Slowtrain

I agree that the ls was much better in FO3 than Oblivion; it's one of the imporovements I hope makes the jump from Fo3 to Skyrim. That being said, the ls in FO3 was still irritating: run around the wasteland at level 3 and you face molerats, at level 10 all the molerats have magically become yao guai, and by level 20 all the yao guai have magically become deathclaws. I think its a pretty boring, repetitive and uninteresting approach to populating an open world rpg. Plus it complete defeats any sense of your character growing.

I totally agree. Although aside from the abuses, I think it would be easier to make a balanced and enjoyable game with a more standard XP/skill point char system. Nehrim actually makes it work to some degree simply by making it much harder to increase skills. errmm in a SP game does it matter? If someone wants to exploit the game how is that effecting you? If you want to play as intended then simply don't use the exploit. As long as developers don't balance the game for the metagamers, Then yep, I agree not really a problem.

COuldn't agree more. Level scaling is horrible in crpgs. It really crushes any sense of excitement in exploring: there is neither risk or reward. And it's extremely problematic in a game like Oblivion whose primary focus is free form exploring, but doesn't provide any reason to explore, other than to see the sights. Learn-by-doing systems are great in theory, but in actual practice they seem very difficult to balance. For example is Oblivion balanced for gamers who mategame like crazy and get three x5 modifiers at each level? Or is its balanced for gamers who play without metagaming and end up getting mostly x2 modifiers at level ups? Because there's a huge difference in gameplay between a character with 20 levels up of 3 x5 modifiers/level vs a character with 20 level ups of 3 x2 modifiers/level.

awesome. I only have a few of my older games left. I tend to get rid of things once I decide I most likely won't play them again.

I agree and that was what I found so irritating about the opening story sequence in FO3. Why make me sit through that badly written nonsense? Just drop my character at the front door of Vault 101 with a note in my pipboy saying: "Your father split. Go find him. Or not..." That would have been perfectly sufficient to get the game started.

I get down on my hands and knees to anyone who has boxed copies of both System SHock 1 and Jagged Allaince 2.

I totally agree. Although aside from the abuses, I think it would be easier to make a balanced and enjoyable game with a more standard XP/skill point char system. Nehrim actually makes it work to some degree simply by making it much harder to increase skills.

The ES games have a pretty substantial body of in-game lore at this point, although it was maybe not really evident in Oblivion. The lore isn't enough to save a bad game certainly, but it does give the developers a context to work with, which, ideally, should help create a more interesting game experience. That being said the ES series is trending downward pretty badly. I'm really curious to see if Oblivion was just a "as bad as it can get" moment for the ES series or a legitimate indicator of how Beth truly sees the series now. Personally, I think that Bethesda knows they made a really bland game in Oblivion and will bring more of Fallout 3 into Skyrim. Not that F3 is the end-all/be-all of crpgs but it's improvement over Oblivion was dramatic and impressive. How will SKyrim turn? Oblivion 2? Or Fallout 4?

he didn't lead the Oblivion team? hmmm Either him or Ken Rolston. Daggerfall was great. Morrowind was pretty decent. Fallout 3 was excellent in parts, poor in others. Oblivion was horrible. SOmetimes hate is well deserved.

Despite being built out of the exact same blocks as Oblivion, Nehrim is tons better (although it still suffers from some err many of Oblivion's shortcomings). WHich just shows that there is a decent game inside Oblivion. Somewhere.

Ok that made me chuckle a bit... Anyway, I think SKyrim is too cold for mudcrabs. Icecrabs, maybe?

Pretty much the same here, although love might be strong a word and bored might be too mild a word. Still I'm really curious how this next iteration is going to go. I'm really hoping that we'll see some Fallout 3 gameplay mechanics added into the ES world. Love to see and end to the learn-by-doing skill system, but probably will never happen. edit: watched the trailer. "story" looks as insipid as usual, but not Bethie's strength so not a big deal. Don't developers ever get tired of "OMG graat evil has awakened, returned, flown out of my butt! WHo will save us!!!?!?111". Voice acting was pretty gross. Even in a trailer.

Actually, I'd recommend either Star TRail or Blade of Destiny rather than Shadows over Riva. Shadows tried to walk the line between modern and classic and is pretty clunky. The first two are solid old school crpgs.

I always thought HExen was a pretty decent game. SOme of the levels were kinda huge and somewhat annoying due the amount of running around required. But still pretty fun.

Didn't the shifter mod for DX give Gunther an actual skull gun? awesome.

Gotcha. IIRC, I only played the demo anyway, so maybe the full game was more interesting. I just didn't realize it was an IP that was worth revisting, so I was surprised that it would come up in this thread. FOr a while I thought there was some other game with the same name that people were talking about.

assuming that we're talking about the same MDK, I remember it as a completely unremarkable game that looked good (for that time) but was pretty dull gameplay wise, shooting little robots off ledges and leaping around with your magic flying cape. I was unaware the game had any great rep in the present day.

It was memorable because it mean that god-awful tutorial-story sequence that started the game was over.

lol. awesome.

Was MDK a famous game?

There are still hardcore BW fans? Softcore is the new hardcore.

Actually it makes a lot of sense.

Ah, ok. I haven't really watched network tv in about 20 years so I'm pretty out of touch. Croshaws a bit more edgy than Shalit on his best (worst) day.