Overreaction theater!

[Reddie]

There is a vocal group on the forums (and in the community as a whole) that argues for even more old-school-ness, for sticking completely to the basis without aiming for progress in terms of gameplay. While I understand their nostalgia, I am also happy that for a good part it will not find itself into a game. I don't want every single cRPG until the end of time to have turn-based combat and vancian magic system and so on. I don't even want a majority of the genre to have these common traits. I have my own likes and dislikes, but above all I value diversity.

 

This is certainly a threatening possibility. I too am glad that this game will free the modern RPG from its crippling dependence on turn-based gameplay and bring some diversity to the genre.

 

Absolutely. Wasteland 2 for them old-school purists, PE for us dissatisfied with where the genre is but nontheless wanting a different experience.

 

In case you're serious - no, come on. There are some people on this forum arguing dogmatically in favour of various gameplay tropes, just as there are those who make their own arguments

 

Only that I didn't made any argument for or against, unless you count advocating for diversity as an argument.

 

simply by referencing those grognardish 'vocal groups' with their darned unreasonable 'nostalgia' and 'opposition to progress' rather than bothering to dig in and discuss the actual pros and cons. But there's plenty of genuine debate going on - before it was locked, I thought the cooldown discussion thread was incredibly over-crowded but had some interesting and sensibly argued opinions on all sides.

 

Sure I bother to dig and discuss and so on. In respective threads. Overall opinion stemming from the discussion is that too often people rationalise something as being good because of being present in IE games. Opposite is rarely seen.

 

What bloated that thread, without adding any genuine value to the conversation, was this kind of hand-wringing meta-commentary upon the commentary that obscures the thing itself.

 

You mean, like what was the point of this thread from the beginning? As it started as a commentary to level scaling overreaction...

[TrashMan]

Role-playing is making decisions in character. Planning out resource management and how to line up your 6 party members has very, very little role-playing in it.

 

But the PC is the party leader.

 

It is the leaders job to do EXACTLY what you describe - to plan tactics and lead. And manage resources (technicly he could delegate that to someone else, but whatever).

 

How is that NOT roleplaying?

 

When you are planning your strategy, do you take into account factors like relations between PC and a character, if a character is good/bad, in other words - all the parts of character's design that are not associated with gameplay? If so, yes, this is roleplaying. But if you only look at how useful a character is in combat - not so. Except if your PC is so manipulative and cunning in every game you play.

 

I like to believe my character takes his job seriously enough so that petty rivalry and things like that don't affect his combat decisions. After all, the goal of everyone is to survive the damn battle.

As a leader, the PC would know how well everyone performs in combat, what are the trengths and weakneses.

 

So I fail to see your point.

[Black]

I'd like to take a few minutes to discuss a few things. The goal/vision of this project is to capture the magic (old school feeling) of the Infinity Engine games.

Oh, joy.

Obsidian after being effed and effed in the A again and again by publishers finally gets some independence (2mln+ dollars worth of independence) and they decide to do what bioware tried to do with dragon age.

When is the new Divinity coming out?

[volrath]

stuff

So indie Dragon Age confirmed then?

 

Neither confirmed nor denied.

You can see how this is cause for concern right? When you announce that you want to do an "old-school" (I hate that term) RPG in the vein of BG, Torment and ID, a low budget Dragon Age with better writing isn't the first thing that pops into my head.

[makryu]

Damn, people are whiny.

 

I once discussed at length at the F3 boards with some guy that believed tb combat was inherently superior to rtwp combat. Note that he was posting in a board of "Oblivion with guns". He and I wanted the same thing: a real crpg experience, something increasingly rare. What he failed to realize, and I think most purists here also do, is that there are differences between genre evolution and genre dissolution. romance, rtwp, cooldowns, partial level scaling, they're not design choices that desecrate the crpg genre. The heated totalitarian arguments against them show just how petty and shortsighted the crpg community really is. Don't even get me started on the presumed intelligence of crpg players: honestly, it's pathetic to put yourself above other players as if playing and infinity engine game was rocket science. Newsflash: crpg players can be as stupid as anyone, and many posts here are a testament to that.

 

In the end, while we're arguing against Dragon Age, we ignore what Dragon Age II has turned into. Hell, if we had a steady diet of Dragon Age-like crpgs coming out every year, who honestly wouldn't be at least satisfied? What people do not seem to realize is that the genre is dying, and the fact that Obsidian had to use Kickstarter to make this game possible says a lot about it. While we aggressively argue over the details, and be bitchy about every minor thing that is changed farther from our dream game, we ignore the fact that someday we may have only COD to play.

[AlexAB]

I just wanted to comment on Mr. Null's points about second and third edition D&D.

 

It is a really good and interesting comment. But while the classes don't all level up together in that game, I think 3e threw away a game mode that was very important in the early editions. I don't know if it has an official name, but I usually call it the character stable campaign. In 3e, I think the default mode of playing was a lot like Baldur's Gate was played. You make up a party with a few characters and go facing a variety of challenges, slowly but surely earning levels, until some big end to the whole campaign.

 

But in 2e, even though lots of people played it like this, there were a few that played it a little different. Players would usually have more than one character, and the ones they have frequently aren't in the same level. After all, one dies, you can make a new one... at first level. These games are far from a straight progression like, say, BG was. Instead, they usually take a more sandbox approach, where there are many different things going one with the world, and as the players start to finally get their character to a higher level, they can start messing with the worls in a larger scale. It was because of this mode that 1e had so many rules about retainers and what not. Why there were rules about getting keeps, towers or founding churches in cleared out areas. A lot of things people consider nonsense in the early editions work because they were made for this mode.

 

For example, the much reviled demi-human level limits. It makes no sense to use those in a game like BG, people would all chose humans as race and be done with it. But in a stable campaign, it makes sense to, for example, have a hobbit thief. Sure, he won't get to reach very high levels, but he will be a lot of help early on and allows you to access the hobbit community later on. He is a safe bet that doesn't yield much fruits later on, but is at least interesting. The human wizard, on the other hand, is the least safe bet. He is really fragile, and takes a long while to really bear fruits. But when he does, oh, when he does, it is amazing. An efl cleric/mage is a much safer bet, on the other hand. But you will never get those juicy high level mage spells. Speaking of which, you can use those only if you have intelligence 18. Now, changing your int throughout the game was pretty common then (even if not through levels). But You would have a much better chance at it if you started with at least 16 or 15 int. Many of the optional classes had crazy high attribute requirements too. This is because you would cycle through a lot of characters. Until level 5 or 7, your characters really die easily. But when you got one with enough attributes to be, say, a paladin, it was really worth keeping him! If you played your cards straight, you could get him to high level, which was something no other player would probably be able to do. They would probably get their own high level special character, though, like a ranger, or a specialist wizard, and so on.

 

My point, besides discussing D&D history, is that mechanics that may seem completely wacky when seen from a set of assumptions may actually do a wonderful job from a different point of view. 3e did away with attribute requirements, at least for normal classes. It made the usual character much more standarized. A level 4 rogue is somewhat comparable to a level 4 wizard. Something like the half giants from Darksun having double hp would never fly in 3e. And it makes sense, because by 3e times, few people were playing in the stable campaign style. But something was lost with it. People who prefer the wild 1e and 2e ways do have a point in doing so. So, I think it makes sense for us to try to discuss always the merits of something that may look like a silly duck at first glance. There may be more to this or that mechanic than meets the eye. What may be perceived as useless in a game might be a lot of fun if a supporting system existed to match it, just like very different xp tables make sense if you see your characters as "bets" and want to know the investment/reward of this or that class.

[villain of the story]

It's insulting that you find the air of authority in yourself to call people with various types of concerns as "overreacting" while doing the latter yourself by creating a thread solely about your own concern over other people's concerns that you authoritatively label as overreacting. Somebody is definitely overreacting.

 

As for myself, I'm disappointed with the RTwP model but I was expecting it so it came as no surprise. I made two threads at RPG Codex about wishes vs. expectations about Obsidian's then-eventual Kickstarter RPG project:

 

http://www.rpgcodex....t-to-see.69434/

 

http://www.rpgcodex....ll-it-be.69359/

 

While a pressing majority at RPG Codex wanted TB, realistic expectations were all over the place. I'd like to think that I was being more in touch with reality by expecting RTwP.

 

What came to me as a surprise is the recent details and the amount of PR marketspeak we are getting from Obsidian to justify it. Only now, all of a sudden, Obsidian is claiming that "level scaling is necessary to provide non-linear challenge". Come on, now. We are your fans. We are familiar with your past games, under Obsidian's title and from before. We KNOW this is simply not true. Likewise with cool-downs. And the lack of rounds coupled with RTwP. All of a sudden, this game is sounding more and more like something even worse than Dragon Age.

 

It's that, Obsidian promised us a game with the storytelling of PST, tactical combat of IWD series and explorarion of BG series. Lack of rounds, cool-downs and level-scaling already sort-of negates the latter two so the game they originally promised is already objectively different than the game they are shaping up as they go, regardless of our "inattainable dreams" we project on the promise of a game. And this is much cause for concern to me.

 

If you enjoyed the poorly and lazily designed MMO-influenced combat in Dragon Age and you love twitch fests with cool-downs and level-scaling to babysit the player, good for you. Your preference doesn't put you in a more "righteous" place. If you, however, buy into the PR marketspeak of Obsidian with their ridiculous justifications, then that puts you in an objectively sad place.

 

 

 

Damn, people are whiny.

 

Irony?

 

I once discussed at length at the F3 boards with some guy that believed tb combat was inherently superior to rtwp combat. Note that he was posting in a board of "Oblivion with guns".

 

In case you have missed it, "Oblivion With Guns" was the official analogy Pete Hines (VP of PR and Marketing at Bethesda) and Todd Howard (senior lead designer at Bethesda) have used to describe Fallout 3. No Kidding. Prior to those statements, "Oblivian With Guns" was an insider joke among old school fans to make fun of Fallout 3 going First Person. Then it became an officially endorsed label. Almost like a joke.

 

He and I wanted the same thing: a real crpg experience, something increasingly rare. What he failed to realize, and I think most purists here also do, is that there are differences between genre evolution and genre dissolution. romance, rtwp, cooldowns, partial level scaling, they're not design choices that desecrate the crpg genre. The heated totalitarian arguments against them show just how petty and shortsighted the crpg community really is.

 

I think what you have failed to realise is that you have belittled and still are belittling that person for his own personal preferences, and for pretty awful reasons without a solid base. There are valid concerns over explicit mention of all those features.

 

Take romance and take Bioware. They are trying hard to cater to every goddamn binary orientation. So much that their games end up being sexist tokenist poorly written fan fiction where every NPC exists only to appease the player and doesn't have his or her own preferences. If you play a woman, you can shag with everyone and everything. If you play a men, you can still shag everyone and everything. Everone and everything around you exists just for that purpose without integrity. Compare that to New Vegas where you get plenty of attempts at flirting and none of it leads to anything because the characters in FNV have their preferences and they don't bend it to the player's will because they have integrity and that is partly why they are stellar examples of good characterisations.

 

So now, when the issue of romance becomes a "promise" all of a sudden, those of us with a critical mind have every reason to be concerned by this.

 

In the end, you are ironically imposing your own totalitarian mentality on what other players should be open to, being petty and shortsighted in the process yourself because you have convinced yourself that yours is the more progressive and liberal position to be in. Please try to get over yourself, no offense.

 

Don't even get me started on the presumed intelligence of crpg players: honestly, it's pathetic to put yourself above other players as if playing and infinity engine game was rocket science.

 

I doubt anyone does. Even back in the day, IE games were quite very simplistic. I don't remember anyone pointing at IE games and praising how hard or tactically challenging the games were. Especially among the then-older (now grandpa) PNP RPGamers, much laughter was had regarding the perceived depth of IE games. And with good reason: the very first entry in the series, Baldur's Gate, was initially made to be a fantasy RTS title which got changed into a RPG adventure game and the rest of the series took that initial implementation as gospel with trimmed additions from different editions of AD&D instead of improving the base model.

 

Newsflash: crpg players can be as stupid as anyone, and many posts here are a testament to that.

 

True dat. Examples abound as can be evidenced.

 

In the end, while we're arguing against Dragon Age, we ignore what Dragon Age II has turned into.

 

I don't see the relevance. Dragon Age was a rather poor game. It certainly wasn't an IE-type game. Then Dragon Age 2 came which had barely anything to do with even the first one to begin with.

 

Hell, if we had a steady diet of Dragon Age-like crpgs coming out every year, who honestly wouldn't be at least satisfied?

 

I wouldn't. I disliked Dragon Age a lot. I don't have a thing for dating simulators disguised in make-believe grim-dark pretenses. Derp Roads anyone? Or combat teleporting, overriding any tactical placement you might have done even when the game was screaming to you that you would have a combat encounter up ahead? Or the senseless cool-downs that only served as lazy balancing attempts? That same fake sense of urgency as in Oblivion "invasion of Daedra" V2 when where you went first didn't matter (eg. that fortress on the hill didn't get overrun and completely lost until you went there, regardless of where you went before, or the magician's tower. Game waited for you despite a pretense of urgency and desperation)? The awful writing? The insulting sexist tokenisms? And so on and so forth. Anyway, this isn't about Dragon Age.

 

What people do not seem to realize is that the genre is dying,

 

I am not so sure that it is, though that much is up for speculation.

 

and the fact that Obsidian had to use Kickstarter to make this game possible says a lot about it

 

Is that a fact? Did Obsidian explicitly say "we tried to pitch this game repeatedly and failed each time. Nobody wants to make this kind of game any longer"? If they did, I've certainly missed it. Oh but I remember, they don't even have a clear concept in their own minds to begin with, other than IE-like high fantasy adventure, so we can not even tell whether any publisher would be willing to fund the kind of game they want to make.

 

And they are not stressing any fundamental "old-school qualities" in the basic concept itself. Take Brian Fargo and Wasteland 2, for instance. He told it straight: he wanted to do a TB game with lots of choices and consequences. And he tried to pitch it to a lot of people. And every attempt failed. So whether W2 Kickstarter would work or not, it would be the last time he would try. Could we say the same for Project Eternity?

 

So far, at this point, based on the details they have revealed (RTwP combat, cool-downs, level-scaling, generic fantasy setting ie. stuff that are perceived to be popular and in demand with mass market appeal right now), I would be hard-pressed to believe that they couldn't find someone to fund this type of game if they tried hard. Dungeon Siege 3 came out just last year which is a simplified console action game from a similar viewpoint. In fact, I'm certain that they could get this game out with a publisher. But again, this too would be speculation. I'm not even going into the issues of IP rights and whatnot, which are entirely outside the scope of this discussion.

 

 

While we aggressively argue over the details, and be bitchy about every minor thing that is changed farther from our dream game, we ignore the fact that someday we may have only COD to play.

 

Speculation. Plenty of games still coming out, except not from your favourite North American game developer.

Edited October 3, 2012 by villain of the story

[Amentep]

It's insulting that you find the air of authority in yourself to call people with various types of concerns as "overreacting" while doing the latter yourself by creating a thread solely about your own concern over other people's concerns that you authoritatively label as overreacting. Somebody is definitely overreacting.

 

As for myself, I'm disappointed with the RTwP model but I was expecting it so it came as no surprise. I made two threads at RPG Codex about wishes vs. expectations about Obsidian's then-eventual Kickstarter RPG project:

 

I'd totally love for it to be Turn Based, but RTwP was expected by me based on the IE hooks.

 

What came to me as a surprise is the recent details and the amount of PR marketspeak we are getting from Obsidian to justify it. Only now, all of a sudden, Obsidian is claiming that "level scaling is necessary to provide non-linear challenge".

 

I thought Josh here yesterday said he didn't forsee much, if any, level scaling being used in PE. Has that changed since yesterday?

 

It's that, Obsidian promised us a game with the storytelling of PST, tactical combat of IWD series and explorarion of BG series. Lack of rounds, cool-downs and level-scaling already sort-of negates the latter two so the game they originally promised is already objectively different than the game they are shaping up as they go, regardless of our "inattainable dreams" we project on the promise of a game. And this is much cause for concern to me.

 

I'd argue that "the game they originally promised is already subjectively different" would be more accurate. Their stated goals is to change things for the better but keep their functions the same with the changes - as I understand it from the lengthy thread Josh was on yesterday. To my mind until we see how this implementation works the changes appear to be radically altering the "old school IE"-ness (thus its subjective). Once we see how it works if it does work demonstratively differently it'd become an objective difference.

 

But I understand where the apprehension comes from about the changes. And I appreciate when people can articulate the things they see as "pitfalls" to their view of what "Old school isometric RPG" should be; while I think designing a game via forum posts would be a bad idea, I don't think that negates the benefit of feedback. The sales pitch of an "Old School IE like game" is already going to be different things to different people so what it means to us has to be made clear.

 

Is that a fact? Did Obsidian explicitly say "we tried to pitch this game repeatedly and failed each time. Nobody wants to make this kind of game any longer"? If they did, I've certainly missed it. Oh but I remember, they don't even have a clear concept in their own minds to begin with, other than IE-like high fantasy adventure, so we can not even tell whether any publisher would be willing to fund the kind of game they want to make.

 

And they are not stressing any fundamental "old-school qualities" in the basic concept itself. Take Brian Fargo and Wasteland 2, for instance. He told it straight: he wanted to do a TB game with lots of choices and consequences. And he tried to pitch it to a lot of people. And every attempt failed. So whether W2 Kickstarter would work or not, it would be the last time he would try. Could we say the same for Project Eternity?

 

So far, at this point, based on the details they have revealed (RTwP combat, cool-downs, level-scaling, generic fantasy setting ie. stuff that are perceived to be popular and in demand with mass market appeal right now), I would be hard-pressed to believe that they couldn't find someone to fund this type of game if they tried hard. Dungeon Siege 3 came out just last year which is a simplified console action game from a similar viewpoint. In fact, I'm certain that they could get this game out with a publisher. But again, this too would be speculation. I'm not even going into the issues of IP rights and whatnot, which are entirely outside the scope of this discussion.

 

I'm pretty sure that they indicated that they had pitched other party based based fantasy RPGs and gotten no interest; that this idea they didn't bother with and went to crowdfunding. But I may be misremembering.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

...name one fight in SoA/ToB where ya absolutely had ta guess correctly 'bout spells or reload...I canna name one where ya jus' hadta randomly guess an' had no way ta prepare in some way' aforehand...jus' one...

 

 

First time player's first random encounter with vampires on the freakin' streets of Athkatla?

[Ignatius]

Baldur's Gate 2 had level scaling. :/ I think a lot of the story fights anyway. Fights like Gaxx, he was just locked in at 20 or so, which works, since it's meant to be hard to a point. What made BG2's scaled combat good was that levels weren't the end-all, be-all for determining difficulty.

 

I mean, I'm pretty sure it had level-scaling, can someone back me up on this? Anyway, point is, it's worked in the past. Some games suffer from it, of course.

[BobbinThreadbare]

Whiny, Codex-Taleban menstrual ranting

 

Dude, withdraw your pledge and don't let the door hit your arse on the way out.

That's right, don't attack the arguments, attack the man. That's a good debate tactic.

[Monte Carlo]

^ Not necessarily, but I'll admit that sometimes it feels that way.

 

Admit it, there's a lot of Codexians who actually love the fact that the games they want to play will never be made again. It's like they need the weapons-grade hate to fuel their perpetual nerd-rage. It's dull.

[Tale]

So far, at this point, based on the details they have revealed (RTwP combat, cool-downs, level-scaling, generic fantasy setting ie. stuff that are perceived to be popular and in demand with mass market appeal right now), I would be hard-pressed to believe that they couldn't find someone to fund this type of game if they tried hard.

What about 2D isometric, party based, with minimal voice acting? Is that appealing to the mass market?

[NOK222]

This thread is silly.

[TwinkieGorilla]

Admit it, there's a lot of Codexians who actually love the fact that the games they want to play will never be made again.

 

Why would I admit that? It's not true.

[NOK222]

Want to know something truly hilarious? The BSN topic about Project Eternity is more mature than a lot of the threads here.

[Uomoz]

^ Not necessarily, but I'll admit that sometimes it feels that way.

 

Admit it, there's a lot of Codexians who actually love the fact that the games they want to play will never be made again. It's like they need the weapons-grade hate to fuel their perpetual nerd-rage. It's dull.

 

QFT.

[evdk]

^ Not necessarily, but I'll admit that sometimes it feels that way.

 

Admit it, there's a lot of Codexians who actually love the fact that the games they want to play will never be made again. It's like they need the weapons-grade hate to fuel their perpetual nerd-rage. It's dull.

Why settle?

[cyanidhogg]

I agree with OP on one thing; my trust in Obsidian is absolute. They've shown time and time again what marvelous games they can put out. With that said, I'm getting the vibe that the dev team wants feedback. Which means we'd do them a disservice not to criticize whatever doesn't ring well with our sensibilities. Of course, fanboy squealing is also in order.

[makryu]

 

All of a sudden, this game is sounding more and more like something even worse than Dragon Age.

 

This is the prime example of the exaggerated negativity this topic is about. Dragon Age has faults, but to say a game is or will be worse than it is to say nothing, other than trying to imply it is a pile of s***, which it clearly isn't.

 

It's that, Obsidian promised us a game with the storytelling of PST, tactical combat of IWD series and explorarion of BG series. Lack of rounds, cool-downs and level-scaling already sort-of negates the latter two so the game they originally promised is already objectively different than the game they are shaping up as they go, regardless of our "inattainable dreams" we project on the promise of a game. And this is much cause for concern to me.

 

Lack of rounds, cool-downs and level-scaling do not negate tactical depth and exploration. I agree that stupid level-scaling does that, but I don't see how Obsidian might incur into this mistake. I just see no factual base for it. If Bethesda was making the game, then I'd be worried.

 

If you enjoyed the poorly and lazily designed MMO-influenced combat in Dragon Age and you love twitch fests with cool-downs and level-scaling to babysit the player, good for you. Your preference doesn't put you in a more "righteous" place. If you, however, buy into the PR marketspeak of Obsidian with their ridiculous justifications, then that puts you in an objectively sad place.

 

Another example of pointless criticism.

 

 

In case you have missed it, "Oblivion With Guns" was the official analogy Pete Hines (VP of PR and Marketing at Bethesda) and Todd Howard (senior lead designer at Bethesda) have used to describe Fallout 3. No Kidding. Prior to those statements, "Oblivian With Guns" was an insider joke among old school fans to make fun of Fallout 3 going First Person. Then it became an officially endorsed label. Almost like a joke.

 

I did not miss it. I was at the forums calling the upcoming Fallout 3 just that, arguing with gullible people who thought they'd put out a true Fallout game.

 

 

I think what you have failed to realise is that you have belittled and still are belittling that person for his own personal preferences, and for pretty awful reasons without a solid base. There are valid concerns over explicit mention of all those features.

 

I did not belittle his opinion. We had a very civil discussion for which he even complimented me. What I do belittle is the thought that somehow any crpgs that are not turn-based have inherently less value or are "less tactical" than a turn-based crpg. I think it is simply a baseless assumption, ignoring the fact that turn-based itself was created as a necessity for the tabletop template, nothing more, nothing less.

 

 

So now, when the issue of romance becomes a "promise" all of a sudden, those of us with a critical mind have every reason to be concerned by this.

 

"those of us of a critical mind"? Did you even read this? So, if people do not share your concern on the subject they don't have "a critical mind"? That's exactly what I meant by shortsighted. You know the great thing about romance in cRPGs? You're not forced to engage on it if you find it disgusting shallow or whatever.

 

In the end, you are ironically imposing your own totalitarian mentality on what other players should be open to, being petty and shortsighted in the process yourself because you have convinced yourself that yours is the more progressive and liberal position to be in. Please try to get over yourself, no offense.

 

Then you mixed up some buzzwords like progressive and liberal and continue to alienate more people from the "true crpg fanbase" (so only conservatives can be true crpgs fans with a "critical mind"?), which grows thinner and thinner. NOWHERE in my post did I try to impose my "totalitarian views" on anyone. I was pointing out the fact that people like you should be more open and accepting of at least some deviation from your dream crpg formula.

 

 

I am not so sure that it is, though that much is up for speculation.

 

IT HAS become a genre rejected by most big publishers. That much is a fact. Have you missed the reduced number of titles we've been getting during the last decade?

 

 

Is that a fact? Did Obsidian explicitly say "we tried to pitch this game repeatedly and failed each time. Nobody wants to make this kind of game any longer"?

 

Yes, it is a fact. Go read the interviews, they mention this fact more than once, I'm quite sure. Guess our beloved genre- oh sorry, my beloved genre is in worse shape than you thought. Good for you that your beloved genre has never been better.

 

All in all, your replies are pretty much a textbook example of what is wrong with crpg fans. Did you also react badly back in the 90s when dungeon crawlers started using automaps? Or did you give them a free pass over that one?

 

And for the record, I've played A LOT of classics and I've been a dungeon master since 1993, so I guess I'm not some clueless guy who thinks the genre appeared yesterday. I'm just more accepting of differences and easier to please, I think.

[NOK222]

And for the record, I've played A LOT of classics and I've been a dungeon master since 1993, so I guess I'm not some clueless guy who thinks the genre appeared yesterday. I'm just more accepting of differences and easier to please, I think.

 

Get out of here Biodrone

 

I'm kidding

 

Seriously your post can be taken as a "Oh no he's betrayed us"

Edited October 3, 2012 by NKKKK

[Streamlock]

Well people at 4chan /v/ are overreacting about gay inclusiveness, and people at the codex are overreacting about cooldowns and level scaling.

Just what I got from the forums I'm lurking...

 

Whine on the codex and /v/? Don't you say?!

I wanna see a good argument as why level scaling and cooldowns are a bad thing, so far I've only seen pure hatred lol.The way Sawyer was explaining the magic system sounded pretty reasonable to me, still, what do I know...

 

Both of those can be hard to quantify in any kind of specific way-without referencing particular games/situations. Of which I just don't have the patience to do.

 

In general though, straight-cooldowns turns combat into a some thinly veiled whack-a-mole game. It works well in something like an action combat game, but "TAB 3,2,4-TAB 1,2,4 TAB TARGET 3,1" over and over and over again does not make for a cerebral 'tactical' (using tactical- the devs own words) experience. I'm not saying that the game would be bad for it, but it certianly would not be the better for it either. A small selection of active spells/abilites with cooldowns is better suited for platforms with limited imput options (like a dual analog stick) then a game purpose built for a mouse/keyboard/whatever.

 

I don't believe the Van. system ever made the transition to cRPG's without some serious issues either, and quite frankly I don't have a solution to it-but there it is.

 

Level scalling. A lot of that is just knee jerk reaction. You need some kind of level scalling to keep mid/late game interesting-expecially in a non-linear experience. On the other hand, it's pretty awesome to go back to that town that did not allow you entry because your character is a half-goat and poisen them all with hulicination inducing poisen tip arrows or some-such. Or read a forum post about some poor idiot that decided to scale the dragon's peak at level 2 or something and bitching about it (or vice versa, the super stategist that actually pulled it off). Level scalling can be OK, as long as it is used in a minimilistic manner. Of course, of you limit level scaling to much, you start to have to implement gating enounters to...dissuade people from content best enjoyed after a certain area has been completed 1st. And people go all stupid about gating encounters.

 

(edit; BTW-I loved the fact that in BG (2?) that I had to come back 3 or 4 times before I could actually beat that stupid gold lich thing in the city. Pretty funny the 1st couple times I tried. That would not have been possible if it just 'scaled' to my level)

Edited October 3, 2012 by Streamlock

[villain of the story]

So far, at this point, based on the details they have revealed (RTwP combat, cool-downs, level-scaling, generic fantasy setting ie. stuff that are perceived to be popular and in demand with mass market appeal right now), I would be hard-pressed to believe that they couldn't find someone to fund this type of game if they tried hard.

What about 2D isometric, party based, with minimal voice acting? Is that appealing to the mass market?

 

Is it possible that they changed their minds because I remember the mention of 2D but it is nowhere to be found on Kickstarter page right now. I think they changed their mind when they decided to use Unity. However, 2D vs. 3D is a very shady situation. Indie games have been invading PC for a while now and 2D is slowly making a strong come back in so many diverse forms, it could possibly change the position of a lot of publishers these days. But yes, 2D would be unthinkable since early 2000s up until last couple years.

[GammaHamster]

People from RPGCodex said bad things about a game i like so i hate them

 

Tragic, but what does this have to do with this discussion?

[Reddie]

I like to believe my character takes his job seriously enough so that petty rivalry and things like that don't affect his combat decisions. After all, the goal of everyone is to survive the damn battle.

As a leader, the PC would know how well everyone performs in combat, what are the trengths and weakneses.

 

So I fail to see your point.

 

Let's take a thought experiment. You are presented with situation in game that you cannot handle without losing one of your party members. Be it scripted sacrifice a'la Pillar of Skulls, a really hard combat encounter, a boss fight, whatever. And, for various reasons, there are only two characters eligible (i.e. you may be playing Arcanum-like game where party size is relatively low). First of them is noticeably better in terms of stats, but he has character alignment opposite to your PC and through in-game dialog it is clear they simply don't get along. The second one is opposite - a trusted companion and friend in terms of game story, but somewhat inadequate in terms of gameplay and combat mechanics.

 

Which one would you pick?