Yes. Rules mean what they say. If there's a gap in the rule, then then rue simpy doesn't apply in those cases.
Residing in that gap is not the exploitation of a loophole. It's just a fair application of the rule.
Well, it can be both at the same time. A loophole is still law; just not the law as it would have been if the drafters had been more intelligent. (Legislative intent is a legitimate element of statutory interpretation, but it doesn't override the plain meaning of the language.)
But let me be sure about the application of this principle. In a typical turn-based strategy game, the player can save at any point during his turn. This means that the player can win all battles in a turn that his forces have any chance of winning, by saving before ordering that attack and reloading until the random number generator gives a result the player likes.
What would you consider this playstyle to be? Not "cheating", not "using an exploit." Is it normal play? Are people who don't reload handicapping themselves?
Why does this have to be repeated? The phrase "RPG" means different things to different people. "Role playing game" is an incredibly loosely defined concept. In practical terms, it came to be associated with certain gameplay/story mechanics. Some, such as Silvius, have a very strict, yet open to a variety of mechanics definition. Other have general thresholds as to the amount of choice you have in a game before it is considered an RPG. There is also the oft-expressed viewpoint that a game needs to have a certain set of features (inventory, dialogue, story decision points, character leveling) to be considered an RPG. Etc, etc, etc. Mix of all the above.
Why?
Because meaning of those words is different for different people and that creates conflicts. How can we talk about role-playing or RPG when we can't even agree what those words means. That's the issue. Because we are still in this forum forced to talk about it.
Example some people consider that role-playing can't be done without having stat defined character, while some others think that stat aren't neccassary for person to role-play character, even if they can also be used for it. It's narrow defination agaist wider defination. But there is conflict related stats and when talked about stats, it cause conflicts between these two different view points.
Point been just because you and i understand this, some others don't, because they still think the narrow view is only one that exists.
The issue is that people keep trying to define LARPsing as RPG, when they're two totally different concepts that only share a commenality in the use of one mechanic. LARPS is not an RPG, RPGs are very defined Roles, LARPs are very freeform Roles, completely different implementations.
What you've been defining as an RPG is actually a LARPs. The conflict arises only because the LARPsing community has always been a fringe offshoot of the RPG community that wants to take it alot further than what RPGs do.
I'll admit i had to look up what LARP was but from the wiki the only difference between LARP and PnP role playing is that you are dressed up and carry out the actions of your character rather than say the actions of your character so the difference is in the implementation not the concept.
I'll admit i had to look up what LARP was but from the wiki the only difference between LARP and PnP role playing is that you are dressed up and carry out the actions of your character rather than say the actions of your character so the difference is in the implementation not the concept.
It depends on how far you take it. Some people define LARPing as any time that you attempt to act in character.
Ex: If I speak with an accent, or talk in the first person, some people still consider that LARPing.
Sylvius the Mad wrote... Because everything is physics. All other sciences are just physics on a larger scale.
Even if physical laws are the primitives out of which everything is built, they have to be used right. Getting physics right but biology wrong doesn't make for a very impressive book.
I think the_one is an engineer, but he works mostly on environmental projects.
That makes sense.
I dispute that BioWare RPGs did have winning conditions. They had ending conditions. Calling those endings wins is supposition on your part.
Then how do you demarcate winning conditions from ending conditions?
Why not leave numbers in the game for those that want to see them, and have a toggle to show them or not, and have a toggle for getting loot or not getting loot?
Without loot I think its gonna be more of an interactive movie, where you just walk from one stop to another and do something then off to the next one. There's no need to explore without getting any loot for it.
Achievements in-game is also important, not only some stupid achievement badges at steam or windows live or something like that.
I'll probably buy a 2nd hand copy of it, but wait, aint 2nd hand worse than piracy? Oh yea it sure is, cause it means a real buyer buys the game from someone else and you didnt make a cent off my copy of the game.
Win win for me, lose lose for you, but thats what you get for screwing up a sequel to DA:O so bad that it doesnt even look like a sequel haha.
Well, if they are going the DA2 route then COUNT ME OUT!
Even if they dont, get a 2nd hand copy, you can get one 2-3 days after the game is out. Show them its not acceptable to screw up sequels, they are trying to abuse the name of the first two titles, and we all know wich company is behind all this mess, BioWare doesnt have any free hands, they got tied up and thrown into a dark cell.
rpgs don't have to be just about stats and loot there have been various tabletop rpgs that focus on different hings.some gamers just want what is familiar and don't want anything new. Looting dead bodies is mostly a video game thing, as a person who has played many different RPGs I've never scavanged every monster I killed for something it's mostly just something that video games have done.
Skuggans wrote... ... and we all know wich company is behind all this mess, BioWare doesnt have any free hands, they got tied up and thrown into a dark cell.
Looks like someone hasn't been paying attention. In Exile, you want to take this? Or should we just write the guy off?
It fits the criteria set by your statement. Going back to your "Delta Force as RPG"; if an FPS multiplayer match can be used by you to roleplay, so can the single-player of Half-Life. Gordon Freeman is a blank - his motivations and actions are yours to determine within the game rules. The same arbitrary "playing a character" vs. "playing to win" can be applied in Half Life. The difference between the two is just the threshold of limitation imposed on you.
You view the decision to not maximize your value to the team as roleplaying a survival oriented soldier? You can apply the same standard to randomly murderin' Black Mesa personel as an expression of roleplaying a hypocritical Gordon Freeman, who in principle agrees with HECU Marines goals, but considers himself to be more important than other scientists and thus deserving to live.
That can't possibly be true. The player can only play a role if he has perfect knowledge of what that role is. Otherwise, how do you choose one option over another?
But it is. You choose one option over another because you envision that Shepard would be a more preferable character in this space opera story if he acted like a paragon, a renegade, or some pragmatic mix of both.
The fact that you don't have access to a novel series that explains to you what vairous Shepard personalites are is irrelevant. This is part of the game, this is part of the narrative format Bioware created. You don't "become" Shepard because, as you rightfully noticed, things like his/her specific voice over explicitely interfers with it. You influence Shepard because the dialogue wheel implementation prevents you from exerting direct control over it.
Think of it as a "choose your own adventure" book with lots and lots of "go to page x if you want to do y." Not quite a predetermined character whose story basically runs in parallel with gameplay, not quite your RPG standard of allowing the player to roleplay.
A side effect of this is that your Shepard will act like a deranged, nonsensical lunatic if you attempt to force Shepard to play Paragon, Renegade, and in between at the same time. From my perspective, this is merely a technical limitation of them not working in thought bubbles or basically having options of "renegade for paragon reasons" and "paragon for renegade reasons." The voice actors get tired, writers have a limited time to write a plot, game needs to come out some day.
I think role-playing is also incompatible with twitch-based action combat.
Luckily, ME doesn't have twitch-based action combat eithe
It does. You can't ignore an option because you prefer using the other one. You can play it as a pause oriented game, but you can also play it as a twitch shooter - just try shooting Geth hoppers in real time. Being a primitive shooter and having primitive twitch-based combat doesn't preclude it from those things, it just makes them relatively primitive. Yes, you liked to play it differently from me. It just makes it a game supportive of two styles of play.
By your own admission: What the designers intended is immaterial. What features the game actually contains is what matters. The game contains situations where twitch based combat is possible. Just because they designed the game to be winnable with use of pause to completely eliminate the twitch element is irrelevant, the game contains twitch based combat and that's what matters.
A shooter rewards player skill (all "games" do this) and penalises the lack thereof. Mass Effect didn't do this, unless we expand "skill" to include competent operation of the interface. But that's more a barrier to entry than a measure of gameplay success.
You are imposing arbitrary standards on what is an acceptable "skill reward" for classifying something as a shooter. Mass Effect unequivocally rewards skill and penalizes you for the lack of it. The fact that it is lenient doesn't change the fact that if you are physically capable of aiming at moving targets in real time while moving yourself, you are utilizing a standard shooter skill and are rewarded by faster progression through the game. If you lack the skills, you are simply penalized by slower progression through combat. If you don't consider slower progression a penalty, you are ignoring that slower progression is the definitive, universal penalty of any game that doesn't flat out delete itself from your hard-drive for failing or do something equally dickish.
Consider, for the moment, that many shooters include auto-aim due to their console borne nature. Are they suddenly not shooters because they remove a large part of shooter skill from the equation? Consider Doom - it is more primitive shooter mechanics wise than Mass Effect, and yet it is still very much a shooter despite having incredibly generous aiming.
Point is - basic shooter skill IS competent use of the interface. You move cursor over target and fire. Any other factor is depth and complexity boosting.
I'll admit i had to look up what LARP was but from the wiki the only difference between LARP and PnP role playing is that you are dressed up and carry out the actions of your character rather than say the actions of your character so the difference is in the implementation not the concept.
Not really, they're two *very* different concepts. To illustrate and form a point of discussion, here is a popular example of LARPS...
This is Lumikki's "RPG" Now there's some important things to note from this video.
Notice the complete lack of structure, There's one person casting "Lightning bolt" into the middle of a group of friends, think about that for a moment, have you ever been near a lightning strike? Bright flash of blinding light, loud sound that stuns most people, and if you're close enough, collateral damage. In a LARPS, there's no structure, lightning bolt can be tossed around at your leisure.
Note the people "Fighting", note how none of them display any kind of skill with their weapons? It's because they've self-inserted, and they are the character, and since they've no clue how to use a sword or fight an Ogre, they're as unskilled as you expect. The best they can muster is clumsily poking someone with a staff, while *everyone* else just stands around.
Note, This Ogre takes what? 5 or 6 lightning bolts? There's no criteria for how strong the creature is.
This is a LARPS, this is Roleplaying without structure. This is what Lumikki is putting forth as an RPG.
Now consider the whole situation in the context of an RPG. Suddenly, everyone is skilled with their weapons, the Ogre has defined strength that doesn't allow him to take more fire than is reasonable. If the mage casts lightning bolt into a group of friends, in an RPG, the system accounts for their proximity and the relatively realistic outcome from it. If the Ogre turns his back to a person, they're going to make him pay for it.
They're *very* different systems. In a LARPS, your skill is the only skill your character has, there's no structure, no accounting of variables, it's all very random and arbitrary. In a RPG, your character has skill, to offset your incompetence at whatever job you're taking on. It's structured, and the system accounts for major outcomes of actions within reason.
This is what the whole "You don't need Stats" system generates, LARPS, that video. This is exactly why the two acronyms spell out completely different games.
RPG- Roleplaying Game LARPS- Live Action Roleplaying System
LARPS doesn't even try to pretend it's a game with structure.
Skuggans wrote... ... and we all know wich company is behind all this mess, BioWare doesnt have any free hands, they got tied up and thrown into a dark cell.
Looks like someone hasn't been paying attention. In Exile, you want to take this? Or should we just write the guy off?
I expected better of you Alan, it's *very* obvious that EA controls Bioware. DA2's design and release, having chosen to completely redesign DAO before it even released and they saw it's reception. ME3's delay to add Kinect, despite the fact that it doesn't actually add anything to the game, just a marketing bullet point. The DAO dev who resigned because of the sudden change in design direction.
It's very obvious who's in control, and that it's not Bioware.
ME3's delay to add Kinect, despite the fact that it doesn't actually add anything to the game
I kind of doubt that adding Kinect was all it took to delay the game three months.
EA has some push with Bioware, that's a fact, but people shouldn't use that as the go-to excuse for everything they don't like without any real proof that it's so. Bioware has some freedom and the degree of it is up for question, but Mass Effect 1 wasn't perfect without EA's involvment and Mass Effect 2 isn't flawed (in your opinion) simply because of it.
I'll admit i had to look up what LARP was but from the wiki the only difference between LARP and PnP role playing is that you are dressed up and carry out the actions of your character rather than say the actions of your character so the difference is in the implementation not the concept.
Not really, they're two *very* different concepts. To illustrate and form a point of discussion, here is a popular example of LARPS...
This is Lumikki's "RPG" Now there's some important things to note from this video.
Notice the complete lack of structure, There's one person casting "Lightning bolt" into the middle of a group of friends, think about that for a moment, have you ever been near a lightning strike? Bright flash of blinding light, loud sound that stuns most people, and if you're close enough, collateral damage. In a LARPS, there's no structure, lightning bolt can be tossed around at your leisure.
Note the people "Fighting", note how none of them display any kind of skill with their weapons? It's because they've self-inserted, and they are the character, and since they've no clue how to use a sword or fight an Ogre, they're as unskilled as you expect. The best they can muster is clumsily poking someone with a staff, while *everyone* else just stands around.
Note, This Ogre takes what? 5 or 6 lightning bolts? There's no criteria for how strong the creature is.
This is a LARPS, this is Roleplaying without structure. This is what Lumikki is putting forth as an RPG.
Now consider the whole situation in the context of an RPG. Suddenly, everyone is skilled with their weapons, the Ogre has defined strength that doesn't allow him to take more fire than is reasonable. If the mage casts lightning bolt into a group of friends, in an RPG, the system accounts for their proximity and the relatively realistic outcome from it. If the Ogre turns his back to a person, they're going to make him pay for it.
They're *very* different systems. In a LARPS, your skill is the only skill your character has, there's no structure, no accounting of variables, it's all very random and arbitrary. In a RPG, your character has skill, to offset your incompetence at whatever job you're taking on. It's structured, and the system accounts for major outcomes of actions within reason.
This is what the whole "You don't need Stats" system generates, LARPS, that video. This is exactly why the two acronyms spell out completely different games.
RPG- Roleplaying Game LARPS- Live Action Roleplaying System
LARPS doesn't even try to pretend it's a game with structure.
Skuggans wrote... ... and we all know wich company is behind all this mess, BioWare doesnt have any free hands, they got tied up and thrown into a dark cell.
Looks like someone hasn't been paying attention. In Exile, you want to take this? Or should we just write the guy off?
I expected better of you Alan, it's *very* obvious that EA controls Bioware. DA2's design and release, having chosen to completely redesign DAO before it even released and they saw it's reception. ME3's delay to add Kinect, despite the fact that it doesn't actually add anything to the game, just a marketing bullet point. The DAO dev who resigned because of the sudden change in design direction.
It's very obvious who's in control, and that it's not Bioware.
Your hair splitting, from what i read of what you mentioned (LARPS) there was no mention of them "being there character" you do not take joe the software developer and say he is now fighting a orge, joe the software developer is playing a character and rather than saying "I attack orge with my whatever sword" he's just going to use his replica sword and indicate his move by swing/hitting but damage and so on is still calculated by the people not playing characters.
Though considering this is life action in and pretty much the furthest away ( well other than say talking about football) from table top or console/PC gaming, why are we splitting this hair?
Then a gameplay demo or even the manual would have mentioned aiming from the pause screen.
They did. The gameplay videos showed clearly that you could move the targetting reticle while paused.
BioWare didn't explian all the ramifications of the feature, possibly because they didn't want shooter fans to notice it. But they didn't mislead anyone; they just allowed consumers to draw their own conclusions.
Consumers who drew bad conclusions have only themselves to blame.
Out of curiosity, did Mass Effect even feature a pause toggle, compared to other Bioware games?
ME did not have a pause toggle. That deficiency was remedied in ME2.
Of course if we ignore intent, then we can say loopholes don't exist.
We don't need to ignore intent. The intent isn't there to be ignored.
But if we apply your logic of the pause screen, if I am able to solo Dragon Age: Origins as a Mage, I suppose I can claim that the game was not intended nor designed for squad-based gameplay. Even if both the manual and gameplay vids show otherwise.
That's an erroneous application of my lesson. If I am able to solo DAO as a mage, then we can conclude from that only that DAO is soloable for mage characters. Intent never enters into it.
AlanC9 wrote...
Well, it can be both at the same time. A loophole is still law; just not the law as it would have been if the drafters had been more intelligent. (Legislative intent is a legitimate element of statutory interpretation, but it doesn't override the plain meaning of the language.)
Legislative intent is unknowable. Using it as a guide to interpret statutes is idiocy.
Yes, I'm aware courts think they do this all the time. They're wrong. They're literally just making things up, no matter how they rationalise it to themselves.
But let me be sure about the application of this principle. In a typical turn-based strategy game, the player can save at any point during his turn. This means that the player can win all battles in a turn that his forces have any chance of winning, by saving before ordering that attack and reloading until the random number generator gives a result the player likes.
What would you consider this playstyle to be? Not "cheating", not "using an exploit." Is it normal play? Are people who don't reload handicapping themselves?
I would consider that playstyle to be dull.
If a player's objective is solely to win, then I would agree that that player is handicapping himself by not using that playstyle. If, however, a second player didn't enjoy that playstyle, and his objective was solely to have fun, then that second player would be handicapping himself by using that playstyle.
This is why I never understood player objections to grinding in MMORPGs. Grinding wasn't mandatory, so if they didn't like it they just shouldn't do it. That they did do it meant either than they wanted to do some grinding (given the context of the game), or that they were irrational. Either way, that's not a problem the developers can fix.
Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 09 juillet 2011 - 08:25 .
Then how do you demarcate winning conditions from ending conditions?
Ending conditions mark the end of the game. Beyond that point, the game doesn't continue.
Calling any part of the game "victory" is a value judgment that I think is unsupported by the evidence. I also don't think the concept of victory makes any sense in a single-player game. Now, this is distinct from games where the player competes against the CPU. There the CPU is a player, so then victory could well be defined by the rules.
But even in a multiplayer environment, as soon as a player's gameplay objectives deviate from the win-loss dichotomy, I would argue that winning conditions no longer exist.
1. They did. The gameplay videos showed clearly that you could move the targetting reticle while paused.
2. BioWare didn't explian all the ramifications of the feature, possibly because they didn't want shooter fans to notice it. But they didn't mislead anyone; they just allowed consumers to draw their own conclusions.
1. Moving the reticule to issue squad commands does not equate to aiming while paused.
2. Very likely because they didn't know of the ramifications. You would have a point if Bioware advertised pause and aim as a feature. Bioware specifically did this for KotOR, once again.
Bioware produced videos featuring the game's shooter mechanics, which were sub par. There is nothing to back up your playstyle. Shooter fans have a much stronger claim and cause for complaint.
Consumers who drew bad conclusions have only themselves to blame.
Consumers who draw conclusions based on gameplay videos made by the developers have the developers to blame.
That's an erroneous application of my lesson. If I am able to solo DAO as a mage, then we can conclude from that only that DAO is soloable for mage characters. Intent never enters into it.
Nonsense. You originally made the point about being unable to understand Mass Effect as a shooter, primarily because you yourself had never used the aiming mechanism (although, in reality you are still aiming while paused).
DA:O follows the same logic. If I personally never use my party, I could argue that I don't see how the developers made a squad-based game.
EternalPink wrote... Your hair splitting, from what i read of what you mentioned (LARPS) there was no mention of them "being there character" you do not take joe the software developer and say he is now fighting a orge, joe the software developer is playing a character and rather than saying "I attack orge with my whatever sword" he's just going to use his replica sword and indicate his move by swing/hitting but damage and so on is still calculated by the people not playing characters.
Though considering this is life action in and pretty much the furthest away ( well other than say talking about football) from table top or console/PC gaming, why are we splitting this hair?
Actually, it's not splitting hairs.
LARPS players aren't in character, they cannot possibly be in character, because there's no defined character. "I'm a great warrior!" followed by an extremely clumsy swing isn't in character, you can't be a great and powerful character if you're not in good physical condition and if you don't even know how to use the sword.
At that point, it's all just arbitrary, akin to playing Soldier in your backyard,
"Nu-uh! I shot you in the chest! You're dead!" "No you didn't, my shift is bulletproof and it blocks all bullets!"
The whole thing is you pretending to be in a job, without the skills to do the job, and arbitrarily making up events without any real form or structure.
Which becomes relevant, because that gives us ME2's Shepherd. Lunatik would argue that he's a great and powerful special forces officer, yet his ability to hit or miss is entirely based upon your ability to point. As I said earlier in the thread, he can arbitrarily violate his morality without any reprocussions. Sherpherd doesn't progress in skill or talent, as I said earlier, you kill a YMIR at level 2 and that's what you'll be killing at level 30.
Shepherd doesn't exist.
All he is, is an onscreen image to represent you, his world is without structure as his actions can arbitrarily violate any of the "Rules" of the world without reprocussion, he can't succeed or fail, only you can. No matter the training he received, he cannot affect any outcome, meaning, if I suck with the controls, he sucks, despite his training. No matter how bad I am, he'll end up winning.
That's LARPS. Which is in stark contrast to an RPG. Hence, ME2 has no RPG elements, and ME3 won't either. It's an arbitrary system without any real structure, you can make him do whatever you want without violating constraints upon your "Role". He is whatever random fancy strikes you at the moment.
That's not an RPG, because RPG's are structured with rules in place to govern events, like kicking someone off a building when you're the paragon of virtue.
So once again, I iterate, what's constantly being labelled "RPG" features actually aren't, truth is, they're more inline with LARPSing than they are RPGs.
Which is actually highly ironic, because I"ve actually seen LARPS conventions. In a city big enough to support 3 major league sports teams, with 3 world renown colleges with ~20,000 students apiece, the LARPS convention pulled in...8 people. Yet here we are with video games insisting they become more like the thing that no one will actually play in the real world.
I did not know developers control what conclusions consumers come too. If developers had such power...
They play a central role. Developers decide what information the consumer does or does not receive about a product. Consumers cannot make judgments based on information they do not have access to.
In this case, developers released demos showcasing tps style combat. This lends additional support to the idea that the game can be played/enjoyed in the tps style. If it doesn't, blame falls on those who released such mechanics.
I expected better of you Alan, it's *very* obvious that EA controls Bioware. DA2's design and release, having chosen to completely redesign DAO before it even released and they saw it's reception. ME3's delay to add Kinect, despite the fact that it doesn't actually add anything to the game, just a marketing bullet point. The DAO dev who resigned because of the sudden change in design direction.
It's very obvious who's in control, and that it's not Bioware.
Hey, I'm not denying that EA controls Bioware, although my preferred phrase is "Bioware is EA". I just don't think the difference between EA and Bioware is as great as some would have us believe.
Bio's always wanted to make mass-market products and lots of money. D&D is the lowest common denominator of RPG systems; Star Wars is the lowest common denominator of SF. Bio invented DLC on their own. Bio did an action RPG long before the EA purchase. And as for ME1's "RPG elements," what struck me about ME1 was that whoever was in charge of the design didn't seem to believe in loot and exploration any more than I do, at least judging from the zot allocation to those parts of the design
Legislative intent is unknowable. Using it as a guide to interpret statutes is idiocy.
Yes, I'm aware courts think they do this all the time. They're wrong. They're literally just making things up, no matter how they rationalise it to themselves.
Doesn't especially matter if lawyers judges, and legislators are wrong. It's their game, and their rules.
This is why I never understood player objections to grinding in MMORPGs. Grinding wasn't mandatory, so if they didn't like it they just shouldn't do it. That they did do it meant either than they wanted to do some grinding (given the context of the game), or that they were irrational. Either way, that's not a problem the developers can fix.
Are you sure grinding isn't mandatory in MMORPGs? Can you move on to better content without doing any?
My closest parallel experience, I guess, is Morrowind, where you either have to grind or you have to steal a lot to pay trainers.
'In addition to weapons, the abilities your character possesses are much more customizable in ME3 than in ME2. You will start with a "powered-up" Shepard, especially when importing your character from Mass Effect 2, though the exact details of that have not yet been revealed. Long-time fans will recognize most of the abilities, but they will be able to use them and upgrade them in ways they never have before. Passive abilities, like Combat Mastery has several different subcategories under it, like Damage, Recharge Speed, Influence & Duration, Headshots, Weapon Mastery, Influence & Damage, Influence & Dilation. In other words, you won't just add a point to "Operative." Instead, you'll get to choose exactly where that point gets spent, and what boost it gives your Shepard.'
I expected better of you Alan, it's *very* obvious that EA controls Bioware. DA2's design and release, having chosen to completely redesign DAO before it even released and they saw it's reception. ME3's delay to add Kinect, despite the fact that it doesn't actually add anything to the game, just a marketing bullet point. The DAO dev who resigned because of the sudden change in design direction.
It's very obvious who's in control, and that it's not Bioware.
Hey, I'm not denying that EA controls Bioware, although my preferred phrase is "Bioware is EA". I just don't think the difference between EA and Bioware is as great as some would have us believe.
Bio's always wanted to make mass-market products and lots of money. D&D is the lowest common denominator of RPG systems; Star Wars is the lowest common denominator of SF. Bio invented DLC on their own. Bio did an action RPG long before the EA purchase. And as for ME1's "RPG elements," what struck me about ME1 was that whoever was in charge of the design didn't seem to believe in loot and exploration any more than I do, at least judging from the zot allocation to those parts of the design
Ok, I can get on board with your take. Although I'd argue about the D&D part, but that's probably way off topic and I think we're just going to butt heads about it endlessly.
I can agree that it's strange that zero-time was put into the design of those two systems, it was just bad design and I'm a little confused by that, given Bioware's strong history in both those areas. Both of those systems have plenty of room for options.
That said, I agree with your take on ME3 not needing galaxy exploration given the nature of the main quest.
Are you sure grinding isn't mandatory in MMORPGs? Can you move on to better content without doing any?
My closest parallel experience, I guess, is Morrowind, where you either have to grind or you have to steal a lot to pay trainers.
Grinding is mandatory, that's the whole premise behind MMORPGs. They need to keep you playing for months or years, since it's impossible to implement a narrative in an MMO, grinding is the only way to keep the money coming in.
You can't implement a narrative in an MMORPG. Because you end up with one of two things happening...
1. Parts of the narrative are experienced only by a few, probably always-on, players while the majority and especially the causal players are completely left out.
2. Everyone experiences roughly the same narrative, making it a case of "Everybody's got one". A narrative is alot less fun when your friends are going, "Yeah, I saved the world too!". The point of a narrative is the feeling of accomplishment, which is greatly lessened if everyone you're playing with accomplishes the exact same thing.
So they're left with grinding to keep you playing. It's a carefully calculated series of time sinks projected to keep you busy until roughly the next expansion. It's not hard...
"Players can do uber-quest X twice a day, times 30 days, and we'll release every 6 months, so the drop rate is 360/100, so they'll roughly be guaranteed the item right about the time of the next expansion"
Star Wars Galaxies was the most notorious, they even had fast-travel make you wait 10 minutes every time just to sink more time, so if you had to go meet someone to pick up a gun, you'd wait 20 minutes to do a 30 second exchange.
'In addition to weapons, the abilities your character possesses are much more customizable in ME3 than in ME2. You will start with a "powered-up" Shepard, especially when importing your character from Mass Effect 2, though the exact details of that have not yet been revealed. Long-time fans will recognize most of the abilities, but they will be able to use them and upgrade them in ways they never have before. Passive abilities, like Combat Mastery has several different subcategories under it, like Damage, Recharge Speed, Influence & Duration, Headshots, Weapon Mastery, Influence & Damage, Influence & Dilation. In other words, you won't just add a point to "Operative." Instead, you'll get to choose exactly where that point gets spent, and what boost it gives your Shepard.'
Couldn't do that in ME1 either.
It's a definite step in the right direction, and insures my shepherd won't be identical to the next guy's.
That said, still no non-combat skills, and no confirmation if morality is now something you put points into. So while a step in the right direction, it's not perfect.
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