Slowtrain

I don't understand rpg games these days that don't give players lots of on/off options. I'm no programmer but it doesn't seem like it'd be that hard/complicated to put them in the options menu as some kind of already-installed mod option concept perhaps. I realize some stuff may not be easy/doable to give options for, like AI or complex, nit-picky gameplay difficulty options, but compass, essential companions, whatever, shouldn't be? Relying on the fact that "pc users can mod the game" seems a bit of a cop-out to me when so many use consoles now. *shrug* Well, only speaking to the quest compass specifically. I think they don't want to hear the whining, a la: "I CAN"T FIND CAIUS COSADES YUR GANME SUX!!11!! WHich apparently was the number 1 complaint the devs got about MW and very traumatic, and which was swiftly answered with the compass in Oblivion. Bethie probably dooesn't WANT anybody to be able to turn it off, even by mistake.

A lot of that sounds great, and it SOUNDS like Todd Howard and his people are aware of how little personality Oblivion had and they are looking to make up for it. But Oblivion sounded great at first, too. So.

How much time do you think it would take? Ummm...Shouldn't companion AI be a priority? You know, more so than implementing killcams and grenade machineguns and gambling minigames? I mean, if companion AI is so problematic in the engine, then maybe don't spend time implemeting them. Or just make so many generic ones that they become disposable and not a big deal when they die. I'm not expecting miracles here. Been playing computer games too long for that. AI is rarely good. But at least have it workable so you don't have to make them unkillable, just to keep them from getting...killed. I could understand a friendly-fire on/off since it might be more difficult to keep companions out of the way of player attacks. Ot at least put unkillable companions on a separate toggle apart from hardcore. Don't get me wrong, you guys have done a lot of nice stuff with NV, but having unkillable companions is just pretty blah.

I'd like it both ways. Good AI and an option to have killable or unkillable NPCs. Definitely. Options are always great.

I love it when developers simply substitute flipping the old "can't die' flag rather than spend the time working with the AI until it isn't brain dead.

Bioware doesn't do shower scenes? I would have expected that to be high on their "must do" list.

Just play it on hardcore. Game gets even better all round. I do believe that such will be the plan!

OH ok, its the Bethesda version of unkillable NPC. Thanks.

INterestingly enough, almost all my favorite games of the last few years have come out of eastern europe and maybe a litte western europe as well. In the same time, North America game development has produced truckloads of poo.

Cross-promotions and focus groups are pretty much the worst things to happen to entertainment. That and Larry the Cable Guy.

I was just reading on the Fallout wiki that in NV non-hardcore mode companions can't die? Is that true? I mean, I assume it is, but didn't people find that pretty gamebreaking? How much fun can a non-hardcore game be if you get to run around with an unkillable meatshield at your side. Unless one wants to solo the game, is there any point to playing non-hardcore?

Hopefully we'll see minguns and tesla armor in Skyrim. With a name change, of course.

One can only assume it was some marketing deal with MS. No other reason to limit your audience. Unless the cost of doing a pc version was too much to bother with?

Well, it's not stupid if you're a publisher, but it is stupid if you're a gamer who doesn't want the games you buy chopped up into little pieces and sold off as parts.

True. Going by games purchased and hours spent gaming per week, I barely qualify as a casual gamer.

I think I missed one though.

You guys obviously are not using Bethesda-logic when making this kind of argument. Just because they did FO3 doesnt mean they will use the lessons they learned from that in Skyrim, they will probably just go crazy with minigames and awful mechanics again. And it will be ugly like nothing you've seen before. For instance, FO3 had the exact same horrible animation that Oblivion did. In the end you're probably 100% correct, but still I remain hopeful. I'm stupid that way.

I always look at it with the idea that if I have a good game that's worth playing, I might as well take my time and enjoy it. If I had a huge backlog of games that I needed to get through before I died, I might feel pressure to play faster. But since no such backlog exists, I see no point in rushing to the finish.

I agree the sudden homing in on you after you fire an arrow is lame, but at least they are upping the damage. If I can take out an enemy consistently in 1-2 shots, I won't need to backpedal so much. As long as the damage numbers come way way up then no more backpedaling might work to some degree. Also no more of that stuff where you're standing on top of a column shooting down at enemy and then he magically warps up right beside you. Bunch of crap that was. Sure, running backwards while shooting was always dumb and completely unrealistic, but having to shoot an enemy with 500 arrows to bring him down was also dumb and unrealistic. The latter dumb mechanic made the former dumb mechanic neccessary to make archers playable character types. Making arrows one hit kills would end the silly need for running at al. @mkreku: I loved Daggerfall and found some good things in MW, so I personally am hardly critical of the ES series as a whole, but I am highly critical of the turns Bethie has taken with it following Daggerfall. Especially since a lot of their gameplay mechanic desicions, primarily in Oblivion, are horrible. And the writing has good down the tubes so badly since MOrrowind that it's a joke. I'm totally willing to buy the fact that Oblivion might be a "worst case scenario" kind of thing, especially since FO3 was so much better, and the SKyrim might be a vast improvement. We'll see.

They really didn't really add much variation though. By variation, I'm thinking a two handed double jump back of neck pommel slam into unconscious or something. You know, variation from Bethie's gruesomely repetitive takes on melee combat.

ehh? Oblivion had variation to the melee? iirc, it was chop and kill. Each direction you had did a different attack. Holding back could cause a knockdown. There was another that could disarm. Maybe another that could break through a block, I don't remember specifics. But the general thing was that it wasn't just chop. You had moves. I think you're being pretty generous by calling those variations, but technically I suppose you are correct.

The game still has broken quests? Is there another patch coming? Or has Bethesda once again left a broken game sitting in the dust?

lol. FOr me, even after many playthroughs of SS2, it's still a 30-40 hour playthrough. For me the enjoyment is in the details, I guess.

ehh? Oblivion had variation to the melee? iirc, it was chop and kill.