A simple observation

[JackSlack]

The Kingdoms of Amalur demo manages to make it seem even MORE boring.

[Geoff_B]

Hence the Mass Effect 3 armour as incentive for playing it?

[Lemegeton]

Hence the Mass Effect 3 armour as incentive for playing it?

the words "Nail" and "Head" spring to mind

[Jamfalcon]

It reminded me of a slightly newer (but certainly not 5 years) and slightly better Two Worlds. It was also really buggy. In the hour or so I played it, I found eight I think, two of which were pretty serious. I might pick it up if it's well received and I see it on Steam for $5, but that's about as high as I'd be willing to go for it.

[JackSlack]

Hence the Mass Effect 3 armour as incentive for playing it?

Indeed, and y'know what? That's why I played it. But that just gets the foot in the door.

The demo has to be good; you need to show off something that makes the player say, 'Holy crap, this looks great!' And this demo didn't do that at all.

Here is what might have gotten me in:

1. Play began with a compelling, challenging scenario. KoA begins with an almost generic intro; your character has awoken in a pile of corpses and has lost their memory.

OK, y'know, the 'waking up in a pile of corpses' thing is actually a pretty good intro. Fine. But then the result? You loot a sword and kill some giant rats, some giant spiders, and then some enemy soldiers.

Yippee.

Gah. C'mon, guys. Kick this into overdrive. If you want to sell your game, make an interesting scenario to launch with from a gameplay perspective.

2. If your game does have a level system, show off the results, not the system: Hey, gang. How many of you get excited by levelling up?

Now, how many of you get excited by the idea of grabbing that sweet new power you get in the level up?

Right. So sell the latter. Don't give me just one compulsory level up and leave it at that. Speed it up! Create some weird contrivance to let me level up a ton and then throw me into a big boss fight with my new build. Show me what I can achieve with your system rather than that the system is there. Your menu interface for levelling up is not exciting. Trying out new powers is.

3. If it wouldn't kill anyone, could we have an original fantasy setting someday? Y'know. Maybe something without elves and gnomes? How about a massive, flying city in hell? Like, with flames everywhere around it -- The prisoners of hell staged a revolution, banded together, and created one small place in hell where they could exist without constant torment? There, see? This ain't hard. You've got your weird setting, you've got your monsters (demons), you've got some obvious quests (forays into Hell to liberate souls) and ... well, there it is. And that was just off the top of my head!

Why must everything be so painfully generic? Lookin' at you too, Dragon Age. And you too, Elder Scrolls. Also you, Mass Effect. Don't think because you're painfully generic sci-fi that you escape my peeved-ness.

This kind of goes beyond the demo. Sorry.

[Duckay]

Don't hold back, JackSlack. Tell us how you really feel.

[JackSlack]

I think that was actually pretty restrained. I didn't even throw in a single profanity. Well, 'crap'. C'mon, crap isn't even one of Carlin's seven.

[Kag]

Why must everything be so painfully generic? Lookin' at you too, Dragon Age. And you too, Elder Scrolls. Also you, Mass Effect. Don't think because you're painfully generic sci-fi that you escape my peeved-ness.

I feel like calling Mass Effect and Elder Scrolls generic is way off the mark. The level of texture and detail in those worlds is far beyond what most stuff gets.

[LogicSword]

Just played it to get the Mass Effect stuff... Yeah, that's about as generic as you could possibly get.

[JackSlack]

I'm deeply intrigued why you said Mass Effect, but not Dragon Age, which I also called out. Dragon Age 1 had a wealth of depth that massively outstripped Mass Effect. (Dragon Age 2 dulled it a lot, to be fair.)

But still, I stand by the point. Dragon Age, Mass Effect and Elder Scrolls all follow the genre rules to a T. Heck, Elder Scrolls (as an example) has a full classic High/Wood/Dark elf split. (Am I wrong? Elder Scrolls isn't my area of lore strength.) Dragon Age is a little better, with Wood Elves and what can only be called Low Elves but still -- y'know, elves. Where is the stuff inspired by Neil Gaiman or China Mieville; by Gene Wolfe or even Mervyn Peake?

And Mass Effect? Ha. There's scarcely a touch out of place in that series that doesn't make it boilerplate space opera. I'm a fan of it, and it's a very detailed setting, yes, although not a particularly coherent one that's driven a lot more by visual potency than internal logic. (Example: What the hell is that massive Thresher Maw eating on that barren world Kuchanka? Besides Krogan in their failed rites of passage, presumably?) Being detailed doesn't stop you being generic. Being unique and creative and different does.

Where are our Planescape Torments and Arcanums? Don't tell me you can't do that anymore; sure, you couldn't be as flexible, but nothing about modern design precludes them.

Edit: You know what? Simple, sharper defence -- Compared to most work in the genres in film, TV, and literature, Mass Effect's version of science fiction and the Elder Scrolls's version of fantasy are very generic. They only appear detailed and textured with regards to other games, at best.

[Darkobra]

And Mass Effect? Ha. There's scarcely a touch out of place in that series that doesn't make it boilerplate space opera.

Damn it. Can't unsee now.

[JackSlack]

Funny Forehead Aliens are not exactly a genre-defying touch.

[Darkobra]

I'm just always going to compare the Asari to The Diva from The Fifth Element! Even their natures are the same! Everyone, in both realms, are fascinated by them! AND they're performers! So many similarities! DAMN IT!

[theDreamer]

Actually, TES has a dwarf/high elf/wood elf/wood elf/mainland elf/snow elf/under elf/dark elf/orc split.

All these are "mer" races.

Then humans (of which there is a similar variety of splitting), khajiits, and argonians.

[Preacher]

... I actually enjoyed the demo. I mean it was nothing ground-breaking I'll give you that, but I was a competent game. The world seemed alright, stealth seemed to work fine and combat seemed to flow, aside from a weird graphical glitch that meant I always drew my longsword to attack rather than just swing with it in my hand. All in all, while not ground breaking, it seemed competent. Althogh that being said, I'm inclinded to give the game a little slack as it appears this is the maiden voyage for this studio.

Also, I have no idea what this Mass Effect 3 armour deal is, anyone fill me in on what I'm missing?

[Geoff_B]

This article explains it very succinctly. With pictures.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I do find it strange that when I was young I was stubborn to not play a Human in RPGs.

Now, I tend to because I'm sick of elves I know they're sexy but, they're so generic. Rather have a Turian any day.
I tend to pick the more animalistic races anyway.

The most original RPG I played was a free-to-play client MMO called Gaia Online where you play as humanoid animal in an post-apocalyptic world. Ironically the moderators didn't appreciate the players mentioning that this was a 'furry game'.

[JackSlack]

I dig humans. I've argued before and cheerfully will again that Warcraft's best races are the humans and the orcs.

(Duckay will then gleefully point out that I clearly love gnomes the most, to which I say... so?)

[RobertMc123]

I find it terribly amusing that people want to bash things just as they tend to pick up some good feedback and hype towards release date. It's almost like people want to seem cool by saying "oh yeah, I liked that band before they were famous, now they just sold out and they suck".

So yeah KoA has a fantasy setting, but look at what they have done, they had R.A. Salvator (sp?) create a huge 10,000 year history of this world. They are layering this world pretty well, and remember this game is supposed to be a money maker for 38 studios to develop the KoA MMO, so I think they should be cut a little slack because this COULD have been a slap dash effort just trotted out to appease people for a little bit. Instead they seem to have put together an interesting world with good combat and stellar voice work. Say what you will about most fantasy settings being generic but KoA is more colorful than most settings. I think after all the Lord of The Rings movies influence over how fantasy looks we could do with some color.

Anyways I am pretty excited about this game and am looking forward to diving into it when it comes out.

[JackSlack]

Dude, please don't imply that I'm just bashing on the game to be trendy. If I'd liked the demo, I'd be here praising it. Instead, I found it a dull, generic world that started out with me fighting giant rats. (The kind of thing even Dragon Age made fun of.) When even my awesome fighting skills went utterly unremarked upon because of COURSE I can fight. Hoary cliché upon tired trope.

Just... C'mon, game makers. Gimme a fantasy world that's a bit different.

[theDreamer]

My question is what do you want?

If you're going to make rash generalizations of a world, then of course everything will almost always come down to "D&D/Tolkien did it first" (depending).

So instead, effort is put in the minutiae, since that's where all originality can lie.

[JackSlack]

So instead, effort is put in the minutiae, since that's where all originality can lie.

I totally disagree. Fantasy is broad; you can be wildly different. Where are our Books of the New Sun? Where's our Pern? Why are video games so damned conservative in their fantasy?

[RobertMc123]

2 rats... that was it, 2 rats. It didn't throw you in a dungeon teeming with them. There was 2.

[Geoff_B]

So instead, effort is put in the minutiae, since that's where all originality can lie.

I totally disagree. Fantasy is broad; you can be wildly different. Where are our Books of the New Sun? Where's our Pern? Why are video games so damned conservative in their fantasy?

At the other end you have the Final Fantasy games which started out fairly normal and are now extremely wacky

[JackSlack]

2 rats... that was it, 2 rats. It didn't throw you in a dungeon teeming with them. There was 2.

Ok, fair.

I still groaned when I saw them.