LadyCrimson

Cable box broke. Guess I have to call them to bring a new one before hubby gets grumpy. Raked up a huge pile of leaves that won't all fit in the giant leaf bin the city gives you, and that's barely what's on the ground. You rake up just the walking areas, 1.5 days later it looks like you did nothing. Stupid trees.

I just woke up so I might not be getting the whole gist of your post, but one big aspect imo is that isometric + complex UI + certain types of combat are hard to deal with on consoles and the more limited control/hotkey options. Thus as the gaming industry grew and the US AAA wanted more and more of the "mass" market for giant sales, vs. catering to smaller but fiercely loyal niche audiences, they've gone down certain paths. Now, I'm not saying that's all of it by any means....but I do feel like it's a fairly important aspect of the change in cRPG's in the US. It's not just RPG's, btw. I feel somewhat similar about strategy games. Not just AoE type RTS, but all forms of it. In terms of combat ... outside of the controller vs. keyboard aspect ... I don't know. I don't get the feeling companies think "US gamers don't like RPG combat." In fact, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by RPG combat, outside of number crunching and more party options and so I'm not sure if I'd agree with you or not.

I think combined with the music and (what sounds like) maybe a tiny bit of reverb, it fits the scene and mood. The delivery and timing (pacing/acting) works well for me. But I guess I'm picky about the monotone/colorless thing (maybe there's a better word, but monotone is the only one coming to my mind right now). If the narrator is supposed to be something like HAL, that would affect my opinion (HAL's voice is great, because of what HAL is). If narrator is human...a little staid for my tastes.

Bouncing between old city-builder games and still Miasmata, although starting to focus more on the former than the latter. Been a while since I did the CB games...nice break from all the action-y I've been playing. Still have a hard time sitting still for too long, however.

Hm, I had Anno1404. Didn't play it a lot, probably a little too strategy/politiking for me vs. city building and I think it didn't have any freebuilding either. 2070 looks nice tho. Does it have a map editor? Wish Caesar-4 had been a bit better of a game...it looked fairly nice (for 2006) but it wasn't quite as good gameplay wise, and was still too limited in how many houses/walkers you could have before it started to laaaag. I'm the type of building geek who, during the Caesar3 days, did things like the below pic to plan out housing blocks. (pic's not actually my design, but I made many like it).

Yeah, I know someone who's been doing some mod work occasionally. She really enjoys doing it, but she got some harsh criticism when she put samples on public YouTube. People can indeed be overly cruel, vs. some tough but fair criticism. I think she needs some more time, but what I like about her is that she tries to make her voices distinct and they feel like characters. It just takes a lot of practice and time to find one's own "voice"...like with any acting or public speaking or artistic venture. My own voice probably sounds like a nasal foghorn. Heh.

Those are good points, and I'd agree. Sometimes those things are a big part of it. With amateur mod work, I often feel like there's just no life in the voices...things are recited too much in a monotone or too much all at one even speed (no different length in pauses, no difference in emphasis etc) ...doesn't sound like a natural spoken rhythm. Or, like you said, it doesn't match/jibe with the rest of the game sounds in some way, which is jarring.

Some might call them little glitches...I call them LOL moments. Also...sorry, Theme Hospital, but in terms of design/building strategy, I much prefer this: and this: Over this:

This would explain a lot.

Makes me think of an ad for some shooter game or something.

Haha!

The Walking Dead - oooo that was a good one. So many pieces falling into place. Now I have to wait "forever" to see the conclusion of the season. Also:

Bonus points to those who can point out when to use comma before 'who' (without using google) After "those" ... I'm guessing. Grammar was never my strong suit. I watched Madagascar3, after hearing how it's the best of the series. It was cute I guess, but I'm not sure I'd agree with the best part.

Diablo2 didn't have a lot of creepy atmosphere, I'd agree. It was a big step down from Diablo1, imo, in that regard. But it still had more than Diablo3. I can understand that some people don't like darkish games/areas and everyone has different eyes (I sit in my PC room with no lights but the glow of the monitor most of the time, myself). But ... to have everything as visually light as if I'm walking around in daylight everywhere, that just doesn't feel very immersive. I don't walk around in pure daylight or 1000 florescent tube lit offices all the time in real life. I like lighting that fits the situation. An unexplored, unoccupied cave shouldn't be brightly lit, and even dungeons with torches are unlikely to be sunshine bright. The point is atmosphere (if you walked into a dark cave, you're going to need a flashlight, right?) It's been a long long time since I've played a (singleplayer) game that didn't allow me to pause at least almost whenever I wanted, even if only via the ESC button. Even the few NES games I played let you pause. Not saying games that don't let you pause don't exist, but...I'm pretty sure P.E. isn't going to be one of them. There's no gameplay point to pause-whenver, but there is a real-life point to them.

My husband is fond of mentioning this radio interview of Chris Rock that he heard one morning, where Chris said something like "Voice acting has been the easiest buck I ever made. Walk in, sit in a booth, talk for a while, go home with big paycheck." And I dunno...occasionally I've heard amateur/volunteer voice work in mods and such that were ok, but most of the time ... they're quite terrible. It's not just whether you have a decent speaking voice, but how well you use it. That Blue Planet video, the intro narration is awful and it lasts forever. The gameplay voice stuff is better but still lackluster.

Maybe because "The Creators of PST and Others Hint At A New Game That Might Be A Spiritual Successor to Planescape Torment" makes for a rather long forum thread title?

Diablo3 had no sense of creepy atmosphere. I'm not going to claim it was only because of a lack of darkness (even the caves weren't dark), but .... it was pretty dull. I don't remember having to crank up brightness in Diablo2 to see anything. I thought they did a good job of having it be dim/moody without being blind. Maybe you needed a new monitor.

Well, it's obviously not a torch. Aside from the elf mage's hand glowing rather obviously with magical power, It's highly likely just an artistic element meant to emphasize "these guys are who you should focus on." The orange end of the color wheel for the bad guys' blue (lazy work, Obsidian artist, btw.) I think the glow is actually an extension of the mage's glowing-hand spellcasting. His spell is doing some kind of radius ground effect that spreads out. The Monk has the glow around his fists, presumably from casting some Fisty-damage spell, and Cadegund has the glow around her back/shield with her hand touching an amulet as if casting a protective spell. eg, it's the artists representation of a cast-spell effect. ....and, er, to be on topic ... I like it when games have darkened areas that require extra lighting to see really clearly, but I don't tend to like it to be actually pitch black. So you can, if you want, walk around in dim lighting, unable to see things well in the distance, but if you use a torch/spell, rooms become well lit and with their original colors (if any) and you can see much more detail from a lot farther. That is, you can play without using the torches/spells, but there is visual advantage to using them.

It's possible - I don't keep up with city events like that. And from the way people were opening their doors to stand in their front yard looking around, I'd guess most of my neighbors don't either. But yeah...could be. It was coming from the general direction such an event might take place. And today ... I am being a lazy old fart. Still in my bathrobe, but thinking about showering and going out for a bite to eat. Last episode of Walking Dead TV series (for the year) tonight. With the set-up from the past couple weeks...should be interesting.

Me either. I did buy it way back when (the disc is still around somewhere) but when I fired it up then, for some reason I couldn't get into it. I was probably expecting something different, or was still too into another game at the same time....whatever the reason, I never went back. I kept meaning to but y'know how it goes sometimes. But I find this news interesting....at this point in my life I'd definitely like more options re: RPG's that at least feel a bit more classical, so to speak, so anything that may lead in that direction I'll be keeping an eye on.

I'm not a very sophisticated reader, so I wouldn't really know. I often can like one-dimensional/archetype/cliched characters, if the story they're within captures my imagination for some reason. My criteria for reading fiction generally goes like this: "Is the story/characters capturing my attention, do I care about what's happening, am I able to get lost in the story so I "see images" instead of words on a page?" If the answer is no, I get bored and stop reading. That's it. At any rate, this isn't supposed to be only a fave author thread and I'm getting a little off-topic. I think we can have authors that may have aspects in their works that we'd like to see in P.E., without having to have those authors be our favorites, or even having to like the author overmuch - mood, setting, overall story arc. For me it largely means memorable characters.

I love James Clavell. As to the rest ... there is nothing wrong with people liking stuff that may not be considered very literary. I like and read all kinds of authors, from the ones you mentioned that you can't stand, to ones more people would probably deem "quality/literary." On the other hand, I also have liked a book from an author, than disliked another book from the same author. No author is divine, and no writing style is for everybody. Shakespeare is supposed to be great for some reason, but y'know, I can't stand reading his stuff, even if you updated it in somewhat modernized English. But the basic themes behind his plays can make good movies.

I like it. It's fairly simplistic and doesn't have a ton of story (imo), if you're into that, but it builds a nice atmosphere of dread, curiosity, and exploration/discovery. You have to drink water quite often (or die) and make medicine occasionally. The nights are really really dark on my monitor, tho, and torches don't last very long before you have to find another stick on the ground. Limitations like only being able to carry one of each type of plant in your left hand at a time (3 total) are a bit annoying. But I'm having a fun time with it.

Not aging - even if it was more about appearance/strength than longevity - would be pretty cool. But even more importantly - would I never again forget where I put my car keys?