Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted (edited)
Is this the part where I should point out who started sounding immature because they disagreed with me by making posts which consisted of nothing more than a sleeping smily, or the assumption that I think too highly of myself simply because I don't agree with you? Ooops.

 

Is this the part I should point out who started sounding immature by assuming others were homosexual, or the assumption that other people that didn't agree with you didn't because they didn't read the exchange.. Just because we didn't agree with you? Ooops.

 

 

I said it seems that pressing forward to get 'stronger' or 'better' only has an application in combat-related skills.

 

This sounds like a very different point from this:

 

This doesn't mean that only combat-related skills increase or are useful; rather, that only combat-related skills seem to be only ones which are ultimately more important.

 

Wonderful, It took 4 pages of endless bickering for you to finally explain yourself.

 

So what you really meant to say was that combat-related skills tend to be the most important ones in RPGs. ok. I am on the same page now.

 

Was all that really necessary? Now, wouldn't it have been easier to have explained this back in page 1, rather than putting us all through this senseless roller coaster ride?

Edited by Lancer

image002.gifLancer

 

 

Posted

There are three methods of character progression. One is doing the level up, the second is learning as you go, and the third is a hybrid of the two. Now in games that uses the level up system showing the statistics is vital because it gives the player a concrete understanding what his or her character can and cannot do. Its a method used in many CRPGs and it is the closest method to PnP RPGing

 

Having you character learn skills and abilities based on what the character does has its own strengths. It actually forces the player to make use of the skills he or she wants to focus on instead of letting the player choose to level up and spend his points on abilities he never worked towards. It actually pushes actual role playing but at the same time the game does not necessarily needs to show character statistics and other metagaming material for the player to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of the character. I have yet played a game that uses this method satisfactory in a Single Player CRPG.

 

Then there is the hybrid which uses a combination of both systems to some degree or another. A good representation of that is Morrowind.

 

Personally I like the level up system, but if we can geta good story driven game that uses the second method to its fullest potential I think it could be fun.

Posted
Is this the part I should point out  who started sounding immature by assuming others were homosexual.. Just because we didn't agree with you? Ooops.

 

So, where did I say this?

 

Wonderful, It took 4 pages of endless bickering for you to finally explain yourself.

 

So what you really meant to say was that combat-related skills tend to be the most important ones in RPGs. ok. I am on the same page now.

 

Was all that really necessary? Now, wouldn't it have been easier to have explained this back in page 1

 

This has been in page 1 from the beginning:

 

it unfortunately seems that pressing forward to get 'stronger' or 'better' only has an application in combat-related skills (...)

 

Translation: it unfortunately seems that 'getting better' only shines trough in combat-related skills.

 

rather than putting us all through this roller coaster ride?

 

Your whole point of discord was with the use of the world "only", not with the meaning of the sentence.

Posted (edited)

I have no problem with level-based progression nor do I have a problem with the progression in Daggerfall, Morrowind, or the PnP game Cyberpunk 2020.

Just as long as there is a good amount and variety of both combat-based and non-combat based skills

 

 

EDIT: And as for Roleplayer's insistence to continue the meaningless argument after the matter has been settled.

 

Grow up.

Edited by Lancer

image002.gifLancer

 

 

Posted (edited)
And the ability to use them in a satisfactory manner.

 

SPECIAL style? I wouldn't mind another system similar to that.

 

Jeff Vogel's Avernum games uses a character creation/progression system very much inspired by SPECIAL. I wouldn't mind a mondern version of that.

Edited by Lancer

image002.gifLancer

 

 

Posted
EDIT: And as for Roleplayer's insistence to continue the meaningless argument after the  matter has been settled.

 

Grow up.

 

After the matter has been settled?

 

You accused me of sounding immature by assuming others were homosexual just because they didn't agree with me. I asked you where did I say this in this thread. You didn't answer. Yet, "the matter has been settled".

 

You accused me of bickering trough the pages of this thread instead of explaining myself when I have been doing almost nothing but explaining myself. My last post had me paraphrasing my posts so you would understand the same post under different words, to which you reply it's "a meaningless argument". Yet, "the matter has been settled".

 

To quote your very own post: grow up.

Posted (edited)

The matter has been settled in that you finally translated your obscure post from page 1. It is done.

 

Now apparently you think the matter isn't settled because you want to continue with personal attacks, but I refuse to partake in that.

You could carry on all you want though with that if it makes you feel better, chap.

 

Get a clue, man. And if I need to show you where you assumed I was homosexual (when I am not), you need to check your memory. You didn't actually "state" it, but you implied it. I'll let you mull over that for a while..

Edited by Lancer

image002.gifLancer

 

 

Posted

To be honest this whole thread is now retarded.

There are none that are right, only strong of opinion. There are none that are wrong, only ignorant of facts

Posted
Yet, you gave enough of a flying rat's ass to come here and tell me I'm wrong by association of what others said instead of presenting your own reasoning for it, to call me condescending, and to make assumption after assumption regarding my posts and the intentions behind them - only to then claim to not care anymore and hint at a departure.

Yup. Unlike you, I actually read threads without prejudice and intend to participate and discuss in the ones I find interesting. I came in late in this thread (40 replies in) and most of the posts of the thread are from you, being condescending and stingy. You set the tone for your own thread and trust me, it doesn't really invite to any casual discussion.

 

Now I'm just spamming.

Swedes, go to: Spel2, for the latest game reviews in swedish!

Posted (edited)
Now apparently you think the matter isn't settled because you want to continue with personal attacks, but I refuse to partake in that.

 

You refuse to partake in personal attacks, yet personally attacked me by stating I said something which I didn't and leaving it at that without any proof whatsoever. You refuse to partake in personal attacks, yet told me to grow up.

 

Perhaps 'grow up' really wasn't an adequate response. 'Stop being a hypocrite' is likely better suited.

 

 

EDIT:

 

Get a clue, man. And if I need to show you where you assumed I was homosexual (when I am not), you need to check your memory. You didn't actually "state" it, but you implied it. I'll let you mull over that for a while..

 

No. Post a link or a quote. Don't presume to have the moral high ground because you assume I meant something when I clearly didn't.

Edited by Role-Player
Posted

I think you both need to back off and get a breather so we can get back to the topic at hand. If you guys want to bicker like schoolgirls take it to PMs and not this thread. :)

Posted
To be honest this whole thread is now retarded.

The apple never falls far from the tree..? :))

Swedes, go to: Spel2, for the latest game reviews in swedish!

Posted
Yup. Unlike you, I actually read threads without prejudice and intend to participate and discuss in the ones I find interesting. I came in late in this thread (40 replies in) and most of the posts of the thread are from you, being condescending and stingy.

 

Apparently you failed to read Moose and Lancer's posts.

 

You set the tone for your own thread and trust me, it doesn't really invite to any casual discussion.

 

I set the tone by making a civilized opening post which invited to civil discussion. The people responsible for destabilizing the thread were not exactly civil in their posts. They didn't exactly ask to be clarified - they claimed I was wrong and failed to even account for anything I said, instantly making assumptions and accusations.

 

Yet I set a tone which doesn't invite to casual discussion? Riiight.

 

Now I'm just spamming.

 

I'd be surprised if you were doing anything but.

Posted
Now I'm just spamming.

I'd be surprised if you were doing anything but.

Thank you! I've been waiting for a reason to repost this horribly boring essay I recently wrote in this thread! I'll use it as proof that I'm not only spamming.

A while ago I reviewed a game called Boiling Point: Road to Hell, which was an action RPG (sort of like Deus Ex, but with a map similar to Morrowind) that had serious potential but was marred by some equally serious bugs. I liked the core game, but was annoyed by the constant crashes, the constant slowdowns (3 fps are BAD!), the constant horrific vehicle physics and the constant corrupted save games. Oh, and the fact that I after a while couldn't use any vehicles at all because of a bug was also kind of a nuisance.. seeing as the gameworld is 25x25 kilometers in size!

 

Anyhow, I scored the game quite high but mentioned the bugs and told every potential buyer to keep a look-out out for patches. Dumb as I am, I quickly forgot about this game and didn't take my own advice. Now, a few months (hrmm) later, I found out that Deep Shadows (the developers) indeed did publish two patches, the latest patch weighing in at ~200 MB. Because of my lack of good games to play, I decided to give it a shot and re-installed it and upgraded it to the latest patch.

 

I think this patch has now taken the crown as the best patch I've EVER installed (dethroning the Deus Ex patch that added multiplayer and proper DirectX support). I have had one (1) crash since I installed the latest patch and I have clocked 50-60 in-game hours so far! Compare that to the 3-4 crashes per hour before the patch.. Also, the slowdowns are gone! I don't know how they accomplished that, but the game runs smooth as silk for me now, except for a little stutter when it loads big cities and such. The quests are much less buggy too now, I haven't had a single corrupted save file and they did something to the way they draw graphics when you're flying because it looks much better now (it used to 'pop' in graphics in the horizon).

 

The biggest improvement (for me) though is the way they changed the entire physics system of the game. Everything works so much better now, from jumping/falling to driving/flying. The cars finally feel like cars, as in when you're driving them they skid, jump and flip over if you're not careful. The boat is now making boat sounds (duh!) and handles like a boat would, only a bit nicer (as this is a game after all and driving a real boat is not really fun). The helicopters and planes are still a bit weird (especially the helicopter) but they're at least not 'stiff' anymore and they resemble some sort of flying feel. It might not sound as such an improvement, but it's a huge improvement over the original, trust me. The entire feel of the game has changed from a stuttering, crashing beast with a stiff overall feeling to a smooth going, stable-as-hell experience with a fluid and graceful overall feeling. Remarkable difference.

 

So basically, I've been playing this game obsessively since I reinstalled it with the latest patch. I've discovered so much content that I wish I had seen before doing the review. There's so unbelievably much to see and do in this game, it's difficult to imagine how a small team like Deep Shadows could have done it all by themselves. Those guys must have worked their collective butts off to pull this incredible game off and fill it with so much extra stuff! I've ran into obscure side-quests in the most unexpected places, I've found so much extra detail (a sun resort, a pair of spooky campers, drug factories, forgotten indian villages, inca temples, hidden mafia airstrips, an army shipyard, impressive waterfalls, dark caves, SAM missile bases, secluded hermits, expensive villa's, a volcanoe, a ruined church, and so on.. there's much more!), so many new things to do (the best part was when I found out that stealth and sneaking actually work in this game.. almost as good as in the Thief games!) and so much more fun than the first time around. As an example: I was playing the game, but took a short break while talking to my girlfriend. Suddenly an enemy helicopter spots me and starts shooting at me. Instinctively I turn to the game and start running for cover (I was at an airstrip right then) while firing back at it with my puny automatic rifle (I was out of ground-to-air missiles). I keep shooting at it while running from cover to cover because the damn thing circles me and always finds a way to hit me. A few frantic moments of intense battle later I notice the helicopter is starting to smoke, so I run out onto the runway, guns blazing, and finally manage to blow the thing out of the air. As the helicopter explodes it starts to fall.. and I am right underneath its falling path, so again I dash to get away. The wreckage falls down a few meters behind me, shovering me in debris, and several explosions send me flying (almost killing me in the process). I get up, hide in a hangar, and turn back to my girlfriend expecting to get scolded for giving the game her attention, but she's just standing there with big eyes and her mouth half open, going, "What game IS that??". I liked that.

 

There are several different factions to join/work for (mafia, government, bandits, civilians, indians, the CIA and the guerillas) and each of them offer a deep (yes, deep!) and long series of missions. The game keeps track of how you're percepted by each faction, and some of them are polarized, as in Bandits-Civilians or Government-Guerillas. This means you can't do all the missions at once, but it's possible to switch allegiance if you work for it (not easy, but rewarding once you manage). Each member of each faction react differently to you, based on your standings with the different factions. That means that if you're good friends with the government and you enter a guerilla controlled town, you're not going to get any help, prices will rise in stores and you won't get all the extra side-quests normally available to you. Also, people say different things to you based on your reputation, and some even attack you straight away.

 

Your character has a bunch of stats to him. Every weapon you use, you start out as a complete novice with. As you use the weapons more and more, you get better with them, individually (using a revolver does not make you better at using a sniper rifle). Weapons wear down after a while, but you can practice your repair skill by repairing them. Weapons are also upgradable (distance, rate of fire, reload and magazine size) and there are plenty of them. You gain experience points from combat and quests, and you gain levels slowly, although I'm not really sure what the levels are there for yet.

 

The main quest is actually well-written (with a lot of twists and turns) and your character and the main quest NPC's have some really hilarious lines. Most of the dialogue is spoken, although in some of the obscure side-quests it's all text. Basically you're an ex-soldier in search of your missing (kidnapped?) journalist daughter in a fictional South American country. Of course, there's more to it than that as indian legends and mysterious soldiers cross your path during the game (so far). Unfortunately, the game has some translation quirks (Deep Shadow are from.. Ukraine?) but not as bad as to be immersion shattering.

 

Uhm.. This became a bit long-winded :)

 

But I am playing Boiling Point right now and I recommend it to everyone who enjoys action RPG's with a first person perspective (and has a relatively strong computer)! It should be really cheap by now too.

I only spam in worthless threads.

Swedes, go to: Spel2, for the latest game reviews in swedish!

Posted

Let's keep in on topic guys and leave the personal critiques to PM.

Ruminations...

 

When a man has no Future, the Present passes too quickly to be assimilated and only the static Past has value.

Posted
This thread is inspired by an ongoing Codex thread regarding character progression and the minimal elements of an RPG. While this would likely spark a discussion of different perspectives regarding the subject, initially I wanted to know your opinions on what kind of character progression do you prefer to see in computer roleplaying games. This isn't about deconstructing the RPG label so let's avoid going there.

 

One of the distinguished features of character progression, and one that is more often used is trough purely statistical advancement, which is based on characters increasing in abilities which are set on underlying character systems such as experience, skill or improve by use systems. This method tends to rely on expressing character growth and power trough increasing statistics and abilities, which in turn allow characters to perform better in given fields. While there are advantages to this system it unfortunately seems that pressing forward to get 'stronger' or 'better' only has an application in combat-related skills which considerably undermines the whole point of a diverse statistical progression by only focusing on some skills which are arbitrarily defined as necessary to succeed in a game (as opposed to allowing a much wider range of skills to contribute to success).

 

On the other hand we have another feature of character progression in the form of personal development, which is based on character knowledge, personality and choices which are meant to show character improvement in a non-statistical way. This method tends to rely on expressing character advancement by allowing players to define their PCs by interactions and situations which may provide a different level of advancement and sense of increasing abilities and possibilities. Sometimes a PC may accomplish something which only has information, allegiances or favors as rewards. I'd argue that this also helps establish the growth of a character in the context of a changing and influencing entity in the gameworld.

 

In the end, do you require that 'experience' be a numerical value which is statistically represented in your character sheet, and thus be much more easilly recognized; or can you accept that 'experience' may not be always defined trough statistics but sometimes by meaningful interactions with the gameworld which can advance the character in the same way a statistical increase would? Character progression requires that the character grows in some way - but can you accept that a character of high moral fiber developed across his decisions in the gameworld is as strong as a high level warrior with high attributes and skills? Would you find it acceptable that overcoming numerous hordes of enemies could be replaced by overcoming numerous character decisions, traumas, and introspection?

Short answer

No.

 

Long answer

Both the quantitative arithmatic and the qualitative event-based mechanisms used to manage pseudo-metaphysical attributes, e.g. progression past a gate-keeper NPC with a code aquired to the PC's dialogue options after completing a task, are necessary to provide well-balanced gameplay.

 

A caveat I would add to improve gameplay would be to not omit alignment-based dialogue options. E.g. a certain morality precluding an ethical dilemma, like a Lawful Good character not being permited to kill an innocent bystander in order to save some other people, for instance. (The bystander could be asked, but the LG PC should not make the decision on their behalf.) But the option should be there to threaten the bystander, for example, which would contravene the alignment guidelines, but effect the necessary turnkey to progress the game.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if the alignment, for example, were recorded quantitatively, however. :)

OBSCVRVM PER OBSCVRIVS ET IGNOTVM PER IGNOTIVS

ingsoc.gif

OPVS ARTIFICEM PROBAT

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...