Slowtrain

Problem could have been solved by making weapons actually do damage. Having to go through two full magzaines for your assualt rifle to kill a raider guard dog was pretty ridiculous. 1000 assault rifle rounds didn't actually go very far.

I agree. I also agree. Make no mistake I like freedom in my games. Not a big fan of super linear games. Even good ones like Half-Life.

Of course, but they could have come with something a little better than: PC, Find your father! The narrative is so weak that it seems like they didn't even care enough to bother. That's OK in a shooter or something, where your "character" is just a walkign weapon platform, but I think a crpg needs a bit more. It took me about three levels to realize I needed a mod to slow leveling down. So I got one I agree. Its a HUGE problem. Thank goodness for the mod community.

WHich is good, because every time the main quest reared its ugly head in dialogue, I felt totally disconnected from the game. Anyway, I think a nice balance is best. Give the pc some backstory so they have a STORY, but keep their backstory somewhat non-specific so that each player can create enough of the pc so that the player feels a connection. Again, I think its best to give the pc a main narrative that asks the player character to act in their own best interest, but leaves the HOW of how they pursue that best interest up to the player. FO3 forced the desire to find my father on my pc, but failed to show me how it was in my best interest to do so. Bethesda: You want to find to your father. Me: Why? (obvious question) Bethesda: Doesn't everybody want to find their father? Me: No. Narrative fails.

I loved how you were playing a totally lost waif of pc, but when you went to Moira she called you an experienced survivor of the wastes and all that. I was thinking, wait, I thought I was a total n00b who lived in a vault all my life, why is this woman asking for my help writing a wasteland survival guide and praising me for my awesome survival powahs? lol. go go Bethesda! Inconsistency can be an art form!

I do think it would be nice if crpgs could move beyond the standard chase-the-macguffin plot though. Also move beyond the need for ther player character to be savior of the world. Slightly more humble and less grandiose motivations migth actually be more interesting.

Generally, I think it's best if plots in crpgs stem mostly from the assumption that the player character wil act in their own best interest. Assigning altruism or evilness directly to the narrative just makes the game feel disconected from the user. At least, that was my experience in FO3. And crpgs in general.

I bought the regular edition and the EE a year later. So, from me they got paid twice for the game.

Nah. Most people who hate it, hate it for very specific reasons. I don't actually hate it, but I think its pretty poor. Mostly do to s complete lack of consequences to the player's actions. And cionsequences, choosing A SIDE, was going to be an important part of the game, iirc. Well, it wasn't.

the worst thing (the worst thing? heck. there were so many worst things!) was the idea of an "evil" oriented character out looking for his dad (and no this is not justified as a "grudge-search" since that's just about the most juvenile thing i've ever heard of). I agree. CRPG developers seem to have a really difficult time with the concept of player character evil. Mostly because most developers seem to envision evil as some sort of cartoonish thug behavior.

For the most part, I totally agree. I would only say that I think it is important to keep the player characters's backstory general enough that a wide variety of gamers can feel some sort of connection to the pc. One of the reasons why I generally support non-sex specific player characters in crpgs. I guess if a developer comes up with an absolutely spectacular story that requires that player character to be a specifc sex then OK. But I ain't never seen that yet. Same with age, race, stuff like that. No reason to be too specific about those things. Let the players create those aspects of their characters to their own desires. I think.

^Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I thought you were criticizing his negativity, if that was the way it came across. I was just making conversation, loosely drawing from the content of your post.

I don't mind having some guidelines for a character's backstory. If it helps make a more interesting game that's fine. I just don't really want to be forced to play a teenager. I disliked it Invisible War as well. Nothing against teenagers, you understand. I just don't want to be forced to play one in a game. Also, incredibly lame motivations like looking for daddy should be dispensed with. Especially since I thought daddy was a bit of a tool, and I probably would have not have left the vault to go find him. edit: speeeling

Spoony did a more well-rounded review of it some time ago. Also it's on the Playstation Network, that's probably why no one has ever heard of it. Even though Yahtzee's shtick is obviously to accentuate the negative (although not always, I guess), when I have played the games he reviews I do find myself agreeing with many of his points, even when they are negative. After a while of reading the same reviewer, one begins to get a sense of how their take on things (games, movies, etc) meshes with one's own. With Yahtzee, I find we tend to respond negatively to many of the same thigns.

Yeah, but at least it provided us with a funny review. hehe

As long as I don't have to play a kid, I'm happy. I know we live in a youth-dominated world, but forcing me to play some sort of teenie-bopper looking for dada did nothing for me. Maybe I'm just a jerk, but the whole looking for my lost dada thing was the ultimate in suckarse plot concepts. Let me play a grizzled aging mercenary or something freaking interesting.

I think time limits are fine in a small scale, ie: you must complete this particular objective in X amount of time, but I couldn't be less a fan of time limits that make you rush through an entire game. Realistic it may be, but fun it ain't.

Never heard of that game before, but geez, it sounds utterly retarded and not fun.

If you cough hard enough, that's always true. I once got off a hard to get bus ride because a woman was coughing her brains out right next to me. Like explosive non-stop coughing. It wasn't so much that I was afraid of getting sick, it was just maddeningly annoying. The bus was jammed, too. And hot. I don't think anyone was happy. Take your cough medicine before you get on a hot, crowded bus, plz.

Nice post, Aristes.

I read some of it. I agreed with what I read, so I think it must be a good post. GOOD POAST!

I just quietly left the place and never went back. Just pretended I never happened upon it in the first place.

LP threads are sometimes fun to read, depending on the quality of the poster. But they take up way huge amounts of time to do. SO I woudl read them, if somebody did them, depending on the game, but I wouldn't do any myself. And anybody who starts one, but then stops at some point and never finishes is hereby resolved of all blame.

Josh, are you guys open to making the map larger and adding more "elbow room" when it comes to exploration? Or is this something you stil can't talk about?

Dark Messiah was awesome, I still wonder why there are so few people that even know about it. I could kick skeletons down stairways for hours and it never lost it's charm... I found Dark Messiah on Amazon for $6.75 USD. Next time I get a book or something I may throw that in the order as well. I mean for $6.75 it doesn't really matter if its awful. I mean it does, but I'm not out much even if I hate it.