Azarkon

Diablo II LoD ended with every one of the prime evils dead. Warcraft III is continued in WoW. Starcraft is continued in SC: Ghost. So Blizzard has their bases covered... For now.

If only I were born fifty years from now...

It's funny, judging just by the art style, so my guess is that that's its purpose. Comedy can go hand in hand with being corny, and some of the best B-movies are sooo good because they're sooo bad.

The worst part comes when you pair a Cute Elf Sorceress avatar with the guttural growl of a overweight male in his thirties...

Voice-recognition is likely still a bit off. But ventrilo & the like are starting to become standards *now*, at least in online competitive games like FPS's, Guild Wars, and WoW. The competitive edge of being able to communicate while your hands are tied makes it necessary, though oft times it does take away from the feeling of immersion (since the human voices do not match the world/characters...)

Can someone who will play the game fill me in on it? I'm not going to buy a PS2 for it, and I know enough of Ico to know what makes that game tick. SoC, however, appears to be a rather short and combat-oriented experience. What makes it, as such, great?

Such a tease. I thought I was going to see actual screenshots

http://www.trinitycross.net/bio/down/fanficdavid1.txt

That's fine. But I think it's useful to offer a different stance. I'd like to think that Bio's success owes alot to their earlier passion for making games, since I really enjoyed BG & BG II and can understand the mindset of many fans when they praise Bioware as a company. To this end, I hope that Dragon Age will shape up to be a great game, especially since DG promised that it's a title wherein they're actually going to depart from Bio's plot formulas.

Eh, I don't think that's true. DG has actually crafted some very good characters for BG II and HOTU, and arguably KOTOR though KOTOR is not my sort of game. Simply compare games he's majorly involved in (HOTU, BG II/TOB, KOTOR) versus games he's not (SoU, Jade Empire, possibly NWN OC though I've no idea who exactly was involved in making that POS, though I do know Aribeth was not DG's character) and you see that his influence tends to be a good one, even if it's not as revolutionary as something MCA might do. But all that aside his honesty is what I like about him. Yes, he's a tad arrogant at times, but this is the guy who cared so much about Baldur's Gate II that he released - on his own time - the entire Ascension mod in order to tell the story he couldn't do in ToB. This is the guy who wrote Revan fanfics in order to extend the endings he couldn't do in KOTOR, and who posts more messages in a day than even Volourn sometimes. You can argue other things, even that he does what he does because he's full of himself, but ultimately you can't argue that DG is not passionate about what he does or that he's not willing to go beyond what's necessary to accomplish his vision. That's what makes a great game developer, even if you don't always like what he develops.

The one thing that redeems the Bio boards is the fact that Dave G. posts so damn much on it. I like to see that kind of dialogue between devs and players, especially since he doesn't pull any PR punches when it comes to identifying stupidity, even in his own company.

Well, I'll agree that the Taliban is probably alot more openly opaque in their dealings, but then they have alot less influence than either the US or Chinese government, for example. That's not to say that we should dismiss the difference, only that the nature of the US government requires that it be more responsible, since its power and influence is world-spanning. With great power comes great responsibility. The reason people criticize the US is exactly for this reason - because we conceive ourselves to be the best humanity has to offer, and yet sets a horrid example by our foreign policy of what that "best" means.

The big deal is that the government is not honest to the people, therefore the process is far from transparent and we are, therefore, very much in the thrall of propaganda and a non-democratic government. Metal implied that the next administration, presumably elected democratically, can change things and I'm arguing that this is not the case. We won't become a more honest or meddle less in other country's affairs just because Bush goes out of power. Our policy of AGGESSIVE foreign intervention has gone on for decades and it's the reason so many nations and organizations hate the US - because we're hypocrites. We proclaim our dedication to freedom and justice on one hand and then go in and stir up hatred in another country on the other. The ends in this case does not justify the means, even if the means were for the sake of freedom (which is hardly the case; the real goal is to isolate Chinese influence in the region so that we can accrue allies in Asia), and from this respect it's fully understandable that extremist organizations would target the US specifically. We, like all meddlesome superpowes, inevitably invite the ire of those we meddle against. The entire idea of moral superiority fails completely once we adopt your notion of "every nation for themselves." If that were the case, you can no longer argue that the US is justified in anything that it does, and that in the end it's just all a power play, in which case no one is right and no one is wrong.

In terms of FMV-driven JRPG narratives (and putting aside my bias against their underlying principle of linear cinematic storytelling), I'd probably agree that Intros & Endings are the moments in which you'd want a FMV if at all possible. However, I'm not sure I like FMV interruptions in the middle of the game. This works sometimes, but because of its subjective nature (ie what I'd consider a high moment may *not* correspond to the developers' impression), it can work or it can backfire really badly and take me out of the immersive experience. Moreover, it also makes the emotional manipulation a tad too transparent, almost as if the game's telling you: "Hey! Look here! Yohoo! Great moment of drama INC!" I prefer a bit more subtlety than that.

Oversight committees tend to examine and convict a regime (and usually that attempt is itself political in goal), not the underlying moral issues. It certainly does not question the meaning of terrorism as Bush might have used it, nor the judgments of the moral majority and its relationship to reality. Only history can do that and only after the facts. By then, it's often too late. I think the US government is far more opaque than you would like to believe. Just recently I was made aware of a long string of CIA operatives in Mongolia and Tibet attempting to stir up hatred towards China and to allow for the entrance of American propaganda. This about sums up the nature of what US foreign policy has been for the last sixty years, and about explains why other countries distrust us so. It's also frankly not going to change with a mere administration switch.

Oh I'm not arguing that, I'm arguing your implication that there's some inherent advantage to having FMVs solely because movies tend to be what makes games popular. If you're not implying that, then forget what I said. Actually, they're quite dissimilar in the sense that it's the game that inspired the show and not the other way around (well, YGO anyhow, I don't know much about duel masters), so an argument that tries to relate a game's popularity to its relationship with cinematics fails. Not really. There are MANY advantages to using in-game cutscenes over FMVs, and taken as a whole I think they justify using in-game over FMVs. Yes, FMVs give off the feeling that they're inherently special, but they also heavily limit how much story you can tell if your vehicle of storytelling is primarily FMVs since you'd be heavily limited by budget concerns. Thus, smart use of FMVs where it really counts and in-game cutscenes everywhere else is probably the best expenditure of "zots". I'm sure certain Japanese companies disagree judging on the number of hours of FMVs they produce, but there's a reason why FF7 remains one of the most popular FF-series games in terms of storyline & character despite telling the vast majority of its story without FMVs. A simple comparison of the character development that occurs between FF7 and FF: Advent Children will prove my point. If FF: Advent Children occured without the context of FF7 none of its characters would be memorable whatsoever. It's because of FF7 that AC's eye candy actually has weight, and FF7 did not depend (nor did FF6 or 4, the two other beloved FF games) on FMVs to tell its story whatsoever. Indeed TES NPCs suck, but that has more to do with their crappy design than the lack of FMVs. There are tons of people out there who are infatuated with BG/BGII/KOTOR characters, and none of those characters were exposed through FMVs, so that there is a testament to why FMVs are not vital to the creation of great stories and characters.

This is an annoying trend, to be sure, but it's one that technology can address, and I'd really like to see some research into the area of procedural speech synthesis based on phonemes. See, it maybe very difficult for a computer to synthesize speech based on just text sentences because that'd require sophisticated natural language processing way beyond our current techniques. Yet, if the PLAYER were given the CHOICE of what phonemes to use for his/her name and how to inflect them, then it'd be pretty realistic to have a way of synthesizing the name from voice actor's pronouncation of phonemes. Course, there'd still be the problem of inflection with respect to the actual word of the name in sentences (ie if I say: Azarkon in an irritated manner it's very different from saying it in a neutral or happy context), but that maybe dealt with with some smart scripting and approximation. I hope some company considers it, at least, in the future, instead of just following the general trend of making games more and more like choose-your-own-weapon movies.

As opposed to something like Magic: the Gathering or D&D? Surely you're not suggesting that the popularity of a brand is based on the presence of cinematics. If anything, such a transposition is an imposition on the developers. If you make a D&D game, no one's going to blame you if you don't have FMV's - they are far more concerned about the rules. But if you make a Star Wars game and it doesn't have any familiar cinematic scenes, you may very well be chastised, since that's what people enjoy about that brand. As far as FMVs vs. in-game cutscenes go, I think the trend is to go for the latter. FMVs are expensive and they are inflexible because the rendering time of a FMV can take weeks and is not something that you can change later down the line or add alot of. Thus most companies opt for a few FMVs and attempt to tell the rest of the story via cutscenes. This is only going to become more the case as time goes on and more advances are made in graphics technology. Hell, Oblivion is a perfect example of this: why would you opt for FMVs when you can do something 60-70% as good with the in-game engine?

RPG:Japan::FPS:US. It's about gaming demographics and the principle of mass entertainment, so even though Halo 2 might've been simply Halo 1 with a few more features, it will be touted as the next coming. The same is true for the Japanese and their RPGs.

Essentially my entire argument in this thread has been that both sides were blinded by propaganda in their attempts to demonize each other in the name of self-interest. I guess I didn't really have to write pages justifying my argument: the proof is right here.

In terms of gameplay, at times I liken TES games to graphical but dumbed down versions of roguelike games (except Daggerfall, which I thought was way ahead of its time). You know, those text-based games with no real narrative that you could yet play for hours on ends because the gameplay was so fun and deep. Unfortunately, those games will never see commercial success in today's industry. As such, I tend to see the TES games' progression towards making the roguelike idea of random/procedural content the next best thing. Even if the folks at Bethesda does not seem to grasp how to create good motivating factors, their technological innovations will no doubt produce a engine that would one day make full dynamic immersion a reality. That's my hope, at any case, and why I would praise Besthesda's goal even if I didn't particuarly enjoy Morrowind either.

MMORPGs vs. TES games: I think a fundamental distinction that must and should be made here, SP, is that a MMORPG will be hard-pressed to ever achieve the kind of immersion that you attribute, currently, to FMV-narratives. This is not because it doesn't use FMVs, but because the grand summation of players can never be depended on to roleplay the game as characters in a story might. On the other hand, because TES games depend on AI to populate the world instead of players, they have the capacity to, ultimately, achieve full dynamic immersion. Come a time when advancements in AI allow for the creation of interactive, immersive, and yet non-canned/pre-scripted responses from NPCs, game built on the TES principle will be able to do it whereas a MMORPG will not. Now you may argue that the time for that has not yet come, and that currently TES NPCs suck. And I'd agree, except I think that you're missing the point that this is their *intent*, and that it's this *direction* that they're making advancements in and that it's their holding onto this *direction* that I'm praising them for. The game industry does not automatically adopt the latest AI innovations. Someone in the industry has to go out there and actively attempt to advance the technology of procedural graphics and AI with respect to games, because academics certainly ain't going to do it (at least not yet). This is why what Oblivion could achieve is praiseworthy, why their direction is a triumph of the game industry even if it doesn't produce the kind of immersive, emotional FMV-narratives that you enjoy. Because here they're pursuing the ultimate goal, the grand jewel of interactive immersion, whereas most FMV-narratives are forever bound to cinematic improvements and modifications in gameplay (most of which has to do with combat, item collection, etc., and not with the principles of interactivity). Example: when was the last time Square Enix made any significant change to the way the player character may interact with other characters? When was the last time they made any significant change to the way by which the events of the story responded to the actions of the player? I don't know if I can explain it any better than that.

Having played a MMORPG for six years, I call BS on that. If there's nothing to keep you playing in a MMORPG what are the ~10+ million people worldwide doing playing them? I can only go through a narrative story once and retain full enjoyment, but I can play a MMORPG for years on ends and not hit the peak of enjoyment until 2-3 years in. Therein is why interactivity is far more important to the gaming genre: it's what sets games apart from the kind of once-through narratives that are fundamental to literature/films. Now you might argue, logically, that it's the other people that keeps you playing, and you'd be absolutely right. But the presence of other people *is* an element of interactivity, and as such I'm justified to say that it's interactivity that keeps people playing MMORPGs and, for that matter, single-player games in other genres such as war games, RTS's, action games, and the like. I played Doom, personally, for 1-2 years - just blasting away at monsters and downloading new maps to blasting away at more monsters. It had nothing to do with the story or the characters. Herein is a game's special advantage. Well, I didn't say that Star Ocean shared the FF game mechanics, I said JRPGs that *I* played. Since I didn't play Star Ocean, I can't comment on it, which is why I made a point to leave its discussion for another time. If anything, it's far easier to attract people's attention through FMV's than through gameplay, which is actually why it's used so often. Most people can sit in front of TVs all day long, but only a select group would play games for hours on ends. Regardless, interactivity is the sole principle difference between games and films, which is why I consider it so necessary to innovation. One of the big arguments against FF nowadays is that the gameplay is subsidiary to the telling of the story, whereas once the FFs were good squad combat games in addition to vehicles for storytelling. Herein is where I see a dichotomy between the two characteristics of the genre: the old, bi-sensual (sight & hearing) cinematic attraction and the addition of new, interactive gameplay. Though advancing the former is certainly a enhancement to the overall product, it is not an advancement for what makes the product a *game*. Only the latter can do that. And since JRPGs (and Bioware, to a lesser degree nowadays) tend to prefer adding more and more to the former, I retain a certain degree of respect for companies like Bethesda that continues to innovate in the latter (and as said, saying that Oblivion is simply a rehash of Daggerfall/Morrowind is biased speculation, since by all accounts the feature list presents a plethora of progressive innovations).

So because Morrowind was crappy (and there are legions of people who would argue with you on that point alone), none of its gameplay innovations matter? Because something like Xenogears might have had a good cinematic narrative, its lack of gameplay elements is not a weakness in terms of interactivity? If you ask me to understand that FMVs do not preclude gaming, why is it then that you can't accept the fact that a non-narrative approach to story does not preclude RPGs? Aren't you relying on a too-narrow definition in this case of what a RPG *should* be? I understand that you would like to defend these games with good stories and characters. Hell, we have a entire multi-billion dollar industry devoted to doing just that on the big screen. But the enjoyment you garner from these games is, ultimately, a cinematic enjoyment. You enjoy them for the narrative, for the characters, and for the flow of the story. You do not enjoy them for why we'd enjoy a game over other mediums: interactivity. As such, though FMVs certainly do not preclude gameplay, they are, as you say, merely an enhancement of it - they do not comprise the actual gameplay, and thus *cannot* advance gaming as a genre. Now whether Star Ocean indeed *has* better gameplay elements is another debate altogether. Personally, the JRPGs I've played have their level of interactivity straight out of the first FF games and, indeed, straight from the original CRPGs. Not much real development in this area has gone on beyond that, and many people indeed argue that the latest FF games are a step BACK from games like FF6 and FF4 in terms of actual interactive gameplay. This is why I say that they're not innovative, why they're basically rehashes with better graphics and better cinematic techniques. True, they're better as narratives, as films, but not as games. And therein is my point.

That's fine and all, and I do realize that Oblivion has issues while FMV-narratives can be very enjoyable, but it doesn't answer my point, which is that FMV-narratives are a static medium that depends heavily on transferring techniques from film, while interactivity is the true advantage of a game and what differentiates this genre from all that preceded it. Thus, advancements in *this* genre necessarily depends on advancements in interactivity more than anything else, since without being interactive games would essentially be watered down animations. With regards to Oblivion, then, how is Oblivion a step backwards? Procedural content is at the heart of producing dynamic content, and Oblivion is all over that. Improved AI via the Radiant AI engine, suffice to say, is the building blocks of truly dynamic NPCs, even if we're not there yet. And of course, general improvements of how PCs can interact with NPCs should not be overlooked, especially since we're talking about a range of interaction far greater than any existing RPG other than PnP. Even if Oblivion is in fact a virtual fantasy world simulation, how can that be an indication of anything but the fact that Oblivion is more of a *game*? A game is *played*, it is not *told*. Products like Star Ocean and its ilk are more like cinematic narratives than games. Therefore, I stand by my point that Oblivion is a step towards the future of gaming, while FMV-narratives are deeply rooted and will remain in the realm of cinematography. That's not to say that you can't be a fan of the cinematic experience over the gaming experience, or that we should stop producing FMV-narratives. But it is to say that with respect to games, innovation should be noticed where it appears, and innovation is most definitely something that Oblivion is striving towards - even if you don't like the game design itself.