decado

The idea of putting dudes in jail is kinda neat. I hope it pans out as a system that feels integrated, instead of something that is just tacked on.

You are right, this is a board to discuss about games but then you state historical evidences... And I am strongly against the fact that someone try to prove his point by uncorrects facts. This video is the perfect proof that ignorance shouldn't be spread by wanna be scientits who know close to nothing about armor. When you are wrong, accept it and learn from other who may be more knowledgeable on the subject than you are. The vast majority of experiments that have involved the testing of arrows against mail were done using mail that was not representative of that worn by contemporaries. Rivets were poorly set (or the links were merely "butted" together without riveting)3, inadequate padding was used (if employed at all), the links were generally too large, and the metallurgy was incorrect—all factors that may lead to a reduction in the armour's protective capability2. Recent experiments performed against more accurate mail reconstructions indicate that contemporary mail and padding provided excellent defense against all types of arrows under battlefield conditions. Nielson was one of the first to conclude this in 1991. An experiment conducted by the Royal Armouries concluded that a padded jack worn over a mail haubergeon (a common combination) was proof against Mary Rose longbows1. Ref : O. Nielson, "Skydeforsog med Jernalderensbuer," Eksperimentel Arkaeologi, (1991) 134-46 Examples include the tests conducted by Saxton Pope—"A Study in Bows and Arrows", Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology. (University of California, 1923) Butted mail is commonly used by modern re-enactors but historically it rarely had a place on the battlefield. It offered virtually no protection against the most common threats, i.e. arrows and spears. Even the earliest mail seems to have been made of riveted links I'm sorry, but you're quoting a 20 year old book, and a 100 year old study. The fact of the matter is, you are claiming the issue is settled when it is not. You shouldn't assume someone doesn't know the subject matter, simply because they didn't cough up links (it seems like you got a lot of information from this thread). I never said arrows were useless against mail. What I wrote was: **But in the case of the former, arrows still fared pretty well against most armors except for the heaviest of steel plates, which would not become popular until the 14th century and still not available to most ordinary soldiers. ** This is hardly a controversial statement. I don't know why you started posting links about how awesome mail was, as I know full well that plenty of armor combinations offered great protection against arrows. If it they didn't, people would not have worn them. Here's another video, of a traditionally-made, iron riveted coat of mail against a bodkin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LdGUMulJUI

My experience with DA:O was somewhat different, my bowman was a really good asset against enemies mages. One more important fact about real life, swords are a one-hit-kill, wait a minute here... almost any weapon is a one hit kill. Some weapons are designed to hurt or defend with non-lethal damge, but the vast majority of them are very lethal. You don't have to be a hunter of grizzly bear to know that fact. But P:E doesn't aim for realistic combat (I don't think I'm wrong with this statement). So I don't know why bows should try to mimic real life while swords are not. If you're wearing armor, most sword strikes are not one-hit/one-kill. There is plenty of evidence in the historical record to show that men survived multiple weapon impacts over the course of a battle, whereas an arrow in any part of the torso was pretty much guaranteed to kill you. Barbed heads could ruin muscle tissue and cause massive internal bleeding. The discriminating factor here would be armor, and the type of arrow being used. But in the case of the former, arrows still fared pretty well against most armors except for the heaviest of steel plates, which would not become popular until the 14th century and still not available to most ordinary soldiers. Com on guys, you should be reading more historical records and give references : Lets see how arrows performed against a ''lowly'' mail There are many contemporary accounts that demonstrate the effectiveness of mail against arrows. During the Siege of Amida (359 AD), Ammianus Marcellinus described Roman archers attacking the Persians: The Persian infantry found it hard to avoid the arrows shot from the walls by the artillery, and took open order and since almost no kind of dart failed to find its mark, even the mail-clad horsemen were checked and gave ground1 During the 3rd Crusade, Bahā'al-Dīn, Saladin's biographer, wrote that the Norman crusaders were: ...drawn up in front of the cavalry, stood firm as a wall, and every foot-soldier wore a vest of thick felt and a coat of mail so dense and strong that our arrows made no impression on them... I saw some with from one to ten arrows sticking in them, and still advancing at their ordinary pace without leaving the ranks.2 Odo of Deuil wrote about King Louis VII in an engagement during the 2nd Crusade. After losing his bodyguard he was forced to flee the enemy by scaling a rock face: The enemy climbed after, in order to capture him, and the more distant rabble shot arrows at him. But by the will of God his armour3 protected him from the arrows.4 So please, when you state some '' historical facts'' know what you talk about, other may end up spreading ignorance. Armour did offer protection against many weapons, including ranged weaponry. An armour may not be ''proof'' against all, but did it offer some protection ? The answer is a most definitive yes. 1 Ammianus Marcellinus, The Siege of Amida, Bk 1, Ch VII. Trans. J. Rolfe (London: 1935) 2 Bahā'al-Dīn, "The Life of Saladin" (Ch. CXVII), in What Befell Sultan Yusuf, by Abu el-Mehasan Yusef ibn-Rafi ibn-Temun el-Asadi 3 Berry actually uses the word cuirass in her translation but in the original latin the word is lorica which more accurately translates simply as "armour." A mail hauberk is the most likely form of armour worn by Louis, not a plate cuirass 4 Odo of Deuil, The Journey of Louis VII to the East, (Bk 6). trans. V.G. Berry, (New York: Columbia University Press. 1948) First of all, I didn't feel like drudging up historical references, because this is a message board for talking about video games. Second of all, we don't have to dig through history when we can test these things right now, in the year 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAJPoFL6fLw

I'm not saying that the arrow mechanics need to be strictly realistic, per se. I think they should be realistic within the bounds of the universe in which they exist, and that their ratio of lethality to melee weapons should scale properly when used in our fictional setting. In other words, it goes back to the OP and the question of balance. Personally, I think they should be balanced more along the lines of "harder to use, but you are rewarded with more damage." What adds to this metric is the inclusion of firearms. The devs have said before (IIRC) that firearms are going to be unwieldy and slow, but immensely powerful in certain situations. That changes how arrows work, in my view.

My experience with DA:O was somewhat different, my bowman was a really good asset against enemies mages. One more important fact about real life, swords are a one-hit-kill, wait a minute here... almost any weapon is a one hit kill. Some weapons are designed to hurt or defend with non-lethal damge, but the vast majority of them are very lethal. You don't have to be a hunter of grizzly bear to know that fact. But P:E doesn't aim for realistic combat (I don't think I'm wrong with this statement). So I don't know why bows should try to mimic real life while swords are not. If you're wearing armor, most sword strikes are not one-hit/one-kill. There is plenty of evidence in the historical record to show that men survived multiple weapon impacts over the course of a battle, whereas an arrow in any part of the torso was pretty much guaranteed to kill you. Barbed heads could ruin muscle tissue and cause massive internal bleeding. The discriminating factor here would be armor, and the type of arrow being used. But in the case of the former, arrows still fared pretty well against most armors except for the heaviest of steel plates, which would not become popular until the 14th century and still not available to most ordinary soldiers.

I sorta felt like BGII had OP'd archers, but then DA:O had useless ranged combat. There has to be a happy medium there, somewhere. I think it is also important to point out that bows are very often in real life a one-hit-kill weapon. I think they should have a high rate of damage, but also a high degree of difficulty to use properly. That means ammunition should be limited, positioning should be exceedingly important, and the rate of fire should be as realistic as possible. If you've ever gone bowhunting, you'll know what I mean about all three of these things. A well-placed shot with a bow can drop a grizzly bear. The game should reflect that level of power, but also that level of sophistication.

That could have just been me, forgetting how to read those goddamn Roman numerals.

After reading through the responses, I've decided I'm going to give the World Of Xeen a playthough. And if I like them, I will move on from there. Regarding Ultima, I was under the impression that the "Best" Ultima game was 8. I guess I was wrong about that?

mmm...good question. To be honest I think the early M&M and Ultima's will be too dated for you to enjoy from a graphics and gameplay perspective. Do you have patience? I tried to play the early M&M but I couldn't handle them...so I suppose I'm not the right person to give advice I like the older games, to a point. I mean, I still bust out my old Quest for Glory and Bard's Tale copies every now and again. But I fully realize that I may like them purely for the nostalgia value. So I dunno. The upside to all of this is that these games are incredibly cheap and will most likely be bought in a bundle off of GoG or whatever. So if they don't pan out, I'm not really out a large chunk of change.

See, this is interesting. I was under the impression that all of the MM games were turn based strategy, or at least all the older ones. But it Heroes of MM that are the strat games. Hmm...

There are two massive RPG series I've never really played: Might and Magic, and Ultima. I've decided I want to educate myself on the first one, and then move on to the Ultima series. So my question is, where should I start with Might and Magic? And can anyone familiar with the franchise break down the various games and spin-offs? I've tried to do some research via Wikipedia but there are a lot of games. This is a Might and Magic thread. All opinions and/or advice are welcome! Tell me where I should start, and if the answer is "Start at the beginning!" then okay. Alternatively, if you want to pick one or two MM games that distill the essence of the series to most its most perfect form, you can suggest those and I will play them instead.

If these things occurred in a vacuum, it wouldn't be. But the Day One DLC trend is a direct result of people being stupid in their purchasing decisions. To use your analogy, you seem to be perfectly happy paying 4 bucks a gallon for gas because hey, ~~The Market~~ or whatever. That's cool for you, but understand that it is damaging to the economy as a whole. TBH your reasoning seems like unfettered approval of whatever corporate trickery comes down the pike, so long as you get to play the game. I don't have to point out what is wrong with that.

I don't know how anyone could call this immaterial. The way in which the DLC is produced, released and eventually sold has a lot to do with how it is received. Purchasing content that was "cut by greedy executives" is simply rewarding bad behavior. In this respect, the quality of the DLC is what's immaterial. The real question becomes one of ethical business practices, and whether or not we as gamers (bleh I hate that term) are going to let ourselves be fleeced by disingenuous crapbags.

This has always been my biggest criticism of Bioware, from the introduction of ME1 to now. They consistently oversell the scope, depth and breadth of the "Decision Making Process" that they constantly tout as a major feature of their games. They've been promising a lot, and they've never really delivered. What difference does it make if you saved the Council at the end of ME1? What difference does it make if you give the job to Udina or Anderson? You are basically treated to different cut scenes at different points, but no real tangible assets are added to the narrative. I'm not mad (sorry, butthurt) at them for failing to deliver, because honestly I don't think anybody could deliver what they were originally claiming. Designers can't create that much content. Maybe the Wasteland 2 guys will be able to do it, but as of right now I've never seen anyone pull it off well. So the only thing I wish BW would stop doing is selling the idea when they've proven time and again they can't do it.

Oh! I didn't know that person was doing the portrait art. I still prefer the BGII look but these are really nice too.

Well, it did only serve to muddy up the waters, since you were no longer clear on your perspective. The idea of trying to not be too harsh is weakened if you're just going to state that he's terrible in the first place, so yeah, just say it. It doesn't come across as any more harsh IMO. In any case (and perhaps still related) David did post on his tumblr a degree of explanation: http://dgaider.tumblr.com/post/59443409665/on-things-i-learned-from-the-internet I actually agree with the sentiment that people understate their idea of "Well I just didn't like it." Although I think the dichotomy that consumers often end up creating helps facilitate this. If something isn't appropriately justified, a critic will come in and attempt to dismiss due to lack of justification. I mean, if someone wishes to elaborate on why they disliked it, that's fine. But simply saying "it wasn't something I liked" is still valuable. If you elaborate on it but start talking about immersion and whatnot, it doesn't necessarily help me understand what you didn't like about it though. Though the worst culprits are when people try to economically substantiate why we should do things they like, while not doing things they don't like. They are logical deductions which may or may not be true, but typically it boils down to that: "Don't do thing I don't like because ultimately you will lose money in the end" or "If you do this thing I will like, it'll totally make you more money too." It's where fans recognize that it's still a business and if I can substantiate my argument with economic reasoning, there's a greater chance of getting what I want. Which may or may not be true, I find (since I have little data on that sort of stuff in order to corroborate). Same with the idea of "it shouldn't be hard." Sometimes it is. And even if it isn't, there are thousands of "not very hard" tasks that go into a game, and the opportunity cost may or may not be worth choosing X of Y. I read his tumblr page, and then I got to the comments. Ugh.

He's not the only person arguing the point. So, based on your responses, I am led to conclude that your answer to that question is actually "yes." Or is it just a "now that I've gotten the last word in" type of conclusion? (I do that all the time too, btw) I wouldn't normally consider someone "terrible" at something to be capable of writing "completely average" stuff. Given that you led with it (as opposed to quite below average), leads one to feel that your conclusion is that he is typically completely average. At this point, perhaps ostensibly because of your rhetorical question, I actually do feel like engaging in this discussion now (though I have never read any of the books). I'm finding it difficult to disassociate your perspective from the standard internet MO of excessive use of hyperbole. I'm perfectly happy to keep arguing it. His books are awful. He is a terrible book writer, who produced average or below-average writing. I don't understand why people are tripping over this, it isn't magic. If it makes people feel better, I can say that his writing was not below average but instead "terrible" but honestly, I was trying not to be too harsh. However, if we are going to play musical chairs with words then I am using both barrels. The books were awful. Terrible. Terribad. I have nothing against the guy as a writer of games. BGII, one of my all time favorite games, was the first game he worked on. And that's cool, and he did a terrific job. But writing a game and writing a book are completely different. That is not to say that a person can't be good at both, of course, but they are two different skill sets. If Gaider didn't have the backing of BioWare, and if the book placement wasn't decided beforehand, he would never be a published author with those DA books. They are simply advertising fodder. EDIT: Changed a sentence, Gaider didn't write that much of BGII!

So is he average, quite below average, or terrible? You are being unclear in your writing. All three. A terrible writer can produce average or below average writing. His usage of plotting shows the overall skill of a 14 year old writing Harry Potter fan fic. I was going to write a comprehensive review, but this one from the Codex is pretty hilarious (and spot on). http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/dragon-age-the-stolen-throne-a-mostly-comprehensive-review.37145/ Also, "and" is perfectly usable as a differentiation between values or scales. For example, "That car gets good gas mileage, and in many cases gets great gas mileage." That is nothing contradictory there. If you are confused, that's your problem. Anyways do we really need to get into an argument about just how terrible some in-world contract fiction for a video game series is? Really?

Gaider is "successful" because the publisher came to him and asked him to write the book, with a huge media presence already backing him up before he started. 99% of all genre fiction is written the other way around: a person writes the book, and then has to get the publisher interested, and then (if they are lucky!) they develop a media presence over years and years. If he had been forced to compete in the open market with this Dragon Age books, they would have never seen the light of day. They are completely average, and in many cases quite below average. He is a terrible book writer. If it weren't for the fact that the "novels" were advertising fodder, they would have never been written.

Yeah, I know. It's just his self-congratulatory "I thrive on anguish, I'm a serious writer!!" pabulum that is irritating. Dude, you wrote video game tie-ins with the skill of a 12th grader. Get over yourself.

I get irritated with Gaider calling himself a "writer." He's written a few tie-in books that were simply horrific. Just terrible.

Maybe I just couldn't find a thread on it, but has there been any discussion on the portrait art for PE? Also I might be outing myself here, but I preferred the BGII portraits to all other portrait from the IE games.

Her being able to resurrect party members was how I got through the Flemeth fight first time through... He was alright. He was a wimp, though. He couldn't take a hit worth a damn. I too forgot to equip him with armor after freeing him from his cage and adding him to the party... If you play with him on nightmare, he is worthless unless you take his tactics away and micromanage him (which, to be fair, you should be doing anyway). "Hey, let me use Threaten to pull aggro from Alistair! Whoops, I'm dead!"

He was alright. He was a wimp, though. He couldn't take a hit worth a damn.

Uhh, her name was Grandma. Please be respectful of the Dragon Age ® franchise, brought to you by BioWare ®.