RPGmasterBoo

That was the point of my anti DA2, ME argument all along. Those games aren't about improving RPG's but melting them into a completely different genre, with the only difference between the two being a branching plot and player influence over it. That's all fine and dandy, but please don't try to sell that crap as progress. The fact of the matter is this. There is no more market (not one large enough for the likes of EA) for the semi turn based isometric, rules heavy games. What sells now is what everyone can play and get into. That is market logic. Its not refining, improving or moving a new step towards a gaming paradise. There was nothing wrong with space sims, yet they still kicked the bucket. The same will apply to "old school RPG's". I find that sad but understandable. What I can't stomach is trying to sell old concepts as something new and exciting.

What's wrong with a subscription model. If they sell 2 mill copies, and they get as many players playing for a couple of months their investment is covered?

It's still a sight better than than the alternative. Claiming that tradeoffs only make sense when the game is difficult seems somewhat senseless. The argument should be to increase the difficulty, not remove the tradeoffs. If your entire argument against the inventory system is that the enemies were too easy in general, then I don't see how you and I can engage in this debate. Because I completely fail to understand the argument. It's not as if vendor trash would have made them harder to fight. So you can't blame the inventory for that. The argument was that it didn't work in ME2. It might not have been a bad idea on the drawing board but it wasn't implemented fully. I'm not for stripping down the inventory to its bare essentials since I like inventory micro. On the other hand, I don't like loot spam. There is a functional middle ground. There was too little inventory micro in ME2 for my tastes. I let the same thing slide in the Witcher since the protagonists fixed image would be ruined by constant visual changes.

Tradeoff considerations. Do you want more shields, more armor, or more health? Do you want to have more ammo or do more damage? The heavy pistol was kind of absurd with how low ammo it had, if you remember. The starting armor pistol was fine as a main weapon, but the low ammo on the heavy one meant it's only useful for fighting armor or you'll run out. Assault rifles were very generalist, but that was a benefit of the Soldier class. You could pick it up later as other classes, but it's again a tradeoff to make that choice. You may have to sacrifice upgrading a weapon just to get the assault rifle. Or you might end up having to skip snipers to get assault rifles. It's more thinking than most progression systems. "Is the number bigger? Yes, it is, I'll use it." I've no idea what you're talking about. All those choices were irrelevant considering the game was cakewalk even on hard (or veteran, or whatever the above average difficulty was). I pulverized through everything with every available weapon and it made no difference whatsoever. Tradeoffs make sense when there is some palpable gain or loss either way. There wasn't.

I agree with this, which is why I liked BGII so much. One look and it was obvious what was junk and what was worth keeping. And selling junk in piles was never worth the bother. Magical items were sufficiently rare so as to stay exciting, and the mundane stuff you just ignored. There was the issue with the arrow quivers, but apart from that it was perfect. BG 1 had too much junk and ToB had an overload of magical items. I don't like picking up piles of crap and selling it and I hate an abundance of randomly generated prefix-suffix magical loot like Diablo has. I was sorely disappointed with Dragon Age over this. @Tale Sorry, what's this thinking you had to do in the ME2 inventory?

When ME 2 came out, I started a thread on the BSN suggesting I'd like to see their costume system in DA II. Queue eight pages of posters calling me a console kiddie who wanted to dumb down RPGs. Also, not a real BioWare fan who needs to go back to her JRPGs. I don't think it's just packrats. I think there are many people who see the most cumbersome aspects of Western RPGs as important and defining the genre. Gameplay complexity is inherent to RPG's. That's what makes them more satisfying than Tomb Raider. I've nothing against the latter, and when I want to play an action game, I'll play it. When I want to play an RPG I want stats, squad tactics, inventories etc. If its not complex and if there is no micromanagment all that's left is choose your own adventure button mashing. It grates me to do nothing but push the story along with one button combat and dialog (eg ME). Any fool can do that. There's no accomplishment in it, no nerd glory. It feels like Benny said: "The game was rigged from the start", only in the player's favor. I forgave TW this because everything else about it worked so well.

I know. Waves of casual gameplay wash over me like bad booze and drain my will to play serious games.

My kingdom for a consensus.

It serves no gameplay purpose outside of casinos. It's pretty much the 'casino gun'. And it's the gun I used to With sneak 50+ you can bring your own pistols/revolvers into the casino. You don't need the .22. Actually, not quite. What Mr. Holdout says is misleading. You don't need a sneak check at most casinos to use the holdout option. Only one casino has the sneak check for it, in fact. The rest have it by default. And it's only a limited selection of weapons that qualify, such as the .22 and 9mm. I don't think revolvers can be snuck in at all. Dude, I sneaked in Lucky into every casino. Just ask Benny about it.

It serves no gameplay purpose outside of casinos. It's pretty much the 'casino gun'. And it's the gun I used to With sneak 50+ you can bring your own pistols/revolvers into the casino. You don't need the .22.

Previews seem pretty enthusiastic so far outside from Germany. Germany is a big market but ultimately Bioware can go on without them, and I honestly doubt gamers care a lot for german reviewers. Not to mention that basically the only criticism of that german "review" (? seems like a preview to me, why the use of the term?) is that there are not enough NPCs in the city and that the game is buggy. Dunno what you're reading but the four previews I read complained about everything from the graphics being substandard to the combat being average. In short they complained about everything they saw in the short playable demo. The overall impression was uniformly average.

Methinks this will be the first Bioware product to get major slamming by reviewers if the previews are anything to go by. @Nepenthe, what did the character sheet and inventory look like. I'm trying to ascertain how much they dumbed it down.

Which is why I said from the start that most things that suck about this game are the (unfixable) flaws of Fallout 3. Really, its gameplay was about as user firendly as Tomb Raider 1.

Can't speak for your game but I don't have any mouse/combat lag. It's not about my own speed but rather that they move faster than my brain can even process information to direct my arm/hand. Enemies with guns usually aren't too bad even close up because they have to stand still more often to shoot/throw, but melee is tougher, in close quarters (like vaults or caves). Its not lag specifically, I can play Unreal Tournament at max speed all day and do fine - its the character and crosshairs in FNV and F3 that move too slowly and sluggishly to really target efficiently. In a good shooter you should be able to glide around and still headshot everything while staying out of reach. If I can do it fine in a hundred other games then something has to be wrong with FNV, no? Plus aiming has to be pin point accurate at everything beyond the closest range.

That and its much easier to make a 2D game than a fully voiced, 3D one.

I have the same problem. Real-time gunplay is Counterstrike all over again... the way enemies twitch around the screen at high speed. And trying to snipe a cazador gives me motion sickness (I suppose Boone could be really helpful with these things). But it's generally pretty easy to one-shot-kill everything, at least on Normal/Hardcore difficulty. Ratslayer for lesser enemies, hunting rifle for radscorpions & deathclaws, and the sniper rifle/AM rifle for the really big ones. The mouse and movement lag that's inherent to the damn engine is what makes real time shooting annoying. You cant strafe or move fast enough to really play it like a shooter. Well that was a fing nightmare. I got invited to see Ceasar and at the same time I got Houses quest to get inside the bunker. Which would have been fine if not for the fact that I got Villified with the Legion in the meanwhile which meant that I couldn't get to the bunker without killing a lot of guards. I basically broke the game.

Those were used in Kotor too so I'm not sure I see your point. They were well voice acted, integrated into the PC's story, visually appealing and they had a certain mystique that was appealing even when there was no actual character development. They had (most but not all) implied depth which made them interesting. This is important when the game isn't long enough or large enough in scope to devote tons of time to a single (optional!) character. The player has to fill in the blanks to a certain extent. This concerns Visas Marr, Bao-Dur, Atton Rand and Kreia. The rest were good and some I didn't like.

Your refreshing is my boring. I could whip up 50 of those stereotypical loss/revenge/cynicism back stories on my morning visit to the toilet. Those are overused Hollywood movie tropes done no better than in an average flick. If you aren't tired of them I salute you.

I've only tried EDE & Boone so far, and I've liked both their stories and quests, even if the Brotherhood did make me mad. What's wrong with the companions? I don't find them any worse (or better) than, say, Kotor2. Like in most games, most of the time they have nothing to say as they follow you around like drones, but when their story does come out, the two I've tried were fine. Boone's personal quest he was even making comments as I marched around (not a menu-dialogue) which gave it a nice feel and made me feel sad. EDE doesn't talk but he does have a nice chain. Are the other's not as good? The one thing I don't like with companions is how easy it is/can be to completely miss gaining their rep. or notice you have. I imagine some people go thru the game never triggering companion quests or realizing they have any, at all. (edit:I constantly checked Boone's Talk menu after every quest to see if there had been anything...he doesn't always give a verbal clue) I tried ED-E, Rex, Cass and Veronica. The first two are really only cosmetic companions. The latter two are shallow (veronica) and over exaggerated (Cass and her bloodthirstiness). But most of all they're incredibly boring and uninteresting to have around. Also their stories (and quests) are mundane "real world" emo troubles of the sort Bioware likes to portray. No mystique, charm or anything else. Do I really want to hear about Veronica's failed lesbian relationship (wat?) and how horrible it is to be smarter than everyone else in the BOS? All of this delivered in a 21st century hip chick "I'm so cool" manner. Christ. Or about Cass's caravan getting blown to bits and her bitching about it over a pile of whiskey. I mean, who cares? That's so.... "everyday"... in a violent post apocalyptic world. I find KOTOR2's companions much better. Visually appealing, thoughtful dialog and most of all integrated into the plot. Okay, they're remarkably similar to Torment's characters but that can only be a good thing. I honestly think you havent thought this through. Saying Kreia (for example) is on the same level as FNV's companions doesn't quite sound right. At the very least K2's companions have much more to say. Boo's guide to making interesting companions: option a) give them a real crisis I can sympathise with eg: Dakkon, Fall From Grace / or a good romance eg: Jaheira option b) make them humorous, charming, unique eg: Minsc, Imoen option c) both. eg: Morte If they are not a, b or c you're not doing it right. If there's no tragedy or comedy, you're in between, and thats where boredom lies.

That's true. I haven't seen a worse interface as far as I can remember. Its lazy not to change it (completely), although its possible Bethesda wouldn't allow it. The other major flaw of the game are the possible human companions. They suck and are not up to the usual Obsidian level. Those are the faults (apart from the bugs and instability) that I attribute to Obsidian in FNV.

I actually had not noticed. I keep hoping to find a blind old woman, though. I think they ditched her for Andrew Ryan *cough* Mr. House.

I'm probably the last to notice.

Truth be told I played most of the game through with the Ratslayer. On the whole its dirt cheap, and kills almost everything in one hit. My other weapon is Lucky (.357 unique revolver). I just blew Benny's head off with it. I'm level 25 and quite pleased with the way my char can pass every single skill check and still murder everything with a sniper. My third weapon is the Gobi Sniper Rifle, which takes care of the heavier enemies. I'll be exploring and questing until I hit level 30 and then its time to see what the endgame is like.