

As for length, I think it's pretty clear that Bio doesn't consider this to be a useful way to measure quality. The ME2 changes, and maybe DA2's as well, seem to pretty much be aimed at removing the elements that gave lots of gameplay hours for little development cost.

Wasn't ME2 longer than ME?  It certainly was when I played it.

And I even spent a bunch of extra time driving around in the Mako, because it was my favourite part of the game.

Lol Mako.

Not sure how to interpret what you said. It could be interpret that you hated the combat so much that even sucky Mako game was better.

I hated Mako at first big time. Now it is pretty cool to go take a ride with it.

[AkiKishi]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Again, I thought the Mako was the very best part of Mass Effect.  Driving that thing across the uncharted worlds - figuring out how to climb specific hills and scour the entire map - that was fun.

Clearly some people disagree.

That was fun ? 

I like exploring but only when there is something worthwhile out there to find, however well hidden it might be. That was not really the case in ME1 with it's generic planets and crashed probes, boxes and ore nodes.

Maybe if the contents of boxes had not been completely random, exploring may have been more worthwhile.

After a couple of randomly coloured oblong planets I never wanted to see another one. Never had issues with the Mako itself like some people.

Modifié par BobSmith101, 06 mars 2011 - 10:29 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

moilami wrote...

Lol Mako.

Not sure how to interpret what you said. It could be interpret that you hated the combat so much that even sucky Mako game was better.

I'm neutral on ME's combat (it was certainly better than ME2's combat, which I strongly dislike).  ME's true failure, I think, was the dialogue system.

I liked the Mako because it allowed me an open environment in which to make decisions.  And in-character decision-making -- roleplaying -- is the only reason I play these games.

[Khaldara]

I loved Dragon Age, and I'm sure I'll love DA: 2 as well, but I think the reason you see a lot of these types of articles these days is because it's been forever since someone's seen a game released on scale with Baldur's Gate 2 for example, where it took ages to beat and it felt like you'd never get to all the side quests. I can empathize with that viewpoint, a lot of today's newer gamers apparently don't care to be presented with that type of game anymore, whether it's the mental challenge and strategy involved or what I'm not sure. In that regard I agree, for some reason that style of game is gone and doesn't seem to be coming back.

That having been said, Dragon Age is a bit of an evolution from that experience, Bioware continues to convey an epic feel in all their franchises (Mass Effect is a wonderful example), and I feel that's transitioned well. They've just re-tooled the combat for what seems approachable to today's gamer (and ported the game to the inferior console platforms - Sorry, that point can't be argued... an i7 extreme and dual cards could render and process more than 4 times faster than the garbage console hardware) in the name of reaching the largest audience possible. As long as they're using the profit to keep turning out such enjoyable pieces of art however, they'll keep getting my money

To me it's been an unfortunate evolution, much the same way I view DLC as opposed to true game expansions, but I can understand and respect the financial decisions involved in those changes. I do miss Boo though.

[moilami]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

moilami wrote...

Lol Mako.

Not sure how to interpret what you said. It could be interpret that you hated the combat so much that even sucky Mako game was better.

I'm neutral on ME's combat (it was certainly better than ME2's combat, which I strongly dislike).  ME's true failure, I think, was the dialogue system.

I liked the Mako because it allowed me an open environment in which to make decisions.  And in-character decision-making -- roleplaying -- is the only reason I play these games.

This is interesting how much ME dialogue wheel splits people. I found it amusing at first to watch what words my char actually uses. For some reason I found it also more immersive since all those very detailed and fancy replies in DA and especially in BG are hard for me to go IC because they are like forcing me to pick a role instead of making a role myself. It feels better to select a "tone" and direction of actions and see the char being sparse with words since I can easily imagine myself what I want what my char actually said.

Now the novelty of amusing myself with the difference of selected words and the words my char says has wore away and I find it very intuitive and just good system.

[Aidunno]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
I liked the Mako because it allowed me an open environment in which to make decisions.  And in-character decision-making -- roleplaying -- is the only reason I play these games.

I think, as already mentioned the mako is a thing which people love or hate.. personally I'm on the hate side. The trouble I find with the mako however also extends to other "open world" RPG's. Exploration, for the sake of it is boring unless you have a reason other than simply lets loot and get XP by going in another dungeon/planet. Time sinks do not make a computer game good even if you can say "it takes 300 hours". This is especially the case when there are no real challenges or suprises in these excursions.

It's another difference between CRPGs and PnP. In PnP is wasn't just about the time you took, it was about being with friends and enjoying the company of others.

Modifié par Aidunno, 06 mars 2011 - 10:54 .

[Lusitanum]

moilami wrote...

Well, in Nightmare boss type mobs can resist spells and melee actions. That RNG does make the fights a little bit more challenging as does friendly fire. And during my first and second playthrough there were many interesting fights. Every fight can't be epic boss fight or else people would be complaining how every fight is just boring and repetative.

But that's the thing: not even boss fights were epic because they all got killed the same way. What worked for "random mob A" worked through the whole game, all the way to the Archdemon (and taking a detour to the Mother). And that is why every single fight already is boring and repetitive.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

While I'll agree that DAO didn't
offer much in the way of tactical challenge, I would argue that the
reasons for this were twofold.

First, the encounters scaled to
suit you, so you didn't face an unpredictable difficulty curve.  As
such, you could enter each encounter confident that you had the ability
to defeat it (as such, perhaps my favourite encounter my first time
through DAO was those wolves and traps that ambushed you while
travelling).

I don't think there were scaled. And if they were, it wasn't all that well. Some friends of mine found DA:O too hard while others found it a breeze and I only understood why when I asked them about what areas they visited first and found out that those that started in areas like Orzamar or the Brecilian Forest just kept getting their asses handed to them a lot more often than those that started with Redcliff or the Circle Tower.

I still have to try this out myself (should have started in the Brecilian Forest on this playthough... damn it!) but from what I've seen so far, the scaling system seems to be broken.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Second,
the game completely eschewed strategic gameplay in favour of tactical
gameplay.  At least, that's what they said they were trying to do by
having everything regenerate between encounters.  But, again, what that
did was ensure that you would always have the tools available to defeat
any encounter, and let you know that you could safely use all of your
tools (DA2's encounter waves might help somewhat with that last
problem).

I think DAO would have offered a far more tactical
experience if it had required more strategic planning (thus allowing you
to face encounters both without all of your resources handy, and
without you feeling comfortable exploiting all of your now
limited resources), and by offering a less predictable difficulty curve
(so at the start of any encounter you might not know whether it would be
a complete walk in the park or something from which you should
immediately flee).  These two things together would require much more
tactical gameplay from the player, as you would need to enact flexible
tactical plans using a minimum of resources.

But DAO didn't do that.

I don't think the game needs to limit your resources to be challenging it just needs to give you a variety of tools and then give you challenges that forces you to use them according to the situation so that you'll learn what works best with a given kind of obstacle and then just keep changing it up to keep you on your toes.

But like I've said before, DA:O didn't do that because every fight can be solved the same way as the previous one. There's no learning process (apart from learning the mechanics), no need to adapt to new situations, just keep using that W+M1 strategy that worked so well when you started playing and you'll be fine.

SaviorPilate wrote...



 What's so disappointing is that
none of you people seem to know anything about game history.  Or RPG
history.  Or even basic spelling and grammar, for that matter.



Anyone
who has roots in the history of RPG games knows how important Bioware
used to be as a social movement.  It wasn't just that Baldur's Gate was a
great game, it was that there was a company making quality products for
us.  What Bioware represented was an indie movement writ large,
supporting all of its die-hard fans as it was supported by them (us).



And now, Bioware is just another faceless piece of EA.  It's all bull****, as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, Bioware was a lot more indie when they took an extremely popular and lucrative licence to make their game. Now that was risky of them, taking the D&D word, which was extremely popular among PC players and just running with it to make what was basically a traditional PnP game where the computer took the place of the DM. Eat your heart out, Jonathan Blow! Which you could do that with your crappy game, don't you, Markus Persson?

But now they're all "new IPs" and "trying out different approaches to gameplay and storytelling". What's happened to you Bioware? You used to be cool!

moilami wrote...

In
BG you could suddenly die by a forest druid monster (don't remember the
right name) kissing you. PONG surprise enjoy the game over death
screen. Where are surprises in DA? Masses hate "if you can't do anything
to avoid death"

Yeah, now that sure was smart gameplay: just put a Dryad in your way with an instant kill that came completely out of nowhere and you had no way to avoid other than knowing it beforehand. Oh, and I hope that the character that spoke to her wasn't your PC, because if it wasn't, congratulations, your party member just gets revived. If it was... well I hope you enjoy repeating the last 30 minutes of your life since your last save, because you're going to have to do it all over again.

I'm sorry, but where I come from, that's called being cheap, not smart. Anyone can make a dragon appear out of nowhere and eat you, but it takes true skill to make a challenge where when you fail, you think "well, you've got me, I could have avoided that if I'd thought it through". And insta-kills that come out of nowhere don't fit into that category.

moilami wrote...



You don't seem to understand that I like
"evil" games like Nethack. I don't want to be in fantasy world protected
by some virtual nanny holding my hand and making sure nothing nasty can
happen to me. It is supposed to be deadly world there. And I want to
live on the edge!

Oh yeah, I'm living on the edge! I'm a rebel baby, you can't tame me!

Seriously, who talks like that?

And if you want a game that makes you feel like you're all alone in a dark, oppresive world, I'd recommend playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It's 50% off on Steam until the 7th, go get it. It's brutal, it's opressive, it's scary as all hell (my shoulders actually hurt from the tension after playing this game) and guess what: it manages to be all that by clever game design, not by ever needing to just drop a monster out of nowhere on your face and say "surprise! Now start over and remember that this thing is here next time." That's the stupid "Dead Space" way of doing things. And I'm trying to forget that BG used the same cheap trick, thank you very much.

[moilami]

Khaldara wrote...

I loved Dragon Age, and I'm sure I'll love DA: 2 as well, but I think the reason you see a lot of these types of articles these days is because it's been forever since someone's seen a game released on scale with Baldur's Gate 2 for example, where it took ages to beat and it felt like you'd never get to all the side quests. I can empathize with that viewpoint, a lot of today's newer gamers apparently don't care to be presented with that type of game anymore, whether it's the mental challenge and strategy involved or what I'm not sure. In that regard I agree, for some reason that style of game is gone and doesn't seem to be coming back.

That having been said, Dragon Age is a bit of an evolution from that experience, Bioware continues to convey an epic feel in all their franchises (Mass Effect is a wonderful example), and I feel that's transitioned well. They've just re-tooled the combat for what seems approachable to today's gamer (and ported the game to the inferior console platforms - Sorry, that point can't be argued... an i7 extreme and dual cards could render and process more than 4 times faster than the garbage console hardware) in the name of reaching the largest audience possible. As long as they're using the profit to keep turning out such enjoyable pieces of art however, they'll keep getting my money

To me it's been an unfortunate evolution, much the same way I view DLC as opposed to true game expansions, but I can understand and respect the financial decisions involved in those changes. I do miss Boo though.

Lol Boo. I am indifferent of Mincs. He had some good attitude but maybe had got too many knocks on the head, or maybe was just not that gifted right away in birth. At times I wanted to roll a toon who would had crushed Boo on the wall in the front of Mincs. Would just not had been able to roll so evil toon doing such thing to the little hamster.

Things went both worse and better in BG2. Worse in that Minsc begun to be even more irritating at times. Better in a way that the old Paladin talked some sense to Minsc.

Minsc was best with Dryads or whatever those forest druid monsters were. Just release Minsc alone at them with the cursed zweihander and lol.

[moilami]

Lusitanum wrote...

moilami wrote...

Well, in Nightmare boss type mobs can resist spells and melee actions. That RNG does make the fights a little bit more challenging as does friendly fire. And during my first and second playthrough there were many interesting fights. Every fight can't be epic boss fight or else people would be complaining how every fight is just boring and repetative.

But that's the thing: not even boss fights were epic because they all got killed the same way. What worked for "random mob A" worked through the whole game, all the way to the Archdemon (and taking a detour to the Mother). And that is why every single fight already is boring and repetitive.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

While I'll agree that DAO didn't
offer much in the way of tactical challenge, I would argue that the
reasons for this were twofold.

First, the encounters scaled to
suit you, so you didn't face an unpredictable difficulty curve.  As
such, you could enter each encounter confident that you had the ability
to defeat it (as such, perhaps my favourite encounter my first time
through DAO was those wolves and traps that ambushed you while
travelling).

I don't think there were scaled. And if they were, it wasn't all that well. Some friends of mine found DA:O too hard while others found it a breeze and I only understood why when I asked them about what areas they visited first and found out that those that started in areas like Orzamar or the Brecilian Forest just kept getting their asses handed to them a lot more often than those that started with Redcliff or the Circle Tower.

I still have to try this out myself (should have started in the Brecilian Forest on this playthough... damn it!) but from what I've seen so far, the scaling system seems to be broken.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Second,
the game completely eschewed strategic gameplay in favour of tactical
gameplay.  At least, that's what they said they were trying to do by
having everything regenerate between encounters.  But, again, what that
did was ensure that you would always have the tools available to defeat
any encounter, and let you know that you could safely use all of your
tools (DA2's encounter waves might help somewhat with that last
problem).

I think DAO would have offered a far more tactical
experience if it had required more strategic planning (thus allowing you
to face encounters both without all of your resources handy, and
without you feeling comfortable exploiting all of your now
limited resources), and by offering a less predictable difficulty curve
(so at the start of any encounter you might not know whether it would be
a complete walk in the park or something from which you should
immediately flee).  These two things together would require much more
tactical gameplay from the player, as you would need to enact flexible
tactical plans using a minimum of resources.

But DAO didn't do that.

I don't think the game needs to limit your resources to be challenging it just needs to give you a variety of tools and then give you challenges that forces you to use them according to the situation so that you'll learn what works best with a given kind of obstacle and then just keep changing it up to keep you on your toes.

But like I've said before, DA:O didn't do that because every fight can be solved the same way as the previous one. There's no learning process (apart from learning the mechanics), no need to adapt to new situations, just keep using that W+M1 strategy that worked so well when you started playing and you'll be fine.

SaviorPilate wrote...



 What's so disappointing is that
none of you people seem to know anything about game history.  Or RPG
history.  Or even basic spelling and grammar, for that matter.



Anyone
who has roots in the history of RPG games knows how important Bioware
used to be as a social movement.  It wasn't just that Baldur's Gate was a
great game, it was that there was a company making quality products for
us.  What Bioware represented was an indie movement writ large,
supporting all of its die-hard fans as it was supported by them (us).



And now, Bioware is just another faceless piece of EA.  It's all bull****, as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, Bioware was a lot more indie when they took an extremely popular and lucrative licence to make their game. Now that was risky of them, taking the D&D word, which was extremely popular among PC players and just running with it to make what was basically a traditional PnP game where the computer took the place of the DM. Eat your heart out, Jonathan Blow! Which you could do that with your crappy game, don't you, Markus Persson?

But now they're all "new IPs" and "trying out different approaches to gameplay and storytelling". What's happened to you Bioware? You used to be cool!

moilami wrote...

In
BG you could suddenly die by a forest druid monster (don't remember the
right name) kissing you. PONG surprise enjoy the game over death
screen. Where are surprises in DA? Masses hate "if you can't do anything
to avoid death"

Yeah, now that sure was smart gameplay: just put a Dryad in your way with an instant kill that came completely out of nowhere and you had no way to avoid other than knowing it beforehand. Oh, and I hope that the character that spoke to her wasn't your PC, because if it wasn't, congratulations, your party member just gets revived. If it was... well I hope you enjoy repeating the last 30 minutes of your life since your last save, because you're going to have to do it all over again.

I'm sorry, but where I come from, that's called being cheap, not smart. Anyone can make a dragon appear out of nowhere and eat you, but it takes true skill to make a challenge where when you fail, you think "well, you've got me, I could have avoided that if I'd thought it through". And insta-kills that come out of nowhere don't fit into that category.

moilami wrote...



You don't seem to understand that I like
"evil" games like Nethack. I don't want to be in fantasy world protected
by some virtual nanny holding my hand and making sure nothing nasty can
happen to me. It is supposed to be deadly world there. And I want to
live on the edge!

Oh yeah, I'm living on the edge! I'm a rebel baby, you can't tame me!

Seriously, who talks like that?

And if you want a game that makes you feel like you're all alone in a dark, oppresive world, I'd recommend playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It's 50% off on Steam until the 7th, go get it. It's brutal, it's opressive, it's scary as all hell (my shoulders actually hurt from the tension after playing this game) and guess what: it manages to be all that by clever game design, not by ever needing to just drop a monster out of nowhere on your face and say "surprise! Now start over and remember that this thing is here next time." That's the stupid "Dead Space" way of doing things. And I'm trying to forget that BG used the same cheap trick, thank you very much.

I find this strange that you criticise repetative combat so much since on abstract level combat in RPGs is just "kill & loot" pressing keys in keyboard in every game. Interesting difference came in Fallout where companions were not controllable by player and you had to actually support them instead of them supporting you.

The dryad thing worked in first time. It gave very good WTF! I can actually die here, as it should be.

I can't be tamed, not even IRL, though I don't live on the edge IRL. However in games I want to live on edge and not be a puppet. Death must lurk in every corner and in any time, as it does very succesfully in Nethack. These mainstream RPGs are just lame hero power play beyond words. Gimp noob rises to power to strip power away from something very powerful and none can stop him. Very interesting...not.

Thanks of the game suggestion but I don't like puzzle games.