StillLife

Wow, this is really sad news. Visceris was one of my favorite people from the BIS forums. It's been forever since I've posted here, or even lurked for that matter, but many of the discussions I was involved in with him still stick out in my mind. I still recall him saying something to the effect of, "it's single character? Not interested," anytime I'm enjoying a partyless CRPG. Or joining forces with him to argue the importance of turn-based combat. I also remember knowing right away who it was when he changed his forum name to DoomSayer, then Hades_One. Rest in peace Michael...and thanks for adding so much to the conversation, even when you said very little...

I don't understand that, why is it different from a first-person perspective than from isometric or third person? The amount of damage you do is determined by your character's skill as well, along with whether or not you even hit. That's no different than any other RPG, regardless of perspective. People skilled at FPS - like me and several other million people, would roll through the game with ease regardless of character builds if aim was all that determined a hit or not. Think of it this way: if you were shooting at someone in real life, and thought you were aiming in the general vicinity of them, but had never fired a gun, you could still very well miss, or just barely clip them, doing little damage - especially to a friggin vampire with a .38 special. Your arms and hands might not be very steady, your ability to lead a target, and your breathing inappropriate, etc. Once you start bringing semi-automatic and automatic weapons into the equation, experience and skill become even more of a factor. That's why not everyone who picks up a rifle in the military is automatically ready to be a sniper. Nor is every Tom, ****, and Harry ready to be a samurai because they handled a sword once. Now, if you guys who were put off by the game's system just hate RPGs and prefer action games, I could understand, otherwise, I don't get the complaints. I like FPS and I like RPGs...a combination of the two can be even better.

Well, it's more of an RPG than an actual shooter. Guns in the game do suck if you haven't invested in being good with them, as that's what primarily determines if you hit what you're aiming at. I think that aspect threw a lot of people off for some reason, although it shouldn't have, as your character's skill influencing how good a weapon potentially can be, is the norm in RPGs. My Torreador owned with guns.

Wait, you can save Jeanette and Therese? It still bothers me that what could have been an exceptional game was marred by technical issues and rushed level design at the end. If I were one of the people on the creative/artistic end of the game's creation -- who obviously put forth a lot of effort in doing their jobs well -- I would have been pissed. The writing, modeling, artwork, voice acting, facial animation, casting, game design, sound design, and even a lot of the level design and even many of the technical features were fantastic, but all that work got f'ed up in a lot of gamer's minds by a number of agitating issues that could have been easily avoided. Bloodlines might have matched the Fallouts as my favorite games too if those problems weren't there. Oh well. It didn't help that some of the marketing decisions seemed kinda dense.

Word.

I'm surprised you hadn't checked it out already Darque. RAM seems to be the best food for Bloodlines. I played it with 1 gig and had little trouble with . People with only 526MB or so have complained that it's sluggish. Not sure that's something you can easily work around if that's your problem. Oh yeah, Toreador for sure. :cool:

I think you'd like it. It's fun, the combat is a bit repetitive (and not as tactical as it would seem), the graphics are great and it really feels like a prettier version of Heroes of Might & Magic 3. I've been having a blast with it so far. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I've actually been enjoying it quite a bit too. It really starts to pick up when you have enemies trying to jack resources and attack you on the campaign map. I just ran into a huge problem though. On the third or fourth Agrael mission, when you enter the elven lands, I keep getting dominated by the elf guy. Just when I build up a couple decent armies, he comes rolling in with an uber army of death. Something like 7 dragons, 21 unicorns, 200 pixies, 13 treants, 100 rangers, etc. Meanwhile there's another small army stealing all my resource points. I'm not sure I can even recruit an army fast enough to deal with that. What am I doing wrong?

It's okay. Actually, I haven't been able to finish it. The silly checkpoint save system tried my patience once too often. It feels a little too much like a budget console game a great deal of the time. The graphics blow, the levels instill claustrophobia, and not in a good, creepy way. The stealth system is pretty weak too. On the positive side, at times it does manage to feel like you're in a Lovecraft tale. The voice acting is passable, though the main character has a tendancy to sound rather mellow when he should be freaked the f out. You can also pick it up for $30 for the PC, so that helps.

Alt alert.

I loved all the comments from the clone troops, added a lot to the atmosphere and did a good job at letting you know what they were thinking.

Heh, that took me by surprise too. You're not supposed to be able to get through that garrison, as that's where the demon's main city on the map is. It depends what part you're on, but at some point you're required to send the old knight towards the south of the map(to reach Nicolai), around the bridge leading into demonville. I can't remember if you cross the bridge or stay on the normal side to reach the path though - it's pretty easy to find once you're looking for it. Then a cutscene will pop up and explain the rest of what you need to do.

Fifi is a popular poodle name, FIFE is different enough. Apparently it's the name of a town, a battleship, a lake, an engine, and Barney Fife.

I'm working my way through it too. It's pretty good so far, though I'm already feeling the repetition of combat too. Seems like tactics are sort of limited or something. I just let my ranged guys wittle away at oncoming enemies then send in the melee and that seems to do the trick for almost every battle. Of course I've only started on the second act of the campaign(the demons). It reminds me more of Disciples 2 than WC3, but not nearly as good in terms of gameplay. The story is fancier though.

What?

Bear in mind that was long before the Internet, or even the popularity of gaming magazines. It's not like you could hop online and read a review to see if a game sucked back then. You had word of mouth and the game's marketing, and that was basically it. Given the limited number of people who gave a damn about video games at the time, word of mouth wasn't good for much either. I played ET as a tyke on my sisters ATARI - it wasn't all that bad anyway for the time. The whole "ET was teh worst game evar" claim primarily gets tossed around because it became a trendy opinion amongst aged game journalists, who realized how mediocre the game was when contrasted with it's enormous budget and hype. Plus it was one of the progenitors of bland movie license games in a long dynasty of bland movie license games. It was a simple little ATARI game...technology has advanced so far since then, that developers are capable of commiting far greater atrocities today, it's just no one talks about those kinds of games for long anymore. I have noticed that guy tends to gloss over certain facts to make a point in his articles, so I understand what you're getting at. I just thought that was worth pointing out. Yep, I couldn't help but notice that too. RF 2 looked pretty crappy to begin with. I agree on most of the other stuff you pointed out, except I don't replay single-player games very often, though I do rewatch movies a lot.

Tetris definitely has the best story of any video game though.

I think Llyranor was joking about it costing $5. Or at least I really hope so. :D

I've always thought the three top manufacturers currently all have a different enough catalogue of games for that to be the deciding factor in which one a person oughtta go with, but what do I know? Apparently that doesn't work for everyone I guess.

If you leave out the sub-plots in them, then pretty much. In Planescape: Torment, those may have been the fundamentals, but through the course of the narrative you discover how the actions through your previous incarnations have effected the people you run into, and learn their stories. There was also complexity in the plot itself, considering the freedom you have to form your own protagonist. There are also plenty of other happenings in the gameworld with their own bits of history. Same can basically be applied to the two Fallout games and the Baldur's gate series. They all have fairly simple overall plots, but most of the story elements unravel through non-plot specific points in the game. As for Diablo, that wasn't really the case. You had the overall mission to kill the demons to go on for story and a few shallow sidequest tales.

It's not really so much the style of the game I don't like, it's that there's so little to it. Volourn mentioned NWN's OC earlier, and that game to me and others like it have made Diablo and its clones irrelevant IMO. It was like Diablo on steroids. It had a lot of the same fundamental game elements: monsters, loot, easy to master combat, but was filled to the brim with a whole lot more. Yet somehow, simple Diablo clones continue to sell like hot cakes, while games that take that formula and try to improve upon or add some complexity fail. It sends a clear message to developers and publishers: "We do not need games with depth that have a lot of work and creativity put into them. Games do not have to advance." In my mind of course. I'm not claiming what I think is by default the reality. I like most game genres really, so my loathing of Diabloish games isn't just about CRPGs, but it's representative of the rendundancy in video games all together. Frankly, I do like the hobby, but if that's what the future holds; if that's all people really want, I'm done with them. Especially since the main area it has been impacting over the last decade have been CRPGs which are my favorite genre. I've already been getting more and bored with the hobby over the last several years. That does not mean I think less of people who like such games at all, or "look unkindly upon them" as you put it. I'm just expressing the realization that my tastes probably do not fall in line with the general populace and I'm prone to griping about it. In fact, my first post on a gaming related message forum, the Black Isle boards, was to bitch about how they were making primarily Diablo clones for consoles and how they sucked. :D I was promptly flamed by a dozen or so people for my views, including Eldar if memory serves me correctly. Anyway, despite a few things it seems you pretty much understood what I was saying. As for the plot, it was of course a bit of an over-simplification, but I think it did represent the fundamentals of at least Diablo 2's plot. The hero from the former game tried to contain the soul of Diablo within his own body, in the hopes he would be able to subdue him forever. This of course didn't work and the hero becomes an insane host to Diablo, and to make matters worse, his band of brothers show up. You now have to kill his brothers and confront Diablo himself(kill demon #1, demon #2, demon #3, big scary demon #4) before they do something bad in the world, as big scary demons are prone to do. Am I really leaving out anything substantial? Been a while since I played it so I could be. Lets be honest, that's not exactly epic or highly compelling matieral there though.

Ordinarily I like Chris Metzen's stuff for Blizzard games and think he's one of the better writers in the game industry, but it was obvious not too much effort went into the Diablo's plots IMO.

The motivation: kill demon #1, kill demon #2, kill demon #3, and for the finale, kill big scary demon #4 who's posessed the body of the last hero who was a genius and decided to try to contain big scary demon #4 in his body.

Okay, that's fair enough. I didn't. Alan, can you not have a discussion without completely mutating someone's words and intent? It's getting old. I said people who buy overly simplistic games in droves, like Diablo, send a message that gamers don't really expect more from developers - and maybe I'm off base in that people don't really need more from their games, or that there's still a desire for games with simple gameplay. I didn't insult anyone's intelligence or "depth." When you twist someone's statements and argue something they didn't really say? That's a strawman, and you're using one in that paragraph. Please, point out to me where I insulted people who play Diablo, and not the style of game itself. And those aspects are available in the classics I mentioned. And, what was it in that statement that made you upset? That comment was aimed at Eldar, and did he react like you did? I think mainstream games should have moved on in complexity past average games of the 80's...what's the problem? I don't think that qualifies me for RPG elitist status. As for the last part, I don't see a quote there anywhere where I claimed buying a gaming PC is cheaper than a modern console, in fact, you only proved I didn't say that. Nice try bud, but your statement was a completely misleading attempt to make me look crazy and nothing more. And you wanna point the finger accusing me of insulting people - way to go.

Preference in games doesn't really reflect on someone's actual character in my book. Put the strawman down. ...that was kinda the point dude. Did you miss the fact I used the same three words you did to begin that statement? Pac Man and Space Invaders have simple learning curves and don't require a large dedication of time, yet they're no longer the smash hits they once were even with modern graphics. The appeal clearly goes beyond it being easy to get into. Again, you're going off on a tirade that isn't really related to what I said. I, as in you know...me? I don't personally see the appeal at all. Yes, I can imagine people play them because they're fun for them - that's kinda obvious. Why something so simplistic is fun is what I fail to understand, but I get the whole "people have different tastes than you" thing. Unfortunately, my tastes are superior to everyone's, because they're mine. :cool: Regardless, usually I can find something that would be appealing to other people in a game I don't like, but not those kind of games. Maybe you should take your own advice and grow some thicker skin, and come to grips with the fact not everyone will agree with you one what's good or bad? You'll live longer. If someone explains why they dislike a game, it's not something to get offended by. I just wanted to respond to Eldar's insunation -- which might not have been what he really meant by it -- that people who don't like Diablo are RPG elitists. Ah, outright lying now huh? You know very well my point was that upgrading a PC for gaming is no longer much more expensive than buying a console(not a Wii) then it has been before, meaning it's becoming a non-factor. A point which you danced around forever providing nothing to the contrary until you could cling to my reluctance to waste a day bargain hunting around the Internet or stores to fit a figure you threw out there. Grow up and don't resort to making things up to make people look bad. I say enough foolish things without having the things I do say completely misconstrued. And seriously man, stop holding a grudge over something so silly.

That's not even remotely an RPG(role-playing game).