264 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvius the Mad]

Mechanically not as much as a pure RPG(by which I mean not action combat), but there was still quite a few stats and stuff to the game. Even Diablo's in-game stuff could have been better because it was basically just a block of text, which is never very enticing for a lot of players to read. It's also been so long that I can't remember if they covered absolutely everything or not, which would be a criticism against that system if they didn't.

I just don't see the point in making excuses for a game, because I reject the notion that it's even possible to make a perfect game. Thus even my favourite game of all time, Half-Life, I can point out criticisms for.

Sure. I just don't see the lack of in-game documentation as a problem when the game came with a printed manual you could consult while playing.

If you want to look something up, you can.

If the manual had only been digital, that would be a problem.

That you RP the combat is great, but it still causes issue with the combat in the game.

You should faithfully adapt the ruleset but a different medium requires different mechanics at times. Especially since Baldur's Gate is the one that created the problem of being able to bypass the vancian spell system by sleeping after every fight, it's on their head to fix the problems being amplified by that.

I'm going to disagree with that. Enforcing rest periods isn't the job of the rules, it's the job of the GM. And some of the GM's duties were transferred to the player in BG. This is just one of them.

Also, there were systems in BG which discouraged frequest resting. First, your camp could be attacked while you rested, forcing you to fight without having regained spells. And reloading a saved game respawned the enemies in the area, so it was harder to save scum.

Again it's not about a character dying. It's about the game removing all skill, player or character, from the game and the dice arbitrarily deciding that I died because the enemy rolled a 20 in the first combat.

I see this as a good thing. It shouldn't always be about skill. Sometimes it should be about luck. The dice are there to simulate unpredictable results. For that to work, they need to be unpredictable.

I know that even in Pathfinder they give you a bit of breathing room as you aren't actually dead at 0 HP. I'm not sure if AD&D2 does this as well or if that's just a Baldur's Gate thing.

It was an optional rule in 2nd edition. I don't think 1st edition (the better ruleset) had it at all.

[AlanC9]

There's a word for companies who only care about how many copies of their products they can sell. The word is "greedy".

Nice try, but no points for you -- Guinevere134 beat you to it two pages up.

[In Exile]

There's a word for companies who only care about how many copies of their products they can sell. The word is "greedy".

Caring "only" about how much units you sell is incompetent because managing a business that sells goods actually requires a company to do more to stay afloat. But caring about how much you sell doesn't mean not treating your customers well - that's totally a matter of the business strategy you adopt. The unabashed praise of CDR is often about their success based on catering to predilection of gamers.

[AlanC9]

I'm going to disagree with that. Enforcing rest periods isn't the job of the rules, it's the job of the GM. And some of the GM's duties were transferred to the player in BG. This is just one of them.

I'd call that a problem with the design, though.

[Seraphim24]

GM? You mean DM?

 

Or maybe some other people called it something else...

[In Exile]

I bet the metric is how much the company decides to make a game that meets their expectations so if it doesn't have the features or changes they want the company becomes "greedy". I am looking forward to CDPR with Cyberpunk to see how their fans react to the changes it seems they are taking the game from The Witcher series.

Bethesda's alleged aggressive business practices (well, Zenimax) put anything said about EA to shame. I haven't been able to re-source this point, but I read an article that they structure their contracts and deadlines in such a way as to make it very hard for the companies they publish to profit so they have room to swoop in as an acquire the company if it's worthwhile.

[BaaBaaBlacksheep]

Plain and simple: BW should do better and not slacking off and just want high sales, they should've put quality over quantity. They resting on their lauerls and thinking that no one can make a better RPG better than them. But Witcher 3 topples Inquisition and they better get on the ball or they will never will be relevant in the gaming world. That's how I see it.

[slimgrin]

The unabashed praise of CDR is often about their success based on catering to predilection of gamers.

 

That's a roundabout way of saying they offer quality. I know they play it up in their PR, but at the end of the day they back it up too. 

[Cyberstrike nTo]

Unless you have a business model built only on nostalgia going constantly looking and going backwards is a creative dead end. Sure a few retro games here and there are fun but after a while even the best retro game gets old after a while.

[Sylvius the Mad]

GM? You mean DM?

Or maybe some other people called it something else...

Only D&D called the position DM. GM is a more generic term that applies to a wider variety of games.

I like to use GM as a subtle reminder that other tabletop RPG rulesets exist.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Plain and simple: BW should do better and not slacking off and just want high sales, they should've put quality over quantity. They resting on their lauerls and thinking that no one can make a better RPG better than them. But Witcher 3 topples Inquisition and they better get on the ball or they will never will be relevant in the gaming world. That's how I see it.

And yet, of all the praise CDPR and TW3 get, they're not typically praised for offering deep roleplaying experiences.

They might offer better combat gameplay, or better exploration, or better characters, or a better story, but those are all secondary to the purpose of a roleplaying game.

[BaaBaaBlacksheep]

And yet, of all the praise CDPR and TW3 get, they're not typically praised for offering deep roleplaying experiences.
They might offer better combat gameplay, or better exploration, or better characters, or a better story, but those are all secondary to the purpose of a roleplaying game.

Witcher did kicked Inquisition to the curve though, and DA:I is very boring to play anyways.

[Cyonan]

Sure. I just don't see the lack of in-game documentation as a problem when the game came with a printed manual you could consult while playing.

If you want to look something up, you can.

If the manual had only been digital, that would be a problem.

 

I see a lack of an in-game documentation as a problem just like you see a lack of an out of game one a problem.

 

It's simply more convenient for me to find the information I want when it's in a digital format. It also becomes impossible to lose that information or not have it because you borrowed the game from a friend.

 

I'm going to disagree with that. Enforcing rest periods isn't the job of the rules, it's the job of the GM. And some of the GM's duties were transferred to the player in BG. This is just one of them.

Also, there were systems in BG which discouraged frequest resting. First, your camp could be attacked while you rested, forcing you to fight without having regained spells. And reloading a saved game respawned the enemies in the area, so it was harder to save scum.

 

I maintain that in this case Baldur's Gate is the GM, not the player.

 

Being attacked at night is only really worrisome at low levels when you barely have any hit points. Most areas don't spawn mobs that are threatening to a party at level 3-4 and above. Especially if I'm resting for my casters while my Paladin and Fighter are still sitting at 80-90% HP, they aren't going to worry about a few low level mobs. Not even if I fight them multiple times.

 

I don't think BG did enough to help the problem it amplified in casters being broken. I refuse to make excuses for it, even though I'll maintain that it's still a very good game. You can talk about limitations but I've played through the game exploiting magic and it's broken in the game.

 

I see this as a good thing. It shouldn't always be about skill. Sometimes it should be about luck. The dice are there to simulate unpredictable results. For that to work, they need to be unpredictable.

It was an optional rule in 2nd edition. I don't think 1st edition (the better ruleset) had it at all.

 

Every game needs to have some element of skill. It doesn't matter character or player, but it needs to have some element of skill. As it stands right now that system is neither a game nor a toy: It's gambling. I see that as a very bad design.

 

You can still simulate unpredictable results without having the ability to be OHK at level 1 by a random crit. Plenty of other pen and paper games don't have that as a thing. I'm okay with luck being a factor. I'm not okay with luck being the only factor.

 

Baldur's Gate really should have used the negative HP rule, or else make it an option for players to use.

[Seraphim24]

And yet, of all the praise CDPR and TW3 get, they're not typically praised for offering deep roleplaying experiences.

They might offer better combat gameplay, or better exploration, or better characters, or a better story, but those are all secondary to the purpose of a roleplaying game.

 

I don't really think anyone praises Bioware for that either.

[Seraphim24]

Also no offense but have any of you "market fans" considered that trying to appeal to the market is by far the most volatile and insane thing as far as tastes and preferences go?

 

Especially nowadays with extreme concentrations of wealth and topheavy volatile interconnected societies it really feels like the entire world is about to rupture at any moment sometimes.

 

The whole point about the "market" is if you try and appeal to it or keep it in mind everything explodes.

 

Hardcore gamers, while fewer perhaps in number, at least their tastes and preferences are consistent. The most reliable market invention of the past 20 years has been to ignore the market and just sell highly derivative games because it's the only non-volatile market there is in the world basically.

 

People keep waiting (hoping?) for the gaming market to shift or tastes to collapse but it turns out gamers are typically actually honest and like things because they are good and not because they are trendy. 

 

Hardcore gamers have been lamenting their own inability to move to the next thing but that's precisely the force that's causing so much good in the world, they're giving an example of people who as I say just like things because they are illustrating you can like things without just jumping to the next thing. 

 

Using "Market approaches" is the stuff of all those businesses that got burned in the Great Depression and every other screwed up era in history that eventually culminated in like 500000 wars.

 

I mean there has never been such a thing as a "stable successful business." What's the oldest business in the world anyway? That still bears the name of it's founders or whatever?

 

No such thing, they're always wiped out in all these periodic fluctuations and mass death wars.

[Sanunes]

That's a roundabout way of saying they offer quality. I know they play it up in their PR, but at the end of the day they back it up too. 

 

I don't think they offer any more quality then anyone else, they just offer a product that people expect from them.  That is why I am interested in the reaction they are going to get with Cyberpunk for it seems they might be heading in a more BioWare approach to games.

[In Exile]

That's a roundabout way of saying they offer quality. I know they play it up in their PR, but at the end of the day they back it up too.

Let me clarify: I'm saying people believe their goal is to produce quality. You don't have to set out to do something well to do it well - you could just be talented. My point is that people assume a perceived lack of quality denotes a lack of care - but that's not true. Someone can do a good job while not caring one whit while someone else can fail despite great passion.

[Giantdeathrobot]

 

I mean there has never been such a thing as a "stable successful business." What's the oldest business in the world anyway? That still bears the name of it's founders or whatever?

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia...n's_Bay_Company

 

Hudson's Bay company, founded in 1670 as a fur trading venture. Did that for some time, nowadays it's mostly a clothes retailer, a pretty big one in Canada in fact.

 

I'm not sure if there are older, Western-style corporations. But the Hudson Bay's is older than any modern nation-state by almost a century. Not bad, I say.

[Seraphim24]

https://en.wikipedia...n's_Bay_Company

 

Hudson's Bay company, founded in 1670 as a fur trading venture. Did that for some time, nowadays it's mostly a clothes retailer, a pretty big one in Canada in fact.

 

I'm not sure if there are older, Western-style corporations. But the Hudson Bay's is older than any modern nation-state by almost a century. Not bad, I say.

 

1670! Wow! That's INCREDIBLE

 

The lifespans of businesses are measured in generations... concepts, ideas, and the institutions they inhabit in the milennia. 

 

Some ideas are in fact even older than the "modern nation-state" concept, believe it or not. 

 

Note ordinarily I'd actually think that's an interesting factoid, no doubt they have nice clothes, but... yeah. 

[Giantdeathrobot]

1670! Wow! That's INCREDIBLE

 

The lifespans of businesses are measured in generations... concepts and ideas in the milennia. 

 

Some ideas are in fact even older than the "modern nation-state" concept, believe it or not. 

 

Okay? What's your point here?

 

You seemed to suggest a company cannot survive for a long time. Move the goalposts and make the conversation about ''ideas'', whatever that's supposed to mean in the present context, as much as you like; in human history 346 years (and counting) is a pretty long time.

[Cyonan]

Looking on Google, there's a pub in Ireland that's been around since 900.

[In Exile]

1670! Wow! That's INCREDIBLE

The lifespans of businesses are measured in generations... concepts, ideas, and the institutions they inhabit in the milennia.

Some ideas are in fact even older than the "modern nation-state" concept, believe it or not.

Note ordinarily I'd actually think that's an interesting factoid, no doubt they have nice clothes, but... yeah.

Hudson's Bay the brand is old. The company has changed hands a lot. Might even have been insolvent. I think they went public and had a going private at some point.

I don't want to get into an arbitrary label debate - "hardcore gamer" is a meaningless term.

[Seraphim24]

It's really not, you found one company that's been around for hundreds of years, yay.

 

Lets compare that to the millions that have been eviscerated for heeding "market logic."

 

The market is just a synonym for the business death cycle that reaps and sows. It's like trusting a sociopathic 17 times convicted felon.

 

Not only that, the only successful businesses are usually the ones that resist the cycle.

 

I mean the Reapers in ME are basically just global market forces.

[Iakus]

https://en.wikipedia...n's_Bay_Company

 

Hudson's Bay company, founded in 1670 as a fur trading venture. Did that for some time, nowadays it's mostly a clothes retailer, a pretty big one in Canada in fact.

 

I'm not sure if there are older, Western-style corporations. But the Hudson Bay's is older than any modern nation-state by almost a century. Not bad, I say.

No longer an independant company, but...

 

https://en.wikipedia...wiki/Kongō_Gumi

 

 

This one, however is still in business

http://www.keiunkan.co.jp/en/  

[Seraphim24]

I can't believe... like we're literally in the absolute apex of WW3 here which is being waged in economic terms, America unlike in previous instances is fully mobilized and once again the entire world is burning and all semblance of culture and civilization is being annihilated or enslaved to serve some "higher" (*cough* lower) purpose. 

 

Throw anything out to the wind right now and the essential thing that's likely to happen is it's just going to be engulfed in the tempest. 

 

And somehow people are like "Oh yeah, this clothes store is doing good." 

 

You gotta be kidding.