melkathi

Did they though make a Fallout game? Or did Bethesda make the game and Obsidian added a story?

A full playthrough with all side quests takes 24 hours if you know the game. The problem (other than the nonsensical plot and whiny companions) is that it follows the exact formula all Bioware games do (and those rpgs that copy them): Intro -> Turning point to introduce plot -> Choice of going to 3 different areas in any order we like -> Continue main plot -> The End. And every time the intro will be interesting as you get to know your character, the turning point for the plot will be all fleshed out, but then comes the point where it all loses steam because now you need to have the illusion of player agency and give a choice of the order in which things are done. But there can no longer be urgency if it no longer matters how you do things. Tyranny tried to avoid that with an overload of binary choices. But in the end, the restrictions were arbitrary. And the end slides nonsensical; because by the end of the game you hadn't been to area XYZ, your character would never go there after the end of the game?

See, I see Kotor II as an unfinished sequel that only sold because of the IP, but as a game had nothing to offer beside the recognized (and in my opinion vastly overrated) IP, to which it added nothing more significant than what had been put out there in various Extended Universe material. For the Star Wars IP I'd argue the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy - which took the thirst of fans for something involving Boba Fett, build up the mystique around Mandalorians and the character, created a number of characters that would pop up in stories and products and survive the redconing of the EU, and most significantly proved that a story can be told in the IP that was not about the Force or Jedi or Sith - is far more important and did far more for it. I'll confess, I hardly remember anything about Kotor II. The original Kotor had a relatively forgettable story, but the twist was well done and memorable, and the companions' reactions very enjoyable. About MotB I remember that you were a spirit eater or something like that. There was a spirit bear that could join you if you didn't eat it. There was a part celestial. There was an eloquent companion you found locked up in jail? And his story tied in with some hags? Now about Alpha Protocol, I could never find that dossier in the museum in Rome that would get Alan Parker to turn on Marburg. That said, I do have a question for you: Cone to go?

I fail to see the historical importance of Kotor. For that I could only see PoE with it's Kickstarter success and possible effect on what games got a chance to be made because of it. Kotor has a fanbase, but it did nothing for gaming. You don't even see it quoted that often in gaming discussions. And besides HK and Kreia, what else about the game do most people even remember? What the game left us is a robot who calls people Meatbags and an old woman who tries to justify immorality. And as significance for Obsidian goes, PoE is the game that allowed them to work their own IPs again. Kotor, NWN, even Stick of Truth, those just kept the lights on. Not judging though, I mean, I voted AP - the game that got overlooked, and had tons of problems.

Oh, now I get it. We are back to the old argument whether Super Mario is a RPG because you play the role of a plumber or a Sim because you perform the duties of a plumber.

Explain what?

On a more analytical level: The Neverwinter Nights games were good D&D games. I enjoyed them very much (though Mask was a bugged mess for me). I found Mask of the Betrayer tried too hard to have unique NPCs and cater to the crowd that needs everything to be more strange and awesome than the next. The unique NPCs worked for Torment because of the setting. Since then they have become a staple though that, while in the case of Mask of the Betrayer well written, do tend to be crutches so the writers don't have to create interesting gimickless personalities. The problem with the Neverwinter games, just as the KOTOR II or Dungeon Siege III, and FONV is that while fun, well made games, they all are sequels to other studios' games. FONV more than any of those managed to set itself apart from the previous one (while ironically the NWN games probably differ the most in gameplay from the previous game), but it is just another story told in the same game. There are MODs that have been made to work with both FO3 and FONV, because when it comes down to it, FONV is a huge mod for FO3. Pillars of Eternity has significance already through being the epitome of nostalgia; the kickstarter that made silly amounts of money to resurrect a genre. It could be argued that PoE has impacted the gaming world more than any other Obsidian title. Alpha Protocol tried to break the norm of RPG formulas. It has problems, and wasn't the commercial success it could have been. But it does a lot of things very right in ways that few other rpgs do. It was the boldest project Obsidian did. Outer Worlds was a fun game and I'll always respect that it dared to have boring companions instead of yet another exiled quarter pixie one eighth frost giant vampire heir to the throne of the cloud kingdom. That said, the game just exists and didn't offer the gaming world anything new.

Putting my hands down next to Mamoulian War's. Alpha Protocol has choices that matter, interesting characters, great dialogue. The only problem is Thorton's unreasonable dislike for SIE. The problem with this poll is that it has not been sanctioned with Steven Heck and is therefor lacking a proper code name. I move to name this poll Rubber Kangaroo.

I feel bad for not playing with my toys anymore. Visited my parents last week and my mother had put three old teddy bears on my bed. Felt bad for having left them behind.

Yes, Shady is happy to be rid of the games and that someone will play them.

Looked at Stellaris. Saw the amount of DLC. Wondered if it is a Paradox game.

Who grabbed the key? So we know who to pester for opinions.

That's Larian. Fun games if you can stop yourself from reading or hearing any of the writing. OK, Dragon Commander was also pretty crap as RTS goes.

I have a biased opinion perhaps. I used to playtest for Amplitude. Endless Legend is their only game I dislike Endless Legend has more interesting, races, and playing each of them differs from playing the other races. It has a narrative victory condition on top of the usual victory conditions, where you finish your faction quest line. My problem with the game is that it is extremely slow to get going. A friend among the people who playtested it extensively told me the game does not really start until after turn 100. Age of Wonders 3 diverged from previous Age of Wonders games by giving you two choices during commander creation: race and class. Your race dictates your starting city and race relations, though later you can, as always, absorb any race's cities into your empire and train units of those races. It also affects some resistances and possibly weaknesses for your commander. Your class is more important, as it will lock in your class specific units and spells. These class units can then be of any race you have a city (with the required buildings) of. So if you are a Warlord, in a goblin city you can train a goblin phalanx, in an orc city an orc phalanx.You also choose some specializations, such as fire mastery, for extra research (spells etc). Different classes do play differently (especially the mage and druid, who use a lot of summoned units), while race is mostly a flavour choice. The greatest problem here is that the game allows for tier 3 unit stacks of doom - spam your best unit and fill your armies with it. Once you raced to that, there is no point recruiting anything else. Age of Wonders Planetfall is in a way Age of Wonders 3 in a sci fi setting. It does a lot different though. They fixed a number of things in tactical combat that hadn't worked out in 3. They also changed the way cities grow. The maps are split into many sectors, and as cities grow, they take over sectors (max size 5). Planning your cities becomes a bit more involved, at the same time you loose the freedom you had when you were choosing the exact spot for your city. Planetfall adds garrisons to your cities for the first time in the series, so you don't have to keep defensive armies everywhere. The tech tree has been split and brought in line with other 4X games. It was extremely boring due to being bloated with loads of techs that just slowed down research progress without being interesting (your food production increases by 1... yay...). They have started addressing such issues with updates. Race choice is a bit more important, as it affects your initial tech tree (though you can unlock tech trees of other races that join your empire). While each class comes with it's own secret project - all secret projects requiring you to build the specific class building 3 times and then lasting for 10 turns... On low difficulties the AI in Planetfall is not aggressive at all, so the game can become boring. Melkathi is a forum regular and big time fan of the Age of Wonders series as well as Endless Space and Dungeon of the Endless. According to steam he has 133 hours in Age of Wonders Planetfall, 273 hours in Age of Wonders 3, but only just over 20 hours in Endless Legend. When not posting Mordheim screenshots, he is known to sometimes post relevant replies.

I need to play that at some point.

I'm out of town for a couple of days. Also, I am at that annoying last mission of the base game that combines all the previous ones...

@Amentep I half expected you to lock this thread and start a new one "because melkathi posted in it". Good thing not everyone shares my sense of humour

Apparently the Spelljammer game back then had tried to be interesting. The Darksun game existed and the Al Qadeem game was there too?

*grumble grumble* the only game that did romance right was The Outer Worlds *grumble grumble*

In case people are wondering why nobody is posting screenshots, people have independently decided to boycott the thread, to protest Amentep locking threads "for length" always just after I post in them. Obviously a conspiracy to prevent people from looking at my posts. Now I am not saying I support this boycott or that I believe these conspiracy theories to be true, but I am amazed and touched by how people have started this boycott for me. *sniff* Thanks guys and gals. I appreciate it, but for forum peace, start posting again.

So is this releasing this month?

The Dwarf that didn't work for me was one of limited vocabulary Enchantment? Enchantment!

Yes. Story wise it stays absolutely true to the book, with only one side quest and npc added to the game. That character is written by the book's author though for the game, so they don't feel out of place. The horde combat is fun enough as a gimmick. You get enough characters for your party so that eventually you can make a party that fits you. It isn't a long game and by the end of it you have gotten everything out of the gameplay that it had to offer. A good effort for a small studio. Don't regret backing it. Would have liked a bigger game but happy with what we got. The story I guess can feel a bit odd at times, if you haven't read the books, as the game faithfully follows all the chapters the protagonist is in. But it leaves out all the chapters he isn't present for. So as the protagonist comes across certain situations, the reader knows things the player doesn't. The asking price is too high though.

Dedicated to the discussion in the BG3 thread about Dwarves in crpgs: Dark Elf: "You are nothing but drunkard comic relieves with fake Scottish accents." Tungdil Goldhand: "Everything dark elves say is a lie, so..." "... I'll just go find dwarf on dwarf romance." Boïndil: "Kids..."

Well, money allows devs to keep working on a game. If they had spend another 6 months on Stygian, they could have done more. And then there is the security of knowing you haven't run out of money. That does wonders for letting people concentrate on their project