Lorfean

Ah, alright. Well, I'm gonna have to disagree with you on what you said then -- I think the number of movies removed is a big deal. Twelve is a significant amount, and it makes me wonder what they actually left in / replaced aside from the intro, the Friendly Arm Inn, and the outro. In an isometric title like BG, where you explore the entire game world from a top down camera angle, those cinematics offered a unique perspective of some important locations and did a great job setting the mood and atmosphere for several of the bigger story moments and set pieces in the game. Stuff like the kobolds near Nashkel, the Gnoll Stronghold, the Wyvern in the Cloakwood Forest, the Candlekeep Library, the slow reveals of Durlag's Tower and the Temple of Bhaal... I liked all those scenes a lot. And sure, they might not look like much today, but they haven't lost their charm and they definitely have high nostalgic value. They could've just disabled them as a default setting and allow players to enable them according to their personal tastes. I also call bull**** on Oster's "not critical to storytelling" comment. How can the Candlekeep Library and Temple of Bhaal intros not be critical to storytelling? Or the Durlag's Tower reveal, for that matter? Also, don't insult the original animators and fans that have actually enjoyed these cinematics for over a decade:

I wasn't replying to you. Edited my post to clarify that.

From Trent Oster's Twitter: So that's 12 cinematics from the original BG that they've removed and will not replace with something new.

Guild Wars 2 and XCOM: Enemy Unknown ar at the top of my list.

IMO if they say they're gonna replace ALL the cinematics with hand drawn ones, then they need to stick to that. It's a dumb move to just cut all of these without putting anything in their place. Sure, the originals look dated, but do they not understand the concept of nostalgia? When I play BG I expect and want to see those kobolds sneaking up to the farm on the outskirts of Nashkel, and the Wyvern swooping down and taking off with that cow, and the slow reveals of Durlag's Tower and the Temple of Bhaal, etc. etc. It's just another item on the list of things I dislike about how this project is being handled. Ugh. I'll stick with my own enhanced version of the game and enjoy all the original content, thank you very much.

$15,- for a DLC is ******* ridiculous. Especially considering the quality of BioWare's past DLC's has been... unpredictable, to say the least. On topic -- I finished Trine last weekend, which had been sitting in my steam library for ~2 years. Fun little puzzle platformer with gorgeous graphics. Took me about 8 hrs. I'm also still playing Guild Wars 2, casually, and XCOM, which is awesome.

I was under the impression that all of the original cinematics were gonna be replaced with "hand painted animated cinematics" like it says on their site? When and where did they announce the removal of all the scenes you listed?

New Vegas is one of my all-time favorite games and I would love for Obsidian to make another Fallout title but this petition reads like a fanboy's rantings and is full of typos and grammatical errors to boot. It's not gonna help anyone. Bethesda played to their strengths with F3 -- they created an atmospherically rich and impressive world, threw in a ton of content that they felt thematically fit the Fallout universe and gave players complete freedom to do whatever they wanted within that world. Of course it greatly lacked cohesion and its storytelling and C&C were weak compared to its predecessors (to say the least) but a LOT of people -- especially those who never played F1 and F2 -- loved it. Similarly, Obsidian played to their strengths with F:NV and created an amazing role-playing game that felt like a true successor to F1 and F2 but, of course, a lot of people who liked F3 disliked NV... Basically each game, perhaps unwittingly, appealed to a different type of audience (with some crossover between those audiences of course) and I think Bethesda is fine with that and will stick to whatever plan it has for Fallout 4.

I enjoyed ME2 more than ME1, but I feel ME1 had the better story and ending -- the encounter with Vigil, the final battle with Saren and the attack on the Citadel / deciding the fate of the council combined into an expertly paced ending sequence that features some of the best storytelling moments in sci-fi gaming history. ME2 was a lot more "Hollywood" and therefore it's probably easier to pick up and replay it. The main plot is more or less secondary, IMO, and its strength lies in the contained stories of the companion quests. As for BG -- I simply find it a better game overall than any of the ME's. Its underlying rules have more depth, the combat and gear systems are way more interesting, its open world is a lot more interesting, fun, and hazardous to explore, and I like that it doesn't take itself too seriously -- especially in the writing department -- with a bunch of really nutty secondary and tertiary characters running around, but at the same time doesn't shy away from the darker and more disturbing stuff like in the Doppelganger sequence near the end of the game. I don't care if the ME's had "better role-playing" -- I'll pick BG over any of them, any day.

BioWare cares about "cinematic story-telling". Isn't that what they've been calling it since ME1 (or maybe even KotOR)? And that's exactly what the games they've put out over the last 8-10 years have been about. The rules systems en character options have taken a back seat and it's been all about full voice over and cinematic cut scenes. I don't think I've heard them talk about making a good role-playing game for years now -- it's always about "BioWare storytelling". They makes games that are very much like summer blockbuster movies -- all the elements for that level of entertainment are there -- and that's fine, and some of their games are definitely entertaining, but nobody should be expecting depth from them. BG2 was an anomaly in that regard and they haven't made anything that even comes close to it since.

OK, that's cool of them. Props

Yeah, that's not really how forums work. But that's OK -- you can have your little thread. Enjoy

It seems to me that you created this thread and then you were surprised to find out there are people out there who don't share your exact opinion about these games... It's all good and well that you think Morrowind is great and every game Bethesda released after it sucked balls, but not everyone is gonna agree with you on that. It's completely unnecessary, and counterproductive to the discussion you started (assuming a discussion is what you were going for), to go around mocking people's opinions and insulting them just because they don't agree with you.

There was a bit more to it than that, mr. grumpy pants.

Yeah, I barely paid attention to the two main factions... Never even went and talked with their leaders, I think, until the main quest required it when those greybeards invited all the Important People to a tea party at their castle. I joined the Thieves' Guild instead, and had a blast helping them reach their former "glory". Most of those jarls were jerks anyway. Jarl schmarl.

You haven't played Skyrim then? I consider it their best -- mostly because it's their only game that didn't have me roll my eyes and uninstall it after a few hours of playing. It's good for what it is -- a visually impressive sandbox / dungeon crawler with a simple (but adequate) RPG ruleset and a ton of content that, unlike some (most?) of their other titles, actually kinda makes sense and fits within the context of the world.

I'm indifferent about Morrowind, dislike Oblivion and Fallout 3, and really enjoyed Skyrim. Safe to say Bethesda's catalog is a mixed bag and people's opinions about and experiences with their games differ greatly.

Can't help you but the GOG.com Icewind Dale forums are a pretty good place for support. Arguably better than here...

I hate people who think it's hip to hate on people hating on people who hate EA. That aside, I guess it could be mildly interesting to see what they would do with a brand new ME series. I'd love for them to pull a reverse DA2 and turn it into a isometric group-based pause-and-play tactical RPG with a non-voiced protagonist and plethora of races and classes to chose from -- ie. a LOT more complex than any of the previous titles -- but that probably won't happen before hell freezes over.

I agree with Deathdealer in regards to the social gaming aspect of consoles -- sports, racing and fighting games played from the comfort of your sofa with a buddy or your better half is where the console shines. An argument could also be made for co-op ARPG's like Dungeon Siege III or the Dark Alliance games. It's laid back, easy fun. That said, I'll never understand why people who own both platforms would ever play big single-player CRPG's like Fallout: New Vegas, Skyrim or Dragon Age: Origins, or *any* shooters, on console.

Looks more interesting than Dawnguard and Hearthfire at least, which features were so underwhelming that I didn't even bother with them. I enjoyed Skyrim though, and there's a lot of content I didn't get around to, so I've been thinking of modding the crap out of it and replaying it for a while now.

Eurogamer talks to the author of The Witcher books about the game series. Interesting read. Though he seems to have some very negative preconceptions about narrative and story telling in video games, and he also comes off as kind of bitter about the success of the games.

So the best way to deal with him is to become like him? Look, most people just ignore his posts. New members usually get annoyed with him when they first encounter him, but most realize pretty quickly what he is about. He's been around for ages and that's why he's generally just accepted as a fact of life around these parts. You can try to do that, or utilize the forums' ignore function.

Dude, you're getting dangerously close to spamming troll territory now. We get your point. Let it rest.

To be fair, he does make a good point. If BioWare had marketed it as a more action-oriented spin-off and gave it a subtitle referencing the city or the overarching plot, people would've known what they were getting and there would've been a lot less disappointment and raging. Look at the flash games they did -- Dragon Age Journeys and, what was the other one called, Legends? Or even the Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance console games a few years back -- it was perfectly clear what those games were about and what players could expect from them, and they were appreciated for what they were. Calling the game "Dragon Age 2" was extremely misleading.