Slowtrain

No? Then the whole "that's the whole point of crpgs" thing is something you throw around whenever you feel like it, but it's not actually intended to mean anything, yes? It means that is what a crpg is to me. My take. My thoughts. My opinion. My experience. I posted in response to the OP's poll. Nowhere have I said that you (or anyone) needs to agree with me. In fact I went out of my way to say, everyone's ideas are fine. For the last few posts, it appears you been attacking me for having an opinion and posting it. I'm OK with that; it comes with the territory, but I am not saying that you need to agree with me so please don't take it in that way. Nitpicking. But yeah, if a cRPG is only about fizzling around with stats (from your previous posts about stats), there's no point in doing anything else, unless you want to artificially crank the difficulty up for some reason. Every stat built charaacter has strengths and weaknessess, every stat build character has a personality. Fallout yielded so many fun characters. None of them were min-maxed. That's not the point. The point is to build a character to interact with the gameworld based on who they are. That's they way I play it anyway. Oblivion is not AP. Oblivion is not any other game either. It is only Oblivion. General conclusions cannot be drawn from the shortcomings of one game in particular. Right. I'll say it again. I'm not saying Alpha Protocol needs to be X or Y or Z. That has nothing to do with my posts. I am answering the orginal question in the thread: "Do you prefer stat resolved combat or player skill resolved combat?" If the mods or the OP want this thread moved to general gaming, that's OK with me.

One of the 2 guys who did the interview with Todd when he did his playthrough with the teddy bears and stuff. I don't know his name. I should also point out that I am not really in disagreement with the idea that the pc is dead as a gaming platform. There are still a few titles here and there that are pc only, but those aren't going to be around much longer I don't think. If you don't have a console, it's getting to the point where you really don't have access to the vast majority of interesting (potentially) games that are being made. The pc is pretty second-rate now as a platform for contemporary games. I feel very limited by my lack of a console after years of being a pc only gamer. The last time I made serious use of consoles was back in the days of the old atari and intellevision consoles. But it is time to go back. However, I was checking out those demos and playthroughs to see what would be open to me if I got a console, and I was sadly not really impressed. To be fair, I think some of those demos such as the Resident Evil 5 one probably did not give a good sense of the game. I am going to try and see if I can get somebody to give me a console for my birthday. Maybe I can find a rich aunt or other distance relative in my family trr or something.

I haven't seen anything, but I wasn't looking for any title in specfic just seeing what was out there in a general sense. So there may be info on it.

One of the 2 guys who did the interview with Todd when he did his playthrough with the teddy bears and stuff. I don't know his name.

I don't have a "take" on cRPGs. I operate on a case-by-case basis. But I'm not impressed by others telling me what cRPGs should be about. That's cool. I wasn't particularly trying to impress you, just adding my opinion to the thread. No, that's just the way it was done in the IE. It really has nothing to do with roleplaying. You want IE-style mechanics, OK. But don't pretend that there is some sort of fundamental connection between character development and the retarded, artificially induced failings of game mechanics from the past. There is no fundamental connection. I never said that. No, you didn't say anything about it, but you've been reducing cRPGs to playing with stats. I guess you could not min/max, but if you strip everything else away, there's not much more to do, really. So are you saying the only way to make and play a stat-based character is min-maxing? Then, if you weren't meaning to draw any conclusions from it, what's the relevance of that example outside of a discussion about Oblivion? It was an example of a situation where mixing player skill and character skill didn't work. That's the only relevance.

I'm not specifically relating my posts to Alpha Protocol or saying what that game should be or shouldn't be. I was merely responding to the question in the poll. Perhaps a mod should move this topic to general gaming?

Pedantic is not really the right word, I think. I see it more as celebrating the differences. I love runnning jumping climbing etc in STALKER and Thief, but I also enjoy constructing a character out of numbers and taking that character out into the world to see what happens based on those numbers and then working on those numbers as I go along.

If you want to make the argument that a crpg is not neccessarily about building a character out of a set of stats and skills, then OK, I can't really argue. I used to post with a guy who maintained that every game was a role-playing game since you always played a role, even in Doom. So fine. If that is your take on a crpg, so be it. Otoh, if you're saying that failing a backstab because you missed a skill roll is specifically something bad, I would just say that TO ME, that is the entire point of a crpg. You build your character with the knowledge of the stats and skills and let the actions of that character succeed or fail based on those numbers. That's the point of a crpg. Missing a backstab as you describe isn't bad gameplay or whatever. That's the way a stat system works. Perhaps you dislike stat systems? That's cool. There's plenty of room for games that doesn't use them. So then, roleplaying for you is just min/maxing. Interesting. If you say so. I said nothing about min/maxing so you must be reading my mind or something. And because Oblivion failed at delivering a balanced blend of player skill and character stats to affect the game does that mean that it cannot be done? No. That was a single example from a game that failed to do it well. Nothing more, nothing less.

I think you are confused or something. According to the guy on G4 PC gaming is not dying, it's actually dead. That's what he told Todd Howard anyway. Todd didn't seem to quite agree though.

QFT. I mean the whole point of a crpg is to build and develop your character and then watch as they character you built suceeds or fails on those merits. Once you start allowing my skill with the keyboard and mouse to affact how my stat/skill built character plays, then you've sort of defeated the whole purpose of building a character in the first place. I mean, in Oblivion I could pick any lock in the game with a 5 skill in lockpicking and a 30 agility. Why? Because my player skill in manipulating the lockpick gui was overriding my character skill. So what's the point of a lockpicking skill in the first place? I've got nothing against FPS games either. I just like them different.

I don't know about that, but all those demos/playthroughs were incredibly generic and uninspiring. Maybe they just need better demos to show more of what the game is. Maybe the games are pretty much all the same generic junk. Either way nothing about them convinced me I was going to be parting with any money. I've read very very little and watched nothing. I've been avoiding it intentionally so as to make my first playthrough as much a surprise as possible.

I just watched about an hours worth of game demos from E3 in G4 tv and all I can say is bleah.... I found it very difficult to distinguish one game from another except in the most superficial of ways. Its kinda funny watching these developers get on and pimp their game like its the greatest thing ever, but really it looks just like the game I watched 4 minutes ago. Maybe they need to show more in their demos than carrying weapons and fighting. The new Prince of Persia had a kinda neat art style to it, but that was the only things that stood out. Here's what I watched: FO3 Resident Evil 5 Silent Hill 5 Prince of Persia Bionic Commando Fable 2 Gears of War 2 Ghostbusters Halo Wars Killzone Resistance 2 Star Wars Force Unleashed Too Human What a bunch of junk. The game that actually stood out the most was Fallout 3. I guess that's a good thing.

Maybe. But what was once old will be new again. These rt action/rpg hybrids are the flavor of the month atm. They'll last for a while then burn out like always. Something else will replace them.

In crpgs I prefer stat-based combat. In shooters or flight sims or whatever, player-skill based combat is fine. They are different vibes and both are rewarding in their own way. I do find it unfortunate that stat-based combat is becoming so much less common though, but whatever. At the moment mainstream video game development is pretty much a monkey-see, monkey-do affair. Someday some developer will make a TB stat heavy isometric game that sells a bajillion copies and then everybody will start making those types of games instead.

Well, so far, no one has presented any logical reason why it would make sense for KotoR 3 to not be developed.

So I guess MMORPGs are econmically similar to subways. The user's cost to play the game is pretty small, but the developers make money because a large number of users are sharing the same assets concurrently. But that model requires maintaining a sufficient volume of users otherwise you start bleeding money in a hurry since you can't really cut costs per user if things go bad.

Do most MMORPG's require a monthly fee? Or do you just have to buy the game one time and then you can play forever?

Age of Conan wasn't on that chart was it. If 100,000 is enough users to make money then there is more room in the MMORPG marketplace than I thought. I was expecting profits for these things to require a million or so users consistently over time.

Totally spooky. Lineage was doing well for a while. Never heard of it myself. The only game that really seems to be growing its user base is WoW.

It all of course depends on how much the developer sent on making the MMOG. I used to know the typical number a simple MMOG would cost... but I am drawing a blank. Here's some info (While not 100% accurate, it is quite extensive) on subscriber numbers. If any are interested. http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart1.html lol that chart is ridiculous if accurate. Any developer who would try to go after WoW is just throwing money down the toilet. None of the others are even remotely playing in the same ballpark. Not even close.

Actually, the gigantic release of Funcom's Age of Conan makes it clear that the upper limit for MMO subscribers is really unknown. Plus, MMO's do taper off over time, and those players tend to look for greener pastures. WoW is king right now, but this KotOR Online is probably still years away from release, and who knows what the market will be by then? You have quite a few MMO's going strong right now, and by strong I mean over 100k subscribers: WoW (of course) LotR Online EQ2 AoC (impressive start, not sure on lifespan) EVE FFXI Lineage 2 I'm probably forgetting a few, and there are some that manage to cling on to enough people to stay in business: The original EQ, Asheron's Call, Ultima Online, D&D Online, Vanguard, SW: Galaxies (I think this one is ending)... Is 100,00 a lot? I mean is that enough users for the developers and publishers to be making a steady profit?

Unlikely, you may get a kinda AoC thing where you have online with a sort of single player mode Why? There's always money to be made in a single player game. Put a free-for-a-month account for the online game in as part of the installation and you've just increased your exposure for the online game as well. Maybe Bioware wouldn't want to do it themselves, but they could farm it out just like KoToR 2.

There's no reason why there can't be a KoTot online and a KoToR 3. That would make the most sense anyway, since you could make multiple use of the same developement assets and yet hit both the single player and MMORPG markets as well as using the single player game to promote the online experience.

WOuld one have an effect on the other? They would seem to be products aimed at different markets.

Its strange that so many companies seem to be on the MMORPG bandwagon. It just seems to me that MMORPGs are one of the product niches where there just isn't a lot of room for a bunch of different ones to succeed. Most MMORPG players are only going to have time for 1 or 2 MMORPGs at a time, and for most one of those will probably be WoW. Given the ongoing cost of having to maintain the online world, it would seem to be a tough way to make money. Star Wars through is probably an IP that has as good a chance as succeeding as any other.