So Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines will be a decade old this year. LET'S TALK ABOUT OTHER RPG'S

[TheGreatOne]

Since when did teens listen to Death? Back when Beavis and Butthead were on TV and Clinton was the president of USA? Well, they're not teens anymore. Speaking of shitty teen music: VTMB had a good soundtrack, better than NV. And the best part of New Vegas was this

You have talent, newfag.

Joined: Jan 7, 2013. Well, I guess dryan can call me a newfag too.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

I played it 3 times already, 4 to go and I will write that it's shit.

 

[Roguey]

I liked parts of Bloodlines' soundtrack a lot until I realized that the Hollywood theme was a plagiarisation of the Isley Brothers' Footsteps in the Dark and figured that all the parts I liked were probably plagiarized. Tim Cain products are good at finding musicians who steal from other musicians.

Inon Zur is terrible but New Vegas is probably his best work. I like how each area has three or six different variations based on time of day and combat state. I also love the main title and end credits theme and its particular leit motif (yeah I know it's a variation of the Fallout 3 theme, but it's better), as well as the Saddest Violin that plays on some of the tracks.

Furthermore


All this is missing is the sounds of screaming women.

Roguey is going bazonkas because TheGreatOne One actually makes good points.

Arrogant stupidity is a pet peeve of mine.

 

[Excidium]

Tim Cain products are good at finding musicians who steal from other musicians.

 

[TheGreatOne]

Proper video game music doesn't exist anymore anyways (outside of couple of handheld titles and demoscene music), so in that sense the New Vegas/Tony Hawks Pro Skater/GTA route of using real songs is superior to hiring Hollywood rejects to make wanna be movie music and poorly imitate songs made by others.

Arrogant stupidity is a pet peeve of mine.

Mine are vocal casual gamers and agents of decline.

 

[DashiDMV]

Since when did teens listen to Death? Back when Beavis and Butthead were on TV and Clinton was the president of USA?

Kind of funny because Beavis and Butthead hated Death too:

 

[Zed]

anyone who hates Death is almost as gay as the dancing NPCs in VTMB

B&B gets a pass because they didn't know better back then

 

[TheGreatOne]

Yeah, that's why it popped into my mind, I never knew they played that stuff on MTV before seeing clips of that on youtube. They also made fun of some (horrible) song by Morbid Angel. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised at that happening when Dunkelheit was played on MTV (or some similar channel) once in the mid 90s, atleast in parts of Europe, which is quite an achievement when you consider how uncommercial that video is. Only way to to top that would be by making a music video to a merzbow song that consists of nothing but random clips taken from Eraserhead and static.

 

[Longshanks]

Great game, but I strongly disagree with it's placement in the Codex's list. Ahead of System Shock 2 and Deus Ex and ALL other First Person RPGs? Yeah, right. Don't get me wrong it's a great game, well-written, good C&C, great atmosphere and...? Somewhat terrible gameplay. I guess the Codex is primarily made up of storyfags, well, this is further reinforced by PS:T being #1.

Stopped reading at "Halo's an RPG and Bioshock's an even better one". Don't worry though, despite its prestigious reputation, there are many morons on the Codex who are nodding in agreement as they drool into their laps.

 

[Akasen]

So wait, I just caught on that you, TheGreatOne, think New Vegas is terrible, I can't discern the actual reasoning and wish not to make any assumptions yet. Also I don't want to sift through both you and Rougey's bullshit again. Explain yourself.

 

[Sranchammer]

So is this game playable yet?

 

[Nikaido]

TGO:
Relax, I was poking fun at your specific example, not saying the whole genre had no talented artist. Vikernes is a talentless hack, why would you even use him as a comparison against dumb mainstream crap like Souljaboy, to me it's just the same coin different sides. This is something that is true of almost all of the first norwegian wave of black melol.
Vikernes likes to talk act all European supremacist but he's not really a shiny example of our civilization to say the least.

@Tim Cain and all the stolen music in his games, it seems like it was a popular thing to do for a long time among vidja game developers, look at doom's music for example, the whole thing ripped off pretty much every single hard rock/heavy metal band of the day and I don't think they paid a cent to the actual artists.
And then there's things that aren't full on plagiarism, but heavily inspired. Like the influence of Gustav Holst's The Planets on a lot of game and movie OST, although the heaviest borrower has been John Williams with the Star Wars original trilogy OST. Try to find out how many parts of Star Wars you're reminded of while listening to Mars, the Bringer of War. That movement is a serious thing of beauty, far beyond its retarded cousins.
But if you don't know him yet, just listen to all of The Planets. You will have an uncanny feeling for many, many movies and games.

 

[Declinator]

So wait, I just caught on that you, TheGreatOne, think New Vegas is terrible, I can't discern the actual reasoning and wish not to make any assumptions yet. Also I don't want to sift through both you and Rougey's bullshit again. Explain yourself.

Disliking New Vegas should not need an explanation. It is Fallout 3 with somewhat better writing, better quest design and more C&C and that is not nearly enough to elevate it even close to Fallout 1. Yes yes, VATS, DT, weapon customization, different ammo types and so on.

Throwing rocks at an ocean also makes ripples appear but the ocean remains an ocean the same way Fallout 3 remains Fallout 3 even if its name is New Vegas. I am baffled by people who hate F3 and love NV as they are so close to each other that NV could have been an expansion pack to F3 and nobody would have blinked an eye.

You did not have to shoot an entire magazine to kill a trash mob in them at low levels.

You don't have to in New Vegas either.

Maybe not literally an entire magazine but certainly a whole lot of bullets. HP bloat all over the place.

And no, that merchant should not be able to soak up that many bullets. If you don't want the player to be able to just easily slaughter the merchant and take his wares it would have been a simple matter equipping the merchant and his guards with plasma gatlings or some such, have more guards and spread them out so even with grenades/explosives you can't kill them in one go.

Deus Ex's crosshairs are an infinitely better example of how to mix RPG elements with real time combat than the video on 4th page (applies to NV's combat also).

They're an utter failure.

Role-playing shooters have moved away from this nonsense because it's dumb and not fun. Getting rid of it was one of the few things Invisible War got right. It was only included in Alpha Protocol because out-of-touch cargo cult Sega producers forced Obsidian to use it.

Everything you or Sawyer doesn't like is cargo cult? You seem to love that phrase almost as much as you do Sawyer.

It's quite funny that you think that randomized accuracy is so bad when defending a game that has ridiculous HP bloat combat. Deus Ex gunplay outstays its welcome quickly if you dabble in it often but it was refreshing and different in the beginning and even in the end it was more fun than NV's gunplay ever was. SS2 doubly so.

Character progression as far gunplay is concerned is infinitely better in SS2. In fact I would raise SS2 to the very top in that. It was interesting and involving allocating those points and while you may dislike the hard requirements for weapons/PSI they made the progression much more impactful. Seeing your damage rise by a miniscule amount vs being able to use the assault rifle? One is barely noticeable and the other can have a great impact on how you play.

That said, SS2 does have unviable builds which is not particularly good but that is not nearly enough to make NV better as far as progression goes.

Sawyer's approach may not be "cargo cult" but is boring, stale and unimaginative and that is a sin just as bad or even worse.

Fallout New Vegas is better than the original fallout in every single way except for one thing, movement.

Yeah, that is utter bullshit. I have to say that it is the original Fallout that is better than NV in every single way.

While I maintain that both have pretty bad combat I prefer the calm but stupidly simple and slow turn-based combat of Fallout 1 to the hectic shitty FPS combat of NV. I think the calmness fits Fallout much better but more crucially there is A LOT LESS COMBAT in Fallout 1 than there is in NV. This cannot be emphasized enough. If I'm going to be pissed on I'd rather only have one bladder emptied on me than dozens upon dozens of bladders.

Also, people often make snide comments about the vampires and the kids in the caves when it comes time to mock Fallout 3 but nobody seems to do the same about the Bright followers, the Elvis impersonators, the anachronistic cowboy thing in the beginning of NV, the Boomers or even the Legion.

Maybe none of these are as bad as the vampires but NV is rife with unlikely craziness and over-the-top factions which is more in tune with Fallout 2 than Fallout 1 and at least personally chafes me quite a bit.

 

[CyberP]

Roguey is J Sawyer? I really doubt that.

"Role-playing shooters have moved away from this nonsense because it's dumb and not fun. Getting rid of it was one of the few things Invisible War got right."

Bullshit. Deus Ex got it right and was the only one that did. VTM:B, Alpha Protocol and so on did it very wrong. It was fine in Morrowind too mind you.

Had enough New Vegas talk? How about AP now?


Alpha Protocol was a steaming turd of a game. Almost as bad as Bioware ARPGs.

Proper video game music doesn't exist anymore anyways (outside of couple of handheld titles and demoscene music), so in that sense the New Vegas/Tony Hawks Pro Skater/GTA route of using real songs is superior to hiring Hollywood rejects to make wanna be movie music and poorly imitate songs made by others.

Truth.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Is this the thread where we hate on new vegas?

Because it's a really shit game you know.

 

[Jedi Exile]

I liked parts of Bloodlines' soundtrack a lot until I realized that the Hollywood theme was a plagiarisation of the Isley Brothers' Footsteps in the Dark and figured that all the parts I liked were probably plagiarized. Tim Cain products are good at finding musicians who steal from other musicians

I think every musician/writer/artist was accused that he/she plagiarised something at some point. This is the nature of art itself, you cannot be 100% original and you shouldn't.

Also, Hollywood theme and Footsteps in the Dark don't really sound alike.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Maybe none of these are as bad as the vampires but NV is rife with unlikely craziness and over-the-top factions which is more in tune with Fallout 2 than Fallout 1 and at least personally chafes me quite a bit.

This. Fallout 1 wasn't a great game because it had great RPG mechanics - its mechanics were rather crappy, especially when compared to some stuff that came before it (like Darklands or QfG series). However, it was a game with the superb atmosphere, stemming from incredible visuals (not in terms of graphical complexity, but artistic vision), great audio part, excellent sense of style and decent writing. All that, combined, really created the illusion of vast and diverse world with lots to explore (when in reality F1 is rather short and not that varied, with all that "alternative solutions" schtick being vastly overhyped).

And all that isn't present in neither F2 (it kept the visuals, but got fucked in the style department, and, of course, the storyline retardation began there) and, obviously, F3 and New Vegas. New Vegas is buttfuck ugly (because of its engine, most of all) and, just as F2, its whole world is built around the idea of putting as much dumbfuck lulz in the game as possible. Sure, F1 also wasn't a 100% serious game, but the world wasn't built around jokes and it got serious where it needed to be. Like the Cathedral, with all those sly cultists, demented experiment victims and Master mindfucking you. Or, y'know, one of my brightest memories of F1 - cultists blowing themselves up at the Military Base after the death of Lieutenant. Compare to Enclave, for example, where the main thing going on is president Dick putting his dick into a secretary. Oh, how fucking clever.

 

[Roguey]

Bullshit. Deus Ex got it right and was the only one that did. VTM:B, Alpha Protocol and so on did it very wrong. It was fine in Morrowind too mind you.

Because you say so?

Funny how you say AP did it very wrong when its shrinking reticule is pretty much indistinguishable from Deus Ex's.

Maybe not literally an entire magazine but certainly a whole lot of bullets. HP bloat all over the place.

No.

Oh my god, 1.3-8.1 seconds to kill a guy that's like foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

And no, that merchant should not be able to soak up that many bullets. If you don't want the player to be able to just easily slaughter the merchant and take his wares it would have been a simple matter equipping the merchant and his guards with plasma gatlings or some such, have more guards and spread them out so even with grenades/explosives you can't kill them in one go.

It's other enemies not the PC they're concerned about. Giving them a bunch of high powered loot would make the PC killing them and taking their stuff an actual concern. "Add more guards" isn't necessarily a viable option considering console memory limitations.

Deus Ex gunplay outstays its welcome quickly if you dabble in it often but it was refreshing and different in the beginning and even in the end it was more fun than NV's gunplay ever was. SS2 doubly so.

I disagree.

Character progression as far gunplay is concerned is infinitely better in SS2. In fact I would raise SS2 to the very top in that. It was interesting and involving allocating those points and while you may dislike the hard requirements for weapons/PSI they made the progression much more impactful. Seeing your damage rise by a miniscule amount vs being able to use the assault rifle? One is barely noticeable and the other can have a great impact on how you play.

New Vegas's gun skills don't just affect damage, they also affect weapon sway. There's a big difference between trying to use a 100-skill weapon with 100 points or with just 10.

"Put points into standard weapons to win, anything else to lose" isn't interesting.

That said, SS2 does have unviable builds which is not particularly good but that is not nearly enough to make NV better as far as progression goes.

The character system that succeeds is better than the character system that fails.

I think the calmness fits Fallout much better but more crucially there is A LOT LESS COMBAT in Fallout 1 than there is in NV. This cannot be emphasized enough. If I'm going to be pissed on I'd rather only have one bladder emptied on me than dozens upon dozens of bladders.

You can avoid killing anyone/everyone in both.

Maybe none of these are as bad as the vampires but NV is rife with unlikely craziness and over-the-top factions which is more in tune with Fallout 2 than Fallout 1 and at least personally chafes me quite a bit.

Reminder that Fallout had a thieves guild leader who affected a British accent because it sounded cool.

 

[undecaf]

New Vegas's gun skills don't just affect damage, they also affect weapon sway. There's a big difference between trying to use a 100-skill weapon with 100 points or with just 10.

There might be (a difference between 10 and 100); but it certainly is not a game affecting element to the point what it probably should be. The player is just fine (and that "fine" comes mostly from damage increments which is boring as fuck, and not so much from accuracy) with a skill around 40 to 50 (and strength around the same) with any gun regardless of if it says requires a 100, and 10 in strength.

There are probably some other elements to the game that also affect the feel there - like ammo also not being any kind of concern after the very beginning so a few misses here and there are left unnoticed, the overall design of HP and damage done/recieved, the way the skill is increased by 1/100 at a time which leaves the impact of a skillpoint so close to a zero it might just be that - but overall, while the system is better than what it was in Fallout 3, there's still a lot to hope for in terms of skill investment paying off (in other ways than unlocking successful dialog options) and delivering an actual impact to the PC's performance with the task at hand. Now, I have not played the game the whole 7 times (only 2.5) so my experience is obviously lacking, but it's not lacking enought to not have made note of this matter.

 

[Roguey]

There might be (a difference between 10 and 100); but it certainly is not a game affecting element to the point what it probably should be. The player is just fine (and that "fine" comes mostly from damage increments which is boring as fuck, and not so much from accuracy) with a skill around 40 to 50 (and strength around the same) with any gun regardless of if it says requires a 100, and 10 in strength.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Weapons_Spread

The appropriate skill (Guns, Energy Weapons or Explosives) reduces spread by 0.5% (from 50% up to 100%) per skill point. (multiplier: from 0.5 to 0)

During my guns-playthrough I remember not wanting to use a weapon if I was more than 25 points away from meeting the soft threshold because the sway gave me motion sickness.

There are probably some other elements to the game that also affect the feel there - like ammo also not being any kind of concern after the very beginning so a few misses here and there are left unnoticed, the overall design of HP and damage done/recieved, the way the skill is increased by 1/100 at a time which leaves the impact of a skillpoint so close to a zero it might just be that - but overall, while the system is better than what it was in Fallout 3, there's still a lot to hope for in terms of skill investment paying off (in other ways than unlocking successful dialog options) and delivering an actual impact to the PC's performance with the task at hand. Now, I have not played the game the whole 7 times (only 2.5) so my experience is obviously lacking, but it's not lacking enought to not have made note of this matter.

Josh is in favor of coarse-progression over granular ("What you perceive in a game is ultimately what matters the most -- Mass Effect had tons of weapons but they were barely differentiated. They had incremental stat differences only.

'What's the chance that a 5 percent difference is going to make you take the enemy down in one fewer hit? If it takes me four shots, but the fourth shot killed him a little more, that doesn't mean anything to me,' Sawyer said.") but he didn't have the time or the inclination to redo it from the ground up ("So we're not trying to reinvent the wheel, but whenever there is something in the game's formula that we think we could improve, especially if it adds more player choice or more tactical depth for the player, or more reactivity, we've tried to do that").

 

[oscar]

I had a hell of a lot more fun with Bloodlines than I did with New Vegas

 

[CyberP]

Funny how you say AP did it very wrong when its shrinking reticule is pretty much indistinguishable from Deus Ex's.

No it's really not.

 

[Roguey]

Funny how you say AP did it very wrong when its shrinking reticule is pretty much indistinguishable from Deus Ex's.

No it's really not.

See when you just leave it like that I can't even try to understand you, which makes me think you're just trolling.

In Deus Ex and Alpha Protocol, when you aim a pistol or a rifle at a person the reticule shrinks until it's pinpoint accurate, then you fire at their head and kill them. In Deus Ex you can forego this altogether if you slap a laser on the weapon (which is bad if you want your skill system to matter), whereas doing that in AP just gives you +# to accuracy, making the reticule smaller.

 

[undecaf]

During my guns-playthrough I remember not wanting to use a weapon if I was more than 25 points away from meeting the soft threshold because the sway gave me motion sickness.

In both of mine, I remember wanting to not want to use guns I'm supposed to be unskilled with, and getting frustrated at the level of inadequacy if did happen to pick one up and use it. Alas... there I was, trying to create characters that were initially as inaccurate as possible (without dellibarate selfgimping) to give me the sense of progression as I would invest the skillpoints to appropriate skills, and... not really getting it. The game provided enough fun for me in other areas to crawl twice through it and there are a lot of things it can be lauded for, but both times, and this is obviously not just me, it tripped constantly to this particular issue. I wanted to want to put points in guns, but it felt more like a waste than a benefit; to the detriment of the rest of the experience.

 

[Roguey]

Eh well to quote Josh

A lot of players are... not very good. "Bad" you might say. They need the statistical bump of higher tier weapons. For good players, it eventually becomes overkill.

This aligns with "Not everyone in this group will be happy, and trying to make them all happy certainly won't have good results," and as a sequel to Fallout 3 with an advertising budget bigger than the cost of development, FNV had to err on the side of bad players (with JSawyer less so).