[What PoE really is and why it is the future]

If I had to define inspiration it would be:

Creative talent unlocked by experiencing of something already created.

OK, I guess that explains Obsidian pitching us an IE game successor and then delivering us a game with constricting melee engagement mechanics, bottomless, weightless inventories, a borked group stealth design, and a convoluted stamina-health system.

 

LOL by all means, go ahead and call that inspiration. I'll call it what it is: yet another failed attempt to reinvent the wheel.

 

Anyone else find it interesting that the only things in PoE that have received universal praise happen to be the small handful of things they didn't alter from the Infinity engine games?

[What PoE really is and why it is the future]

PoE will undisputably be much more inspired- it is Obsidian and if there's one area they excel this is crafting great stories and creating colourful campaign worlds- they even managed to 'ressurect' the Fallout frarnsize, after the huge fail that was Fallout 3 (it was a fail to fans of the old games).

So in your opinion, the only measurement of inspiration in a video game is... a good story?

[What PoE really is and why it is the future]

And what's even more obnoxious is that he doesn't even know what the word means. I have asked him to give us his definition of it but he's refused. So we will turn to the dictionary instead.

 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inspiration

 

in·spi·ra·tion noun \ˌin(t)-spə-ˈrā-shən, -(ˌ)spi-\

 

: something that makes someone want to do something or that gives someone an idea about what to do or create : a force or influence that inspires someone

 

: a person, place, experience, etc., that makes someone want to do or create something

 

: a good idea

 

 

Whether you love or hate the state of RPG's that are coming out today, there's plenty of them that ooze inspiration by definition. PoE does not constitute some "return" of something that has been absent/lost. The very premise of this thread is silly. Try harder Sheikh.

[What PoE really is and why it is the future]

You feel inspiration or you dont. What you are telling me is you dont feel inspiration at all (from games at least?), you have my sympathy for that.

If that's what you mean by inspiration then your entire OP is a joke. It's really not up to the player to define a developer's inspiration, and even if it was, it's still a remarkably subjective thing.

 

Take Skyrim, for example. Whether you're someone who loved that game or hated it, it oozes inspiration from a developer's standpoint. It's got the deepest lore of any RPG to come out in the last 30 years. (you can spend hours and hours and hours reading the in-game books...and the various different volumes and versions of each one) The world itself contains OCD level detail (there are 5 different types of butterflies for God's sake. Developers hand-placed every plate, cup, piece of fruit, book, item and gold piece on every shelf, table, cabinet and drawer in the massive 300+ hour gameworld.) You can shoot at the birds that fly overhead. you can jump in the water and catch the 8 different types of fish. The game has 9 playable races. Even the game's various DLCs clock in at 50+ hours of content each.

 

Yet, Skyrim is very much a modern game, designed for the stereotypical, modern, casual gamer and I'm positive that neither you nor anyone else on this thread would ever hold it up as an example of "effort and heart!"

 

So I'll ask again: Define Inspiration.

[What PoE really is and why it is the future]

There is a point out there that video games from the past were better. It is true in the sense that developers from the past were far more motivated to put effort and heart into their creation. On the other hand creators of games from the distant past were not able to express their genius as well because of technical limitations. In the present day the technical limitations have been overcome to a huge degree, but the inspiration has been lost in the meanwhile.

 

PoE is the beginning of the reintroduction of this inspiration. However poe is not as much a messiah of the new age of gaming, bur rather a messiah of the retracing that happens before it. Retracing is basically going back to where we (the developers actually, I am not one, but we are all one) went wrong and lost the inspiration. PoE is at least trying to bring this inspiration back.

Oh I don't know about that. This sounds like excessive wishful thinking with not a whole lot of evidence to back it. First off, I'm wracking my brain trying to find the 'technical advancements' PoE is taking advantage of. I can't think of a single one. Physics? Graphics? Hollywood style cinematics?

 

Second, 'inspiration' is such a vague term. I wouldn't even know where to start. You're operating under the premise that modern RPGs lack inspiration? What do you mean by this, specifically?

[Police arrest, attack reporters; order reporters NOT to cover protest. IN UNITED STATES.]

The guy was a 49 year old homeless man.

Oops, you're right. My bad.

 

If they sick the dog on him and the dog gets stabbed, is that a good outcome?

Are you seriously comparing a man's life to that of a friggin DOG's?

 

Let me answer your question, It's not a good or bad outcome. It's not an outcome at all. It's a process. The dog charges toward the man. Maybe he gets stabbed.... Or maybe he knocks the man down and chews off his arm while getting stabbed, allowing the 8 cops to take over without having to fire their guns.

 

There is NO WAY to spin this in the cops favor. They f*cked up epically.

[Police arrest, attack reporters; order reporters NOT to cover protest. IN UNITED STATES.]

As a group, they all mentally weighed the value of this guy's life, and then mentally decided to kill him at the same time?  That is the most logical scenario here?

The fact that we've got 8 cops and a dog together against a single pen-knife wielding kid is ALREADY an utterly illogical scenario that begs a ton of questions -- questions about motives and reasons and the like. So yes, I'm certainly not going to dismiss the possibility of bigoted group-think.

[Police arrest, attack reporters; order reporters NOT to cover protest. IN UNITED STATES.]

How do you make that decision in real time? It's not a turn based strategy game.

They had an entire minute. I almost got bored watching the staredown.

 

They also had a trained attack dog -and- they were not under fire -and- there was absolutely nothing to hinder communication between either themselves or the kid.

 

 

From this footage that we have, it's very *very* difficult for an objective observer to conclude that these cops handled the situation correctly.

 

 

The idea that the 6 officers were roaming around looking to gank someone is pretty unreasonable though.

Straw man. Human nature doesn't work that way. Instead, these types of cops find themselves together in a group, and that makes them bold. Then they see a trouble maker and then they mentally weigh the importance of that troublemaker's life. In this case, they concluded that it wasn't worth a whole lot (in fact, they concluded it was worth less than a dog's). So instead of going out of their way to diffuse the situation non-lethally, they said F*ck it, lets just unload and be done with it.

 

PS: There were 8 cops, people, not 6.

[Police arrest, attack reporters; order reporters NOT to cover protest. IN UNITED STATES.]

I agree. It wasn't even one of those tense scenes that required a split-second decision to be made. It was a standoff. There's no reason why they couldn't have struck to maim/subdue.

[Police arrest, attack reporters; order reporters NOT to cover protest. IN UNITED STATES.]

I don't know. That's iffy. A kid with a knife can be quick but not quicker than the attack dog in that scene. Also 8 armed cops? Why didn't one of them just shoot the kid's leg or something?

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

 

We're not talking about the MMO, we're talking about River of Time, which didn't sell worth a damn even in Germany and ended up bankrupting its creator.

 

The answer is NO I guess.

 

a) It is not turn based. It is RTwP. 

b) It has probably the best RTwP implementation in the history of RTwP. I am saying this as a stern critic of the mechanics,

c) It has actually a really great story which lacks in pace however.

 

Also, by your ridiculous standards of "sales" IWDs are probably even lower on your lists?

 

Lower than D:RoT? Nope, since they both sold more. And I brought up sales only because you claimed it's 'tremendously popular' in Germany. It isn't. And never was.

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

We're not talking about the MMO, we're talking about River of Time, which didn't sell worth a damn even in Germany and ended up bankrupting its creator.

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

Drakensang: The River of Time has a superior combat system to the IE games. It's missing a lot of the -character- of those games but from a mechanical balance and fluidity standpoint it accomplishes all of the goals of the IE games.

LOL

 

Gonna have to vehemently disagree with that. Drakensang: River of Time's combat is virtually a clone of Dragon Age Origin's- That is to say, it's alright. Easy to learn and master. It's Visceral, and, as you say, 'mechanically balanced'. But it lacks All semblance of depth. It's not dynamic at all. For anyone expecting the cerebral combat experience that BG2 or IWD2 offers, D:RoT's combat is NOT the way to go. it doesn't have any.

 

 

I think the biggest issue with those games is western players dislike of the Dark Eye system particularly its' relatively low magic world. Even the strongest combat spells are more supportive than game changing. This is a flavor issue though and should not change an objective evaluation of the mechanical implementation of an abstracted RPG combat.

A flavor issue? WTF! You can't just shoo away the fundamental importance of the magic system when you're discussing combat. I'd argue that magic makes or breaks the entire experience. This is a FANTASY RPG, not some medieval dueling simulator.

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

kiting and exploiting AIs feels so goddamn retarded.

In a single player game, Exploiting AI simply means you've discovered a way to outsmart the enemy. Nothing wrong with that. But if the developers see this as a problem then the best solution is for them to develop better enemy AI, NOT impose absurd, convoluted alterations to the combat rules.

 

For example, lets take kiting. Kiting happens to be a personal Pet Peeve of Josh's. He, of course, calls it degenerate gameplay. Thus he has decided to build PoE's combat system to specifically address it (ie. draconic engagement mechanics; silly recovery pauses during movement etc.) the problem is that this crap does more than just check-mate Kiting. It also punishes legitimate movement and positioning tactics. This is the soulless, gamey, ham-fisted way to address the so-called 'kiting problem'. And PoE is filled to the gills with exactly this type of convoluted nonsense from the ground up. Name any unusual aspect of POE and I'll show you why it's there.

 

PS: Let me tell you how to fix kiting in a way that won't turn the combat system into crap: Magic. And terrain. and halfway decent AI. Enemy fighter getting bitch-slapped by a mobile archer? Simple, give him a wand of hold person and set his AI to use it when he's being kited. Boss fight rendered too easy because the Boss can be kited? Simple. Give him a haste spell. or better yet, Turn the encounter into a cage match. Give the Boss access to levers that can lock the doors of the room and drop boulders on people who try to hit and run.

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

Technically Obsidian promised full separation of combat and non-combat skills ... and a Documentary DVD What happened to those?

And Idiot Dialogue. We were flat out promised in a kickstarter update that if you created a character with low intelligence, he wouldn't be able to talk properly. What happened to that?

[How to fix combat? It's still the big offender in the BB.]

No way. That's regressive. Obsidian is attempting to forge something beyond the anachronisms of human limitation. The concepts are all solid, it's just an issue of degree. I know that devils lurk in details, and that they are enough to ruin anything--but that doesn't mean Obsidian should shrink away from the boldness to do something potentially great. That's the heart of the kickstarter purpose--to foster risk and endeavors that might not otherwise come forth.

The purposes of Kickstarter aside, ALL fantasy RPGs are attempts to forge something beyond the anachronisms of human limitation. Most of them have magic, after all. No; You're not really addressing the point. The concepts being demonstrated in PoE's combat do not seem solid to me. They seem unnecessarily experimental. Normally this wouldn't be a bad thing but in this case it is. You don't peddle a retro game and then produce something so....alien and unfamiliar. It also feels fractured, as if the devs aren't really sure what they want the finished product to look and feel like. (more on that below)

 

Combat rounds are for human GMs. CRPGs do not need them. Engagement is tactically necessary and more or less attack-of-opportunity taken to its logical conclusion. To remove them would be a far greater disaster than failing to balance them perfectly. Melee is where PoE is on the right track and only improving. It's the spell casting that's all botched--not due to degrees, but in concept. Now that's a real problem.

Rounds are for human PLAYERS. It's a mental thing. A round is an organizational tool that makes complex, numbers-based interaction between 2 opposing combatants flow in a way that a gamer can understand and follow.

 

In any case, PoE still feels like it has rounds, but the mechanics often times seem to be in opposition to the concept, so the end result is something that doesn't feel right. And I'm not sure how the system as a whole can be 'tweaked'. The issue seems to be at the core level. There's hardly anything that feels right in combat.

[Combat XP - What Just Happened..?]

I just think that killing any random beast shouldn't yield an XP reward.

Then maybe instead of arguing against the existence of kill XP you should argue against the existence of random beasts.

 

I'm a huge advocate of hand placed encounters. There should be an authentic, specific, in-game reason for the existence and placement of every enemy in this game. Because that would eliminate 90% of the gripes people seem to have against kill XP.

[Backer Beta Build 333 is live!]

BG1, IWD1 didn't have trap xp - worked much better there.

No it didn't. BG2 is a better game.

[Backer Beta Build 333 is live!]

Well you help make the point right there! If it doesn't add much to leveling, then dont put it in the game. Keep it simple!

Aah. You're one of those gamers. I believe Bioware used that same logic to justify the homogenous blandness of the Dragon Age games. For example, there isn't much functional difference between a mace and a hammer, therefore, lets eliminate one of them. Then lets go down the list and do that with everything. Don't need 11 character classes when 3 will suffice. Don't need 7 races when we can make do with just one. etc.

 

That's called Streamlining. It's a cancer on everything that RPGs stand for.

[Combat XP - What Just Happened..?]

Changing to combat xp is a major overhaul NOT a tweak.

A change in design philosophy, in fact. But unlike Namutree, I don't believe Obsidian can take it all the way. Not by release time at least. There's far more involved in making a total switch to combat XP than simply assigning XP values to all the enemies. There's also the matter of balancing the entire game from beginning to end to account for the switch, unless they think it's no big deal if players end up hitting the level cap halfway through the game. due to the thousands upon thousands of additional experience points they gained from every enemy kill.

[Combat XP - What Just Happened..?]

I certainly hope that Sawyer grows a set of hairy balls

I won't get into yet another rehash of arguments that have become more threadbare than my daddy's overstuffed armchair.

I'm going to park my ass in the fringe section and make myself at home.

Not that I agree or disagree with...whatever you're saying here, but I'd just like to point out that there's a fine line between creative writing, and talking like a shopper at a Wall Mart in Alabama. You've crossed it. lol

 

But on a serious note:

 

Really, all I want is to know how they're going to approach this so I can start stocking up on ****tails of the burning and exploding variety.

I suspect you'll have to scream extra loud to register anything on the e-Richter scale. We of the Pro-combat-XP crowd were always the loudest, and if you'll notice, we're being slowly and subtly appeased. Eventually we'll be mollified to silence and when that happens, there'll be no more 'explosions', because most RPGs reward XP for 'incidental stuff" as you call it. It's what people are used to. Also, Update 7 (the only kickstarter update that discusses the XP issue), is just vague enough to leave the door open for it. Tim Cain said we'll be rewarded for our accomplishments. Well? Disarming traps, opening locks, exploring areas and filling out the bestiary cyclopaedia all fall under the Accomplishment banner. Any gamer who's ever played an RPG knows that.

[Backer Beta Build 333 is live!]

Any extras you find should be a reward in itself (items, extra quest, esthetically pleasing scenery) Exploration xp is a horrible idea. It encourages us to run around to every environment we can just to level our character but have absolutely no reason to be there.

3 things. First, Obsidian has said, and repeated, that Exploration will be a focus of this game. So if you see no reason to explore, then this is the wrong game for you.

 

Second, This is not an either/or, nor should it ever be. The rewards for exploration should be all of the above. Exp, loot, scenery, discoveries, quests, combat, humor, terror, gaming memories etc. etc. I've yet to see a good argument made that eliminating any of these makes for a better gaming experience.

 

Third, I doubt there will be enough exploration XP to make a substantial difference in the grand scheme of things. That is to say, one who decides not to explore every single map will probably not end the game tragically under-leveled, or whatever the worry is.

[Combat XP - What Just Happened..?]

And for people saying "but there are no problems like that in BG2 or IWD since they added massive XP to quests to work around the XP-kill problem"... exactly; they already used went in this direction. Having to add such patches, workarounds. Wouldn't it be better than having to patch up a broken system, being bugprone and being overall a stitched together whole to have a system dedicated from the start to allow this gameplay.

What patches? What are you talking about?

 

Every single IE game shipped, on day one, with quest XP and kill XP in equal measure. Never were the two concepts ever separated, or ignored, or added later, or overly weighted to one side or the other.

[Combat XP - What Just Happened..?]

* Except it was broken...

It was NOT. If something so fundamental to gameplay as the leveling system was broken, none of the IE games would have seen the light of day, let alone become celebrated, genre-defining, all-time classics whose very name mentions can generate wildly successful kickstarters 15 years later.

 

Feel free to put a lid on the gross hyperbole now.

[Backer Beta Build 333 is live!]

I'm ambivalent about Lock XP, but Trap XP is something I support wholeheartedly. Traps are 'hostile' elements of adventuring. In a good RPG they constitute a direct threat. It makes sense that the party be rewarded for choosing to deal with that threat. As for Exploration XP... I'll take it. The IE games didn't have it but whatever. If a game is going to focus on exploration, then it makes sense that the character growth process be tied to it.

 

As for Bestiary XP....well.... baby steps. They're on the right path here. I have yet to do a run with Beta ver. 333 so I'll reserve full judgment until I do. But it sounds like a decent middle ground between people who want XP for every kill vs. People who suffer from paranoid schizophrenia whenever the spectre of "grinding" shows up.