Slowtrain

Oh man, that's HARSH. It wasn't meant to be be harsh. Humor is difficult to do well. Not everyone can suceed. Bad humor is cringe-inducing and painful when it fails. One of the most uncomfortable things is watching a bad comedian onstage. Sure, **** and fart jokes aren't too hard, but pushing into more substantial attempts at humor becomes quite difficult. edit: why the heck is that word censored. That's silly.

I take it you didn't much appreciate Fallout 2? Nope. ****ing hated it. Or close enough. Fallout 3 was more enjoyable. generally speaking, as a game. Overall. Bad attempts at humor wasn't my only reason for disliking the game however. But it was a contributing factor.

I'm a little concerned about the extent of the "humor" in the game. Humor is pretty hard to pull of without being stupid. I hope Obs is smart enough to keep it on the back burner. As far as I know, there are no great humorists working at Obsidian. A man's got to know his limitations... That goes double for game developers.

Oblivion is art.

That all sounds pretty good for the most part. I'm glad to hear non-VATS combat may actually be more fun this time around.

I think you're talking about a level of coherence and rationalization in world building that is so far beyond Bethesda that they would simply stare at you in silence for a while and then go "huh?"

there's an entire thread at DAC dedicated to the special people from that forum. I just read through about 3-4 pages of that thread. Although funny at times, it was mostly depressing.

Don't get me wrong. I'd love it if the game were a great action/shooter/other stuff game. Haven't played one in quite a while. I'm just repsondinng to what I've seen, which isnt much. And what's been said, which is just empty words at this point. It doesn't matter to me if the game is squad TB or action/shooter as long as its good. I like both genres and probably like System Shock action-type games more so than TB squad combat/ But, the truth is, if this game weren't called XCOM, this thread wouldn't exist and we wouldn't be talking about the game like we are. It woudl just be another in-development game barely worth a mention at this point. Which is obviously why they choose the name XCOM in the first place.

That wasn't impressive. Not that screenies matter so much, but it didn't look very good regardless. If that's their "best foot" at this moment, it looks like Generic Shooter Number 1982645463.

Oh please, if anyone on this forum has been a 'victim' in the Fallout 'vs' discussions it has been people who enjoy Fallout 3. You get called a retard here if you like Fallout 3. Nah, Fallout 3 is pretty well received here. Not Best Game Ever well-received, but good enough. I enjoyed it. But its still got aspects worth criticizing, especially in the hopes that Obs and NV might be in a position to make some positive changes.

How strange. When I look in the mirror I see a bemused penguin with hair. A suitable avatar for you then, sir.

That's the way it went for me. No way I was buying BS2 after wasting my money on the first one.

Sometimes I do! But yeah, sometimes I don't. I should but, eh, easier just to reply to each post as it comes up. :/

That's my kind of post!

I'm catiously optimistic about DX3. I mean, what they've said until now has been promising, but of course, I need proof before I believe into anything the devs said. In theory it should be easy since they now have a pre-existing model for what to do right and another pre-existing model for what to do wrong. Just make it more like DX and less like IW and you're golden.

The PR people are paid a lot of money to make sure the game sounds excellent. What else would you expect? Then you must believe the same of AP. Pretty much. But eh, it's Obsidian so I cut them some slack. Though Sega's PR is pretty repulsive. But what am I going to do?

not really, no. but in hoping the next game is improved, you usually discuss the issues you have with the previous games, correct? so i talk about the things which Fallout 1 or 2 did to make me fans of the series, and what Fallout 3 did to make me not a fan of Bethesda's direction. not too hard to understand, even though devils advocates or Bethesda apologists like playing this card. it simply isn't true. the issues i tend to have with Fallout 1 or 2 get brought up, but just not as often as there not only weren't as many...but certainly not as game-breaking for me. It's pointless tring to explain it. Once you've been branded a "FO Defender" or a "Bethesda Basher" people stop reading what you're saying and simply attach whatever meanings they want to your post. I still make my posts re: Fallout 1/2/3 and Bethesda but I don't bother going back and forth with people about them. Absolutely an exercise in futility.

So I suppose you would also agree that Bethesda's decision to develop the "explosions" aspect of FO3 fully and develop the "reactivity to player choice" element lightly is just a choice, not a weakness in the game? Does it add value to the gameplay? Then yes. Fallout's JNPC system added value to the game.

I disagree, Grommy. A design choice to develop one thing heavily and leave another thing lightly developed is just that, a choice. It's not a weakness or a failure or incompetence. And, to me, its remarkable thaat despite the almost "sketchy" aspect of the jnpc system in FO3, the jnpcs are a strength to the game. If they weren't a strength, everybody wouldn't have cared enough to want them alive and with the PC the whole game. Sure, if someone loves party-based crpgs, then Fallout might leave them unsatisfied, but that's not because of weakness. It's because of design choice. Big difference. I don't get what you're issue with Dogmeat is. People like dogs, the devs made Dogmeat cool, gamers enjoyed having him around. If he's their favorite NPC, then that's great. The fact he's a dog isn't even remotely relevant as the quality of the npc character.

The PR people are paid a lot of money to make sure the game sounds excellent. What else would you expect?

I don't know if calling it a weakness is fair though. IIRC, Tim Cain was very clear that Fallout was considered a solo PC game with joinable characters who would tag along for a short time. The design goal was to have the pc start the game alone and finish the game alone. It's probably more a credit to the designers that the jnpcs turned out to be so popular rather than a mark of weakness.

Has threr been any mention of how weapon/armor repair will be handled in NV in any of these previews? I haven't seen it mentioned, but there're been so many previews recently that I may have missed it. Excellent. I prefer this approach. I take it you never played Oblivion. I'm curious about this as well. I'm hoping Obs will avoid the munchkin approach to character development that Bethesda has grown to favor over the last few crpgs.

@tep: my personal experience says otherwise. (I do see a huge difference in games released today vs 10 years ago), but its not a big deal.

When they started to suck on a regular basis. Or when gaming became so mainstream that a lot of what made it interesting vanished.

I don't want to get roped into defending the red shield, since personally I could do without it as well, but I think its one of those aids, like a health bar or ammo counter that will quickly fade into the background of the gameplay and not really be noticeable. Certainly, I much would prefer to have multiple ammo types and DT in the game and have to live with an aid that tells me I need to switch from HP to AP rather than not having the multple ammo and types DT at all. I think its mostly in the game for the n00bs (WHY AM I SHOOTING AT THE GUY WITH MY UBER GUN AND HE'S NOT TAKING ANY DAMAGE. THIS GAME SUCKS!!11) because of the additional complexity created by the DT and multple ammo types, so at worst its a necessary evil to be able to get those things at all. AN on/off option would always be nice though.