The Most Disappointing Game You've Ever Played

[DalekFlay]

Yeah bros I hate HUDs and receiving information on my current status because it ruins my immershun. I don't see a health display in real life so the game shouldn't have one either. The game can inform me of my current status by having Carmack or Romero fly to my house, kick down my door and shoot me in the leg in real life every time I get shot in the game.

You can have an informative HUD without cluttering the screen with oversized nonsense. It's a balancing act that Far Cry 3 certainly fails at, and Skyrim failed at with it's huge compass in the top middle of the screen for some reason.

 

[Angthoron]

Yeah, that makes sense. Strangely enough, the UI overlay itself doesn't disturb me in FC3, but then again, I don't know the kind of screen that you have, and if it's 4:3, I bet I'd have clawed my eyes out. On a widescreen it seems quite tolerable, although somewhat overdone. They could have done a far better job with it. Then again, maybe I'm just used to cluttered UIs by now anyway.

What bothers me more in FC3 is the goddamned gigantic guns that take up 1/5th of a screen, however, and the map that takes 2 seconds to load. Seriously, why does it take that long to load a simple map? It's not calculating my chances at taking it over with my current ammo and hitpoints adjusted by wind speed, is it?

 

[Crispy]

...and Skyrim failed at with it's huge compass in the top middle of the screen for some reason.

Why don't I remember that? Maybe I modded it out right away. Seriously, is that the way the game was out of the box?

 

[DraQ]

Yet every title that Masterfag mentioned is exactly that, a competitive FPS.

How is Hexen a competitive FPS?

Protip:
Look up the meaning "competitive".

I think that this

Except this generally looks more like this:

(minus the awful xpox logo).

Skyrim does have hud and this hud does convey all the information oblivious hud did.
Sure, removal of redundant weapon icon (you can see your current weapon anyway) and hiding unnecessary hud elements (like health/stamina/magicka bars when they're full) is good idea, but isn't a new one.

Now, the thing is that both your examples did worse than Morrowind.

Sure, Morrowind didn't hide bars when unnecessary, sure, Morrowind featured more or less redundant weapon icon, it's GUI could've been made better by streamlining those away (not the spell, icon, though, unless it'd also adopt Skyrim's flashy balls of magical energy in hands approach, which I don't like much, but it has its merits) and hooking their functions in inventory to some other elements, like individual bars (HP, for character screen, Stamina for inventory, Magicka for spellbook).

However, Morrowind HUD had overall less screen footprint and it had two features missing from latter installments. First was the minimap, which was also compass and it generally worked better in this regard than it's successors' GPS/compass bar.

Second, far more important, was magic effects bar:

(lower right, near minimap).

At first glance it was very user unfriendly - a narrow band full of colourful, cryptic icons.

The thing is that after becoming familiar with game, it allowed you to quickly assess, for example what buffs, debuffs and other effects were currently active on your person (including diseases), see what kind of debuff just hit you, or whether some temporary buff has already worn off, without taking up much of the screen and without interrupting your gameplay.
While in both Skyrim and oblivious you'd have to go to menu and click several times to obtain similar information, in Morrowind a quick glance at lower right would do. It didn't identify some effects unambiguously, but it was enough to tell you what kind of effect they were and you could always go into menu when you wanted more detail.

Bottom line is that it's better to have "intrusive" HUD, than to have to go into menus for the same kind of information.

And, speaking of intrusiveness, both Skyrim's and Oblivious' sneak indicators are pretty shit.

As for the bloody screens as alternative to health indicators, I don't consider them actual decline. Sure, the way they are married with people absorbing bullets and shrapnel embedded in their body over few seconds they spend behind a box and use the extra matter to regrow splattered organs, is the epitome of derp, but "immersive" indicators could just as well be used in game with much more hardcore damage model.

The problem with immersive indicators is that they often aren't exact, so their utility depends on many factors, for example, being off by even some-teen percent won't be much of a problem if damage is randomized, as it won't negatively impact your ability to gauge how much more can you take.

Finally, regarding people who completely deny identification with their characters - I consider them a weird bunch, minority of even the monocle gamers and likely in denial.
Reason? Simple - whenever you had a single PC, even in the oldest and monocliest of games, the game referred to this protagonist as "you". I haven't heard of PnP GMs addressing PCs in third person either.

 

[Crispy]

Okay, DraQ, you've out-WoT'd me, but you make a good point. As far as Skyrim's UI, please see my edit, above. I had forgotten that I modded it to all disappear and I did that very early on, as with mods I had to apply to Oblivion right away in order to remain sane.

I also appreciated Morrowind's UI. More accurately, I do not recall it ever annoying me, which is the point and is directly indicative of my stance on the whole thing. To be fair, though, doesn't it look to you like that screenshot above reflects a HUD-reducing mod maybe? I seem to remember MW's being larger than that and more centered, but I could be wrong.

 

[Turjan]

In Morrowind, you could open and close different elements, as you wished. I usually made the map larger, for example.

 

[DraQ]

To be fair, though, doesn't it look to you like that screenshot above reflects a HUD-reducing mod maybe?

Nope, merely hi-res.

In Morrowind, you could open and close different elements, as you wished. I usually made the map larger, for example.

You could also resize them, move them and pin them to your main view.

And you had next/previous keys for spells and weapons, allowing you to practically expand your selection of 9 hotkeyed items to around 45.

 

[Kitako]

Oblivion. Because I truly expected it to be Morrowind 2 and it was Day 1 Collector's Edition purchase for me. Since that day I do no longer buy without getting to know the product by reading reviews, opinions and so on.

Same for me. I still have that oversized coin coming with the CE, somewhere in my house.

Also, NWN2. I still think NWN1 is the best thing happened to gaming in the whole history. Forget OC, modules and persistent world were something that today isn't matched by anything yet. User content made great stuff even using that shitty engine.

NWN2... was an abomination. And yeah, I played it all, and I don't share the Codex veneration for MotB (I actually enjoyed more SoZ). Still, the shitty engine wanted to go "next gen" and there are still no worthwile user made works.

 

[Whisky]

Same for me. I still have that oversized coin coming with the CE, somewhere in my house.

That reminds me, I bought it pre-ordered with the septim coin. I was expecting it to be so good, that I bought the game...without a strong enough computer to run it.

I actually owned the game for a year before I could finally play it.

And then when I finally bought a powerful computer I managed to play it...oh boy was that shit.

 

[Jick Magger]

King's Quest 8

Just...just King's Quest 8.

 

[Boris]

Throne of Bhaal, bar none. Expected great shit...

 

[Xavier0889]

King's Quest 8

Just...just King's Quest 8.

It hurts me the sole mention of this game.
Sometimes I pretend it didn't happened... but no, the truth is far too ugly. Also, am I the only one who thinks this game had one of the worst controls ever?

 

[Wolfus]

Dragon age 2. I somehow liked first one so nr. 2 was terrible disappointment.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Oblivion and DA2, F3 was made after the former so I was expecting shit and DAO both sold well and was semi old Bioware school so the Awesome Abomination was a quite shocker, Also ME3 shit and ending (not cinematics but all London sequence), shit music, copy pasta enemies and derpy companions (except Bro Garrus).... ah and expansion for Drakensang RoT totally made for jewgold only.
Funy thing 2-3 years ago thought Bethpizda was far more than Biowhore, while now the former atleast making still some (light A)RPGs not masturbation aides for Bronies, furrfags and other degenerate libruls.

 

[Fatty]

Ultima 8 (did not play U9)
NWN
Dragon Age: Origins
Warcraft III
Mass Effect
Fallout 3 (did not play Oblivion, was not prepared)
KOTOR (isometric could have rescued this)
Fable

 

[Redshirt #42]

Oblivion was the game that killed my trust in mainstream video game 'journalism' and turned me into a Codexer.

However, the biggest disappointment of my life was Black & White. Mostly because I was young, dumb and gullible back then, so I believed all the overhyped reviews that said it was the best thing ever, despite common sense saying otherwise. I never got past the second island since I spent most of my time beating the shit out of my cow titan (or whatever it was supposed to be) to take out my frustration.

 

[Primordial Soup Nazi]

Diablo III, with Fallout 3 winning first runner-up door prize (the door prize being contempt, natch).

 

[Reject_666_6]

Alternatives I've yet to see properly implemented in a cRPG (probably tough to script properly): Hire/persuade a thief to steal the key for you, or hire/persuade someone (or multiple someones) to kill the target and loot the key. In fact paying and persuading people who aren't you or your own party members to do your dirty work for you (not for every scenario, obviously) is a little-explored avenue and one I'd like to see implemented in cRPGs someday.

I haven't read the rest of the thread yet to see if anyone's answered this, but later on in Arcanum when you reach the Pit of Fires to get the Blade of Xerxes, there's a band of adventurers outside that are getting ready to raid the pit. If you have level 2 or 3 (I forgot exactly how much) persuasion, you can convince them to fetch the blade for you.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I think it is in Baldur's Gate 2 where you can hire some low level adventurers to retrieve a McGuffin for you. Once they retrieve the object they decide to betray you in the hopes of scoring your loot. You kill them easily and they 'reload' their game, and very politely give you the item in return for some small bit of gold.

 

[Zeriel]

Arcanum was a disappointment for me--not because it was a bad game, but because it was the first game I really got hyped on pre release. After years of looking forward to it, the reality was a bit of a let-down. Still one of my favorite games, and definitely one of the best-designed, but no game can survive the pre-release hype-machine effect unscathed.

 

[waywardOne]

I think it is in Baldur's Gate 2 where you can hire some low level adventurers to retrieve a McGuffin for you. Once they retrieve the object they decide to betray you in the hopes of scoring your loot. You kill them easily and they 'reload' their game, and very politely give you the item in return for some small bit of gold.

That was actually in Throne of Bhaal, which many people consider a tacky and rushed expansion and wholly separate from proper BG2:SoA. Bioware has a bad habit of breaking convention for the lulz and calling it cleverness.

 

[AngryEddy]

Sacrifice was pretty subpar. I bear it, but did not enjoy it.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Oblivion was the game that killed my trust in mainstream video game 'journalism' and turned me into a Codexer.

now that you mention it... that's how i found the codex too.
uncaring of all the "real journalist" i wrote an article in which i severely bashed oblivion. in my naivety i expected a pair of "oh crap, you're right" and some "you're a funny guy", instead i was assaulted, insulted and threatened. for an article.
so i went to explore the interwebz, i wanted to check if i was the only one with such opinion.
first results were the codex and this: https://sites.google.com/site/damicat/
the best argument against that damicat i've heard is "he's not famous, i can't trust him".

there's really too many people on this planet.

 

[DraQ]

Oh, I nearly forgot:

And from what perspective do you see stuff when you LARP?

And from what perspective do I see stuff when I take a piss? Does this make all FPP games piss simulators?

Tabletop games are just games that are played on tabletop - mainly boardgames and miniature games.
For example when you play GURPS with basic combat rules and use just pen, paper and dices you can as well sit on a sofa. AFAIK the only games that emulate pure PnP are text games.

If you use the advanced combat rules and you have to use miniatures/gaming board, you need a gaming table, hence tabletop games. (obviously, you can also play on the floor - floor games would be a silly name, though).

Except the point isn't to emulate anything. PnP RPGs involve more than just handbook rules and some setting (or, in case of using advanced rules a complete tactical tabletop game). You can't emulate this "more", because this more involves GM and all the informal, but still very real rules he introduces.
Attempt at emulation will only result in shitty facsimile of the real thing.

In order to make a proper cRPG you need to find a way to port the kind of experience and the dynamics, not the mechanics.
And this requires completely different approach, one that comes close to shifting the burden of the GM onto the explicit, formal ruleset and world setup thmselves and this requires far more complex and extensive ruleset and far more complex and extensive representation of the gameworld than you'd get away with in PnP or tabletop.

Miniatures and boards aren't used for detailed representation of combat because they are perfect. They're used because they are available and the alternatives aren't.

Whenever the available means permit it FPP is the norm in PnP - stuff is described to you as if you were the character, you tell what you do in first, rather than third person (unless you're playing a Khajiit in some homebrew TES PnP, or made a character with personality of that one eccentric voiceset in Wiz8 that will get killed by the DM some 15' in due to being annoying) and so on.

As long as you're playing a single character, both FPP and RT are a boon, because the main reasons for the overhead (no alternatives) and TB (need for sync and feedback between the GM and the players) are no longer present - you can actually see the situation from the same perspective it was described to you and the computer can stay in sync and both send and receive feedback continuously.

If you're playing as whole party, which is far from typical PnP situation, so we can't talk about emulation anymore, then, ironically enough, TB is very much necessary (because *you* need it to sync actions of multiple characters with the computer) and overhead view can also be useful for tactical reasons (though not necessarily, see blobbers).

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Oh, I nearly forgot:
And from what perspective do I see stuff when I take a piss? Does this make all FPP games piss simulators?

We're talking about RPGs, not about bodily functions.
Even if you're playing with high quality costumes on high quality, Hollywood-budget sets with high quality laser tag guns, you're still LARPing.

Miniatures and boards aren't used for detailed representation of combat because they are perfect. They're used because they are available and the alternatives aren't.

No. Miniatures are used because they look good and have charm in themselves. That's why players are willing to spend lots of money on buying them for tabletop miniature games and spend lots of time painting them.
Otherwise, they'd just use pieces of paper, because it wouldn't be worth money and effort.

As long as you're playing a single character, both FPP and RT are a boon, because the main reasons for the overhead (no alternatives) and TB (need for sync and feedback between the GM and the players) are no longer present - you can actually see the situation from the same perspective it was described to you and the computer can stay in sync and both send and receive feedback continuously.

You're just a fanatical LARPer that can't into existence of other subgenres than his favourite.

If you're playing as whole party, which is far from typical PnP situation, so we can't talk about emulation anymore, then, ironically enough, TB is very much necessary (because *you* need it to sync actions of multiple characters with the computer) and overhead view can also be useful for tactical reasons (though not necessarily, see blobbers).

In really old-school PnP RPGs it wasn't uncommon for players to play with several characters at once (because of the attrition rate).