Wrath of Dagon

Well, I wouldn't want bee filled bullets, that would be ridiculous in addition to absurd. Yes, most accepted gaming conventions don't really make sense, but for whatever game you're trying to make, there's a line you shouldn't cross. Also trying to make some things authentic is still valid even if other things aren't, it just depends on the game (bee filled bullets worked great in Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath btw).

OK, so how absurd is it that you mow down hundreds of enemies all by yourself, which is why you'd run out of ammo in the first place. Can you imagine going on a commando raid and failing because you didn't take enough ammo, that would just be embarassing. Also as I said, ammo drops all over the environment are even more absurd, in real life you wouldn't run out of ammo, or if you did it would probably be game over.

That's why I was confused, I thought you meant it as a counter-argument to what I said about not having to kill anyone in IW.

Heh, heh, that's why I do it.

Is that in IW or the original?

How absurd is it that you never have to go to the bathroom in a game, or even eat for that matter. Oh, I get it, the bathrooms have the ammo drops, so ammo is not really infinite, but since you never see the bathroom, you don't realize that's where the reloading takes place. Oh, and I guess having reload clips with exactly the caliber you need scattered all over the environment is not absurd, because that's totally how it works in real life.

Ah, but chicken fried steak > chicken.

DX IW you could complete without touching anyone, it would be really hard though.

No, there's an escaped group of students you can choose to help or kill, you can double cross fellow students or try to be honest, although they'll usually attack you anyway, there's a student you can save from the former headmaster at a cost to yourself, if you return with either of the headmasters you don't have to fight the whole academy, you can turn the Twiilek Sith to the light side, etc.

Yes, it's true. You go to the Jedi academy and through quests learn about the Jedi, you go to the Sith academy and learn about the Sith, and have a chance to either follow their philosophy or reject it by your actions. You're not just told Czerka is evil, you see for yourself how evil they are. If you're told Taris consists of the rich upper city and the wretched lower city, you go there and see for yourself. You learn all kinds of things about the universe, and very little through exposition. If it was ME, all that stuff would just be written down in the Codex for you to read, instead of experience for yourself. That's the difference between a great game and a mediocre one, I'll never understand why so many people can't see that.

I don't think DA is guaranteed to sell millions. Jade Empire didn't sell that well. Right now all they can really count on is the NWN2 audience. It doesn't feel like there's much hype for the game, perhaps it'll change now that they're starting to release info.

Bioware became EA long before EA bought them. Riccitiello was at EA before he became Bio CEO, and then went back to be EA CEO. Good intentions don't count for nothing when maximizing profits is your primary goal, and for EA it has to be. I'd be surprised if Bio ever does another DA unless DA is a huge hit somehow.

What's truly outrageous is that they show an PPSh sub-machine gun and call it a shotgun! And how did a Russian gun wind up in PA America anyway!? Have these people no shame about historical accuracy?!

They're nothing like each other. KOTOR had narrative and universe implemented into gameplay, great characters, great dialog,interesting story, interesting art design, a lot of variety, relatively open levels, and most importantly great quest design. ME has a cliched and nonsensical narrative, universe is hardly explored in game and is confined to reading the codex and the exposition of boring NPC's, party characters you talk to only 3-4 times, most of them boring, horrible repetitive and generic art design, the gameplay is mostly on rails and consists almost entirely of meaningless dialog/exposition alternating with shooting, the quest design ranges from mediocre to atrocious with only a couple of exceptions. Moreover the whole game feels shallow, threadbare and gives the impression of corners being cut everywhere. Btw, I'm no Star Wars fan, I actively despised SW before playing KOTOR, but the game made the SW universe far more interesting and fleshed out than the movies.

JE is an RPG Bioware didn't bother to finish, with ME they didn't even bother to start.

Since you've repeated that bit of wisdom 10,000 times now, it must surely be true.

You're missing very little, unless you want to see how far Bioware went down with their attempts at mainstreaming and rushed production.

No, I meant KOTOR was not like Deus Ex, and I wanted to know whether the AP quests would be more like Deus Ex or like KOTOR. And I agree, just having your choices matter only at the end is not very satisfying, but they said it will also matter along the way.

More than one way of being completed sounds very good, but it's kind of vague. Is this going to work like Deus Ex or like KOTOR?

The character I made in ME animated horribly, I had to go with the default anyway. May be they're just trying to avoid those kinds of problems. Edit: Less looping back in the dialog sounds good, hopefully it'll be more like a real conversation instead of an info dump. "Super Powers" is a bit of a disappointment though.

What I'm describing is gameplay. Since when do visual novels or adventure books let you participate in dialog? How do you do a quest in those games? There are other things which flow out of those priorities. For example, you need combat or some other way to provide challenge, else you can't design an interesting quest. The combat has to be fun, but it doesn't need to be as excellent as combat in a game that completely relies on it as the main gameplay element. Making decisions that matter implies that there has to be narrative elements you make decisions about. Fun dialog implies interesting characters, you can't have fun dialog with a dull character, etc.

Yes, development always has to prioritize, time and resources aren't infinite. For me it's interesting quest design, fun dialog, being able to make decisions that matter. Everything else is just gravy.

Yes, I liked lock picking in Thief 3. Made you feel like a real thief. The funny thing is, everyone seems to hate lock picking in Oblivion, but it's almost the same except it requires more skill, so I liked it, although it could get frustrating. As for bad examples, for the love of all that's holy, don't put in the button mashing mini-game from Mass Effect, what a horrible tedious waste of time and a constant reload mechanism!

Mass Effect, not that the physics were that great either.

You couldn't always avoid it, like escaping from the hotel or walking on the girders in the burning bank you would get the effects because Jack is under a lot of stress, which would make things more difficult for the player just as it would for the character. Also I haven't played SS2, but even if it is a better game, that doesn't negate DCotE's achievements.