The Game Venting Thread

[Darkobra]

Ah, Elder Scrolls. The amount of times their data has gone corrupt and fucked me over is immeasurable. Never DID get my mage back with 100 to every single skill.

[Mara Kalat]

Would that still even classify as a Mage then?
But yeah, Elder Scrolls you just have to be prepared to deal with a ton of bugs.
I filled up 70% of my hard drive with back up saves when I was heavily into Morrowind because my early experiences had taught me that things mess up very easily.
Of course there are always consequences that you don't notice later on, which aren't covered by that (e.g. losing out on a super faction manor because the bug mine on the property has had its queen killed, by me, 100 hours earlier).
Let's hope TES Online will have actual QA done on it.

Mara.

[Darkobra]

I used conjured weapons as well and that raised my close quarter skills as well as my archery.

[Hepheastus]

Mages never really appealed to me in Skyrim, Maybe I'll try them when I remake my Character and start again

[Valkyrie-Lemons]

They need to invest more into making the mage classes more appealing.

Being able to discover new spells or recover lost ancient ones would be a start. The fact you learn nearly all your spells from books just lying around is just boring. I'd make it so that you had to practice a spell first before it would work well. Trying a spell well beyond your level might lead it to literally blow up in your face.

[Hepheastus]

That reminds me of a Tabletop RP system called Crimson empire (or cursed empire cant remember which) where magic was done by combining runes so mages could easily create their own spells. The spells in the book were essentially pre-built rune combinations and instead of preparing spells you prepared runes so you could make stuff up on the fly. However you dd have to be careful because if you for example, combined the fire rune with creation rune but forgot the localisation rune your mighty fireball would center on you and little bits of mage would go in all directions

[Bebop Man]

There's a 20%-25% off sale on videogames at the mall and I'm torn between buying one or two. GUIDE ME.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

My problem with Skyrim is that I get 30hours into the game, and then I have an urge to try playing as a different style.

e.g. playing as an archer. Suddenly gets an urge to play as a mage. Then gets an urge to play as a warrior.

But I really dislike re-doing content. So I seek out something different to do.

So, I've essentially done all major storylines in vanilla Skyrim, across 5 characters.
I've reach the point where if I do 'reroll' again, I play as a roaming adventurer.
I enter caves/dungeons/crypts and raid them. I return to a 'home' town to sell my wares, and then I go on and explore some more. Any quests I do have a very appealing initial story, or are incidental.
It's a lot more enjoyable as you're turning a sandbox game with some interesting storyline quests (which you only do), into a purely sandbox game.

If any of you quit Skyrim due to boredom, try with that approach to play style. It's a nice relaxed way to play.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

I quit Skyrim 'cause I couldn't stomach more than one dungeon per session and because I got too distracted by side quests to ever actually do any of the main storyline. It got quite dull quite quickly.

[empath]

Merry? That's how I approached EVERY Bethesda RPG: Daggerfall (DNF due to bugs), Morrowind (finished after completing EVERY possible side quest and maxing my 'wanderer' custom class with 100's in everything; IIRC about 300-400hrs...plus 'repeating' due to crashes, save bugs, etc), Oblivion (about the same, just less backtracking due to bugs; maybe 250-300hrs), Fallout 3 (ditto, Steam says I have "533hrs played" due to all the DLC sidequests) and Fallout: New Vegas (finished two fo the DLC, and maybe 1/2 through the main storyline - "503hrs played" as of last Friday, but a chunk of that was me having to backtrack because I goofed on some earlier choices that stymied my ultimate plans for the Mojave)

...might get Skyrim et al. cheap for the holidays, but this discussion makes me want to try to get Arena played through, and maybe go back to Daggerfall since there's updated builds to work with contemporary systems...

For the most part, I don't 'get bored' with the style of gameplay; I might put a TES/FO game 'on hiatus' if I get another interesting game during a playthrough, but I inevitably come back to it to grind a little further, and explore a little more (I miss Morrowind's 'fill in the map cells with colour as you explore them' mechanic; these later games have better features that I certainly enjoy, but that is one thing that really appeals to the 'completionist' in me)

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I wish there were sand-box rpgs which were like Minecraft where the land is generated randomly, but interestingly. I don't mean Diablo 3's method of having lots of various room styles and shuffle them about and connect them up with corridors. But randomly generated.

It would allow players to feel more inclined to do another playthrough as there will always be that sense of exploration. I find with some games, I have to leave playing them again for a very long time so I forget the layouts (I have a very good cartographic mind) before I do a replay. Otherwise I feel like "I've been here before. I must burn through this". That's one reason I have never been able to complete a 3rd play through of Dragon Age Origins. It also means when I play open Beta tests for MMOs I will end up playing, I try to not do too much of the levelling content.

[Valkyrie-Lemons]

I think that's what Dwarf Fortress's Adventure Mode is trying to do. A randomly generated world and you can explore any of it. The biggest problem is that it has a stupidly high difficulty curb, and like any rougelike, it has a million and one different controls.

In fact, most rougelikes are like that.

[Kapol]

*snip*

One of the problems with that is the issue that making a randomly-generated world that's large, expansive, and still keeps all of the qualities needed for an RPG (quests, differently leveled areas that progress nicely, and that sort of thing) is... hard, to say the least. Minecraft is different because, frankly, there's not a huge amount to the world. It has different biomes, and now has pointless villages scattered about, but nothing really more than that. It also doesn't care about the laws of gravity. And it's set up in a way where, if something is in your way, you can just destroy it for the most part. These are things that most RPGs can't really get away with.

There are some simpler games like Rogue Legacy that do this. That's because the randomly generated areas share a lot of similarities (the hardest area's always at the bottom, the easiest is always the first, etc. Plus a lot of layouts are the same for rooms). Plus, it's 2D and not very graphic intensive. If you wanted something randomly generated on the scale of, say, Fallout or Elder scrolls, it'd be a nightmare. The amount of programming, modeling, and setup that would go into it would take a long time. And I have no doubt that the bug testing would go on for years by itself.

One game that's trying to do this (though it's not really an RPG) is The Dead Linger. But the results so far are... not the best. To be fair though, it's still in alpha.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I guess I can add that dream to my list of others.
Like the Virtual Reality -Immersive Pokemon-like game.
Or, a Pokemon PC MMO.

Or live-action Pokemon game.

[empath]

...Pokemon LARP?


....er, wait ....um.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

- The Pokemon Battles would be actiony. More akin to the Animes where Pokemon can *dodge*.
Less turn based twatting, and more pro-active twatting.


Basically Smash Bros. with Pokemon with the gameplay made enjoyable* and in context.

*Smash Bros. is fun. I mean, I doubt it'd be enjoyable if it was made into Pokemon.

I doubt it'd ever happen since 75949639 Pokemon would have to be rendered and animated and blahde blah'd in the new battle style.

Movement would be like in Pokemon Colleseum. Perhaps this would lend itself exceptionally to consoles.

Now, I need more anger to make this games-vent worthy.


My Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 keeps crashing when working on a contest project. It doesn't undo much of my work, but it's still a mega hassle to reopen each time. As well as morale draining.

[empath]

See that's what appeals to the concept of "Pokemon LARP".

Essentially what you describe is a Pokemon game (with Pokemon's milieu and story) using Smash Bros.'s game mechanics and gameplay. Which WOULD be awesome.

Back to Venting:

Damn you, GOG - I already have *stops to count* NINE excellent games sitting on my desktop waiting to be played after I bought them on fantastic deals you offered; quit compelling me to by MORE games I have to drop into the queue!

(and tangential to gaming) This is my only day off this week. I just spent the morning mowing both my father's and landlord's lawns, spent the afternoon running errands, and it's almost supper and I only just caught up with my email/comics/forums - I had PLANNED to get a big chunk of progress taken care of in New Vegas, but that'll have to wait until after supper...

[Geoff_B]

I have a new enemy in Assassin's Creed. Not the Templars, not the guards, not even the beggar ladies. The madmen! It's bad enough they lash out at you as you walk past, but it's only you they lash out at and they remain glued to the entry leading into the alley I want to walk down! And one of them cost me a clean assassination! I got knocked out of blend and ended up having to swordfight my target and a dozen guards!

Grrr I wish there wasn't a penalty for murdering them.

[Hepheastus]

- The Pokemon Battles would be actiony. More akin to the Animes where Pokemon can *dodge*.
Less turn based twatting, and more pro-active twatting.


Basically Smash Bros. with Pokemon with the gameplay made enjoyable* and in context.

*Smash Bros. is fun. I mean, I doubt it'd be enjoyable if it was made into Pokemon.

I doubt it'd ever happen since 75949639 Pokemon would have to be rendered and animated and blahde blah'd in the new battle style.

Movement would be like in Pokemon Colleseum. Perhaps this would lend itself exceptionally to consoles

There is kinda a game like that. It's an indie game in early alpha called pokemon generations. It's a third person full 3D and when you battle you take direct control of your pokemon, can dodge and fight in real time. Oh and it's free to download

[Kapol]

I want Super Mario Sunshine so bad. But it's $30 for a used copy. And given that Theros is about to come out, and I need to save money for The Escapist Expo, I really can't afford it. :/

[Jamfalcon]

That seems awfully high. Have you checked both retail and online? I'd imagine it's a game that could still be found reasonably easily at EB Games/Gamestop. I don't know about the US prices, but the Canadian site list it as $3 used (though it's out of stock in their online store).

That said, if you can't find it cheaper, it's probably still worth the cost. And unless you're dying to play it right now, I'm sure it'll be just as easy to find a couple months down the road.

[Kapol]

The Gamestop site has it listed as $25 and sold out. It's not very easy to find in retail since it was one of the bigger games released for the cube.

And I really want to play it at the moment because of watching Game Grumps do a playthrough. It's making me jones to give it another shot.

[Lurkon]

I don't suppose you are at all interested in advice of an... illicit nature? Nothing about how some kind of dolphin might solve your problem?

[Kapol]

I've never been a fan of dolphins of that sort. While it would fall into my 'grey-area of dolphin association,' I still prefer to avoid it. I appreciate the attempt to help though.

[Geoff_B]

I skipped one of the investigations. Five assassination targets in five minutes. I did all the others, but I gave up on that one and went for the final assassination. Now there's a black mark in the DNA block. Mocking me.

The shame. It burns.