Grand_Commander13

Well in most fantasy games the world is pretty harsh and filled with bandits and hostile monsters, so of course no one would care if you are walking around fully armored. An armed traveler wouldn't be suspicious. It would only be suspicious if you were trying to pretend to be a villager dressed like that. If the chances of getting into a gunfight in real life were the same as the chances of fighting bandits and monsters on the road in a fantasy game then no one would be surprised to see people walking around in bullet proof vests. That's one of the reasons why I said it would be more of a city problem than a village problem: in a village there likely would be nobody to tell you to take 'em off at the gate (which they wouldn't have), except maybe a "sheriff" of sorts to tell you to keep 'em holstered. In a city though, the town watch is confident they can keep control and wants to make sure they don't let people with the capacity to cause trouble in. Yes, the roads are dangerous which is why you're decked out like that. Now take 'em off.

Fallout had it right: a combination of 1, 2, and 3. You definitely need #1, because good armor does have a chance of totally deflecting a blow (though I'd like the combat thing to mention it bouncing off of the armor rather than counting it all as a "miss"). Between #2 and #3 you can argue about which one is better, but you need #1 and at least one of #1 and #2. Going straight #1 is also silly.

Look at it this way: it would make more sense if your character dressed up as a weak target than if they dressed up as a strong one. Though I'd question why there was such a large market for junky muggers' weapons in the first place...

You probably don't want to get into an argument about choices and consequences in Fallout and Alpha Protocol with someone who actually knows how both games react to your decisions, Volourn: it's an argument you'd lose.

This is something I want, except also in reverse: in most games your character will run through town in full battle gear, wearing full plate and carrying a sword and shield without anyone even batting an eyelash. Try running around town in a bulletproof vest (where legal; people in authority "back in the day" were just concerned as we are now about the ability to prevent people from being stronger than their officers, so legality would be more of a city problem than a village problem) and see how many funny comments you get. Just like Alpha Protocol would force Mike into civilian clothes when running around in armor would be silly, and wearing armor in the wrong situation was recognized by the game. I must say I'd like them to do a little more with the choice though, as in AP it was just a single line in the two missions where you got a choice.

I'm racking my brain trying to remember how you can get through KOTOR's end without a battle... I'm pretty darn sure you can't, though you can certainly shorten the battle by draining the pods yourself. Really Fallout does the non-combat final encounter one better: not only can you talk your way out of it, you can finish the game without even having it.

I really dislike systems where a character somehow be separated from his equipment and forced to make do with standard-issue gear will find himself feeling amazingly weak. I like games like the Fallouts for this. Lose your gauss rifle and power armor and get handed an assault rifle and combat armor? Sure, the Enclave might be trouble thanks to their heavy armor, but you're still shooting everyone else in the eye. My New Vegas character is pretty much running around with NCR standard-issue (though picked up a slightly nicer gun with higher damage per shot for dealing with armor) and doing just fine. What do we do in a system with magic? Well for one we don't necessarily need to enchant everything. Even if our gear is all enchanted (as opposed to just the rings and the odd cloak) you can make it give you extra options in combat (like a new spell or attack). Flat numerical bonuses can be kept small if they're rare; if everything gives a flat bonus to something then you have to inflate them to make the later ones worthwhile.

I don't have any idea what I want to play. Every class but barbarian has credits to its name in my eyes, and we haven't heard enough about the races for me to say much. I mean, I'll be saying "oooooh, shiny" every time we get an in-depth look at a particular class over the course of development; there's no point in me planting my flag right now, because I know I'll have a wandering heart.

What definition? Where? The update mentioned nothing about your Stamina being drained when you performed an action.

No I cannot, because neither of your cases seem to make sense. They are not the full list of potential options for how a dual Stamina/Health system can work, for one, and your case one seems to assume that your current Health affects your max Stamina somehow. Your second case seems to assume a relationship between Stamina and attack damage, somehow. All I wanted to know is if these were merely hypothetically decided upon during the thread or if a developer had actually suggested them. Because neither of them are good, and the smart thing to do is to have your attacks at full strength regardless of your Health/Stamina and have your maximum Stamina remain the same regardless of current Health.

When was it said that Stamina would determine attack strength? Or do anything other than allow encounters to be individually hard without forcing rest spamming?

So this breaks your immersion but your character shrugging off multiple stab wounds without any decrease in performance doesn't?

You don't even have any idea. Darklands is definitely old school and pretty hardcore (to give you an idea of how hardcore, Age of Decadence's developers have a particular fondness for it). Arcanum's Fatigue is nothing like the Stamina that PE will be using: Arcanum's Fatigue was something where weapons did separate damage to, was mainly used to limit spellcasting (whereas Project Eternity will use levels and cooldowns), and unless the enemy had drained it themselves or you specifically went for Fatigue-reduction wasn't something you'd drain often. The entire point of stamina which can regenerate is so that the developers can accomplish a pair of goals: The players can come to the brink of defeat in multiple fights in between rests. There is no healing magic in the game. If you don't include healing magic or some form of regenerating hit points, you're stuck with a bunch of fights that individually have no chance of defeating you—that is to say, a bunch of fights where you aren't ever in any danger of being defeated unless there's no way you can retreat and rest (which tends to get annoying and contrived after all). We already have the non-regenerating Health as a way to force us to pace ourselves, why complain that your Stamina comes back when it's eliminating stupid gameplay?

I'm assuming that since they're going for tactical combat that we must get some kind of "attack of opportunity" mechanic in the game. Combine that with the fact that if you're regenerating your stamina so is the enemy, and if you can used a ranged weapon so can he... There's really no excuse for kiting to work if the game developer has heard of the tactic. The game just needs to be designed so that slow characters (and enemies) have ways of forcing the enemy to sit still and fight them.

Ah, it feels so good to be back; there couldn't be a more exciting game to bring me back, either. Call me Grand_Commander13, Curator of the Obsidian Order.

I'm curious about what exactly is meant by a "honeycomb" structure. Is this a story structure that looks like Pascal's triangle (i.e. some limited mobility between missions, but it's hard to move from one end of the branch to another), or something else entirely? Also, I really liked the dialogue as it was. A shame he wishes he could have done it differently. I certainly don't think anyone's going to disagree with him about MOAR interactivity between missions and cities being good though.

^Sega's support was very responsive, though unable to do much other than assure me that developers knew of and were working on the problem. As for the silence of developers, it's my understanding they have marching orders not to talk much for one reason or another.

Software works in mysterious ways, especially with so many different hardware configurations...

It's right at the exit. There's a garden hose on the right side. Can't miss it (it's so obvious I checked it for a secret door on my first playthrough). Mike can only find it if he bought the map of the villa before the mission though.

Just an update for anyone who may suffer from a similar problem: my problem is triggered by whether I have GPGNet (from the Space Siege DVD specifically) on my system. I was fine until I uninstalled GPGNet, uninstalling and reinstalling Alpha Protocol after that didn't fix anything, but reinstalling GPGNet fixes the problem immediately.

Strawman attack me again, why don't you? I never said inventory selection was a sufficient criterion for being an RPG, just that player choice on the main gameplay element was a necessary criterion. And then I'll go on and say that picking the skill you use to kill bad guys with isn't really roleplaying. I mean, is Diablo 2 an RPG because you can choose a class and upgrade skills? Not really, not in a million years.

SMGs are a lot better for ranges and mowing down mooks. Heck, they may actually have better damage overall (Brayko was harder with SMGs, though I didn't get the tainted cocaine for him that time; Marburg was much easier with SMGs). You really miss that automatic knockdown with the SMGs though... Good thing the enemies don't survive long enough for it to be really a problem.

Oh yeah, I forgot, thieves also get to pick their skills. If traps were more common it might almost be worthwhile. I haven't played any of the earlier Wing Commanders, but I have played Privateer. To be honest, it's kind of like an early Bethesda game set in space, except with randomly generated quests instead of hand-designed. I mean, it even has factional standing. If you considered Bethesda's games to be good RPGs I don't think you could exclude Privateer from the definition. What's missing from Privateer for me to consider it an RPG is its lack of any real player impact on the world around them, any real reaction to their actions. I mean, for all its weak points Baldur's Gate had it. Torment had it. Oh boy did Fallout have it. And you need to have choices as to which action to take in any given situation, otherwise you're watching a movie and pressing buttons every time a battle comes up (or, if the game isn't a JRPG, usually solving puzzles).

It doesn't have a skill system though, just a mechanism by which your character's class, level, and gear are the sole determinants of (combat) ability. Aside from mages learning spells, there's no effective input on your character after character creation. I'll spare you my rant about how what computer games are called "RPGs" has changed with the development of tabletop games. It shall suffice to say that we have a difference of opinion and leave it there.

Then that makes Diablo more of an RPG than Baldur's Gate. Baldur's Gate isn't much of an RPG, but come on.