Slowtrain

WHat are some games that have real consequences? I can't think of any at the moment. DX2 Invisible War was supposed to be fraught with conseqence but it wasn't. You could kill everyone from either side, and both sides would keep letting you work for them. In on egame I wiped out the entire WTO air terminal and the WTO still loved me. IIRC, the devs defended that lack of consequence as not wanting to force any gamer down a path they might regret later. SO really the only decision of any real conseqence is right at the end where you basically decide which end game plays out. Did Fallout have consqeucnes? Kinda, as you actions affected what happened in certain areas, but those consequences were pretty immaterial to your actual game, as you really only got to see them after everything was already over. I think consequences for your choices in games is pretty good, but it doesn't happen very often.

Sounds good to me. Anything that begins to reduce the static aspect of selecting pre-formed dialog options 1-x is interesting to me. I'm sure there wil be some failed experiments, but trying something new is a good thing. Marc. Try reading a book. :/ edit: Nope, I'm wrong. Different Laidlaw. Ah well, research before you post, dummy.

That's weird. They are both really similar games. Lots of combat, not much dialogue. Main difference of course is that one is party-based and one is single pc. I think they are both great. Hacve you tried Flamestryke's awesome WIz 8 mod?

@spider: I agree it is common in games. Doesn't make it any better though. As Hell Kitty points out though, it's really a puzzle. Which I think is a great way to look at it. A puzzle disguised as combat. I've never been much of a puzzle-oriented gamer. Looking for arcane solutions to what should be an obvious problem doesn't really interest me. But its rarely a game-killer, just something I really don't liketo have todealwith in games. Similar to jumping puzzles in that sense. I try to avoid games that contain either and it always rankles me a bit when I encounter either in a game I choose to play. So be it!

Yeah, but come on. You CAN whack a bandit with a really big enchanted Claymore and watch them go flying through the air screaming and burning and trailing fire! Totally awesome! Seriously, back when I was playing Hunt the Wumpus on a DEC PDP/11-34 terminal (or whatever the heck it was, who can remember the 70's anyway?) I never even dreamed that I would one day be able to do what I can do in Oblivion on a computer. Its really amazing. Stuff like flying bandits trailing fire practically gives me goosebumps, it's so unbelievable. And in a crpg, too. You can keep your crappy dialogue options! I'll express my elf through my flaming Claymore!

The original System Shock is one of my fave games ever. I played it from start to finish so many many many times...whew! I still have the CD and manuals. I had the strat guide but I gave it to a friend many years ago. I regret doing that now. The only bad thing about SS1 is the clumsy interface and control scheme. If anything caguth you by surprise , your only real option was to put your head down and run away, then get prgranized and come back, since it was impossible (pretty much) to respond rapidly to new events in the UI. In many ways, SS1 was a precursor to Thief, since it really emphasized stealth and sneaking around for much of the game. Of course it also emphasized unloading a Skorpion submachine loaded with Big Slag clip right into the face of a cyborg warrior at point blank range! My kind of game. Here you go: A little bit of the old days! :cool:

I'll never argue that Oblivion has been reduced from Morrowind which in return was reduced from the insane complexity of Daggerfall. I'll also never argue that the crpg elements of Oblivion are um minimal. At best. But I love first person games that have character building and big inventories and look good and have a small amount of dialogue to flesh out the world and let you kill things while looking so good. Its my kind of FPS! Yes, its true. I'm so shallow, I'd drown in a wading pool. Ah well.

Oh look, a female underwear mod.

Fileplanet and I don't get along. Its a long story. Here's a non FP link for those who are interested: http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/mods/th...mod.html#id9036 Gonna look through the readme know. Thanks, Hades. Hey did you also install the additionalnewarmorandweaponspack?

oh um, fileplanet <_<

Ah, cool. The readme appears to be buried in the download so I'll have to wait until i can DL it later to check it out. It would be nice to play a mod that accomplishes many of the same things as OOO, but isn't quite as um deadly. There isn't much room for error at low levels when playing OOO.

That sounds cool, Hades. I'm going to check it out. One quick question: Does it make combat overall tougher?

Yes, good luck playing as a 30 Endurance wood elf for example. However, it is playable if you are prepapred to run away a lot. However,stiautions in which you can't really run away in can be tough early. On my last gamne, I got a Clannfear in the first Main Quest. A Clannfear is a Level 11 creature and it killed my pc in 2 quick hits. She didn't even have time to scream However, I think its a total fab mod and enjoy the challenge.

OOO is a great mod. Content addtions, gameplay changes, AI enhancements. Plus as Kirottu points out it removes a lot of the leveling aspects of the game. I shoudl point out that it also makes the game MUCH harder

Rules learned in a book have nothing to do with questionable game design decisions. Fantasy games rely on an internal consistency to keep the pieces from flying apart. SInce we are dealing with a entirely made up world where the rules of "real life" may or may not apply, we have to rely on learning quickly what "rules" the fantasy gameworld is playing by. Once those rules are established (ie causing physical damage to a being kills them), a developer has to be careful about breaking them. Not that the rules can't be broken, they just have to be broken carefully. Bloodlines is very careful about explaining what damage is and how it works, normal damage, aggravated damage, firearms, slashing etc and so forth, then it throws it all out the window for a single encounter. In the case of Bloodlines it is not a gamekiller, but it certainly left a bad enough taste in my mouth.

I'm going to agree with Hades here, although for different reasons. Although the difficulty of fighting a werewolf is well-hyped throughout the game, the fact that the werewolf is unkilliable through normal means is incosistent with the rest of the game. It became obvious pretty quickly that there was a trick to defeating it, but I think "trick" bosses are cheeseball game design. In any game. Here I am playing through a game, killing everything, and then suddenly I encounter the magical boss who has to be shot once in one eye with a laser, once in the other eye with a laser, then have a rocker fired through a trans-dimensional openign in its stomach (which is onlyopen for a short period), then wash-rinse-repeat 2 more times. Talk about completely arbitrary game design. Give me a freaking break. The werewolf wasn't quite as bad as that example (Hello Half-Life!), but the principle is the same, to me. If you set your rules as conflict resolution through massive firepower, you don't arbitrarily change those rules simply to confuse the gamer. What would have worked in bloodlines is if you had meet a series of werewolfs throughout the game, maybe 4 or 5, enough to establish a consistency anyway, starting with a very wimpy one and getting progressively stronger. Along with proper in-game explanations on how to fight werewolfs, that would give the gamer a chance to learn the "rules" for werewolf fighting. AT that point it becomes an interesting puzzle as you face stronger and strionger werewolfs and have tofigure out howto use the environemtn to defeat each one. Or something. ANyway, I thought it was a copout on the part of the devs.

The funny thing is that I don't really care; I'll play whatever as long as its fun. I don't think a game needs to be a political statement. That said, I'm all for as much choice as possible when creating and developing crpg characters. But fi story or funds limit those choices,so be it. Just make the game fun!

Where's my giant anti-male hammer? I know I left I laying about somewhere. Now if I couldjust find my metal bikini.

You should have the option to choose a female avatar at least! hehe. SOrry.

I removed the pic. I'm not interested in debating geneder roles. I'm just here to talk about games. Sorry to derail the thread, however unintentionally.

Should I give her a beauty mark, do you think? Some long flowing tresses? Maybe she can sit in a tower somewhere and wait for some stud to come carry her away. That would be awesome. I can't wait to play that game. You play your characters and I'll play mine, kthnks.

All pre-release hype for any game is best taken with a grain of salt. I've never seen a game that was at that the devs promised it would be. Ever. Consequently, I keep my expectations low, which helps with enjoying a game for what it is, rather than what I hoped it would be. Which means I really enjoy the heck out of Oblivion, since what it does it does great and that's good enough. I'm sure G3 will do some things well and some things poorly. I'm not going to judge content until its actually released and people are plaing the final version. The screenies I can judge and they look like poo. Happily, there's more to the game than just graphics. So its still all good.

He was dead when I found him, Judge! I swear it.

Yes, you did. The 1.13 mod has been out for more than a year. It keeps getting worked on and modified. A new version was just released September 1. IIRC, you played a version that had the airstrikes, for example. Airstrikes have since been removed.