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Dream

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Everything posted by Dream

  1. Dream
    Because that's what people funded, right? People funded an old-school, isometric, party-based tactical cRPG in the same vein as the old Black Isle games. That doesn't mean that it has to be mechanically identical to the IE games or the original Fallout games. If Obsidian thinks that it can improve upon the concept by borrowing ideas from other games, then they should do so. At least IMO. That said, I don't want them to get rid of the RTWP combat system. Bioware thought they could improve on the IE games with Dragon Age. That went well. I'd rather Obsidian spend more money on making the game look cooler and giving it a bigger/better story rather than on reinventing the wheel.
  2. Dream
    Yea, you're right. **** those awful games with set endings like BG, IWD, and PST.
  3. Dream
    Because that's what people funded, right?
  4. Dream
    Possible failure in a video game is dieing/not being able to finish (on a given difficulty). Failing despite reaching the end of the game is just aggravating. Seems to me a game that offers multiple endings could be (and should be) more complex than just succeeding or failing. If the endings rely on the players choices made during the game then the ending should speak to the player in some manner whether he/she finds it aggravating or not - To me an RPG should be about a lot more than just finding a way to the end - it should be about the choices you make along the way and the consequences of making them. If every path just leads to the same place whats the point of having them - just constructing a bridge to the next product in the series? I hope not. Choices should affect your story in the now; not shuffle you toward a specific ending. Torment did it well in that no matter what you did you pretty much got the same ending, but by exploring the game you learned more and could achieve that ending in various ways. There was never a point where you go to the end and the TNO just instagibbed you because you didn't make the right choices along the way and thus auto lost.
  5. Dream
    Possible failure in a video game is dieing/not being able to finish (on a given difficulty). Failing despite reaching the end of the game is just aggravating.
  6. Dream
    Second best sidescroller I ever played (best was the PSP remake where you get to play as Vile). On topic; yea straight up tutorial levels are a bit annoying.
  7. Dream
    What's it matter what other people do; it's a single player game. How are you gonna talk about the psychology of people and then say that's a good idea; all it will do is cause people to "rest" in a spot for 10 months.
  8. Dream
    I wouldn't say combat was an afterthought, just not necessary to progress through the game (it was basically BG's combat, which was great in and of itself). But I'd be alright with that as long as each companion had a very unique look to them. Also maces and fist weapons are way more bad ass than swords. So a chick fighting naked to confuse her foes makes sense to you and you're okay with, but a woman wanting to look sexy blows your suspension of disbelief? What? what? What? What? No, of course not. Good grief, read what I write sometimes! A woman wanting to look sexy if she can afford to do so is absolutely fine. A woman wanting to look sexy in combat (for what reason? Is she trying to attract her fellow fighters? To the extent of exposing her body to harm?), or a peasant woman dressing sexy in a society that's doesn't exactly look down on rape, not so much. And that's not the same thing as the monk! Even that, as I said, was an extremely extreme example, which is silly, but at least tries to make up an excuse for the boobs. Why would she want to look sexy in combat? For the exact same reason soldiers paint flames and eagles and **** on the sides of jets; 'cause it looks awesome.
  9. Dream
    So a chick fighting naked to confuse her foes makes sense to you and you're okay with, but a woman wanting to look sexy blows your suspension of disbelief? What?
  10. Dream
    They were made for the same reason magic was; 'cause it's cool. Yes. At least they made SOME effort to wear some kind of protection. Unlike the nimble tube-top rogue, killing the dragon with a dagger. Hey, I'm not saying I like this either. A tarp would offer you more protection than metal. In a medieval-esque world? Of course. I'm not saying I agree with this thought process, just that it'd be pretty common in this kind of setting. And explaining that skimpy clothing would therefore not be preferred by women in said setting. Yes, you are still the sexist. So you're okay with sexist stereotypes being reinforced as long as they're realistic (back then it was like that guys, so it's okay!), but god forbid someone wants their character to look sexy. Female gamers like boob plates too you know, just not the fat ones (calm down, that last bit was a joke). So if a female fighter finds a magical chainmail bikini that radiates an aura of protection (or whatever) then you'd have no problem with it? Great! Or are only monks allowed to have skimpy magical protection? which is why I said I wasn't sure about Torment. It's a vision statement, those are written for a very specific purpose and for a very specific kind of people. I don't know how sincere it was. It might've been. If it was, that sucks. I vaguely recall Avellone being alright with boobs, although I kind of doubt he set out to make a game about boobs, or to market it solely on the fact of it containing boobs. There aren't very many ways to interpret that vision statement; it's obvious they added the babes in because they wanted them in there and not because they felt compelled by marketing.
  11. Dream
    Magic has never been used either, but good thing it's a video game, right? And anybody stupid enough to wear plate against a dragon would probably die a painful death due to being cooked alive rather quickly. So skimpy clothes means a woman's asking for it, and I'M the sexist? But it's okay for Forton to run into combat with just rags on, or are you going to tell me if they instead introduced a female monk who fought in just a bra and loincloth you wouldn't be screaming bloody murder. Yeah, no. But do go on, ignore parts of what I write, being selective about understanding text has never hurt anyone. Read this (page 14, to be precise). You can't be both against the idea of using sex to sell games while being okay with Torment No, but what if a female player wants her character to look sexy? Are you gonna say "**** you, this game should be as realistic as possible and women in armor should look like men because it offends MY sensibilities to see a boobplate!" "But it's just a video game and not real life...."
  12. Dream
    "Open minded" is what you're asked to be by people who want you to accept their bull****. Like religion. But yeah, we should be open to the possibility that sexism is actually alright. It's very plausible. Or be open to the possibility that not every woman wants to dress like a man. Oh wait I forgot, every short dress, mini skirt, and tube top ever was designed by men who forced women to wear them, and if women had their choice they'd all wear burqas. My bad. Is Torment sexist? Certainly the bit from the vision statement and a couple of female outfits in the game would suggest so. But then there's Fall from Grace, whose character kinda goes against that, so I'm not quite sure. Does Torment have unnecessarily stupid armour design? Again, there is some stupid armour design, but it seems to fit the crazy setting. So, meh, not sure about this either. Does it pander to stereotypes? I thought Avellone went pretty much the other way, or that's what I've read. Torment isn't my absolute fav game ever, but I wouldn't call it awful. So boob plates make a game suck but one character that subverts a trope redeems a game where every single female (outside of zombies, dust(wo)men, and fat people) looks like a straight up hooker? Well now we know how to throw in all the sexism we want into P:E and still keep you happy, just add a single non-prostitute prostitute with a heart of gold. So then wouldn't the best option be to not specifically go after either group and just stick with what the previous games did? Nobody can even agree on what the previous games did. They all had boob plates and skimpy outfits for thieves/mages so lets go with that.
  13. Dream
    So then wouldn't the best option be to not specifically go after either group and just stick with what the previous games did? You keep twisting this "discussion" so that it seems I'm just a petty hater of everything that's popular and that I just can't compromise and blahblahblah... Yeah, you know what? I tend to think stuff I don't like sucks. And that's, SURPRISE, quite a normal way of thinking for most people. WHAT?! Someone is not being objective in an online discussion?! Scandalous! I don't. I can appreciate a game, movie, or whatever for what it is even if I don't like; I think it's called being open minded. Maybe you should try it sometime. Damn, I guess Torment was an awful ****ing game that sucked.
  14. Dream
    So what I'm getting out of this little tantrum of yours is that stuff you don't like sucks, and the people that like it are sad and pathetic; that about right? Or am I strawmanning you again? Project Eternity was made to bring back an old genre of computer game; not to subvert every popular video game trope ever (many of which were present in the genre PE is meaning to bring back). Just 'cause they're making a game for a somewhat niche audience doesn't mean they have to turn it up to 11 and make a game for a niche audience within a niche audience.
  15. Dream
    You're totally right man; what the hell are those companies thinking? Clearly what they're doing is not working, and they should design characters the way you and Elerond want so they can finally stop working for pennies and make some real money. I mean, those artists are so terrible that no one could possibly like that stuff, right?
  16. Dream
    How did I misrepresent you, pray tell? For example you gave impression that I have said that blizzard, dc, bioware and etc. companies that have oversexualised female character have average artist when I argued agaist your point that female characters look butch if they aren't oversexualised, using claim that if artist knows what s/he does s/he can make female characters look femine and male characters to look masculine even if they have same outfit and only average artist must relay on oversexualisation to do same. Of course artist don't decide how games will look, but they only try to follow instructions from producers and publishers that try to make product to sell as much as possible. And when I pledged to this project I hoped that we can avoid such compromises that marketing department wants. But Blizzard, DC, etc. do have highly sexualized female characters (I'm pretty sure Kerrigan and Batgirl don't have to wear skintight outfits to do battle). I suppose then, based on what you said, the people who designed those characters were ****ty artists since they were incapable of making them look feminine without those outfits, right? Or maybe, just maybe, an artist can "know what she's doing" without restricting herself to your rigid idea of what good art is (you know, 'cause art is subjective and all). As for marketing; that department exists for a reason because at the end of the day you do actually need to sell your product.
  17. Dream
    How did I misrepresent you, pray tell? They hire artists who are ok with painting stuff like that if the money's good. Which is the case with huge companies like this. I suppose some of the artists enjoy it too, but I know many who wouldn't do it, not even for Blizzard. I also know some who would do it and think it's wrong, but still take the money. Anyway, fact that it's being done doesn't make it alright. It doesn't say anything about the artists' artistic preference, stuff like that is decided and pushed for by the companies, not the artists. Yes, those evil corporations doing evil stuff just to be evil. Perhaps Obsidian should take a page out of Blizzard's book and then maybe they'd sell more games (and be able to hire an actual QA department). Reality is sex sells and if I were the kind of prudish person who was annoyed by it (I'm not) I'd suffer through it for the extra sales it'd bring. Oh and before you jump in with "well, why don't they just go all the way then?" It's because there's a pretty big gap between putting boob plates in a game and hiring TERA's armor designers. Those first two would look very similar on a 1 inch avatar. The last one's rather legit though, but the pauldrons seem a bit too big to be "realistic."
  18. Dream
    I guess Blizzard, DC, Marvel and pretty much everybody else under the sun hire only fake artists. As for where oversexualization is "appropriate:" I didn't realize you were the spokesperson for the international feminist movement, but if you are then my bad; please tell us where it's okay for women to flaunt their assets. I'm sure women everywhere will appreciate some dude from Europe telling them where it's okay for them to dress provocatively. Actually it works fine until it doesn't. Where that point occurs is entirely depedent on a) the person and b) the person. You're obviously okay with some basic functionality being ignored since I'm pretty sure you have no problem with video games overlooking the thermal and electrical conductivities of certain metals when fighters in said metals face off against dragons and mages (hint: in the real world lightning and fire would **** your **** up if you're wearing metal). Go for it; I'd chuckle. Probably would make me more likely to use him, too.
  19. Dream
    An opium den where the longer you're in there the more stoned your party gets.
  20. Dream
    I think you could really benefit from a crash course in cultural anthropology, because that was just... soooo wrong. I was hardly referring to ancient cultures trying to explain away weather and death, or are you honestly going to tell me that all the spells ever used in D&D (and other fantasy settings) have some far reaching anthropological origin and were not just thought up by a guy going "this'd be cool."
  21. Dream
    If you're cool with P:E looking like BG then we have no argument. Pretty much everything in fiction stems from the rule of cool. Hell, the very concept of magic came from some guy figuring "You know what; it'd be badass if I could shoot a fireball out of my fingers." Did it make sense when he thought that up? Not really, but it was awesome.
  22. Dream
    Probably for the same reason people who want romances wouldn't be satisfied with, 'Why can't you just pretend the game lets you have a romance', or the same reason people complaining about generic PC dialogue wouldn't be appeased with, 'Why don't you just act like your character is saying something profound?' My stance on this issue, in a nutshell, amounts to this: if you're not going to have time limits, which is all well and good, don't have the game act like there is a time limit. Don't have an NPC say 'Hurry before its too late!' unless you need the player to hurry before its too late. If a city is under siege and the player needs to do things to lift that siege, don't tell the player the enemy could break through at any moment; tell them the siege is ongoing and its unknown when it will end. Leave the timing of things deliberately vague and everyone is satisfied. Otherwise, its a sharp jolt to suspension of disbelief. This should be done for the overwhelming majority of quests, and without exception the main quest, if they mention timing at all. I don't mind a minority of quests with a reasonable time limit, but I'm an explorer, at heart. I don't want to worry about my damn vault dying of thirst if I run off to explore someplace. An example of this being done pretty well: New Vegas. When will the Battle for Hoover Dam start? When will Caesar be prepared to launch his attack? In practice, the answer is 'whenever you've done all the quests you feel like doing.' As such, the game never says 'Caesar should be attacking any day now!'; you can pretend that you have as much or as little time as you like. Yea I guess I can see how it'd be a bit jarring when the game specifically states you have to do something asap but lets you do it whenever. Your solution sounds ideal to keeping everyone happy.
  23. Dream
    I liked how they were designed; boob plates and skimpy outfits (which is what you're referring to I'm guessing) are ubiquitous for a reason. All the delicious sexism we can eat, hooray! Skimpy dresses, heels, and pushup bras exist in the real world too; not all women want to look butch for equality's sake.
  24. Dream
    I liked how they were designed; boob plates and skimpy outfits (which is what you're referring to I'm guessing) are ubiquitous for a reason.
  25. Dream
    I guess hellscapes aren't very natural. Barring that both jungles and very snowy regions are fun for their own reasons, but ever since act 2 of D2 I have not been able to stand deserts.
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