Whipporwill

Image of Pazaak game from KOTOR2: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Image:Pazaak%28KOTOR2%29.jpg

Having played games since I first put a quarter in a Pac-Man machine as a tiny lad, I can firmly state that the vast majority of gamers are utter mouth-breathers. I don't know how much of this is the general stupidity of the human animal and how much is specific to gaming, but I do know this: Ken Levine is right. Gamers, on the whole, do not care about your stupid plot. What they care about is being told they are "teh winnar." Oh, and bloom. Apparently. Yes, I am bitter. Thank you for noticing! Grump.

Your class: Spy.

Personally, I enjoy when NPCs refer to me as "them," as if I were a nest of giant ants.

But I disagree that post-apoc world has to be grey and colorless. Humans like color - I suspect they'd find a way to inject into the environment in some way or another. Movies/media have used the same post-apoc like setting for years - it wouldn't hurt to stretch the imagination and think of something different. But then it "wouldn't be fallout." To me pretty graphics are just something to drag my framerate down, so I don't much care. My only complaint is that vault boy is shooting his gun with the stock tucked under his arm. I guess that's not a tag skill for him.

Can't be any worse than Dungeon Siege in a dungeon.

A 'My Little Pony' RPG would definitely qualify as fantasy, as well as extremely tacky. And I seem to recall killing quite a few rats in Fallout. I do agree that sword & sorcery RPGs are getting pretty tired, but there's lots of room for fantasy RPGs that don't involve greataxes and fireballs. The trouble is that publishers hate new games. A publisher would much rather put an old game in a new box with extra shiny than make a new game, because they can't predict whether people will like a new game, and that frightens them.

The proper way to handle an alignment change is to give the player the option of opening the character sheet, clicking on the character's alignment, and selecting "new alignment" from a menu. The point of an alignment is that it's a statement from the player about how he or she plans to play the character. This is an opportunity to tailor the game around the players experience. Instead, it gets treated as a scorecard in a pointless minigame, or worse, as an excuse for lots of irrelevant nonsense. For example: a beggar stops you in the street and asks for a coin. You have the choice of (a) giving the beggar a coin [good], (b) saying "no," [neutral] or © kicking the beggar in the face [evil]. Your choice does not matter in the slightest, so why is it even there? to let you "roleplay?" The answer is that it's there to let you feel like you have a choice without giving you one. You're not fooled, of course, because it's a meaningless interaction, and you'll never see the beggar again. But your character has theoretically become "more good" or "more evil" and you're supposed to be satisfied with that. Suppose, instead, that a game (a) never changes your alignment for you, (b) gives you options based on your stated alignment, and © makes sure your interactions are meaningful. Well, we can get rid of the beggar encounter. There's only one response per possible alignment and it was irrelevant anyway, except to make good people poorer. Instead, let's look at the character's alignment. Hm. Chaotic evil. Well, that says he prizes himself rather more highly than he prizes other people, and he's not one to get stuffy about laws being broken. Let's say he's walking past an alley and he overhears some thieves busy discussing a planned job. He could (a) keep walking, (b) offer to join the thieves for a small cut of the loot, © offer to lead the thieves for a big cut of the loot, or (d) rob the thieves -- what are they going to do, call the guards? For Mr. Lawful Good Paladin, on the other hand, nothing happens. He can walk back and forth in front of the alley all day -- it's empty for him. He really has only one choice -- demand the thieves surrender, then kill them when they don't -- and so it's not meaningful. Instead, he gets to defend the innocent man being marched off to the gallows, over by the city hall.

You know, when I pick my alignment, I think a game should take me at my word. I'm tired of having to pick out the one line of alignment-appropriate dialogue. It's not fun, and it's not "roleplaying." It's just massive suck. "Do you want to change your alignment?" > no. "Do you want to change your alignment?" > no. "Do you want to change your alignment?" > no. "Do you want to change your alignment?" > no. "Do you want to change your alignment?" > no. "Do you want to change your alignment?" > OH ALL RIGHT! "You've changed your alignment! Yay! You are now Evil Good. "Do you want to change your alignment?" > no. Give me choices that are relevant for someone of my stated alignment, or just give me a damn cutscene.