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[AmstradHero]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...

The "good old complex RPG" had a moderate amount of complexity in its mechanics and in that there were a lot of visible numbers and number crunching to look at. Now, if you actually take a look at the systems in place in the "simple modern RPG", you'll see that in many cases that there is just as much complexity still present. It's less in your face, but it's still there, because ultimately whether you hit someone or not comes down to a random die roll, not whether you timed your button press correctly.

That complexity doesn't matter if the player isn't aware of if.  The mechanics are part of the game world, and as such should drive gameplay choices, but they can't do that as long as the player doesn't know what they are.

I don't buy that argument for a second.  Let's compare DA2 to a Gold Box game.
Gold box: you get to pick a character class. Same for DA2.
Gold box: you get to pick a race. Not in DA2, but the effect this has on your character is fairly minimal.
Gold box: You get to assign stats which define character's combat effective. Same for DA2.
Gold box: Each level you get a random increase of HP, and a defined combat increase.

DA2: Each level you get to pick how to increase your character's combat effectiveness, choosing whether you want to increase physical/magical resistance, ability to hit, critical chance, and combat longevity. And you get to make the decision at every level. Let's not also forget that you get skill trees in DA2 which allow you to customise individual characters and also allow you to develop tactics that combine those skills to be more effective in combat.

Gold box games have few (if any) complementary skills/tactics. The best you could argue is getting "attack from behind" and/or backstab bonuses, but they exist in DA2 as well.

I'd have to call that a win for DA2.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...
Where modern RPGs fall short of complexity in mechanics, they typically make up for it in other areas, such as choice/consequence or roleplaying customisation. When I play a gold box game, there's a very set path I have to play. I don't get to define a personality through the game, although I can make one up for my party members on my own. If I'm playing Dragon Age, I get to define the personality of my hero, and have NPCs react to that behaviour. If you want to return to a situation where you're focused entirely on mechanics and don't care about character control, then there's still a market for that - it's just that it's the JRPG.

I think you're missing the point on character control.  JRPGs fal because they allow no control, and make the details of your character explicit within the game's narrative.  So you're stuck with the character they give you, and you're forced to accept that the character is who they say it is.

Something like the Gold Box games (or BG, KotOR, or Wizardry) allows yo total control over the PC's personality.  That the game doesn't react to that personality is a different issue, but the customisation is totally there.

Right now, BioWare seems to want the game to react to the PC's choices in a meaningful way, but to do that they're dramatically limiting the possible range of those choices.  That's not even close to being an acceptable trade.

If no one reacts to my roleplaying, what's the point? A tree is falling in a forest, right in front of people's eyes, but they're just ignoring it and going about their business. A gold box game offers roleplaying that is completely and utterly irrelevant to the game itself, defining a character personality that simply doesn't exist as far as the game is concerned.  If that's the case, then I'm roleplaying when I'm playing Crysis 2, because I get to inject any personality I want into my silent protagonist.

I'd argue that to offer roleplaying that is meaningless to the other characters within the gameworld and the gameworld itself is the least acceptable trade of all.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 30 novembre 2011 - 10:33 .

[FedericoV]

Realmzmaster wrote...

There are very few groundbreaking cRPGs. You can count them on your hand. Most cRPGs follow the same basic formula and rarely deviate from it. Ultima IV was one, it changed how characters could be created. PST (Planescape Torment) was innovative in story and gameplay mechanics in a way that has not been duplicated.

Well... you know I'm in the minority but I think that PS:T is overrated. Yes, I know, in part it was pure brilliance but I believe that its merit as a game are a little bit exagerated and really due to nostalgia for a time where such games were still possible. I mean, a companion that is a skull taken from Amlet it's great and sadly is not possibile in the industry today. So, PS:T: is a very good game with lots of brilliant intuition but not a groundbreaking game. A game has even to be a commercial success to be groundbreaking in my view.

Know what, in terms of structure DA2 is near to PS:T on many issues. There are tons of differences due to the changes in the media. But the similarities are there if one have the patience to find out.

BG1 & BG2 overlaid real-time combat onto the 2.0 D & D ruleset, but basically was not earthshatteringly different from previous cRPGs.

Indeed: BG greatness is not innovation. BG "simply" polished everything that has happened before in the CRPG genre (from Ultima story and setting reactivity, to the Golden Box games tactical/strategical nature to Diablo II RT gameplay) and present it in a better and more coherent way. It was not a revolutionary title but an evolutionary one. And it's still the pynnacle of classic CRPGs.

I consider DAO and DA2 to be lightweight cRPGs when compared to some of the earlier cRPGs. Many of the conventions and mechanics that I think cRPGs should have are gone and since Federico has played the Gold Box games he probably knows what I am talking about.

Yep, DA:O and DA2 are lightweight compared to those older games. The removal of any poignant strategic element and the inlulgence on tactics (as pointed out before in that thread) is one of the main reason beside many other. Don't want to repeat my self. Sadly, in the actual AAA market, we have to admit that RPGs with the difficulty and weight of DA:O (and even DA2 to some extent) are an exception. Gameplay has generally been watered down in any genre.

There is a famous picture that compares a map of Doom with one of CoD (I believe). The simplification in the FPS genre is stunning and even more extreme. Not to talk about action games: compare the first Tomb Raider games with the Uncharted series...

Having saing all of that, I don't want to appear too reactionary. Games have improved on many areas in the last 10 years.

FedericoV, what system did you play the Gold Box games on? I played on a C64 and Atari 800. What did you think about the Alternate Reality: City and Dungeon from Datasoft? It had functions that are not present in cRPGs of today.

Oh, you want me to feel real old. It's been such a long time and I'm not sure but I owned a C64 and a Mac and I played all my games on those systems. Alternate Reality... it is the one where you get kidnapped from the aliens and bringed to that exotic city and where you have encounters any friggin second? Honestly, I have not played it at the time. I played it many years later in the late 90's and was not impressed: the premise were interesting, but I was a little bit annoyed by the constant encounters. But I heard that you have to play it on the Amiga to have the best experience and I believe I played the dos port.

Modifié par FedericoV, 30 novembre 2011 - 09:08 .

[MerinTB]

Realmzmaster wrote...

vania z wrote...

Stanley Woo wrote...
And i still don't understand where the "JRPG" is in Dragon Age II. i can see where "over-the-top arcade action" comes in, even though i think that phrase to be a little exaggerated, but "JRPG"? i just don't see it.

Swords larger than humans, probably? 

Actually Greatswords could range anywhere fron 4.5 feet to 6 feet in length with some ceremonial swords up to 7 feet. The actual length is the same as the DAO swords. Now there could be a difference in width, but I do not think so.

The extremes of sword length get tossed out a lot.  Truth of the matter, if you do any more research than "what's the longest blade length a sword ever was" Google search, as in read historical information regarding the context of such blades, the "practical" two-handed swords were about 55 inches in total length (not just blade length) or about 4 1/2 feet long, with about a foot of hilt.  That was the extreme in "big" swords actually used in combat.  Like the Scottish (Highland) Claymore.

You CAN find swords there were made longer, but the impracticality of their length was like when ship builders tried making larger and larger wooden ships and found they'd bend and leak... bigger is not always more effective and can have worse than diminishing returns.  You can look at the Zweihänder or the Odachi, ranging from 5 to 7 feet in length, but these are likely to have been ceremonial or display weapons and not intended for combat at all. 

For the average human male soldier, maybe even one strecthing all the way to six feet in height (a relative giant) during the late medieval period, a sword of 55 inches that weighed about 6 pounds would be the extent of what he could hope to wield two-handed in a real battle.



That looks like from hilt end to tip that the sword is roughly Hawke's height.  I'm gonna wager that heroic Hawke stands 6 ft tall... but even if he's an "average"  height of 5'8", that sword is impratically long at nearly 70 inches.


EDIT - and just to chime in, I didn't find PST that great a game, either.... at all.

But I fondly remember Alternate Reality, especially The Dungeon.  I agree that The Dungeon had features that are lacking in just about every modern cRPG.

Modifié par MerinTB, 30 novembre 2011 - 09:08 .

[Realmzmaster]

AmstradHero wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...
There are very few groundbreaking cRPGs. You can count them on your hand. Most cRPGs follow the same basic formula and rarely deviate from it. Ultima IV was one, it changed how characters could be created. PST (Planescape Torment) was innovative in story and gameplay mechanics in a way that has not been duplicated.

DA2 is not groundbreaking. DAO was not groundbreaking. BG1 & BG2 overlaid real-time combat onto the 2.0 D & D ruleset, but basically was not earthshatteringly different from previous cRPGs.

FedericoV like myself has been around long enough and played most if not all the cRPGs within the past four decades. Many of the conventions used in cRPGs are based on D & D. There have been others based on Traveller and othe RPG systems. Tunnels and Trolls had the PC game Crusaders of Khazan. , but mostly D & D. In gameplay mechanics and conventions DAO is a departure from earlier cRPGs. I have discussed the differences in other posts on the forum so I will not repeat them.

I consider DAO and DA2 to be lightweight cRPGs when compared to some of the earlier cRPGs. Many of the conventions and mechanics that I think cRPGs should have are gone and since Federico has played the Gold Box games he probably knows what I am talking about.

I hate this "old RPGs had more depth" argument, primarily because it's utter bollocks. I especially hate it when it's accompanied by a "check out my RPG credentials" list: Gold box games (PoR & Krynn series - though almost always missing Buck Rogers), Eye of the Beholder, Ultima (and the Underworld games), Wizardry, Dungeon Master, Dungeon Hack, Bard's Tale, Mordor(/Demise), or moving to BG and Infinity engine games, Fallout, Arcanum, etc, etc, etc. Yeah, let's not get in an ego contest here, because just spouting "I've played a lot of games" doesn't actually mean that you understand what makes a good game, or that you've actually analysed the depth of the game. Besides, trust me, I can probably go title for title with you anyway.

The Buck Rogers gold box games had more complexity than D&D gold box games, because they actually had skills that affected your adventure, both in combat and out of it.  Many of the "great old RPGs" rely entirely on the D&D system for their "complexity". If you really want to get down to it, things like Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2 have some of the most complex systems of mainstream RPGs, because they have a multitude of feats, skills, and classes.

When you add in the fact that in modern RPGs you actually get to actively roleplay your character via the game mechanics as opposed to just "making it up in your head", the argument that "old RPGs had more depth" just doesn't hold water.  Sorry for getting a bit aggravated here, but this has got to be one of my pet hates from the "RPG elite". Heck, I'm a bit of an elitist when it comes to RPGs, but this trend of holding up older games as the be all and end all of game design has got to stop because it's just downright inaccurate.

The "good old complex RPG" had a moderate amount of complexity in its mechanics and in that there were a lot of visible numbers and number crunching to look at. Now, if you actually take a look at the systems in place in the "simple modern RPG", you'll see that in many cases that there is just as much complexity still present. It's less in your face, but it's still there, because ultimately whether you hit someone or not comes down to a random die roll, not whether you timed your button press correctly.

Where modern RPGs fall short of complexity in mechanics, they typically make up for it in other areas, such as choice/consequence or roleplaying customisation. When I play a gold box game, there's a very set path I have to play. I don't get to define a personality through the game, although I can make one up for my party members on my own. If I'm playing Dragon Age, I get to define the personality of my hero, and have NPCs react to that behaviour. If you want to return to a situation where you're focused entirely on mechanics and don't care about character control, then there's still a market for that - it's just that it's the JRPG.

I know exactly what makes a good game for me. If I am having fun it is a good game in my opinion.  I simply state the older games so forummates know what I am comparing DAO and DA2 with. It has zero to do with ego.  Everything stated is my opinion.

But tell me which newer cRPG has a rest system (needed to recover health, mana and stamina) which you have to find a safe place to camp or camp in a dangerous area where random encounters can happen , food and water requirements, weight restrictions on what you can carry, economic system with banks, skills which allow for full customization of your character, weapons and armor that actually break,  true death, conditions like blindness, poison or crippling that actually affect gameplay and allow mutliclassing of the party members?

Some of the older games had positive and negative skills (diplomacy, intimidation, cowardice, fear etc)  that affected the perception of your character by the NPCs and certain behaviors that you did affected how you were perceived by your party companions and NPCs.  I am not simply talking about the numbers. You could hide the numbers in most of the old cRPGs and look at the combat log if you wanted. And the JRPG do not allow for the character control I am talking about. And most if not all cRPGs have a set path and plot. The only games that are more open are the TES cRPGS with their open sandbox world explorationand even their main plot is linear.

If you are telling a story the path will eventually become linear because the story has a beginning, middle and end. It make take certain games longer to get there but eventually they do. Other games allow you to continue exploring after the main story ends, but the story does end.

[Zanallen]

@ Merin

And they are no longer than the swords in DA:O.

[Realmzmaster]

@MerinTB,

I was looking at this site: www.thearma.org/essays/2HGS.html

[Gibb_Shepard]

It'd be damn nice to see a modern RPG take on the philisophical depth and originality of PS:T, but devs want to "play it safe" by continuing their generic path, and are somewhat afraid of how deep they can make an experience without alienating their target audience.

Gameplay wise classic crpg's have been far superseded. Everything in DA:O gameplay wise is objectively better than 90's RPG's using the Infinity engine (Inb4 BG **** jockeys). But the issues touched upon are far more...basic than that of a 90's RPG. Philosophical depth has been sacrificed for gameplay intuitiveness. Apart from company greed, i don't understand why we can't have both.

[AmstradHero]

Realmzmaster wrote...
But tell me which newer cRPG has a rest system (needed to recover health, mana and stamina) which you have to find a safe place to camp or camp in a dangerous area where random encounters can happen , food and water requirements, weight restrictions on what you can carry, economic system with banks, skills which allow for full customization of your character, weapons and armor that actually break,  true death, conditions like blindness, poison or crippling that actually affect gameplay and allow mutliclassing of the party members?

Some of the older games had positive and negative skills (diplomacy, intimidation, cowardice, fear etc)  that affected the perception of your character by the NPCs and certain behaviors that you did affected how you were perceived by your party companions and NPCs.  I am not simply talking about the numbers. You could hide the numbers in most of the old cRPGs and look at the combat log if you wanted.

As far as I'm aware, there's no RPG that offers ALL of those things. It's all about trade offs and trading complexity in certain areas for other areas. You perceive the removal of things like rest systems (I hate vancian casting with a passion), food and water requirements (joy, tedious upkeep - "wizard needs food badly!"), weapons and armor that actually break (great, I just lost my favourite sword) or the like as being more valuable than some of the benefits offered by modern games.

This doesn't make modern games "lightweight" (whatever that means) just as it doesn't make older games more complex.  It means the complexity comes in different areas.

I don't mean to belittle your opinion, but to simple make a blanket statement like "older RPGs have more complexity" is just inaccurate. It appears they have more complexity in the areas that you like. Therein lies the difference.

[MerinTB]

Realmzmaster wrote...

@MerinTB,

I was looking at this site: www.thearma.org/essays/2HGS.html

From your source -

"These weapons were used primarily for fighting among pike-squares where they would hack paths through knocking aside poles, possibly even lobbing the ends off opposing halberds and pikes then slashing and stabbing among the ranks. Wielded by the largest and most impressive soldiers"

"There were also huge two-handed blades
known as "bearing-swords" or "parade-swords" (Paratschwert), weighing up to 10 or even 15 pounds and which were intended only for carrying in ceremonial processions and parades."

"since the 19th century many arms museum collections typically feature immense parade or bearing greatswords as if they were actual combat weapons ignoring the fact they are not only blunt edged, but of impractical size and weight as well as poorly balanced for effective use. (Hils, p. 269-286). Though never intended for actual fighting, examples of such ponderous specimens are still occasionally cited incorrectly as having been actual combat weapons."

"none of the fighting weapons exceeded
4 pounds and the heaviest ceremonial was less than 11. The catlog of
the famous arsenal in Graz, Austria, contains similar weights for its
two-handed great sword specimens. "

and so on. 

The longer "practical" two-handers, maybe as long as 60 inches, were only intended for dealing with enemy pikes, not actually as melee weapons.  Effectively they were polearms.  They were NOT wielded like a longsword/bastard sword/hand and a half sword, as Hawke and other DA characters whip them around.

And anything bigger was ceremonial and not intended for combat.

Modifié par MerinTB, 30 novembre 2011 - 09:43 .

[MerinTB]

Zanallen wrote...

@ Merin

And they are no longer than the swords in DA:O.

Someone needs to get a good comparative picture.  A few pages back there are a couple good fileshack images, but nothing of the like to compare nicely to the Hawke image I found.

And, even if this is true, and DA:O somehow hid it better - that still makes it WRONG.

[FedericoV]

AmstradHero wrote...

As far as I'm aware, there's no RPG that offers ALL of those things. It's all about trade offs and trading complexity in certain areas for other areas. You perceive the removal of things like rest systems (I hate vancian casting with a passion), food and water requirements (joy, tedious upkeep - "wizard needs food badly!"), weapons and armor that actually break (great, I just lost my favourite sword) or the like as being more valuable than some of the benefits offered by modern games.

This doesn't make modern games "lightweight" (whatever that means) just as it doesn't make older games more complex.  It means the complexity comes in different areas.

I don't mean to belittle your opinion, but to simple make a blanket statement like "older RPGs have more complexity" is just inaccurate. It appears they have more complexity in the areas that you like. Therein lies the difference.

You can't deny that older games have generally more complexity in the gameplay department. And in my book gameplay is the most important part of any game however you put it (otherwise it would be better to read a book or watch a movie).

As I said before, I don't want to sound reactionary. Games have improved on many levels in the last years. But the gameplay has been watered down in any genre and that's a trend. Since they introduced 3d graphics, voice over and new generation consolle (with controllers) the gameplay has gradually lost complexity. Why? Because games cost much more to develop and you have to aim a bigger market that is generally grounded on platforms that use controller with less options and want a simpler/quicker difficulty curve (I mean, shooters with auto-aim or CRPGs with absolute level scaling are a contradiction in terms). 

Personally, I believe that there is nothing wrong in improving writing, graphics, cinematic and so on. It's great that games nowaday are more accessible and I don't want a return to hardcore difficulty like Wizardry or Bard's Tale or other games where you have an encounter every 10 steps you made. I even like voice over and welcome it as a way to improve immersivity. I would simply like a better balance between accessibility and depth. I don't want to loose complexity on the altar of cinematics, graphics and voice over.

DA2: Each level you get to pick how to increase your character's combat
effectiveness, choosing whether you want to increase physical/magical
resistance, ability to hit, critical chance, and combat longevity. And
you get to make the decision at every level. Let's
not also forget that you get skill trees in DA2 which allow you to
customise individual characters and also allow you to develop tactics
that combine those skills to be more effective in combat.

I don't know. All you do in DA2 is managing different aspects of the unique and meaningfull skill: damage. Mix with it level scaling and stat diminishing returns and the effect is waaay less dramatic than you put it. Not to mention that even items scale to your level. Moreover: in DA:O and DA2 there is not a single strategic element. Everything is based around tactics and when you have learned those 4/5 tactics that works in any encounters (untill you meet a boss) the deal is done. Not to mention that those tactics are not even required to beat the game on normal difficulty. Just to say, gameplay is way simpler in DA2 than the Golden Box games. That does not mean that the golden box are better games or that we should return to tile graphics. I would just like some level of accessible depth in my RPGs.

If no one reacts to my roleplaying, what's the point?A gold box game offers roleplaying
that is completely and utterly irrelevant to the game itself, defining a
character personality that simply doesn't exist as far as the game is
concerned.  If that's the case, then I'm roleplaying when I'm playing
Crysis 2, because I get to inject any personality I want into my silent
protagonist.

I'd argue that to offer roleplaying that is
meaningless to the other characters within the gameworld and the
gameworld itself is the least acceptable trade of all.

Honestly, with the exception of Obsidian games, I don't see those dramatic improvement on the choice/consequences and roleplaying department in modern games, especially in Bioware games. DA2 is more linear than BG2. ME2 is quite linear untill the last mission. DA:O has some very nice and well thought choices but zero consequences and while being less linear than most Bioware's game of late was still quite driven. All those games are very very linear if compared to games like FO1 & 2: they are closer to the Golden Box games than the original FO in term of roleplaying.

Modifié par FedericoV, 30 novembre 2011 - 01:08 .

[Zanallen]

MerinTB wrote...

Someone needs to get a good comparative picture.  A few pages back there are a couple good fileshack images, but nothing of the like to compare nicely to the Hawke image I found.

And, even if this is true, and DA:O somehow hid it better - that still makes it WRONG.

Some one did. A few months back. Other than a couple outliers, like the razor, the two-handers are roughly the same size in both games. And yes, they are larger than they would be in real life. They have extended hilts in order to accommodate using the same animations for all two handed weapons. They are wider than real greatswords to allow for greater variation in design.

[naledgeborn]

It's a numbers game. Who cares if the game is a flop, as long as it sells well out the door it's a "success" which is bull****. Some of the best selling movies, albums, and games are "best-selling" because they're still being sold 10 years later and beyond.

I can see myself buying a copy of Jade Empire or Knights of the Old Republic in 2020, can the same be said for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare1?

[Gemini1179]

naledgeborn wrote...

It's a numbers game. Who cares if the game is a flop, as long as it sells well out the door it's a "success" which is bull****. Some of the best selling movies, albums, and games are "best-selling" because they're still being sold 10 years later and beyond.

I can see myself buying a copy of Jade Empire or Knights of the Old Republic in 2020, can the same be said for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare1?

So true. I've been asking on this site for a year now for an updated version of KOTOR 1 with ME's game graphics and engine. I'd pay for that- I'd love to be able to do Revan's story justice on the 360. I won't ever be asking for DA2 to be re-released. Unless it's for free for those who originally bought it and comes with an apology.

[Realmzmaster]

MerinTB wrote...

And anything bigger was ceremonial and not intended for combat.

Not quite, Wijerd Jelckama and Pier Gerloks Donia both Frisian used greatswords of 7 feet in melee combat. Donia was reported to be so skilled with the sword he could decapitate several enemies with one blow. One of his swords is on display at the Fries museum in Leeuwarden, Netherlands and measures 2.15 meters or 7 feet.

[MerinTB]

Realmzmaster wrote...

MerinTB wrote...
And anything bigger was ceremonial and not intended for combat.

Not quite, Wijerd Jelckama and Pier Gerloks Donia both Frisian used greatswords of 7 feet in melee combat. Donia was reported to be so skilled with the sword he could decapitate several enemies with one blow. One of his swords is on display at the Fries museum in Leeuwarden, Netherlands and measures 2.15 meters or 7 feet.

Just grabbing one of them, Pier GerloFs Donia -
"His life is mostly shrouded in legend. Based upon a description now attributed to Pier’s contemporary Petrus Thaborita, the 19th-century historian Conrad Busken Huet wrote"

Conrad Busken Huet seems to have been a literary critic and novelist (and former failed journalist) and no historian of any measure.

In short - Pier Gerlofs Donia looks to be a folk hero and legend, a la King Arthur, Robin Hood, Paul Bunyan, John Henry, etc.

Even if he existed and the sword in the museum attributed to him was he actual combat weapon of choice, his "seven foot" height and "able to bend coins" strength would definitely put him at the far outside of the norm for late medieval / early renaissance period.

Putting him in that "largest and most impressive soldiers" category.  A rarity of a rarity, not the norm by any means.

But I'd chalk up his "exploits" as exaggerations by the monk Thaborita a la Heroditus.

The typical, combat used two-handed sword (which, itself, was a niche weapon) would have been less than 5 feet in total length.  Less than the height of the avergae 5'7" height of men in the given time period.

And, just to be clear - I've a History degree, and pre-Renaissance is my forte.  So continue to research battle me at your own peril - I love this kind of debate!

Modifié par MerinTB, 30 novembre 2011 - 07:21 .

[Realmzmaster]

MerinTB wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

MerinTB wrote...
And anything bigger was ceremonial and not intended for combat.

Not quite, Wijerd Jelckama and Pier Gerloks Donia both Frisian used greatswords of 7 feet in melee combat. Donia was reported to be so skilled with the sword he could decapitate several enemies with one blow. One of his swords is on display at the Fries museum in Leeuwarden, Netherlands and measures 2.15 meters or 7 feet.

Just grabbing one of them, Pier GerloFs Donia -
"His life is mostly shrouded in legend. Based upon a description now attributed to Pier’s contemporary Petrus Thaborita, the 19th-century historian Conrad Busken Huet wrote"

Conrad Busken Huet seems to have been a literary critic and novelist (and former failed journalist) and no historian of any measure.

In short - Pier Gerlofs Donia looks to be a folk hero and legend, a la King Arthur, Robin Hood, Paul Bunyan, John Henry, etc.

Even if he existed and the sword in the museum attributed to him was he actual combat weapon of choice, his "seven foot" height and "able to bend coins" strength would definitely put him at the far outside of the norm for late medieval / early renaissance period.

Putting him in that "largest and most impressive soldiers" category.  A rarity of a rarity, not the norm by any means.

But I'd chalk up his "exploits" as exaggerations by the monk Thaborita a la Heroditus.

The typical, combat used two-handed sword (which, itself, was a niche weapon) would have been less than 5 feet in total length.  Less than the height of the avergae 5'7" height of men in the given time period.

And, just to be clear - I've a History degree, and pre-Renaissance is my forte.  So continue to research battle me at your own peril - I love this kind of debate!

Then Wijerd Jeckama who was his lieutenant (2.13 meters roughly 7 ft) was also a myth and the Frisian Peasant Rebellion never took place. The peasant army was not named Arumer Black Heap?  Did miss sometime in my history classes. It has been a while since I took them.

If you have read my posts here on the forum you know a challenge is something I do not back down from and I am always willing to learn.

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 30 novembre 2011 - 09:59 .

[Realmzmaster]

FedericoV wrote...

Oh, you want me to feel real old. It's been such a long time and I'm not sure but I owned a C64 and a Mac and I played all my games on those systems. Alternate Reality... it is the one where you get kidnapped from the aliens and bringed to that exotic city and where you have encounters any friggin second? Honestly, I have not played it at the time. I played it many years later in the late 90's and was not impressed: the premise were interesting, but I was a little bit annoyed by the constant encounters. But I heard that you have to play it on the Amiga to have the best experience and I believe I played the dos port.

Yes, that is the one. The games is best on the Atari 800 (which it was programmed on by Philip Price) and the Amiga. Both of the computers had their chips developed by Jay Miner. The Amiga was seen as the successor to the Atari 800. The custom chips made by Miner was what made the game look great on those machines. Alternate Reality was suppose to be a seven games series but Datasoft (IntelliCreations) went out of business and only issued the City and Dungeon.

The encounters could get tedious, but the game had conventions that present cRPGs do not have. I do miss the days when your party could owned by a group of sprites like in Might and Magic 1.

You not old. Just like a fine wine we mellow and improve with age.

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 30 novembre 2011 - 10:21 .

[MerinTB]

Realmzmaster wrote...

MerinTB wrote...
In short - Pier Gerlofs Donia looks to be a folk hero and legend, a la King Arthur, Robin Hood, Paul Bunyan, John Henry, etc.

Even if he existed and the sword in the museum attributed to him was he actual combat weapon of choice, his "seven foot" height and "able to bend coins" strength would definitely put him at the far outside of the norm for late medieval / early renaissance period.

Putting him in that "largest and most impressive soldiers" category.  A rarity of a rarity, not the norm by any means.

But I'd chalk up his "exploits" as exaggerations by the monk Thaborita a la Heroditus.

The typical, combat used two-handed sword (which, itself, was a niche weapon) would have been less than 5 feet in total length.  Less than the height of the avergae 5'7" height of men in the given time period.

And, just to be clear - I've a History degree, and pre-Renaissance is my forte.  So continue to research battle me at your own peril - I love this kind of debate!

Then Wijerd Jeckama who was his lieutenant (2.13 meters roughly 7 ft) was also a myth and the Frisian Peasant Rebellion never took place. The peasant army was not named Arumer Black Heap?  Did miss sometime in my history classes. It has been a while since I took them.

If you have read my posts here on the forum you know a challenge is something I do not back down from and I am always willing to learn.

Something of a straw man.  I didn't say myth, I said "folk hero and legend."  I said his exploits were likely "exaggerations."

But, just to help out the discussion, I went to folk hero on Wikipedia  here for a defintion -

----
"A folk hero is a type of hero, real, fictional, or mythological. The single salient characteristic which makes a character a folk hero is the imprinting of the name, personality and deeds of the character in the popular consciousness. This presence in the popular consciousness is evidenced by mention in folk songs, folk tales and other folklore. Folk heroes are also the subject of literature and some films.




Statue of Pier Gerlofs Donia, a Frisian folk hero

Although some folk heroes are historical public figures, they generally are not. Because the lives of folk heroes are generally not based on historical documents, the characteristics and deeds of a folk hero are often exaggerated to mythic proportions. 
The folk hero often begins life as a normal person, but is transformed into someone extraordinary by significant life events, often in response to social injustice, and sometimes in response to natural
disasters.
One major category of folk hero is the defender of the common people against the oppression or corruption of the established power structure.  Members of this category of folk hero often, but not necessarily, live outside the law in some way."

----
Definition sure seems to fit what I meant... and Pier Gerlofs Donia... the other names I listed are in the articles as folk heroes...

oh, and look, the image given in the article is a statue of Pier Gerlofs Donia. 

So, yeah, I stand by the "folk hero" attributation. 

I also stand by the likelihood that the man's exploits (7 ft height, bending coins, lopping men in half with ease, carrying a 7 foot sword into battle) are exaggerated.

I'm trying to talk about what soldiers would actually use, what men on the field of battle would actually fight with, and what those HUGE swords really were used for (again, they were showpieces)...

and your rebuttal is an article that more supports than dismisses my argument, and a folk hero.

Still feeling pretty secure.

Your move.

Modifié par MerinTB, 30 novembre 2011 - 11:56 .

[Realmzmaster]

MerinTB wrote...

Your move.

So what you are saying is that the swords in both DAO and DA2 should be about 1.5 feet shorter than shown which would place them at roughly 4.5 to 5 feet. This size would fit the average 5' 7" man of that time period. The Kossith  may be able to wield a sword of 7 feet, but the Warden and Hawke could not. So therefore the sizes are  wrong in both games.

Modifié par Realmzmaster, 01 décembre 2011 - 12:39 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Realmzmaster wrote...

So therefore the sizes are  wrong in both games.

I would certainly agree with that.  I calculated the likely mass of the mauls found in both games (assuming the materials used were roughly as dense as steel), and there's basically no way any person could swing them quickly - certainly not as quickly as they are swung in DA2.

Perhaps that's why people complain more about the weapon sizes in DA2.  The weapons in DAO, while similarly oversized, were swung much more slowly.

[Fallstar]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Realmzmaster wrote...

So therefore the sizes are  wrong in both games.

I would certainly agree with that.  I calculated the likely mass of the mauls found in both games (assuming the materials used were roughly as dense as steel), and there's basically no way any person could swing them quickly - certainly not as quickly as they are swung in DA2.

Perhaps that's why people complain more about the weapon sizes in DA2.  The weapons in DAO, while similarly oversized, were swung much more slowly.

Whilst that argument holds for the more mundane low tier metals, I'm guessing veridium and above, being fantastical metals, are lighter than normal. Thats how I justify it anyway.

[MerinTB]

Realmzmaster wrote...

MerinTB wrote...

Your move.

So what you are saying is that the swords in both DAO and DA2 should be about 1.5 feet shorter than shown which would place them at roughly 4.5 to 5 feet. This size would fit the average 5' 7" man of that time period. The Kossith  may be able to wield a sword of 7 feet, but the Warden and Hawke could not. So therefore the sizes are  wrong in both games.

I honestly never argued that the swords in DA:O were realistically sized.  I have in the past noted how much the "daggers" were more like short swords... LONG short swords.  Gladius lengths at least.

DA:O I played at full over-head isometric view, however, and the combat was slower and more subdued.  You didn't have Sten leaping ten feet in the air, thirty feet forward, from a standing position, to one-handed swing a two-handed sword onto the head of some hapless enemy.
In short, DA:O didn't call attention to the oversize weapons in all but a few examples (daggers for me.)

I've only been arguing that the two-handed swords being considered ridiculous sizes to the order of Final Fantasy JRPG standards was warranted, and that the oft-stated response of "real life swords could be as long as 7 feet!" was referring to parade swords most often, and maybe a few cases of 5 foot or slightly longer swords being used as anti-polearm weapons by extraordinarily big and strong soldiders in specialized units.

So, in the end, yep, I agree with your current statement.

[AmstradHero]

FedericoV wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...

As far as I'm aware, there's no RPG that offers ALL of those things. It's all about trade offs and trading complexity in certain areas for other areas. You perceive the removal of things like rest systems (I hate vancian casting with a passion), food and water requirements (joy, tedious upkeep - "wizard needs food badly!"), weapons and armor that actually break (great, I just lost my favourite sword) or the like as being more valuable than some of the benefits offered by modern games.

This doesn't make modern games "lightweight" (whatever that means) just as it doesn't make older games more complex.  It means the complexity comes in different areas.

I don't mean to belittle your opinion, but to simple make a blanket statement like "older RPGs have more complexity" is just inaccurate. It appears they have more complexity in the areas that you like. Therein lies the difference.

You can't deny that older games have generally more complexity in the gameplay department. And in my book gameplay is the most important part of any game however you put it (otherwise it would be better to read a book or watch a movie).

I can and I will, because it depends on what you mean by complexity.  I don't consider things like: requiring food/sleep, random encounters, vancian casting, or weapon damage to add meaningful complexity to a game. Requiring food merely means more inventory items to carry and then periodically consume, which I don't consider particularly complex. Sleep requires you to take a periodic "breaks", which when compounded with random encounters and vancian casting can mean that you have party members that are completely useless at a particular point in time. That's not complex, that's just annoying.

These things add upkeep, not complexity. For example, it might be more realistic if when I'm playing Skyrim, that when I've been travelling for 18 hours of in-game time, that my character gets tired and becomes less competent in combat. But the introduction of such a system would in many casees just force players to slog through a dungeon suffering fatigue effects until they manage to find a makeshift bed in which to sleep and return to full strength. There's no complexity added to the gameplay, just extra limitations that frustrate the player and force them to perform menial upkeep tasks.

FedericoV wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...
DA2: Each level you get to pick how to increase your character's combat effectiveness, choosing whether you want to increase physical/magical resistance, ability to hit, critical chance, and combat longevity. And you get to make the decision at every level. Let's not also forget that you get skill trees in DA2 which allow you to customise individual characters and also allow you to develop tactics that combine those skills to be more effective in combat.

I don't know. All you do in DA2 is managing different aspects of the unique and meaningfull skill: damage. Mix with it level scaling and stat diminishing returns and the effect is waaay less dramatic than you put it. Not to mention that even items scale to your level. Moreover: in DA:O and DA2 there is not a single strategic element. Everything is based around tactics and when you have learned those 4/5 tactics that works in any encounters (untill you meet a boss) the deal is done. Not to mention that those tactics are not even required to beat the game on normal difficulty. Just to say, gameplay is way simpler in DA2 than the Golden Box games. That does not mean that the golden box are better games or that we should return to tile graphics. I would just like some level of accessible depth in my RPGs.

Couldn't disagree more. If you think that all those skill trees are purely about damage then you either didn't play DA2 or you weren't paying attention. A lot of skills/abilities do increase damage, certainly, but others help your characters to survive, resist powerful blows or other negative effects, perform crowd control, or manage threat levels within your party. To say that they are "purely about damage" is a fallacy. 

If we're continuing the comparison between gold box games, what abilities could you actually control? Let's look at non-spellcasters first. Damage was controlled purely by weapon choice (plus the static strength modifier during character creation that never changes, again a win for DA2). Same comparison for your AC. The only thing that changes over a gold box game is your HP and your THACO. That's hardly complex.

For spellcasting classes, you get a bit more freedom.  Still, the bulk of the spells in this era are focused on dealing damage, with a few to handle crowd control and protection. There's very little (if any) cross class augmentation or combinations that are effective (or required) in order to succeed.

The concept of threat management doesn't even exist at all. There's very little rationale for why certain characters are attacked, and even if one particular individual is being picked up by enemies, there's few (if any) options to manage that situation and strategically get them to safety to enable them to survive.

As for strategy... I really don't see how you can argue gold box games were more complex strategically in their fighting. Fight starts: wizards launch fireballs, warriors close in, thieves try to backstab. Healers attempt to keep people alive (or bash skulls in) while wizards back off and fling stones/darts and maybe use another valuable single target spell. Doesn't sound amazingly more complex than DA2 to me.

Is it because you had six characters to manage instead of 4? Or is it that DA2 was easier on "normal" difficulty and so it's not complex because you didn't increase the difficulty to a level where strategy and tactics are actually required? For all its failings (and DA2 has its fair share) the combat system is not an area where the game was "dumbed down" in terms of complexity, at least not if you play the game on higher difficulties that actually require you to explore its complexities rather than just mash the awesome button on your main character.

FedericoV wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...
If no one reacts to my roleplaying, what's the point?A gold box game offers roleplaying that is completely and utterly irrelevant to the game itself, defining a character personality that simply doesn't exist as far as the game is concerned.  If that's the case, then I'm roleplaying when I'm playing Crysis 2, because I get to inject any personality I want into my silent protagonist.

I'd argue that to offer roleplaying that is meaningless to the other characters within the gameworld and the gameworld itself is the least acceptable trade of all.

Honestly, with the exception of Obsidian games, I don't see those dramatic improvement on the choice/consequences and roleplaying department in modern games, especially in Bioware games. DA2 is more linear than BG2. ME2 is quite linear untill the last mission. DA:O has some very nice and well thought choices but zero consequences and while being less linear than most Bioware's game of late was still quite driven. All those games are very very linear if compared to games like FO1 & 2: they are closer to the Golden Box games than the original FO in term of roleplaying.

DAO has few consequences mechanically, but it has vast consequences from a storytelling standpoint. You decide the ruler of Orzammar, whether the circle is annuled, whether werewolves are killed, restored or run wild, and even who rules Ferelden. Sure, these don't have much effect on the mechanics of fighting (if that's all you consider gameplay to be), but their effect on the game experience as a whole is quite potent.  Sure, DA2 ignored or made a lot of these choices completely irrelevant, but that's a failing of DA2 to deliver a potent cohesive narrative within the series, not a failing of DAO or a shortcoming of its own internal complexity.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 01 décembre 2011 - 07:06 .

[AlexXIV]

I like the fact that your character has to eat, sleep and repair his stuff. Maybe if you don't want to have debuffs in dungeons etc because your character is tired or your equipment bad, then you should make sure you are well prepared before you go in. That's pretty much the point of the system. It's not to ignore it until the negative effects kick in and then suffer through it. The point is to prepare before adventure/battle. What's wrong with that exactly? I liked that in the older games even your facial expression changed depending on that. So you could easily see in the group window of the UI that something is wrong. Also your companions could complain about you being a bad leader or whatever if such stuff happens. If you can't appreciate that then I am sorry to say that you are not an RPG fan at all.

Modifié par AlexXIV, 01 décembre 2011 - 07:13 .