ShadowPaladin V1.0

Oblivion is still pointless , the technology I was thinking of would be almost total immersion. As it is , I can think of few things more banal than standing in a corner clicking for no reason other than to increase a skill. In an MMPORG its a means to an end, but in a single player game there is no end that makes it worth doing. Your much better off spending the time improving your own abilities. Which brings me onto the other issue I have with games like Oblivion. If past games are anything to go by they wont challenge me and the gameplay will not be compelling enough to make up for a lack of a indepth story with interesting characters. FMV brings the player emotional involvement in the game. That can lead to overlooking things like a poor control system since you are driven by other things. FMV narratives dont have to be linear, many are not and incorporate multiple endings. What you dont get is the level of obvious that you get in the sort of things that Bioware make , its more subtle and hidden. You may not even realise you are altering anything at the time. I'd take the gameplay of Star Ocean or Tales of Symphonia over the one dimensional mechanics of Morrowind any day. Morrowind dosnt even qualify as a game in my book, its more a simulation of you in a fantasy world doing your own thing. Ovlivion looks like its slimmed down the gameplay elements even further so I fail to see why that would make anyone extol it as a great game. If anything Oblivion is a step back not forward which dosnt go along with your theory. On the other hand the telling of a good story is a timeless thing , that wont change regardless of how technology does. Rather the technology will ehance the method of telling.

I had a good time with Morrowind for about 2 days. Doing your own thing is appealing but soon grows old if there is no purpose to it. Worst of all I found that when I wanted to get back to the story my character was so powerful it just became dull and pointless.

Agreed that one cracked me up.

Advance Wars was pretty easy but the lure of a perfect 300 kept me going for gameplay reasons for a while. Just picked up Advance Wars DS just now, swapped it for an extra copy of Nintendogs that got ordered by mistake. There are a bunch of new features but nothing that radically alters the gameplay by the look of it and most of the units are the same.

Anyone who likes FireEmblem in principle but not the perma death bit, might like to check out Advance Wars. Personally I think it lacks the character of Fire Emblem and I never get attached to the units in the same way since you build them and they dont carry over. The CO's have a lot of character too, and there are probably more unit types and strategies.

Like I said , love/hate thing. Lots of people restart whenever someone dies, but its not as bad as some people make it out as long as you pay attention to the triangles and dont send flying units out unsupported as they become archer fodder. That said sometimes sending a flying unit will allow you to block a reinforcement point so its worth the risk. There are so many reserve characters, that even with loses its pretty hard to get to the point where you cant continue. Supports show the developing relationship of units that fight side by side over a long period of time. It's only artificial if your doing it for no other reason than to get a support otherwise its quite natural since the units are side by side anyway. When I first played I tended to keep people together according to how the story was playing out so got a lot of supports without even realising it.

The death system in FireEmblem is a love/hate thing. The GC version is probably easier than the GBA one, although stones is even easier if you take advantage of the leveling areas. It does remove the issue you had though, since it's possible to level up a new replacement relatively easily, where as that was a difficult thing to do in the first GBA release.

I mentioned this a couple of months ago and people were a tad skeptical that it was being released in Europe (finally). Well only another 28 days to wait and it's out in the shops. Comes with a mini movie (if you call 5 hours mini) of the events in X1 so you know whats going on. Dont expect it to be released with a huge fanfaire so you may have to look around a bit(PS2). Some other stuff to look out for. Lost in Blue - A charming little game about two young adults stranded together on an island. Survive, escape and interact with your companion. The ending depends on your relationship and what you managed to accomplish and how you managed to escape (DS) Fire Emblem Path of Radiance. The GBA game gets a GC make over. All the elements are there, only this time in more detail. It's tough in places but worth it. The extra bells and whistles do make it slower to play than on the GBA though. Some of them can be turned off for increased speed. On a similiar note, Fire Emblem Sacred Stones finally makes it over to these shores. (GBA).

You haven't? I got a review copy of the expansion to Everquest 2 in the mail today, and it's on 2 DVD's. Everquest 2 itself was on 2 or 3 DVD's (can't remember). I've gotten a few PS2 games on several DVD's too. I think Champions of Norrath was one of them, but I am not sure. It's not very uncommon. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> PC games are now commonly being released on DVD and thats before you even take into account how much actual space they take up on the HD. The 360 dosnt ship with a HD as standard. Everquest is what I would call one of those big and empty games so it's quite suprising it takes up that much room. But further indication that a DVD isnt going to cut it over the next 5 years.

But is it advancing the RPG genre to make them choose-your-own-ending films? I'd think game developers should have more ambition than that. In some senses though you're right in that RPGs are in some ways hybrids of the cinematic and the interactive experience. They attempt to tell a story (visually) and create interesting characters, and insofar as this is true they are films. They then integrate that with player input, which makes them games. And it is completely true that you may enjoy the movie aspect more than the game aspect and is willing to sacrifice gameplay for better FMV's, and there's nothing wrong with that, but as a game, the product would still have failed even if it succeeded as a narrative/film. And as a step forward for the gaming medium - well, I'd argue that it wouldn't be a step forward at all as much as it'd be a retreading of the same domain films did. Now here I may be over-generalizing, and there may indeed be important differences inherent in a choose-your-own-ending film from a traditional film that requires a separate artistic sensibility. But in the overall sense, I still can't imagine it to be step forward for games. What would constitute a step forward for games is the level of interactivity, since as I see it the dynamic effect of the player is what separates games from films. So in a RPG, an advancement in the level of the choices you can make would be an advancement of the game aspect, as would an advancement in the depth of their effects. From this perspective, "games" like Xenosaga that are basically FMV's with mini-games in-between are just the same old polished cinematic experiences, while games like Oblivion that try to push the boundaries of the gameplay aspect of RPGs represent an advancement. I say this not to the detriment of Xenosaga as much as I say it to the detriment of those who praise games like Xenosaga & its ilk as the way RPGs should be when they're CLEARLY not even games as much as they are films with a few choices and mini-games added in. I simply do not see that, even if I at times enjoy it, as the direction RPGs should be taking. It's a tried and true medium, but by that very fact it's becoming tired, and even Square Enix realizes that when they attempt to innovate on the gameplay aspects of their games. Yes, you can come up with a new story every time and your fans will gobble it up, but that's just like a long-running film series. You'll never add anything really new to the genre until you make a innovation in the underlying gameplay. In the end, every story has been told, and it's how they're told that makes them fresh and new. The how and not the what should be stressed in relation to what differentiates games, as it is already in literature and already in film. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Given the choice between spending 1 hour of real time walking to a town and spending 1 hour of real time watching a scene which draws me deeper into what is going on in the world , well I'd take the latter. Especially if you had to revisit the town on more than one occasion and there wasnt a way to mark and recall to it. Cant think of any greater waste of time than that. When thechnology gets to a point where you can mimic the experience I might change my mind. Oblivion etc do nothing new, they are simply offline MMPORGs , without something which can approximate a living breathing and changing world, they are rather dull and lifeless. If wandering around large expanses of empty is someones idea of fun, then they represent great value but otherwise the boredom factor kicks in long before the game is complete. First we had books, then movies which "improved" upon the experience and games are the next step on the same media trail. RPGs from their PnP origins are after all interactive books of a sort. Without a story and a motivation you may as well spend the time improving yourself , rather than pressing a key for 20 minutes to improve your characters jumping.

It's a bit of a balancing act and since you cant really factor in the ability of the player its always going to be hit or miss. The boss fight in Skies of Arcadia legends took me upwards of 3 hourrs and was multipart. It was a heck of a fight which took every trick in the book and then some and which left the party totally exhausted and near death. In a word EPIC. However imagine if I had lost.... Would I really want to face another 3 hour titanic battle?

I'd be very suprised if it actually came anywhere close to the subject its trying to simulate. Comes across more of a Sims at the Movie studio rather than an actual game.

I know. What I meant was that Bethesda can say that there is more content and be telling the truth, but that the extra content wont make the game any less bland than morrowind was because of the extra size. Sorry if that wasnt clear.

-MrSmileyFaceDude,Bethesda Programmer. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Which makes it quite possible to have more content and not be lying, but at the same time have a world that appears more empty than Morrowind did. We just moved to a bigger house in case anyone is wondering about the room anologies.

I thought that was just towns and stuff? Mark and recall were more versatile.

As usual you missed the point while religiously swallowing... Allow me to explain. If we see morrowind as a 10*10 room then its going to look empty if you only put a chair in one corner. If we see Oblivion as a 20*20 room then your going to need two chairs to have a comparable level of emptiness. With only one chair it looks even more empty than the 10*10. So just because bethesda say that Oblivion will have more content dosnt mean that it will appear less empty. If its larger then it needs more content just to avoid looking less empty than Morrowind was.

Oh joy they removed the only thing that made the game even remotely bearable.

Were those the freaky little bird type things ? I dont recall having to fight one after leveling up a bit , they just become like any other object.

There is a Japanese gameshow where they invite someone on to have sex, without telling them its a transexual. They seem pretty laid back about it once they find out. I think if you tried that in the US or the UK someone would get at least a beating or maybe even killed. The person in the pic definately qualifies as a hotty and leads you on to , what is important, what you were born as or what you are. I think cultural upbringing has a lot to do with it. Someone I know picked up a transexual and when he found out left them half dead in the carpark. I'd probably be pretty freaked too although I'd probably just throw up rather than than beating the crap out of them.

Sorry, usually when the developers talk about there being more content than the previous game, one generally assumes there is MORE CONTENT. But yeah, it's all evil hype by the Bethesda developers to trick everyone into thinking that Oblivion has more to do than Morrowind. Afterall, why would we think they were honest when they said they've listened to their fans and have created more content in the explorable areas than in Morrowind? Yeah, so uh, all games suck in development, all developers lie, all message boards on developer websites need to be closed, all posting by developers and their fans alike should be stopped because everything is hype, nobody informs their fanbase as to what's going on with their games anymore. Interviews should be axed, since they contain no factual information, just a bunch of random quotes to hype their game, when in fact, everything they say is the exact opposite from the truth. From your astute observations of hype/information, we can only assume that Oblivion will be a large explorable landmass, with 2 dungeons, 12 NPC's (all text dialog with randomly alternating languages for each word), 1 wepon, 1 suit of armor, and 1 goal, to walk 10 steps forward and touch the "YOU WIN!" sign. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Bethesda said much the same when they were working on Morrowind. Gone were the random dungeons, yet the constructed dungeons managed to be equally bland. The NPCs were supposed to be more engaging, but again turned out to be rather generic. Morrowind was big, but Morrowind was also empty. Oblivion may well be bigger and have more content. But overall that will lead to it being equally empty. If walking around empty wilderness for 3 or 4 hours just to get to a town that isnt connected via a gate is your idea of fun, well you will probably be happy with it.

Divne Divinity had crowded cities too, very similiar in many ways albeit from an isometric view. Personally I'd rather 100 very well done NPC's than 1000 generic ones for two reasons. The first is that they are more interesting. The second is that I'd rather not have to click through 50 NPCS in a town just to figure out that they all say the same things. I still think MMPORGs deal with that type of experience much better than the elder scrolls simply because most of the people you meet around town are actual players and the filler NPCs are generally there for a functional reason. Thats not to say Oblivion cant improve on Morrowind , although I personally think Morrowind wasnt as good as DaggerFall (except for the bugs).

Halo II wasnt bad, although I dont get the hype thing or people waiting outside for 6 hours just to get one. Halo has the elements that could make a good movie it just depends how its put together.

<sings> This is the thread that never ends. It just goes on and on my friends..

No but neither has anyone else Unless Bethesda change tak, which it dosnt look like they have. Then the previous Elder Scrolls games will be a fair indicator of Oblivion. Lots of open spaces with nothing in them. Lots of generic NPCs with the odd interesting NPC sprinkled in. Out of those 1000+ I'd bet that less than 100 would have any sort of character, the rest are likely filler much like they were in Arena/DaggerFall/Morrowind.

How exactly ? I think people who enjoy that sort of sandbox game would be better served by an MMPORG. The most noticable thing I can say about it myself is the forests look nice. One thing I did discover is that the 360 version is retailing at