Pax

Ewoo? Ha! -Pax

So in other words, the story is so bad from going through the generic blender that you rewrite it yourself on the spot to enjoy the game.... I find it interesting that it is BECAUSE I have done that so many times that I have the opposite opinion from you. Hey, no fair arguing against points I didn't make. I don't think the story has to be generic, because the story is seperate from the PC dialog choices. The information that the NPCs provides can be just as fascinating and enthralling as anything ever written, I just like generic PC choices to dig through it with. 'Cause you know what? It's the NPC dialog that I'm looking to read. I read the PC lines just long enough to sort through them. It's a method for interacting with the NPCs, and I prefer a choice on how to go about it. -Pax

It seems as though the amount of VO in a game must be balanced with the amount it contributes. You have to determine how much money you can spend to get the point across and not sacrifice any valuable game features. I mean, the money spent to have the barwench in the non-essential area tell you the daily specials would be much better spent on some extra character art or something, right? VO is a luxury, and it's a luxury that most American CRPGs can't really afford. That said, I do find VOs to be greatly appreciated. Kerghan in Arcanum, the Transcendant one in PS:T, Horrigan in F2... hmm, I seem to like bosses with VO... but these are neato. I don't ever need to hear my own guy's voice, because, really I have the opposite opinion from Mercer. I prefer generic dialogue to canned-character-speaking, because I enjoy creating my own character and experiencing the game world through him or her. When the dialogue is generic enough, I can add my own voice (it's a lot like reading a book, I'd say), and have the voice in my head read the line however I want. I can interpet a generic line with whatever tone I desire. That said, I'm not excusing crappily done dialogue, or overly generic dialogue. I'm not always as witty as the character I'd like to be playing, so boring dialogue is the suck, but some tongue in cheek options, ala the Nameless One or Fallout Guy are appreciated. It seems to be preference though. Some enjoy making the character their own, and some enjoy being told a story from Avatar to Ze Bad Guy. I like my characters. -Pax

Yeah, I knew about that, but does it really seem likely to be on the scale of the type of game we hope Obsidian is making? Legends looks more like a platformer with character advancement. I seriously doubt there will be a rational plot that's anything but an excuse to fight all the villains the X-Men have ever encountered. You don't even get to create your own X-Man. Now THAT would be something. Make up your own mutant, join the X-Men, grow and learn. Options to be bad. If I'm wrong, sorry for the ignorance. Perhaps correction by PM if someone wants to harass me about it, so no more of this space is taken up with talk of games of off-topic-ism. Ah, additionally, to justify this post, I'll suggest, um... a caveman setting. Yes. Imagine the possibilities. Uh... a advancement-based invention tree. Fire. The Wheel. Pointy sticks. Witness as your partymembers Ugh, Burp, and Sabertoothed Dog fight beside you against such creatures as Mastodons, other Sabertoothed Dogs, and Evil Alien Geneticists. Or of course, you could just club that cute woman down the hill and drag her back to your cave. -Pax

There's a BIS vs. BIO war brewing? Shameful. Well, maybe just to me. When I first played Fallout, I disappeared for a month. When I first played KOTOR, I disappeared for a month. Who actually makes the games matters less to me. Hmm, seems somewhat offtopic. Perhaps I'll make it relevant... Ah... Oh, okay. Here goes. I want a game that makes me disappear for a month. I want a game that I can play 8 different times with 8 different characters of varying specialties and opinions and get 8 different reactions from the game world. It was hard to do this in KOTOR due to the overwhelming Jediness. I like Star Wars. I loved it a lot more before, say, Episode 1, but KOTOR brought some of it back. Jedi are neato. I'd play a Jedi if I had the chance. But Han Solo is cool too, and sometimes I wanna be Han Solo. Of course, in Star Wars, Jedi are the end-all, be-all, so it can be difficult, but that's okay, difficulty forges you in The Man. This was also hard to accomplish in, say, Fallout, too, however, due to a certain lack of specialties. If you wanted to make it to (or past) the end, you had to have power armor and a very large gun (especially in 2). There were a goodly amount of differences to be had, but you always end up looking like a robot. On a side note, have you ever looked at the character creators on Wrestling Games? They're often very indepth and insanely customisable. Wrestlemania XIX on the Gamecube is currently the best in my opinion, if someone wants to check it out. Personally, I would find it quite keen if an RPG came along with something of this nature. It wouldn't have to be nearly as detailed, but even a quarter of it would be some goodly customization. Maybe one with an armor system like PS:T, so you could design your entire look and not have to wear and change into the same styles of armor as everyone else. I seem to have run out of ideas for now. Later. -Pax

Is there a particular reason why a setting has to be fantasy/in the past or post apoc/in the future? Personally, I'd like to see an adventurous take on the modern day. Just because we don't have dragons or radscorpians in the modern day doesn't mean anything - it's not like they actually existed in the past or in some distopian future. Maybe a superhero RPG? That could be neato. Freedom Force with dialogue and less suck? Leveling up improves your super powers? Maybe something of an X-Men feel, where there's supervillainy and also ACTUAL problems. A modern Horror RPG, perhaps? Less "I'm a whiny bloodsucker" and more "I'm a guy, and there are nasty things that exist." I mean, there's the bloodsucker game being done by that other company, but that kind of thing just about falls into the same tired-and-difficult-to-freshen category as fantasy and post apoc. Things that go bump in the night aren't my idea of a modern setting. Okay, so maybe I'm a little biopolar on this one, but for some reason I'm thinking Predator: the RPG and getting tingly. Mostly I'd just be interested to see how the modern would could be translated to game navigation. An interstate map to travel between cities? Pawn shops becoming the most important sites in town? With the bars full of college students, where do you go for a sit down with other adventurers? Waffle house? Yeah, that. -Pax

I'd hardly think a sequel done by an entirely different company with an entirely different story would be repetitive... and besides, as long as someone's making Star Wars games (and you know they're gonna), they might as well be quality entertainment, right? -Pax