PrimeJunta

@Stun are you arguing that AD&D style character mechanics that easily yield squibs, which severely detracts from the enjoyability of the first, say, three play-throughs, is a good thing because it makes play-throughs 15 thru 20 more enjoyable? If so, I find that a very bizarre position to take.

I've DM'ed D&D from the original boxed set to 3.5e, son. That's about 27 years straight. These were all new when I bought them. If you don't want to criticize D&D, by all means don't, but I don't think it's your place to dictate to the rest of us what we're allowed to discuss or no.

There's preparation, and then there's mechanically casting the same buffs over and over again, allowing for occasional variation for "oh, undead, Death Ward, oh, fire elementals, Protection from Fire." Unfortunately D&D is mostly the latter. That's not fun, it's just tedious.

Hm. If it really is that difficult, then I think modders would be better advised to write new content in existing environments. Not sure how much I'd enjoy playing something set in a generic, pre-provided wilderness area.

@Metabot, what are your thoughts on sandbox games? The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series, Arcanum etc. attempt something like this. Some even go some way towards succeeding. There are always trade-offs, of course, but there is a special magic to them when it works out. (Looking forward to The Wild Hunt actually. I like it that there's a series like The Witcher which trades off variety in character concepts to get more personal storytelling and more focused gameplay challenges. Wouldn't want all games to be like that of course.)

@Stun, I hate to break this to you, but no IE game is as bad as PS:T when it comes to having "the right build." If you don't pump WIS and hit some (rather high) thresholds in CHA and INT, you're just not going to have a very good time. It's even more constraining than most other IE games. The fact that the game intentionally subverted AD&D 2e by making the pump stats the opposite of what you'd expect doesn't change the fundamental problem. You're every bit as locked-in as in any other IE game -- and much more so than in most. BG2 for example at least allows a range of enjoyable builds, even if most of them are casters. I'm a huge PS:T fanboy, but structurally it's closer to a linear adventure game where you either solve problems and get rewards or don't, than a wRPG where you define your character and meet challenges using a variety of ways.

@Osvir, why do you figure creating environment maps is going to be so hard that you'd want Obsidian to provide templates? I figure that if they've got a production pipeline going which can churn them out efficiently enough to build a seriously big game in this kind of schedule, it can't be so hard that skilled and dedicated modders couldn't do it.

By the way, I totes get the appeal of "spreadsheet gaming," i.e., figuring out how to make a power build. That was a big part of IE games. However it is a part I'd be willing to ditch if I got more room for different character concepts in exchange. Put another way, given a choice between "What is the best cleric build?" and "What is the best way to play a fast, dextrous, and intelligent cleric?", I'd rather have the latter.

How, specifically, would you accomplish that?

@Stun, that's true for tabletop gaming. Totally not true for computer games.

It's not muscle fiber, it's what you're able to do with it. I'm pretty sure this guy could've put most of us in intensive care even at that point. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q16RBQ3BQIU He died a week later.

:me raises hand: It's happened to me a couple of times. The last time was NWN2 I think. There's that one part in the main quest where you're dropped solo in the middle of a bunch of elite vampires, with no prior warning. IIRC I was playing a drow, working my way towards arcane trickster. Had low CON, a 2-level handicap from the race, and neither high enough stealth nor enough magic to beat the vicious little things. I suppose it's conceivable that I could have save-scummed my way through that, but that's not my idea of fun.

This is IMO exactly the problem with D&D: that there are primary stats for each class. That makes the stats largely redundant. Why even have stats if the only viable fighter is one that pumps STR, DEX, and CON (in this order) and dumps CHA, WIS, and INT (in this order?) Why not just get rid of the stats altogether and always make fighters strong, tough, and fast? Or, put another way, if you have stats, why not make them useful for all classes, and make the system so that it supports viable smart fighters, wise wizards, and fast clerics?

Zowie. You must really, really, REALLY enjoy grinding.

Of course not. You could design a system where characters would just be good in different ways. An encounter that's easy for one is hard for another, and vice versa. Conversely, if you have a system where most builds suck, that means there's that much less variety between good builds, which is what counts. Base D&D in any of its editions is really bad in this way actually. Most of the charcter-building variety is illusionary, really. There's really only one way to build a good fighter, rogue, cleric, or wizard. This is why you end up with the ginormous bloat of prestige classes and various variant classes. They wouldn't be necessary if the base mechanics let you build, say, an intelligent fighter or a wise wizard, without ending up with something that's totally gimped. And while with all the extensions you've got a ginormous variety of classes and prestige classes to choose from, in any one of them you're still pretty much locked into the way it was designed. There's not a whole lot of freedom within them. Of course, some enjoy the challenge of figuring out the right build for each class. I would prefer a system that gave me more freedom to design the character like I want, instead of trying to reverse-engineer the designer's template.

Uh... dialog? Take Firkraag, for example. What if there was a level check on the quest, and if your level < design level, and you had accepted the quest, someone approached you as you were exiting the inn. Dialog: "Psst... I noticed you talking to that guy earlier. Want a piece of intel? Cost you 10 GP but might save your life." "[Give 10 GP] Done. What you got?" "The Baron is a bastard. He's done this before. No-one who took that job ever came back. If you do head that way, you better be prepared for the fight of your life."

Munchkins. Munchkins everywhere.

Also, building up wealth and not building up wealth could each have their advantages. Perhaps a life of poverty strengthens your soul...

Strongly in favor of limited gold and relatively scarce loot. Also strongly in favor of a broader definition of wealth than gold pieces. I ran a long D&D campaign where my players were very wealthy -- or, to be precise, one of them was wealthy (and the others were members of his household). However they often had major cash flow problems because most of the wealth was in land, trade caravans, titles, unique, highly valued art objects, connections, and what have you -- and most of the really cool stuff (e.g. magic items) was so rare it could not be bought for gold. I'd like that sort of thing in a cRPG as well. I like what's been said about crafting, actually. One cRPG trope I don't care for is disposable super-shiny loot ("Oh look, another flaming longsword of death +5, toss it in the vendor trash pile.") Instead I'd like magic items to be unique, and to grow in power with you, so they become a part of your character's identity in a way. Crafting enhancements is a good way to accomplish this, especially if it's set up so that crafting brand new items is really, seriously, painfully expensive, so enhancing existing ones becomes more attractive.

Metro 2033. Been a while since I played a shooter. This one is pretty good for what it is. Crazy atmospheric, with plenty of things jumping at you and going Boo!; however this whole post-apoc grimdark thing is frankly wearing a bit thin. Surprised to discover that my Russian is good enough not to have to play in English which definitely adds to it though.

I have a feeling that streaming is going to eventually be the default way of delivering AAA titles. It has massive advantages from the publisher's POV: no more compatibility problems, instant patch deployment, and of course ironclad DRM. It will take a few years until the necessary infrastructure is in place so latency, bandwidth, and server capacity won't be holding it back.

If I had to boil down all my frustrations with IE games and their relatives to two, I'd say "lack of transparency" and "lazy design masquerading as challenge." By "lack of transparency" I mean things like the way Athkatla dumps all the mid-game quests on you at once, with no indication – direct or implicit – of how hard they are. My first-ever quest in my first-ever attempt at BG2 was the Firkraag one, and that did not go well. I just kept feeling I was doing it wrong, when actually I was doing the wrong quest. By "lazy design masquerading as challenge" I mean things like hitpoint bloat, filler combat, and puzzles based on finding that one doodad/person/pixel by trial and error. One of my pet peeves is the hidden door – i.e., an area transition that your character would easily see but you can't because it's partly occluded by something, so you keep wandering around the map like an idiot not being able to progress. This was surprisingly common in isometric games with a fixed camera!

Obviously the big hurdle with SteamOS right now is the game library. Perhaps they think they'd be overextending themselves by launching a mobile platform at the same time. The game selection can't be the same; UI differences alone mean that much.

@Ganrich I agree re GoG and Linux. OTOH it's pretty easy to run most GoG's with Wine although it is a bit of a chore to find and/or set up the wrappers.

For the record, I'm all for Valve's market-disrupting efforts. The market clearly needs more disruption, though, as under current conditions GoG and Valve and their like can take an IMO too-juicy slice of the pie. Cartels and mono-/oligopolies are bad news.