Wombat

Yea...it was like the more Brazil lost their confidence, the more Netherlands recovered it... As for Suarez's hand, I, myself, intentionally did it in a much less important match in my school days, which may make my opinion less neutral. That said, I think it is just a tactical choice. He knew he would be sent out but he thought it's worth the risk. He will not be able to get in the field against Netherlands but it couldn't have been only him if he hadn't taken the risk...a tough decision.

If Obsidian goes after Van Buren, some NPCs may irrationally stick to a certain outfits. A charisma boy/Speech character may increase the influence on NPC related choices, though.

Triple posts...there seem to be no activity on this board... About 31:00, their reference to loot system explains exactly why I couldn't get into ARPGs. It reminds me of mastering which tries to lure players with loot. Blizzard seems to be very good at adjusting the randomness but, to my eyes, it's still a gamble out of the players' control. If addiction cannot but be one of important factors in gaming, I'd like to be lured by gradually gaining control of the situation by learning from failures rather than psychological tricks woven into random loot mechanics. Of course, RPG rulesets are based on calculated randomness but I'm a kind of person who prefers point system to free die-rolls in character creation. Naturally, while I agree with Chapman's design philosophy about difficulty level and it's application to DSIII, I wonder how they manage to balance the actual game-play between the players with phat loot and those without them. Some players would definitely want to enjoy the powers of their loots (epicureans*) while it may turn off some other players (stoics), who find challenges/obstacles and the process of overcoming them is rewarding. I think, phat loot is the same line of thinking with simply increasing HP of "bosses". To my eyes, there appear to be a gap between Chapman's design philosophy, which seems to be more akin to the design concept of Demon's Souls, and Blizzard's loot system. Then, another question from the same interview: "How designers could balance a game for millions of people with so many different people and preferences? (14:00)" For example, the idea of self-policing is, actually, working as a "house rule" for each players such as unnecessarily strict resource management, non-mini-max. In deed, with 90's CRPG, we often see some people go for various types of exploitations but these required a certain knowledge about how the game system works. Basics seem to remain the same. Without tools to overcome obstacles/guides which support less experienced players, they will soon or later stop playing. "The goal is not to punish the players but to keep them playing." Otherwise, some players/situations need a certain variant of what game masters do in PnP sessions. Hopefully, Square Enix is capable to offer Obsidian a division of QA people. * I think these terms are pretty fair. Usually, "stoics" regard "epicureans" as stupid while epicureans regard stoics as masochists but we are talking of games where people spend their own time in their preferred ways.

Simply put, probably, Obsidian don't seem to have enough experience and resources to make an action RPG hybrid game. Also, there seems to be a huge gap between what potential players expected and the design philosophy of Obsidian earned in 90's CRPG development and they couldn't fill the gap either making it action gamer friendly and/or building a learning curve for non-RPGamers*. Disagreeing of what Chris Avellone said in his interview, I don't think Obsidian need to compete with well-known action gamer format. It's definitely suicidal for Obsidian. Rather, I agree with Feargus and J.E. Sawyer here: They have to study action games to find out which factors can be done with their resources. The resulted game may end up without some beefs such as cover system or special arrows but the game-play should feel complete in its own format. Analyzing/studying the key factors of modern games would be a good start point for thinking of what they can add these factors with their original content and game-play advancement system. This will prevent their games from ending up with a chimera which confuses the players and help to make a hybrid game with much clearer vision. Now I, maybe, began to understand why Feargus meant by the combination of Chris Avellone and J.E. Sawyer is good. J.E. Sawyer is not only capable of making underlying systems such as reputation system but also of checking Avellone's back, too. Just different types of creativity complement each other. In the same context, the combination of Chapman and Zeits is also interesting. That said, with or without flash, if Obsidian find a hope in penetrating into portable/multi-platform market, then, they don't need to care about modern console market, though. Either way, I will be interested in their works as long as they stick to character/story development...hopefully with coherent game-play experience. * cf the Irrational Interview@34:50 Also, continue to listen to the end to ask yourself what's the significant differences between them and Obsidian designers.

Thanks. Now I remember that. The recoiling seems to be quite strong especially when the character is much weaker. Yea...nowadays, not so many people read manuals. However, designers needs to make them deal with things by themselves in the game world before they are "bored." In fact, I have already spotted a thread complaining about the strength requirement in Beth board. Of course, for us, it's just a joke but for the designers, it's a bad joke.

Urr...sorry for the double posting but, since you are working on console heavy title, you might be interested in Introducing Irrational Interviews Personally, from the first part they manage to catch my attention with a good example of Traveller, character creation process can be designed as an introduction to imaginary worlds.

From 24:00 of this clip FO:NV part starts. From 26:03, they mention "breathing" which makes sniping difficult but is this true? I presume that it may be the strength penalty and or more unlikely, due to lack of enough skill points. Even if it is something like character stats related, I hope the final version of the game will make it clear to the players. BTW, a good punch for the reason why they couldn't know about dialogue if it doesn't help info-wise at all.

He trod on Robben from frustration. After the second score from Netherlands, Brazilians seem to be fighting with themselves, too. During the first half, Brazil seems to have been a hybrid of individual skills and European-ish tactics. However, in the second half, they seem to have lost all the discipline, made me think that "organizing" a team like Brazil was not a good idea to begin with...

Have anybody played Demon's Souls? I'm recently surprised by some positive reviews on Demon's Souls although I haven't played the game. The focus seems to be building a learning curve for each play style. Different from Diablo style reward which addictiveness is controlled by well-calculated loot system, the best "reward" of the game is given for the players only who find their ways of adapting to the harsh world. That is, character advancement is there for keeping the players interested in the game-plays than in-game "rewards." Rather than giving quantitative "progressions" with something like +5 sword/similar ability boosts, it would be more interesting to give the players qualitative progressions which expand the tactical depth of game-plays with an appropriate learning curve. In the same context (and to my surprise), the game seems to reject the low accessibility idea. The game is difficult from the beginning, which makes the players conscious of their approaches. They seem to have proven that it is wrong that difficult games won't be successful, at least, as long as the designers are careful in forming learning curves for the players. Thinking about that, after all, what designers do seems to be ultimately to make sure what kind of game-play experience they'd like to offer to their players.

Looks like something which reminds me of IWD2, which was also affected by the design change in the middle of the project. As for a real world setting, was Avellone lying when he'd like to write modern conversations and he liked Heavy Rain? In either case, although I'm interested in RPG in real/historical world settings, well-thought original settings must be much better than half-minded one. Unfortunately, no matter how the design process have gone through, what players can play is the final product. If Avellone likes to make games of his liking, probably, it would be appropriate for him to choose something with low budget (I wonder if Obsidian found a light in this area in web-based gaming...yes, I'm avoiding the obvious pan with flash. ). For, realistically, I think it's getting quite risky for Obsidian to make an original game and, realistically, they need to be really selective when it comes to originality. For Alpha Protocol, to minimize the risk, they should have gone for already established shooter/stealth game-play while exploring their originality in character/story-development area, I think. IMO, it would be wise for Obsidian designers to pick a successful (or already proven) game-play format in the market, analyze it, skin it into basics, re-organize it, build/choose appropriate engine and put a game-play advancement system* and story/character-development system on it. For Obsidian's forte is these latter two factors rather than the originality in game-plays unrelated with character/story development. This includes every factors about the intentional changes in gameplay such as character/equipment advancement, area/map designing, difficulty adjustment and pacing. It's nice to see that Avellone and other designers are proud of their products but I think Obsidian has something the major companies known for CRPG don't have and, IMO, they have this potential to change what the majority think about CRPG. Avellone may only see "hatred" but I think he shouldn't turn his blind eye to these reviews with the tone of "I really wanted to like it but..." I don't think Avellone was doing a game master without paying attention to the reaction of his players. I don't know much about game industry but publishers will stop listening to them if their games don't sell well especially when the ideas are original. Alas, I wanted Obsidian to have the cunning of Ken Levine with Bioshock. * It's usually called character advancement system but, more essentially and comprehensively, it is a part of game-play advancement system with learning curve. PS Flash-bsed gaming sounds interesting...I wonder how they gather money and continue their business with that, though. CD Projekt Red also seems to have something like the Witcher Versus. If the risk balance is O.K., Obsidian can go all for their originality.

Thanx. I guess I could have made use of my brains a bit. As for Turn-based vs Reatl-time with Pause, I saw a lot of arguments around Turn-based/Real-time and, as far as I am concerned, I concluded it ultimately end up with, again, personal preferences. However, if I follow the logic of this article (with the courtesy of funcroc), a possible problem would be that there wouldn't be FO:NV if FO hadn't had TB combat. FO might not have attracted young Sawyer enough to motivate him to make a game like it since he is not a great fan of realtime with pause (although he seems to be good at balancing it). Since we are not all from Black Isle boards, some may be interested in reading this piece of writing (The title seems to be from Bjork's song since, as far as I know, he is not Scandinavian ). It's always quite a surprise for me when some designers (even Avellone) mention that Fallout felt something new. For me, it felt something familiar...I think it is one of CRPGs successfully captured the feel of PnP as Spider wrote. For a certain people, the core game play of RPGs seem to be combat simulation plus exploration while I always regard RPG or role-playing game is more of simulation of worlds/characters (I would have nothing to complain of well-made combat system, though). When I read the writing, I felt Sawyer's idea is another attempt to allow the players to explore imaginary worlds with interesting themes and began to stalk him (funcroc

I meant why he used the worlds "I believe" while he is most likely to be a person who has a whole picture of FO:NV. He is one of a few designers who kept communicating with us since BIS boards and...as far as I know, he didn't tell a lie.

It sounds reasonable but why "believe", while you are the project director? ...I guess this is probably a question about developing process.

I think, a player who indulge themselves with this kind of "mischief" would probably like to see the "results"...in not a random manner.

Even in this case: "plant C4 all around an unsuspecting character, then detonate it and watch them fly over a nearby house in slow motion"? Now the source turned out to be unreliable but there are multiple sources about this slow motion triggered by detonation...

FromPalgn's E3 handson (Bold is mine) Whoops. So, actually, in FO:NV, the slow-motion kill seems to "invade into" realtime mode...kind of ironic turn-out for all the "Beth forcing slow motion kill on the players" argument. Now I wonder how Obsidian designers felt about the reaction here. Well, it can be turned off, so, I guess there is nothing to lose, at least.

Yea, it's another possible reason why some countries haven't even reached to this stage.

Thanx for the explanation. Then, Bethesda seems to have tried to do turn-based combat factors in the context Gamebryo for the old FO fans but let's do away with all the guessing game. In any case, even pragmatically, it seems to be quite tough for Obsidian if they chose to tackle with the "issue." Like other people said, all realtime seems to be the best "option."

Agreed. Germany seems to have been successful in the generation shift. England defenders couldn't catch up with the quick and organized offense.

??? If I understand correctly, we have been talking of just close-up slow-mo death sequences. Talking of illusion, here, the reason behind why Bethesda didn't make them optional is Nemo0071's guess and you are trying to argue over it. However, what you want is just the option, as I see it.

Despite the result, not a bad match at all, IMO. Damn...Germany is a beautifully organized team. England was defeated but they had their moments...one of which was erased by the bad call, though (a seems to be getting attention at youtube). PS The octopus needs a spoiler tag.

Some cultures think "play-acting" is one of the necessary tact/techniques. Uruguay exploited SK's youth. Even talented ones can be weakened by provocations. e.g. Zidan in 2006 and Beckham in 1998. Latin countries tend to be good at these kind of "shrewd tricks." This requires further level of discipline especially for those who are favored to be educated in more "civil" environments. Since this is the era of information, countries which used not to be known for football began to adopt the latest tactics. Besides the tight schedules of European commercial leagues (both physical and pyshoclogical: fatigue, injuries and no time for teamworking), this helped to make some unlikely turn-overs in this WC. However, there are still some obstacles to overcome for these countries. An apt word choice.

Quite a splendid emotional burst for otherwise a simple usability issue. However, a desirable solution here is that just an option of turning off VATS related sequences, isn't it? Since there is no direct answer yet, I made a search in Beth board and find an answer. Indeed, strictly speaking, the answer is just for the newly added VATS sequences for explosion but it's quite unlikely for the designers to have not done the same to other VATS sequences, as long as there are no (technical) obstacles, IMO.

They may be playing Dungeon Seige 3 with you. Yes, average time for leisure is, another key factor. Of course, publishers know the players' time is limited. In fact, I tend to spend time I used to have assigned for gaming on other things. Speaking of which, I guess almost all the info about E3 has come out now...

When you failed to figure out how to configure a word processing app, it's because programmers/designers' fault and, if someone is overwhelmed by a menu at a restaurant, it's because he/she is "dimwit"? Well then, let's see how Obsidian will deal with their melee special attack (sequences?) in FO:NV. Yes, now I remember that Sawyer explained this...it's easier to shoot ragdolls into air than making it react faithfully to physics. In Oblivion, though, I found the target stop motions when hit by arrows, though. In fact, when fighting with an NPC, I shot arrows when the opponent is going to hit my fellow NPC, which effectively canceled the attack.