Wombat

It's got nothing to do with weapon strengths or weakness, it's that the animation is the same both in and out of combat, and when you have an NPC in your face trying to kill you it looks ridiculous having the player taking their sweet time with a long reload animation as if they don't have a care in the world. The protagonist still reloads in third person view. The protagonist in third person perspective always stay before the camera while loading animation and NPCs in first person perspective don't. P.S. I lost my interest in this simplified 1st person vs 3rd person view argument. If someone who has played a lot of games in both perspectives and compare them in artistic sense, I'd be still interested in his/her argument, though. Considering the number of action games I have played, I guess I'm not qualified to do so.

Huh? That's true of any game, no matter the perspective. Not in the first person view, where you cannot see the protagonist. It's by design. You have to choose your weapons comparing their strengths and weaknesses. In your example, long/frequent reloading time must be a trade-off to a benefit of the weapon in question, which is not a matter of perspective but a game design. However, I guess I have to make it clear that my question is not about shooting but about the presentation.

I checked some videos of MGS4. Now I am convinced what annoys me. Even the graphics is good, the protagonist repeats the same animation again and again in front of the camera. However, of course, I admit that there seem to be many game-play options in this game. The movable/zoomable camera in cut-scenes are amazing, too. After watching MGS4 game-play, I don't think it is rational to expect Obsidian to make a game with a competent graphics considering the budget. Talented artists may be able to cover the lack of the resources, though. Back to the interview, I wonder how the dialog choices with time-limit will turn out. Some of the ideas work fine on paper may not let the players happy depending on how they are presented.

I have to confess that I have played none of them. I guess I'm not pretty much a gamer. Left4Dead intro movie looks better but there doesn't seem to be so much content... I think Bioshock 2's trailer is a nice one. good, too I watched some of DMC4 movies since some people here including a designer were enthusiastically talking of it but I found the movement of characters are rather cartoonish...especially DMC protagonists seem to have special abilities. I watched some of MSG movies but am not much impressed...maybe they were older ones, though. You may be right. At least it is a fact that I haven't touched consoles for quite a long time.

Could you define "cinematic technique"? Usually in my mind that term refers to the camera, and the first person camera is by definition stuck wherever the person is. From wikipedia, I used it in much wider and probably vague sense. So, to some extent, it is right for you to point out it is "immersion" issue, too. In fact, the last time when I talked of this topic, it is mainly about Aliens RPG and it's horror factor. Considering Alpha Protocol being an action adventure role-playing game including sneak actions/melee combat, I think the third person view makes sense to some extent but Obsidian seeming to have not explored alternative camera views makes me wonder how much effort they are making to make their story-telling/NPC interactions more widely accepted. This is not Storm of Zehir, where the most of players know the charm of Obsidian. Checking the trailer again, I find the characters rather cartoonish with poor facial expressions, which is characteristic to third person games in my limited experience with them. Probably this is one of the reasons why I don't like to see the protagonist in front of the camera. Also, I think NPC's facial expressions are important in next gen role-playing game. As for this, I admit that I haven't played Mass Effect and don't know how these things worked out in it, though. My point is that it's same with third person view...the camera stuck always somewhere behind the protagonist. In tactical RPG, I didn't care much about it since the content is mainly presented as writing. However, as the game nearing to the movies, I began to find something I didn't care before become annoying.

[quote name='H

[quote name='H

Quite many movies use someone's views. Sometimes, it's protagonist's, sometimes, it is another person's. Of course, not so many movies are shown exclusively in first person view. Mostly the camera work involves switching between third person and first person views. However, even in third person view, the protagonist staying in front of camera is somehow unnatural, which constantly reminds me that I am playing a game. Rather, a game which has third person views in cut-scenes while staying first person view in game-play feels more natural to me. Furthermore, even first person view works like a third person camera when the protagonist watching NPCs. I cannot see my shoulders when I am typing this...I see my PC monitor. I believe it is same to you. The above may not be a good theory but I am simply trying to figure out why I cannot get cinematic feel in third person games while I can immediately point out a few first person games just like above with good cinematic feel.

How many movies which have the protagonist always in front of the camera and make the audience keep seeing his/her back? It is obviously unnatural.

I think the reason why I tend to like the first person games is that they feel like movies and adapt many techniques from movie camera works. Third person games constantly remind me that I am playing a game. Since the strength of Obsidian is story/dialog, I think the first person view with cinematic technique would be suitable. Even about the Witcher, which is unanimously praised for its atmospheric graphics, I feel the occasional switching from the third person game-play view to cinematic cut-scenes unnatural. The first person view would deal with switching much more fluently. To be fair, I haven't played Mass Effect but quite many people praise its cinematic expressions. How good are they when compared with first person games such as Half Life 2, Bioshock, The Chronicles of Riddick? Of course, the decision has been already made long time ago about Alpha Protocol and probably Aliens RPG but Obsidian so easily saying "It was not a tough decision," gives me impression that they are not so eager to examine cinematic techniques and combine them with their writing. I wonder how many of my posts you may have come across in these boards but I am not worried about their ability in writing but in the presentation of it in modern 3D graphic. Like FO3, I think some charms of role-playing games can be re-discovered once they are modernized properly.

I'm happy with most of the other parts, especially NPC-PC interactions, or role-playing, but as for presentation... This is deliberately different design philosophy from (ex) Looking Glass Studio designers and even Bethesda designers (I haven't played FO3 yet, though). I'd be happier if there is a chance for switching views. Personally, I'm not familiar with third person action games at all. Even Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines was first person except melee combat. Considering Aliens RPG is also based on the same engine, I guess I have to be accustomed to the third person view. I admit that this is my personal preference, though. funcroc is really quick...I came here immediately after reading the article.

I guess I have gathered enough info. I stick to my initial plan: I'm probably going to buy this game but not now. The game seems to be O.K. but my experience from past Bethesda works tells me not to buy it immediately. FO3 seems to be popular enough and I'd like to wait for designers and mods to remove some nuisances. I think mods are the advantage of PC version and I'd like to make full use of it. Thanks to everyone who posted information here. It helped a lot.

Now I remembered where I picked up the info about quest-solving. It's from a review at Gamespot.

Thank you for the info. What bugs me is not foul words but the quality of dialogs or the luck of it in general. I agree that it is a part of the problem. Besides, everybody has its own preferences/observation/expressions, which becomes even problematic in games where the experiences vary. FO3 is one of such games, which is why I am gathering information from various sources and cross-referencing them. PS Er..."pick a fight?" Did I miss something? O.K. I noticed that you had edited your post but, well, I guess it was just misunderstanding.

That hardly helped as information, though. I'd stick to the plan of waiting till the internet boards calm down/mods make some adjustments for my liking. There is absolutely no reason for me to jump into playing the game.

First, I haven't played FO3 and, probably, I won't play it at least for a while. However, I made my "research" on the title and wonder how correct they are. Keep in mind that I'm playing on Normal. I haven't yet encountered Enclave soldiers but yes, the Super Mutants feel rather weak. I did a quest which involve killing quite a few of them at a rather early level, and I had no problem whatsoever. But the difficulty among enemies seems a bit weird. At about the same level when I was killing Super Mutants, I was having much more trouble with Mirelurks (those Crabmen things) and small Radscorpions. That's fine of course but what's not fine is how weak the Super Mutants feel in the scope of the gameworld. According to what I read, Bethesda seems to have made an interesting decision on balancing. To keep the free-roaming aspect and game-balance at the same time, they seem to cripple hostiles by giving them weaker equipments and injury when the protagonist is not strong so that the protagonists "happens to" come across to them after they have fought against much tougher enemies and exhausted in the cruel wasteland and they don't have save/reload buttons. I can't remember much of Morrowind but yes, it feels a bit like Oblivion in this regard even though Fallout 3 is set "only" in the DC area. It feels rather cramped which hurts the idea of the vast, sunbleached and empty Wasteland. The earliest example is that Megaton lies almost next door with the Vault, it feels weird. The Wasteland is also full of enemies, whether it be mole rats or Robobrains randomly wandering around. Again, it feels a bit... schizophrenic. The high level of combat encounters in the game would probably be my biggest complaint. Some people complained of the emptiness of Gothic 3. Seeing both the new developer and the original developer are working on smaller "worlds," I don't think the decision is stupid. If you don't remember, I point out that you didn't travel all the way in Fallout. When traveling, your party "traveled" through a map, where at a certain rate, you might come across to events, which brings you to area maps. Storm of Zehir seems to have updated this mechanism. PS My main interest in role-playing game is story development, so, if FO3 is faithful to the feeling of table-top-like freedom of the original in this respect, then, it works for me. However, at the moment, some of the reviews complain of dialog, abrupt ending, and the combat-heavy quest solutions. Naturally, my expectation goes to the two Obsidian projects, then again, I wonder if they are capable of reaching even the quality of FO3, of which some bugs are already complained.

I got the gesture. I came back here, expecting more information since Alpha Protocol is planed to be released in the same quarter as Dragon Age, information of which began to be revealed. At least, judging from some interviews on Storm of Zehir, Obsidian don't seem to forget about role-playing game fan base and the majority of them, I guess, are accustomed to waiting.

Personally, I'm interested in NPC-PC iterations and the impacts on story-development through choices of PC. However, of course, some other people are probably interested in character customizations/equipments/crafting. Guess too early to discuss these things, though. Too little information, too much room for speculation. Some questions are better asked to search engines. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_of_Solace_(video_game) It's for pretty much every single platform around including MS Windows. We are talking of single-player PC demo here.

I don't play shooting games so often but the cover system is just intuitive and worked fine to my eyes. The first person/third person shift is smooth. I felt the enemy AI bit idiotic but, at least, Bond's wiping out multiple opponents with showy explosions cannot be blamed as unfaithful to the movies. Although it may not satisfy hardcore shooting game fans, I feel it carries the feel of the movies. That said, however, my attention is toward Alpha Protocol. I am wondering how Obsidian keeps the balance between speedy/streamlined action scenes and in-depth role-playing ones. Also, I hope the high production value of QoS won't make Alpha Protocol look dated, which happened in the past when Troika released Bloodlines. Thinking of blighter side, gamers' seeming to be tired of yet another shooter may turn out to be favorable winds for some of Obsidian projects. Eidos seems to be have judged it's a good time to give another chance to Deus Ex, the original role-playing/shooting hybrid, too. Again, little are new/original here but hopefully, they are getting better at what they are doing.

I agree that it's very short. People on the net comparing it with CoD4 because of the common engine. Most of shooting games appear to be vanilla to me but even shooting game fans are criticizing its being too vanilla. As for plus side, I haven't played CoD4 but game-play felt quite smooth to me, which may have made me feel the length even shorter. Some people who don't have enough bandwidth to this short demo can watch a game-play video. This is not included in the demo but Gametrailers.com has a stealth game-play video, too.

Although I prefer more darker and believable setting than that of Bond movies, I must admit that the demo definitely has the feel of them. Of course, personally, I expect more in-depth role-playing game-play such as NPC interactions and interactive plot with interesting themes. However, the game-play of the demo felt fluid and captures the non-brainer atmosphere of Bond movies very well, which possibly puts the hurdle high to Alpha Protocol in this respect. Also, generally speaking, while action games don't need to consider the aspect of the pace-down of role-playing games and set the game-play strictly with meta-rules, role-playing games don't have this luxury. This reminds me of the unfortunate, unavoidable and unfair, should I say, comparison between Half Life 2 and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Any thoughts?

If the character background settings have depth at all, probably they cover original backgrounds of classes and races as well as functions as party combat units. For example, if you are a mage, you will not be popular in the area where the influence and the belief of the Chantry is dominant. Of course, the story would be different if Dragon Age were just yet another D&D clone with already established notions of classes and races. However, as you wrote, the designers denied it. I wonder if this even goes further and different class/races have different beliefs and the world views, which would make DA world three dimensional and interesting to explore. Conflicts among different beliefs and thoughts would be a good source for role-playing. I'm wondering if DA allows us to role-play of this level. Rather than "evil forces," the dark forces, or the result of the Blight, may be rather a possible catastrophe upon various political and religious groups in Dragon Age, which would offer a good role-playing opportunity to convince/sabotage each group in the world. In this case, if each group has convincing background, belief and political agenda in their own ways, it will be interesting to interact with NPCs from each group. However, I need healthy amount of doubts. As for the necessary number of party members for tactical choices, it totally depends on the system. The date counts as long as it indicates the different systems of (A)D&D. When it didn't have skills or 3rd ed. style multi-class system, it required more characters. Different system, different party composition.

@Wrath of Dagon I've already gathered info you've given through searches as long as it is available on the net for everyone. My question about origins is: if it has some depth and offers different viewpoints, then, how does it fit to Bioware's story formula of defeating dark forces, which is suitable to D&D settings with clear-cut good/evil powers? If I remember correctly, Bioware was planning massive combat gameplay in the early stage of Dragon Age, hence, the question. I've already gathered these pieces of info publicized on the net, whether officially or unofficially. The reason I asked the questions above is that some factors don't seem to fit together. Well, but if I cannot get the answer now, it would be reasonable for me to wait for some reviews.

I dropped by again since I heard that the lead designer of Dragon Age came to Obsidian board somewhere else. I wonder if he is still around but I'll fire up some of my questions about Dragon Age since I think some questions won't make people at Bioware boards happy. Bioware NPCs have failed to catch my interests partly because they are too stereotypical and expectable to me and, to be honest, I'm still suspicious of how the designers who are accustomed to making stereotypical NPCs heavily influenced by clear-cut D&D alignment and Sword Coast fantasy setting. Now the designers are free from these things with Dragon Age, I'd like to see a more independent and through world rather than yet another fantasy world with different name. So, I don't mean originality for originality's sake,which is totally nonsense to me. I'm against moral ambiguity for moral ambiguities' sake, too. IMO, It should be based on different views from various cultural views and religious beliefs. Naturally, I'm interested in "origin" of player characters. If I understand it correctly, it seems to be social, cultural and religious background settings assigned to each character upon character creation, which influence role-playing, means, NPC interactions in the world of Dragon Age. Is there enough room for players to assume variety of interpretation of stories and characters of Dragon Age? Or, is it going to end up with a story of good forces defeating a "villain" in the end? I know designers at Bioware have tried to make their villains interesting and three dimensional but, if the story begins from various view points, it would be rather odd if it were going to end up like other endings of Bioware products. As for combat, I cannot connect massive battles involving many characters and the party battle with the 4 member limit. Is the former for massive multi-player online while the latter is for single player modules? Also, I'm expecting the combat is more like Baldur's Gate systems rather than more recent Bioware products. Is my expectation is going to be failed since Dragon Age is now multi-platform?

I don't think this is a big secret or grand-breaking discovery but you people seem to have been repeating more or less same arguments for years... O.K. Despite of not accessing any game information nearly for a year, I guess I have gathered enough information just virtually in a few hours thanks to Google. I'm off now.