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Nixl
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Posts posted by Nixl
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The question that I keep returning to is, are video games suppose to be taken in the same light as life style magazines? Furthermore, has realism ever been an actual goal?
From curvy women to massive space marines, were we pushing for realism?
I can agree that over-sexualization and over-pandering is annoying, but trying to take out any form of imagination/idealization for the sake of realism is equally ridiculous.
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I understand Nepenthe. When I first played the Witcher, I too did not really reap the rewards of the choices nor did I really love the gameplay/story after the first act.
As I said before, playing it a for second time, however, really changed my view. I cannot give any big reason why, but viewing the whole package that TW2 offered, I appreciated it.
I am not saying your view will change after a second playthrough, because simply put, people have different tastes. I think do think CD Project derserves a pat on the back considering the growth from TW1 to TW2.
edit: Also, Iorveth path or go home.
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I can see how people think TW2 is just grimdark with boobs, but I think there is so more to the game. The politics of the factions, the impact of the choices, and the characters brought the game up for me personally.
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I can understand not liking TW combat, but for me it really shined on dark mode.
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I am with Keyrock and Tagaziel. I think the TW2 was a huge improvement in almost every way.
I will say, however, playing it the first time I felt that it was overhyped. Upon a second a playthrough on dark mode, I really appreciated the game's story, choices, characters (Iorveth the Broveth), the music, and the gameplay.
Hard to explain the sudden change of heart, but I am amped for TW3.
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I vote TW3, since it actually had gameplay.
I truly appreciated the Witcher series. I liked the mix of hunting monsters, lore/history, and the political game behind the scenes. Also, CD Project has won my respect with the free updates, the Witcher mod tool-set, and a drive to make a better game. Although there is certainly a lot that can go wrong with TW3, I trust that I will enjoy it.
As for Bioware, after Mass Effect 2 and Old Republic, I am not holding my breath. The Old Republic killed any hope that I had for a good Star Wars RPG.
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No worries, I reread my post and I realized that I made no distinctions between the standard animations and the cutscene spells.
I thought the standard animations were great and I hope PE has the same quality. Also, preferably without pauses.
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It is great to see that the spell/ability list is coming along. I am eager to see how the team will approach visual display of spells and abilities.
I always loved the spell animations of PST's spells, especially the upper level spells (Torment, Meteor, etc). Although, I am certain many people thought they were over the top or paused the flow of combat.
The worst sin of PS:T high level spell animations was that they weren't skipable. If you could skip the video after the first time everyone would love them. But for P:E, to have cutscenes for every high level spell would be too expensive. Better to use that money to have better spell animations overall and death animations a la Fallout.
Strange, I just replayed PS:T and I could skip most of scenes of the high level spells (still some waiting though). The exception being cloud kill.
Do not get me wrong, I disliked the aspect of waiting around for high level spells. It kills the flow of combat, especially with multiple casters. I also agree spell animations are more of a priority.
What I refer to is the animation quality in PS:T. Even magic missiles had a unique animation to it and when TNO casted it, it looked like a substantial attack. Perhaps, it was a number of factors, including both animation and sound. I thought it worked well with the exception of those spells that stopped the flow of combat.
I realize that I am not articulating this well. In short, I agree animation quality is key, not fancy cutscenes.
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It is great to see that the spell/ability list is coming along. I am eager to see how the team will approach visual display of spells and abilities.
I always loved the spell animations of PST's spells, especially the upper level spells (Torment, Meteor, etc). Although, I am certain many people thought they were over the top or paused the flow of combat.
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I am torn. On one hand, deities seem pivitol to priests and PE (Wodica and the pantheon of gods given earlier). On the otherhand, the difference between fun role-playing option and limiting gameplay mechanic feels very very small.
That being said, I wonder if priests will have to outright choose a god or, at least, the prospect of switching gods is achievable. From what I remember, there will be gods walking around (forget the god's name, is it Wodica?). Perhaps choosing a deity to worship will be less of an option at the character creation screen and one players choose throughout the story/exploration.
Otherwise, I am not certain how one can declare devotion to certain god(s) at the character creation screen and not have to avoid quests with gods NPCs like Wodica. (unless she or they are neutral).
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Thanks for the update. I like it.
I do have one small critique. In regards to the statute and arch at each end of the UI, one part of me feels that the space could instead be used for more buttons (horrible way of phrasing it, I know). On the other hand, I do like the idea of art in the UI, but the statute and arch feel a little weak (no offense meant to the art team).
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It's encouraging to hear the level of detail you all are putting into the game. I hope the experiments work out.
Can't wait to see spell animations.
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That exceeded my expectations. Initially, I did not know how to gauge Unity, the art team, or the animators, but this is great. Better yet, it seems from the updates that you guys have a lot of flexibility in terms what you want to create and experiment with.
I look forward to the next update.
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The only thing I enjoyed about Fo3 in the long term was the exploration. Although, the environment was very brown/gray and it looked like the war happened just a few years ago instead of a century ago.
The main story and characters really went downhill for me personally, especially once you entered that virtual reality world. I also could not stand the Brotherhood of Steel. I even found the Enclave-super computer preferable to the BOS and that in itself did not make perfect sense to me.
I enjoyed the writing and characters of NV far more. In particular, I enjoyed the debates between the choice of House, NCR, or Independent endings. The ambiguity is what definitely elevated NV for me personally. In Fo3, I just found blue good ending and red evil ending.
edit: Then again, I was one of the few people that enjoyed Dead Money and Lonely Hearts I think. For Dead Money, I loved the atmosphere, characters (God/Dog), and the theme (obsession/letting go).
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I feel that a potential solution is to create random encounters that reward XP. These encounters could be elaborate or even just random challenges (rather than a genric bandit, you run into the boss). This assumes that travel and the map is akin to Fallout and Arcanum.
To an extent, I still prefer the old XP system (or Kill XP). Although after playing Vampire the Masquerade (VMB) nothing is inherently wrong with an objective based system.
VMB, however, was a relatively small game world where combat usually did not occur outside the objectives. In PE, I do have an expectation that the world will be larger and more open. With a bigger world, I assume that there will be more combat outisde objectives compared to VBM. I do think an objective based system would face issues in a larger world with less structure.
I could see people simply skipping or evading such fights after a time if there is little to no benefit to them. To clarify, I am not discussing fights involved in the objectives or quests, but rather anything that falls outisde of quests. Leading back to my suggestion, I think random encounters provide a better middle-ground between objective and kill based XP.
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This topic is always an interesting one.
Personally, I favor racial abilities over racial stats. By abilities, I mean certain spells/abilities that can help a character throughout the journey. Such abilities can add flavor without the min-maxing that racial stat bonuses produces.
For example, let's say Elves received an ability that restores fatigue so long as its during the day or in a forest. Dwarves have an ability that temporarily increases defense.
This system, of course, comes with its own issues, especially when it comes to the balance of such abilities. I do, however, believe that an ability can be useful for any class, while stats are far more limiting.
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I have to admit, there is an element of entertainment in a character remaining within limits. One shotting everything does not provide much pleasure for long.
Although, one aspect of power that I have never seen an RPG delve into is real world consequences for being "godly." Let's say the character does become ridiculously powerful, would there not be consequences? Consequences in the form of people, merchants, or even factions/countries viewing you as a threat to the world. For instance, what if there was a movement against necromancers or magic in general and by becoming a powerful mage you become a target worth attacking.
Often magical or supernatural power in RPGs never carry consequences. In truth, I do not think people would take kindly to someone walking freely through city that can destroy the city on a whim. Although I do not advocate one-hit mechanics, it would be interesting if becoming that "godly" hero had consequences.
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As already stated, Kreia is an easy one to point out.
The Transcedant One from Planescape Torment's motivations, although not incredibly complex, were interesting and something I believe could be fleshed out.
Additionally, Shodan is another villain that I loved. My enjoyment of the villain was not so much the motivation or even the writing, but the fact that Shodan began to overwrite reality itself. Most villains with a god-complex are just arrogant, but Shodan literally became something close to a God in System Shock 2.
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I understand the fun of summoning massive armies to do the work. Personally, it comes from years of playing RTS games like Starcraft 1/2 and Age of Empires.
For PE, I have hopes that pets/summonings will be more personalized. For necromancy, I would love to summon a character like Morte or bind a former enemies or allies to my service.
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I voted for Wizard and Cipher.
For Wizard, I really just want to know how many schools of magic are open to the user. For instance, will there be a pryomancer route, a necromancer/summoner build, or or even curses. I know this is probably beating a dead, dead, and dead-er horse.
For Cipher, I really want to know where they would take a psionic class. Someone suggested in the Rogue role thread that CIphers could be akin to Ghosts in Starcraft or the Psi Ops commando. From that angle, the class could be amazing, potentially brain washing or possessing a foe to infiltrate a faction.
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I admit, I always thought of Rogues in the sense Morrowind made them; medium combat with some non-weapons/armor perks. Although in Morrowind, class does not matter all that much, since everything is open to you. Additionally, Obsidian appears keen to keep combat perks/skills separate from non-combat skills. Thus, the Morrowind concept probably would not fit as well.
I agree that the role of damage dealer is not as appealing. On the otherhand, I would much prefer a support or defense oriented design for rogues rather than a thief or steal class.
This is possibly unrelated, but I love the Cipher concept in the post quoted below. The Cipher as an assassin in the sense of a Ghost from Starcraft or the character from Psi Ops seems thrilling. That would bring a unique element to the class in my opinion.
True. But an "Assassin" implies that the person has been trained, by profession, to be a killer. "Hitman" springs to mind. Something I feel that the Rogue falls short on. To me, the very essence of the Rogue lies in wandering, drifting, adventuring. A skilled Rogue, who is possibly a bad person too, is skilled enough to be able to kill people. Does the act of killing/murdering imply that the person is an assassin? Yes and no. If hired as a mercenary, which I can see the Rogue being, yes, a Rogue being a Contractor for shoddy and dirty tricks, the act of killing as well. But that's that, a Contractor, not an Assassin.
Really though, I'm just arguing against a straw man (I think? I don't really grasp the concept of what "straw man" is yet).
If the Cipher could focus on the "Assassin" part (being DPS, the thing many seems to not want from the Rogue come 3rd Edition, what with the backstabbing and all), the Rogue could focus on the "Thief" part.
Instead of putting both of them on the Rogue. What started in this thread, how I see it, people want something like this:
Rogue (Support in itself?):
- Possibility to go Assassin Kit
- Possibility to go Thief Kit
Balancing a class with these two taken into consideration seems like a bit much, this is how I thought:
Rogue
- Thief Kit
Cipher
- Assassin Kit
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Honestly, I think my game is the problem then at this point. For instance, my circuit routes refuse to work even if I am going down a straight path with no impediments.
That being said, I still think the local map covered too small of an area.
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Map stuff- I actually liked the "connect the dot" method, since it allowed you to create circuitous paths that otherwise would have been difficult to accomplish in a normal RPG- I mean, you could literally make your party go through a specific door. It just gave more flexibility. And as hormalakh mentioned, you were forced to actually explore and find things. I actually LIKED having to search around for stuff, because that is what you really do when you're looking for things. "Wait, did I take the first or second left after the 4-way?", "Damn, all these houses are some sort of beige color!", "She said it was right near the monument, but I'm not seeing it!" I very much dislike being spoon fed my directions, like I'm wearing a Tom-Tom in the game...
I must be doing something weird/wrong, because everytime I created circuit paths on the local map my character/game refused to do it. Perhaps I just need to reinstall, because even straight lines going perhaps over a screen away from my character created issues.
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Unless I am missing something, Arcanum's map is far less functional and convenient to use.
You can place route of points on map and your character would run automatically in game using them.
I figured that out, but I still feel that it is weak and less convenient compared to Planescape Torment's map system. Arcanum's local map simply did not cover enough ground in my poinion. Also, the simplest of paths (straight lines) kept giving my character's pathfinding hiccups.
Update #56: Paladins and Wild Orlans
in Pillars of Eternity: Announcements & News
Posted
Thanks for the last two posts Mr. Sawyer (the posts in this one and the language thread). Both were very promising. I definitely appreciate the amount of thought you are putting into this world.
Don't have time to post my thoughts on Paladin's just yet, but I think it is an interesting step.
I definitely can't wait for cipher and wizard.