Slowtrain

^I actually think DX had a lot of flaws, though it managed to overcome them. SO I'm not in the least adverse to gameplay changes. Also, I actually though Invisible War was all right and even decent in some areas, so I must be pretty tolerant of deviations in the DX-style universe. atm, the only thing I thoguht was really inexcusably awful in that little playthrough was the object highlighting.

Let's not even start down the health regen road lest I be forced to throw an internet tantrum and soil my britches.

What? I'm not complaining about anything. That's my job. Would you say that the inability to water plants will destroy the experience for you? I used to like putting trashcans on the tables in DX1.

What? I'm not complaining about anything. That's my job.

Is the item highlight an augmentation aspect in the context of gameplay? Or is it simply a crutch for idiots? Either way, its pretty obnoxious. Don't know why it shouldn't be on an option toggle. I barely noticed the boxes that were highlighted. I'm sure after a while it would normalize, but for me it was pretty visually jarring.

I guess I was hoping for the player character to be a little less special. Oh well. Were you wanting to be the dragonborn's errand boy? Always more interesting to be the power behind the throne rather than on the throne itself.

I guess I was hoping for the player character to be a little less special. Oh well.

I guess that billion dollar trailer that no game could ever duplicate visually has its downside.

Maybe. It's not exactly a crowded field of candidates for the awesome-rpg-writing-award though.

Didn't Bethie win some sort of industry writing award for either Oblivion or FO3? The standards are pretty low. Maybe it does have the best writing since PS:T. Unlikely to have BETTER writing THAN PS:T though.

That's too bad. It's not that they are particularly bad in and of themselves, but it's going to get real old real fast having to sit through them every time you do a takedown. One thing game developers don't quite seem to understand is that no matter how incredibly cool something is the first time, it becomes eye gouging a thousand repititions later.

Five words: A film by Uwe Bolle.

The worst thing was that object glow. Holy crap that was awful. Is that really neccessary? Is the core audience of this game so dumb that they need every useable object highlighted? Man, I hope that low is optional. Or they at least turn down the brightness a litttle. ALso, overall, not particularly impressive in any way. Thief and DX1 did it better. ANd they didn't look as bland either. I also hope those "take down" cutscenes are optional.

oh joy

If failure isn't an option then success is meaningless. If success is meaningless, why bother playing. TO me, it's a big problem in the current video game design paradigm. edit: WHat made XCOM so great (one of the things) was the missions that ended in utter and apocalyptic failure. That made the times things went right, feel sweet.

AGreed. One can spend money poorly trying to make something good. I was assuming, for the sake of this discussion however, that the money being spent was well utilized regardless of whether it went toward graphics or mechanics. Ok. Perhaps a definition of what qualifies as "good" is in order since that was never originally defined. I don't consider myself particularly unique or special, so if I sincerely believe that graphics are not terribly important, then there are probably others who believe the same. Probably a sizeable number as well.

Yep, I sorta am. Resources spent on graphics = resources not spent on other things. The more money one spends on making their game pretty, the less money they have to spend on making it good. That doesn't neccessarily mean that all games that look good are bad and all games that look bad are good, since there are other elements at work. But basically pretty = pretty, nothing else. That's quite true. OK, fair enough. *shrug* They are an extremely minor thing for me. Which ultimately was my original point. Pete Hines is wrong.

That's simply not true. Possibly it is true that all other things being absolutely equal, better graphics would make the same game better, but in the real world, with a limit on resources, all things are never equall. I agree that Hines isn't saying it, but it is very much implied. He is saying that better graphics = better immersion. That implies that better immersion is desireable, ie good. So a game with better graphics has better immersion and is therefore a better game. And all he has to do is look at the games his own company has made over the last few years to see that that is not true. Graphics are such a minor part of creating a quality game experience. But they are an easy sell. Edit: Wzardry 7, which I believe your screenie was from, is just as immersive, if not more so than Oblivion

Where are you getting this? Did you even click the link? No one is claiming that good graphics make a bad game good. Not directly. But that's always the implication in statements like that, right? Better graphics=more immersion=better game. WHich is a total bunch of crap. Freaking "Hunt the Wumpus" with it's ASCII text graphics was more immersive than Oblivion or Fallout 3. WHat he should have said is "Eye candy is easier to pimp than quality gameplay so we focus on the former rather than the latter." That I would agree with.

Nope, he's wrong. There are some people, such as myself, who have been around long enough and played enough games to understand that no amount of awesome graphics ever made a bad game good. Not once. Not ever. All Hines has to do is look in his own backyard at Bethie's total POS game Oblivion to see this truth.

butcher, baker, candlestick maker, ninja. edit: Didn't mythbusters have a ninja on once? He tried to catch some arrows and didn't do so well.

The funny thing is, even though I'm not particularly a fan of Bioware's game designs, I would probably buy this game if I had the time to play it.

Gaming was a lot more awesome before the cool kids got involved. *recalls the fat hairy grognard days fondly*

Couldn't agree more. Unless they are your employees, of course. Bottom line, if you are not self-employed then you're just making someone else rich. Sometimes it's OK for the short term if you've got a long term goal in mind, but mostly working for someone else, especially a large company, is just selling off the hours of your life for a pittance.

I'll just pause here and remark that there are probably few problems in life that can't be solved by the odd bit of tunnel LARPing.