Ginthaeriel

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Clarke's Third Law Aren't all RPGs essentially escapist? Imagining yourself in a role totally alien to the mundane world where you live, where you are grander and greater beyond imagine, where you can effectively change the world and push your will upon it? Literature is the one realm where humans can truly play God-- where we are the only Author(ity). We play RPGs, read fantasy or scifi, watch television, and all other forms of escapist entertainment, so we can BE with a character that has control over their lives-- that are actively effecting change, while we are mired in a society that more often than not, tells us what to do every step of the way. But to do that, we need power. Escapist fiction- fiction which entertains the imagination with a world unlike ours- all require some means of power to change that world. You can't just have sharp eared ponces doing matrix bullet dives left and right without a reason. So that's what I'd like to discuss in this thread. As far as I can tell, there are really only two different fictional methods of advancement of power: Magic, or Technology. It can range from a mundane and slight change of power levels: a secret agent with top secret gadgets (tech) or a child gifted with a strange ability to talk with animals (magic). Or it can be epic, with world changing shifts in power: A post-apocalyptic future where technology has truly been man's undoing (Fallout), or a land ruled by great mages who shape the world as they see fit (Forgotten Realms). And if you think about it, although magic and technology can be very similar, they are also very different. Technology is egalitarian and society driven- once you invent it, everyone gets it. While magic is personal and heroic- only certain people are gifted with it, and it is they who must rise to the occasion. Technology is logical- if we can figure it out, we can conquer it. While Magic is imaginative- if you can dream it, you can do it. Technology is based on order: things follow rules, things make *sense*. Magic is based on chaos: anything is possible, so don't even try to control it. They're both forms of power, but they both got their own style. All power eventually comes down to morality, which is why it seems escapist fiction, more often than not, is all about a struggle between the good guys and the bad guys. What would you do with all that power? Do you use it selfishly, tyrannically imposing your will on the world, or do you use it righteously, finding responsibility and virtue in your power and using it to right that which is wrong? And so, I think if put in that context, the way technology and magic deal with morality would cast broad strokes on the very essence of the narrative or setting. Morality of the society is VERY different from morality of the individual. And if that's not enough, what happens when you combine both magic AND technology!? I don't think anybody really knows the answers to these kind of questions, or else a lot of fiction would become terribly boring. So the question I'd like to pose and discuss is: which one do you think is stronger in RPGs? Magic, or Technology, or Both?

Would you guys rather have a character that you could personalize, and make unique, at the expense of a weaker story (as not all stories will fit the character you imagine) or would you prefer to have a prebuilt character whose personality and motivations are more set in stone (and the game is more about guiding this character to success rather than "becoming" or "roleplaying" him) so that you can have a stronger story? Or perhaps something in between? A game where certain aspects of the character are defined, to clinch the character to a plot, but leave the rest up to you? But the problem that poses is that it's half half- the character is never really "yours", and the plot can never be *totally* believable.

Then can't Kerghan's plot be considered a derivation to a "conquer the world" type of deal? He's such an accomplished necromancer, it can't be hard to imagine him ruling over the underworld after killing everyone off. Your statement casts an overly general light on the plots of games, in my opinion. Can't it be argued that essentially, any villain in any game is really seeking to conquer, defeat or triumph over something or another? It just so happens to be the world in most cases. I believe that your character would have the option of claiming he was doing it for nothing but the revenge. That is a pretty weak motivation, and you're right. But at least wanting to rescue a childhood friend is a lot more believable than travelling across half the continent on foot to inquire a jewelry dealer about a ring that some dying stranger gave to you, just because of a prophecy you don't even believe, especially when ever since there have been more attempts on your life the further you go. Ah! But the character in Deus Ex was not YOUR character. He was J.C. Denton. He didn't look the way you looked, you couldn't dress him the way you want, his background was totally predefined, he didn't talk the way you wanted to talk... etc. So who's to say he would side with the guys YOU wanted to side with? The game sacrificed character freedom for character development, so that a *strong* narrative could be created. I never saw myself AS J.C. Denton, but rather, I was PLAYING as him. I was guiding him to success. I picked what paths he took, picked what skills he would excel at, his hair color and such, but I always looked at the narrative independent from the gameplay since it was clear from the outset that this was a man that someone else created. And it was a damn strong story. The same could be applied to the BG games: you were a bhaalspawn whether you wanted it or not. You grew up with Imoen whether you wanted it or not. So who's to say that the character, regardless of his race, gender, class, etc., wouldn't want to rescue his/her childhood friend... whether you wanted to, or not? I'll tell you who: the game developers, and they made the game so that you had to rescue Imoen. That's part of the plot. I guess it's a difficult thing for game developers to balance, really. Plot vs. Freedom. Linearity vs. Non-linearity. That has always been a very debatable issue in terms of gaming. Ah, but the Tranquilizer Gun and Acid Gun were both debuffs. Isn't the tranquilizer gun the same as reducing an enemies action points to zero, or just the technological equivalent of Entangle? And I've already mentioned entangle as a tactical measure. The acid gun was a Damage over Time, the Molotov was an Area of Effect, and the knife was a melee attack. The last three are all parallel ways of dealing damage. You could paralyze the guy and then throw a molotov, or you could paralyze him and then stab him, but there is not much advantage to alternating between doing both, and one was likely better than the other. After the initial tranquilizer gun shot, it boiled down to throw, throw, throw or stab, stab, stab. The idiot savant background only gave a good starting boost to intelligence and gambling (which has got nothing to do with combat). Given the debilitating effect it has on dialogue, I'll venture to guess that you did not bother spending any points on persuasion, haggle, charisma or beauty (especially since this is a solo build). The penalties it offers to the physical stats meant that you probably had to use most of your points to boost up your melee and dodge skills. So in the end, is your character any different from your general tech-meleer? I've already mentioned Entangle as a tactical measure, but Poisonous Vapors is really just a damage-over-time area-of-effect spell. Once the duration runs out, you'd have to cast it again anyways, and given its pistpoor damage, I believe you'd have to cast it many times to kill things. It returns to the same formula: vapors, vapors, vapors, only with more time in between the intervals. Hardened Hands is no different from equipping yourself with a melee weapon, only it costs fatigue every time you use it. Congeal Time is no different from suddenly having lots more dexterity/action points relative to your enemy. And in the end, it returns to a bash, bash, bash fest. Flame, flame, flame, axe, axe, axe, toss, toss, toss Just about all combat in the game is skippable with persuasion or stealth, and the only encounters required are likely covered by your allies, who you ought to have lots of with high charisma to increase persuasion in the first place. It is a different approach at the game, yes, and one of the highly positive aspects of the game (the freeform non-linearity which I commended from the very outset), but it's got nothing to do with combat. Excuse my whole "you're screwed if you don't..." thing, I'm just a flagrant exaggerator at times, and I apologize for that. I've been trying to control it ever since my first post, but apologies if some slips through at times. I remember saying that ranged combat was inferior to melee combat, but I never said that if you didn't focus on it and ignore it in favor of melee, it wasn't a viable way of getting through the game. My "screwed" comments were to trying to take both paths at the same time, since you could never effectively combine ranged attacks and melee attacks to output even more damage. As I said, with a miracle operation character who put all his points into firearms related skills from the outset, I managed to clear the tarant sewers at around level 25. It took a LOT of reloads, but I did it. Wall of Fire is just a stationary Area of Effect spell, and I guess it's creative to be throwing enemies into them with unseen force, but I can't say it's deep. It's not specifically countering anything... and it really ends up not much different from a normal fireflash mage, only much more ineffective. Also, how many places did it really work? But in the end, it's still taken down into a "force, force, force" scenario. How many places would your placing traps method really work? It certainly wouldn't work for random encounters. It'd be difficult in the city and most of the general areas. Dungeons seemed pretty difficult to manuever around using only prowl... and having even one NPC would screw up your entire strategy. And did your traps really take care of all the enemies completely? I remember the traps taking up nearly four spaces, could you really carry that many traps with you at a time? It sounds a lot more like a situational gimmick. The insane number of variables in Arcanum means that there are plenty of gimmicks to be had. For example, I've heard one person who used the Reflection Shield bug to permanently Dominate Will on every female character in the game. He would ask them all to wait around all across the map, and whenever he encountered bad guys, he would quickly run to the nearest Dominated girl, plant some explosives on her (I think the Time Bomb, Dynamite or Plastique?), and send her into a kamikaze doom. And the aforementioned ogre who threw boulders as a main form of attack is also quite a gimmick. But a gimmick does not constitute an effective combat strategy, and it does not equal deep combat. But you couldn't control when you could cripple an enemy: they were random based off of critical hits, I believe? I don't think there were any called shots in Arcanum, or maybe I'm mistaken, it's been a while. But did injuries really affect anything all that much? "Oh no! I've scarred the putrid rodent." Crippling attacks usually didn't mean anything since if you're dealing that many critical hits so consistently, you must have a very high melee skill, thus anything you were fighting would probably be dead before they could even TRY to run away.

Hmm... why didn't you like PS:T, pray tell?

Actually, sometimes it does. Prince of Persia didn't sell very well, but Warrior Within sold much better. The original game had a small but enthusiastic following, with word of mouth allowing more copies to be sold at a reduced price later on. That collective awareness of the quality of the original title helped the sequel sell even more at full price (regardless of the sequel's quality). EDIT: Also, development costs are sometimes lower because a lot of technology from the first title provides a solid base for moving forward. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Like which? Sure, linear games are boring and constrictive, but at least things made sense there, and you were actually moved by the story. Not to mention the fact that the Fallouts, games which were even freer than Arcanum, and much older yet made by the same guys had a much more believable (albeit cliched) character motivation. I would be a lot less harsh on Arcanum if it was made by some polish upstarts who had no clue about games. But it was incredibly disappointing to be coming from Tim Cain, whose previous effort (fallout) was far superior. Not only that, but the sheer amount of touting that Troika does, and the resulting blame game they play after the release of the game, is also pretty grating. But I'll give you that Bloodlines was a major step in the right direction, and I actually liked the first 2/3rds of Bloodlines a lot more than Arcanum: especially the plot! If anyone can come up with a more hated antagonist than LaCroix, I would congratulate them. Although I first hit the really crappy Camarilla-Lost Ark ending, the Smiling Jack's Bomb ending was just friggin' awesome. Plus, the subplots were really good too, like Tourette. If they only didn't sew on a crappy FPS to the end of it. *sigh* At least the complex options were available. Sure, many players would decide to just forgo the effort of using their more complex techniques in lieu of an easy encounter, but that was the player's decision. In Arcanum, you were pigeonholed to the most basic of combat tactics, and sure, if you built your character and wasted... I mean used... enough character points to allow for two different methods of reducing HP, then you could switch between the two. But there was no depth. A lot more variety than Arcanum. You had a myriad of interesting characters who all had very unique abilities, even if it was not necessary to use them. Litany of Curses, Skull Mob, Dak'kon's spells, FFG's spells, using Annah to backstab, Ignus' spells, TNO's MANY spells, etc... There were options, and it was, again, the character's discretion whether or not to utilize them. I'm not saying PS:T's combat was good. Far from that. It sucked. But at least it was better than Arcanum's combat. And that is a very, very, very bad thing for a game to be. What if the enemies went straight for your mages? What about your backstabbers? You could also use AoE attacks to handle too many creatures coming at you. Many of the more complex, yet incredibly powerful mage/warrior builds (try downloading the Solaufein mod for example, and playing through the Eclipse party) required the most elegant of tactics and buffs even against simple creatures, but if done right they could decimate anything. You're looking at this from a perspective in which you only take combat to the point where you can beat the game. The point is, the variety EXISTED. Think about all the possible solo builds for Baldur's Gate 2. I even went in pretty far with a solo Kensai/Thief once, focusing totally on backstabs. It took a LOT of reloads for me to get my hit-and-fade patterns correct, and for some encounters I had to drink entire stacks of invisibility potions... but the option was there. Elmonster's Journal was a good example of how incredibly deep the combat could take you, if you chose to delve. In Arcanum... the variety just doesn't exist. All of the spells were either useless and/or did not add any tactical complexity to the game. The closest thing to a tactical spell I can think of is Entangle. That's it. There were so many spells, yet all of them were just the same thing with different numbers, especially all the damage dealing spells. What the hell difference was there between stone throw and harm? Quench life and bolt of lightning? The melee/ranged combat was even more simplistic, consisting of nothing but clicking (whether it was a bow or a sword, it was the same thing: only at different distances), and technology only gave you items. Alright, let me use an analogy here: If Arcanum's combat system were to be brought online into a competitive environment, how much more difficult do you think high level play would be compared to low level play? Now imagine if any other game's combat system were to be brought into a competitive environment, and compare the learning curves. You'll find that in actuality, Arcanum doesn't even HAVE a learning curve. All competitive matches would be something like... Gun Technologist: *shoot* *shoot* *shoot* Meleer: *slash* *slash* *slash* Mage: *harm* *harm* *harm* And I'm not even exaggerating. Arcanum's combat was like playing CS except without the twitch. You could only pick one weapon at the start of the round, you're stuck with that weapon pretty much, MAYBE if you're rich enough, you could buy two, and you just basically point and click. You're free to prove me wrong, however. And if you do, I will commend you because you just gave me a reason to try playing Arcanum again. Describe some advanced tactical options which Arcanum offers, that actually offers some clear advantage (so nothing stupid like creating an ogre with twenty strength and max throwing ability, and throwing the 5000 stone boulders from the quest for the tasks for the farmer in Ashbury... not that that's even any different from making a normal throwing character who uses the Aerial Decapitator) and I will put "I got owned by Role-player" in my signature for a month. And I'm serious. Okay, perhaps I was a bit too hasty in that statement. Maybe I should have said screwed against the tougher encounters in the game (as just about all combat is skippable). I had to use a Miracle Operation character, who devoted just about all her points up until level 25 into perception, firearms and dexterity for speed, use a fate point to pickpocket the hand cannon from Sammie White (the FIRST decent firearm in the game), AND use the realtime/pause switch exploit to even get through the Tarant Sewers without at least like, fifty reloads. Also: did those two attack methods really even play very differently? It all really boiled down to who had the most damage per action points. The points it took to run up to a monster itself was negligible. Except the problem was they played exactly alike. Shoot, shoot, shoot or hack, hack, hack. Weapon of choice indeed. The fact that one was so much WORSE at the same thing only exaberates the situation. I need to remember that mild hyperbole has no place in a forum... >< The only creatures I can think of that used ranged were the Kite Bowmans and Tattered Bowmans. They were easily dispatched whether you used melee or ranged, because they stood stock still even if you ran up to them with a nasty axe in your hand. And in their case, The only enemies I can think of that used spells AT ALL were the Schuylers, Kite Shamen, Kerghan, Elf Bandit in the Sewers and maybe some friendly NPCs if you chose to attack them. In most cases, they would only cast a single damn spell (usually an annoying buff like Body of Fire that only turned them into a fire elemental, or maybe ONE harm or entangle which really had no effect on the battle at all) and then rush in to start wailing with their fists. Even Arronax never cast any spells, at least not when I played with him. Ten character points is a helluva lot more than two, is all I'm saying. And Unlocking Cantrip only needed some clever positioning: straight out lockpicking meant you were usually forced to be right next to the NPC in question. The point is, the game was terribly unbalanced. Unlocking Cantrip vs. Lockpicking was just an example I highlighted. Are you going to disagree with the statement that Arcanum was terribly unbalanced?

I'm not saying that the main story arc is restricting the ability for one to explore the gameworld. If that were true, then I doubt I would have liked Arcanum at all. I like Arcanum. I just felt that the main story arc was extremely poorly implemented, and in order to progress in the game you had to go through with it (even though you could choose when to), which is why I always put it off to the end in the game. Hence my statement that once you're done exploring the gameworld, and had to go tackle the main quest, it ended up no longer being fun. Ah then I guess we disagree. I felt the Arcanum main quest was quite constrictive compared to the Fallout games, and those were games made like, five years ago. Troika implemented open-ended gameplay very well, but then they implemented everything else poorly: and I guess I wouldn't have minded if it were not for the fact that Troika forced us to endure the crap they screwed up. I'd argue that was a copout. It's easy enough to make the main villain insane, so that you can justify any of his actions to his insanity. Totally rational main villains though, create much more ambiguity, interest and sympathy. It was so clear that Kerghan was off his rocker that I just about never played through a game in the pathetic "evil ending" that Troika offered us. I did reload a very old game once, just to see how things turned out, but that was it. Well I hate the generic "conquer the world" plots too, but if Troika was trying to create moral ambiguity (and it's clear that they tried or else there wouldn't be several endings) then they failed miserably, and I would prefer a campy, cheesy "conquer the world" plot in that case instead of the ridiculous plot offered. I guess what it boils down to is that I think Troika were NOT accomplished writers, and so they ought to have stuck to something a bit easier to write for. Besides, how many games these days use the "conquer the world" plot any more? Well, only once: in that hallucination where he appeared to you while you were heading for the Wheel Clan or BMC mines. Everything else was just straight up Molochean Hand, plain old monsters who just happened to get in your way or Dark Elves. All of whom were deceived and none the wiser the whole time as well. I guess for me, it was just a case of too many twists syndrome. For example: LOST... I felt that got ridiculous after the revelation of Hurley's curse. Let me count the twists in Arcanum: 1. Stennar was a dwarf, 2. The BMC Clan was betrayed by their own race, the Wheel Clan 3. The BMC wasn't in the isle of despair, 4. Loghaire was manipulated by the Dark Elves, actually 5. Nasrudin isn't actually a god, but just a crusty old curmudgeon, 6. It was really Kerghan. It just got to be a bit tiring, eventually. It felt like my character was being sent back and forth, here and there, never told the truth, never told much of anything really, sent to do meaningless trivial tasks like finding a stupid book, with the importance of his actions never revealed until the very end in which it all sort of felt thrown together as Troika tied up all the loose ends. The plot twists weren't done very dramatically too, and I never felt they were executed well (see my comment about how the BMC mines could have used some sprucing up). It felt like I was tricked into a giant, meaningless fed-ex quest, actually. Plus, the myriad of endless dungeons to trudge through did not help as well. Did you or him equip any alignment changing items, like the Dark Helm? That thing knocks your alignment down twenty points permanently every time you put it on. Infact, the specific dark helm that the Lord of the Damned wore actually increased your magical aptitude permanently everytime you wore it too. That was something I remember a lot of people exploited: they would put that dark helm on and off some aptitude neutral fighters, like Sogg Mead Mug, to get them to be able to wear magical weapons and armor with the greatest efficiency. A deal that turned out to be totally fake. Not to mention the fact that I felt like I was lead along by Elder Joachim, yet another one of those annoying NPCs that were put in just to "keep you in the right track" (others include Raven, Gilbert Bates, the first acolyte of the Panarii Church, Silver Lady- who was SUPER annoying, etc.) I found it hard to believe Virgil was still steadfast in his belief that I was the reincarnation of Nasrudin, an elven mage, a force of virtue, wisdom and unparalleled goodness, when my moronic half-ogre went around slaying babies with a rusty claymore.

Then I guess I don't feel the same way. I always explored everywhere before I started trudging along the main quest, and I felt the main quest's chain of events was pretty weak in the tasks required from the player. Especially looking for the "horror amongst the dark elves" book, having to delve through all those endless dungeons like the dredge and BMC mines, etc. I felt like Gilbert Bates' lapdog through most of the game. I felt the lead up to Arronax was pretty weak, imo. First mention of him was from a prophecy that no one believed in, and then a hallucination. Most of the time you're fighting Molochean Hands, and all we got from that was a half-hearted encounter with Gideon Laier. The "G.L" notes all intrigued me very much, and I was disappointed with the sudden, abrupt and brief conversation. Another third of the game involved the dark elves, and K'an Hua or whatever her name is, but all we really knew of her was through correspondence. When we finally met her in T'sen Ang, that too was a pretty disappointing encounter. The Nasrudin twist was nice, I'll admit. It was pretty cool having such a great and powerful figure revealed to be a crusty old curmudgeon. But I felt the Arronax twist was just too much: and Arronax was annoying as all hell too. He was a pompous, airheaded, whiny twit who had a voice actor deserving of death. Maybe its just that there were one too many deceptions through the plot and I just got jaded: I was half expecting Kerghan to do a 180 and have me find out that the actual endboss was Ristezze from Shrouded Hills. It just felt kind of annoying to go to the Isle of Despair and find only one stupid dwarf there. I don't think Red Herrings have much place in a game: Red Herrings are usually used to build suspense without ending a narrative just quite yet. But the problem is that games can be played at your own pace, so that really doesn't have as strong an effect: it only serves to frustrate. Maybe I was just annoyed by the dungeon hack that was the BMC mines (with all those damn Seething Masses and Ore Golems that kept damaging my equipment!) but by the time I got to the mad dwarf, I wanted to hit him. I think that if Troika added a bunch of visual cues, such as blood splattered on the walls, debris from explosions, elf and dwarf skeletons here and there, magick items that have no place in a dwarf clan home, and other clues that made the player think "What the hell happened here?" it would have made me much more intrigued to the plight of the clan. But as it turned out for me, it just ended up being another annoying dungeon. To each his own I guess. I wouldn't call his backstory well-designed. So he got his brother killed because of his gambling debts, and then went into a monastery to atone. Hmph. Like no other heroes have lost a family member in their past before, sometimes as a result of their own mistakes? (*cough* Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne, Maximus Decimus Meridius, the new Sam Fisher in SC4, Simba, Tidus, Viconia, the Punisher, Robin, Luke and Anakin Skywalker, Edward and Alphonse Elric, Fox McCloud, Harry Potter and... um... *cough?*) I also don't see how that makes him malleable: shouldn't he derive conviction and strength from his loss? Instead, he just becomes even more unstable and insecure... well that's wonderful, that most certainly a likeable guy. We don't even really care that much about his brother: Lawrence's grave was all we saw of him. Uncle Ben was a kindly old man struggling to connect with his ward, Mr. Wayne was a philanthropist, Mufasa was a role model for Simba, Viconia's brother sacrificed himself to save her, Luke's dad was DARTH VADER who ultimately redeemed himself in the end, Harry Potter's mom sacrificed herself to save him, etc. Lawrence? What the heck did he do? He just stood around and let himself get killed. In the end, Virgil's quest boiled back down to your plain old vanilla vengeance story. Boring and cliched, in my opinion. I felt Gar, Magnus and Torian Kel all had way more fascinating stories than Virgil. An intelligent, selfless man trapped in the body of a monster, a wandering vagrant dwarf rebelling against his family to seek his ancestors, an undead warrior from another time... otoh, Virgil was just a whiny, failed, carbon copied loser. At least, imo. Yet WHO was the one who got the most dialogue, and WHO were the ones who barely said anything? *sigh* Not really. The Master's supermutant raids had been a recurring element throughout the story, and at least things were more straightforward there than in Arcanum. Kerghan really just does jump out from behind Arronax's back and yell "Peek-a-boo!" At least the Master also had a well built backstory as Richard Grey, a once altruistic doctor who was strangely convicted of murder, who even befriended the good old Harold. A man whose body was warped in a tub of radiated viral crap into a monstrous goo-like thing. A man who sought progress, the evolution of the human race in an irradiated, and hopeless land, rather than some suicidal, nihilistic loser philosophy like Kerghan. The Master had so much more documentation than Kerghan, and thus he evoked a lot more sympathy and hatred. If you're talking about the Overseer forbidding you to reenter Vault 13, well that is more like a betrayal villain: you actually knew the overseer from the outset. You didn't even have to kill the overseer. Kerghan however, just popped, literally, out of the void.

There's that Tremere bald guy who asks you to complete that plagued vampire quest... that bald guy... Maximillian Strauss I believe his name was. I believe if you complete his quest, he'll let you go into the upstairs room in the tremere building downtown...

What I meant by exploring was the non-linear freeform exploring portion of the game. Take the Fallout games for example, you could beat them in half an hour if you knew where to go and what to do: becuase the game was just so free that you could tackle what you wanted, when you wanted. But Arcanum had a set track, a linear pathway that was, quite frankly, not very exciting at all. Shrouded Hills->P.Schuyler's->Gilbert Bates->Black Mountain Mines->Isle of Despair->Wheel Clan->Stillwater->Qintarra->Ashbury->Caladon->Roseborough->T'sen Ang->Thanatos->The Void. Not only were most of these steps unavoidable, but the way was pretty much drawn out for you. In the Fallouts, people would tell you where several locations were, but it was up to you to get the clues and eventually figure out the whole thing. But in Arcanum, many places, such as Caladon, wouldn't even show up on your map until it was time for the player to do so in the game. That part was not fun, it was contrived. The character never really did anything for himself, he just kept carrying on the tasks of several "waypointers", such as Raven and Gilbert Bates. When the character was venturing across the land however, THAT was fun. It felt like the weak, cowardly suicidal whinings of an emo kid hidden in philosophical pretenses behind a big bad monster, to me. Killing everyone so that they'd all no longer suffer is like killing yourself so you won't suffer anymore, only taken to a hyperbolic extreme in some illogical jump. We never understand Kerghan's internal motivations: only his external ones. How much personality can you put behind a purely altruistic, albeit warped, motive? In the end, Kerghan became neither sympathetic, NOR repulsive: he was just another guy you had to kill. Exactly like your standard world-conquering villain. An antagonist doesn't need to be outright revealed to the player, but there *has* to be some sort of *lead-up* to the villain. The entire game of Arcanum, you were being taunted and terrorized by the wrong guy. What an ineffectual plot twist! "Oh yeah, we SAID that you were SUPPOSED to kill THIS guy, but no actually you have to kill THAT guy instead. This guy is actually pretty nice." The various supermutants were an ethereal threat that made the master all the more convincing and horrible and grand (not to mention the master has a MUCH more sympathetic story than Kerghan). The Molochean Hand, the prime harrassers of your character on your journey in Arcanum, however, ended up being nothing but a bunch of hired idiots. You exchanged a few nice words with their leader, Gideon Laier, and then parted ways. What a let down. The Dark Elves never touched you, it was you who had to raid their camp. I never had any sympathy for the Black Mountain Clan at all, either: Stennar's exposition was so vague, and the circumstances surrounding them were so shrouded in mystery, that all the red herrings and wild goose chases I had to go through to find them (such as going to the Isle of Despair for absolutely no reason) just made me mad. Amelissan was actually your closest helper in Throne of Bhaal, and the fact that she betrayed you was what made her so loathable. Kerghan, on the other hand, was just whipped out at you in the last, final bits of the game. At least a betrayer has had bearing on the plot from the start. But Kerghan was more like if Amelissan suddenly took off her mask to reveal she was actually Bob the Grey-Livered, and then the REAL Melissan joined your party to fight Bob. Because that's exactly what happened with Arronax. If you look at Virgil's character sheet at various points in the game, you'll find that his alignment meter would be exactly the same as the PC's, right down to the smallest integer. He conformed in every sense of the word. That would apply to every character EXCEPT Virgil. Virgil NEVER leaves. Ever. You could piss magnus off if you killed too many bunny rabbits, you could piss Torian Kel off if you were too much of a goody two shoes, but Virgil stayed by your side. What interjections are you talking about? If I recall, half of all the conversations I had with that idiot consisted of him saying "I don't want to talk about it!" and that was it. It was hard enough to figure out who Virgil was in the first place, most of the game you had no idea who he was. By the time Virgil actually goes off to redeem himself, the PC has NO influence upon him at all. The moment you step off of T'sen Ang Virgil just says "I gotta go!", and then you find him dead in the basement of some bar. Virgil changed his alignment to fit yours, resulting in his bland personality, yet despite that, your character had absolutely no effect on him. He redeemed himself either way, even if he had -100 alignment. Thus as a character, he failed. Miserably.

Fine, I'll give you that. But I would argue that the plot is so convoluted and uninteresting that not too many people would even bother to put it all together and make sense of it in the first place. I mean, hunting down the last copy of a commercially paper back book? Plumbing the depths of a... jewelry dealer?? All because a starved dwarf who cut off his beard gave you a ring and said "find the boy". The only incentive I would think for any player character to go through the main quest is to stop the Molochean Hand from attempts at the character's life. But unfortunately, the Molochean Hand was nothing more than a bunch of throwaway henchmen cannon fodder that were only hired by the dark elves. The Gideon Laier encounter felt really tacked on. By the time the PC realized he had to "save the world" after meeting nasrudin, there were so many senseless things he had to do in between that it no longer made any sense why YOUR character was involved. Again, I feel Troika tried to make the game *too* free, and thus main character motivations were lost completely because Troika had no idea WHO the main character was and WHY they were doing what they were doing. Wrong. Even Diablo 2 had more variety in combat than this game. At least in Diablo 2, you could integrate teleports, shields, and multiple spells and attacks to the gameplay. Even PS:T had much more interesting combat, if TNO was a mage. Baldur's Gate 2 had all manners of spell combos, and the fact that you could control a squad of characters opened up all sorts of tactical possibilities. I'm not even going to compare Arcanum to Guild Wars. Even Counter-strike has many tactics, methods of fighting, headshot proficiency, camping, sniping, etc. Fighting games have nearly infinite strategies and tricks for pulling off high damage comboes and tons of delay-attack oriented mindgames. Perhaps "method" is a misnomer. More like, once you develop a certain *move*, all combat is basically you spamming that move again and again. It's not about the *variety* of the combat, but the *depth*. What? Developing only certain skills is *in itself* limiting. The combat system in Arcanum meant that if you didn't focus on only one method of attack, you were pretty much screwed. Light melee attacks beat up just about everything. What? Did we play the same game? Bow and firearms just sucked so much compared to melee and magic, that you'd have to invest a great deal of points to get them to actually work. And since ALL the enemies in the game did the same thing: rush up to you and start bashing away, melee is the obvious choice, even for a melee/ranged character. Magic also never missed. Did you even use the disintegrate spell? All the enemies had the same attack pattern: rush up and start bashing. Even Arronax, the supposed great elven mage, would rush at Kerghan with his puny little fists. The only physically resistant enemies in the game were the golem-type creatures, and only a magic user had the means to really take them out easily, so most characters simply opted to take them out with physical damage anyways. Even the most magic resistant monsters in the game, like the automatons, were instantly killed by Disintegrate. The combat in Arcanum was a joke. I picked just about every lock with Unlocking Cantrip, and I found it was just about as easy to be detected between both skills. Only the NPCs were always right next to the chest or cabinet you needed to pick, which meant to successfully lockpick, you not only had to invest five points into lockpicking, but five points into prowling. That's *ten* points vs. the *two* points it takes to get unlocking cantrip, which only requires some tricky timing and proper distancing to pick locks. More often than not, the location would probably work in favor of unlocking cantrip. Have you tried casting unlocking cantrip through an open door? If you cast it even when next to an NPC, the NPC might not attack: they'd only attack if they were the owner of what you were unlocking, or a guard.

No, that sounds cliched. Like a half-demon demonhunter (*cough* dante *cough*), or a half-vampire vampire hunter (*cough* blade *cough*). Throw in lots of angst about how the hero is conflicted about his "true inner nature" vs. his moral motivations for hunting the creatures of his own blood, put in some archenemy who is basically the exact same as him in terms of abilities, but who takes the opposite philosophy and chooses to embrace his monstrous heritage, put in a conflict involving the hero's family (there is *inevitably* going to be some conflict in this area). Not complicated. Not fun. Done to death.

Just melee everything, actually. Melee is way powerful in this game, much more so than firearms. Everything melees YOU, anyways. Though I would go with the uzi, I think. It's not worthless getting firearms though, because you'll really need it for the endboss. Boost your Auspex discipline, the only real discipline that is really exclusive to the Toreador, because it can improve your hacking skill, and improve your firearms, both of which seem like skills you want to invest in. Also, I *believe* the bushhook is better than the katana, slightly. I may be wrong.

My original intent of this thread was to actually explore the financial viability of a PST remake. I've played the original game, and that's enough for me. But I feel it's damn unjust that such talent is not recompensated. Also, I'd think a PST remake, if done well and popularized, would actually breath back life into the RPG genre and reinstate the virtues of a GOOD RPG back into the mainstream. That isn't going to happen, because no publishers are going to fund games like that. If a game developer tells a publisher that they want to make a game based on a formula created by a game that was a financial disaster, their chances of getting funding are slim to none. I would think, however, that if a game developer wants to remake a game with XXX number of awards, only with better graphics, they would seem more likely to accept. But that's the point. If a remake is successful, then future developers will be inclined to, as you say, "follow this particular formula, and give us a good stream of RPGs that are just as great."

Arcanum was, at first taste, a treat for me. It was so fascinating being able to create so many characters, the setting fascinated me, and the sheer freedom and many options just astounded me. I could get absorbed playing for hours on end. I'll always remember first exploring Tarant. Sadly, now that I've known every nook and cranny of the place after having played through so many times, it has lost its magic. Of course, every now and then I do read through the walkthrough and am suprised at how much I've forgotten or what I've left unexplored. But I just can't get through shrouded hills again. The problem was... the game was extraordinarily dull once you got the hang of things and there was no more exploration or openendedness. Once you got into Qintarra and were locked pretty much into the main quest, there wasn't much you could do. And the main quest was, despite the plot twists, just awful. The story made no sense, and did not excite. You were basically a survivor of a Zeppelin Crash, whisked away on all manners of tasks, and it was all somehow supposed to come together. The motivations just did not exist. "All I want to do is just stop people from trying to kill me"? Reluctant heroes are brilliant when pulled off well, but sadly this is not one of those cases. And the combat was awful! It was so easily exploited. Having trouble with the slime demons in the old sewers? Just turn on realtime mode and click as fast as possible (if you're using a ranged attack, such as Harm or Firearms). They walk too slowly for them to even reach you before you've made short work of them. Also, once you've developed one particular method of fighting, that was it for the rest of the game. You just spammed whatever attack that was, whether it was melee, disintegrate, or guns. And the character system, although so flexible and wonderful, was so imbalanced and counter-intuitive. Beauty was the most worthless stat in the world, and character reaction meant nothing. With a sufficient intelligence, you could convince anyone to treat you like a normal person. Picking "Beat with an Ugly Stick" as a background feels almost like cheating. Why did constitution increase fatigue but not health? Why did WILLPOWER increase health? No matter how determined you are, if you get shot in the head you get shot in the head: depart from the mortal coil immediately. It seems like it should have been the other way around, then it makes sense because spellcasters could actually have some mana to use instead of falling unconscious all the time. But asides from that, mages were way overpowered. Wait for ten minutes (time has no meaning in this game) and your mana is back up. Mana potions were all over the place, though, and there was absolutely NO place to spend any of your money (good equipment is either found or made) so a harm-happy mage could defeat anything. Unlocking Cantrip was so much better than lockpicking it was ridiculous: not only did it almost never fail, but you could do it from a distance, or "locksnipe", and not get anyone hostile on you (try it in the Tarant Panarii Temple). The game got boring real quick once you got past exploring the world. It was ridiculously easy to get to level 50, and your character if built right (20 str, 20 dex, 5 melee and 5 dodge) could level anything in its path at level 25, even the end boss. And the plot sucked! Talk about a ridiculous main villain motive. And talk about poor antagonization: the main villain was basically a stranger until the point where they whipped him out to fight you. I didn't even really feel like finishing the game at that point. And the characters had promise, but ended up being poorly developed. I felt Magnus was a pretty interesting character: a city dwarf with a lost clan, an unfortunate, sullen poseur seeking to regain the glory that was his birthright, only to discover there was more behind his lineage than he ever thought possible. But he never talked! Then there was Virgil. Ahgh. Virgil was made into the blandest character in the history of gaming: his ALIGNMENT even conformed to yours. His character was built to have absolutely zero tech/magic bias, and so he became weak at everything except some pathetic healing. Why on earth did Troika think it was a good idea to create a joinable NPC that could complement *any* character? He ends up losing any character of his own. The point about Joinable NPCs is that we can *pick* who our allies are! His backstory was promising, nonetheless, though it ultimately failed. A fallen, disillusioned soul, blinded and begging for salvation in a religion that he soon learns is false, but becoming a stronger person as a result of his journey. That would have worked immensely well if the annoying twit wasn't polite as a sycophant, insecure as a teenaged schoolgirl, cowardly, spineless, malleable in character to the point of being nearly schizophrenic and STILL pretty silent to boot! It's so easy to create an anti-heroic persona, now that the concept is being abused to the point of clichehood in the media, and Troika managed to screw that up. I think Troika's problem was one of arrogance. The very name of the company was based off the fact that there were three "horses" pulling a carriage: and really, at first glance a team composed of Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson does sound sort of like a "Fallout dream team". But they were so full of themselves that they forgot to address some of the issues that even Fallout suffered from, they were too busy touting their "freedom" and were blinded by thinking that open-endedness alone could "revolutionize" the genre. Just look at the logo: "Design. Art. Code." What they forgot was the *story*. They were sloppy too: and you can see all the bugs that riddled the first version of the game. After Arcanum and ToEE (the latter of which must have REALLY brought their egoes down as the "hardcore fanbase" they believed they were making their game for ultimately let them down over aspects they made to accomodate them- like the identify crap) I think they were humbled enough to start cranking out really GOOD work, like Bloodlines. But then they ran out of money, Bloodlines was hastily finished so that the ending was crap and still had tons of bugs, and then it was game over for them. Troika could have been so much more, yet it ended up being so much less. It's a pity. Also, I want another Steampunk game. Badly.

Now we know that the Planescape is a dead setting, and there's no way we could possibly have a line-by-line PS:T remake. But what if the game was retooled to work in an original setting? It really doesn't seem that hard. Turn the mortuary into a "Necropolis", change the Upper and Lower Wards into the "Slums" and "Noble's Area". Rename a bunch of characters, take out the portals and merge them into normal methods of transportation (for example, that mini undead maze in sigil with the big necromancer wannabe lich boss at the end- who wanted a drop of your blood- could have been turned into just an underground maze instead of residing in a totally different plane). Crop out all the background setting dialogue that added excessive and boring text to an already text heavy game, allowing the actual good dialogue to shine through (I really don't care for what exactly a "berk" or "cutter" is, not that anyone ever really SAID it that much in the game, asides from Annah and Morte). Etc. If anything, this gives the freedom for a retooling of the setting and so the creative freedom could improve on the game: maybe even spawning an entire new IP. With a majority of the design docs completed and written, and most of the text already written and proofread, and even concept art, entire sections of the development could be lifted straight from the existing game. If it's possible, couldn't even the scripting from the dialogue trees be recycled, allowing for entire dialogue trees to move? This would cut back on so much time in the dev cycle, that it would save a ton of money. Spend the extra resources focusing on making the game better, such as much better graphics, and much better combat. PST was a beautiful game: imagine it rendered in today's technology. This would make the game much more palatable to the wider audience. The "weirdness" of the art and setting is not as much of a hindrance to sales these days. Think about the Legacy of Kain series of games: Raziel, in general character design, resembled a bonier, grosser, naked, neutered TNO and yet this design seemed to be one of the more iconic aspects that lead to the success of that series of games. Furthermore, the engine and combat system could be used in another game, so if the remake fails yet AGAIN in sales, not all is lost. With so many freed resources, there should be lots of money left to put in cutscenes and hire strong voice casting talent, thus cutting out a LOT of the text. These days, in-engine 3d rendering means that boatloads of cash need not be sacrificed for FMV. Many games, including the GTA games which really have CRAPPY graphics, have all cutscenes rendered with the game engine. Combine that with all the critical acclaim the game has gotten, and it is hard to imagine any published that wouldn't want to pick it up. Hell, it is considered one of gamespot's top 100 games of all time. Imagine putting THAT on a game trailer! One of the greatest games of all time... is coming back. Torment: Reincarnation. I know I'd buy it. And given that the games been out for nearly half a decade now, and considered a cult classic, the word of mouth should have spread far and wide enough for lots of old fans to create a body of guaranteed sales. Also, consider that it already has a strong fanbase, and I'd think a pretty rabid one at that, considering the game's mistreatment: It's touted as one of the best games of all time yet failed financially. I would think the fans' urging of their friends to pick it up the second time around would in itself be formidable marketing. It's a pretty safe bet: guaranteed success due to it's impressive reputation, and low costs due to the fact that most of the work has already been done. Considering all that really needs work is the graphics and other superficial qualities of the game, all which can be recycled for other games, it's basically a no-lose proposition. Comments?

Combat was not why the Fallout games rocked. It was the freedom, and the sheer options available to you to complete tasks. Combat was one of those options, and also the most boring one. Fallout rocked because of everything else. Also, Grenades should have been put into an "Explosives" skill category, that would aslo affect usage of rocket launchers, mines, explosive traps, maybe flamethrowers, etc. Traps would be how well you could conceal traps period, including explosive traps, as well as how well you could spot and disarm traps. This leaves traditional throwing weapons free to be merged with melee weapons. It doesn't make that much sense, since the skills governing the usage of a rocket launcher and a grenade are rather different; but at least it *sounds* like it does and it certainly seems balanced at initial glance. After all, you still need to have a general course on how explosives work to really utilize both weapons. Plus, throwing grenades is not really the same thing as being able to put a dagger between the eyes of a guy standing thirty feet away. Gameplay over realism. I would have loved to play a specialized pyromaniac character that makes things go boom. Another possibility would have been to check grenades into a direct strength/perception/agility check, to see how far you can throw it and it's relative accuracy. I can't imagine the exact spot of a GRENADE really matters to the guy who throws it. I mean if I had a pinless grenade in my hand, I wouldn't even bother looking before throwing it somewhere. Anywhere. As long as it's not around to make ME go boom.

Well that

Why are RPGs all mindless hackfest console romps these days? Why aren

I was just using it as a hyperbolic example.

You know, there was nothing stopping the DnD players from adding their own custom mature content themselves in the first place. You could be playing a campaign with nothing but drug-addled hookers toting bloodied machetes all over the place long before Eberron ever came along. Plus, you could also play one of the many other PnP RPGs that had detailed mature settings if you really were so intellectually bankrupt as to be unable to come up with that stuff on your own. Only the true consumer zombie drones who are totally dependent on sourcebooks and have been brainwashed into brand loyalty for DnD will really be affected by this. Eberron is nothing but another setting one can buy if one is lazy. The ruleset and mechanics- the kind of stuff that requires half a page of playtesters to work on- that's really the only thing needed.

Two browser based online RPGs: www2.kingdomofloathing.com www.battleon.com

Chuck Palahniuk > All If you've ever read a Palahniuk book, you'll know that he NEVER has ANY filler whatsoever. Each sentence is minimalistic- each word like a bullet, cutting through your mind. Each chapter is a fistfight, and each paragraph is a slug to the stomach. I'm not even sure if he uses paragraphs at times. He's just that good. Infact, once, he read a short story aloud to an audience, entitled "Guts", and a couple of them fainted. No joke. Fight Club. Survivor. Choke. These books are masterpieces. Lullaby is okay. Diary... well it sucks, but give the guy a break. And of course, DAN BROWN CAN JUST GO DIE A HORRIBLE PAINFUL DEATH.

I guess in the end, MMORPGs are fun as long as the people you are playing with are people you like. It seems, more and more, MMORPGs seems to be heading back to a multiplayer style CRPG type game in terms of evolution. You don't *have* to party with anyone in nextgen MMORPGs, which allows you to only party with your friends. Forced grouping is becoming passe. Which is why Final Fantasy XI sucks spiced hog balls slathered in pickled human turd. But I digress. Everything is being played in instances- so that you don't have to fight with strangers for the monsters. Hell, PvP based MMORPGs are becoming more and more niche (Lineage 2 or Shadowbane) and everyone seems to play MMORPGs for the PvE. And even if you do want to play PvP, no longer is it focused on random ganking, which was abundant in UO and that was the game directly responsible for the term "carebears" anyways. It's all about group fights (6v6 in Guildwars) which is really no different from starting up a game of counterstrike. It's considered normal for PvP to require consent now, the hardcore players who like the random ganks are being seperated into "PvP servers". Massive wars that pit a crapload of players vs. another crapload of players (such as sieges in Lineage 2 or battlegrounds in World of Warcraft) are the only real "Massive" things to do in "Massively Multiplayer" RPGs that really remain. That, and large scale PvE that only exists in the endgame. And these things are, half the time, not even implemented until the game is at least a year old, and even then only a slim minority of the players get to participate. I will seriously laugh if in the future, what is considered an "MMORPG" plays almost exactly like Diablo or multiplayer Baldur's Gate.