Jump to content
The Community Blog (An Invitation)

Rahelron

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    158

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Rahelron

  1. Rahelron
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDA_framework http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/aesthetics-of-play I was using the word "Mechanic" instead of "Aesthetic", sorry for that I didn't remember corretly.
  2. Rahelron
    ok, let me explain. If we split what RPG core mechanics from the tools that are used to achieve those mechanics we see that they usually allow the player to do 3 things: 1- Choose (usually achieved through a dialogue choices that lead the game to different final outcomes). 2- Achieve (usually achieved through defeating enemies through combat and growing your character through levelling). 3- Construct an alternate self (usually achieved through avatar creation, equipment, classes and customization in general). In Catherine you can do all these three things, so it is an RPG. Some would argue that RPGs also have a fourth core mechanic that is "Experience a different reality" (achieved through world design and exploration), but I don't think it is the case. To me an RPG can be an RPG even if its setting is our reality. That's why to me Watch Dogs is an RPG.
  3. Rahelron
    And you should think about what role-playing actually entails. Statistics are just as much a part of that to specifically tailor your charachter. If statistics have a meaning other than measuring the power of your character then I can agree with you. But it's not what we are talking about. An example: if I had high strength and low intellect then, if the game was done right, that should impact my overall game experience. I probebly would be able to smash doors open (so I wouldn't need a thief in my group most of the times) but I wouldn't be able to avoid fights using witty words. But these are statistics that I see and manage on my character's sheet, not on the combat log. On the combat log I can see that I need to refill my quiver, or to change the spells I'm using because the enemy I'm facing is immune to fire damage. I can see that I don't crit as much as I would like so I need to improve my crit chance, stuff like that. Do you see? All this management has no implication on roleplay, it's just a way to make the game more interesting for those who love combat. Finally: there are roleplaying games who don't have combat at all. Catherine is a great example of that. In that game there is no levelling, no stats and no combat. There are some puzzle sections that bring up the heat and give the player some action (look at the extra credits' episode about "differences in kind" to know what I mean http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/differences-in-scale-vs-differences-in-kind) but nothing more.
  4. Rahelron
    LOL Completely proves true all of the things I said in the other post, hello casual gamer. You are part of the cancer that is killing current RPGs. Yeah then, combat log is what makes RPGs real-hardcore-no-compromises RPGs. RPGs are not about statistics and logs, are about roleplaying. Diablo 3, Torchlight 2 and Dragon Age 2 are about statistics, maxing your character, finding the best build and checking everything via combat log so you can take snapshots of your hits and post them on the internet. Are those RPGs? I think not. "Hey, watch this log, I hit for 10000 and crit for 100000!!! Can you dig it sucka???" Totally roleplay. Don't ask for what you don't want. I personally don't want the developers to waste too much time on balancing combat, creating interesting builds for each class and making shure that the game is difficoult even when players have the best gear. As I said this is what Diablo does. If you remember Ultima 7, BG1, BG2 and even Dragon Age Origins were famous to be incredibly easy if players started playing with a min/maxer find-the-best-build mindset. Why that? Because developers had focused their efforts on creating a great roleplaying experience, sacrificing other things. So: I'm shure Project Eternity will feature a great combat experience. But other than that I don't want it to be a combat centered game. So combat log is not the most important interface feature. Just my 2 cents here.
  5. Rahelron
    The same goes for Leliana XD It was the only time she was good looking.
  6. Rahelron
    They probably had that kind of treatment in mind since the beginning and didn't need my advice to come up with it. But still I'm glad they decided to go that way.
  7. Rahelron
    I put greater trust in CD Projekt than in Bioware, just because they haven't screwed up with their last two titles. Moreover both games are announced for 2014 and TW3 seems to be a lot ahead in development compared to DA3. The fact that Bioware didn't show any in-game footage makes me worry: DA3 should have been in development for something like 18 months, why they don't have anything to show besides monsters and character models? My fear is that they scrapped everything something like 6 months ago and then restarted from scratch. This could have happened even later: Bioware announced they were switching to Frostbite 3 in march 28, so they could have restarted everything just 3 months ago. There are some elements that cheer me up though. First Bioware postponed the release date by one year. This is a good thing. Secondly I don't know If you noticed, but EA does not seem to be nice and friendly to Bioware lately. When EA "won" the "worst company of the year" contest for the second year in a row one of its executives wrote a press release where he clearly tried to shift all the blame on Bioware for the crappy games EA released in the last years. He named Dragon age 2 and Mass Effect 3, but didn't spend a word on Sim City or on the way they are treating the Ultima games, which are about to become a facebook franchise. I think that those at bioware know that thay can't screw up anymore if they want to survive as a company. EA is restructuring the company because of financial problems, if they don't want to be axed they need to go back to their old standards.
  8. Rahelron
    The Witcher 3 trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TZ_G6XiHoUA Dragon Age III trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rh8v3Et4tGE What do you think? Have you any expectation? Do you think Bioware will be able to deliver on its promises? Is CD Projekt boasting too much about TW3 being the "ultimate RPG"? Please discuss.
  9. Rahelron
    Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I'm glad I gave you my money. Keep listening to your customer base like this, you're doing a great work.
  10. Rahelron
    I agree with you, but I would like to see some activated abilities even for non magic users. I think that Skyrim managed to strike a great balance between magic and non.magic users.
  11. Rahelron
    English is not my motherlanguage, I don't always manage to tune my register perfecly, sorry. I didn't mean to upset anyone.
  12. Rahelron
    You say that like it's a bad thing It's not a bad thing, but if I wanted to read a book I would read one and not play a videogame. Videogames have all the powers of multimedia, why shouldn't they use them?
  13. Rahelron
    The conversation window would open up only during dialogues of course. Keep in mind that during conversations the game freezes and the player can't do anything other than selecting the dialogue options. The window would keep track of all the conversations the player did, even those before the one happening at the moment. For those who wanted to read through every line of dialogue/combat a tab in the game's menu would be enough IMO. The general log would be would be just like the spellbook and the journal in BG 1 and 2.
  14. Rahelron
    Despite the GUI, how is that any different from IE? Because of the GUI, how is that any better than IE? The worst thing about IE games (for those who cared) was the fact the player wasn't able to see his character in his face. The portraits were shown during dialogues, but they were too small to have an impact on the player's experience. Everything was contained into the log and so it was like reading a book. Somewhat immersion breaking I would say. With the system I'm suggesting the player would be able to see much larger portraits and morover ones that would change facial expression depending on what dialogue options the player would choose. This would be a much better game experience, at least in my opinion. It would not be too difficoult to implement. Many japanese indie games already do that. If the developers had time and money they could even create animated 3D avatars for all the main NPCs, something like the avatars in starcraft 2. This would be even better.
  15. Rahelron
    This is great. Just please: create a conversation management system that is more than a simple log with text lines that follow one another. Baldur's gate was in the 90s, now we are in 2013. Yet, I haven't seen anything truly better so far. Can you point me to those glorious conversation management systems of new? Look at my last post. I edited it and I put in another example of how conversations could be managed in a way better way than Baldur's Gate without loosing the Infinity Engine flavour, at least in my opinion.
  16. Rahelron
    This is great. Just please: create a conversation management system that is more than a simple log with text lines that follow one another. Baldur's gate was in the 90s, now we are in 2013. Here's another example of how a dialogue could be handled (and remember that in my dreams the portraits are animated and/or change facial expression depending on what you say).
  17. Rahelron
    Here it is: a merge between our two mockups. Normal gameplay (the big avatar can be closed or turned into a map): During Dialogues: During dialogues (alternative version, prettier but more invasive):
  18. Rahelron
    Much better than the earlier layouts. My only advice would be to toss the tiny dialogue box on the bottom. At that size it serves no point and going through it would be literally a hassle. Move the portraits to that space instead so there is less "searching" with the mouse from clicking on portrait, to skill, to targeting it. As for the large dialogue blocks... move them a little higher on the screen, make the portraits smaller, and expand them further right so there is more horizontal room for text. Once out of dialogue you can have your dialogue window with a record of the conversation and combat log pop up in the bottom left and be much taller so it can be read through. Thank you for your comment. I agree with everything you wrote except the part about portraits' sizes. I like them big. I think you have designed a much better toolbar than me, if I was in Obsidian's shoes I would use your bar with my dialogue management system. As the combat log / dialogue bar is concerned I think we could scrap it entirely. It could become a tab on the game's menu like the spellbook or the quest journal. When I played Baldur's Gate 1/2 I never searched for old dialogues on the main bar. I just looked at the journal when I didn't remember what I had to do in a quest.
  19. Rahelron
    What?? Go study Aristotle man. A valid implication would have been: - I hate all games that feature romance arcs. - Project eternity will feature romance arcs. - I'll hate project eternity. But the first premise is false: you said that you hate bioware games, not games that feature romance arcs, didn't you? So this inference is invalid. Second possibility: - All games that feature romance arcs are bioware games. - I hate bioware games. - I hate games that feature romance arcs. But since the first premise is false the whole inference is fallacious. A valid implication with your premises would have been: - Bioware games have romance arcs. - I hate Bioware games. - Therefore, if Project eternity is a Bioware game, I will hate it. But since Project Eternity is not a Bioware game you can stay shure you won't hate it. As you see logic never faults: put the blame of crappy romance arcs on Bioware, not on romances themselves.
  20. Rahelron
    New version, with all the improvements you have asked for. As always don't look at the skins and the graphic. Look at the layout. 1- Bigger letters in the dialogue boxes. 2- Multi-character dialogue system. 3- Resizable dialogue boxes (as you can see they have different horizontal sizes, the player just has to click on the border and drag) 4- Buttons. 5- Floating toolbars (to prevent the area switching problem) How the multi-character dialogue system works: when a second PC/NPC joins the conversation another portrait appears on top of the last one. If more than two characters per side join the conversation (PCs - NPCs) the bottom portrait disappears, the top one goes to the bottom and a new one spawns on top. Button functions: X - To close character portraits (not working during conversations) M - To view a map of the area in the box instead of the portraits. [ENTER BUTTON]: To rotate the characters' bar by 90 degrees (so you can put it at the top or at the bottom of the screen).
  21. Rahelron
    1- Obsidian is not bioware. 2- MCA is not the only writer Obsidian has.
  22. Rahelron
    This is what happens when a dialogue starts.
  23. Rahelron
    An improvement over the first version. Please don't look at the graphic, it is crappy, just look at the design. I moved the toolbar on the right side and now it seems less intrusive. The picture on the left is closable, and shows a portrait of the selected character. If you have more than one character selected it shows the first one one the right-side tab.
  24. Rahelron
    A less intrusive interface with a different way to manage dialogues. When you enter a conversation an animated 3D portrait of the person you are talking with pops in and this is what happens.
  25. Rahelron
    I actually find this statement a little bit troubling. One of the things I wanted to see over the original was larger portrait sizes. If you're cutting down the UI height then this is unlikely. So let's have a thin interface, but with large portraits that appear when you select a character maybe. What about doing something like in starcraft 2? When you are on a mission in that game and some character starts saying something more than simple banter a large window appears and you can see a 3D animated portrait of that character speaking.
×
×
  • Create New...