Tale

It's more a red flag than it is a point to hope for.

How does one define properly challenging? Does it provide feedback on the challenges? Does it teach the requisite mechanics or is the player at the mercy of trial and error? The solution should at least attempt to be more apparent to the player than the glitches. If one is able to find the bosses blindspot via geometry exploits the player shouldn't even know about general play sooner than they can find his weakspot, then the game might not be overly informative that a weakspot even existed or was too punishing for the processes of finding it. Basically the difference between running QA tests and actually playing the game for enjoyment. When the former becomes an easier method, I think pause should be given I've known games that I can make this criticism of. Not saying Risen 2 is or will be one, as that's speculation beyond my comfort zone. But then again, I'm not the type to think game master and players are in a state of confrontation, either.

Helsinki, like that's a real place.

If game difficulty gets to the point where I feel a need to resort to exploiting the unintended weaknesses in its behavior, then I see that as a failure in the design. Seriously, path of least resistance and all that. If the bugs are easier to find than the solution to battles, it can't be a good thing. And I can't imagine that's a good feeling for the designer, either. "welp, all my work in setting up a complex scenario and the players would rather glitch the boss on a rock than play it."

Must be fun to play a character with INT 1 and LCK 9. If there's a viable build there, it'd be great. The guy stumbling around stupidly while enemies kill themselves in his presence. I'm sure I've seen that cartoon.

I mean, I didn't die to him, but there's that panic when you launch a nuke from VATS and you see it sail right by him completely missing and your face contorts into a look normally only reserved for drivers license photographs. So it's not difficulty. But still exciting.

I thought they were semi-hard. But that's because the only one I fought is the storypath one and there's a mininuke launcher nearby begging to be used that I have no points in. So I just keep missing. With a nuke...

I liked them a bit, too. It was a holy crap, it's Godzilla moment.

The European Union? Well, first the UK recognized Jedi as a religion and then Scotland started to clone sheep. Things went downhill from there.

Background music kills my immersion.

I call "creepy internet stalker!"

Can the horse cast fire and summon demons?

Only 14 days? That's the more reasonable for establishing precedent.

Yes, but can I be a Warlock in Mongolia? I have no interest in being a swordsman or archer.

I'm in for anything that's not mobster related.

Yuuzhan Vong were cooler when they were called Sith. Unprecedented insofar that the Emperor's clones got offed before they left the cloning chamber, or something like that. The EU was practically built on the corpses of two clone Jedi. Clone Jedi for everyone!

Bloody genetically superior Swedes. I hate you.

Utter bs. Yes, you can have a million heroes running around. It's your personal context. It's called instances and phasing. They've been around for a while now. You can single handedly save the world/galaxy/whatever. Then they go into their instance and they do it, too. This isn't new. Even WoW had countless instances and quests that aren't raids. All important events were not exclusively in raids. You can handle a narrative outside of raids in an MMO. In fact, it's been done. The conflict you think exists is an imagined one. Maybe this revolves around your idea that MMOs are about being a part of a large universe of other players. Increasingly, many of them treat the universe as just the meeting ground. The other players influence on your narrative is unnecessary.

That'd be pretty awesome, wouldn't it? I know one of the Blur trailers has Starkiller force pushing Darth Vader through walls, which is pretty sweet.

I'm not even considering the PC version after how it was treated last time.

Too bad Fable III is coming out the same day as Force Unleashed II. I had to make a decision and Fable must wait!

I have to say his anaylsis is nonse. Single player games regularly excell at aspects more associated with MMOs such as sandboxing and character development. And the more traditional singleplayer aspects are what made WoW successful, such as casual play. The narrative inclusions and structures have only made WoW stronger, such as the phasing system, which is a system ToR sounds like it wants to abuse massively. The melding of a strong narrative to an MMO is far from incompatible. The question is more whether the scope they are aiming for and the needs of MMOs are within their skills. It's an immensely ambitious project. Which alone makes it risky without having to make up conflicts about the actual style of the game.

Inventory space, shenvetory space. I never really found it a concern.

Even if everything he says is the truth, it doesn't mean it's necessarilly correct. He could just be spouting out rumors. I find the possibility of them having spent $300 million to be ludicrous. Even as a Mythic employee, it doesn't mean he has access to all the facts. So I guess I'm in grain of salt territory. While I'm not particularly optimistic for TOR (I still feel too little is known about the game for where they should be in development), the man's claims deserve to be questioned.

So, no more shards as we know them. I actually liked having a unique gimmick. But I won't mourn it.