Gromnir

You seem to be under the impression that research is only done for realism, and that realism is the ultimate goal that the developers are trying to achieve. *groan* "keep in mind we has said that first-hand knowledge o activities and serious scholarship may improve writing where author uses details to makes more evocative." "we never claimed that josh or some other poster argued specifically that reality should be a goal" "but again we feels the need to repeat as it keeps getting lost by folks with short attentions spans or those who is intentional obtuse. we is not arguing against research and first-hand knowledge. personal experience may add to flavor o' writing. sadly, some writers/developers get lost in the details, particularly if they genuine believe in the "super-duper" importance of such details." etc. half such responses is directed at you, so am not knowing why you is being so darn obtuse. HA! Good Fun!

No............... I'm asking for further examples of this movement away from realism, since "decades of cRPG development" is a decidedly vague citation. For me, the realistic mechanics that you mention have largely been removed for the sake of accessibility, which is sort of a competing drive at times. Also, things like food, sleep, and wound care have never moved beyond the hyper-abstraction stage, so I think you could consider this a trend towards re-evaluating mechanical abstraction bloat, rather than a departure from realism. Such things suffer from an uncanny valley of sorts as their implementation doesn't constitute realistic simulation, and neither do they tend to be supported by other realistic aspect's of the game's simulation (such as nutrition, degradation over time, poison, disease, and so on in the case of a food mechanic). I will admit that realism can be a bit of a slippery slope; as you introduce realistic elements you oblige yourself to include certain other realistic elements as support, but I don't think that this is a reason to dismiss the potential for fun with more realism. You seem to identify the cRPG genre with the conventions of their execution, such as a reliance on abstractions and a certain way of controlling combat, but I'm more interested in the genre's intended purpose, whether it be interactive storytelling or full-on roleplaying (which is where it gets its name from, after all). I guess that we will have to simply disagree about what defines the RPG. Realistic combat is complex, and potentially fun; it's just a different kind of fun and complexity than the typical abstraction-based approach (which you seemingly inexorably associate with the RPG genre). I'm not going to bother responding from the rest (as I feel like I'm starting to repeat myself), other than mentioning that in fact reality is precisely where we get our precious definition of internal consistency from. clearly at an impasse. you not see food consumption and realistic gold weight as necessarily being attributes o' realism. is no good reason why you think realism is good if oft noted items to include in aspects o' more realistic approach is discounted by you as bloat. your notion o' realistic seems very personal and is more o' a chinese menu approach. you like certain features and others you do not. if you don't think a feature is improving game, then it don't deserve to be included in penumbra o' realistic features. that ain't going for realism so much as it is including stuff in games that You like. likewise, you has chosen a seeming non-definition of crpg such that we has absolutely no notion what you means. you tell us that a sp role-play game don't have to be as we described, and thus our analysis is wrong. you do not however offer any alternative... and use "role-play" to define role-play is... well, am not gonna be rude. "but I don't think that this is a reason to dismiss the potential for fun with more realism." yet again. this were never said by us. scroll back up and find. like most folks, we like some aspects o' reality in our games and is happy to do without. is not necessarily that more realism is good. is surely not that more realism is offering more complexity. conversely, You said, "the thought that- for the sake of being "fun"- cRPG's should be less realistic than PnP RPG's just makes me cringe. " HA! food consumption, weighty gold, wound tending and a host o' other largely anachronistic crpg features mainstays o' pnp games is aspects o' an attempt to infuse reality... and regardless o' you wanting to dismiss such features as largely irrelevant to the present topic, we is thinking you is on a very lonely island with this one. HA! Good Fun!

every time you post, we gets more confused as to what you wants. first time we spoke o' the theoretical game with complete fantastical elements you ask for an example and we gave. then you somehow lift ""cRPG developers' opinions" and "decades worth of cRPG development"" we used to indicate that in many respects, developers has pulled back from reality as computer capacity has increased. and is now somehow using this language as validity for demanding specific examples o' the complete fantastic game. *puzzled* those comments you lift from us is kinda like lifting a comment by us in which we says "our favorite flavor o' ice cream is vanilla. vanilla is most popular and that is what people want most bast on statistics and manufacturer production," and inserting underlined portion into a thread to damn us for suggesting crpg developers is making vanilla. developers has pulled back from reality in many ways. weight of gold. wound care and management. food consumption and sleep. previous stuff woulda' been commonplace 15 years ago, but is now so rare as to be virtual unicorns. " that doesn't mean that combat in a realistic virtual environment can't be fun" which is again, complete unresponsive and misses earlier point. first, you keep seeming to ignore that we is talking crpg. we has noted this aspect a few times. crpg combat is taking at least some o' the control o' the avatar outta your hands... is the point o' having abilities and attributes. if is avatar that is fast and has some kinda lightning double uppercut ability, then it not matter how fast you can hit buttons or if you know how to lands uppercuts. also were sympathy o' realism and complexity you were belaboring. we noted that realistic combat were not particularly complex, particularly in crpg scenario. but all those abilities (akin to magic powers) one gives avatar is making potential complexity limited only by developer whim. can combat in a virtual environment be fun? sure it can, but that ignores Your earlier points. am also gonna note that fact that a cartoony game may have basis in real world physics and settings, nobody in their right mind is gonna be looking for or criticizing the realism o' the physics or environments in such games. can be totally looney tunes, as long as is internally coherent. am not even gonna try and deal with emergent ai. we got no knowledge o' such stuff and as it is not a here-and-now kinda issue, we feels our near absolute ignorance is hardly limiting in a discussion o' complexity and realism in crpgs. HA! Good Fun!

am honestly not understanding what you is trying to say at this point. " "but the point is that Infinity Engine games (and other games that utilize DnD-based rulesets, which were of course first intended for PnP) are about as similar to PnP games as cRPG's get." am not picking nits. seriously. am utter confused. earlier you is talking 'bout capacity o' computers to provide more realism and complexity, but you seems to be fixating on d&d rules and mechanics in games. is kinda a disconnect. tabletop rpgs is bounded by nothing save player imagination. complexity and realism o' a computer game is, in this period o' time, functionally bounded by what graphics will allow, and practically bounded by belief of developers that too much complexity is discouraging, and too much reality is boring. all of which gots nothing to do with d&d per se. sure, neverwinter nights mp had functionality that made it approach pnp and had a graphic component, but the old text-based mp rpgs is gonna be far closer to pnp and they not necessarily is weeded to d&d. am also kinda confused by your simple dismissal o' combat while actual observing the ubiquitous nature o' the element in crpgs, and am not sure what you is getting at with the following: "However, there are plenty of people who enjoy boxing and other combat sports, and I'd suspect that number would be even higher if people could obtain the experience without any of its drawbacks (such as black eyes and broken noses)." is the suggestion that a CRPG boxing simulation would be appealing to boxing aficionados and would somehow reaches the level o' superior complexity you yearn for in a game? in a fighting game, skills is left up to the player, so you got the player mix the 4 basic punches how he chooses, and allows 'em to do own footwork. a crpg is gonna necessarily takes some o' the boxing away from player and replace it with player choosing abilities or skills or whatever... then watching as avatar boxes. by making boxing a crpg activity you is pretty much reducing complexity from reality. how you ADD complexity w/o reducing reality? give a vast menu o' super-power skills and abilities that each has counters and defenses? 'course not. that is what current fantasy and sci-fi games does, and while it would increase complexity as far as rules makers is wishing to take, it sure decreases reality, don't it? as for a theoretical game using complete fantastic elements. okie dokie, you is a quasi conscious bubble o' gas "living" in red spot o' jupiter. goal is to grok. does this by "exploring" a complete alien environment with no discernible up or down and including a few o' those additional, albeit small dimensions beyond those we humans is familiar. enjoy. sure, we gotta have some frame-o-reference so that us persons o' matter can comprehend such an abstract game, but setting and challenges can be complete fantastic and only the most obtuse expert o' jovian environments is gonna get twisted 'cause game doesn't match reality. too abstract? fine, make a game based on cartoon logic and physics. is a new mmo that is looking like it is going more cartoon than realism (wildstar) and it seems to be much anticipated. is distancing itself from reality and gaining fans before it is even released. "I also don't think it has to be all-or-nothing when it comes to realism." irony. am reviewing the first sentence o' your post. and am struck by how last sentence directed at us is so full o' irony. HA! Good Fun! ps might as well simplify as this is getting pretty far-flung. am disagreeing with you 'bout capacity o' computers to do complex and real better. am also not getting the d&d stuff. that being said, from time before Gromnir has posted, some folks has asked for greater realism. nevertheless, developers o' crpgs has avoided realism that is commonplace in pnp rpgs... stuff that once were common in crpgs. as developers capacity to do more has expanded exponentially, many aspects o' realism has been abandoned. such is not coincidence. nevertheless, there will always be peoples who want more realism, and that ain't necessarily bad. regardless observing that peoples claims that "cRPG's should be less realistic than PnP RPG's just makes me cringe" is unfortunately puting you at odds wit decades worth o' crpg development. additionally, am gonna reiterate that complexity and realism ain't got no direct correlation or even sympathy, particular in a crpg. we already noted how realistic combat is not gonna be more complex in a crpg. similarly, while magic is usually linked to combat in crpgs, the magic system itself may be as complex as the developer cares to make it, and the realism o' such magic can approach nil. should magic be internally coherent? will many players demand that a magic system follow its own game logic? of course. that is not same as being realistic. sadly, am just not certain that wecan find points o' agreement as we are disagreeing fundamentals

our next tweet will be our first. 140 character limit, yes? is not a medium suited to our disposition. such spontaneous ejaculation is vulgar and invariably disappointing. also, as it is an internet kinda thing, there is no "take backsees." you say something stoopid and it is out there, forever. 140 characters probably not gonna lead to serious reflection, so am guessing that people is frequently spreading their premature... thoughts, all over the interweb. we looked at linky and all we could see were that dave's cat is back... he is trying to quit smoking... there is a new Devil's Dictionary for kids o' the information age that we has been blissfully unawares. how the hell you get 9k people following such stuff? am doubting dave's tweets is worse than anybody else, but lord knows we can't bear to read such. HA! Good Fun!

wouldn't worry overmuch. not all posters is as welcoming and good-natured as us, but am assuring you that those who responded to you with sarcasm or seeming derision (at least in this thread) is good folks and comments were more jocular than anything else. HA! Good Fun!

josh's particular use o' the "write what you know" aphorism virtual compelled us to respond. likewise, josh's defenders seemed to be under a compulsion o' sorts (*snicker*) and we obliged. 'pon reflection, we is quite thankful o' the participation. hardly amounts to us trolling. although these boards has gone kinda... soft. seems that criticism o' developers results in an antibody kinda response. Destroy the irritant at all costs! silly. HA! Good Fun!

*chuckle* this thread has become most amusing. HA! Good Fun!

is possible that the real life person(s) who was initial model for the bespeckled character has spots. dunno. maybe some biowarian has channeled dennis hooper from Apocalypse Now, and is like, trying to keep it real... man. HA! Good Fun!

@tmzuk the word "immersion" has a long and ill-fated history 'pon these boards. use at your own peril. josh has been quite forceful in chastising boardies for overuse o' immersion. immersion (much like realism) is not a goal in and of itself. is there a gestalt or ideal stew o' elements that leads to mythical "immersion"? perhaps, but is different for you than it is for anybody else. need to be very careful in fully explaining what you mean and how you use. am not particularly bothered by your use o' immersion in your earlier post (got kinda sucky in this most recent one,) as you did at least passing explain those qualities o' the activated abilities that interrupted your immersion, but am just gonna note that immersion is always gonna set teeth on edge of some posters and possibly some developers. we feels same way 'bout "proactive." folks who use proactive like it got some special meaning deserves to be run over by an asphalt roller... very, very slowly. HA! Good Fun!

Well, I never said anything either way about whether current trends in video games are moving closer to or farther away from the medium's full potential. I only stated that I believe cRPG's have a deeper capacity for realism and complexity than PnP RPG's. Most straightforward, this is simply by virtue of computing power, but there are some aspects- emergent narrative, for example- in regards to which we will hopefully learn how to utilize that power more effectively and efficiently. Also, when you try thinking of reality as the most complicated simulation we will ever experience (nothing is merely abstracted and everything factors in a la Butterfly Effect), I think you'll realize that realism and complexity are definitely related. Complexity doesn't always lend itself to realism, but a realistic simulation without some baseline level of complexity is practically unfathomable. There might not be a causal relationship (or perhaps even a correlational relationship) between the two, but "complexity" as a variable moderates the potential for realism. shoulda posted full quote. am seeing where we misread you "The thought that- for the sake of being "fun"- cRPG's should be less realistic than PnP RPG's just makes me cringe. In fact, early cRPG's (including the Infinity Engine games at that, in my humble opinion) suffer from playing too much like graphical tabletop RPG's, rather than taking full advantage of the video game medium (which by the way tends toward more realism and complexity, at least in my view)." so, no, we complete disagree with you. 1) we dont think ie games played much like actual pnp session at all, and 2) that last thing we want is genuine realism in our crpgs, whether pcs is capable of it or not. pnp sessions is far more 'bout interactions tween the participants than they is about rules, which is why d&d has always had Rule 0. take out the peoples, and you necessarily gotta streamline some stuff to makes games palatable--the lastest thing we want a crpg developer to be shooting for is realism. shooters? sure, but not crpg. *shrug* and no, reality and complexity got no sympathy. a game based on purely constructed and fantastical can be just as complex as any realism engine. in fact, from a crpg gaming pov, a true realistic simulator would most likely be less complex. the behind the scenes physics is not the kinda complexity anybody is looking for, and whatever capacity for such physics can be put into a fantastic world with complete made up physics anyways. why one would wish to do, we dont know. am knowing how this ain't clear, but consider combat. realistic combat is like hobbes state of nature in that it is "poor, nasty, brutish and short." realistic combats would also not require multiple menus of fancy powers and abilities. actual, while there is Agrippa kinda stuff describing uses o' sword and some other very small handful o' weapons, there really weren't no "schools" o' training for stuff like axes and maces and hammers. ... am betting we still has a meeting of minds. HA! Good Fun!

will respond to one point only "which by the way tends toward more realism and complexity, at least in my view" am thinking you is going down a highly suspect path. is many who will argue that video game media has significant reduced likelihood of complexity, at least in recent years. for hardcore crpg fans, "console" is ineherent including a quality o' "dumbed down." one word: fallout. compare 1997 fallout to fallout 3 and then try to convince folks at nma that you is right. although resources is not shared such that increase graphics results in less resources for mechanics realization, it frequent seems that current emphasis is 'pon making visually appealing 'stead o' making deep or complex. a text-based game, on the other hand, would have no such limitations as graphics is a non-factor. etc. regardless, while it is true that better computers increases POTENTIAL complexity, the reality has not supported the actualization thus far. furthermore, we would caution against coupling realism and complexity. without even discussing we thinks it should be clear that there is no direct correlation or even a sympathy 'tween these two concepts. HA! Good Fun!

this reasoning is problematic. am not a psychiatrist, but the link 'tween girls becoming strippers here in the US and their having daddy "issues" is well documented. am suspecting that the elimination o' deadbeat dads would significant impact sargy's potential pool o' stripper candidates. poses something o' a moral conundrum for sargy? what to do? HA! Good Fun!

The Church o' Cain were filled with righteous indignation over Interplay's unforgivable sacrilege : development of a fallout action game for consoles. *scratches head* am, to this day, baffled by the reaction. sure, we thinks that most regular codexian/nma posters gots a screw loose, but the vitriol over bos were, to our mind, pointless. nobody were gonna force minions o' cain to buy and play bos. resources going into making bos were not making a pc fo3 less likely. as far as we know, cain had not spoken outta a discarded burning sofa left on streets o' irvine to exhort the faithful to rise up and cast off the shackles o' interplay tyranny. mere existence o' bos inflamed the church to a ridiculous degree. *shrug* regardless, to stay on-topic, we will note that every game development board has got those posters who is self-appointing themselves as the stalwart defenders o' developer honor. they sacrifice their own dignity to protect developers who has been insulted or attacked. if proper amount of deference is not shown to a developer, the stalwart defenders will step forth and lash the offender with a fiery rebuke. is kinda cute. HA! Good Fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyZddrngaAE song kinda makes us wish we were lesbian. kidding HA! Good Fun!

last swtor post from us for awhile. as such we will admit that we did bounty enough that we has enough reputation saved so that in 4 more weeks we will be able to hit legend rep w/o actually doing another bounty mission. dont recall the number o' the blue (630 rep) and green (270 rep) modules we got spread over a number o' toons, but we did math, and we has 'bout 1000 rep points more than needed for legend. sad, no? we simply not wanted to have to do bounty next month. HA! Good Fun!

regarding genesis query-- there is an argument that role-play shouldn't have no activated abilities. is not you fighting, is your character. you create character-- give abilities, skills, whatever, but once things like combat starts, behind the scenes mechanics resolve encounters leaving player free to actual role-play rather than being bogged down in minutiae. is a very good argument for doing things this way when you got a dm/gm and folks is actually role-playing. if you is in character, it is tough to justify min/max and +/- considerations that go into even simple game encounters. the thing is, most folks don't get into character with a single-player crpg enough to justify complete hiding of mechanics. oh sure, no doubt some of us has howl'd in anguish at our monitor as a wyvern stabs us mercilessly with its poisoned tail, but is not the kinda immersive role-play you get with 5 geeks sitting around a gaming table. most of us just don't buy enough... probably 'cause it seems a bit creepy to genuine identify too serious with a crpg avatar. whatever, gonna leave that between you and your psychiatrist. without geeky group gestalt, we gots a role-play Game more than a Role-Play game. game aspect becomes more important. games got rules and players wanna win, even if winning seems a little wacky in a crpg. there is also the non-negligible % of players of crpgs who simply hate crpg combat. is more than a few folks we has met over the years who would skip every combat encounter if they could. they likes the settings and stories and characters and romances (*groan*) and dressing up their paper doll, but they hate combat. sneer if you want, but those folks is out there and they buy these games. well, Gromnir likes crpg combat. yeah, we ain't talking 'bout chess v. Deep Blue or any such challenge, but am enjoying overcoming well-crafted combat encounters. for us, increasing micromanagement is a good thing. we likes loads of abilities and choices... just so long as is turn-based or RTwP. loads o' choices that we gots to time perfectly and hit 9 different buttons in right sequence within a 5 second window is not fun. give us pause or turn-based and then bury us with abilities and stats and rules. nevertheless, there is people who legit not wanna deal with activated abilities. we could make some snarky remark about japanese dating sims as an alternative for those folks, but it would be wrong. very wrong. HA! Good Fun!

causes (direct or proximate) o' our possible admonishment/censorship/banishment cannot reasonably be blamed 'pon you. but to stay on-topic, am gonna suggest that da:i needs a malleus maleficarum analog. HA! Good Fun!

there is a board prohibition 'gainst saying bad things about the employees of other gaming companies. seems silly that if they come here they should still get same protection. nevertheless, we leave vague so that we cannot be accused o' being critical o' a specific employee. folks who was around at the time know, and so does biowarian. will probable get post expunged regardless. *shrug* nevertheless, da2, a game which we actual enjoyed despite Major flaws, were a clear step backwards for bio. how they respond is making us a smidgen curious. HA! Good Fun!

if we ever get desperate for credits we will sell our czerka crate o' matic. have been offered upwards o' 25 mil for it. weird. also, am supposing that buying hypercrates to get credits makes no less sense than mindlessly running czerka/bh/section x dailies. nevertheless, the notion o' paying ea real money so we can get swtor creds just seems... dirty. HA! Good Fun!

since this is a da:i thread, we will observe that we is,for the first time in awhile, curious 'bout a bio development. sure,we has played most bio releases (not all) since release of BG, but recently we were far less interested in development side of things. the thing is, da2 were something new, and am curious to see how bio responds. all full bio games has either improved or expanded 'pon previous games, with the exception o' da2. bg2 improved on bg1 in a grand way. nwn, although not as enjoyable to us as bg2, were clearly more ambitious in scope. me, though not necessarily our cup-o'-tea, were bio's step into consoles, and they stepped in big. etc. the thing is da2 were the first full game bio made that we could clear say, "this falls short of your previous works-- it was not a worthy effort." is possible that me3 falls into that category as well, but we never played... it were also released after da2. regardless, da2 is, in our estimation, the first time bio has taken a clear step backwards, and we wanna see how they respond. btw, am not gonna belabor the point, but we noted that the announcement of some da2 "features" previous to its release were indicating that bio were actual cutting corners on da2. we suggested that da2 would clear be a scaled done affair from da:o, and not 'cause bio thought doing so would make better. am thinking that post mortem of da2 makes obvious that Gromnir's predictions 'bout da2 were correct-- nonsense like recycled maps n' such. one cheerfully ubiquitous bio minion said we were wrong here on these boards. am thinking we still deserve an apology. not expecting, but think we deserve. HA! Good Fun!

*snort* is no way in hell Gromnir is spending real money on game beyond subscription just for vanity enhancements. we get 500 or 600 free coins per month, and that is more than enough for us. saw some guy complain that he spent $$$$ to get 2 hypercrates and still no lizard mount... were blaming bio and ea. HA! little too much spirit o' p.t. barnum in the cartel stuff for Gromnir to get involved. HA! Good Fun!

our server is jedi covenant. was in ld 50 guild, but like we said, too much drama... and they were too focused on pvp anyway. when server transfer became available, guild died as virtual everybody went to a pvp server. we has done far less pvp since 2.0. am recalling getting jumped by a naked jugg smash monkey who killed us in 2 hits with us at about 90% health. yeah, it were a bug that got fixed, but that and the 40k health assassins in green mod gear and other nonsense made us think that maybe we would take a break from serious pvp for awhile. our biggest swtor gripe is actual customer service. no doubt customer service for other mmos is just as bad, but the canned and useless responses sets our teeth on edge. Gromnir runs into bug doing czerka dailies that prevents us from getting weekly despite completing all missions. please give us credit for weekly and fix bug.-- submit ticket under bugs category (mistake) 2 days pass blahblahblahblahblablah. bio response is complete unresponsive. is almost as if we got a bot response that scanned ticket for keywords and gave a pre-rendered response. soooo, Gromnir creates another ticket, this time under missions heading 2 days pass blahblahblahblahblahblah. translation: you are screwed. this is a known bug that will be addressed in a future patch. please search the boards for more info. please submit a bug report. ty. sincerely, #$%@&%$# ... bah. 'bout 1/2 of the very limited number o' tickets we submitted has resulted in a satisfactory resolution, and am estimating that average time to get resolution is 4 days. almost always need to submit a second ticket, so probable more like 1/3 of actual total tickets is ending in satisfied Gromnir. *grumble* HA! Good Fun!

sidenote: am not thinking the gameplay of either ps:t or kotor were great. bio developers did manage to get the feel of star wars combat and universe, but gameplay was quite shallow. ps:t is our favorite crpg, but is not 'cause o' gameplay. combat were almost an afterthought in ps:t-- bad afterthought. also, a walk-through of ps:t can be distilled thus: put every attribute point into wisdom and talk to every named npc for win. as much as we like ps:t, it were horribly balanced and Gameplay were no deeper than kotor. HA! Good Fun!

as strange as it may sound, Gromnir actual has a handful o' swtor "toons." am not an mmo guy, but we joined with a friend... a friend who quit 6 months later 'cause his wife wanted to play guild wars. d'oh. we does some pvp and has end-game characters, but doing regular raids for us is tougher because we is a solo player. we were in a guild for a short time and the drama were too... just too whatever. our heals sage is a known quantity on our server, so we is always getting invites, but just can't bring our self to do another guild.am thinking the only way we joins a guild is if it is a small group o' folks we knows quite well. is a busted game in many ways, but we still plays. go figure. HA! Good Fun!