xzar_monty

I started Disco Elysium. Looks quite good. One funny thing: at the crime scene, very early on in the game, there are these two troublemaker kids. One of them peppers her speech with words from a language that not a lot of people in this world speak and that is meant to be clearly alien (not as in extraterrestrial) in the game. I happen to speak that language rather well, so I'm one of the very few for whom that "exotic" bit isn't exotic -- I just happen to note that the pronunciation is off.

I'll just give you one small example from the early part of PoE, something that struck me at the time and was possibly an indication of a larger problem. I went to Raedric's Hold and ended up facing him. He had either one or two wizards supporting him, and they were called "Archmages". I was approximately at level 5 at the time, and I thought I was going to be royally screwed. I mean, there's no way a 5th level character can survive an archmage on his own, let alone as a part of a larger group. But I did. Then I got their spellbooks, and there wasn't anything special in them. So I thought: what exactly does archmage mean in this game? Another example: later on, below Caed Nua, on approximately level 9 of the dungeon, I met some vampires. They were called fampyrs, though, but of course they were vampires. I thought, sheesh, this is going to be tough, surely? These monsters are going to have some really devastating abilities, so I'll have to pay extra careful attention. But no. They had nothing. They could charm, but that generally lasted less than 20 seconds, often even less. So although I did enjoy PoE and the beginning especially was superb, I did definitely feel that some things were watered down quite a lot.

@algroth: Yep, I did purchase it. There seems to be a heavy emphasis on good writing, and I like the atmosphere created by the graphics. Obviously I've no way of knowing how this will turn out in the end, but I really appreciate your tip. Good isometric RPG -- that's a rare beast! And precisely my kind of game.

I suppose that can easily have been the case. I was lucky in the sense that I came to BG2 something like two or three years after it was released (and obviously ToB was around, too), so my first patch was the last official one. I must have avoided a heck of a lot of hassle, right?

This was the first time I heard of this game (meaning Disco Elysium). Thank you very much for the tip, it is greatly appreciated! As I said, "I would be very interested in playing them", and upon first sight, the game does look like the kind of thing I'd enjoy. I'll have a proper look later this weekend -- and I'm hoping it'll end in a purchase. Again, thanks for the tip.

I can conceivably understand the "writing" part, although I do not agree, but how do you justify the "programming" part? Can you please name three companies and three titles that are superior to PoE and Deadfire in writing. I would be very interested in playing them.

I can't remember it exactly, either, but my sense is that when you see him on the screen, there's instantly a message above his head (or something) that says he wants to talk to you. Judging by what you say, however, it does seem rather likely that you can exit the City Gates without actually talking to him. Jan Jansen is an absolute treasure. Boy he's good.

This is a bit confusing. When you first leave Athkatla, you must leave by the City Gates, and when you enter that area, you are approached by Flydian who tells you of the animal trouble in Trademeet. So it's a bit hard to miss Trademeet, I think. Did I read you wrong?

BG2 did an awful lot of things really, really well. It's almost twenty years old, but it absolutely deserves its place in the canon. For me, it still tops both PoE and Deadfire. The world is simply so much more interesting, and there's a lot more to do.

Yep, that is a valid point. The development costs of a game like Ultima V were negligible -- if that -- compared to Deadfire. However, I still argue that on this particular level, Ultima V showed more ambition than Deadfire, which frankly baffles me, as I said.

You touch an important topic here, and one that frankly baffles me quite a lot. I'm sorry to bring up that old chestnut again, but back in the 1980s, Ultima V contained a world where people had their routines. For example, they tilled their farm during the day, they went to bed at night, they went to the tavern for lunch, and if they were a particular bunch, they even gathered for a secret meeting by the village well at midnight. There was a certain person who hid certain very useful tools in a certain location at certain times. And you were a part of this world: it was your job to figure out what happened where and when. The complexity was lovely -- if you were a low-level character and you arrived at a city too late in the evening, you might not be able to simply walk in, because the gates were closed and it was possible you had to sleep outdoors and expose yourself to proper danger. What baffles me these days is that none of the big CRPGs even make the attempt to create a living world. As you quite rightly point out, basically everybody stands still and waits for you to come to them, and they are willing to wait forever. This despite the fact that computers these days are capable of handling much greater complexity with great ease. Things do move around a bit in Neketaka, but here's the important point: essentially everyone who walks around the map is just a cosmetic backround phenomenon and has nothing to do with the story or any of the quests; they're simply scenery. The only exception to this that I can think of is the back alley thing in the docks, i.e. you have to arrive at the alley late in the evening to find the guy with the wolf -- he's not there during the day. There may be other examples like this, but I can't think of any. So even the bustling-looking Neketaka is essentially dead, it only comes to life when the player interacts with it. Quests could easily be given to you on the basis of your reputation (like Boeroer suggests). And things could be dependent on chance (a certain itinerant vendor will only appear in a certain street corner at certain days, varying from game to game, and it's entirely possible you will never meet him). Or some quests could become available only as a result of how you finished some other quests. Like, person A arrives at location X only if you made his arrival possible by providing him with the means to travel by supporting character B at location Z, and the arrival of person A at location X will happen six days after your dealings at location Z, because the trip takes some time. All of this and a lot more would be possible, but my sense is that nobody even makes an attempt at any of it. I do not understand why. In general, I would greatly enjoy a game set up in such a way that it contains, let's say, 100 quests, but only 75 of them can become available in any single playthrough -- their availability would be limited by the factors I described in the previous paragraph (note: one of them being chance). This would greatly increase replayability and this would make each game a lot more unique. Only the main storyline needs to be set in stone, so to speak. There's an awful lot of room to play around with the additional quests. But nobody even makes the attempt.

I didn't feel it requires knowledge of Pathfinder. After all, when I started the game, all I knew about Pathfinder was that it is a continuation of sorts for DD, and I did just fine.

I don't agree with this. The quests did pile up fast, but I didn't get the impression of randomness or disconnectedness. It was more like being in New York, London, Paris or Bangkok for the first time: boy, there's a lot to do here. So I was enthusiastic. And yes, I can understand the opposite reaction, too, but I didn't have it myself.

Agreed. With the White March installed, Twin Elms becomes even more difficult to get into. It has to be said, though, that the White March itself is very good! No problem at all getting into Stalwart.

Nothing wrong with that, and I completely understand that motivation. However, Steam has specified that you if you ask for a refund within one hour of purchasing a title, you will generally get your money back. The option is there and it's defined in a fair and square manner, so I am quite happy to use it, although I agree with the spirit of owning up to my mistakes when it comes to bad purchases. I have made a few from other sources (GOG, for instance), and I fully admit to being responsible for making poor decisions, that's fine. Like, I did some background research on Temple of Elemental Evil, purchased it, played it for a bit, decided that it wasn't good enough and that's it, my mistake, not asking for my money back.

I wonder what the general consensus is regarding Defiance Bay vs. Twin Elms -- i.e. if somebody made a survey, I wonder whether it'd turn out that Twin Elms is a lot less liked than Defiance Bay. I personally found it very hard to get into Twin Elms. The graphics are nice, I fully admit that it does look good, but by the time you get there, you've already reached level cap(*) and you almost immediately get to know that you're basically on the brink of finishing the whole thing. Thus, I found it very hard to find the motivation to walk up to every named character to have a chat (to get more quests, to get to know things better, etc: all the stuff you do in Defiance Bay). (*) Note: obviously this is not a definite fact, but I'd wager it tends to be true more often than not. Also, reaching level cap does not decrease gaming motivation for everybody, but again, for a lot of people it does.

Yeah, I'm in this camp, too. I tried both Tyranny and D:OS and found within minutes that they were not for me. I mean, I revoked my purchase for both within an hour and thus got my money back. And yes, it is possible that I made a mistake. It always is. I take that chance. But I'm not going to waste my time in something that looks not for me.

If you hated it, why did you put that amount of time into it? Sounds very odd. I quite enjoyed it. I agree that it had quite a few flaws, but it had quite a lot to offer as well.

Yeah, fair enough. I quite liked most of Neketaka, I have to say. But I would agree that Athkatla is the best. It's just really well done, even if the multitude of quests right after Chateau Irenicus can feel a bit overwhelming. I also agree with @Theonlygarby: Gilded Vale and the trees was a very striking start. Really, really good. Ghastly, but good. But then, I was slightly disappointed that even if I changed Gilded Vale rather a lot, nothing became of it later in the game. The whole place was just forgotten, although I did away with the tyrannical leader and so on.

From my point of view, it seems fairly simplistic to think that big cities are inherently better or worse than small cities. It's a question of content, balance and the quality of writing. Most things can be done well, but in fact most things are done in a fairly average way, simply because it is really quite difficult to do things well. Let's look at the question of cities in CRPGs. They're already a trope, almost a cliche: there has to be this one big major city in a game, the bustling place where you get the majority of your important quests and which acts as the central hub. Now, things definitely can work this way, no question, but nothing about this scenario is necessary. I think the fact that the "big city" idea has become a cliche in CPRGs suggests two things: 1) game developers tend not to be very creative, and 2) players are incredibly conservative and want the same thing over and over again, as long as it looks new and is updated for the newest graphics. I like pop songs. I like metal. I like challenging and polyrhythmic prog epics. I like piano pieces. I like symphonies. I even like enormous operas like Wagner's Ring. I like extremely simple folk songs. The bottom line is always: is it done well? Is it imaginative? The vast majority of everything is not, and CRPGs are not an exception.

Do you have other reasons for this apart from the fact that large cities tend to be able to overwhelm you with quests? I quite like large cities, as long as they're good. Athkatla is great, probably the best(*). Neverwinter could be good, but it's just so static that it is not very interesting. (*) Just think of all the stuff in Athkatla. Even the minor content. That horn in the bridge district, those slavers at the temple district, that lich at the gates...

Yep. Speaking of Hollywood, I can't resist putting in this extremely interesting piece of information: Hollywood films are no longer made for American audiences. They're made for Chinese audiences, which are much, much bigger. There have been some rather interesting cultural additions/omissions in Hollywood (re)releases because of this. The first one that comes to mind might be this: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/22/media/top-gun-flags-intl-hnk/index.html

Good point. I did have that, but I didn't get much past character creation. Anything in 3D is pretty much a no-no for me, it seems: I just can't get around the way the graphics get so repetitive so quickly, no matter how nice the various templates (if that's the word, probably isn't) look at first sight.

What's TTON? Sorry, I'm ignorant. I will buy all the "classical" RPGs that look promising. I hadn't heard of Serpent in the Staglands, so I went to check it out just on Youtube, and it looks rudimentary indeed. Not for me, but thanks for the tip. As for the entire list of "classical" RPGs that I have truly enjoyed, that's BG2, PoE, Deadfire and P:K. I have also played BG, IWD, IWD2, Temple of Elemental Evil, NWN and NWN2, but they are all somewhere between somewhat unsatisfying (IWD) and poor (BG, NWN2). Let's forget the Ultimas and the Phantasies of yesteryear, shall we.

My sense is that the question is a waste of time, because there ain't never gonna be no PoE3. I will be happy to be proven wrong, should that happen.