The important first 2 hours

[bronzepoem]

@bronzepoem I don't think P:E is made for new gamers.

 

Every hardcore gamer were new gamer.So we couldn't ingore them.

[PrimeJunta]

 

@bronzepoem I don't think P:E is made for new gamers.

 

Every hardcore gamer were new gamer.So we couldn't ingore them.

 

They'll find P:E when they're good and ready, just like they found the IE games. Not everything has to cater to everybody.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Although cliché, I found Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, and its "You're prisoners and gladiators that'll win or die" quite satisfying for a first two hours, I reckon.

[SKull]

I`m not too sure about this tbh. If you mean that there should be some sort of hook at the start to get people engaged then I agree if we`re talking about having something interesting happen. But if it`s just gonna be some random article of flash I don`t. Personally I thought Fallout had a great start. It was supposed to be a journey into the unknown right, so if someone inside Vault 13 had known too much about the outside world to set the stage it would have broken the immersion.

I like it when games set the premises and the player is forced to learn the ropes all over again with new games. If all games are the same they get boring right? And Torment was actually off-putting to a lot of people when it was released because there was so much text and so much dialogue. I don`t think either Torment or Fallout could have been produced today because they`re not streamlined enough, and not hand holding enough to new players. And there were too many words to have the sort of hook you`re really risking inflicting on us. I`d rather things are a bit confusing than dull me.

 

Edited July 24, 2014 by SKull

[Aslinng]

I played the first 2 hours of D:OS and I just couldn't get in to it. I still have it installed because of the word of mouth, but I will need to get really bored before I slog through the begging of the game.

 

So yeah, the opening of the game is really critical.

Can't blame you since people usually spend like 10 hours just exploring the first town with any battles.

I was able to go through it because I didn't noticed the time then when I reliazed I was like : "what in the world happened ? I didn't do much progress at all".

I felt this during the whole game, thinking what is consuming so much my time in this game that even after arriving in the last map I didn't felt any accomplisement or satisifaction.

 

After giving some though, I found out that I spend most of my time being consumed by walking and exploring containers (forced to do this because no quests give you rewards. You can loot a legendary in a random chest...). Kinda sad to feel that way about a cRpg where I think progression in the story should've been the primary source of by time.

[lolaldanee]

now that you mention it, i think every infinity engine game has horrible first hours, they all get awesome later, but the beginning?

bg1 - candlekeep? fetch-quests, and you can die in the damn tutorial, also DnD lvls 1-3, ughhhhhh

icewind dale - orks and goblins in a cave.... come ooooon?

icewind dale2 - orks and goblins, AGAIN???

BG2 - irenicus dungeon, ugly and incredibly boring

torment - the worst of them all, hours and hours of nothing but talk, and mostly not of the good kind, and you start in a building full of zombies... also if you don't already know the planscape setting it will confuse the **** out of you

 

no.. they really didn't have good opening hours...

 

funny enough, i think of all the DnD games, NWN2 OC had the best opening *shrug*

the best openings of all isometric rolplaying games can be found in dragon age1 - the origin stories are great throughout

best opening of any game ever is Mass Effect 1 (with Demon Stone a close 2nd)

Edited July 24, 2014 by lolaldanee

[Blarghagh]

I liked Irenicus Dungeon a lot the first time I played it.

 

Hated it every subsequent time.

[Sarex]

I loved the opening of IWD2 the first time I played it, in fact throughout the whole game I was hoping I would come back to Targos.

[Malekith]

now that you mention it, i think every infinity engine game has horrible first hours, they all get awesome later, but the beginning?

bg1 - candlekeep? fetch-quests, and you can die in the damn tutorial, also DnD lvls 1-3, ughhhhhh

icewind dale - orks and goblins in a cave.... come ooooon?

icewind dale2 - orks and goblins, AGAIN???

BG2 - irenicus dungeon, ugly and incredibly boring

torment - the worst of them all, hours and hours of nothing but talk, and mostly not of the good kind, and you start in a building full of zombies... also if you don't already know the planscape setting it will confuse the **** out of you

 

no.. they really didn't have good opening hours...

 

funny enough, i think of all the DnD games, NWN2 OC had the best opening *shrug*

the best openings of all isometric rolplaying games can be found in dragon age1 - the origin stories are great throughout

best opening of any game ever is Mass Effect 1 (with Demon Stone a close 2nd)

You sir, are deranged.

PS:T, BG2 and IWD2 had very good starts.

IWD and BG were terrible though. Almost as terrible as NWN2 OC for that matter. Though MotB opening is superb.

[Lephys]

You sir, are deranged.

Said the swordsman to the disarmed archer. 6_u

[krosty4782]

PS:T i think it has an awesome opening, come on, you are waking up from death, you don't know who the hell you are, and a floating skull talks to you, also the mortuary has a brilliant dark atmosphere. 

But now, Fallout 2, yes, the intro is VERY ****y, the worst of all IE like games.

Edited July 25, 2014 by krosty4782

[lolaldanee]

 

You sir, are deranged.

Said the swordsman to the disarmed archer. 6_u

 

Oh Lephys..... Ok I admit, I laughed

[Malekith]

 

 

You sir, are deranged.

Said the swordsman to the disarmed archer. 6_u

 

Oh Lephys..... Ok I admit, I laughed

 

I was expecting Lephys' reply even as i typed the word...

[IndiraLightfoot]

now that you mention it, i think every infinity engine game has horrible first hours, they all get awesome later, but the beginning?

bg1 - candlekeep? fetch-quests, and you can die in the damn tutorial, also DnD lvls 1-3, ughhhhhh

icewind dale - orks and goblins in a cave.... come ooooon?

icewind dale2 - orks and goblins, AGAIN???

BG2 - irenicus dungeon, ugly and incredibly boring

torment - the worst of them all, hours and hours of nothing but talk, and mostly not of the good kind, and you start in a building full of zombies... also if you don't already know the planscape setting it will confuse the **** out of you

 

no.. they really didn't have good opening hours...

 

funny enough, i think of all the DnD games, NWN2 OC had the best opening *shrug*

the best openings of all isometric rolplaying games can be found in dragon age1 - the origin stories are great throughout

best opening of any game ever is Mass Effect 1 (with Demon Stone a close 2nd)

Oh, we're ranking D&D CRPG starts, are we?

 

Here goes...

Some of my absolute favourites:

-NWN2 MotB - the best one, ever, IMHO (I know some people said that a few fights in the burial mound were a bit simple, but overall, and adding Mulsantir, it's the best, hands down. Others aren't even close.

-NWN1 HotU - Who don't want to start stripped, and then like an inn and a cellar later, you're on your way down into the Underdark?

-Dark Sun - Shattered Lands - A true gladiator arena start, prison breakout, neat and nice in an underestimated setting

 

-BG - pretty boring, I also hated Imoen

-PST - love the writing, but far too much toing and froing in-between body parts, just to get to the heart of the matter

-BG2 - pretty decent lab, and nice city just outside (one of the better ones)

-IWD2 - quite decent, with perhaps one fetch quest too many, but still better than the hack fest that follows (which is nice and dandy in its own right, but not without any breaks and story and what not)

-NWN2 OC - Better than its reputation, if you do the tutorial fair as well

-NWN2 Storm of the Zehir - Nice ship-wreck start, boring beach brawling, and the first town looked nice, but was just a hub for doing jungle stuff and early encounters with super-tough yuan-ti

-IWD- perhaps the worst of them all

[Lephys]

I was expecting Lephys' reply even as i typed the word...

I try not to disappoint.

[Ffordesoon]

Most classic Western RPGs have pretty lame or outright nonexistent openings, and even most modern console-focused WRPGs have **** openings. It's part of what makes the genre so difficult to demo.

 

The best classic WRPG opening I can think of is probably Ultima IV's, where the fortune teller introduces the concept of the virtues. You're eased into the themes of the game without any time being wasted, and the text does a good job of sucking you in even before you're given the choices. PST's is definitely pretty good as well, though I would have to echo the complaint that the opening (and the rest of the game, really) is so thick with blocks of novelistic text that it can grow wearying quickly. The first important plot hook ("Find Pharod") is also delivered too early, it's too easy to miss Deionnara, Pharod himself should be introduced a fair bit earlier, and the weird stuff is thrown at you so early and so frequently that it becomes polarizing.

 

The best modern WRPG opening I can think of is probably Fallout 3, actually. Say what you will about the rest of the game, but everything up to the first glimpse of the outside world flows like butter. The writing and VO aren't brilliant, but they get the point across. Players are introduced to all the concepts they'll need to understand the game without it feeling too overtly tutorial-y, and you leave Vault 101 with absolutely no doubt as to your high-level quest in the game. Not only that, but they do a good job of conveying how bittersweet it is for the player to leave the vault, there are some nice (if heavy-handed) C&C moments that reinforce the Fallout ethos, and the first moment you step out into daylight is, as someone else mentioned, a superb wow moment to cap the whole thing off.

 

DA:O probably deserves a mention as well, but I haven't played all of the origins, and I understand they vary in quality. Also, it doesn't do that good a job of actually teaching the mechanics, which Fallout 3 did very well. Also, you kind of get the origin part of the opening and then the "You're a Grey Warden now!" part of the opening, which ends up almost feeling like two openings in a row, the second of which is a lot longer and more weirdly paced than the first.

 

A good RPG opening, to my mind, is brief, enticing, and ends with a killer plot hook. Based on the videos, PoE's opening seems to fulfill all those criteria, which makes me excited.

[Rabain]

From looking at some of the recent gameplay interviews Josh has done it seemed to me that there wasn't much looting going on.  I don't know if it was just Josh or whoever made the gameplay footage having gone through so many times they just skipped it but the first looting of anything seems to happen after several kills and then  they go into a cave.

 

Usually at the beginning of games we are killing rats and looting barrels etc and that is okay but when you kill wolves and other people I'd expect there to be something.  At the beginning cash is always an issue and I can understand limiting intake but enemies wearing armour etc that don't even have 1 copper on them or some armour or weapon to take just feels wrong to me.

 

When you have nothing and you kill someone who looks like they have something (nice armour, weapons etc) but it turns out their armour and weapons are glued to them it just feels bad. Throw me a copper for my troubles even if it is via broken armour and weapons.

 

Maybe this isn't a big deal as the start area seem fairly short but if there is more to those areas than we saw before the biawac and the cave I hope looting is a bit more than just unlootable bodies.  Half the fun is clicking that dead enemy and that feeling of expectation as to what I might get.

[PrimeJunta]

There were what appeared to be lootbags left on the ground after the bodies disappeared. Perhaps they just didn't want to waste time looting to keep the demo flowing.

[archangel979]

I hope Wasteland 2 knew this lesson as it not only has bad first 2 hours, it lasts much longer as first few maps are uninspired and boring filled with either low content or uninteresting characters.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

The start of the IE games never bothered me. Now Fallout 2 had a bad beginning with the temple of trials.