1067 réponses à ce sujet

[Elvhen Veluthil]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Tazzmission wrote...

i think the hardcore rpg fans expected me to be like ff.

This sort of comment always really bothers me because I don't like FF, or JPRGs generally.

Now it's a little late, but FF7 is a great game sentimentally (not philosophically, and in the pre-defined PC genre). Much better than ME series, The Witcher and all the like, secondly only to PS:T.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Vaeliorin wrote...

I was going to comment on it, but I've kind of given up on having this argument.  Since it always ends up descending to people assuming you think ME is a bad game if you don't think it's an RPG, I just don't bother any more.

I did actually think Mass Effect was a bad game, because I didn't care about Shepard.  Shepard wasn't someone I understood or liked, so I was indifferent to his success or failure.

The specific gameplay elements were fun - I liked shooting things and I liked driving the Mako and I liked the environments and I even liked the puzzles and minigames - but the game as a whole felt unimportant because I had no interest in the protagonist.

I found Mass Effect a pleasant diversion, but nothing more.  And I want more from my computer games (and I get more from BioWare RPGs).

A proper RPG can't ever leave me uninterested in my character's welfare because I'm guaranteed to like him and find him compelling.  A game like Mass Effect runs the risk if handing me a main character who frustrates me or bores me, and that's not a recipe for a fun gaming experience.

There can be (and have been) pre-written protagonists I can play happily, but the way Shepard was implemented prevented that from happening in Mass Effect.

Ultimately, I do think Mass Effect was a poor game.

[Darth Drago]

An interesting interview someone posted in my topic and I posted in the “Where did my inventory go” topic so I‘ll add it here as well.

Christina Norman's interview at GDC
Part 1: (15 minutes) http://www.justin.tv/clip/279e1809c57cc535
Part 2: (only a few minutes): http://www.justin.tv/clip/16a8d17118cb04a0

-Her words she says in part 2 pretty much answers the question as to where the inventory an possibly the RPG elements as well as a ton of other game elements went in my opinion....

For those who don’t want to watch the second video:

“..taking a look at the game as a whole and how do we make all these other features that will work with our shooter combat instead of working against it.”

[Terror_K]

Darth Drago wrote...


An interesting interview someone posted in my topic and I posted in the “Where did my inventory go” topic so I‘ll add it here as well.

Christina Norman's interview at GDC
Part 1: (15 minutes) http://www.justin.tv/clip/279e1809c57cc535
Part 2: (only a few minutes): http://www.justin.tv/clip/16a8d17118cb04a0

-Her words she says in part 2 pretty much answers the question as to where the inventory an possibly the RPG elements as well as a ton of other game elements went in my opinion....

For those who don’t want to watch the second video:

“..taking a look at the game as a whole and how do we make all these other features that will work with our shooter combat instead of working against it.”

As somebody stated in the  "Where did my inventory go" topic, since Mass Effect is supposed to be an RPG, should you be be making your shooter combat work with the RPG features and not tother way 'round? Seems to me like the equivalent of buying some curtains that clash with the rest of the room, so you replace everything else in the room to suit the curtains as a solution.

[Darth Drago]

Terror_K wrote...
As somebody stated in the "Where did my inventory go" topic, since Mass Effect is supposed to be an RPG, should you be be making your shooter combat work with the RPG features and not tother way 'round? Seems to me like the equivalent of buying some curtains that clash with the rest of the room, so you replace everything else in the room to suit the curtains as a solution.

-Yea, it is a weak set up. I prefer to think of it like a movie. The director suddenly gets the idea that he’s going to make a old style 3-D movie and focuses all his time on making those 3-D effects coming out of the screen but didn’t do much for the script, directing the actors or any thing else related to the film.



The Abridged Mass Effect 2, a must read. In the Spoilers Forum. http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/105/index/1777005

 

[Sylvius the Mad]

Terror_K wrote...

As somebody stated in the  "Where did my inventory go" topic, since Mass Effect is supposed to be an RPG, should you be be making your shooter combat work with the RPG features and not tother way 'round?

Your reasoning is sound.

Given that BioWare does know how to make games, ME2 must therefore have been intended to be a shooter first and foremost.

I don't see why this is hard for people to understand.

[Terror_K]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Given that BioWare does know how to make games, ME2 must therefore have been intended to be a shooter first and foremost.

I don't see why this is hard for people to understand.

I think most people understand, it's just that they don't understand... if you follow me. They understand that this is the case, but they don't understand why it is the case, when the first part of the game was intended to primarily be an RPG. Especially given that ME2 is not supposed to be a sequel so much as it's supposed to be the second part of what is essentially one game comprising of three parts... except that that clearly isn't the case at all when part deux is so different from the first part.

Whether the ME2 team made the right choices or not in where they went with ME2, I think one can safely say that when the trilogy was beginning this wasn't the initial intended direction of the trilogy. Storywise and cinematically, maybe... gameplay wise, no.

Modifié par Terror_K, 27 mars 2010 - 08:19 .

[yoomazir]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Your reasoning is sound.

Given that BioWare does know how to make games, ME2 must therefore have been intended to be a shooter first and foremost.

I don't see why this is hard for people to understand.

Simply no, ME was made like it was supposed to be made, for ME2 there was a change in the dev team, probably part of them went on DA:O or Old Republic, that and the fact EA is the owner now is probably why this game is a shooter above all things.
Pity though, focusing so much in the shooter aspect to only end up with an average gameplay. Next time they should learn a thing or two from Gears of Wars and Army of Two if they want to make a "good" shooter.

[Onyx Jaguar]

Baragei wrote...

HeyBlade789 wrote...

Mass effect 1 Was the story driven game, where combat was good but not like OMG, mass effect 2 however i believe does not have as good as story but has a better combat system, i would LOVE for mass effect 3 to be both an more!

Why can't we all agree on this?

Because I disagree.  And I'm not being sarcastic.

[JedTed]

One could argue that ME1 was designed more as a shooter than a traditional RPG. The only REAL RPG mechanics were the moddifying of weapons and armor. When i see people rant about how ME2 is not an RPG i think that they are people who prefer games like BG or DA:O. They fail to realize that ME was not ment to be like those games, it's about action and epic "film-like" cutscenes.

[Lusitanum]

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

[quote]Lusitanum wrote...

the Dalish Elf is the only one who has a real reason to go through the Proving. [/quote]
The dwarven gladiator arena?  That's all optional.

Or am I thinking of the wrong thing?[/quote]

Yeah, I meant to say the Joining and not the Proving. But we were talking about the former, so you could have figured it out too. I'll call it 50/50 here.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Actually, I don't think people actually do that.[/quote]

Yes, they do, I've just told you that.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I've recently been trying to play as character who's a lot like me, and it's been quite difficult, because his behavior runs contrary to how I normally have my characters behave in games.  Like you, I usually have my characters talk to everybody within the game.  But I wouldn't ever do that in that same situation.  I don't like initiating conversations or talking to people I don't know, so I'm having to avoid all sorts of NPCs (and quest opportunities) because I'm just not that personable, so neither is this character.  But acting that way in game is proving to be quite a lot of work.

In Lothering, there's a woman who's just standing there by herself, and I suspect most players have their characters go up and talk to her (she wants traps).  But would you actually do that if you were there yourself?  Would yuo approach everyone in the town one at a time and strike up a converastion?  Of course you wouldn't.

You're not playing yourself. You're playing an idealised version of yourself.  What you're doing is no different from proper roleplaying, but you already have most of the background work done because you're already a complete person.[/quote]

You're still not getting it, are you? The notion of role-playing that is adopted by the vast majority of the people who play an RPG isn't your own. When we play a game, the usual approach is "I have this character and I have these decisions to make, how should I choose?" and most of the time people will either go for the role-playing choice of following their own idea of what they would do if faced with a given situation or just see it purely as a game and go for the option that benefits them the most by giving them money, experience, a new quest, etc.

They don't start acting like they would in real-life, (otherwise most of the wouldn't even fight a single monster) they just follow their own ideas of how the character should act.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I agree that there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not meaningfully different from what I do when I play.[/quote]

You still think that?

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I found it really irritating that the death mechanic was seemingly random in DAO.  Okay, sure, the party members don't die when they're killed, but enemies do.  Except when enemies are needed for some plot-related discussion after teh fight, but then they're injured.  And then Bann Teagan stood up after I'd killed him and was no worse for wear at all.  That was dumb.[/quote]

Speaking of which, I found the death of the Human Noble's father hilarious. You find him in a pool of his own blood which only spreads on the floor once you trigger the cutscene (his wound was apparently waiting for you to show up), the amount of blood that he lost is probably more than you could find in the average human body (so I don't know how your father is still talking)  then the blood completely vanishes after a while only to flow out of him in gallons again in the very next shot. It's really hard to take a scene seriously when the game keeps pointing out that, yes, you're still just playing a videogame.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

And there's no in-game explanation for this, I suspect.

And what's with the global cooldown?  How does that make sense when we didn't have one in ME?[/quote]

Oh, that one's easy: technology! Must be the new biotic implants and omni-tool models that allow you to dramatically decrease the cooldown of your abilities, but as a safety precaussion it includes a system that restricts your ability to use it again for a short time, so you don't accidentally burn yourself out by spamming powers left and right.

See? I can make **** up too! Only in my case, it's consistent with the lore we're given, the games are separated by two years that would allow technology to improve and it doesn't break the rules established withing the game itself like your explanation of the Arcane Warrior's abilities.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

That it's an inconsistency removes enjoyment from the game.[/quote]

Given that it doesn't directly break the lore and it's an actual improvement to gameplay, it adds to the enjoyment of the game and is easy to overlook. Or at least easier, when compared to Mr. I-can-equip-whatever-I-want-because-I'm-maaaagical.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Okay, I see what you're saying, but now I don't see how that's analogous to roleplaying gameplay.[/quote]

I don't even recall anymore, this has veered way too much from the original point I was trying to make.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

But then how do you make decisions on his behalf - especially at the start of the game?[/quote]

Are you sitting down? This might sting a bit.

Role-playing. Exactly what I mentioned before, whatever your reasons are, be it making decisions according to your own views, how you would like the character to act throughout the game or any other reason, you don't need to come up with a character's life story to play a character the way you want it to.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

And I would disagree with that.  If the game allows roleplaying whenever there's a decision to be made, then it's a roleplaying game.  Since ME doesn't not allow roleplaying during the literally hundreds of decisions made during conversation, it fails.

It doesn't matter whether the character's pre-determined.  Torment accommodated roleplaying, and it forced you to play the Nameless one, who had a specific appearance and gender that were both immutable.  What matters is the nature of the decision-making.  Mass Effect does not give the player sufficient control over the PC during conversation.  The ability to avoid saying specific things would be sufficient.  Since even you admit Mass Effect does not do this, Mass Effect does not meet the conditions that allow roleplaying.[/quote]

RPGs aren't what you think they are, nor will they change to adapt to your own tastes. Therefore, your point is moot.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Yes, but I'm questioning whether that's a lack of realism.  The game shows you what your character can see.  Since you have a bunch of characters, it shows you what each of them can see.

If there's a failure of realism here, it's that you allow your characters to act based on information not available to them.[/quote]

I've said this time and time again: If the game allows for it, then it's a lack of the game, not mine. If you're given a system to play with, then you're given free reign with what you've got and should not have to blindfold yourself to make up for the game's shortcomings.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

As short as possible, but no shorter.  How short is that?  We don't know.[/quote]

It's short. Get moving. That's all you need to know.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I had a professor who said "The common sense of any era is roughly equivalent to cutting-edge philosophy of three centuries earlier."

I suspect the gap is somewhat smaller than that; the ideas of Immanuel Kant seem pretty widely accepted even by people who've never heard of him, for example.  But, should those of us who've studied philosophy more recent than three centuries old be bound by ideas we see as obsolete?  Isn't it possible - or even likely - that some of common sense is simply incorrect and has been subsequently improved upon?

But more importantly, if there's no repository of common sense, it is a useful tool in a detailed discussion such as this one?  There's no formal definition of what's common sense, and we need one in order to work from a relevantly similar frame of reference.  Alternately, we can just ignore common sense and defend everything from the ground up.

I'd prefer the latter.[/quote]

I just gave you a formal definition of common sense and now you make this big rant about it not existing. That's great...

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

You like the pass/fail.  I like the detailed grading information.[/quote]

Given that I don't like the "you have X% of actually making it through", then no, I don't like the pass/fail. You do, however, since you're fine with a game beating you up with a "yeah, you should roll higher next time, you loser!" justification

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

That's not a rational response.[/quote]

That's a really weak retort. If the game blocks my progress based solely on the fact that I was unlucky on my rolls, then it's not stopping my progress because of how I played, but just because it's telling me to work on my luck.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I'm drawing a distinction between how roleplaying games work and how other videogames work.  In a roleplaying game, the setting exists independently of the player, and the player has no manifestation within that setting.  This is how tabletop games worked, and this is how CRPGs work as well.

That it's a rioleplaying game makes it different in kind.  That's why genre-mixing doesn't work with RPGs.  You cannot accommodate player skill (as required by almost every other videogame genre) without violating the central tenets of roleplaying.[/quote]

They're role-playing games. And in case you didn't notice, they're videogames.

Also, you've been told time and time again that RPGs aren't just your own private way of having a board game on a computer. They're a whole genre that has evolved and adapated througout its decades of existence, changing in almost every single aspect to become something bigger.

So no, you don't get to decided "this requires player skill, hence it's not an RPG", because they've already done it before, they still do and they will keep doing it. And it's the characteristics of a genre as a whole that dictate what it represents, not some single elitist that keeps going on about the way the genre was and how any deviation from his preferences is a betrayal to the genre.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

But not all the skills.  You're requiring that I be a good shot if I want Shepard to be a good shot.  Why should Shepard's characteristics matter with regard to how fast he can run and not to how well he can shoot?

It doesn't make any sense.[/quote]

It's an RPG with shooter elements, hence you have to shoot. Just like when you play a board game you have to know the rules first or you can't play effectively.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Only if you focused on weapon skills.  And, as you point out, that wasn't true at the beginning.[/quote]

Yes, when you had to hide behind something waiting for that circle to very slooowly close itself so you could fire a few more shots, ruin your aim and have to wait again while the enemies tore you to pieces.

You wanted the reason why aim is improved? There you have it.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Incidentally, I'd be interested to see how accurate real world soldiers are with an assault rifle against small moving targets at a range of 20 metres.  I'd wager that Mass Effect's stat-driven aiming was more realistic than ME2's perfect aim.[/quote]

Given that these are extremely adavanced weapons equipped with computers that give you a firing solution which will allow you to hit a target you're aiming at, even if you are shooting through a freaking sandstorm, I'd wager you couldn't be more wrong. Again.

[quote]Kalfear wrote...
Errr who said anyone is playing it still?[/quote]

The millions of people who are still downloading DLC, discussing future builds and mentioning something they just saw for the first time? Maybe? I mean, I bet even a "shooter fanatic" could have figured that out. Are you feeling OK?

[quote]Kalfear wrote...

You
do know you dont have to be playing a game to post on the forums, or
that little aspect go over your head?
I played ME2 once, tried a
second time and couldnt do it, but I still continue to post every day
because I learned from the shooter fanatics that if you dont beat a
topic to death, nothing will get done.
They got their way and shooter
aspects added to ME2 and im just making sure Bioware knows to go back
to RPG first for ME3!

Amazes me how many shooter folk whine about
people using THEIR TACTICS now the shoe on other foot![/quote]

I'm more amazed by the people who keep acting like ze superior race to other people based solely on irrelevant factors. Skin tone, the country they were born or that they're living in, their education, the ammount of money they have and now the kind of games they play!

Humanity is really going down the crapper.

[quote]Sylvius
the Mad wrote...

I did actually think Mass Effect was a
bad game, because I didn't care about Shepard.  Shepard wasn't someone
I understood or liked, so I was indifferent to his success or failure.



[...]



A proper
RPG can't ever leave me uninterested in my character's welfare because
I'm guaranteed to like him and find him compelling.  A game like Mass
Effect runs the risk if handing me a main character who frustrates me or
bores me, and that's not a recipe for a fun gaming experience.



There
can be (and have been) pre-written protagonists I can play happily, but
the way Shepard was implemented prevented that from happening in
Mass Effect.



Ultimately, I do think Mass Effect was a poor
game.[/quote]

Funny, that was the exact reason why nobody else I met gave a toss about their DA character, but they all liked Shepard. Some loved him, some just said he was fine, but they all liked him. But then I guess the people I usually hang around with aren't expecting their games to shape around their every whim, because that would just be stupid.

[quote]yoomazir wrote...

Simply no, ME was made like it was supposed
to be made, for ME2 there was a change in the dev team, probably part of
them went on DA:O or Old Republic, that and the fact EA is the owner
now is probably why this game is a shooter above all things.

Pity
though, focusing so much in the shooter aspect to only end up with an
average gameplay. Next time they should learn a thing or two from Gears
of Wars and Army of Two if they want to make a "good" shooter.

[/quote]

Why, so we can have [i]more people whine how ME isn't an RPG? Look around you, the moment the shooting elements become good, people automatically assume that's the focus of the game and whine about how it's no longer an RPG, even if it still mantains all the good writting, storytelling and choices of the first game.

I'm all for something that makes a game more enjoyable, but you've seen how some elitists like to complain.

[Darth Drago]

The only thing I’m getting out of this discussion here (and the direction BioWare went) is that apparently if a role playing game is not set in a fantasy setting it can not be called a role playing game.

We have guns in this RPG so I guess that must automatically make this game a shooter and not a RPG now, right? This is how the game industry seems to go think days. Perfect examples: Mass Effect 2: a shooter (its even compared to other shooter games by people who play the game) and Fallout 3 another shooter. Does that now make Dragon Age or Oblivion hack ’n slash games?




The Abridged Mass Effect 2, a must read. In the Spoilers Forum. http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/105/index/1777005

[Fluffeh Kitteh]

Terror_K wrote...

Darth Drago wrote...


An interesting interview someone posted in my topic and I posted in the “Where did my inventory go” topic so I‘ll add it here as well.

Christina Norman's interview at GDC
Part 1: (15 minutes) http://www.justin.tv/clip/279e1809c57cc535
Part 2: (only a few minutes): http://www.justin.tv/clip/16a8d17118cb04a0

-Her words she says in part 2 pretty much answers the question as to where the inventory an possibly the RPG elements as well as a ton of other game elements went in my opinion....

For those who don’t want to watch the second video:

“..taking a look at the game as a whole and how do we make all these other features that will work with our shooter combat instead of working against it.”

As somebody stated in the  "Where did my inventory go" topic, since Mass Effect is supposed to be an RPG, should you be be making your shooter combat work with the RPG features and not tother way 'round? Seems to me like the equivalent of buying some curtains that clash with the rest of the room, so you replace everything else in the room to suit the curtains as a solution.

I kinda got the impression that the shooter combat wouldn't have worked if they tried to force it to mesh with RPG elements. Isn't that precisely why Christina Norman said they "turned off the RPG" when working on the shooter components?

ME2 may be classified as an RPG but the whole shooter combat thing is a core component of the gameplay too, it's not just some extra bits tacked on like curtains in a room. Curtains would be more like the ammo/heatsink system, or the weapon upgrades, with the shooter element being an entire room by itself, and RPG elements being an adjacent room.

[hojo101101]

Fluffeh Kitteh wrote...

Terror_K wrote...

Darth Drago wrote...


An interesting interview someone posted in my topic and I posted in the “Where did my inventory go” topic so I‘ll add it here as well.

Christina Norman's interview at GDC
Part 1: (15 minutes) http://www.justin.tv/clip/279e1809c57cc535
Part 2: (only a few minutes): http://www.justin.tv/clip/16a8d17118cb04a0

-Her words she says in part 2 pretty much answers the question as to where the inventory an possibly the RPG elements as well as a ton of other game elements went in my opinion....

For those who don’t want to watch the second video:

“..taking a look at the game as a whole and how do we make all these other features that will work with our shooter combat instead of working against it.”

As somebody stated in the  "Where did my inventory go" topic, since Mass Effect is supposed to be an RPG, should you be be making your shooter combat work with the RPG features and not tother way 'round? Seems to me like the equivalent of buying some curtains that clash with the rest of the room, so you replace everything else in the room to suit the curtains as a solution.

I kinda got the impression that the shooter combat wouldn't have worked if they tried to force it to mesh with RPG elements. Isn't that precisely why Christina Norman said they "turned off the RPG" when working on the shooter components?

ME2 may be classified as an RPG but the whole shooter combat thing is a core component of the gameplay too, it's not just some extra bits tacked on like curtains in a room. Curtains would be more like the ammo/heatsink system, or the weapon upgrades, with the shooter element being an entire room by itself, and RPG elements being an adjacent room.

And the Hammerhead is the toilet.

[EternalWolfe]

Darth Drago wrote...


The only thing I’m getting out of this discussion here (and the direction BioWare went) is that apparently if a role playing game is not set in a fantasy setting it can not be called a role playing game.

We have guns in this RPG so I guess that must automatically make this game a shooter and not a RPG now, right? This is how the game industry seems to go think days. Perfect examples: Mass Effect 2: a shooter (its even compared to other shooter games by people who play the game) and Fallout 3 another shooter. Does that now make Dragon Age or Oblivion hack ’n slash games?

Where in the world did you get that?  Fallout(the original) surely counted as a RPG - and with guns, too.  I've seen plenty of RPGs(including TT) with guns(although sometimes only as another weapon type).

ME was originally billed as a RPG/Shooter hybrid to begin with - there never was a pure RPG to begin with.  It never started out as a full RPG that took a turn for the worse - they were trying to cross genres.

And I was pretty sure the point of this discussion was to try and prove the other guy wrong about what a RPG is, so as to validate the excuse that ME2/3 either needs or doesn't need certain elements that they want/don't want.

[Sylvius the Mad]

[quote]Lusitanum wrote...

Yeah, I meant to say the Joining and not the Proving. But we were talking about the former, so you could have figured it out too. I'll call it 50/50 here.[/quote]
I was confused because of this remark:
[quote]Yes, those are good reasons to join the Grey Wardens, I know that, but
what I'm saying is that, as far as Origins go, the Dalish Elf is the
only one who has a real reason to go through the Proving. [/quote]
Because the joining is the only way to join the Grey Wardens, and prospective Wardens don't actually know what the Joining entails until they've done it, then that's a false dichotomy.  If there's a good reason to become a Grey Warden, then there's a good reason to go through the Joining.  The only way to disconnet the two is to give the character the details of the joining, something he explicitly does not have.
[quote]You're still not getting it, are you? The notion of role-playing that is adopted by the vast majority of the people who play an RPG isn't your own. When we play a game, the usual approach is "I have this character and I have these decisions to make, how should I choose?" and most of the time people will either go for the role-playing choice of following their own idea of what they would do if faced with a given situation or just see it purely as a game and go for the option that benefits them the most by giving them money, experience, a new quest, etc.

They don't start acting like they would in real-life, (otherwise most of the wouldn't even fight a single monster) they just follow their own ideas of how the character should act.[/quote]
But those ideas have a basis.  Your personality doesn't just come together unexpectedly as you act.  You know why you do things, and (hopefully) you try not to act contrary to your past behaviour without some sort of reason.

But Mass Effect doesn't allow this.  Because you can't tell what you're choosing, you can't know if the thing you're choosing is what you would like Shepard to do.

Again, Shepard made an assertion I didn't believe to be true, and I hadn't seen Shepard learn it anywhere.  It dealt with events that had taken place in the game, so presumably I was supposed to have some knowledge of them.

Mass Effect's dialogue is fundamentally broken.
[quote][quote]I agree that there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not meaningfully different from what I do when I play.[/quote]
You still think that?[/quote]
Yes.  Unless you're a complete madman (and so is everyone else you know), your opinions are based on something, and that something is known to you.  If Shepard is to act in a vaguely realistic way, this needs to be true for him, as well.

The only way this falls apart is if the players (including you) view Shpeard not as a person, but as a toy.  He does wahtever you want him to do because he's just an object.

But your previous assertions about his humanity and how you identified with him are incompatible with this view.
[quote]Speaking of which, I found the death of the Human Noble's father hilarious. You find him in a pool of his own blood which only spreads on the floor once you trigger the cutscene (his wound was apparently waiting for you to show up), the amount of blood that he lost is probably more than you could find in the average human body (so I don't know how your father is still talking)  then the blood completely vanishes after a while only to flow out of him in gallons again in the very next shot. It's really hard to take a scene seriously when the game keeps pointing out that, yes, you're still just playing a videogame.[/quote]
Mass Effect had, I think, an even worse problem.  If my squadmates went down in a firefight, they'd get back up (no worse for wear) as soon as the fight was over.  But if Shepard went down, the fight was lost and I had to reload.  What makes Shepard so special that his squadmates cannot fight without him?

That drove me nuts.  Ideally, the rules should treat every character in the game equally, but especially those characters closest to the action.
[quote]Oh, that one's easy: technology! Must be the new biotic implants and omni-tool models that allow you to dramatically decrease the cooldown of your abilities, but as a safety precaussion it includes a system that restricts your ability to use it again for a short time, so you don't accidentally burn yourself out by spamming powers left and right.[/quote]
I didn't know it was shorter.  I only knew it was global.

If I were a biotic, I'd be annoyed at the failsafe.  I'd rather my tools not try to protect me from myself.  Why not include the burn-out mechanic in the game and allow ability spamming?  Wouldn't that make combat more challenging and engaging, while still being consistent with the lore?
[quote]Role-playing. Exactly what I mentioned before, whatever your reasons are, be it making decisions according to your own views, how you would like the character to act throughout the game or any other reason, you don't need to come up with a character's life story to play a character the way you want it to.[/quote]
Again, unless he's just a toy (and not a person, thus lacking humanity and unable to create the sort of identification you think is there), there needs to be a reason for him to act.  Why does he act as he does?  If there's no reason behind it, then he's not a person.
[quote]RPGs aren't what you think they are[/quote]
RPGs are roleplaying games.

I will not stand by and watch RPG become as disconnected from the meaning of the words it represents as something like R&B has (seriously, does no one notice the complete lack of rhythm or blues in modern R&B music?).
[quote]I've said this time and time again: If the game allows for it, then it's a lack of the game, not mine.[/quote]
No.  The game should never protect you from yourself.  If you want to ruin your gameplay, go ahead, but don't blame the game once you've done it.
[quote]It's short. Get moving. That's all you need to know.[/quote]
Clearly my behaviour demonstrates that I need to know more.

For example, I love that on Ilos you're allowed to do the trench run on foot.  If you do (and there's good reason to do so given the Mako XP penalty), the game becomes impossible to finish.  You cannot reach the gate in time if you left the Mako behind.  That's a great feature.

But, the game should have done a better job of telling Shepard that the Mako was necessary.
[quote]I just gave you a formal definition of common sense and now you make this big rant about it not existing. That's great...[/quote]
"Sound practical judgment" appears to me to be incompatible with what some people call common sense, for reasons I think I made clear.  If the soundness of the judgment is in question, then does your common sense cease to be common sense?  How can we tell?  Who determines the soundness?
[quote]Given that I don't like the "you have X% of actually making it through", then no, I don't like the pass/fail. You do, however, since you're fine with a game beating you up with a "yeah, you should roll higher next time, you loser!" justification[/quote]
Because that's not a pass fail.  The game tells me how good a job I did in assembling my tactical approach, because I can determine exactly how often that approach would have succeeded.

I'm not going to enjoy the success unless I succeed on merit, and I can't tell if I've suceeded on merit unless the chances of the success or failure of my approach are quantifiable.

Here's a good motto; I apply it everything:

If it matters, measure it.

And as a corollory, if you can't measure it, how do you know that it matters?
[quote][quote]That's not a rational response.[/quote]
That's a really weak retort. If the game blocks my progress based solely on the fact that I was unlucky on my rolls, then it's not stopping my progress because of how I played, but just because it's telling me to work on my luck.[/quote]
There you go again.  You're attributing malice to demonstrably random events.

Do you get angry at the sky when it rains, too?  Are the clouds mean to you?
[quote]Also, you've been told time and time again that RPGs aren't just your own private way of having a board game on a computer. They're a whole genre that has evolved and adapated througout its decades of existence, changing in almost every single aspect to become something bigger.[/quote]
According to you they've become something entirely dissimilar from roleplaying.
[quote]So no, you don't get to decided "this requires player skill, hence it's not an RPG", because they've already done it before, they still do and they will keep doing it.[/quote]
That someone has called a game an RPG doesn't make it an RPG.  Again, what something is and what it is called are different things.
[quote]And it's the characteristics of a genre as a whole that dictate what it represents, not some single elitist that keeps going on about the way the genre was and how any deviation from his preferences is a betrayal to the genre.[/quote]
There are characteristics that make any game, from any era, an RPG.  What are they?

If we can determine exactly what your stadnards are, then we can apply them exhausticely to every game ever made and see if you still agree with the findings.

I'm confident that any game that my definition considers an RPG is an RPG in my eyes (because I use the definition to make the determination in the first place, not what the game is called or what other people think the game is or how the game feels).

But your definition, I think, would label an RPGs that no one thought were RPGs at the time, but because they're very similar (save technological advancements) to games like Mass Effect you'd have to call them RPGs to remain consistent.
[quote]Yes, when you had to hide behind something waiting for that circle to very slooowly close itself so you could fire a few more shots, ruin your aim and have to wait again while the enemies tore you to pieces.

You wanted the reason why aim is improved? There you have it.[/quote]
To make the game easier?  Yes, I said that already.
[quote]Funny, that was the exact reason why nobody else I met gave a toss about their DA character, but they all liked Shepard.[/quote]
Not everyone likes Shepard.  Shepard is a thuggish idiot.  He's exactly the sort of person I avoid in the real world.

[Tes4o]

ME2 feels a lot more combat-oriented than the first. The story and characters seem a lot more dull, and the soundtrack is horrible. Other than that, it's great.

[ImperialOperative]

Elvhen Veluthil wrote...

Now it's a little late, but FF7 is a great game sentimentally (not philosophically, and in the pre-defined PC genre). Much better than ME series, The Witcher and all the like, secondly only to PS:T.

This is false, because the entire franchise of FF is garbage. 

[FlintlockJazz]

Terror_K wrote...


I think most people understand, it's just that they don't understand... if you follow me.

I'm sorry, I just have to answer that one bit.  I understand and I understand perfectly fine, I still disagree.  Claiming that people don't understand because they don't share the same opinion as yourself is incredibly close-minded, people have different perspectives.  When people disagree with you its usually because of one of the following reasons:

1.  They understand perfectly what you are saying but have a different perspective on the matter.
2.  It is a case of there is no right or wrong answer to the situation.
3.  You are trying to enforce a way that is great for you but bad for them or others.
4.  It is all just meaningless opinion.
5.  They have indeed misunderstood due to you failing to put across your side of the argument in a way that can be understood.

[Onyx Jaguar]

FlintlockJazz wrote...

Terror_K wrote...


I think most people understand, it's just that they don't understand... if you follow me.

I'm sorry, I just have to answer that one bit.  I understand and I understand perfectly fine, I still disagree.  Claiming that people don't understand because they don't share the same opinion as yourself is incredibly close-minded, people have different perspectives.  When people disagree with you its usually because of one of the following reasons:

1.  They understand perfectly what you are saying but have a different perspective on the matter.
2.  It is a case of there is no right or wrong answer to the situation.
3.  You are trying to enforce a way that is great for you but bad for them or others.
4.  It is all just meaningless opinion.
5.  They have indeed misunderstood due to you failing to put across your side of the argument in a way that can be understood.

I can't get into this argument because of that point.

[Lusitanum]

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Because the joining is the only way to join the Grey Wardens, and prospective Wardens don't actually know what the Joining entails until they've done it, then that's a false dichotomy.  If there's a good reason to become a Grey Warden, then there's a good reason to go through the Joining.  The only way to disconnet the two is to give the character the details of the joining, something he explicitly does not have.[/quote]

Hello? Weren't we talking about how the Grey Wardens still make their recruits go through the Joining despite the lack of any real necessity and not why their recruits unknowingly choose to eventually commit suicide?

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

But those ideas have a basis.  Your personality doesn't just come together unexpectedly as you act.  You know why you do things, and (hopefully) you try not to act contrary to your past behaviour without some sort of reason.

But Mass Effect doesn't allow this.  Because you can't tell what you're choosing, you can't know if the thing you're choosing is what you would like Shepard to do.

Again, Shepard made an assertion I didn't believe to be true, and I hadn't seen Shepard learn it anywhere.  It dealt with events that had taken place in the game, so presumably I was supposed to have some knowledge of them.

Mass Effect's dialogue is fundamentally broken.[/quote]

So, you're still whinning about that? If you don't understand how the dialog wheel works, then you need help dressing yourself. It's that simple.

You can either go Paragon, Renegade, neutral and the choices are easy to follow for anyone who's willing to enjoy the game. I honestly don't know how we can help you in something so simple.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Yes.  Unless you're a complete madman (and so is everyone else you know), your opinions are based on something, and that something is known to you.  If Shepard is to act in a vaguely realistic way, this needs to be true for him, as well.

The only way this falls apart is if the players (including you) view Shpeard not as a person, but as a toy.  He does wahtever you want him to do because he's just an object.

But your previous assertions about his humanity and how you identified with him are incompatible with this view.[/quote]

Hey idiot, what did I tell you about making baseless assumptions about my friends? It's bad enough that you like to bend your views as you see fit to defend your preferences when it comes to games, but don't include the people I care about and who you know nothing about in your stupid rantings.

The people I know can enjoy Mass Effect for what it is. They can use the dialog wheel just like any normal person, they never had any trouble choosing their paths (except when they were torn between two options, but that's a different story), they're willing to try new things and judge a game on its own merits. They have nothing to learn about mental sanity from the likes of you.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Mass Effect had, I think, an even worse problem.  If my squadmates went down in a firefight, they'd get back up (no worse for wear) as soon as the fight was over.  But if Shepard went down, the fight was lost and I had to reload.  What makes Shepard so special that his squadmates cannot fight without him?

That drove me nuts.  Ideally, the rules should treat every character in the game equally, but especially those characters closest to the action.[/quote]

Because can you imagine how frustrating the game would be if the game ended when your squad mates died? Ever considered that possibility. The ideal situation would be that once they're dead, the game's over too, but if there's one thing crappy games like Daikatana is that there are few things more frustrating than dying from something that was out of your direct control.

You know, like dice rolling in games.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I didn't know it was shorter.  I only knew it was global.

If I were a biotic, I'd be annoyed at the failsafe.  I'd rather my tools not try to protect me from myself.  Why not include the burn-out mechanic in the game and allow ability spamming?  Wouldn't that make combat more challenging and engaging, while still being consistent with the lore?[/quote]

1) Yes, more challeging, like in ME1: get in a room, through your abilities left and right, room cleared.

2) We're talking about a burn-out to the brain in the case of the biotics and possible permanent damage to your omni-tool in the rest, so there would be a reason for the failsafe.

3) In that case, I would also want my amazing Arcane Warrior powers to let me transfer my magical muscle strength to my legs to make run faster. Or to my arms to give me super-strength (insert YGO:TAS joke here). Or just let me fly and shoot laser beam eyes! Hey, if there's no cost to it, I can literally do whatever I want.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Again, unless he's just a toy (and not a person, thus lacking humanity and unable to create the sort of identification you think is there), there needs to be a reason for him to act.  Why does he act as he does?  If there's no reason behind it, then he's not a person.[/quote]

Alliance Military. Threat to the galaxy as a whole. Baby makes poopoo in toilet.

Sorry, my brain reverted a bit too much to the basics on that last one.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

RPGs are roleplaying games.

I will not stand by and watch RPG become as disconnected from the meaning of the words it represents as something like R&B has (seriously, does no one notice the complete lack of rhythm or blues in modern R&B music?).[/quote]

Oh, that's cute, he will not "stand by" and let his pre-historic views get changed all by himself.

I wonder if we should tell him they already have decades ago.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

No.  The game should never protect you from yourself.  If you want to ruin your gameplay, go ahead, but don't blame the game once you've done it.[/quote]

Really? Because that's the very reason why games establish limits to what you can or cannot do. That's the whole reason why game developpers are criticized for allowing their games to have certain options like killing innocent civilians in an airport.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Clearly my behaviour demonstrates that I need to know more.

For example, I love that on Ilos you're allowed to do the trench run on foot.  If you do (and there's good reason to do so given the Mako XP penalty), the game becomes impossible to finish.  You cannot reach the gate in time if you left the Mako behind.  That's a great feature.

But, the game should have done a better job of telling Shepard that the Mako was necessary.[/quote]

You mean besides the "Who votes we take the vehicle into the creepy, underground bunker?" line?

Oh, and also the fact that you had to walk these extremely very large and looong corridors that seemed to be built specifically for you to drive through. Or when you had to face a Geth Colossus, that might have been a hint too that making all the way on foot would be kind of stupid. Especially since you're worried about the XP penalty, you can just drive, find a geth, get out of the Mako and kill it.. Or did you also needed the game to spoonfeed you that bit of common sense?

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

"Sound practical judgment" appears to me to be incompatible with what some people call common sense, for reasons I think I made clear.  If the soundness of the judgment is in question, then does your common sense cease to be common sense?  How can we tell?  Who determines the soundness?[/quote]

Maybe the idea itself. "Sound judgment" doesn't automatically mean "infalible".

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Because that's not a pass fail.  The game tells me how good a job I did in assembling my tactical approach, because I can determine exactly how often that approach would have succeeded.

I'm not going to enjoy the success unless I succeed on merit, and I can't tell if I've suceeded on merit unless the chances of the success or failure of my approach are quantifiable.

Here's a good motto; I apply it everything:

If it matters, measure it.

And as a corollory, if you can't measure it, how do you know that it matters?[/quote]

I can't measure my relationship with the people I care about. I can't measure the amount of enjoyment I can draw from a game, a book or a song. I can't measure the pride I feel when I play with my dog. I can't measure how much I like to see a funny or especially well-made video or image. In a nutshell, I can't measure the things that matter the most in my life. I can however measure how much your great motto is worth:

Nothing.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

There you go again.  You're attributing malice to demonstrably random events.

Do you get angry at the sky when it rains, too?  Are the clouds mean to you?[/quote]

Yeah, that was a great comparisson, I'm sure you're very proud of that.

The weather is a natural phenomenon, it has no will of its own or reason to act against me. Videogames on the other hand, can and do employ some mechanics that you might consider unfair in order to impede the player's progress. An opponent in a fighting game can read what you can do in order to block or counter your moves and can do things that you might not (Blanka making a back-charge attack while moving forward, for instance). The AI in a strategy game might also have benefits that you do not, like getting resources without needing to gather them or constant knowledge on what you're doing. A puzzle can often shape the game to favor him or even try to lead you into making a mistake by giving you hints that will only benefit him (Puzzle Quest anyone?). And a game that depends on random outcomes like BG might not be cheating, but sometimes it just feels like it, when you see a good plan being laid to waste because the enemies just happened to get a lot of lucky rolls.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

According to you they've become something entirely dissimilar from roleplaying.[/quote]

And according to the industry as a whole too.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

That someone has called a game an RPG doesn't make it an RPG.  Again, what something is and what it is called are different things.[/quote]

Precisely. But of course, that could never apply to you, now could it?

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

There are characteristics that make any game, from any era, an RPG.  What are they?

If we can determine exactly what your stadnards are, then we can apply them exhausticely to every game ever made and see if you still agree with the findings.

I'm confident that any game that my definition considers an RPG is an RPG in my eyes (because I use the definition to make the determination in the first place, not what the game is called or what other people think the game is or how the game feels).

But your definition, I think, would label an RPGs that no one thought were RPGs at the time, but because they're very similar (save technological advancements) to games like Mass Effect you'd have to call them RPGs to remain consistent.[/quote]

And maybe they were. That's what happens with evolutions, you have to think retroactively too.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

To make the game easier?  Yes, I said that already.[/quote]

And consistent. Or how much would you complain about Shepard losing his ability to shoot straight at the beggining of ME2 when he was able to do so at the end of ME1?

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Not everyone likes Shepard.  Shepard is a thuggish idiot.  He's exactly the sort of person I avoid in the real world.[/quote]

He's only as thuggish and idiot as you make him out to be. Why don't you shape yourself to him, like you want other people to do with the games you like?

And apparently, and based on what you said and shown already, you must already avoid a lot of people in the real world. Thought that might also be due to the fact that they avoid you too.

[Fluffeh Kitteh]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

RPGs are roleplaying games.

I will not stand by and watch RPG become as disconnected from the meaning of the words it represents as something like R&B has (seriously, does no one notice the complete lack of rhythm or blues in modern R&B music?).

Unfortunately that's precisely what you and everyone of us are going to do, like it or not: stand by and watch. The genre will, for better or for worse, move and develop as the industry sees fit. We're at the consumer demographic, the only things we could possibly do aside from standing by and watching, would be to stop watching and forsake it altogether.

The only ones who can say "I won't stand by and watch..." and have those words actually mean something are probably the ones who can actually do something about it. That'd be game developers btw, not forum people giving their two cents worth.

Also the words "RPG" mean "Role Playing Game". If ther were supposed to be a deeper meaning, the acronym would be much, much longer. Genre titles are supposed to be broad in order to encompass as many titles as possible. The gaming world is not one where we have special genre categories designed to be tailored towards games of varying levels of... well whatever criteria you may have in your checklist.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Here's a good motto; I apply it everything:

If it matters, measure it.

And as a corollory, if you can't measure it, how do you know that it matters?

Whether or not something "matters" is subjective. How it is measured is equally subjective. There are things in this world you can't quantify into discrete, measurable terms that are accepted by everyone

Modifié par Fluffeh Kitteh, 28 mars 2010 - 01:07 .

[Atomic Space Vixen]

I'll most likely get ME3 because I'm a completist (though with ME2 I rented first to make sure it was playable, and if I were to play beyond the casual setting, it probably wouldn't be). I saw the first game as a shooter with RPG elements. Now it's just a story-driven shooter, and once the trilogy is complete, it'll be the last shooter/action game I buy from Bioware.

However, as long as they put out actual RPGs as good as Dragon Age, they will still have me as a consumer.



Oh, how amazing ME would have been if it was more like DA.

Having said that though, as long as Bioware keeps making actual RPGs, and as sad as it makes me that there are no RPGs in the ME universe, I'm not going to fault the company for wanting to expand their consumer base. Keyword: expand. Don't dump one base (who have been loyal for a long time) for another. But DA does give me hope.

[Sylvius the Mad]

[quote]Lusitanum wrote...

Hello? Weren't we talking about how the Grey Wardens still make their recruits go through the Joining despite the lack of any real necessity and not why their recruits unknowingly choose to eventually commit suicide?[/quote]
Do you know there isn't any real necessity?  Remember that it takes a Grey Warden to determine whether a given darkspawn incursion is a Blight, and darkspawn incursions can occur anywhere at any time.  Having more of them around would be beneficial.

You're acting like having Grey Wardens around preventatively has no value, and that's not demonstrably true.
[quote]So, you're still whinning about that? If you don't understand how the dialog wheel works, then you need help dressing yourself. It's that simple.

You can either go Paragon, Renegade, neutral and the choices are easy to follow for anyone who's willing to enjoy the game. I honestly don't know how we can help you in something so simple.[/quote]
but the choices aren't that simple.  Again, if the options are just play the paragon/renegade game, then why not just pick one at the start of the game and stick with it?  What's the point of asking the player for input hundreds of times during the game if that input isn't meaningful beyond just reinforcing that initial paragon/renegade choice?

Further, if I play the game your way (where I give a vague direction to Shepard as to what sort of response I'd like to see from him, knowing that I don't have any real control over what he does) then again he fails to be an interesting person.  I'm just watching him, not playing him.

[quote]Hey idiot, what did I tell you about making baseless assumptions about my friends? It's bad enough that you like to bend your views as you see fit to defend your preferences when it comes to games, but don't include the people I care about and who you know nothing about in your stupid rantings.[/quote]
How was that baseless?  Your position requires that the decisions you make spring to you unbidden without no background reasoning behind them.  Because that's how Shepard behaves, and you seem to think that's natural.

[quote]Because can you imagine how frustrating the game would be if the game ended when your squad mates died? Ever considered that possibility.[/quote]
Sure, so the ovbious solution is that the game continues until the entire squad is down.  Just because Shepard got shot is no reason for the rest of the squad to lay down and die.

So, I ask again, why does the game end when Shepard goes down?
[quote]Alliance Military. Threat to the galaxy as a whole. Baby makes poopoo in toilet.

Sorry, my brain reverted a bit too much to the basics on that last one.[/quote]
Just a few pages ago you were going on about how compelling a character you (and others) found Shepard to be.  And yet, when asked about his motiviations, all you can produce is that shallow, one-dimensional explanation?

There has to be more to it than that.  You genuinely liked Shepard, remember?  Tell me about him.

[quote]Really? Because that's the very reason why games establish limits to what you can or cannot do.[/quote]
Yes, I know that's why.  And it's stupid.

[quote]That's the whole reason why game developpers are criticized for allowing their games to have certain options like killing innocent civilians in an airport.[/quote]
They're certainly not criticised by me.

It's a wonderful opportunity for emergent narrative.  I've described before how great it was in the BG explansion (TotSC) to be able to kill that wizard Shandalar who sends you to the ice island.  The game doesn't ever ask you to kill him, but doing so is a perfectly reasonable response for some characters, and it's a wonderful fight (he doesn't fight back, but will employ defensive magic for three rounds before teleporting away).  He's was worth 16,000 XP.

[quote]You mean besides the "Who votes we take the vehicle into the creepy, underground bunker?" line?[/quote]
That was an in-character line from a squadmate.  My Shepard disagreed with him and thought he was a wuss.

Oh, sorry, am I not allowed to decide how Shepard feels about what people say to him?  Outside of conversations, there's no way for me to know what reaction the developers intended, so if I don't get to choose then I'm left having no opinion at all about what the point of the line was.  So why was it there?

No, that's crazy.  The player has to be the one to control that reaction, and I did.  We walked.

[quote]Oh, and also the fact that you had to walk these extremely very large and looong corridors that seemed to be built specifically for you to drive through.[/quote]
Yes, they may have seemed like that, but since they pre-date Shepard by many thousands of years, clearly they were not.

How things seem should be determined by the facts available.  What does that even mean?  They "seemed to be built specifically for you to drive through" - that doesn't even make sense.

[quote]Or when you had to face a Geth Colossus, that might have been a hint too that making all the way on foot would be kind of stupid.[/quote]
A geth colossus was no threat to anyone on foot.  Run sideways - avoid the slow-moving projectiles.

[quote]Especially since you're worried about the XP penalty, you can just drive, find a geth, get out of the Mako and kill it.. Or did you also needed the game to spoonfeed you that bit of common sense?[/quote]
 There's no such thing as common sense.

Also, as I mentioned before, I like the atmopheric effect of walking through environments.  I wish there was more walking and exploration generally in games, and Ilos was finally a place that gave me a whole lot of it.  On foot.

[quote]Maybe the idea itself. "Sound judgment" doesn't automatically mean "infalible".[/quote]
You shouldn't use words when you don't know what they mean.

A system of reasoning is sound if and only if its inference rules prove only formulae that are valid (relative to its semantics).

By definition, sound judgment is infallible.

[quote]I can't measure my relationship with the people I care about.[/quote]
Yes you can.  You can rank them against other relationships based on the circumstances under which you would chose over the other (should they come into conflict).

[quote]I can't measure the amount of enjoyment I can draw from a game, a book or a song.[/quote]
Yes you can.  How much would I have to pay you never to read that particular book?

[quote]I can't measure the pride I feel when I play with my dog.[/quote]
I'd need to know the basis of that pride to offer an example for that one.

[quote]I can't measure how much I like to see a funny or especially well-made video or image.[/quote]
Again, how much would you pay to see it?

[quote]In a nutshell, I can't measure the things that matter the most in my life.[/quote]
In a nutshell, yes you can.  You can even monetise most of them.

[quote]Yeah, that was a great comparisson, I'm sure you're very proud of that.[/quote]
Yes, because it was a great comparison.

[quote]And a game that depends on random outcomes like BG might not be cheating, but sometimes it just feels like it, when you see a good plan being laid to waste because the enemies just happened to get a lot of lucky rolls.[/quote]
Read that again.  You're honestly willing to say that an event feels like it isn't random even when you know that it is?  Really?

I say again, your feelings are broken.  If you know something, then you know it (A is A).  How you feel should be (if you're a person capable of rational thought) be subservient to that.

[quote]And according to the industry as a whole too.[/quote]
The industry as a whole can be wrong.

But I don't think they actually hold the position you think they do.  I just think they don't care about the issue.

[quote]Precisely. But of course, that could never apply to you, now could it?[/quote]
Of course it could, so let's investigate it without relying on how its currently perceived by anyone in particular.  But no, you keep pointing out how atypical my opinions are, as if that has anything to do with their validity.

[quote]And maybe they were. That's what happens with evolutions, you have to think retroactively too.[/quote]
But the definitions also have to work going forward.  A definition of the genre that you would create in 1986 would need to encompass all current games that you call RPGs.  A definition of the genre that you would create now would still have to be univerally applicable 20 years from now.

Go.  I await your infinite wisdom.

[quote]And consistent. Or how much would you complain about Shepard losing his ability to shoot straight at the beggining of ME2 when he was able to do so at the end of ME1?[/quote]
It would suck.  I never said it was important that Shepard not be able to shoot straight.  I just want Shepard's accuracy to be determined by Shepard, and not by me.  Ideally, Shepard's accuracy would have been excellent right from the beginning of ME.  I don't really think the game's lore is consistent with a levelling mechanic at all.  I'd happily discard the levels in ME and have Shepard's skills be largely constant throughout the game.  I don't think levels are an important part of RPGs.
[quote]He's only as thuggish and idiot as you make him out to be. Why don't you shape yourself to him, like you want other people to do with the games you like?[/quote]
Because ME doesn't give me any freedom to do that.  Eveything Shepard says and does is portrayed explicitly on-screen.  Or didn't you notice?

Again, if we remove the voice-over and cinematic presentation, I think ME instantly becomes an RPG.

[quote]And apparently, and based on what you said and shown already, you must already avoid a lot of people in the real world.[/quote]
The vast majority.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 28 mars 2010 - 08:05 .

[Lusitanum]

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Do you know there isn't any real necessity?  Remember that it takes a Grey Warden to determine whether a given darkspawn incursion is a Blight, and darkspawn incursions can occur anywhere at any time.  Having more of them around would be beneficial.

You're acting like having Grey Wardens around preventatively has no value, and that's not demonstrably true.[/quote]

Having the Grey Wardens is a good thing, but that doesn't mean that turning every single one of your recruits is necessary. If all the Joining gives you is the ability to sense the Blight and the Darkspawn, then wouldn't it make a lot more sense to only make a few select recruits go through the Joining and not have the fact that your members die during the Initiation affect that pesky "too few Grey Wardens to defend the world against the Blight thing"?

Just remove the obligatory Joining and suddenly you have a lot more soldiers who can help you fight the Darkspawn and, should the need arise, make a few of them go through the Joining. It's just common sense: a big army with a few seers to sense the Darkspawn is a lot more effective than a small army in which everyone can sense exactly just how outrageously outnumbered you are.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

but the choices aren't that simple.  Again, if the options are just play the paragon/renegade game, then why not just pick one at the start of the game and stick with it?  What's the point of asking the player for input hundreds of times during the game if that input isn't meaningful beyond just reinforcing that initial paragon/renegade choice?

Further, if I play the game your way (where I give a vague direction to Shepard as to what sort of response I'd like to see from him, knowing that I don't have any real control over what he does) then again he fails to be an interesting person.  I'm just watching him, not playing him.[/quote]

The choices are there for you to make throughout the game, that's just what they are: they're choices, not a template and everyone makes their choices based on their own reasons. That's why you see so many "mostly Paragon" players who chose the Paragon options most of the time but still made a few Renegade choices when faced with them, like giving the confidential information to the Shadow Broker, punching the reporter or Manuel and letting the council to die. Why did they do that? They had their own reasons, be it not wanting to stay on the Shadow Broker's bad side, finding a character particularly annoying or just feeling that a given option is the most sensible one. Quoting the Digital Cowboys again on why Alex chose to let the Council die on ME1:

"Here's the thing, I wasn't playing as a Renegade, I was just playing naturally, as close as I would honestly choose to make these decisions. And I thought that technically what I'd done had been totally against the will of the Council and totally against what I was supposed to do and I wasn't basically being a good guy, but it was a decision that had to be made, rang so true with the character and so true with the game, I really didn't mind the fact that I was judged a Renegade at that point. I was like "you know what? These guys have pledged their lifes to serve the people, the can die for the people." And I made that call and I felt it was totally right. And the game justified it and I thought "Yeah, totally, I loved it"."

There you have it, another example of how people played the game.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

How was that baseless?  Your position requires that the decisions you make spring to you unbidden without no background reasoning behind them.  Because that's how Shepard behaves, and you seem to think that's natural.[/quote]

And so the dozens of millions of gamers around the world who play their games in the same way and love their characters. And all that without having to waste your time on a pointless essay around a character's life story.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Sure, so the ovbious solution is that the game continues until the entire squad is down.  Just because Shepard got shot is no reason for the rest of the squad to lay down and die.

So, I ask again, why does the game end when Shepard goes down?[/quote]

Because that's your failling that you let Shepard get killed, and just like in any other game, the death of the character you control sends you to the Game Over screen.

It's actually quite simple, really.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Just a few pages ago you were going on about how compelling a character you (and others) found Shepard to be.  And yet, when asked about his motiviations, all you can produce is that shallow, one-dimensional explanation?

There has to be more to it than that.  You genuinely liked Shepard, remember?  Tell me about him.[/quote]

This "shallow, one dimensional explanation" isn't my starting point, it's yours. I figured that if you have such ease in pulling out of your ass the most convuluted (and ultimately completely flawed) reason as to why something as complex as manipulation of the Fade can require as much focus as breathing just because you took a chararcter specialization, then working with something so much simpler would be a lot easier.

But, of course, the game would have to please you, before your skewed vision could be applied.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Yes, I know that's why.  And it's stupid.[/quote]

Except if the game in question is Dragon Age or something like that. Then it's completely understandable and a credit to its genre.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

They're certainly not criticised by me.[/quote]

So? SInce when what you think matters to anyone? Especially when compared to the opinions of the general public?

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

That was an in-character line from a squadmate.  My Shepard disagreed with him and thought he was a wuss.[/quote]

Take the much faster, well-armoured and well-armed tank into a place where you have no idea of what you'll face (except for all the confirmed hostiles) while on a race against time to save the galaxy? That's for cowards, real men take their sweet time jogging when the fate of countless innocents is at stake!

Congratulations, that was the single stuppidest thing you've said so far. And that's saying a lot!

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Oh, sorry, am I not allowed to decide how Shepard feels about what people say to him?  Outside of conversations, there's no way for me to know what reaction the developers intended, so if I don't get to choose then I'm left having no opinion at all about what the point of the line was.  So why was it there?

No, that's crazy.  The player has to be the one to control that reaction, and I did.  We walked.[/quote]

And walked you did, for about... what? a full hour through the same identical scenery on the climax of the game.

We don't need elevators to bore us to death when people are stupid enough to find fresh new ways to do it.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Yes, they may have seemed like that, but since they pre-date Shepard by many thousands of years, clearly they were not.

How things seem should be determined by the facts available.  What does that even mean?  They "seemed to be built specifically for you to drive through" - that doesn't even make sense.[/quote]

No, except for the fact that it was an extremely long and wide corridor with no indication whatsoever of any infrastructure that would allow anyone to walk to one end to the other without needing about a full hour of constant walking.

Of course it's just too much to expect that the Protheans had some other way of motion, so that they could go both through the corridor as well as up and down the walls that would require some kind of vehicle. Nah, they probably just walked through the walls too.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

A geth colossus was no threat to anyone on foot.  Run sideways - avoid the slow-moving projectiles.[/quote]

Or blast it with the Mako. Much faster, much safer, much smarter.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

There's no such thing as common sense.[/quote]

... in that thing someone once called a "head".

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Also, as I mentioned before, I like the atmopheric effect of walking through environments.  I wish there was more walking and exploration generally in games, and Ilos was finally a place that gave me a whole lot of it.  On foot.[/quote]

Yes, because the final run to save the galaxy from certain destruction really is the moment to just take it easy and soak in all the beautiful things around you.

And to think I once thought Liara was an idiot for wanting to keep talking to Virgil in the middle of all this. Only she was at least recognize her mistake and how unreasonable she had been.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

You shouldn't use words when you don't know what they mean.

A system of reasoning is sound if and only if its inference rules prove only formulae that are valid (relative to its semantics).

By definition, sound judgment is infallible.[/quote]

Some definitions of sound:

- Financially secure and safe;
- Exercising or showing good judgment;
- In good condition;
- Reflects weight of sound argument or evidence;
- Thorough.

Not one reference of "infallible". What was it you said about not using words when you don't know what they mean?

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Yes you can.  You can rank them against other relationships based on the circumstances under which you would chose over the other (should they come into conflict).[/quote]

I can compare some relationships, but that still doesn't say what they mean to me. I might consider some to be worth protecting more than others, but I still can't put a stamp on them saying how much they're worth.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Yes you can.  How much would I have to pay you never to read that particular book?[/quote]

Never enough, I'm not for sale, unlike some of the few people you seem to be familiar with to bring that up so quickly.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I'd need to know the basis of that pride to offer an example for that one.[/quote]

She's not for sale either, so you can't.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Again, how much would you pay to see it?[/quote]

The same as for everything else. For instance, I know I'd love to play Assassin's Creed 2, I loved the first game, the sequel is set in Italy during the Renaissance, the main character seems to be a lot more interessting this time around, but I refuse to pay 60€ for a brand new game when all the others are at 50€.

Again, I'm not for sale.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

In a nutshell, yes you can.  You can even monetise most of them.[/quote]

In a nutshell, you still keep finding new ways to show how you know nothing of what you're talking about.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Yes, because it was a great comparison.[/quote]

So great, you didn't even bother to justify it against my rebutal between natural phenomenon and intended game design!

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...


[quote]And a game that depends on random outcomes like BG might not be cheating, but sometimes it just feels like it, when you see a good plan being laid to waste because the enemies just happened to get a lot of lucky rolls.[/quote]
Read that again.  You're honestly willing to say that an event feels like it isn't random even when you know that it is?  Really?

I say again, your feelings are broken.  If you know something, then you know it (A is A).  How you feel should be (if you're a person capable of rational thought) be subservient to that.[/quote]

How about you read it again. What I'm saying is that even when you know you lost due to randomness, even if you know that's the reason, it can feel like it's more a matter of the computer cheating in his favor than anything else.

You know, like when you try to get that character to roll the highest possible number of HP at level up, the character has a d4, meaning it has 1 in 4 chances of getting a 4 and then you have to try about 15 times just to get what you wanted, and in the meantime your rolled tons of 1's, 2's and 3's to last you for a decade. Or at least until the next level up.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

The industry as a whole can be wrong.

But I don't think they actually hold the position you think they do.  I just think they don't care about the issue.[/quote]

As long as it keeps their target audience happy, they care about it a lot. Hence, why they stopped doing games your way.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Of course it could, so let's investigate it without relying on how its currently perceived by anyone in particular.  But no, you keep pointing out how atypical my opinions are, as if that has anything to do with their validity.[/quote]

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

But the definitions also have to work going forward.  A definition of the genre that you would create in 1986 would need to encompass all current games that you call RPGs.  A definition of the genre that you would create now would still have to be univerally applicable 20 years from now.

Go.  I await your infinite wisdom.[/quote]

Hospital.

I don't need infinte wisdom, all I have to do is keep you from doing what you're trying to: circle around the issue, dropping those little parts you don't want to answer and expecting me to forget about them.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

It would suck.  I never said it was important that Shepard not be able to shoot straight.  I just want Shepard's accuracy to be determined by Shepard, and not by me.  Ideally, Shepard's accuracy would have been excellent right from the beginning of ME.  I don't really think the game's lore is consistent with a levelling mechanic at all.  I'd happily discard the levels in ME and have Shepard's skills be largely constant throughout the game.  I don't think levels are an important part of RPGs.[/quote]

And here we go, you're out of the "what makes an RPG discussion". I'm sorry, you just can't expect to say "you can kick levelling out of RPGs" and still mantain what little shred of credibility you were still clinging to. That's "just" the basis around which the genre, the industry and the public in general revolve around when you bring up the word RPG. You could take guns away from shooter games and it would still be a far lesser "betrayal" to the genre.

Bye bye then, don't forget to write.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Because ME doesn't give me any freedom to do that.  Eveything Shepard says and does is portrayed explicitly on-screen.  Or didn't you notice?

Again, if we remove the voice-over and cinematic presentation, I think ME instantly becomes an RPG.[/quote]

... and a complete flop because you're taking away its very identity and unique features that set it appart from all the others in the RPG genre.

[quote]Sylvius the Mad wrote...

The vast majority.[/quote]

My point exactly.