RPGCodex 2014 Games of the Year

[BruceVC]

 

 

 

Oh, are you saying Ulitma VII has Romance? I thought you were saying you could just choose to be gay ?

 

 

Yes they have romances and sex. Good Lord it's like talking to a gibbon, I think i've had enough of trying to do so.

 

 

Now, now Nonek try to be a little magnanimous in your victory, you know I'm just not as clever as you   

[prodigydancer]

Well, I'm disappointed (though not surprised being a Codex lurker). Dragonfall DC is a rehash of a 2013 release and D:OS is just plain boring. But people seem to like them for some reason.

 

And of course WL2 didn't make it. FU, Codex.

[Malcador]

Overall I found it to be a fetid stew of acerbic grumbling, unchecked profanity, and hyperbolic negativity. At this point, I don't take their opinions too seriously because they aren't representative of what I enjoy. But they do put out the occasional interesting review.

Why is negativity such a bad thing in a forum, anyway ?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

Overall I found it to be a fetid stew of acerbic grumbling, unchecked profanity, and hyperbolic negativity. At this point, I don't take their opinions too seriously because they aren't representative of what I enjoy. But they do put out the occasional interesting review.

Why is negativity such a bad thing in a forum, anyway ?

It has a human cost.

[Malcador]

Pft, meaningless.

[Zoraptor]

The negativity is like a language you will have to learn to interpret. But yeah, it's fun when people are spewing venom on ****ty new games, but when the Codex negativity reaches classics like Arcanum and PST I can also find it a little bit unwarranted.

 

 

The only really big problem the codex has- so long as you're not a delicate snowflake- is the same one every forum has to greater or lesser extent. Half the time people want to be edgy, the other time they want to do groupthink and if they can they'll try to do both simultaneously. If the codex like a game you can usually be sure it is good, it's just the stuff that they don't like which you can't be sure of because they tend to dislike nearly everything.

 

PST is a mediocre jRPG which is worse than KOTOR and Arcanum is just plain bad at everything except setting.

 

 

The Arcanum part is true, I'm afraid.

 

[Malcador]

The Adventure forum is slightly less hostile than I had expected, and that forum is pretty level headed, at least.

[prodigydancer]

Arcanum is just plain bad at everything except setting.

IDK. Arcanum setting always felt pretty boring to me.

[Orogun01]

 

Arcanum is just plain bad at everything except setting.

IDK. Arcanum setting always felt pretty boring to me.

 

I don't know what the **** you guys are talking about, Arcanum had an excellent magic system and schools. Playing as a mage never felt so good and the story was great.

Sure combat was bad and the leveling curve could have some tuning but these were really problems with the genre at the time and there are many similar complaints about other RPGs of the era.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Arcanum is ****. They managed to make a game more unbalanced than 2e with content that is more boring than a Bendis comic.

[Enoch]

 

Arcanum is just plain bad at everything except setting.

IDK. Arcanum setting always felt pretty boring to me.

 

To me, it was a cool concept that got less and less impressive the more I saw of the actual implementation. 

 

I dig the music, though. 

Edited January 14, 2015 by Enoch

[Tigranes]

Arcanum had a broken combat, a broken plot / pacing structure, big crests and troughs in quality... but it had a setting nobody else has done in a proper CRPG in a quality way, and it had the most Fallouty writing and quest design other than FO1/2 and F:NV themselves. It's also filled with moments that have rarely been replicated in style or excitement - like the Caladon quest (negotiate with the King for a major economic treaty between two nations, get lobbied by people for various policies, at the same time, maybe assassinate the King for a different faction?), the Siamese twins mystery. It's a unique treasure in the history of CRPGs.

[Rostere]

Wow, I just mentioned that and now this is looking more like the Codex by the minute

 

Anyway, for me - I guess mostly a "story[-------]" using Codex terminology - Arcanum is one of my top 5 RPGs of all time.

Edited January 22, 2015 by TrueNeutral
term no longer accepted

[Orogun01]

Arcanum is ****. They managed to make a game more unbalanced than 2e with content that is more boring than a Bendis comic.

You Sir! are a scallywag and no do gooder and I challenge you to a duel!

[Zoraptor]

I don't know what the **** you guys are talking about, Arcanum had an excellent magic system and schools. Playing as a mage never felt so good and the story was great.

Sure combat was bad and the leveling curve could have some tuning but these were really problems with the genre at the time and there are many similar complaints about other RPGs of the era.

 

 

Nah. D&D, Fallout etc had problems with balance and gamesystems, D&D was poor at low and high levels, Fallout had massively over (by far the greatest problem) and underpowered builds. Arcanum's gamesystems were poor to atrocious at high levels, mid levels and low levels and pervaded its various builds. Mage was probably best because you could learn one spell (Harm?) and at least spam it to win almost every encounter and experience the stuff which was done well.

 

Arcanum was absolutely awesome concepts marred irremediably by the worst gameplay implementations I've ever had the misfortune to see. It's actually worse than merely being a bad game, which are after all dime a dozen, it's a very very disappointing game because it should have been so much better than it was.

 

If someone like Obsidz kickstarted a second Arcanum I'd be there with bells on the concept was so good.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

Arcanum is ****. They managed to make a game more unbalanced than 2e with content that is more boring than a Bendis comic.

 

You Sir! are a scallywag and no do gooder and I challenge you to a duel!

Pistols at dawn leader.

[Leferd]

The best part of Arcanum is character creation. Which was absolutely sublime.

 

Unfortunately, the rest of the game never really matched its initial promise. I suppose Arcanum was a microcosm of Troika in general. So much heart, potential, and ideas to be truly great.

 

Baseball analogy alert: Superb minor league 5-Tool prospect that could never put it all together in the show.

[Rostere]

TBH I have never really felt that balancing was such a big problem in Arcanum. You could basically say that the game offers you to play as a ****ing necromancer death machine, which is to be considered a separate difficulty. You might interpret that as meaning that I have a RP approach to character creation, as opposed to a gamist view. In any case, I have even less problem with there being many bad builds than I have with there being OP ones which make the game too easy. In fact, I think bad builds increase replayability. I know that at least I have replayed Arcanum several times with intentionally gimped builds to complete the game in unexpected ways. It's more fun than giving monsters 50% more HP or something like that.

[Gromnir]

The RPGCodex has an openly fabulous moderator. Not once have I seen someone call him out for being gay, but I have seen people challenge his point of view on RPGs.

 

The Codex doesn't give a flying f@@k who you are, or where you come from - but you better be prepared to discuss RPGs if you're going to post.

ah yes, the codexian equivalent of, "i have gay friends," as a rebuttal o' homophobia.

 

*snort*

 

unadulterated horsep00p.  your claim that the mod is open gay and receives no attacks is not the same as denying rampant homophobia. you is also notably silent regarding antisemitism accusations.

 

 

is a visual aid for understanding codex.  some folks need visual aids.

 

 

as for arcanum, we admit that we enjoyed the game most before actual playing it. the game were hyped more than any rpg being developed during the same time period, and why not?  the guys who made fallout were gonna release a new crpg with a unique steampunk setting.  what crpg fan wouldn't be anticipating such a game? every print magazine had glowing previews o' the game and editors who were unabashedly hyping the title.  

 

*shrug*

 

game were boring. yeah, it were an unbalanced and buggy mess, but the true failure o' arcanum were indifference. boring quests. boring characters. boring core story. inexplicably, even the setting as implemented ended up being rather "meh."  am suspecting some folks is such die hard adherents o' the church o' cain that they convinced themselves that arcanum were a fine piece o' crpg game development.  no doubt other folks bought into the hype so much that they actual had to enjoy the game; same weirdness happens with movies. some folks get so emotional invested that they seeming Need to enjoy the finished product regardless o' how bad it actual is. am s'posing some small number o' folks genuine liked arcanum for what it was... 'course those folks got an extreme peculiar tastes pallet as it don't seem to require compelling writing or noteworthy design and implementation o' balanced/rational game mechanics. but heck, more than a few folks defended HoW as an expansion for iwd, so we understand just how ridiculous folks can be 'bout games. the thing is, codexian groupthink managed to convince a significant number o' folks that arcanum were anything other than a good-idea-gone-bad.  

 

it is mild amusing that a site that prides self on being so adversarial and uncompromising is so predictable. in any event, the more you criticize codex, the more the l00ns think such criticism is proof that they is doing things the "proper" way.  weird.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

edit: 80% of our posts get weird font size non-meshing. odd

Edited January 14, 2015 by Gromnir

[prodigydancer]

I don't know what the **** you guys are talking about, Arcanum had an excellent magic system and schools.

It's not setting, it's magic system. Setting is, you know, game world and lore.

 

Playing as a mage never felt so good

Yeah, how could I forget. Bind Harm to to all keys and put a big rock on your keyboard. Exquisite.

 

and the story was great.

Here I agree. Edited January 14, 2015 by prodigydancer

[Orogun01]

You people never learned the joys of disintegrate.

I made a multiclass warrior/mage and boy was it good. Just have haste and shield of protection on and hack all your problems away.

@Kaine: I can't do pistols i'm a mage.

[Hurlshort]

Arcanum was awesome.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

@Kaine: I can't do pistols i'm a mage.

****.

[Majek]

The only real problem i has with arcanum was getting too powerfull too quickly. Or maybe the combat was just so easy with sniper rifle or something. I have to play it again one of these days with proper mods.

[Humanoid]

Arcanum's character creation was like walking into the biggest shopping centre in the world with everything you could ever want being available ....but only having $5 to spend.