Actually, the best game they made (for my taste) was more like 8 years ago. Gladius (for Xbox/PS2) was an awesome game, one of my favorite games in any platform, consistently voted into all the "best games you probably haven't played" lists. Unfortunately it didn't sell well, so the planned sequel was scratched. Hopefully some company can buy the rights for very cheap and make a sequel.
I disagree:
"1) a gaming PC is substantially more expensive than a console"
False. You can buy a new computer, good enough to play most games out there, including monitor for $300-$400, or a similar laptop for $400. Xbox 360 and PS3 were more expensive than this when they came out. Also, games for consoles are not less than $50 for the most part, while most PC games are normally at least $10 cheaper. And in the case of the 360, you even have to pay an extra $50/year to play online. Is it really cheaper?
"2) you frequently have driver and other compatibility problems"
It might be true, although as a heavy gamer myself, I don't remember when was the last time I experienced this. Think it was some 7 or so years ago.
"3) a number of PC games are launched in a rather buggy state"
True for the vanilla CD/DVD version you take out of the box, but chances are by the time you install the game, there's already a patch auto-updated by the game.
"4) the overall performance level of consoles has improved a lot in the latest generation"
Indeed, which is about the performance of a 2-3 year old video card.
Truth is, the real deterrent for developers is piracy. Yes you can pirate console games, but the issue is much more rampant in the PC world. Seems like only the mostly online games like MMOs (where you have to pay a monthly fee, regardless if you have a pirated copy of the game or not) and the casual games (where mom and grandma don't even know that games can be pirated) are financially successful for PCs.
So that means I'm too old for 4e lol. But still, wouldn't it be like a 50 point buy system from that sheet? a 20 INT, a 14, most other stats 10, that's like hmm... a lot of points to buy
Granted, I haven't read a thing about 4e so obviously what I'm about to say has no meaning but... A 1st level character with 20 INT??? LOL I remember when I considered myself lucky if I had a 15 in a stat... 4d6 discard lowest roll rule FTW lol
I used to hate JRPGs too, but I got used to them, and now I actually like them. I had to, as the whole turn-based/party based RPG genre died for PC, and I just can't play the action RPGs.
Not quite. I watch DVDs from Netflix. I don't download too many songs from Itunes, but I do watch videos from YouTube. And what about those freaking bigger flash ads everywhere you click?
Comcast has a monopoly of cable TV in many but many areas (mine included), but does it have a monopoly on Internet? Right now, I'm about to ditch them for Verizon Fios, and while I'm at it, remove my forced cable service and go for Dish.
Except, of course, that Apple has an even worse history of being 'proprietaries' of their stuff, restricting any 3rd party development.
I know I'm not upgrading to Vista for at least another year. So what if I miss seeing an extra shadow here and there in a game. Getting Vista just for DirectX 10 is not worth it
Well, 3rd ed came like 7 years ago...
That Star Wars Saga came this year so 7 years after 3rd ed was released
4th ed. comes in 1 year
That means, The Star Wars Saga is not obsolete for about 8 more years, so don't worry about it:)
Thirty levels instead of twenty basically means there's more headroom for higher-level adventuring before normal players have to worry about abtruse and convoluted 'epic character' rulesets/feats/whatever that often feel very non-canon.
I don't have a problem with this. Although I never played a campaign where the characters reached level 20 in AD&D or D&D 3+. Normally the group would break up after a couple of years, enough to maybe get them to 12 or so. But I guess this is good for the munchkin campaigns and for computer games
No more XP costs for magic items creation means that you no longer lose experience points (gained by running quests, killing monsters) whenever you create a magic item. This is a Really Good Thing(tm) because it would invariably mean that the one person in each group who got saddled with building a character capable of crafting specialized magic weapons for everyone got shafted good and hard when the time a lot, and eventually made me quit.
came to start whipping up custom +5 swords of Destroy All Life that cast Karsus Avatar three times a day (injoke, sorry).
The whole magic creation thing in 3rd edition I hated, and with the new changes I'll probably hate even more (or probably just the same). The thing is, I preferred magic items when they were cool mysterious things you found on your adventuring. But when I played 3rd ed. I noticed people were building their characters around magic items (knowing they would have them). To me that cheapened the experience
Feats were basically very generalized character bonus property snapons that you would add (on average) every three levels. This could be anything from improving your character's skill at the short sword (Weapon Focus: Short Sword), to them gaining the general ability to to double the duration of beneficial spells (although doing so made them harder to cast). Prestige classes were basically specialized variants of the normal basic classes (or occupations, examples of classes would be fighter, mage, thief, etc.) that had special properties: examples include the "Frenzied Berserker" spinoff of the Barbarian, the "Assassin" spinoff of the Rogue, and so forth. Canon prestige classes were *in general* slightly weaker than the base classes they were derived from, but if used very very carefully in moderate proportions could be game-breakingly powerful (Fighter/Bard/Red Dragon Disciple/Frenzied Berserker players will know exactly what I am talking about). Both of those systems apparently got folded in to class-specific development trees, which is very similar to how (surprise!) World of Warcraft handles this basic concept.
I'll need more details to give my opinion on this, but if it reduces the munchkinism of prestige classes I'm all for it. Although I think a simple 'only one prestige class allowed' would have been enough
Racial Bonus system shedding ECL: ECL stands for Effective Character Level. With so many different races/sub-races in D&D it was impossible to keep them all balanced, so certain 'uber' races like Aasimar, Tieflings, Drow, and Deep Gnomes were assigned Effective Character Levels. What this basically meant was that they got pushed back one to three levels on the experience tree so that at the point where a human character was level 5, a drow party member of theirs was likely to be 3. Given the degree to which levels are the beginning and end of a character in D&D (particularly spell-casting classes, double-particularly sorcerers) this could make things very un-fun, especially in the upper game where levels are few and far inbetween. Getting rid of this comes as a massive relief to me, as it's always struck me as the single least pleasant 3.x convention.
But we'll have to see how they balance the fact that an ogre has natural reach (i.e. he can pretty much attack twice) and is much stronger than a human, or that a vampire can naturally charm, 'lifetap' and fly for example.
Well I find many of the jokes deal with the rules, so for those who have never played it, I don't see how it'd be funny. I know, for me I'm on the 407 or so and I just laugh as much or more as I did in the first ones, it hasn't lost its magic
Actually at this point, I'd say Bluray is in fact the winner. Several major stores already decided to only carry Bluray, and with the major surge of PS3 sales since its price-drop, it's all but official now.
Sony pretty much decided to risk their gaming console supremacy for the royalties from the Bluray movie format (or maybe they, in their arrogance, thought that they just couldn't lose it no matter what?).
I know I'm getting a PS3 soon, but being an RPG addict, it'll be mainly to play Bluray movies since there are no decent PS3 RPGs (turn based) for the next year or so.
Sheesh, whatever happened to good ol' "one model fits all", simple and easy to understand?
I don't remember deciding which Atari to get, or which Intellivision, or which Nintendo, or which PS2, or which Xbox. Why do they have to have 12 models depending on your sex and eye color?
I thought one of the main advantages of the consoles over PC was exactly that, one hardware configuration. Maybe that's why Wii is so popular (or are there several versions of Wii too?)
That's all good and dandy but, let's say you make up your mind and decide for your option "A": I am genuinely making games for adults... How can I learn to live with a rating that says 'Adults Only' when there are only 3 consoles out there and the 3 of them won't allow AO games in it? The way things are now, there is just no option "A".
Sometimes I wish consoles were just like PCs. Nobody, not Microsoft, nor Dell or Intel is telling anyone what programs they can run in the machines. Why are consoles any different? All 3 consoles can play DVDs, they can't stop people from inserting an "AO" movie in the drive... What's the difference?
I just don't know why they *must* be console exclusives. Sure, it's how they've done in the past, but then, this is a completely different market situation than what they've had in most of their releases. Here, you have 3 distinct players: The wildly successful but technologically challenged Wii, the 'western player majority' Xbox360, and the low sales high priced PS3. None of the 3 options is the 'right choice'.
I think the old 'exclusive' games should be relegated (in this day and age) to first party games, as showcases of their console, while 3rd party should just go multi-platform.
But even this decision is not the final one to make. After you decide going multi-platform, do you include the Wii or not? Its sales numbers certainly tempt you that way, but its far inferior technical capabilities make it so you have to 'downgrade' your game, thus risking another company to pull a 'FF killer' that only works in HD on the 360 and PS3.
It's easy to say 'it should have it'... have you stopped for a moment to think of how complicated the whole subject is in a MMO?
1) If you can do it, what's to stop people who want to harass someone to gather 3 people in front of a door and stopping everyone from leaving/entering? Make it so you can walk through PCs but not NPCs? So what if you 'pull' a mob and root him in front of a door, stopping people from passing through?
2) you're not talking about 12 people playing Quake online, this is hundreds or more in the same place. Collision detection would have to be done server-wise, otherwise it would be hackable. Say you're an archer in PvP, trying to shoot at someone that hides behind a tree, you wouldn't be able to do it because the tree is in the way, but the other guy with a hacked client could 'remove' the collision detection piece and shoot you from behind the tree.
3) Let's talk about physics like in Half-life, so you push a box and it falls. Fine in your computer, but then that same action has to be transferred to every player in the vicinity, and then they would have to see the same reactions, specially if that affects gameplay somehow (like the previously discussed collision detection). Imagine all the network traffic this would generate, and also consider lag. People with slower connections might not see the box fall at the same time as you do, how's their collision detection work then? will you be able to shoot them because the box is already on the ground while for them the box is still up?
You just have to realize that what applies to single player and small online games like Quake/Half-life just can't apply to massively online games.
I think the main problem is that nobody really knows anymore what an RPG is or should be. In its very essence, the "Role Playing Game" title could be applied to adventure games as well as RPGs. Basically, you assume the role of someone. Some pen and paper RPGs of the 80s didn't have stats.
The thing is, computer (and console) RPGs were derived from the grandmaster of them all, D&D. In D&D you had stats, so that's what video game RPGs emulated, to the point of transforming the 'Role' in RPG to 'Roll'. Basically, just a story where the computer 'rolled' (as in calculated) the attacks. The core concept of RPG now is basically a game with stats. If you have stats it's an RPG, if you don't, it's an 'adventure game'.
So in summary, computers and consoles divided the RPG genre into 'Adventure' (no stat RPG) and 'RPG' (stat RPG). Then the adventure subgenre pretty much died, leaving just the RPG subgenre (stat based games).
IMHO, for an RPG to keep that title, it should be the characters' stats what determine the outcome of battles, not the player's. I.E. to me, 'action based' RPGs are not RPGs. Sure they have stats, but if I as a player am slow with the button smashing, my character loses. That's why I prefer turn based RPGs, it's all about the characters' stats and skills
That reminds me of something I thought this morning. When I was a kid, I enjoyed playing Pong, it was great. A few years later I thought Space Invaders and Asteroids were awesome! I doubt that my classification of 'awesomeness' was different then than what it is now. I see Vanguard's graphics and I think they're awesome, but even though the graphics are 200000 times better, it's the same feeling I had when I saw Space Invaders 28 or so years ago.
Sometimes I wish it all stopped, and games just came for the same hardware specs for years and years. Games would be measured and compared in terms of gameplay instead of on how many megatrixels and hypershadowers they ultra-render.
Well, normally I just divide RPGs (console RPGs that is) in either turn-based or action. I stay away from action and play turn-based ones. One day I tried an action RPG because, maybe I was wrong, maybe I could like them. Checked one with very good reviews. Kingdom Hearts had an almost universal 9.5/10 score or something, so I tried it... Didn't like it.
So, the first thing I see is if it's action or turn based, and limit myself to the turn based ones. I guess I prefer selecting an action from a list of 20+ instead of remembering that I have to press XXYX for the fireball instead of XOXY for the lightning bolt.
But I may give it a try to those you mentioned, maybe rent them or something.
Hmm... I'm dubious about that button smashing part, when I play RPGs I don't want my reflexes to have any part in them, it's the character who has a 30 DEX, not me. Still, will keep an eye on that title (and it's not an X360 exclusive, rumor is that it's coming for the PS3 too, just not officially announced, and maybe in a delayed release)
What's so good about it? I saw some videos of it and, to tell you the truth, looks just like Fable to me.
I am more concerned about the absence of JRPGs (turn based) in both the 360 and the PS3. Looks like Sony wants to take people away from the 360 with action games and shooters, which is not going to happen, and it's neglecting one of their strongest points, one that the Xbox and the 360 barely touch.
I know in my case, I won't buy any console until I see which one has a library of RPGs. I could care less about shooters, sports or racing games.
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So I guess I'll have to be online to play any new Star Wars single player game and call it a 'feature'.
Actually, the best game they made (for my taste) was more like 8 years ago. Gladius (for Xbox/PS2) was an awesome game, one of my favorite games in any platform, consistently voted into all the "best games you probably haven't played" lists. Unfortunately it didn't sell well, so the planned sequel was scratched. Hopefully some company can buy the rights for very cheap and make a sequel.
I disagree: "1) a gaming PC is substantially more expensive than a console" False. You can buy a new computer, good enough to play most games out there, including monitor for $300-$400, or a similar laptop for $400. Xbox 360 and PS3 were more expensive than this when they came out. Also, games for consoles are not less than $50 for the most part, while most PC games are normally at least $10 cheaper. And in the case of the 360, you even have to pay an extra $50/year to play online. Is it really cheaper? "2) you frequently have driver and other compatibility problems" It might be true, although as a heavy gamer myself, I don't remember when was the last time I experienced this. Think it was some 7 or so years ago. "3) a number of PC games are launched in a rather buggy state" True for the vanilla CD/DVD version you take out of the box, but chances are by the time you install the game, there's already a patch auto-updated by the game. "4) the overall performance level of consoles has improved a lot in the latest generation" Indeed, which is about the performance of a 2-3 year old video card. Truth is, the real deterrent for developers is piracy. Yes you can pirate console games, but the issue is much more rampant in the PC world. Seems like only the mostly online games like MMOs (where you have to pay a monthly fee, regardless if you have a pirated copy of the game or not) and the casual games (where mom and grandma don't even know that games can be pirated) are financially successful for PCs.
So that means I'm too old for 4e lol. But still, wouldn't it be like a 50 point buy system from that sheet? a 20 INT, a 14, most other stats 10, that's like hmm... a lot of points to buy
Granted, I haven't read a thing about 4e so obviously what I'm about to say has no meaning but...
A 1st level character with 20 INT???
LOL I remember when I considered myself lucky if I had a 15 in a stat... 4d6 discard lowest roll rule FTW lol
I used to hate JRPGs too, but I got used to them, and now I actually like them. I had to, as the whole turn-based/party based RPG genre died for PC, and I just can't play the action RPGs.
Not quite. I watch DVDs from Netflix. I don't download too many songs from Itunes, but I do watch videos from YouTube. And what about those freaking bigger flash ads everywhere you click? Comcast has a monopoly of cable TV in many but many areas (mine included), but does it have a monopoly on Internet? Right now, I'm about to ditch them for Verizon Fios, and while I'm at it, remove my forced cable service and go for Dish.
Clerics beat druids, ask the Order of the Stick if you don't believe me :)
Except, of course, that Apple has an even worse history of being 'proprietaries' of their stuff, restricting any 3rd party development. I know I'm not upgrading to Vista for at least another year. So what if I miss seeing an extra shadow here and there in a game. Getting Vista just for DirectX 10 is not worth it
Well, 3rd ed came like 7 years ago... That Star Wars Saga came this year so 7 years after 3rd ed was released 4th ed. comes in 1 year That means, The Star Wars Saga is not obsolete for about 8 more years, so don't worry about it :)
Well I find many of the jokes deal with the rules, so for those who have never played it, I don't see how it'd be funny. I know, for me I'm on the 407 or so and I just laugh as much or more as I did in the first ones, it hasn't lost its magic
It's super funny (only for those "in the know" I think) http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html
Actually at this point, I'd say Bluray is in fact the winner. Several major stores already decided to only carry Bluray, and with the major surge of PS3 sales since its price-drop, it's all but official now. Sony pretty much decided to risk their gaming console supremacy for the royalties from the Bluray movie format (or maybe they, in their arrogance, thought that they just couldn't lose it no matter what?). I know I'm getting a PS3 soon, but being an RPG addict, it'll be mainly to play Bluray movies since there are no decent PS3 RPGs (turn based) for the next year or so.
Sheesh, whatever happened to good ol' "one model fits all", simple and easy to understand? I don't remember deciding which Atari to get, or which Intellivision, or which Nintendo, or which PS2, or which Xbox. Why do they have to have 12 models depending on your sex and eye color? I thought one of the main advantages of the consoles over PC was exactly that, one hardware configuration. Maybe that's why Wii is so popular (or are there several versions of Wii too?)
That's all good and dandy but, let's say you make up your mind and decide for your option "A": I am genuinely making games for adults... How can I learn to live with a rating that says 'Adults Only' when there are only 3 consoles out there and the 3 of them won't allow AO games in it? The way things are now, there is just no option "A". Sometimes I wish consoles were just like PCs. Nobody, not Microsoft, nor Dell or Intel is telling anyone what programs they can run in the machines. Why are consoles any different? All 3 consoles can play DVDs, they can't stop people from inserting an "AO" movie in the drive... What's the difference?
I just don't know why they *must* be console exclusives. Sure, it's how they've done in the past, but then, this is a completely different market situation than what they've had in most of their releases. Here, you have 3 distinct players: The wildly successful but technologically challenged Wii, the 'western player majority' Xbox360, and the low sales high priced PS3. None of the 3 options is the 'right choice'. I think the old 'exclusive' games should be relegated (in this day and age) to first party games, as showcases of their console, while 3rd party should just go multi-platform. But even this decision is not the final one to make. After you decide going multi-platform, do you include the Wii or not? Its sales numbers certainly tempt you that way, but its far inferior technical capabilities make it so you have to 'downgrade' your game, thus risking another company to pull a 'FF killer' that only works in HD on the 360 and PS3.
It's easy to say 'it should have it'... have you stopped for a moment to think of how complicated the whole subject is in a MMO? 1) If you can do it, what's to stop people who want to harass someone to gather 3 people in front of a door and stopping everyone from leaving/entering? Make it so you can walk through PCs but not NPCs? So what if you 'pull' a mob and root him in front of a door, stopping people from passing through? 2) you're not talking about 12 people playing Quake online, this is hundreds or more in the same place. Collision detection would have to be done server-wise, otherwise it would be hackable. Say you're an archer in PvP, trying to shoot at someone that hides behind a tree, you wouldn't be able to do it because the tree is in the way, but the other guy with a hacked client could 'remove' the collision detection piece and shoot you from behind the tree. 3) Let's talk about physics like in Half-life, so you push a box and it falls. Fine in your computer, but then that same action has to be transferred to every player in the vicinity, and then they would have to see the same reactions, specially if that affects gameplay somehow (like the previously discussed collision detection). Imagine all the network traffic this would generate, and also consider lag. People with slower connections might not see the box fall at the same time as you do, how's their collision detection work then? will you be able to shoot them because the box is already on the ground while for them the box is still up? You just have to realize that what applies to single player and small online games like Quake/Half-life just can't apply to massively online games.
I think the main problem is that nobody really knows anymore what an RPG is or should be. In its very essence, the "Role Playing Game" title could be applied to adventure games as well as RPGs. Basically, you assume the role of someone. Some pen and paper RPGs of the 80s didn't have stats. The thing is, computer (and console) RPGs were derived from the grandmaster of them all, D&D. In D&D you had stats, so that's what video game RPGs emulated, to the point of transforming the 'Role' in RPG to 'Roll'. Basically, just a story where the computer 'rolled' (as in calculated) the attacks. The core concept of RPG now is basically a game with stats. If you have stats it's an RPG, if you don't, it's an 'adventure game'. So in summary, computers and consoles divided the RPG genre into 'Adventure' (no stat RPG) and 'RPG' (stat RPG). Then the adventure subgenre pretty much died, leaving just the RPG subgenre (stat based games). IMHO, for an RPG to keep that title, it should be the characters' stats what determine the outcome of battles, not the player's. I.E. to me, 'action based' RPGs are not RPGs. Sure they have stats, but if I as a player am slow with the button smashing, my character loses. That's why I prefer turn based RPGs, it's all about the characters' stats and skills
That reminds me of something I thought this morning. When I was a kid, I enjoyed playing Pong, it was great. A few years later I thought Space Invaders and Asteroids were awesome! I doubt that my classification of 'awesomeness' was different then than what it is now. I see Vanguard's graphics and I think they're awesome, but even though the graphics are 200000 times better, it's the same feeling I had when I saw Space Invaders 28 or so years ago. Sometimes I wish it all stopped, and games just came for the same hardware specs for years and years. Games would be measured and compared in terms of gameplay instead of on how many megatrixels and hypershadowers they ultra-render.
The pong controller... everything else has too many directions. Up and down, that's all you need baby!
Well, normally I just divide RPGs (console RPGs that is) in either turn-based or action. I stay away from action and play turn-based ones. One day I tried an action RPG because, maybe I was wrong, maybe I could like them. Checked one with very good reviews. Kingdom Hearts had an almost universal 9.5/10 score or something, so I tried it... Didn't like it. So, the first thing I see is if it's action or turn based, and limit myself to the turn based ones. I guess I prefer selecting an action from a list of 20+ instead of remembering that I have to press XXYX for the fireball instead of XOXY for the lightning bolt. But I may give it a try to those you mentioned, maybe rent them or something.
Hmm... I'm dubious about that button smashing part, when I play RPGs I don't want my reflexes to have any part in them, it's the character who has a 30 DEX, not me. Still, will keep an eye on that title (and it's not an X360 exclusive, rumor is that it's coming for the PS3 too, just not officially announced, and maybe in a delayed release)
I saw this video http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=19505&ty pe=wmv&pl=game
When I said Fable I meant more like an action RPG, not a traditional RPG. Guess I should have said it's more like Kingdom Hearts.
What's so good about it? I saw some videos of it and, to tell you the truth, looks just like Fable to me. I am more concerned about the absence of JRPGs (turn based) in both the 360 and the PS3. Looks like Sony wants to take people away from the 360 with action games and shooters, which is not going to happen, and it's neglecting one of their strongest points, one that the Xbox and the 360 barely touch. I know in my case, I won't buy any console until I see which one has a library of RPGs. I could care less about shooters, sports or racing games.