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hungry

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Posts posted by hungry

  1. Hi Obsids peeps.

     

    Let me get straight to the question, how come you haven't been able to replicate Planescape Torment? (I realize that was Black Isle but I think Obsidian is the spiritual successor to Black Isle and shares some of the same staff)

     

    I assume this question has been asked more than a few times before, but I was just thinking about the game the other day and thinking I haven't really played a game that comes close. I was thinking about tormented heroes I think. What I liked most about the game is how deeply it made you feel real emotions. I felt deep sadness at points during the game for the characters and also great affection for companions and characters. This is really what I want from games, from movies, from music, from art. Experience emotions more deeply and I guess learn to think in new ways and experience the world in new ways...

     

    I feel like everything in the game worked together in concert to make the experience deeper and more immersive. The art, music, dialogue, story all were amazing and made the game.

     

    So back to my question, how come you guys haven't come close since then? I've felt most of your games were trying to go in a similar direction but none have seemed to had that gestalt thing where everything is working together to make the game something more than just a game. And it seems to me maybe your games are getting progressively further from this goal rather than closer. Is this a matter of what sells? What the public wants? Is it a case of working on well established licenses draining a little enthusiasm and imagination? Maybe focusing more on "game" type things taking the attention away from getting excited about creating a story/setting? (what i mean here is i guess similar to the concept of meta-gaming - which i think is being very (over?) aware that you're playing a game and not letting your imagination run wild)

     

    Anyhow I used to buy Obsidian games without reading reviews - I felt like the Obsidian people wanted what I wanted in games. We had a deal! I thought. But I think I now want some time apart Obsidian. I feel like our aims are diverging.

     

    But seriously, I hope you guys return to striving to make something truly great.

  2. what a broad question.

     

    i like russian accents. i like russian names and the words commie and comrade inspired by russia(ns). classical russian music is awesome also - khachaturian is my favourite classical composer. often at sporting events etc i barrack for russia as a second team.

     

    but really i've never been to russia. what if its full of gangsters and commies? (commies i can stomach but i don't like 2-bit hoodlums)

     

    i would say i like russia but really i know very little of russia so what i like is the paper fantasy russia i have in my head.

  3. programmers like adding new features instead of debugging so im sure we can tempt and tantalize them with our cunning ideas.

     

    assuming the programmers have any say in the matter.

     

    perhaps they're all ankle-chained to the wall in the hold of the obsidian galley. every couple of hours captain feargus comes down and whips one on his way to the coffee machine.

  4. obviously pc gamers are just far too 'mature' for that sort of thing.

     

    unlockable secrets are fun. they can give you something extra to aim for when you've already finished the game. they needn't be a cover up for lack of effort elsewhere. besides im sure that sort of mummery wouldn't affect us. i'd see right through it with my super x-ray visiion.

     

    also each one is a surpising mystery inside a conundrum. they're simply marvellous.

  5. will there be a bestiary in this game which contains monsters/critters you come across along with a picture and short maybe humorous description? i think there should be. im a great fan of many features in pst - and this is another thing that planescape did right which i haven't seen in many rpg games since.

     

    of course i meant.. beastiery.

     

    or even beastiary

     

    im sure one of the three is vaguely correct.

  6. i quite liked this idea even if no-one else seemed to. although im a little dubious about some of the example humour lines you gifted this evil black nemesis-bot with. 1-liner comedy characters tend to annoy me.

     

    i think this bot should actually be the ultimate baddie. or his evil little sidekick. a droid baddie could make for an interesting change. and i guess he'd also be immune to jedi mind-mummery since he's all robotic like.

  7. just now ive decided that saberwhips are awesome. i think it's a case of an idea that is so spectacularly bad it goes right out one end of the good/bad spectrum and in at the other. plus it would be amusing to watch anyone who uses it cut themselves to bits. an incompetent baddie should have one and then procede to slice and dice themselves in front of you for your amusement.

     

    it could be like the black knight in the holy grail. not that im advocating monty python easter eggs.

  8. i just thought relationships would be in every universe.

    yes there will be romances but no gay romances. at least not intentially. i doubt george lucas would approve. besides i don't approve. why do we need gay romances? actually why do we really need any romances? i didn't know hacking through endless waves of baddies was so romantic.

  9. ok ive been away for a few days - i just *randomly* rolled a dice and decided to go on a trip (not really).

     

    anyway ive already addressed the reload issue so everyone please shutup about it - you determine the randomness at game start not when you level. so if you reload you will get the same random choices.

     

    another thing - i am advocating randomness AND choice. so there will be still be a number of skills/feats/whatevers to choose between. you won't just get stuck with a random skill/feat. you get x number of random skills/feats/whatevers to choose from. set x sufficiently large and you get not much difference from the current entirely unacceptable nonrandom version.

     

    i thought of an alternative system for you cry-babies who like to plan out your characters advancement to lvl 20 before you even start your game. you have a set of skills/feats/etc which are non-random much like it currently works and another smaller set of *special* random skills/etc to choose from. then you choose 1 skill/feat/blah out of both of these sets.

     

    Advantages of random levelling

    - unique characters

    - excitement of the unknown

    - planning your character based on the vagaries of chance means you have to plan on the fly and possibly come up with unusual character combinations

    - if you make a sliding scale of skill power and the more powerful the skill is the harder it is to obtain then this will also add exitement as you'll be hoping you get lucky with your randomness

    - im sure there's plentiful other reasons but i think these are plenty justification

     

    Step out of your boring ordered, structured existenses and try entropy and chaos.

  10. As far as I see, hungry, youre not going to win any converts.

    you never know. im sure there's someone out there who sees the inherent wisdom in my phantasmagorical idea.

     

    games like civ3 have randomness on creation of a new game - it provides huge replayability - no reason why an rpg couldn't also have this marvellous feature.

  11. Randomness in Character progression is not good. In fact, with this system randomness is awful. Where could it be implemented well? Not stats as that leads to the insanely overpowered side of the force. Not in health as that leads to either cheap quickloaders or insanely disgrunteled people and really hard enemies (because you have 1/10th the health if you're really unlucky). Not in skills because..well...that'd be so bad... not in feats because that gives me nightmares thinking about it.

    health i wouldn't bother with randomness because as you say it makes it hard to balance the enemies. besides which i somehow never saw the point of random health.

     

    stat increases i don't think would lead to 'insanely overpowered' characters as you can make the likelihood of stat increases occurring in a lvl up as rare as needed so as to provide some balance.

     

    skills & feats i discussed above - ie you introduce a lvl of randomness that is appropriate to still provide the player with acceptable amount of control over the progression of your character.

  12. Frankly, I liked the system KOTOR had.

    frankly i thought kotors system was extraordinarily mediocre. no randomness.

    Its an RPG. The most randomness you're going to get are your rolls. Unless you want to do the pnp system where you roll for your health... That health roll thing would be pointless. Everyone just saves and quickloads until they have straight 9s or 10s.

    that's why i said the randomness should be determined at the start of each new game so that if you want to 'reload' you have to completely start over.

     

    i don't see why skills couldn't be random also - just because that's the way it's been in the past doesn't mean it has to or should stay that way. you could still have a fairly sizable list of skills/stats to choose from - which could be somehow related to what lvl you are perhaps.

     

    perhaps there's a stipulation that if you're already concentrating on a skill set there's more likelihood of it coming up again, if you're a certain character class there's more likelihood of certain skills coming up etc.. - this is something like what they did in the heroes game only you'd obviously need a larger set of skills to choose from.

     

    i think it adds a bit of excitement in lvling up, it makes your characters more unique, it adds some replayability and you can still have significant control over your character's progression (depending on how large you make the set of skills to choose from each lvl and the random weights you use to select skills).

  13. well i guess there's zero chance of getting any change to the levelling system at this stage. but even so, i must speak my mind..

     

    you see id like to see choice and randomness in a levelling system. this way characters can be somewhat unique and also of your making.. the problem with randomness in levelling is that people will just reload, so the randomness should be generated at each new game start - ie all future values determined from a random seed.

     

    various systems ive seen are the heroes3 & heroes4 one where you have 2 or 3 semi-random skills to choose from each level but the one i prefer is in a board game i played called bloodbowl where you have a list of skills to choose from and you roll a dice to decide what you get. if you roll doubles you can pick from any skill there is and if you roll really high you get a stat increase.

     

    what id like similar to this is you have a random set of skills/stat increases etc to choose from but the more powerful options have less chance of coming up. that way it seems special when you level up and manage to get a powerful skill/stat whatever. i reckon this system would be awesome...

     

    i guess people who like to plan out their characters levelling from the very beginning would hate this but it just means you have to plan on the fly based with what options you get.

  14. plus he has his evil catch-phrase. the archvillain needs a catch-phrase of some kind. and a signature move. eg he (or she as the case may be) kills his (their) victims by vigorously crushing their heads with his might paws. or if he's more an intellectual type of villain (ala monty) perhaps he simply points or snaps his fingers and has his lackeys/robots disfigure you.

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