Drowsy Emperor

For me the only Blizz narrative that was good was Starcraft 1. Warcraft 3 was passable. The rest I don't even remember. Diablo 1 was sufficient, because the rest of the game was so great.

I never even mentioned stats. What makes Original Sin (and, incidentally, Icewind Dale 2) generic RPGs is that the narrative experience is just window dressing for the stats and combat. So is Temple of Elemental Evil, Icewind Dale 1, Drakensang and others. The story and characters are just there to give a little context to the action. Sometimes there's a little bit more, sometimes less, but that's the 'typical' cRPG experience, probably borne of the structure of written DnD adventures. At the end of the day, they all revolve around combat 80% of the time. PoE and BG2 are narrative and character driven while still having all the usual RPG trappings. So is Vampire: Bloodlines. PST is the extreme end where the mechanical aspects are almost completely overshadowed by the story. Arguably that's the most role-playing game of all of them, because you're not playing the 'who has the better numbers' minigame (min-maxing, optimization of character, combat etc.) - which, for a lot of people, is the game, but, literally, a role. At the end of the day, it's about what RPG means for you. For me, the whole, what I call 'generic' category was made obsolete by games like Torment, Baldur's Gate 2, the Witcher, Final Fantasy X, Bloodlines - unless they offer something new like, say, Gothic did, in its time...

Who said this? I'm quite sure that most people who praise Original Sin played for ~10 hours and then moved on to other things. The game was really good at leaving a nice first impression, with the pretty graphics and and interactivity. Or maybe people who actually played them for longer?After over 50 hours logged in each of Original Sin games I certainly think them much better than the rest of these so-called RPGs released recently. What's the competition? Play Torment: Tides of Numenera, see how bad the combat system is and you'll love every rpg that is thrown at you afterwards. Torment: Tides of Numenera was one of the biggest disappointments for me in gaming history. You would think the combat couldn't get any worse than Planescape? Think again. Brian Fargo is one of the greatest magicians in gaming. He managed to convince everyone that despite not making a single good game in two decades, he's going to make a good sequel to one of the best games of all time, and to Wasteland, so in effect, the 'real' Fallout 3. So, sequels to two of the greatest games of all time (according to many) And people believed him! On a related note, I've been thumbing through Numenera, and on the first page Cook says he was inspired primarily by Gene Wolfe and Moebius, literally my two favorite 'visions' of sci fi. Unfortunately, this is not something that's coming through in the rest of the book as much as I'd like. Because the first 5 hours are flat out boring. PoE has a dull low key introduction that smacks of a stock DnD campaign, a really good middle encompassing the majority of the game's content, and an underwhelming finale. My basic gripe with Larian games comes down to my personal experience. They have been trying very hard to make a great basic, or 'generic', RPG. Generic in this sense is not something bad, it's just a trait - the archetypal RPG experience, as you might imagine the typical tabletop group to run. And they did it. It's just that after 20 years of gaming the typical DnD module, even if it's done really well (like Drakensang was for example), is just not enough to keep my attention.

Chemical warfare is not all it's cracked up to be, apparently. Either that or he's Rasputin. Or, you know, they were bull****ting all along. What a joke. Wakes from a military grade nerve agent.

Who said this? I'm quite sure that most people who praise Original Sin played for ~10 hours and then moved on to other things. The game was really good at leaving a nice first impression, with the pretty graphics and and interactivity. Then you find out it has drivel for story, the combat is always the same, it's slow as molasses, quests are unexplained, broken or plain boring, and the companions might as well be made of cardboard. The worst part is - it's all. So. Excruciatingly. Generic. I got a few more than 10 hours out of both, but there is something about Larian games that enthrall me for act 1 and then totally lose me after that. It is usually enough for me to feel I got my money's worth though, so there is that. DOS2 did a good job of fixing quite a few of the issues with DOS1, but I wouldn't recommend it if the original bothered you that much. That's how it went. I was playing with my girlfriend and we finished act one, or so, and just dropped the game. Didn't even discuss it much, neither of felt like playing. I tend to stick with RPGs to the bitter end, so it took some effort on the game's part to alienate me

What did you like about the game? What kept you going through it?

Who said this? I'm quite sure that most people who praise Original Sin played for ~10 hours and then moved on to other things. The game was really good at leaving a nice first impression, with the pretty graphics and and interactivity. Then you find out it has drivel for story, the combat is always the same, it's slow as molasses, quests are unexplained, broken or plain boring, and the companions might as well be made of cardboard. The worst part is - it's all. So. Excruciatingly. Generic.

I felt so burned by DOS I wouldn't play DOS2 if it came bundled with a succubus.

The omnipresent quest arrow is retard academy, a sure guarantee that you won't appreciate your surroundings, or the content of the mission, or think much about what you're seeing, as you beeline toward the goal (reward) like a pavlovian muppet. Some degree of guidance is welcome, especially in enormous games, but as things stand now, we're far from that.

? Arkane did a superb RPG. Arx Fatalis. It's cheap on GoG if you'd like to play it. There's this brutal ambiance to games from the late 90s and early '00 that's not merely the result of a low level of graphical technology. They still kinda had the spirit that the player should 'deal with it' (aka the game world), explore and find their way - or just die. So compelling. Because you know that the game is mostly 'indifferent' to you, so it ratchets up the tension. If you got lost in Gothic, well then, you best ****ing learn where everything is and you won't be lost, a mate? Other than the Dark Souls thing - and that's not even a conscious effort to look back towards earlier game design choices but merely the Japanese continuing to make games in the styles that still hold sway in Japan - games have become so glib that the intimidation factor is very low. I remember, the first dungeon of Oblivion/Skyrim was atmospheric, but after that it quickly became laughable as it was so obvious that most things were heavily stacked in the player's favor or simply designed in such a way to be always at his convenience.

I imagine them to be somewhat like BG1 companions, but likely with more banter. To be honest, I think it's not a bad thing. Obligatory companion quests put stress on the designers and on the character him/herself as well as the PC - because: 1. The quest has to be significant and compelling (ideally) 2. It has to somehow tie into the main quest or at least the protagonist's experience 3. It has to introduce some change that is the result of PC agency All of these can lead to great things, but also to very railroaded, game-centric experiences. You will pursue the quest because you feel compelled to find out about the character, because there is the promise of a reward, and the reward will always tend to be the same - some sort of 'fundamental' change in the character or his perceptions. So it becomes a rote, predictable experience. It also puts a bit too much power in the hands of the player. Sure, the Nameless One may have been a demigod of sorts, and therefore exerts tremendous influence on his companions for one reason or another... but was the PC's seeming omnipotence in unwrapping the minds and issues of companions as convincing in KOTOR II? Dragon Age? Mass Effect? It's debatable. Case in point - I pursued companion quests in PoE less because I was interested in the stories (they were, in fact, quite boring), and more because I felt it was 'the right way to play', and, because I've always done so. It left me unsatisfied because neither the road toward the reward, nor the reward themselves were, well, rewarding. Conversely, what made Minsc so popular was his essential simplicity as a character and staunch refusal to add much depth to it. This is often the case in popular media - many characters are immensely interesting precisely because they have some specific quirks (Jack Sparrow) that seem fresh... and nothing else. E.g. Ripley has Sigourney Weaver's masculine looks, attitude and novelty of gender role reversal. John McLane has a troubled relationship, uncompromising attitude and an endless supply of smartass jokes. Etc. Etc. If done well, it's more than enough.

I was talking about the DnD system, I didn't even know that Obs is implementing morality in PoE2?

You guys realize the system is absurd right? Everything but the middle describes only extreme, fringe, individuals and even for them, sometimes applies only in specific circumstances. Human conduct is heavily influenced by circumstances, perceptions of good and bad are often dependent on societal norms, the actions of others are difficult to judge and may depend on perception and position of the beholder. I mean, surely, you understand that these categories are utter bullcrap, except for the basic distinction between good and evil, and even that is a philosophical problem of the highest order. Also, thinking in these labels makes for bad roleplaying and is more likely to produce cookie cutter characters rather than nuanced characters whose actions are the result of the complex mesh of upbringing, personal ideals, societal norms and specific circumstance that real human beings all have to contend with.

D6 is much more popular than you'd believe. Fate, FUDGE, Traveller, Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard and a host of other systems use D6's exclusively. They usually overcome the statistical limitations of D6 by introducing some other concept to expand the number of possible results. Percentile systems naturally use the D100 combo, some use pools of D10's (WoD), some use exclusively D20. A small group of games use custom dice (usually D6 though) and a few are entirely diceless. It's only DnD that pushes the entire set, and even that is a remnant of the past (there are many ways of solving damage, and practically anything else without dedicated dice and the added complexity). However, since the game is huge relative to all other RPG systems, it paints the whole hobby in its image - as is the case here.

Blizzard has sanctioned multiple PnP RPG products over the years (Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft), but seems not too enthused to make a narrative driven RPG, probably because it's too execution dependent.

Eh, I don't know about that. Extrajudicial killings with total disregard for collateral damage are always a big hit. While most people probably have other things to worry about, just about anyone you ask is going to agree that publicly murdering your citizens—"traitorous" or not—via nerve agent is a big no-no. Oh I'm not saying anyone likes it (even if it could be conclusively proven), I'm just saying that most people tend to recognize that these games are played on a higher level, involve a lot of lying on everyone's part and that any accusations end up as pure politics, rather than a genuine attempt to handle things in a legally transparent manner. In that sense, it comes down to pure propaganda, and when truth is a matter of which team you're rooting for, a rational person is not likely to be swayed much by anyone's version of events - hence it's not very good as propaganda, except as the daily 'five minutes of hate', or preaching to the choir.

It's true, but I've gotten more unique experiences over my 90 hours in Skyrim than some 10 hours of bespoke content. I never force myself to complete an open-world game, not even the critical path. GTA is a game that gave me hours of fun just as a sandbox, even if many aspects repeated. Testing the limits of a games system and internal logic is just fascinating. To this day my favorite open-world game (and even in general) is RDR because I made consistent progress and found that most of the games experiences are opportunities that arise as you travel between mission points. That game stayed fresh right up to the end, and unlike GTA where you can distract yourself at any moment, RDR had an encouraged pacing that remained none-the-less open ended. Contrast RDR to the density of Skyrim, and you simply can't keep up with all the quests you build up. It's like there are mouse-traps setup up to dynamically hand you quests, which makes travel and exploring both fun but also means you're half-starting a dozen guests that you might not get to for a while. I actually like what Skyrim did, but in the long term you feel like you are touring different Parks at Disney World. The content is all stashed away and you just tour around different parts of the park. RDR felt much more organic simply because it used the landscape naturally. TW3 took design cues from RDR, but seeing as 2077 will be hyper-dense and vertical it will be interesting how that game contrasts. I think both approaches work but they have to be balanced differently, because the illusion in dense worlds is far more fragile. A lot has to be going on in dense worlds, while at the same time you can't let the player burn through initial interactions. A linear experience won't necessarily be better, for sure. My favorite games aren't even strictly linear, PST,BG and the like flip back and forth between the concepts. It's more like a progression, and I liked at least a few games from even the extreme ends. I loved both Max Payne and GTA Vice City and those are polar opposites in design.

The whole poisoning story was poor from the start. Accusations were leveled before any serious inquiry, and that already casts serious doubt on any subsequently shown 'results'. Its propaganda angle was weakas well. No one cares if the Russians truly killed a man who turned on his own country, in either the West or in Russia itself. If Snowden chokes on a mushroom in a few years, you can't seriously expect the Russians to get riled up over it. 'CIA using biological weapons on our soil, this type of mushroom only grows in Arkansas!' grumble grumble Сука grumble

The issue I've had with Far Cry, Skyrim and similar open world games is that once you play a 'vertical slice' and try all the components at least once - drive or glide, attack one base camp, use the props, execute a silent kill or a rambo approach - the game is done. From there, it's all just repetition that is either well disguised (Skyrim) or poorly disguised (Far Cry 3, Oblivion). You could make a case that all games are like this in some way. What kills the enjoyment for me is how obviously the game world is a sandbox for the player - yes, you can do 'anything' but at the end of the day you just shifted some sand from here to there and none of it has any significance - the world is essentially static and like in a play, someone behind the curtain just resets the scenery and props when you aren't looking.

There is a detective noir RPG coming up, although it's not sci-fi.

crowbcat is such a legend

They should have seen this coming: bodybuilder, vegan, animal rights activist...

NK had good relations with former Yugoslavia, that continued (for the lack of any real reason for hostility) when Serbia was reconstituted. The guy made, and maintained, a name for himself as a expert on military matters for decades and is tight with state security services, so was likely trusted to 'behave' through those channels. He was, according to my sources, the only foreign journalist accredited to cover the aforementioned military parade in Pyongyang. I have no doubt the North Koreans kept careful watch on him, but since he was a 'friendly' guest, they weren't as harsh as usual.

One of our reputable journalists and wartime correspondents, who built his reputation up way back in socialist Yugoslavia, was recently (during the NK military parade) extended the courtesy of a much more freeform visit to the country than is usually permitted. Suffice to say, he found most of the usual accusations to be a flat out inventions. Nobody is starving, NK has some very capable industries (given the circumstances) and conditions in the country are nowhere near as miserable as they're made out to be. NK is far from the wealth of SK, but the population is nearly a decade younger than the SK average with a far better birth rate (1.92 vs 1.27), mostly because NK society is much more traditionally Korean (as in traditionalist Asian) than anything 'communist'. It's a functional society, maybe not one many Westerners would like to live in - but that doesn't automatically mean that the North Koreans feel like they're being oppressed and are on the verge of revolution. If anything, it's SK that's going to feel tremendous pressure to manage its rapidly aging workforce given the resistance of Asian societies to any sort of immigrant stop-gap solution. It's more likely that living standards will drop there (sans a robotics revolution) rather than NK going belly up.

Same in Serbia. Living costs are not actually smaller. By a degree, yes, but not proportionally to income.