What art thou playing milord? Ye Olde Thread 3.0

[Le Communard]

I don't recall exactly why I never got EU3. I remember reading that there were no big, historic events that influence the gameplay. I usually enjoy those in EU2 (hence my love for the AGCEEP mod, which adds a ton of those) even if they can be a bit deterministic at times (particularly bad when playing the Ottomans. I can have a perfectly run country with a healty economy and then I get an event which makes massive inflation and widespread unrest completely unavoidable. Bah).

I'll look into that Magna Mundi mod, thanks.

Yeah, the vanilla game can be a bit... bland, but Magna Mundi strikes a really good balance between historical plausibility and sandbox freedom, as well as making the game just ten times more interesting. There are very few historical events though, but most things are delt with though more flexible (and ultimately much better) systems, such as decisions.

[zakalwe7]

Replaying Oblivion on the PC at the moment. Went a bit mod mad and i now have around 120 mods set up. Makes the game fantastic. Improved magic, improved levelling, more creatures, more houses, expanded cities and countryside, gameplay overhauls, more quests, etc. It's incredible how it changes the game from Vanilla Oblivion.

[haLobEnder]

Replaying Oblivion on the PC at the moment. Went a bit mod mad and i now have around 120 mods set up. Makes the game fantastic. Improved magic, improved levelling, more creatures, more houses, expanded cities and countryside, gameplay overhauls, more quests, etc. It's incredible how it changes the game from Vanilla Oblivion.

I'm playing on the 360 and have definitely noticed how sparse the game is; You're making me jealous.

I picked up Godfather II and the original Overlord for the 360 yesterday.

I'm a little disappointed by Godfather 2 to tell the truth. I know it may not be a fair standard, but compared to Saint's Row 2 and GTA 4 this game sorely lacks. The landscape pops up out of nowhere much like it did on the PS2, and in-game items like garbage bins, fences and dead bodies disappear right in front of you.

The reason I wanted to pick this title up though was because of the strategy aspect of the game. At any given time you can press the start button to enter 'city view' mode and from there command your underlings to take over businesses, assult enemy locations, and other such illicit activities. I thought this element would be a little bit more involved than it has been up to this point but admittedly I'm afraid to test this element out more because the auto-save system is very unforgiving :P

Overlord is a game that I've wanted to pick up for a while now but haven't been able to find in stores. Off the bat I liked the Fable-esque sense of humour but there's really nothing in the gameplay that compells me to play more. I mean, I'm going to play more eventually, just after I've gone through some of the other games I have on the go.

[Tyrellius]

The Witcher arrived last week and patching it to 1.5 wasn't such a hassle. The code was included with the game and after a few aborted attempts to register, it finally worked. Patching did take a long time, most of it while using f/all of my computers resources so was sorely tempted a few times to reboot but it eventually told me it had finished.

The game itself rocks. Loving the graphics. Loading times are quick and I'm really digging it.

SPOILER: Choices

So far I've elected to try save the lab, shagged Triss even though its obvious one of the other Witchers has a crush and sided with the witch over the peasant rabble (without taking advantage of her!)

Finally got the silver sword. was a bit worried I'd goofed it somehow.

[haLobEnder]

Man, all this talk of the Witcher makes me angry that they canceled the game's console remake. I really want to play The Witcher but my computer is ancient :(

[Tyrellius]

Man, all this talk of the Witcher makes me angry that they canceled the game's console remake. I really want to play The Witcher but my computer is ancient :(

TBH - even though I'm only in Chapter 2, I think the current version would have been a console hit. I'm not sure how deep combat gets, but nothing so far makes me think this should be a pc game only.

[Inigima]

I want to play The Witcher, but it's one of those games that just will not come down in price and I'm not sure if I'm willing to pay the going rate.

How will my computer fare with it? The weak link is the video card.

Core 2 Duo 2.20Ghz

3GB RAM

GeForce 8300

[Mackaxx]

Lets clutter up this thread some more eh.

That's not precisely true - I do like some of them. It would be true to say that I do not like them for being RPGs. Unless you are saying that Fallout 2, which I enjoyed greatly, is not actually an RPG.

So like you said and we pointed out to you earlier, you don't like the RPG component of RPGs. Right.

And yet, in the next sentence, you liked fallout 2, which is an RPG with heavy RPG elements and an incredibly loose storyline.

Glad we cleared that up.

Maybe you should be playing some western adventure games instead, seriously. These things are on rails, often have annoying mini games and sometimes a bit of combat. Theres not a lot of emoness or cosplaying to be had though.

(Obviously, that's using a definition of RPG that is not commonly in use, but we both seem to agree on as appropriate, though it seems silly to me to claim it as gospel as if 'RPG' has not developed its own meaning entirely independent of any actual role-playing.)

Or more obviously it's using one thats technically wrong but it gets used anyways. The acronym stands for something and it's pretty hard to misinterpret, role playing game. The term JRPG is more translated like this Japanese 'Role playing game' (emphasis on the commas and the speaker saying RPG with a heavy amount of implied irony). If JRPGs were RPGs we'd call them just that, RPGs, theres a J stuck in front for a reason. The acronym itself means something entirely differed and doesn't actually 'stand' for anything at are per se, because if you do break it down you quickly see that the words its pupported to stand for make no sense in the context.

It's actually a funny quirk of language really. Acronyms allow you to step back from the what the words themselves mean and the acronym itself becomes a word.

This is pretty close to what I've said about it, though maybe not here, only from the opposite perspective: I like Mass Effect's formula because it provides a more cinematic experience, and as has been discussed, cinematic-ness is directly correlated with lack of diversity of choice (rails-ness) due to technical / development time / etc. limitations. I also liked the fact that its alignment system and slightly guided character creation discouraged any attempts to play a character in ways that did not fit with the story, thus allowing the game to maintain the role-playing aspect (which I actually enjoy when it does let me pick the choice I want) in a guided fashion and in a way that minimizes the character dissonance that I hate.

This is actually quite the opposite from your shitting in the king's cup example - if a game gives me options, I want it to include any reasonable option I might choose, but the best practical way to do this isn't to design two options for each D&D alignment and five more for Malkavians, but to guide the player in such a way that few options are necessary because the others aren't reasonable. Perhaps this is too 'rails' for you? Well if so, it sounds like you won't be satisfied if you can't shit in the king's cup either, because not doing that is a 'rail'. Or we can just not exaggerate moderate preferences into ridiculous extremes.

And yet, you've waxed lyrical many times about when a game didn't provide you with the option you wanted. Don't you see the conflict here?

You don't like the choices one gets because they can often lead to a situation where the character is out of character.

And when is the character out of character? When you do not have the choice you want . Sometimes you may want to shit in that cup and may wax lyrical about how crappy the game was because you couldn't.

Heres the ironic rub, somehow you prefer to have less choice and take the character as the writers intended him or her to be presented, no matter how retarded that may be, I've yet to play a single JRPG with decent writing (at least since I left my teenage years when I also enjoyed a bit of the sword of truth). For some reason they seem to get a pass on dodgy writing with you, whilst the other RPGs don't, perhaps you're more content to take what you are given but more critical when you have some input on the matter.

I boggle to try to understand this apparent war you perceive between these two genres, as if they are fighting to the death and only one can survive. They're almost completely unrelated except for the fact that they both derived from the early, really basic CRPGs like Ultima and that they share the horribly innacurate epithet 'RPG' (which is far less horribly inaccurate in the case of the Western category). And yes, it is completely possible to be a 'JRPG fan' and 'like role-playing in your RPGs,' just like it's possible to be a 'real-time strategy fan' and a 'turn-based strategy fan' and a '4X game fan' all at once! (But they're all strategy games; surely they must fight to the death until only one survives?!)

There's no war, just an attempt to point out you seem to critique the role playing games because they have role play thats not perfect, which is like criticising half life for not accurately portraying the outcomes of gun violence. It's strange to be pissed off because you can't take your character in the direction where you want in one hand, whilst on the other being totally fine if you have no say whatsoever in where you character goes.

I realize that your JRPG hate is mostly trolling but even as trolling you should probably make it sound like you have an ounce of an idea what the fuck you're talking about. (Mini-games? What?) Also, your Tetsuya Nomura hate plan is at least five years out of date; get with the program and mock his most abominable creation yet, Shiva-bike. (If you haven't seen it yet, look it up. It will enhance your JRPG trolling by a thousandfold.)

Knowing that the emperor has no clothes is enough for me to write about it, I don't need a degree in fashion and old world fashion.

The mini games in JRPGs are almost always terrible, you honestly don't know what I'm talking about? Seriously? Theres even a wiki page about them in the final fantasy series.

[Mackaxx]

I could go on and on about how deep the two are. Some time ago I found the Perfect Works companion book to Xenogears, and that bitch is hardbound and around three hundred pages long, filled with descriptions and explanations of the world of Xenogears. The breadth of it is enormous and wonderfully sophisticated. It's not quite on a Tolkien level of development, but I would say that it at least equals Erikson (whose work I loath to the very fiber of my being, but I must acknowledge has created an expansive world).

Note: When I make this comparison, I mean that while Erikson's world is larger, Tolkien's world is more fleshed out. Xenogears' story is about as large as Erikson's, but more fleshed out (with characters who aren't walking puppets of the same personality too).

Look, theres no arguments form me that xenogears is a decent game. But just because there is a fancy manual you can get with a nice shiny cover and lots of pretty pictures and descriptions of stuff doesn't automatically up the cred scale.

D&D, Fighting fantasy etc all have massive tomes dedicated to their world backgrounds and you yourself loathe Eriksons stuff.

The fancy book thing appears to have a bit of background but really to contain a lot of cool pictures with descriptions of this and that, stats, walkthroughs, more pretty pictures and a smidgen more background. It's nice and it's cool that you've picked it up but having a big fat tome written about you game doesn't mean much, halo has some shockers. (Edit. The books online to google if you like, it's pretty cool and worth a look but I'm way too vague on the game now to really appreciate it).

But in the end yes, there are of course good JRPGs, I'm not saying that they arn't, I've been more pointing out that some people seem to turn a blind eye to their flaws whilst sticking the boot into some very solid examples of other genres for some fairly silly reasons.

[haLobEnder]

Lets clutter up this thread some more eh.

It's OK, we really don't have to...

No seriously, please... :P

The mini games in JRPGs are almost always terrible, you honestly don't know what I'm talking about? Seriously? Theres even a wiki page about them in the final fantasy series.

I don't know man, I remember the card game in Final Fantasy IX being addictive as hell. Oddly enough I don't recall how it was played though :P

[emberling]

But in the end yes, there are of course good JRPGs, I'm not saying that they arn't, I've been more pointing out that some people seem to turn a blind eye to their flaws whilst sticking the boot into some very solid examples of other genres for some fairly silly reasons.

The biggest flaw in your argument is the idea that we dislike games for specific 'silly' reasons. You've stated many 'silly' reasons to dislike games, as have I. These are immaterial when all is said and done. The fact is that we didn't like the game, or parts of it. The reasons are the things we dig up after the fact to explain that, not only to others but to ourselves. Arguing about it isn't going to change anyone's mind about whether they liked the game.

And when all is said and done, I enjoyed Mass Effect, and I enjoyed many other WRPGs, and I enjoyed many JRPGs. And I did so while considering every single one of them flawed.

I have not stated any game to be without flaw, nor have I 'stuck the boot' into any game.

However, I must note that some people seem to turn a blind eye to the flaws of WRPGs whilst sticking the boot into some very solid examples of other genres for some fairly silly reasons.

For proof, I submit

.

[Mackaxx]

Again, the specific reason I've been pointing out to you is that your appear to not like the RPG elements of RPGs. For reasons that seem a little strange too. All the silly reasons have been asides, not the main event.

On the one hand you advocate an on rails approach as being better for story whilst on the other complaining about choices in western RPGs not being to your liking because they don't suit your chosen approach to a character (you want it more off the rails). As the options given in a western RPG are in effect 'rails' anyway it seems an odd complaint. On the one hand you like a defined story, on the other hand you don't like a defined story which allows for choice.

As for oblivion I've been critical of it from day 1. Definitely overrated and I think once everyone here got over looking at all the shiny things they realised that too. It did have its occasional moments but so does every game

[emberling]

On the one hand you advocate an on rails approach as being better for story

An on-rails approach is for all practical purposes better for telling a story. This is not because it is inherently capable of producing better stories, but because it requires less work and/or talent to tell the same quality story, and because humans have been telling on-rails stories for thousands of years and interactive stories for a few decades. This does not mean a story without rails is inferior, but it means that stories without rails have a long way to go to catch up.

(Fortunately for the off-rails stories, on-rails stories in interactive media have a long way to go to catch up to on-rails stories in other media, too.)

The other thing you don't seem to be able to understand is the distinction between a character created by the player and a character created by the game designers.

A character created by the game designers should, in most cases, for the purposes of story, be on rails.

A character created by the player should, in most cases, for the purposes of everything, have as few rails as possible.

This is, obviously, because the game designers know what the first character would do in a situation, and have no fucking clue what the second would do.

Some games are shifting towards a player character with more and more pre-designed elements, like Shepard and Geralt. As I've mentioned before, I think limiting the amount of say that the player has in the character's creation is a great way to keep the designers 'in the loop' enough so that they can design options that make sense in all practical cases.

And the Oblivion link had nothing to do with Oblivion and everything to do with shitty minigames in the genre you champion while deriding another genre for having shitty minigames.

[BlueRose]

We finally decided to spend some time leveling and crafting in Infinite Undiscovery so we could finish the stupid game.

And stupid is the best word for the whole thing. It was the worst JRPG I have played for this generation of consoles. And I generally love JRPGs, but this one was just awful. The ending made me want to throw things at my TV.

I've expressed my unhappiness with Tales of Vesperia's ending before because it

SPOILER: Vesperia's ending SPOILER

doesnt have one

but Infinite Undiscovery would have been a better game without the last 5 min or so of the ending. The story was just so bad start to finish. But at least it is over and I never will feel the need to play it again.

[Werthead]

I want to play The Witcher, but it's one of those games that just will not come down in price and I'm not sure if I'm willing to pay the going rate.

How will my computer fare with it? The weak link is the video card.

Core 2 Duo 2.20Ghz

3GB RAM

GeForce 8300

No, that's absolutely fine. I'm running a single-core AMD 3700+ with 3GB of RAM. I've just upgraded to a GeForce 8500 GT but before that was running a 7600 which played the game with no problem whatsoever. I also only had 1GB of RAM when I was first playing the game and it still worked fine. So go for it, I'd say.

You may not be able to find the Enhanced Edition (black and silver cover) for a budget price (as it's still technically a new-ish game) but you should be able to find the old one (red and black cover) going cheap. You can upgrade it to the Enhanced Edition for free via the game's website.

[Mackaxx]

An on-rails approach is for all practical purposes better for telling a story. This is not because it is inherently capable of producing better stories, but because it requires less work and/or talent to tell the same quality story, and because humans have been telling on-rails stories for thousands of years and interactive stories for a few decades. This does not mean a story without rails is inferior, but it means that stories without rails have a long way to go to catch up.

Nope, they don't have a long way to go to catch up, there is no thousands of years of writing development needed to catch up. What is required is a lot more effort to write the story.

And also consider (again as you still don't seem to get this) that your talking about apples and oranges. Of course a branched story isn't as good as being an unbranched story. Why is this, because it IS NOT an unbranched story.

You can say the opposite, a JRPG is nowhere near as good a branched story as that presented in an RPG.

I'd respond with a well duh. as would you.

The weirdest bit is that the plots in most all JRPGs I've played have been quite retarded. It's not like they consistently give great writing. I'm going to go out on a very sturdy limb and say that the story writing in western RPGs is at least on par with that of JRPGs and in my opinion is better more often than not.

In my opinion (and thats all it is) what you dislike is the branched story telling, you even admitted this. The writing and storytelling that you purport to be so much better in JRPGs simply is not (again my opinion).

Anyway, way to not respond to the actual full quote and just repeat yourself again. The original quote rightly pointed out that you seem to be anti choice, but when there were choices involved and they didn't' suit you then you wax lyrical about not having enough choices to suit your vision of a character. When the writers impose something that you don't like you cry foul if you have the limited choice of an RPG, but if its a JRPG you seem happy to roll with it.

The other thing you don't seem to be able to understand is the distinction between a character created by the player and a character created by the game designers.

A character created by the game designers should, in most cases, for the purposes of story, be on rails.

A character created by the player should, in most cases, for the purposes of everything, have as few rails as possible.

This is, obviously, because the game designers know what the first character would do in a situation, and have no fucking clue what the second would do.

Some games are shifting towards a player character with more and more pre-designed elements, like Shepard and Geralt. As I've mentioned before, I think limiting the amount of say that the player has in the character's creation is a great way to keep the designers 'in the loop' enough so that they can design options that make sense in all practical cases.

This is all true and certainly not something I don't understand. What is the point of stating what we've already covered to make it look like some kind of response. These responses kind of seem like some badly conceived dialog options in an RPG that a sensible character wouldn't bother choosing, perhaps you have no other options though, damned writers.

And the Oblivion link had nothing to do with Oblivion and everything to do with shitty minigames in the genre you champion while deriding another genre for having shitty minigames.

Write a list of RPGs with crappy mini games, then write a list of JRPGs with crappy mini games. Which is longer?

Whilst you compile the list I'll in-breed some chocobos and collect some firewood and flowers.

[Werthead]

Got onto Chapter III of The Witcher after what felt like 15 years. Lots of fun, but still an awful amount of running around like a lemon doing jobs for people and levelling up until you're tough enough to face the next part of the adventure. I know they're using the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine but they could possibly have made things a little different from the other BioWare/Obsidian RPGs out there.

Still, some cool elements in there:

SPOILER: The Witcher

The best bit, surprisingly, was meeting Dandelion and having the house party with your old friends. It works a bit better if you know the books, but even so you still 'get' that these people have hung out and been friends for years, and you (Geralt) turning up alive five years after your apparent death is a bit of a shock to them. Beyond that, all the fucking around in the swamp and not being able to take a step without being attaked by drowners got on my nerves, but some of the stuff back in Vizima was quite entertaining, like the investigation and the autopsy.

[Mackaxx]

Speaking of the books, are they worth a look see?

[emberling]

Mackaxx: Every one of your posts has caused me to write a fully detailed response to each of your points, which I then preview, reread, and delete because it becomes obvious that you are in large part trolling and thus a large argument simply shits up the thread.

In your last post, you quoted a concise summary of my argument, said you understood it, and said that it is true. Therefore there is nothing left to discuss.

Similarly, regarding mini games, the burden is on you to explain how the shitty mini games in JRPGs are a horrible genre-specific trait while the shitty mini games in western RPGs are not. It's immaterial which one has more or worse mini games; they both have plenty, and they both have quality games with little to no mini game presence.

[Slurktan]

Replaying Oblivion on the PC at the moment. Went a bit mod mad and i now have around 120 mods set up. Makes the game fantastic. Improved magic, improved levelling, more creatures, more houses, expanded cities and countryside, gameplay overhauls, more quests, etc. It's incredible how it changes the game from Vanilla Oblivion.

I recently got my grubby hands on oblivion and am looking to make a go of it. I don't really want anything that would break the game or make it too easy but just not sure where to go looking as honestly I'm an Elder Scrolls noob. Can you recommend some mods for me?

There is one I know I want, it supposedly gets rid of the mobs levelling with you which I want but not sure what it is called.