Gabey5 wrote...
all rpgs are linear to some degree, you cannot change major events
FALSE FALSE FALSETry
TES IV: Oblivion (GOTY edition)Almost completely non-linear.
You can do any of nearly 100 or more quests in parallel, or linear or skip.
Examples
1), You can be mage, fighter, thief, assassin,
paladin, or NONE of the above, or all of the above in nearly any order
(some would be harder than others -- especially mixing the paladin line
w/thief or assassin).
Probably about 70-90 'side quests' of varying length.
And
2 main quests -- which can be done in either order, or not at all (i.e.
they are optional -- you can just scores of little side ruins, dungeons
or similar (skipping any or trying to find them all. There's
***tons*** of land to explore -- no "paths" that you can't stray off of
-- just a "world boundary", which is HUGE. If you get up high enough,
you can (depending on weather, which varies) see almost almost across
the entire 'world' -- but very high and very clear day.
You don't like the classes? Design your own.
About 10-15 different races all with different abilities.
Ability
to create your own custom spells with mixes of effects from various
'schools' of magic (imagine 1 spell that throws lightning, fire and cold
all in 1 spell, or whatever).....
I could go on and on ... but
the point is that -- THAT is choice. 100's of hours of gameplay not
10-15, and huge amounts of replayability.
It had cutting edge graphics for its day (~2006), and I just turned a
group of friends on to it, and about 4 of them (2 working age guys,
& 2 teens (male&female)). One of the guys has played it for
about 6 weeks now and still hasn't finished 1 quest -- he's all about
exploring (I keep harassing him, as I liked doing the quests -- but I
did them all mixed up in multiple ways through multiple playbacks) .
They are all addicted to it with their PC & XBOX (it comes in both
versions, but the PC graphics are far superior) being used almost 24/7
by reservation!
I haven't played it for for some time, having exhausted every site and
path through the game, though not every class, and not every set of
options -- like 'potions', you can design your own with ingredients you
find -- I never got into that (I preferred magic). You can buy and
houses and equip them w/furniture (multiple in multiple towns if you
have the $$). You can play 'vampire' on top of everything else (i.e.
you can get it separately and it has its own pluses & minuses).
There's still a thriving and active user community as it was an "open"
game with great easy of creating addon's -- things like items or new
dungeons -- one created a winery that you could stock with all the
fixings (after clearing it out of monsters that had taken it over).
The detail and scenery additions are uncountable (there are literally
10's of 1000 of user developed extensions/mods and addons. One mod
site (
http://betteroblivion.com) has a list of extensions with them
sorted alphabetically by page. Just on the "C" page, there are 978
mods! ...ok the completionist in me just had to find out how
downloads were listed on the a-z pages: 17,696! On that 1 extension
site, alone, they claim over 10G of mods -- and that's just 1 mod
listing site.
In looking at it, I just found a 'dragon-mount' mod -- that allows you
to add a 'dragon' (wasn't a monster that I remember in the original
game), that you can use as a 'mount' (to ride, or rather, 'fly'
on!).... FWIW, I didn't like the horses *that* much, too hard too
steer and had to get off of them to fight. Yeah, too lazy to figure
out how to write my own mod to fix it.
There are partial and full nudity mods, custom armor & costume
design. One mod I loved when I first found this game was a mod to
change the background music into music from the
LOTR sound track(s) (I
have them all, loved them, and having them as background music was
awesome... made an epic game even more so). Do I need to go on?
That was my *first* exposure to an RPG. Everything since then has pretty much been downhill in most ways.
Another that has some cool options- '
Divinity-II: Dragon Knight saga',
where you can get the ability to actually become a dragon and fly
(though I wished for a better flight control system, it was still
pretty awesome), and the graphics, especially in the 2nd half (
Flames
of Vengeance) are awesome! (though I *won't* say any better than those
in
Dragon-Age-I.5 (
DA:A) (i.e. "6 vs. half-dozen" [not as a rating, but
as a comparison]). It too has ability to form your own idea of a class
and doesn't artificially limit you based on some arbitrary and
unrealistic rules that separate people into strictly delineated
classes.
I.e. not to harp on a point but the idea that someone born with magic
can't learn how to pick a lock or wield a weapon (or dual wield), with
*good* expertise, is **
bogus**.
Sure, you may trade off some pinnacle of ability in magic if you don't
focus all your abilities in one area, but that gets back to the issue
of this thread: **
choice**.
One thing lacking in both Oblivion and Divinity -- 'relationships'
(Oblivion has 'sex' addons, but those aren't relationships). I'd have
to say that ME&DA do better in that area, though to compare on that
scale, look at 'Dating Sims' from Japan (not specifically the all
'Hentai'/X rated ones that occasionally get xlated into english), but
(I can't read Japanese), judging from the huge number of anime series
that are based on dating sims and the large number of those that aren't
'X' rated, there's quite a variety of relationship-based stories (most
with horrible graphics, a few, that've I've seen, in 600 x 800
windows!). There emphasis really is the *story*, not the cool graphics
(which, admittedly is a strong motivator for me...), though **
so** is
story. I could wish for some more development **
choices**
(options/dialogue/scenes) in that area, as well. But again, there's
that '
choice' word...
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