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Okay, I understand what you mean Kein wink Thank for the reply about what YOU find a real RPG and now I full understand you love such a game IF you have (the feeling) you can make many different chooices that have "indelible impacts" in the future of your hero's life.

Okay, I can indeed put this "feature" into my list of all the possibilities for being a RPG:
6) my hero can make chooices of indelible impact for the rest of his role playing life !

Of course, there're more elements that can make that a game IS some kind of RPG ! (but mostly with elements of other genres!)

And Kein, IF a game have ONLY 1 or 2 from the RPG elements I sum up, sure I find it NOT good enough for me to buy it (because I mostly love RPG's to buy and play!!) !
Like you said:
If only weapons and armor can be found and switched to, but NO other RPG elements that game give, I never buy it! ONLY 1 or 2 features are simply not good enough for me! It's the commination of a few rpg elements together that can take enough my attention to buy such a game wink

For example :
if a game have skills, quests, some weapons and gear and a story, but furthermore not that really much of rpg-elements, but it have many puzzles to solve too, sure that game take my attention because I love it to puzzle in games, it's one of my favorite genres (adventures games) beside rpg's and some strategy - elements smile.

And that's why I find Divinity II for ME more than good enough to be a very strong RPG ! smile

Maybe one day I buy Dragon Age and try it (on xbox) ... maybe I understand you even better Kein wink


On 7th of february 2015 : I start a new adventure in the Divinity world of Original Sin,
it's a Fantastic Freaking Fabulous Funny ... it's my All Time Favorite One !
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Originally Posted by Kein
Did you complete DAO? If so - which ending?


Very good answer Kein up

The fact that DAO has several endings proves that it is not a linear game. I myself have seen 4 different endings only in Origins not to mention Awakening. Your actions do modify the pace and development of things.

For me DA is the best RPG game of 2009 and in terms of RPG features it can't be compared with DKS, which btw I loved for its action-oriented "RPG" style.

I won't even bother talking about ME because I really made an enormous effort to stay awoken when playing the game. That means I hated it.

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It's the path towards the ending that makes the game linear. No matter your choices, you always gain allies and always have to kill the Archdemon. What comes after is fluff.

Compare with Planescape: Torment, where different stats lead to an entirely different playthrough. Not to mention the game does not necessarily end with the mandatory killing of a boss.

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If DAo is still considered linear, then very, very few games are not


Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you. See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands... - Isaiah 49:15-16
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Originally Posted by virumor
It's the path towards the ending that makes the game linear. No matter your choices, you always gain allies and always have to kill the Archdemon. What comes after is fluff.

Compare with Planescape: Torment, where different stats lead to an entirely different playthrough. Not to mention the game does not necessarily end with the mandatory killing of a boss.


It is good that you have mentioned P:T since I mentioned it too in one of my previous posts.

Now, back to DAO. I thought my question was pretty obvious and served as the answer as well. Sigh... Okay, here we go:

Quote
No matter your choices, you always gain allies

Lies. The only ally we can't get rid of is the Alister. All others are optional, you can refuse to accept Lelliana's offer, you could miss Sten if you haven't persuade him to join you. You can kill Wynn and piss off Morrigan (via camp talk or in the Mage's Tower), you can reject Oghren, you can kill Zevran...
Srsly, how about you learn a bit of subj before join to the convo discuss? Being ignorant and using exaggeration to support your point leads convo to nothing.

As the ultimate statement related to the thread's subj: D2 has NO choice at all. You even can't kill Talana instead of accepting her powers. But there is such (similar) option in the dialog! Meh...

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Originally Posted by Kein

Lies. The only ally we can't get rid of is the Alister. All others are optional, you can refuse to accept Lelliana's offer, you could miss Sten if you haven't persuade him to join you. You can kill Wynn and piss off Morrigan (via camp talk or in the Mage's Tower), you can reject Oghren, you can kill Zevran...
Srsly, how about you learn a bit of subj before join to the convo discuss? Being ignorant and using exaggeration to support your point leads convo to nothing.

As the ultimate statement related to the thread's subj: D2 has NO choice at all. You even can't kill Talana instead of accepting her powers. But there is such (similar) option in the dialog! Meh...

Are you deliberately failing at reading comprehension or are you just blinded by fanboy raeg? Your condescending attitude in this in other threads is as always hilarious.

Allies = golems or Dwarves, Dalish Elves or Werewolves, mages or Templars, NOT party members. The whole point of the game is gathering allies to smite the evil hordes.

"D2 has no choice at all" is also false. Take for example the quest with the letter of the farmer's wife and the quest where you must choose your trainer.

Anyway, you're right though. Discussing something with the likes of you leads to nowhere.

Last edited by virumor; 30/11/10 07:00 PM.
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The fact that DAO has several endings proves that it is not a linear game. I myself have seen 4 different endings only in Origins not to mention Awakening. Your actions do modify the pace and development of things.

yeah, I still can't get some time to finish it without any companions :P Just to see what the ending I can get.

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I won't even bother talking about ME because I really made an enormous effort to stay awoken when playing the game. That means I hated it.

Yeah, I hate Casual Effect as well :P

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Derp, funny guy. Are you deliberately failing at reading comprehension or are you just blinded by fanboy raeg? Your condescending attitude in this in other threads is as always hilarious.

I guess it is obvious who is the raging fanboy here? :P

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Allies = golems or Dwarves, Dalish Elves or Werewolves, mages or Templars, NOT party members. The whole point of the game is gathering allies to smite the evil hordes.

Sigh.
But that's the whole point of the plot... Just like getting a Dragon Stone and help from Patriarch in the D2. The hueg difference between those games is that in DAO you can choose to where you will head first: Orzammar, Mage's Tower or may be Elven Woods; to whom you will help: werewolves or elves, Prince Bhelen or Lord Harrowmont. In the end, your final support in final battle can change. Show me similar freedom of choice in D2 and tell me how it's affects it's ending.

Anyway, what are you trying to tell makes no sense to me, there must be a plotline in the game, no matter if it's linear or not.
<insert_captain_obvious_picture_here.jpg>

Please, calm down and think a bit before post.

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"D2 has no choice at all" is also false. Take for example the quest with the letter of the farmer's wife and the quest where you must choose your trainer.

Amazing, And what does it changes in the ending of the game? Like, for example, if you play as dalish elf (YOU CAN PLAY DIFFERENT CHARACTERS IN DAO boldboldcapsboldcapstodrawattention) in DAO you can achieve freedom for the whole Dalish elves. What changes in D2's ending when you choose different trainers (which is not really different)?

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Anyway, you're right though. Discussing something with the likes of you leads to nowhere.

Ookaaaay?

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OK, I'll bite again. Slow day and all.

Originally Posted by Kein

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Derp, funny guy. Are you deliberately failing at reading comprehension or are you just blinded by fanboy raeg? Your condescending attitude in this in other threads is as always hilarious.

I guess it is obvious who is the raging fanboy here? :P

NO U


Originally Posted by Kein
Quote
Allies = golems or Dwarves, Dalish Elves or Werewolves, mages or Templars, NOT party members. The whole point of the game is gathering allies to smite the evil hordes.

Sigh.
But that's the whole point of the plot... Just like getting a Dragon Stone and help from Patriarch in the D2. The hueg difference between those games is that in DAO you can choose to where you will head first: Orzammar, Mage's Tower or may be Elven Woods; to whom you will help: werewolves or elves, Prince Bhelen or Lord Harrowmont. In the end, your final support in final battle can change. Show me similar freedom of choice in D2 and tell me how it's affects it's ending.

Anyway, what are you trying to tell makes no sense to me, there must be a plotline in the game, no matter if it's linear or not.
<insert_captain_obvious_picture_here.jpg>

Please, calm down and think a bit before post.

Erm, ok. I was just correcting the following statement of yours, where you confused allies with party members and accused me of being a liar (tsk, tsk):

Quote

Lies. The only ally we can't get rid of is the Alister. All others are optional, you can refuse to accept Lelliana's offer, you could miss Sten if you haven't persuade him to join you. You can kill Wynn and piss off Morrigan (via camp talk or in the Mage's Tower), you can reject Oghren, you can kill Zevran...
Srsly, how about you learn a bit of subj before join to the convo discuss? Being ignorant and using exaggeration to support your point leads convo to nothing.




Originally Posted by Kein
Amazing, And what does it changes in the ending of the game? Like, for example, if you play as dalish elf (YOU CAN PLAY DIFFERENT CHARACTERS IN DAO boldboldcapsboldcapstodrawattention) in DAO you can achieve freedom for the whole Dalish elves. What changes in D2's ending when you choose different trainers (which is not really different)?

My point is that it doesn't matter how many choices DAO has if they all lead to the same outcome, i.e. making use of them to defeat the Archdemon. The game can have a million choices, they're meaningless if choosing has no negative affect whatsoever and leads to success regardless.

It doesn't matter if you can be a Dalish Elf or City Elf or human noble or whatever, if these origins don't affect gameplay significantly. No matter your origins, you will always go to Ostagar, go to the four main quest hubs, go to the Landsmeet and kill the Archdemon. Origins affect nothing save a few dialogue options upon returning to the place of origins near the end of the game. Gameplay is identical in all cases... there are no factions like in Fallout, Risen or the Gothic games. What BioWare offers is not choice, but illusion of choice.

The game effectively 'ends' with the death of the Archdemon. What comes after, is a prologue containing meaningless story fluff to give the player the impression that their choices actually mattered in the form of a list of slides.

Larian could also have included some slides mentioning what happened to all the people you helped (or didn't help) or to the locations you visited, but they didn't.

Anyway, let's agree to disagree.

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My point is that it doesn't matter how many choices DAO has if they all lead to the same outcome

Well said!
I'm going to tell those ppl that they are completely mistaken and has no idea about what DAO is!

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Originally Posted by Kein

yeah, I still can't get some time to finish it without any companions :P Just to see what the ending I can get.


Now that you've mentioned it I'm willing to replay the game to check that as well. The most spetacular ending I got was the one I got by the third time I played (with my char being a dwarf noble and killing the archdemon). But then lets not get deep into it. After all this is not a DAO forum.

A very interesting discussion going on here. So cool to see how games can get to the players like that. But my position didn't change at all. I like DKS very much but I stand for DA =) in terms of RPG features.

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DAO and DKS are two great games with good points for both of them. Still In terms of game duration and features, they are in a same quality... So enjoy both of them...

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As a hardcore RPG player since the early 80's I can confidently say - Oblivion an Fallout 3 are the greatest travisties ever inflicted on the RPG genre. Bethesda (since Morrowind) have gone to hell in a handbasket. Supremely streamlined (dumbed down) for consoles. Lifeless game worlds devoid of soul, cut and paste dungeons, excruciatingly bad dialog and writing, supremely poor and simplistic quest design, fake choice and consequences (all choices leading to the same outcome). Simply, the most overrated games in history. Though I can see how they might appeal to casual / newer gamers - which is exactly the audience Bethesda was targeting, because it's now the lagest audience.

New Vegas (made by Obsidian), on the other hand, is much better and deviod of most of the points listed above - Fallout 3 done right. Obsidian, consisting of developers of the original Fallout games, may not have the greatest programmers, but they at least know how to make a real RPG.

Bioware of late, are not much better. DA:O being their best effort in years, but still with a lot of the problems applicable above - noteabley, ridiculous dialog, fake C&C and teri-bad, boring filler combat. I won'nt even bother discussing the Mass Effect's, they are 'cover shooters', not RPG's (especially ME2).

Smaller studios like Larian, Obsidian, Reality Pump, Piranha Bytes, CDPR etc, are our only hope for the future, as lager sudious now exclusivly focus on the casual/console demographic.

DKS is a great RPG/ARPG hybrid. Combat could be a little less 'twitchy' and a little more 'in-depth', but otherwise it's fantastic - but please Larian devs, never, EVER include the word 'streamline' in your vocabulary. up




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Ugh, would everybody please stop dissing other games in these ridiculous hyperbolic terms? All of the games mentioned here, all of them, have been made by hard-working teams, are well-delivered and enjoyed by millions of people. Is it really so necessary to have SOMETHING to hate? We can do without hate, you know. And what's the point of telling other people they're wrong when they like game X? It's like saying "Stop having fun with that, you idiot! Have fun with this instead!"
Honestly... It leads to utterly pointless animosity.


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I suppose it all matters where you started gaming. For me my first RPG was Dungeons & Dragons, closely followed by AD&D, this was in my early teens. Those to me are REAL RPG's.

So in this electronic world we live in the term RPG has been torn to shreds trying to make a format that initially was on P&P to the computer, and then further down the line to consoles. Playing both combined now for past 20 yrs or so.. I can say what the genre is, and what it is supposed to be are two different beasts. For a vast majority of gamers these days, especially the fantasy genre, grew up playing or familiar with World of Warcraft, whilst the slightly older group played (anything prior).

For me the gaming world changed a lot, while the game itself may be poop, it woke up the masses and brought a whole new wave of gamers . Crap I remember years ago my little sister telling me she started an account, asking me what server I played on ect,..too bad for her I'd stopped 2 yrs prior. To say the least my not so gamer sister started playing a MMO. I thought chickens would start falling out of the sky! eek

The reason I bring up WoW, is not for any reason outside of the fact since they seemingly have a monopoly on the gaming market, not because of game quality, but marketing. This is unfortunate because smaller companies can either jump on the current trends bandwagon, and live off WoW stragglers, or carve their own name into gaming history. Though the current economy does not really allow for much breathing room, risks are big, and money is in short supply.

So back to the OP, for me this game is closest to the Baldurs Gate series, or even Neverwinter Nights meets Diablo series of games. Divinity contains elements from both of these games. The search, find, figure out was a big part of the Neverwinter/Baldurs series, mixed with the action packed find the best gearness of the Diablo series.

For me this game has alot of good going for it, fun, makes you think, and then think again. As for compairing to games like Oblivion, Risen, Gothic, or w/e those games are made from cookie-cutters, with the exception of Oblivion, that game series is descent.

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I think it's too easy to get hung up on what constitutes a "real RPG". Especially if you ask a bunch of RPGers, you'll probably end up with more answers than there are people to give them.

What it really comes down to is "is this game fun?" Whether than answer is "yes" or "no" it's largely immaterial whether or not it fits the elusive definition of whether or not it's a "real RPG". It's much like the same problem people face where they don't like Oblivion because it's not Morrowind II, they don't like Fallout 3 because it's not Fallout 2 II, they don't like Gothic 3 because it has better graphics and is therefore "teh lame" and so forth. They're missing the point which is, are they fun? They can certainly be made not fun by measuring them up against artificial metrics and seeing them fall short.

To be honest I couldn't give a monkey's if Ego Draconis or Oblivion or Stalker or Sims 3 or Pacman measure up to someone else's definition. If they're fun I'll enjoy them; if they're not I'll play something else. If they have the potential to be better I'll look at that: e.g. a lot of people who hated Oblivion and refused to play it have missed out on an experience if they never tried it with FCOM.

What's interesting is that I read a lot of stuff talking about some mythical "golden age" of video games, where people generally refer to a time about 10 years ago; it does vary, but the reason I choose that particular era is that for me personally it was a really miserable dark age of gaming where nothing appealed. Am I wrong? Or are they wrong? Neither, and that's the point. It's a subjective matter, and I wouldn't dream of saying the games back then were actually crap just because I didn't like them; and neither do I welcome the opinion that today's games are "dumbed down" for specious reasons including a handful of examples where that may hold true and because they no longer have headache-inducing graphics for the most part.

I suppose in summary there's little to be gained by saying to someone "your favourite game isn't a real RPG, it's a dumbed down pile of offal that appeals to <sniff> casual gamers. And you smell of elderberries" other to cause antagonism, often leading to the sort of discussion that will generally create more heat than light.


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We were actually thinking of changing our name to Streamline Studios wink

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You are correct Vometea, what matters most is what the individual likes, what I think a RPG is, and what you think, is rather secondary. My comments were geared at the type of decisions Producers/Programmers face when designing the modern RPG. Taking a chance and mixing it up, or following the trends.

I for one like to see new ideas, and ways of creating feel, atmosphere, tension, excitement, and drama. Those qualities plus a few others make a quality RPG, good programming, solid game play, a good engine, and quality sounds/graphics, make for a good game. Combining the two is the art.

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Originally Posted by Lar_q
We were actually thinking of changing our name to Streamline Studios wink

That would fit :o

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Originally Posted by Daft

For me this game has alot of good going for it, fun, makes you think, and then think again. As for compairing to games like Oblivion, Risen, Gothic, or w/e those games are made from cookie-cutters, with the exception of Oblivion, that game series is descent.


That's just Daft (sorry, couldn't resist) grin

You ruined a fist class post in the last couple of lines. The Gothic series and Risen (the real Gothic 4) are bloody fantastic ARPG/RPG hybrids (just like DKS in fact) - anything but cookie-cutter. Oblivion, on the other hand, is just a totally bland, cut&paste, wothless POS.

Everything else in your post is spot on though up

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