1067 réponses à ce sujet

[nelly21]

@ Lusitanum



Dude. Everybody knows that playing a role is not part of a role playing game. You need hundreds of repetitive items for an inventory, hands-off combat, silent protagonists and weapon classified by dice variables.



Keep in mind, your ability to shoot should not be based on your own abilities, it should be based on Commander Shepard's. And for that matter, there shouldn't be a Commander Shepard. Instead, Mark Meer should be fired and the only time we hear the protagonist is during battles when he yells "At them!" or some other generic voiceover.



Furthermore, a role playing game shouldn't require any player skill at all because player skill requirements are an immediate sign of dumbing down.

[TJSolo]

nelly21 wrote...

Furthermore, a role playing game shouldn't require any player skill at all because player skill requirements are an immediate sign of dumbing down.

That is subjective and dependent on the player skill.
If a player skill is equal to that of a dog with A.D.D that needs constant visual stimuli to hold its interest, then matching those skill requirements would be a sign of dumbing down...imo

[nelly21]

TJSolo wrote...

nelly21 wrote...

Furthermore, a role playing game shouldn't require any player skill at all because player skill requirements are an immediate sign of dumbing down.

That is subjective and dependent on the player skill.
If a player skill is equal to that of a dog with A.D.D that needs constant visual stimuli to hold its interest, then matching those skill requirements would be a sign of dumbing down...imo

How silly of me.

Using battlefield tactics combination with aiming skill is obviously a sign of inferior brain power.

[TJSolo]

nelly21 wrote...

TJSolo wrote...

nelly21 wrote...

Furthermore, a role playing game shouldn't require any player skill at all because player skill requirements are an immediate sign of dumbing down.

That is subjective and dependent on the player skill.
If a player skill is equal to that of a dog with A.D.D that needs constant visual stimuli to hold its interest, then matching those skill requirements would be a sign of dumbing down...imo

How silly of me.

Using battlefield tactics combination with aiming skill is obviously a sign of inferior brain power.

Depends on the brain.
What one thinks is "tactical" another could find mundane.
I think the tactics you are referring to work wells in online play against real people that are using the same tactics as you.
The tactics you are referring to don't come across well against AI that will just play whack-a-mole behind cover until they die.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Lusitanum wrote...

Party-based RPGs won't obviously have the same game mechanics as shooter RPGs, now will they?

They're RPGs.  Character skills should still be paramount.

If you need to pause and is aiming is an issue, then I have to question why would that ever be a problem.

Because internal consistency matters.

Why didn't I give him a personality? Oh wait, let me think about it... oh yes, because that's not my goddamned job!

So you just don't enjoy roleplaying.

That's fine, but why then are you playing roleplaying games?

I don't have to make up for any plot holes that a story might have by making up some reasons in my head, I don't have to justify the fact that a given NPC might go out of character due to bad writing, I don't have to make cheesy dialog sound good, I don't have to try and explain any inconsistencies that a story might have, and I sure as hell shouldn't have to warp my mind around the MAIN - FREAKING - CHARACTER non-existant personality, who's supposed to be at the center of all this and the driving force behind pretty much everything that's going on around it.

Everything you just said presupposes that the PC's characteristics are handed to you on a platter, rather than you having anything to do with them.

Your position is based on circular reasoning.

Yes it does, because that's not how RPGs work. This genre has evolved beyond tabletop a few decades ago, you might want to wake up, and in this day and age, where technology allows you to make the "G" in "RPG" actually mean something, storytelling and character development are starting to change from the mute, uninspired and absolutely unlikable characters and storylines from the past into living, breathing entities. We've been working hard to make games into something that can actually be called "art", we'd thank you if you didn't keep stalling us with 70's clichés.

Again, you're presupposing your conclusion.

A CRPGs job is to reproduce a tabletop RPG without the need for other people.  Full stop.  If it fails to do that, it fails as an RPG.

Also, even if CRPGs were supposed to be like tabletop RPGs, wouldn't you be expected to also make up your own setting in your head, as well as your character?

And your enemies?

And the fights?

And the world around you?

And the story?

And the events that would happen?

And pretty much everything that involves the computer in CRPGs?

Not at all.  That was never the job of the player.  Are you even vaguely familiar with tabletop RPGs, because you just grossly misrepresented them.

The job of the player has not changed.  The computer replaces the other players and the GM.

It's the exact same thing you've seen in every single RPG in existence: first option is good, second one is neutral and the last one is bad. Seriously, you could even play those games without looking at your options and you'd be just fine, what's so bad with just conveying the spirit of the sentence with a pattern like that?

And now that I understand that you don't bother to know anything about the character you're playing before you play him, your position here makes sense.  You don't care what Shepard actually says as a result of your dialogue wheel selection because you don't have anything invested in his personality.

Think about this for a second.  If you did design your PC's personality in advance, then the wheel would be a huge obstacle.  You'd never know exactly what Shepard was going to do as a result of what you chose, so you'd never know whether that respnse or action would break your character design.

Since you give your PC about as much thought as a carpenter would his hammer, you don't care.

If I can't role-play because I have no role and no interesst in the character, then no, it's not my fault.

It's your fault you have no interest in the character.  His every thought - you put it there.

On the other hand, when I ask my friends the name of their first Dragon Age character, half of them have forgotten it.

Your friends are subnormal.

[Mordaedil]

Bioware has only made one real RPG:







Well, as close as you can *get* anyway. This is the game I still play 8 years after release.

[Shockwave81]

I too enjoyed the Mako - I wish it hadn't been excised completely. I was looking forward to roaming uncharted worlds and taking in breathtaking vistas or exploring ruined cities. 

The irony about many of the 'uncharted' worlds in ME2 is that they were in fact charted - in some cases they were even settled! I guess uncharted only refers to the fact that Shepard and his crew haven't visited them...

With the exception of the Collectors' base I don't feel like I discovered anything at all. I can't express how disappointed I was to find out that the Prothean video log was the only truly interactive relic I would find throughout the entire game.

I would have enjoyed being sent to find the super weapon that created the Klendagon Rift, before tracing the clues in order to find the derelict Reaper. I honestly don't know how this could have hindered the story's pacing (considering players aren't forced to visit the Reaper immediately). Instead, I'm given the option to chase down Blue Suns mercs on a captured freighter or partake in some other irrelevant-to-the-story distraction.

ME1 set my expectations for the series' universe. ME2 cemented BioWare's vision for the series' universe. These views were never destined to be in sync with each other.
Now that I've accepted this, I find myself enjoying ME2 for what it is, the trade off is that I'm not anticipating what ME3 could be. 

I'm not an expert on technical things, but say this series was on PS3, I can only assume that Blu-ray discs would have allowed BioWare to go crazy with content.

That was NOT flame bait by the way - I'm not a system fanboy by any stretch - if a game's good, I'll find a way to play it no matter who provides the hardware.

[Lusitanum]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

They're RPGs.  Character skills should still be paramount.

And the skills are still there, but every game has different degrees of everything so skills are just another thing that can be more or less influential. That's just what games do.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Because internal consistency matters.

That's not an excuse and you know it.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

So you just don't enjoy roleplaying.

That's fine, but why then are you playing roleplaying games?

Same reason I play pretty much every game: because they're fun. I was atracted to RPGs in the first place because I loved the concept of fighting battles, gaining experience, levelling up and becoming more powerful and then starting all over again with a wimpy level 1 character. Then, I started to enjoy the rich worlds full of history, details and gameplay possibilities. And lately, I've witnessed with imense joy the epic storylines with likable and deep characters after that walk in the desert where you had to choose between Generic Expressionless Mute Out to Save the World #37 in western RPGs and Angsty Androgenous Emo in japanese RPGs

It was actually a long time until I actually understood what the word role-play stood for, and when I discovered it, I noticed that it could add a new layer of fun to the game. But if it's to be bound in chains and prevent my favorite genre from moving forward, then I'm all up for change.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...Everything you just said presupposes that the PC's characteristics are handed to you on a platter, rather than you having anything to do with them.

Your position is based on circular reasoning.

If none of the aspects of storytelling are supposed to come from my imagination, why should the centerpiece of it all be? Since when are stories told with their main pieces ripped out of them?

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Again, you're presupposing your conclusion.

A CRPGs job is to reproduce a tabletop RPG without the need for other people.  Full stop.  If it fails to do that, it fails as an RPG.

Wrong. So very, very wrong. That was true for Wizardry and then we've grown beyond that along the years. You honestly want to tell me that videogames have all this huge potential to become epic interactive experiences and you want them to just be a board games with automated calculations. Are you feeling well?

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Not at all.  That was never the job of the player.  Are you even vaguely familiar with tabletop RPGs, because you just grossly misrepresented them.

The job of the player has not changed.  The computer replaces the other players and the GM.

Oblivion. Fallout 3. Fable 2. The whole freaking Diablo series. Final Fantasy. The World Ends With You. These are some of the greatest, most memorable RPGs of the past decade. None of them are tabletop games adapated to software.

And you still say CRPGs are just a representation of tabletop games? "What rock have you been living under" doesn't not even begin to explain it.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

And now that I understand that you don't bother to know anything about the character you're playing before you play him, your position here makes sense.  You don't care what Shepard actually says as a result of your dialogue wheel selection because you don't have anything invested in his personality.

And here's the big difference between us: you build your world around pre-conceived notions and assumptions, I built it on the analysis of personality.

I don't care to know anything about the character I'm playing before I play him? Of course not! First, I need see the character, get to know him, notice his personality, his traits, what makes him who he is and only then do I judge him and decide on which path I would like to take him. And if the character is good, I'll grow attached to it, I'll begin to like him, I'll indentify with his humanity even if we don't share the same personality.

On the other hand, if they're just empty bits of polygons for me to push around a game, then I feel nothing for them. Again, that's what I hated about Isaac: he was always so empty, he never opened his mouth through the entire game, even despite all the horrors he witnessed and the people who kept talking to him directly. Oh, I get what they were trying to do, they were making him so extremely empty so that you could pretty much glue anyone else's personality into him and he would be indentifiable, but that just doesn't work, the guy just comes out as some machine that for some reason is unable to think on his own or react to the events around him.

And that's what you get with your empty characters. You can try glueing all sorts of things into him, but spit just isn't going to make anything stick.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Think about this for a second.  If you did design your PC's personality in advance, then the wheel would be a huge obstacle.  You'd never know exactly what Shepard was going to do as a result of what you chose, so you'd never know whether that respnse or action would break your character design.

Since you give your PC about as much thought as a carpenter would his hammer, you don't care.

Actually, since I still know how to use my head, I always know how to make my Shepards go wherever I want them to. If I'm presented with a choice, I know where to go given the options given to me and I just have to follow them. Seriously, what's so hard about that?

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

It's your fault you have no interest in the character.  His every thought - you put it there.

The moment that it's all in my head, then it's not there, it's just in my head! He's just a puppet that I go along with to try out the game. Granted, I try to act the way that I would when presented to the same situations, but that's me and not my character, who just becomes a tool that I use to play the game. And I'm not egotistical enough to fall in love with myself, thank you very much.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Your friends are subnormal.

No, they are not, and your baseless assumptions are getting increasingly idiotic. I'm lucky enough to have a group of friends who are actually able to play all kinds of games. Some like to play old adventure games (like Sam & Max Hit the Road, Grim Fandango or Full Throtle), some are into the latest gaming releases, some are more into retro-gaming, some like to play on-line FPS, others prefer a claming solitary puzzle game, etc. etc. Unlike you they're actually open-minded enough to give everything a try on its own merits, without being bound by constricted notions of genre. Above all, the emotions and the fun that they draw out of the game is what drives us to play.

And if you want other examples, I can just refer several people I've never met but who also agree with us. Like, for instance The Digital Cowboys, who in their 101st episode reviewed Mass Effect saying, and I quote:

"The end was so ****ing good! From what people had been talking about the trailer for Mass Effect 2 I was like "Woah! Shepard can't be dead!" When my Shepard came pulling out of the rubble, just sort of limping forwards with a smile on her face I actually air-punched and went "Get in there, my son!" And I've got to say that, because of what Bioware did with this character and because of the decisions that you've got to make and because of how subtle you can control how you can behave, it's the best portrayal of a lead character in a role-playing game ever, and that is saying something. I've only played to completion, what? five or six role-playing games, but all of them I felt, "you know what, I'm not really certain this really is that kind of open-ended, you can be good or evil world" But this, it made me yearn about Mass Effect 2 and I want to play Dragon Age. Bioware are my #1 guys right now."

Or maybe you just need someone a bit more well known. Ever heard of Ben "Yathzee" Croshaw? He's got an article column where he once discusses what RPGs are and what it actually means the term "role-playing game" and I'm going to quote again:

"Again, surely every game has you playing a role to
a certain extent, but presumably it's intended to harken back to the
old pen-and-paper role-playing games you used to play with your little
friends around the kitchen table in your pathetic, idle youth (or
pathetic, idle current existence). But those games were about literally
taking on a role; by this token the only true video RPGs are ones like Mass
Effect or Vampire: Bloodlines that let you make dialogue
and action choices that define the nature of your character's
personality, and there are plenty of RPGs that don't do that."

By the way, notice the date of the article: 19th of Januray, 2010. Not only was Dragon Age out by then, he had already reviewed it himself. So I guess that points out what he thinks are the "RPGs that don't let you make dialogue and action choices that define the nature of your character's personality".

Bottom line, don't ever dare to say my friends are sub-normal. We are the normal guys who can play and analyze a game for what it's worth, even with our subjective opinions who will always diverge between us while you're the guy still clinging to the idea that the world should shape itself to your own ways of making things.

So don't even try to judge my friends with a mentality like that

Modifié par Lusitanum, 13 mars 2010 - 03:22 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

[quote]Lusitanum wrote...
[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

They're RPGs.  Character skills should still be paramount.[/quote]
And the skills are still there, but every game has different degrees of everything so skills are just another thing that can be more or less influential.[/quote]
Being "less influential" is incompatible with being paramount.  Pick one.
[quote][quote]Because internal consistency matters[/quote]
That's not an excuse and you know it.[/quote]
How is that not an excuse?  If the game world isn't plausible (and if it lacks internal consistency, then it's actually impossible), then why do I care what happens in it?  As soon as Shepard did something I thought was stupid, I lost all interest in his welfare, and by extension the welfoare of his entire reality.  From that moment on I was just playing a game; I had nothing invested in it, because I didn't care about the people.  It wasn't possible for me to
care about the people because their reality didn't make any sense.
[quote][quote]why then are you playing roleplaying games?[/quote]
Same reason I play pretty much every game: because they're fun.[/quote]
Is that supposed to be informative?  Everyone likes having fun.  But what each of us finds fun differs from person to person.
[quote]If none of the aspects of storytelling are supposed to come from my imagination, why should the centerpiece of it all be? Since when are stories told with their main pieces ripped out of them?[/quote]
If we were talking about a book or a movie your position would make sense.  Those are complete stories presented to you in their entirety.  Your enjoyment of them is intended to be passive.

Not so with RPGs.  In RPGs, your character (not you, but your character) is an active participant.  the story can't be written entirely in advance without railroading you and robbing you of player agency.  At that point, why is it a game rather than just a movie or book?  You're focussed far too much on the authored narrative (which exists in RPGs,
books, and movies), but completely ignoring the emergent narrative (which exists in RPGs, but not movies or books).  Part of the story gets written by you.  How your character feels about the people around him.  Why your character chooses to help others (or not help them).  The game can't decide that for you without removing the need for you to be involved at all.
[quote]Wrong. So very, very wrong. That was true for Wizardry and then we've grown beyond that along the years. You honestly want to tell me that videogames have all this huge potential to become epic interactive experiences and you want them to just be a board games with automated calculations. Are you feeling well?[/quote]
I want them to be epic, interactive experiences, with automated calculations.  Mass Effect's actually got the automated calculations part right, but missed the interactive experience part.  The game wasn't really interactive, because the player didn't have much to do.  ME2 added interactivity, but at the expense of the automated
calculations, leaving the part of the game that could accommodate both (converastion) lying fallow.
[quote]Oblivion. Fallout 3. Fable 2. The whole freaking Diablo series. Final Fantasy. The World Ends With
You. These are some of the greatest, most memorable RPGs of the past decade.[/quote]
Did you really just point to Fable 2 as an example of a good RPG?  Really?

Oblivion's basic structure (ignoring the abysmal level scaling) works pretty well for an RPG.  Many of the results are stat-driven (spell effects, combat damage), and the dialogue engine is terrific.

I have not played Fallout 3 (I have it installed, I just haven't got to it yet).  Fallout 2 is certainly an excellent example of an RPG.

The less said about Fable, the better.  I have played both games, and I preferred the first one, but I wouldn't call either game an RPG.  There are no relevant decisions to be made in the game.

I don't have any idea what people see in Diablo.  I've played Diablo 2 some - not more than 30 hours (I bought and installed it last year to see if I should be interested in D3) - and I found no character decisions to be made. 
And while not relevant to the RPG discussion, how can anyone enjoy that interminable clicking they call a combat system?  I recall when Dungeon Siege 2 was released I was surprised to see that the very good combat system from Dungeon Siege had been replaced by what turns out was just a copy of Diablo's system.  So someone must like it.  But why?  I couldn't even play The Witcher for more than a few hours because of that dreadful timing-based clicking.

As for Final Fantasy, the only JRPG I've ever played was FF7, and after 10 hours of that I've never again looked at a JPRG.  There's just no roleplaying in it.

There's more opportunity for roleplaying to be found in most turn-based strategy games (Alpha Centauri's a great
example) than there is in these games you call RPGs.
[quote]And here's the big difference between us: you build your world around pre-conceived notions and assumptions[/quote]
They're not assumptions.  I'm the player; building the player character is my job.

How can you possibly roleplay a character - any character - without perfect knowledge of the contents of his mind?  Your approach requires that you never have that, so what happens if your decisions contradict some aspect of his personality of which you are not yet aware?  Do you just ignore his irrationality?  You've broken the character.  You've wilfully craeted cognitive dissonance.  You're okay with that?
[quote]I don't care to know anything about the character I'm playing before I play him? Of course not! First, I need see the character, get to know him, notice his personality, his traits, what makes him who he is and only then do I judge him and decide on which path I would like to take him. And if the character is good, I'll grow attached to it, I'll begin to like him, I'll indentify with his humanity even if we don't share the same personality. [/quote]
Seriously?  You're using empathy?

We have nothing in common.
[quote]On the other hand, if they're just empty bits of polygons for me to push around a game, then I feel nothing for them. Again, that's what I hated about Isaac: he was always so empty, he never opened his mouth through the entire game, even despite all the horrors he witnessed and the people who kept talking to him directly.[/quote]
This was only true because you decided it was so.
[quote]Oh, I get what they were trying to do, they were making him so extremely empty so that you could pretty much glue anyone else's personality into him and he would be indentifiable, but that just doesn't work, the guy just comes out as some machine that for some reason is unable to think on his own or react to the events around him.[/quote]
My DAO characters (there are 7 of them, and they're all very different) routinely reacted to events, or thought for themselves.  Because I decided they did.
[quote]Actually, since I still know how to use my head, I always know how to make my Shepards go wherever I want them to. If I'm presented with a choice, I know where to go given the options given to me and I just have to follow them. Seriously, what's so hard about that?[/quote]
The options aren't given to you.  Imprecise approximations of the options are presented to you, and there's no way to know their specific details until after you've made your decision.  And then it's too late.
[quote]The moment that it's all in my head, then it's not there, it's just in my head! [/quote]
Your thoughts are all in your head.  Do they not matter, either?
[quote]He's just a puppet that I go along with to try out the game. Granted, I try to act the way that I would when presented to the same situations, but that's me and not my character, who just becomes a tool that I use to play the game.[/quote]
See?  You've just explained, quite clearly, that you're explicitly not roleplaying.  You're just being yourself and acting naturally.  That's not roleplaying.  You're allowing your character to act as a proxy for you rather than as his own person.  You're letting your character serve not as a character, but as an avatar.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 13 mars 2010 - 06:51 .

[Murmillos]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

As soon as Shepard did something I thought was stupid, I lost all interest in his welfare, and by extension the welfoare of his entire reality.  From that moment on I was just playing a game; I had nothing invested in it, because I didn't care about the people.  It wasn't possible for me to care about the people because their reality didn't make any sense.

So you have basically boiled this whole argument down to - "I'll never be satisfied with any computer game ever."

How can you possibly roleplay a character - any character - without perfect knowledge of the contents of his mind? Your approach requires that you never have that, so what happens if your decisions contradict some aspect of his personality of which you are not yet aware? Do you just ignore his irrationality? You've broken the character. You've willfully created cognitive dissonance. You're okay with that?

Anybody who plays with a cRPG must take the occasional leap of cognitive dissonance - due to the nature of it being a cRPG. cRPG's are limited by design, of writers creativity - they can not think or account for every single aspect which somebody may want to read into and proceed within a script and the consequences that would follow.

There have been very masterful cRPG's that have preselected text (which you clearly dictate is a requirement, not ME's "shortened text") but yet I still find cognitive dissonance happens all the time because none of the choices fit in what I would believe what my character would say - I still end up having to go for the "best fit" choice.

Its the nature of the beast and your overt complaining about it brings nothing to the argument of the topic at hand. The only true RPG comes from real people playing together - not from an cRPG that does its best to follow many of those rules with very large limitations.

cRPG as measured as RPG's in how well they are able to replicate and allow a player to freely role play without restrictions. ME may not be a true open free-flowing cRPG, but does work as an RPG if you view ME as a cinematic cRPG.

Keep in open mind in how RPG are required to work, because there is no clear set definition in what it takes for an RPG's to work. And YOU are not the central authority to dictate that. You are allowed to have your believes and say "This is what I believe makes a game an RPG." but you are a fool, and a tool, to tell us "ONLY THIS is what makes an cRPG an RPG."

Modifié par Murmillos, 13 mars 2010 - 09:50 .

[Kileyan]

I felt the entire main story was kinda stupid, ok really ****g stupid. I mean the main story of ME2 was bad, terrible, boring and anti-climatic.

The only reason I liked the game was the squad characters and their loyalty quests. Those even became a predictable formula after the first couple quests. It was a great game, but the main story was one of the worst ever, and the ending boss was so cheesy and anti-climatic, that I hope it is remembered forever in gaming as something to never do, an example of how to trash a gaming franchise in 2 minutes of a combat scene.

Ok, I exaggerate, but only a little.

Modifié par Kileyan, 13 mars 2010 - 07:17 .

[Absurdest Derivative]

Mordaedil wrote...

Bioware has only made one real RPG:



Well, as close as you can *get* anyway. This is the game I still play 8 years after release.

Three cheers for the Aurora Toolset!

[DonFredek]

at least there are more people who think like this.maybe an ea boycott would help.for the sake fo game industry.i dont remember one single original ea creation that was worth playing.bying out others and useing license does not count.

Shavon wrote...

Mass Effect 1 was rpg-lite, but that was fine with me, the story was awesome, Shepard was very customizable, it became a unique game per person who played.  Maybe a little too light, but still one of my favorite games of all time.  Mass Effect 2, amazing combat (imo), a decent story, despite certain characters getting the shaft, but it's no longer what Biwoare does best: an rpg.

So, Bioware, what happened?  We're getting guns for dlcs?  Are we going to get any story-driven stuff, similar to Bring Down the Sky?  Or the excellent dlc's for Dragon Age?  I know a game company can put out more than one type of genre, but it seems like Bioware is trying to cross genres at the expense of the game.  

Ok, discuss, flame I don't care, I just want the rpg stuff back.  <_<

[DonFredek]

if you wnat shooters go play call of duty or halo but stop writing on forums so bioware can read it as they obviously do.cause all this trolling about elevators and inventory and mako brought as here.now we dont have waypoints,cant save more than 50(still cant name my savegame) times before i have to delete or overwriet(enhancing playing time).no planet explorationj,searching for thermo clips on the ground,still cant jump(i mean with these armors,suites and biotech and kinetics dont you think it would be realistic that soldiers can jump 5 or even 10 metres high especially on low gravity,that would enhance gameplay aswell as combat drones,better AI and better shields for enemies and allies so the fighting takes longer and not just killing pitty lil defenseless innocent geth that drive starships that are crasehd by doors but can take mass accelerators and drive through space.i am all for evolution in games but what about evolution in a way that makes some sense in any kind of universe.i eman it is still the best game series aout there so thx bioware for some good games.but still wsted potential for all their games.there are so many lil things that could have been done without much more development time or money.so many lil things that kill atmosphere(like wolves in dragon age dropping money and armour and being stronger than the archdemon).
one example they implement a scene where you can dring in a nightclub.why cant you drink with your teammates and talk there insted of talking in the middle of combat.why cant you make more interactions with crew on ship not just talking and romancing.i eman these actions are kind of in the game already but are not done very creative.

Rodriguer2000 wrote...

sonsonthebia07 wrote...

There is the Firewalker pack coming very soon. I'm sure that plenty more will be released in time, the game hasn't been out that long in case you haven't noticed.

I don't understand why people cannot except that this is simply a different type of rpg, an action-rpg hybrid. No, the game doesn't have to have a massive inventory of relatively useless items. No, the enemies don't have to have an experience number over their heads after every kill. You are still assuming the role of Commander Shepard. Your actions still have some impact on others (although I wish your actions had more of an impact than they currently do).

thats what i dont understand wasnt the mass effect series supposed to be somthing different not just the same old rpg if i bothers you go play other rpg theres alot out there also there not gonna change it completley just cause a few people are complaining
 

[OneBadAssMother]

ME2 got rid of one thing I hated in ME1 - loot. I prefer the upgrade system.



As for ME2 not being an RPG, I beg to differ. You still play and FEEL the role of Commander Shepard. It's all good in my opinion, and the combat system is superior to ME1. I don't play shooters much, used to back in my younger years. But ME2 is a shooter+story-based sensation that satisfies both my need for a decent RPG experience and shooter cravings at the same time.



Especially at insanity, squad-based tactics is the one reason I got ME1 in the first place (which then got me to get JE and backtrack of every Bioware game - Bioware got me back to gaming after many years). ME2 perfected this. I no longer have to look for old-school turn-based x-com style squad games. ME2 did this perfectly, with a whole lot of extras I also craved for yet didnt expect.

[DonFredek]

bioware is still the best but i beg to differt this is much of tactical game.i had more options in x-com.few hundred years ago

OneBadAssMother wrote...

ME2 got rid of one thing I hated in ME1 - loot. I prefer the upgrade system.

As for ME2 not being an RPG, I beg to differ. You still play and FEEL the role of Commander Shepard. It's all good in my opinion, and the combat system is superior to ME1. I don't play shooters much, used to back in my younger years. But ME2 is a shooter+story-based sensation that satisfies both my need for a decent RPG experience and shooter cravings at the same time.

Especially at insanity, squad-based tactics is the one reason I got ME1 in the first place (which then got me to get JE and backtrack of every Bioware game - Bioware got me back to gaming after many years). ME2 perfected this. I no longer have to look for old-school turn-based x-com style squad games. ME2 did this perfectly, with a whole lot of extras I also craved for yet didnt expect.

[Selvec_Darkon]

Wish they had done more merging, and less replacing/removing.

[OneBadAssMother]

DonFredek wrote...

bioware is still the best but i beg to differt this is much of tactical game.i had more options in x-com.few hundred years ago

OneBadAssMother wrote...

ME2 got rid of one thing I hated in ME1 - loot. I prefer the upgrade system.

As for ME2 not being an RPG, I beg to differ. You still play and FEEL the role of Commander Shepard. It's all good in my opinion, and the combat system is superior to ME1. I don't play shooters much, used to back in my younger years. But ME2 is a shooter+story-based sensation that satisfies both my need for a decent RPG experience and shooter cravings at the same time.

Especially at insanity, squad-based tactics is the one reason I got ME1 in the first place (which then got me to get JE and backtrack of every Bioware game - Bioware got me back to gaming after many years). ME2 perfected this. I no longer have to look for old-school turn-based x-com style squad games. ME2 did this perfectly, with a whole lot of extras I also craved for yet didnt expect.

We have to take what we can get not expect miracles from people mate.

ME2 does satisfy a lot of cravings. X-COM or anyother tactical squad-combat games satisfies it but not entirely. It's the best I've found. Though JE and KOTOR were good, ME is the series that got me back into gaming and even my wife. I fail to find many other squad-tacticals out there. ME2 is real-time, and strategic. It's not perfect, but it "gets me off" - Jack

[DonFredek]

sure i like kotor and mass effect but i think there is no need and explaantion for creating generic games for over 15-20 years-the technology allows unbelievable things i dont even expect.i dont need the kind of graphics me 2 or even one offers.i just want some creativity.is ist to much to ask for.ea killed the industry.BOYCOTT

OneBadAssMother wrote...

DonFredek wrote...

bioware is still the best but i beg to differt this is much of tactical game.i had more options in x-com.few hundred years ago

OneBadAssMother wrote...

ME2 got rid of one thing I hated in ME1 - loot. I prefer the upgrade system.

As for ME2 not being an RPG, I beg to differ. You still play and FEEL the role of Commander Shepard. It's all good in my opinion, and the combat system is superior to ME1. I don't play shooters much, used to back in my younger years. But ME2 is a shooter+story-based sensation that satisfies both my need for a decent RPG experience and shooter cravings at the same time.

Especially at insanity, squad-based tactics is the one reason I got ME1 in the first place (which then got me to get JE and backtrack of every Bioware game - Bioware got me back to gaming after many years). ME2 perfected this. I no longer have to look for old-school turn-based x-com style squad games. ME2 did this perfectly, with a whole lot of extras I also craved for yet didnt expect.

We have to take what we can get not expect miracles from people mate.

ME2 does satisfy a lot of cravings. X-COM or anyother tactical squad-combat games satisfies it but not entirely. It's the best I've found. Though JE and KOTOR were good, ME is the series that got me back into gaming and even my wife. I fail to find many other squad-tacticals out there. ME2 is real-time, and strategic. It's not perfect, but it "gets me off" - Jack

[OneBadAssMother]

DonFredek wrote...

sure i like kotor and mass effect but i think there is no need and explaantion for creating generic games for over 15-20 years-the technology allows unbelievable things i dont even expect.i dont need the kind of graphics me 2 or even one offers.i just want some creativity.is ist to much to ask for.ea killed the industry.BOYCOTT

OneBadAssMother wrote...

DonFredek wrote...

bioware is still the best but i beg to differt this is much of tactical game.i had more options in x-com.few hundred years ago

OneBadAssMother wrote...

ME2 got rid of one thing I hated in ME1 - loot. I prefer the upgrade system.

As for ME2 not being an RPG, I beg to differ. You still play and FEEL the role of Commander Shepard. It's all good in my opinion, and the combat system is superior to ME1. I don't play shooters much, used to back in my younger years. But ME2 is a shooter+story-based sensation that satisfies both my need for a decent RPG experience and shooter cravings at the same time.

Especially at insanity, squad-based tactics is the one reason I got ME1 in the first place (which then got me to get JE and backtrack of every Bioware game - Bioware got me back to gaming after many years). ME2 perfected this. I no longer have to look for old-school turn-based x-com style squad games. ME2 did this perfectly, with a whole lot of extras I also craved for yet didnt expect.

We have to take what we can get not expect miracles from people mate.

ME2 does satisfy a lot of cravings. X-COM or anyother tactical squad-combat games satisfies it but not entirely. It's the best I've found. Though JE and KOTOR were good, ME is the series that got me back into gaming and even my wife. I fail to find many other squad-tacticals out there. ME2 is real-time, and strategic. It's not perfect, but it "gets me off" - Jack

To be honest I didn't want to get Mass Effect 2. I thought ME1 did a good job already and DA was great but... That EA salesman in your camp with a big exclamation mark on his head really rocked the socks.

So far it seems however EA has given Bioware a lot of freedom to create their games, not fully however. Tell me though, for me ME2 was not just graphics, gameplay/story hit me. What is your grievance?

[Lusitanum]

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Being "less influential" is incompatible with being paramount.  Pick one.[/quote]

I'll go for whatever works best for a given game. So yeah, any one of those can be a good idea, it just depends on execution, like everything else.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

How is that not an excuse?  If the game world isn't plausible (and if it lacks internal consistency, then it's actually impossible), then why do I care what happens in it?  As soon as Shepard did something I thought was stupid, I lost all interest in his welfare, and by extension the welfoare of his entire reality.  From that moment on I was just playing a game; I had nothing invested in it, because I didn't care about the people.  It wasn't possible for me to
care about the people because their reality didn't make any sense.[/quote]

So the moment that a game shows its a game, then you've got a problem. OK, then how the hell do you cope with every single other game in existence where there's always something that contradicts itself? Take for instance my valliant City Elf, killer of Darkspawn, hero of Ferelden, valliant defender of the people... who got ****slapped on his wedding day by the spoiled son of the Arl and let all the women get taken away. You're telling me that my great hero, the guy who can withstand the cutting of swords, the piercing of arrows and the most devastating of spells in battle can't stand a slap to the face? My reaction to seeing that was "Come on, "hero", are you telling me that I have to beat this game with a guy that can't take some guy's pimp hand?".

And 10 minutes later I was fighting guards and thank God the sight of his own blood didn't make my character pass out.

Did that make any sense? Was that consistent? No, but it's something that you just have to cope with while playing a videogame. I can see why they did it and I can accept it, even if it's a bit odd if you analyze it "realistically".

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Is that supposed to be informative?  Everyone likes having fun.  But what each of us finds fun differs from person to person.[/quote]

Hemm... yeah, it is. I don't play games to acomodate myself around the name of a genre, I play them because the characteristics of a genre are fun to play. You could change the name to anything else, I'd still like them as long as they were good. And I guess that so would anybody else who plays games just because of how enjoyable they can be.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

If we were talking about a book or a movie your position would make sense.  Those are complete stories presented to you in their entirety.  Your enjoyment of them is intended to be passive.

Not so with RPGs.  In RPGs, your character (not you, but your character) is an active participant.  the story can't be written entirely in advance without railroading you and robbing you of player agency.  At that point, why is it a game rather than just a movie or book?  You're focussed far too much on the authored narrative (which exists in RPGs,
books, and movies), but completely ignoring the emergent narrative (which exists in RPGs, but not movies or books).  Part of the story gets written by you.  How your character feels about the people around him.  Why your character chooses to help others (or not help them).  The game can't decide that for you without removing the need for you to be involved at all.[/quote]

Maybe because the part of the history that is written by me is already there? And I'm not really writting anything if it doesn't affect the world in any way, shape or form? Dunno, ever thought of that?

Have you ever seen or read a book where you're just supposed to make up your own reasons as to why a character acts a given way? No! Your opinion on a character's motivation might vary when compared to other people's but you're never just given a blank page and said "do this for me, this is an interactive experience!"

Games like Mass Effect already already are interactive experiences by giving you "choice" and "consequence". That's what separates them from movies and books, you're given the choice to play the game and carry out the story as you decide, shaping it with your actions. That is interactivity, not giving you blanks to fill. Any idiot could make a movie or a book with a blank screen/page that you're just supposed to fill in yourself, only nobody does that because it's completely stupid.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I want them to be epic, interactive experiences, with automated calculations.  Mass Effect's actually got the automated calculations part right, but missed the interactive experience part.  The game wasn't really interactive, because the player didn't have much to do.  ME2 added interactivity, but at the expense of the automated
calculations, leaving the part of the game that could accommodate both (converastion) lying fallow.[/quote]

You had choices, consequences and a story with believable charcters to drive it forward. That's just what good videogames do, sorry.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Did you really just point to Fable 2 as an example of a good RPG?  Really?[/quote]

Why not? It's flawed, like everything else, and I must admit I haven't it played it yet (thank you Microsoft for cancelling this game's PC version along with all your other XBox exclusives like Alan Wake ) but it was an example of what videogames can do that other mediums can't. That's what made it unique.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Oblivion's basic structure (ignoring the abysmal level scaling) works pretty well for an RPG.  Many of the results are stat-driven (spell effects, combat damage), and the dialogue engine is terrific.[/quote]

Yes, the dialogue with the static characters who never seemed to stop staring into your soul and had that absolutely god-awful voice acting that, coupled with the fact that all members of a given race/gender combination were voiced by the same exact voice actor just meant that we plumetted at rocket speed into the uncanny valley every time there was NPC interaction.

Of course, I also like Oblivion. But the dialogue engine was "terrific"? Are you mad? And to think you still give me crap for appreciating what Fable 2 could bring.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I have not played Fallout 3 (I have it installed, I just haven't got to it yet).  Fallout 2 is certainly an excellent example of an RPG.[/quote]

You won't like it, you actually have to aim and shoot stuff, though you shouldn't have much trouble with the dialog: top option is good, middle is neutral, bottom is bad. Sounds familiar?

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

The less said about Fable, the better.  I have played both games, and I preferred the first one, but I wouldn't call either game an RPG.  There are no relevant decisions to be made in the game.[/quote]

Hey, why not? You can still make it all up in your head that you're actually this really complex character that for some reason never speaks or has any kind of emotions. You'll never actually experience any kind of response from the world to all that, but at this point you should already be used to that from playing games like Dragon Age.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I don't have any idea what people see in Diablo.  I've played Diablo 2 some - not more than 30 hours (I bought and installed it last year to see if I should be interested in D3) - and I found no character decisions to be made. 
And while not relevant to the RPG discussion, how can anyone enjoy that interminable clicking they call a combat system?  I recall when Dungeon Siege 2 was released I was surprised to see that the very good combat system from Dungeon Siege had been replaced by what turns out was just a copy of Diablo's system.  So someone must like it.  But why?  I couldn't even play The Witcher for more than a few hours because of that dreadful timing-based clicking.[/quote]

Don't bash the boring combat system on the Witcher, it was there so that the "pure" RPG crowd could actually play it without whinning that you actually have to use the most basic hand-eye coordination in order to beat the game.

And despite that, I liked the Witcher. The world was well-built, combat could become quite tricky with later foes, the characters around you were believable (except for the fact that every single woman in existance seemed to want to have sex with Geralt) and I actually gave a crap about the main character, even if at first he seemed to be boring and monotone, but I later realized that he actually had values, worries, problems and humanity even despite all his training to turn him into nothing more than a monster-killing machine. That's what makes him a good character. Not imaginary bells and whistles.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

As for Final Fantasy, the only JRPG I've ever played was FF7, and after 10 hours of that I've never again looked at a JPRG.  There's just no roleplaying in it.

There's more opportunity for roleplaying to be found in most turn-based strategy games (Alpha Centauri's a great
example) than there is in these games you call RPGs.[/quote]

So what? If you suddenly told me that The World Ends With You was a RTS, I'd probably find that definition odd but it wouldn't affect my enjoyment of the game in the slightest. I'd still love the characters, the setting, the combat system, the Tin Pin Slammer mini-game, the self-referential humour, the staggering amount of things to do and collect...

So you don't think these are RPGs, that's fine, but guess what: we don't care about your opinion.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

They're not assumptions.  I'm the player; building the player character is my job.

How can you possibly roleplay a character - any character - without perfect knowledge of the contents of his mind?  Your approach requires that you never have that, so what happens if your decisions contradict some aspect of his personality of which you are not yet aware?  Do you just ignore his irrationality?  You've broken the character.  You've wilfully craeted cognitive dissonance.  You're okay with that?[/quote]

If my actions contradict some aspect of my character's personality that I don't know, then that's the developer's fault for giving me that option in the first place. For instance, Shepard isn't supposed to be some mad psychotic that shoots random people on sight. Hence, you are not given the option to gun down random people on the Citadel. Whenever you point a gun at someone, Shepard automatically pulls his gun up and doesn't let you shoot.

And this is just one obvious example.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Seriously?  You're using empathy?

We have nothing in common.[/quote]

Yeah, I'm the kind of people who likes people because people are likable, not because an image I conjured up in my mind is automatically awesome, because I'm just that brilliant and creative.

If you don't use empathy, then I'm glad we have nothing in common.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

This was only true because you decided it was so.[/quote]

*big explosion rocks Isaac off his feet*

BLACK GUY WHO WILL INEVITABLY DIE LATER ON: My God, Isaac! Are you OK? We need you to (etc. etc.)...

ME: Sorry, BGWWIDLO, I can't answer to that question given that I'm a goddamned mute. I haven't opened my mouth through this whole mission, what made you think I would start now? Oh right, you didn't, because you asked about how I was and then just immediately carried on talking without even a second's pause to wait for a reply. Thanks for breaking my suspension of disbelief again.

And this is pretty much what you get the whole game. And Isaac is not supposed to even be something you make up on your mind. He has a background, he has a place on this mission, he has his own motivations to keep going but that's never expressed throughout the story. At some points in the game, Isaac find his wife, the person that he came here to see and who you'd expect would be dead and he doesn't react in the slightest! Not a word, not a gesture, nothing. How am I even supposed to connect with something like this?

So no, it's not my fault I don't like Isaac. Again, it's not my job to make him a likable character, I'm not the guy who wrote him, I'm just the target audience who's supposed to connect with him and share on his hardships through the game. And that's really hard when you have nothing to hold on to in this character.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

My DAO characters (there are 7 of them, and they're all very different) routinely reacted to events, or thought for themselves.  Because I decided they did.[/quote]

Yeah, that last sentence sums it  up nicely...

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

The options aren't given to you.  Imprecise approximations of the options are presented to you, and there's no way to know their specific details until after you've made your decision.  And then it's too late.[/quote]

I had no problems leading Shepard the way I wanted him to, nobody I've ever talked to about about the game ever had the same problems you mention... do you need a manual on how to use the very simple and segmented dialog system?

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Your thoughts are all in your head.  Do they not matter, either?[/quote]

Unless I can put them out in some way, they matter as much as the "epic" fights I had with my Transformers and Legos when I was a kid.

And I'm also kind of past the age of playing with toys so...

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

See?  You've just explained, quite clearly, that you're explicitly not roleplaying.  You're just being yourself and acting naturally.  That's not roleplaying.  You're allowing your character to act as a proxy for you rather than as his own person.  You're letting your character serve not as a character, but as an avatar.
[/quote]

If that's not role-playing, then I have some sad news for you: nobody role-plays and you're the sole survivor of a dying race. Because that's what role-playing for pretty much everybody: you take on a role and you pretty much makes the choices according to what you would do. That's what I keep hearing from the RPG elitists anyway: Mass Effect isn't an RPG, you're not supposed to play as character like Shepard, your character is supposed to be you.

So bye-bye and have a nice trip going the way of the Dodo.

[shyzny]

I personally find it interesting after sifting through this debate about "role-playing," that things like having levels, stats, abilities and whatnot (essentially the game within the game) isn't what defines roleplaying. Yet when some other game says it has "rpg elements" what is it referring to? Stats, levels, etc. Its like all the non RPG games are adding these elements and the RPG's are removing them. Eventually do we kill genre in gaming, all games becoming some stinking amalgam of everything?

[SimonTheFrog]

shyzny wrote...

I personally find it interesting after sifting through this debate about "role-playing," that things like having levels, stats, abilities and whatnot (essentially the game within the game) isn't what defines roleplaying. Yet when some other game says it has "rpg elements" what is it referring to? Stats, levels, etc. Its like all the non RPG games are adding these elements and the RPG's are removing them. Eventually do we kill genre in gaming, all games becoming some stinking amalgam of everything?

Yeah, it's called "being innovative", too.

The shooter had an identity crisis because we've seen it all, hence borderlands.
The rpg needed more speed and casualness (because there are not enough rpg-player to fund the projects), hence ME2 and others.

In a way, i don't mind genre too much as long as the gameplay is inspired and can satisfy longer than 1 hour. 

[MassEffect762]

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

ThePatriot101 wrote...

Someone hand me an M-920 Cain, I got a thread to finally nuke.

No, it's fun watching a thread cannabalize itself.

*hands you both a Snickers *

[AlanC9]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
A CRPGs job is to reproduce a tabletop RPG without the need for other people.  Full stop.  If it fails to do that, it fails as an RPG.

I don't want to get involved in this smackdown you've got going with Lusitanum, but I've got to ask ... if that's the job of a CRPG, then what's the job of a tabletop RPG?