Wrath of Dagon

I don't feel frustrated when I'm forced to repeat stuff I failed, I feel challenged. It's repeating stuff you already did over and over that's frustrating.

We'll never violate the Prime Directive unless I decide that in this particular situation the Prime Directive doesn't apply.

Well, OK, it depends whether the gameplay is required (not dying in combat) or optional, like looting. Reloading looting is easy to fix though by using a fixed skill check instead of random die roll, though I'm not even sure it's something that needs fixing.

I thought KOTOR was more like Trek than Star Wars, it was more episodic. And they even had tribbles.

- I can do it! I CAN DO IT!!! What a brave little toaster he is, and he's a cripple too!

Bastards!

I didn't say they weren't "better", I said I didn't like them. Most modern graphics are generic and boring, and I'd rather look at anything than another UE3 game. And graphics may not sell AOD, but art design should, because it's quite good.

All will be good if I can kill Joker.

That's the problem, either the game isn't hard enough, or you're constantly repeating stuff you already did successfully before failing something else. Isn't that the point of any gameplay?

There's no single critical path, there are several outcomes and several ways to reach each outcome. It's not that your every choice results in a new universe of possibilities.

You have multiple ways of advancing through the main story, not just insular side quests, I'm not even sure AOD has insular side quests. And yes, it's an independent developer with no budget, so why shouldn't I use that measure, especially as graphics are more than good enough for the purpose? May be they're not as good as TOR's, but I can't really think of another mainstream game whose graphics I prefer.

I'm not trying to convince you of anything. Vince gave multiple examples of how the game is going to work. If you don't believe him, there'll be a combat demo soon. When the game is released, there'll be a game demo. You can see for yourself. And AoD is not a story driven game, it's a choice driven game. And the key point is what Maria said, the audience for AoD is very different from the EA audience. I'd be very happy if someone made another KOTOR with KOTOR graphics. And did you even see the screenshot I posted, or the other links?

In case anyone missed it, I'll repost what Vince said about ways to accomplish that particular quest: 7 ways: - challenge Dellar and defeat him in combat (wouldn't count on it) - infiltrate the palace like a ninja - keep in mind, this screen was taken 3 years ago, so... - double-cross Feng and take Cassius to Antidas - deal with the raiders - deal with the Aurelian outpost - join the Imperial Guards - eventually you'll be sent to talk to Antidas, although things may go ugly and you may or may not get a chance to have a heart-to-heart conversation. Depends on your skills and certain choices. - start the game as one of the Antidas' "knights". Edit: Actually, it's 8 ways. I missed one: - you can pretend to be a nobleman and talk your way in. It's mentioned in the LP thread.

No, I meant AoD quests are actually done using a text adventure interface, I expect very little if any of that from DAO. I wasn't talking about dialogues.

The choices and consequences come from being able to take different paths depending on your character build. While many developers pay lip service to this concept, in practice you usually get a few fairly meaningless skill checks which don't affect very much. I think Vince has shown multiple examples of taking different approaches in AoD, including in the link posted earlier. He also posted a diagram of the main quest, which is quite involved. As far as writing, I've been reading the forums regularly and thus have seen many examples. You and I seem to have very different ideas on what costitutes good/acceptable graphics and writing, so I don't see a purpose in arguing that point. As far as EA, EA is not going to make an RPG that relies heavily on a text interface, so I'm not sure what that comparison is worth. I'm expecting DAO to be a good game, in spite of all the hits it's taking for writing and graphics, and that's an EA game.

I never said the game is guaranteed to be good. At most all I can say for now everything I've seen of it looks very good. The game is not ugly looking, as I said before, technically the graphics are very decent, and the art design is great. To me the writing looks good, and the parts of the story we've learned so far sound very intriguing. Vince never claimed AoD is innovative. He is shooting for a high quality traditional RPG. It's not that he's trying to make it just like Fallout, it's that he believes that providing choices and consequences is key in proper RPG design.

The question is what's your criterion for judging? Is it something irrelevant like cutting edge graphics or is it design? Also a combat demo should be released soon.

Yes, you can't judge video game writing in isolation, it's not like a book. To me you need good quest design to support good writing, otherwise it's kind of pointless.

While Vince's writing may not live up to the best from those games, they both certainly had their share of mediocre filler writing as well, which AoD will easily surpass.

Bioware's writing is frequently pretty good, just not that original. But it's usually at least functional, most of Mass Effect excluded.

You guys don't know what you're talking about, these are very old graphics, the new ones are much better, and art design is great. Go look at the website. Edit: Here's an example

Not where Bioware is located, I don't know about croissants though, we eat them here too. Edit: Actually, I take that back, I think they have a Montreal studio now.

Pretty sure what you save will be the checkpoints. So you can have multiple saves, but they will all be at the various checkpoints.

I guess that'll work if you can't quit out of the dialog, which would mean you have to leave your machine on if you have to leave suddenly. I can't help feeling I'm being treated like a small child.

Well, we know it's an RPG not a platformer. Chances are you'll get a checkpoint just before any dialog anyway, so if you want to reload the dialog just blow youself up with a grenade or something. Another issue is what happens if my one and only checkpoint gets corrupted, that's a horrible problem in some games.