I was wrong

[GhanBuriGhan]

To be fair he could have been talking about the physics as well.

Technically, yes, SOME of what Todd said refers to the physics, but overall, what do things like "feeling the string draw", realistic arrow arcs, and most importantly "arrows sticking deep inside materials" add to gameplay? At this point I'd say "nothing", and that's why I file all that crap under "graphics". We can try splitting some hair if someone wants, but what would be the point of that?

There are things that matter to gameplay and there are things that don't. Simple as that. I'd say that crossbows with unrealistic arcs and bolts that don't stick out of whatever crap you shoot them at matter much more than "grand implementation" of bows. My 2 cents.

Sure, I am not sure either really matters. But in the end a lot of little things that don't matter may add up to make a game interesting or not. I obviously don't know what they are doing with it, I was merely pointing out that what they did goes beyond "Teh shiny" and at least has the potential to be made good use of gameplay wise. And I am sure we can both imagine a few things beyond mere lever switching, that was just one example. What I personally don't understand is why adding bolts and crossbows if you already have arrows and bows would be so hard.

RPGs don't need realistic intertpretations of phenomena using real physics. The entire point of RPGs is to use a comparatively simple mathematical model to substitute for all that. I don't want to have to measure wind velocity, weigh my arrow to see what the gravitational force on it will be, determine what angle I need to fire it at so it'll get there and then apply just the right tension to the bowstring--I just want to roll my bow skill against the other dude's defense rating and be done with it.

Well, if you look at GURPS or Rolemaster rulesets or similar systems, you know what an awful amount of work went into making these simple systems as realistic as possible within the confines of a P&P system. And CRPGS as well have striven to do the best with the technology available at the time. If computers today have the capacity to give a more realistic simulation of the world, than I am usually all for it, unless the implementation is realistic at the cost of becoming tedious, which you seem to refer to. I am pretty sure that whatever Beth is doing with bows, it's not gonna be an archery simulation, as keeping things playable and fun seems to be their top priority (for which they then get accused of dumbing down, of course). Again, I think a nice physics driven implementation of bowshooting can be fun and interesting, and I guess we could think of a few gameplay things beyond lever switching too - I already mentioned setting of traps. Whether its good enough to offset the loss of variety in the marksman category, remains to be seen of course.

 

[Drakron]

Aiming with a mouse just makes it depending on MY skills to aim and not the CHARACTER skill to aim and there is were lies the diference of a RPG and a FPS.

If you dont get that you are simply too stupid to know what a RPG is diferent from a FPS or a adventure game.

RPGs cover distance and reach, weapons all have a range or reach modifiers ... cover is a bit tricky because its not something that can be easy implemented in a CRPG due to technical limitations, most of the time cover is done by using statics objects "block" but that is not really cover since it rarely takes size in consideration and so is still a bad implementation of cover, if my character can see a enemy to take a shoot at him it means he is going to aim at the enemy, cover just screws up with the character ability to hit the target because part of him is covered but let me put this way, a cardboard box is not going to stop a 9mm bullet and a enemy hiding behind TV set cardboard box have pretty much no cover in combat but then we have "out-of-combat" cover that can help a character to not be detected.

And that leads to a buch of modifiers that adds a large amount of variables that reach a point people would spend 3 hours roling dices to walk 5 meters and that serves pretty much no point, RPG uses abstract concepts to speed up gameplay so we dont take a week to roll a new character.

Even if CRPGs have a computer doing all the calculations there is still the need to keep it as simply as possible to speed up game performance and there is still the problem of having a very long and complicated character generation process and the player having to know the large amount of rules being used.

Besides "realistic" means I get hit with a sword and I die, I dont lose HP and keep going.

 

[kris]

Well, if you look at GURPS or Rolemaster rulesets or similar systems, you know what an awful amount of work went into making these simple systems as realistic as possible within the confines of a P&P system. And CRPGS as well have striven to do the best with the technology available at the time. If computers today have the capacity to give a more realistic simulation of the world, than I am usually all for it, unless the implementation is realistic at the cost of becoming tedious, which you seem to refer to. I am pretty sure that whatever Beth is doing with bows, it's not gonna be an archery simulation, as keeping things playable and fun seems to be their top priority (for which they then get accused of dumbing down, of course).

It is a archery simulation when the player is the one having to take physics into consideration. In a RPG it is the character that either is good or bad at shooting and succes is rated upon that.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

Aiming with a mouse just makes it depending on MY skills to aim and not the CHARACTER skill to aim and there is were lies the diference of a RPG and a FPS.

If you dont get that you are simply too stupid to know what a RPG is diferent from a FPS or a adventure game.

The argument could have worked without the insult.

I don't buy the "its my characters skill" criterion, though. Of course it can't be a RPG without character skills, and we already know how skills factor into Oblivions combat system. However, every CRPG is a balance between character skill and player skill, they just lean more to one side or the other in different areas. If you like turn based and use tactics in turn based, than thats your skill, not the chracters. If you solve a riddle, that's your skills, not the characters. If you gauge and find the best options in a dialogue tree, that's your skill, not the characters. If everything went by character skills, the game would have to play itself.
Or, to look at it in reverse: if I can only win a certain key fight by having super reflexes on the mouse and keyboard, then that would be very "FPS". If that happens to be true at level 3 but I have the option to go, level up a few times and improve my skills, and then win that fight easily, than it's still a RPG in my book.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Aiming with a mouse just makes it depending on MY skills to aim and not the CHARACTER skill to aim and there is were lies the diference of a RPG and a FPS.

Actually I would hazard that the difference between an RPG and an FPS lies in the focus of gameplay; how one is using the interface is largely peripheral. I aim with a mouse when making combat decisions in Fallout; I select weapons, targets and targetted shots with the mouse, yet, no one will argue that because of this the game is an FPS. I also aim with a mouse when making combat decisions in Wizardry 8, and the game is also not an FPS.

The disctinction which I think really needs to be made is not about how the interface is used (ie, accusing a game like Diablo 2 as being a 'point and click' game would pretty disingenious considering pretty much all videogames are 'point and click'), but how the interface and the game system work together in cause and effect. Simply aiming with a mouse wheter in first or third person does not help differentiate a genre from the other; however, when you need to aim and act based simultaneously because the game expects you to use your reflexes to succeed then you can pretty much consider that the system is departing the traditional RPG framework.

I don't buy the "its my characters skill" criterion, though. Of course it can't be a RPG without character skills, and we already know how skills factor into Oblivions combat system. However, every CRPG is a balance between character skill and player skill, they just lean more to one side or the other in different areas. If you like turn based and use tactics in turn based, than thats your skill, not the chracters. If you solve a riddle, that's your skills, not the characters. If you gauge and find the best options in a dialogue tree, that's your skill, not the characters. If everything went by character skills, the game would have to play itself.

For the most part the traditional RPG has always been about a very simple rule: players decide, characters act (as annoying as he may be at times, Sarvis mentioned this very point in one long tirade in a News post). It has always been based around that notion; player input is only required when characters cannot perform it themselves. It's with the advent of transposing the concept of RPG into a videogame that further steps into player interactivity have been made. I'm only behind a character when it comes to decision-making; the character is there to act out what I order. However, while both elements are necessary that doesn't mean that player skill should override character skill beyond what it necessary. It can override it, but at this point it's departing from the concept of controlling a character since you as a player are much more necessary to the game than some arbitrary, background set of numbers.

As for your riddle example it should be noted that players shouldn't solve riddles considering riddles are aimed at characters. The problem is that more often than not things like riddles are there only for the player; but characters should be allowed to solve a riddle based on their skills instead of taking the back seat.

 

[Drakron]

In RPGs players direct character actions, the success or failure of such actions depends on the character skills

There is no balance issue, a mage sould not be a better warrior that a fighter because the player playing the mage have better reflexes and eye-hand cordination that the player playing the fighter.

The fact you COMPLETLY miss the point shows you dont grasp the issue that many of us have with the direction RPGs are going.

Complaining that players solve a riddle with the skills is incredible stupid argument because the reason that happens is because most of the time there is no character skill involved in such riddles, no "right anwer" shows next to a dialogue option to show the players the character knows the anwer and I say most of the time because BioWare did that with some of their puzzles in KotOR.

The fact a player goes a optimal path is because the player chosen that path, the player decides and the character acts.

 

[Kuato]

RPGs like JE, Fable and Oblivion are straying further and further from what role playing is about by focusing on literal graphical representaion and simulation they leave less and less to the imagination,if these games could be a little more implied and less literal, and rely more on the power of the players imagination you could definutely save some time and money on the developement side, But of course there would have to be some damn good design and story to capture someones imagination.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

Drakron, of course I can grasp what you are saying, I just don't think it has much merit.

As you can see from the post above there are some that think that riddles should solve themselves based on the character, so obviously it wasn't such a bad example. And most RPG systems have a stat called "intelligence" and sometimes "perception" that would be perfectly suited for the task, so what's your point here. It's not in because it would make the game boring. In factl, for me that would really be dumbing down, much more than any possible combat implementation.

You say "the player decides, the character acts", but that's a rather empty catchphrase, as its completely open to interpretation by the designer at what level to separate decision and action. You could say "attack" is the only decision the player has to make, you can let him decide how to attack, and you can go to any degree of specificity. All that really says is that at some point the rulesystem has to take over, whther thats when I click in a real time combat engine, or in a turnbased one is beside the point, as long as the character stats are involved in the outcome in some way. Roleplayer has it right when he states that it's about the focus of the gameplay. I would add that that has to take the whole package into account, you can't decide based on the combat system alone.

 

[Screaming_Dude_In_Vegas]

Bows are a smaller issue. The world is more linear.

They said that programming in many options would take too much time, even thou they can't reach 1/2 of the number of options Fallout had 8 years ago. Less guilds, less balanced skills, less items, more graphics.

How manny times do I have to say this: Do you own the game? If you hate it so much, can I please have it?

I'm not sure where they said that, considering that they wanted to to do the whole multiple ways to do each quest bit.

Anyways, more skills is not necisarely better, and I'm not sure how you know they are unbalanced already.

As for guilds, if they are trying to make each quest interesting, then hay, I'll take 4 guilds instead of 11. You forget that all of MW's guild quests were "kill person x" "Get Item y" "Bring Item z to person a".

As for Items, I actually counted the number of items in MW, and including every catigory of item aside from static (things like rocks and buildings) their are about 6,000 items in morrowind. OB is estimated at 9,000. Just incase you can't count, 9,000 is more than 6,000.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

You say "the player decides, the character acts", but that's a rather empty catchphrase, as its completely open to interpretation by the designer at what level to separate decision and action.

Decision and action are fairly easy to distinguish, even in the context of CRPGs if not moreso. It's straightforward enough to establish how the player and character act; the problem resides in qualifying just when they should act. I think having them both act together or separately is what distinguishes between the two, and what defines what is more approximate to, or more removed form an RPG.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

You say "the player decides, the character acts", but that's a rather empty catchphrase, as its completely open to interpretation by the designer at what level to separate decision and action.

Decision and action are fairly easy to distinguish, even in the context of CRPGs if not moreso. It's straightforward enough to establish how the player and character act; the problem resides in qualifying just when they should act. I think having them both act together or separately is what distinguishes between the two, and what defines what is more approximate to, or more removed form an RPG.

But isn't the WHEN, what this (sidetracked) discussion is about? Should my decision end when I decide to attack X? Or when I have decided how to attack him? Or when I have decided how to attack him where, using what attack style? And does it matter wether I decide this in realtime or in a tactical turnbased game? Of course that may matter as to what you like best, but I don't see it deciding what a RPG and what is not. Maybe I misunderstand what you are saying, though...

Kuato, I want immersion, and for whatever it's worth, great graphics help me with that. I think it's what distinguishes CRPG's from P&P, that they rely less on imagination and more on the computres capabilities to conjure a world inside your mind (not that one is necessarily better than the other!). As to imagination, I could bring that argument up as a justification for MW's Wikipedia dialogue, don't you think? That's actually what I did, imagine the "real" dialogue behind the dry info. But most people don't like that, and I can't blame them. But the same goes for graphics too.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

But isn't the WHEN, what this (sidetracked) discussion is about?

Yes, that was my point. The when (and maybe to a lesser point the how) is what determines just how much the game would adhere to the traditional notion of RPG.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

But isn't the WHEN, what this (sidetracked) discussion is about?

Yes, that was my point. The when (and maybe to a lesser point the how) is what determines just how much the game would adhere to the traditional notion of RPG.

Key word being traditional. But it's a whole different discussion wether something is a traditional RPG versus if it's a good RPG. In my case I think that strict adherence to traditional RPG schemes can make a great game, but also that a more freeform style can be even more satisfying.

 

[Screaming_Dude_In_Vegas]

Well thats one definition. I think the people they are "misleading" are the dumbasses who got lost in morrowind (and will prboably end up stuck in OB too).

Hmm... Too little is known to reassure me that they are not up to no good...

As for the dumbasses in question: I agree. How anyone could have managed to get lost in Morrowind amazes me!

"Derrr....I ran into the water and I don't know what direction to go in...I know, I'll just keep swimming and I'll hit an invisible wall!" Thats one way...

But the complex interactions will be fixed, scripted, events that have a low tolerance for freestyle gameplay.

How the hell do you know that?...do you have the game? It sounds like you don't like it, in that case, I'll be happy to take it off your hands

If they were not fixed, scripted, events then killing NPCs wouldn't be a problem!

:wink:

Not realy. I'm thinking of more persistant things like patrolls and such, which actually need to be subject to change.

I can think of quite afew GAME WORLD (not purely MQ) operations that would revolve around a central NPC. Crime, trade, imperial legion comand, ect... are just afew of the things that would work this way.

I think (and this is pure speculation, but then again I am an insane fanboy who has read prettimuch everything there is to read on OB, so I am educated in the matter) this is more a case of "OK, are we going to fill half of the theives guild missions with 'fed-ex quests' and let you kill every NPC while keeping AI operations intact, or are we going to give the thieves guild it's full share of interesting quests?"

I personaly rather have the thieves guild quests fleshed out more and have afew random people be "off limets"

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but what you are suggesting would greatly increase the number of non-killable NPCs?

I'm not sugesting anything hear, just saying that I rather have them work on better quests than figure out ways so that every single NPC can be killed for everyone.

The point is to create a method of offloading pre-defined quests to other NPCs so although the quest concept may remain the actors in that quest are changeable. Add to that emergent quests and you have a very fleshed out series of guild quests!

Voice acting space is a problem there. Maby if it were a PC exclusive where you could have multiple DVDs...

I admit that if you manage to kill enough NPCs then you may break a quest but then that would be the quest outcome - you chose to kill them all and you should accept the consequenses.

Stupid people need to be sheilded, after all, they are where the money is, and the more money beth makes, the more likely they are to ditch the crappy Gamebyro (formerly known as net immerse) engine and go with the unreal engine. As I said before, I can change the whole bit in the CS, and I will.

Where did you get the faction quests from?

While they have not told us the names of the factions we have had indication that they will be present in one form or another. With their push on complex quests it is a reasonable supposition that factions will have major quests and so they will include major quest critical NPCs.

They have confirmed The three guilds and the dark brotherhood. The arena is suposed to be like a faction, with ranks and all (but I doubt any overall storyline),a dn they've been silent on the nine devines.

Major storylines with quest critical NPCs dosn't mean invincible. I think they are doing it only for the MQ because that is what is haned to you in the beginning, and what is most likely to be done first. Once people get off the main road, I think bethsada is going to take the kid gloves off.

True, but second best in one area. The focus on other areas too.

It is a pretty important area though!!

There are much more important things IMHO

And don't bring up "Shiny graphics over gameplay!!!!!" or somthing like that. Bethsoft has a large team. They have plenty of artists who make 3D modles, plenty of programmers to program, plenty of people to manage the voice actors, ect... No one is neglecting their area to work on another.

I don't believe that I have ever said that - although I have pointed out that there is a finite budget and money spent on artists, vioce actors, etc... could have been spent on more programmers... Are you telling me that they have an infinite budget?

More programers is not necisarely better. Too manny and they will get in eachothers way, and they become harder to coordinate.

I'd prefer they released a finished game rather than a development kit that allows me to finish it for them or make my own. It is also worth noting that there are limits to what the CS can do.

Me too, but I don't think that it will be unfinished because afew NPC's will cause auto-reload upon death.

True, there are limets, but unchecking a box in an NPC menu is not one of them. The devs aren't going to hardcode the killable/non-killable npcs into the game. I am so sure of this that I will install Windows ME on my computer if I am wrong.

I will admit that I am a little not-so much with the caring thing because I intend on opening up the CS first thing and making everyone killable, see if the game works, and if it dose, yay. I probably would be on your side if I was using a 360...

But it is settling for second best rather than addressing the problem...

You mean clear a checkbox that they've put in as a stop-gap measure to prevent problems they expect to crop up? That desn't sound like a smart move to me... Neither does putting Windows ME on you system - there's some things you just shouldnt joke about!

It's a checkbox in the CS, which is the tool their using, and the tool that we're getting. The basic thing about the CS is "It's a powerful tool, and you could screw up your game if you mess with it" They haven't done horrible things to it yet.

I'm getting the PC version myself but I'd rather not need to manually disable their stop-gap measures before playing...

Good for you. And guess what, download it. The thing will be a mod just like anything else done in the CS, and will probably be one of the first ones up (alongside nudity mods, uberweapon mods, and town filled with monsters mods)

I do have to point out that they realy only have time to develope one new technology themselves. That would require alot of new stuff. Maby in the future. You got to remember, this is only a game. I got other things to do. And if you don't have other things to do, then you should be too disapointed with your life to notice that the game just isn't a godly program of life-replacement.

And I accepted that but if they were aware that there would be a limitation on spoken text, and lets face it they should be, then declaring a fully voiced game seems like a bad idea - maybe not for Oblivion as an action/adventure game but it is for the purposes of making a CRPG.

Immersion is a big factor, and voice is more immersive. Anyways, text is fine, but by no means better, because good tech that simulates langauge isn't availible, and the ability to use the players name isn't that special.

Exactly, can't work at the moment. I don't badmouth the original DOOM for not having havock physics.

The physics was good enough - there was a perceptable gravity that acted on objects - although there we not that may object for it to act on! And of course Doom had some pretty damn fine addictiveness that helped it's cause somewhat...

As for realistic for being a FPS then yes I can critisise it - it wasn't a good game for a number of reasons: lack of physics among them!

You can critizize it all you want, but lack of physics is a stupid reson considering that physics engines didn't exist at the time. Let me put it this way, what if I said packman sucked because it didn't have bump-mapping?

It's my opinion that the only way to get that fealing of personality is for the NPCs to be individually crafted by humans. You just can't do that with a computer, no matter how much fancy new tech you have.

Fair enough - but keep in mind that humans would be the ones to craft the tech. It is possible.

In therory it is possible, but the personalization just isn't possible when it's not an individualised thing.

Well that can be done with RAI...

Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!

Unless they decide to put children in RadiantAI will not work in the context I was referring to.

I may be wrong of course as I'm only basing my understanding of RadientAI on the slew of info that has been released. So I'm just making educated guesses!

Your realy making annoying blatent assumptions based on a about half of the avilible reasources out there.

 

[Psilon]

Um, Gamebryo doesn't suck, and in fact is a damn fine engine for many gaming, VR, and simulation applications. It works great in Freedom Force, for instance. The problems with Morrowind are largely the result of the Bethesda-specific enhancements. (Or, more specifically, we didn't have similar issues with frame rate, etc. when we were monkeying around with an evaluation copy. We weren't doing much in the way of additional optimization, either, and our models were way over the polygon quota for Morrowind. If it weren't for its Direct3D-only renderer, we'd probably have pushed harder to get it.)

Not that Unreal doesn't rock, but sometimes it can charitably be described as overkill. A lot of things like client/server replication, vehicle code, bots, VoIP, and the like aren't necessary for a single-player RPG.

 

[Shagnak]

Yeah, Gamebryo is a pretty damn flexible gfx engine.

A list of some games that use it:

http://www.ndl.com/customers-overview.cfm

"Gamebryo has been used in the development of more than 70 titles on consoles and on the PC, with more than 50 currently in development"...so there are no doubt a heap that any of us have played that we are unaware use the engine.

 

[Kuato]

Kuato, I want immersion, and for whatever it's worth, great graphics help me with that. I think it's what distinguishes CRPG's from P&P, that they rely less on imagination and more on the computres capabilities to conjure a world inside your mind (not that one is necessarily better than the other!)..

My point is that immersion is different than simulation, immersion believe it or not can be achieved with out graphics or very little graphics and much more effieciently and it can also be more powerful, It is simulation that is much more costly and in most cases just a plain waste of time and not necessary at all. I disagree with your comment about crpgs there was a time when crpg in game characters were nothing more than ascii art yet the games were still very immersive and I suppose I need not limit this to crpgs there many games in places called acrades where people would immerse them selves in games that had very simple graphics for hours. I think the greatest thing the Crpgs can do that P&P is clumsy at is all the number crunching and organization and there is obviously more to it than that but im trying to keep it short.

edit-I just wanted to add a place where immersion does not work at all is the publishers executive demo room because because stuffy business types completely lack imagination and wouldn't look or play a game long enough to be immersed in the actual game hence the only chance at grapsing thier attention for 3 minutes is really shiny flashy effects and graphics and loud audio effects or over the top cinematics.

 

[Psilon]

Hell, look at NetHack and ADOM. The characters are ASCII art. In fact, the characters are characters! (Side note: Now that Unicode's taken off, when will we see a Unicode-enabled roguelike? So many more glyphs to play with, after all...)

 

[Hazelnut]

Aiming with a mouse just makes it depending on MY skills to aim and not the CHARACTER skill to aim and there is were lies the diference of a RPG and a FPS.

If you dont get that you are simply too stupid to know what a RPG is diferent from a FPS or a adventure game.

The argument could have worked without the insult.

I don't buy the "its my characters skill" criterion, though. Of course it can't be a RPG without character skills, and we already know how skills factor into Oblivions combat system. However, every CRPG is a balance between character skill and player skill, they just lean more to one side or the other in different areas. If you like turn based and use tactics in turn based, than thats your skill, not the chracters. If you solve a riddle, that's your skills, not the characters. If you gauge and find the best options in a dialogue tree, that's your skill, not the characters. If everything went by character skills, the game would have to play itself.
Or, to look at it in reverse: if I can only win a certain key fight by having super reflexes on the mouse and keyboard, then that would be very "FPS". If that happens to be true at level 3 but I have the option to go, level up a few times and improve my skills, and then win that fight easily, than it's still a RPG in my book.

I completely agree with Ghan here. The player tells the computer what they want the PC to do and they then perform the act to the best of their abilities. (attributes,skills,perks etc) Just because a game is not TB and you have to make your decisions quickly doesn't mean that it's dependent on your personal skill at swinging a sword. Or even swinging a mouse! If you take OB (since that is the game buried somewhere under all of this discussion ) the combat as it's been sketched out by Beth so far, does not sound like "twitch-gaming" like some would have you believe. There are no advantages in hitting certain locations - all you're doing with your mouse & keyboards is giving tactical instructions to the PC (which attack, advance, retreat, circle etc) which is no different in my eyes to giving tactical input in FO TB combat! Obviously one you have time to think and the other you have to think fast, but that's just a stylistic / player preference issue, not a rpg/non-rpg issue. There is no aiming Dakron - this has been catagorically stated by Beth - you just have to be looking in the right direction for goodness sake.

Personally I like both styles, and one works well with a single PC shown in FPP and the other works well with a team shown from above. I think the only thing that blurs this distinction in what we know of OB's combat is having to instruct the PC when to block - meaning that the block skill can only govern how quick the PC can block, not how good the PC's reactions are when attacked. Dunno how this one will work out, but I think I'll probably reserve judgement untill I play it before deciding it's not an rpg and it's crap.. :wink:

I really truely believe that the only thing that they really need to get right for ES games is consequence! Having the world react, feel like your actions are meaningful. There are other important aspects that can (and should) be improved over MW, but this is the biggie for me.

H.

 

[Screaming_Dude_In_Vegas]

Um, Gamebryo doesn't suck, and in fact is a damn fine engine for many gaming, VR, and simulation applications. It works great in Freedom Force, for instance. The problems with Morrowind are largely the result of the Bethesda-specific enhancements. (Or, more specifically, we didn't have similar issues with frame rate, etc. when we were monkeying around with an evaluation copy. We weren't doing much in the way of additional optimization, either, and our models were way over the polygon quota for Morrowind. If it weren't for its Direct3D-only renderer, we'd probably have pushed harder to get it.)

Not that Unreal doesn't rock, but sometimes it can charitably be described as overkill. A lot of things like client/server replication, vehicle code, bots, VoIP, and the like aren't necessary for a single-player RPG.

Vehical code might me cool for horses, boats, and carridges.

I kinda assumed that Gamebyro must suck since MW is so laggy. NM, speaking out my ass.

 

[Twinfalls]

SLOWDOWN.

NOT lag.

forchrissakes

 

[crufty]

I just wanted to add a place where immersion does not work at all is the publishers executive demo room because because stuffy business types completely lack imagination and wouldn't look or play a game long enough to be immersed in the actual game hence the only chance at grapsing thier attention for 3 minutes is really shiny flashy effects and graphics and loud audio effects or over the top cinematics.

Very true.

Also, Oblivion is on xbox. Halo IS xbox. Ergo, Oblivion is Halo. Somebody who is used to shooting and hitting on Halo won't understand why a dead on shot misses. Sad but true.

 

[Atrokkus]

Completely agree with GhanBuriGhan (you like LOTR?)

The problem is that many people dont' want to participate in the actual combat, just direct it as in, say, RTwP games (since we are talking about RT RPGs here).

But there's a wee little catch here: OBlivion is designed to be first-person, that is, actaully control your character just as you would do it in FPS - using WASD, clicking your mouse to imitate hand action, instead of using your mouse to set a destination point or select an enemy. That's why it would be completely STUPID to make combat purely stat-based. Why? Because it'll become a clickfest as it was in Morrowind. The battles were boring as hell.
you could argue that Diablo also had the player involved more closely in action combat, and you couldn't just set a behavior for a character. BUt hey - Diablo:
1) had no FP viewport
2) even warriors had a lot of combat skills and it was fun to use them, just as fun as using spells.
So it just looked better that way, more logical. Player did not have that alter ego feel, i mean as if being inside the cahracter. It was more like guiding it, just like in classic RPGs.

In Oblvion (and, say, Gothic or Deus Ex) pure stat-based combat just won't do. It'll be crap. It'll be boring. It'll offer no challenge or fun.

 

[corvax]

Aiming with a mouse just makes it depending on MY skills to aim and not the CHARACTER skill to aim and there is were lies the diference of a RPG and a FPS.

Drakron, that was a trivial argument. TES is a first person role playing game, and it's real time. The combat is never a twitch fest and nowhere near Unreal or Serious Sam. Yes your skill is involved so are stats and to a much greater degree. In fact your skill input is so trivial that one would have to be a retard not to be able aim a mouse at few enemies. Basically if you can click on an icon in Windows you can fight in TES. The rest is where stats come in. Moreover just like GhanBuriGhan said your skill is always involved in any game otherwise it would be a screensaver (DS anyone :wink: )

 

[Section8]

In Oblvion (and, say, Gothic or Deus Ex) pure stat-based combat just won't do. It'll be crap. It'll be boring. It'll offer no challenge or fun.

Which is the biggest problem I had with Morrowind. Sure you could fight, cast spells, sneak around, or be diplomatic, but not one of those options represented any kind of enjoyment. It basically came down to either being able to do something or not with the only real grey areas being the time and cost involved in the activity. For example, picking a lock might take 3 attempts from a skilled character and 15 from a less skilled player. They've both achieved the same thing, but one has used up more lockpicks and spent marginally more time.

Deus Ex was basically the same, except its resources were far more limiting (ie, you had no potentially unlimited supply of money, and merchants to sell you more lockpicks/bullets/tools/grenades) so at least it altered the player's game experience based on their choices. But it fell down in places where the player's own skill could override the statistical choice, like a quick fingered player easily disarming LAMs, or a patient sniper making headshots despite the shaky crosshair.

Gothic took a better approach, and that was the hard limits imposed on many items or abilities. By locking down what the player can actually do, you preserve the skill and challenge of combat to a certain extent, but also give relevence to stats (or more importantly, stats as an abstraction of player choice.)

I think regardless of what compromises are made, its important to provide challenging situations. Whether the challenges are asked of the player's reflexes or rational thought depends on the focus of your implementation. It can certainly share a bit of both, and alienate those who sit at either pole (heh) but it should never be without one or the other.

Also, meaningful choices should be considered. If a mace-wielder, sword-wielder, axe-wielder, etc. all play in exactly the same manner then there's really no point in making the distinction. Passive resistances to certain damage types certainly adds flavour, but it's not a worthwhile distinction in itself. Arcanum touched on some interesting ideas in distinguishing types of melee weapons, but forced the player's hand in a few notable cases to poor effect. For instance, a sword wielder had little alternative but to use another weapon against creatures like Ore Golems.