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 Manchu wrote:

 illuknisaa wrote:
"Exploring" is just a fancy way of saying simulating walking.

Strongly disagree. Exploring is a mode of play (setting your own gameplay priorities) as much as a goal (discovering new things).

A lot of people think exploration is just finding hidden rooms and walking around, but it's more then just that, Exploration includes things like testing to see if water puts out fire or what happens when you put a bucket on someones head.

Yes, you make a very good point: exploration can be both in-game and out-of-game. In-game exploration is about further experiencing the setting. Out-of-game exploration is about "testing" the game itself, seeing "what happens when X" as you mentioned. This distinction totally slipped my mind because Bethesda RPGs have a lot of possibilities on both scores.

Name one dungeon that isn't linear. Name one dungeon that support something else than "HIT THEM IN THE FACE" -gameplay.

Not caring about ultra poor level scaling doesn't really fix the ultra poor level scaling. "Exploring" is just a fancy way of saying simulating walking.

Pretty much every opponents falls into two categories.
A) They hit you in the face.
B) They shoot you in the face.

Melee attackers never change their tactics, so running around table or a tree will work everytime.
Ranged attackers will never defeat a tree or a large rock so you can just sit back and wait so you can hit them in the face.
If you can't be bothered you can just get yourself godlike gear or type "killall" in the console.

If you say it like that then every game falls into that category.

Because you also have forgotten about the dual roles characters can have.

Anyway. Guys what game should I review next or do you guys want to submit some game reviews or games I should try? And then begin the conversation on?

What kind of games are you willing to try?

 illuknisaa wrote:


Name one dungeon that isn't linear.

Blackreach.

 Asherian Command wrote:


Anyway. Guys what game should I review next or do you guys want to submit some game reviews or games I should try? And then begin the conversation on?

Try fallen London.

I tried that one myself and I confess it did not hold my interest. Also, IIRC, one is ... encouraged to pay to get ahead.

 Asherian Command wrote:

Name one dungeon that isn't linear. Name one dungeon that support something else than "HIT THEM IN THE FACE" -gameplay.

Not caring about ultra poor level scaling doesn't really fix the ultra poor level scaling. "Exploring" is just a fancy way of saying simulating walking.

Pretty much every opponents falls into two categories.
A) They hit you in the face.
B) They shoot you in the face.

Melee attackers never change their tactics, so running around table or a tree will work everytime.
Ranged attackers will never defeat a tree or a large rock so you can just sit back and wait so you can hit them in the face.
If you can't be bothered you can just get yourself godlike gear or type "killall" in the console.

If you say it like that then every game falls into that category.

Because you also have forgotten about the dual roles characters can have.

Anyway. Guys what game should I review next or do you guys want to submit some game reviews or games I should try? And then begin the conversation on?

Project Zomboid.

A Walking Dead style survival game in isometric format. Gather food, medicine and weapons. Establish a safehouse. Collect rainwater and farm crops. Defend your new home against hordes of undead.

And (in future updates, as the game is currently in early access) interact with and recruit other survivor NPC's to rebuild civilization...or fight them for dwindling resources.

That looks pretty good even if I am a bit ... or to be honest completely sick of the zombie genre. Does it do anything that other zombie games (DayZ, State of Decay) don't?

EDIT: Ugh but early access is a no go for me at least.

 Manchu wrote:
That looks pretty good even if I am a bit ... or to be honest completely sick of the zombie genre. Does it do anything that other zombie games (DayZ, State of Decay) don't?

EDIT: Ugh but early access is a no go for me at least.

Absolutely yes.

In Day Z you start off with no weapons. You need to grab a weapon asap - typically a rolling pin or a frying pan. If you're lucky you'll find a hand gun and a single clip of ammo, but you REALLY don't want to use it early one because loud noises especially gun shots draw all zombies in the immediate vicinity to the location of the last shot (this is fething scary).

You need to grab a bag, and start gathering food, water and medicine. Perishable food will rot, and will make you sick.

You need to raid warehouses and stores for better weapons and tools - Fire Axes, Baseball bats, hammers, saw, spade, trowel, and a shotgun if you're lucky.

You need to find a good defensible location, like a house with walls surrounding it, make it safe by clearing out zombies and fortify it using an axe to cut down trees for wood, a saw to cut planks, a hammer and nails (which have to be scavenged) to build fences, doors and barricade the windows of your house.

Eventually the power and water supplies will be cut off. Canned goods will eventually dwindle, unless you live the life of a nomad constantly moving from place to place - which keeps bringing you into contact with more zombies as you're not staying in an area you've made safe.

So you will need to build barrels to collect rainwater and begin farming vegetable crops. You can also hunt and trap animals.

If you get sick from food poisoning, you need medicine, lots of food and lots of rest. Injure your arm on a broken window, and you will need to bandage it. If you're infected by a zombie...you're fething screwed.

Make too much noise inside your home, fire a gun or saw logs in the yard, or catch the attention of a group of zombies whilst returning home and you could end up in a siege. Meta events affect the behaviour and movement of zombies - you might hear a gunshot in the distance or a helicopter, and that riles up all the zombies in the area, and they'll migrate towards the area of the gun shot (eventually, these gun shots will indicate the location of actual NPC survivors you can encounter, but for now theyre just ambient sounds).

You have to really manage your stamina in this game. Swinging a melee weapon will tire you out quickly. You need to eat regularly to maintain your strength, otherwise your strength and speed is penalized heavily. The game is really all about survival in a way that I've not seen many zombie games do (not that ive played very many). Food. Water. Medicine. Farming, hunting and trapping. Gathering weapons. Fighting zombies, clearing houses, making an area safe to live in and move about. Fortifying a house so that its defensible.


Day Z is nothing like that - as I understand it (havent yet played it) - its all about PVP, fighting with rival bands of players competing for resources, weapons, vehicles and the best locations to build bases. The zombies are a minor nuisance at best that just get in the way of fighting other players.

Don't know about State of Decay, havent played that.

As for it being early access, the game is pretty good atm and fairly cheap I think. I regard it in the same way that i considered Minecraft, which I bought during Beta for £15 and was pleased with the state of the game as it was at the time I bought it.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
EDIT: Ugh but early access is a no go for me at least.

Best advice i can give is, watch some Lets Plays and you-tube reviews.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
The game is fething terrifying when night has fallen and you can't see a fething thing, the streets are teeming with zombies, you're spotted by a group of them but you've fired your last bullet, your only weapon is a frying pan, your food is running out and you desperately need to bandage that scratch on your arm before it gets infected.

Character death is permanent, though you can reroll a new fresh character in the same world and return to your safehouse. The downside of that is you lose all your skillss, and skills are VERY important.

State of decay is really surprising in what it dose. It's a little like they thew darts a a dart board to decide how they should spend their money.

If i'm being brutally honest i felt you spent a lot of words saying not a whole lot.

Skyrim is one of my most played games of all time, in both the vanilla console variety and the, modded, PC version.

I don't quite feel you fully covered the appeal of the game as i believe Skyrim is 10x more than the sum of it's parts. I would say only the visuals, Exploration mechanics (By this i mean the way Quests are marked, the way map locations are discovered and the fast travel system) and world building are objectively excellent the rest is fairly mediocre. This makes it a very interesting game to discuss; if the combat, mission design, story and loot game are pretty poor why is it so darn addictive?

You're right to talk about the weakness of the story and i could tell you maybe had some good points to make but unfortunately you never made them.

Alot of problems i have with Skyrim are technical. This might be because a huge amount of the so called 'Creation Engine' is just janky old Gamebryo. The most obvious indication of this is how similar the Creation Kit is to Oblivion's 'Construction set modding tool, also worth noting that many, if not all, Oblivion/fallout modding utilities are compatible to some degree with Skyrim.

The game has a great variety of excellent animation cycles both motion captured and hand animated yet fails to stitch them together well enough. This makes the animation look crap when arguably, it's not. Oblivion had laughably terrible animations and it's a shame that Skyrim still only looks a little better despite the obvious effort.

Another problem is that the scripting engine is abysmal, shockingly slow for a modern game. What's worse is that it gets slower the larger(i.e. older) your save file, until some scripts take many more frames to execute than they should. For an example notice how slowly an enemy is knocked over by the 'shield charge' perk, sometimes it takes as much as half a second for an enemy to be knocked over, this makes this master perk feel unsatisfying to use.

The way inverse kinematic objects (for example your character) interact with static and havok objects is also pretty broken, the character will often get stuck on static objects like rocks and such and sometimes be outright killed by stepping on havok enabled skeletal remains. I believe the way the engine interpolates your character's position also leads to the dumb mountain climbing shenanigans, you can climb slopes far beyond the hard coded slope limit because it approximates your position wrong. Another symptom of this is the bug with allowed you to clip through walls if you were holding a plate or whatever.

I got a stealth game called monaco, Enemy Mind, Fract OSC, Guacamelee! Gold Edition, Master Rebot, A Tale of Two Brothers, Home, Octodad: Dadiliest Catch, One Finger Death Punch, Pixel Piracy, PAC-MAN Championship, Don't Starve, To the Moon, Stick it to the Man! Sweet Lily Dreams, Unturned, and Destiny,

I am going to pick a game, I might buy a game but Remember I am a game designer and most of money is spent on buying lisences :(

Wow are some of those games out of my price range O.O




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Perkustin wrote:
If i'm being brutally honest i felt you spent a lot of words saying not a whole lot.

Skyrim is one of my most played games of all time, in both the vanilla console variety and the, modded, PC version.

I don't quite feel you fully covered the appeal of the game as i believe Skyrim is 10x more than the sum of it's parts. I would say only the visuals, Exploration mechanics (By this i mean the way Quests are marked, the way map locations are discovered and the fast travel system) and world building are objectively excellent the rest is fairly mediocre. This makes it a very interesting game to discuss; if the combat, mission design, story and loot game are pretty poor why is it so darn addictive?

You're right to talk about the weakness of the story and i could tell you maybe had some good points to make but unfortunately you never made them.

Alot of problems i have with Skyrim are technical. This might be because a huge amount of the so called 'Creation Engine' is just janky old Gamebryo. The most obvious indication of this is how similar the Creation Kit is to Oblivion's 'Construction set modding tool, also worth noting that many, if not all, Oblivion/fallout modding utilities are compatible to some degree with Skyrim.

The game has a great variety of excellent animation cycles both motion captured and hand animated yet fails to stitch them together well enough. This makes the animation look crap when arguably, it's not. Oblivion had laughably terrible animations and it's a shame that Skyrim still only looks a little better despite the obvious effort.

Another problem is that the scripting engine is abysmal, shockingly slow for a modern game. What's worse is that it gets slower the larger(i.e. older) your save file, until some scripts take many more frames to execute than they should. For an example notice how slowly an enemy is knocked over by the 'shield charge' perk, sometimes it takes as much as half a second for an enemy to be knocked over, this makes this master perk feel unsatisfying to use.

The way inverse kinematic objects (for example your character) interact with static and havok objects is also pretty broken, the character will often get stuck on static objects like rocks and such and sometimes be outright killed by stepping on havok enabled skeletal remains. I believe the way the engine interpolates your character's position also leads to the dumb mountain climbing shenanigans, you can climb slopes far beyond the hard coded slope limit because it approximates your position wrong. Another symptom of this is the bug with allowed you to clip through walls if you were holding a plate or whatever.

I didn't include those points mainly because I could only focus on three things per. It was originally for an assignment. Give or take, I would of put more in. But I was in a time crunch. I had several pages of other material, but I cut it down to at least 6 pages.

And let me tell you that is a long review.

I originally had thought about adding that. But I felt like the most important parts of the game are gameplay, sound, music, and story.

I mean some games just rely entirely on sound. (Like outlast and most horror games.)

Its just apart of what they are.

I do have to agree with every point except maybe a few bits and pieces here and there.

The main point of this article I wrote was to be concise and to be ontopic. I had to explain each part of the topic. I couldn't really delve off topic like I normally do. I Had to write academically and professionally. And unfortunately I could not delve into many things. So yes. I had to use many words to describe the same thing but in a different manner and exploring it deeper.

I found those six things the most prominent. And don't forget this is an opinionated piece as I labeled at the top as an editorial/opinionated piece.

If i really wanted to I would of delve into the community aspect a little bit more.

 Asherian Command wrote:

Name one dungeon that isn't linear. Name one dungeon that support something else than "HIT THEM IN THE FACE" -gameplay.

Not caring about ultra poor level scaling doesn't really fix the ultra poor level scaling. "Exploring" is just a fancy way of saying simulating walking.

Pretty much every opponents falls into two categories.
A) They hit you in the face.
B) They shoot you in the face.

Melee attackers never change their tactics, so running around table or a tree will work everytime.
Ranged attackers will never defeat a tree or a large rock so you can just sit back and wait so you can hit them in the face.
If you can't be bothered you can just get yourself godlike gear or type "killall" in the console.

If you say it like that then every game falls into that category.

Because you also have forgotten about the dual roles characters can have.

Anyway. Guys what game should I review next or do you guys want to submit some game reviews or games I should try? And then begin the conversation on?

Compare skyrim to borderlands.

Both are dungeon crawler "rpgs"* with heavy focus on combat.
In borderlands you mainly shoot people with different guns that have unique characteristics. You also have a variety of enemies which many have unique weak spots and playstyles

In Skyrim weapons act pretty much the same. Mace is not much different from broadsword because attack patterns never change and power attacks stay the same. Weapons are also tiered that you don't need to think if the weapon is better or not =>iron<glass><deadric. Enemies also stick to same attack patterns. They might sometimes raise a shield or ward but defences never reduce dmg to 0 so you might as well keep hitting them till they are dead. Very rarely enemies are immune/very resistant to specific kind of dmg and when they it is usually an elemental resistance > mace to the face=jack of all trades, master of everything. All critical weak points and different attack patterns are non existant. The only enemy type that has any variety are dragons

*Both are pretty shallow as far as rpgs go.

Skyrim is not a "dungeon crawler RPG." That really undermines your other opinions about the game.

Skyrim is more of a fantasy live simulator in a sense. Not really hard about it, but you can get married so there is that.

 illuknisaa wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

Name one dungeon that isn't linear. Name one dungeon that support something else than "HIT THEM IN THE FACE" -gameplay.

Not caring about ultra poor level scaling doesn't really fix the ultra poor level scaling. "Exploring" is just a fancy way of saying simulating walking.

Pretty much every opponents falls into two categories.
A) They hit you in the face.
B) They shoot you in the face.

Melee attackers never change their tactics, so running around table or a tree will work everytime.
Ranged attackers will never defeat a tree or a large rock so you can just sit back and wait so you can hit them in the face.
If you can't be bothered you can just get yourself godlike gear or type "killall" in the console.

If you say it like that then every game falls into that category.

Because you also have forgotten about the dual roles characters can have.

Anyway. Guys what game should I review next or do you guys want to submit some game reviews or games I should try? And then begin the conversation on?

Compare skyrim to borderlands.

Both are dungeon crawler "rpgs"* with heavy focus on combat.
In borderlands you mainly shoot people with different guns that have unique characteristics. You also have a variety of enemies which many have unique weak spots and playstyles

In Skyrim weapons act pretty much the same. Mace is not much different from broadsword because attack patterns never change and power attacks stay the same. Weapons are also tiered that you don't need to think if the weapon is better or not =>iron<glass><deadric. Enemies also stick to same attack patterns. They might sometimes raise a shield or ward but defences never reduce dmg to 0 so you might as well keep hitting them till they are dead. Very rarely enemies are immune/very resistant to specific kind of dmg and when they it is usually an elemental resistance > mace to the face=jack of all trades, master of everything. All critical weak points and different attack patterns are non existant. The only enemy type that has any variety are dragons

*Both are pretty shallow as far as rpgs go.

What? Sorry but are you sure we played the same game? Because I have not found anything like that in skyrim!

Borderlands is one of those games that I personally really disliked. Though that might be because I disliked the entire game to begin with and thought it was far too hyped up. (Like the Last of Us, which all the game designers hold up as great and powerful, where I think "Eh its okay. Its not spec ops the line.")

 Asherian Command wrote:

Borderlands is one of those games that I personally really disliked. Though that might be because I disliked the entire game to begin with and thought it was far too hyped up. (Like the Last of Us, which all the game designers hold up as great and powerful, where I think "Eh its okay. Its not spec ops the line.")

Borderlands is like stupid brilliant. The idea is gloriously simple. You take the random weapons and loot of a diablo clone and mix that with a first person shooter. The results on the other hand are a whole new way to deliver loot... I maybe over hyping it. We have had a lot of games with random weapons, but BL was the fist were the games really felt different besides just dealing different amounts of damage. Each weapon is like it's own little experience and that fundamentally changes loot. Your not just picking up bigger and bigger numbers, now you are basically looting new bits of game play.

nomotog wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

Borderlands is one of those games that I personally really disliked. Though that might be because I disliked the entire game to begin with and thought it was far too hyped up. (Like the Last of Us, which all the game designers hold up as great and powerful, where I think "Eh its okay. Its not spec ops the line.")

Borderlands is like stupid brilliant. The idea is gloriously simple. You take the random weapons and loot of a diablo clone and mix that with a first person shooter. The results on the other hand are a whole new way to deliver loot... I maybe over hyping it. We have had a lot of games with random weapons, but BL was the fist were the games really felt different besides just dealing different amounts of damage. Each weapon is like it's own little experience and that fundamentally changes loot. Your not just picking up bigger and bigger numbers, now you are basically looting new bits of game play.

Its not the first RPG to do that. There have been many games like that. Skyrim for example has a leveled item system that progresses while you progress.

Diablo 3 for all its problems all the items level with you, as do your enemies.

 Manchu wrote:
Skyrim is not a "dungeon crawler RPG." That really undermines your other opinions about the game.

Yeah I know. It's really hard to justify skyrim as an rpg.

There is no C&C, dialogue gameplay is super minimal and you are almost always forced kill, maim and burn everything in your path like in a diablo like dungeon crawler.
Pretty much every skill is combat focused*, every quest has you killing something or atleast involves an armed conflict in some way. Even the main quest has you slaughtering "endangered" species.

If skyrim was a proper rpg like new vegas or alpha protocal you would have the chance to talk your way out of situations and avoiding combat would have a point.

 Asherian Command wrote:


What? Sorry but are you sure we played the same game? Because I have not found anything like that in skyrim!

Borderlands is one of those games that I personally really disliked. Though that might be because I disliked the entire game to begin with and thought it was far too hyped up. (Like the Last of Us, which all the game designers hold up as great and powerful, where I think "Eh its okay. Its not spec ops the line.")

Of course you haven't found any.

Enemies have no weak points.
Enemies never use unique attack patterns
Weapons never offer anything else than different dps.

 Perkustin wrote:


This makes it a very interesting game to discuss; if the combat, mission design, story and loot game are pretty poor why is it so darn addictive?

Because you want it to be good. You hope that the next chest has interesting loot. You hope the next quest has braching paths. You hope the end game combat is fun. You hope you won't meet another fething draugr.

Hope dies last.

 Asherian Command wrote:

nomotog wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

Borderlands is one of those games that I personally really disliked. Though that might be because I disliked the entire game to begin with and thought it was far too hyped up. (Like the Last of Us, which all the game designers hold up as great and powerful, where I think "Eh its okay. Its not spec ops the line.")

Borderlands is like stupid brilliant. The idea is gloriously simple. You take the random weapons and loot of a diablo clone and mix that with a first person shooter. The results on the other hand are a whole new way to deliver loot... I maybe over hyping it. We have had a lot of games with random weapons, but BL was the fist were the games really felt different besides just dealing different amounts of damage. Each weapon is like it's own little experience and that fundamentally changes loot. Your not just picking up bigger and bigger numbers, now you are basically looting new bits of game play.

Its not the first RPG to do that. There have been many games like that. Skyrim for example has a leveled item system that progresses while you progress.

Diablo 3 for all its problems all the items level with you, as do your enemies.

You missed the fundamental point I was making. In a game like dialbo you get weapons that deal more damage, but don't really function differently. A sword is a sword is a sword. Wether it is level 100 or level 1 you use it the same way. In BL all the weapons function differently. When you pick up a new revolver, you will use it differently then your old revolver even thought they are both still revolvers. The small tweaks in accuracy , recoil, clip size mean you have to adapt your play style with each new weapon.

nomotog wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

nomotog wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

Borderlands is one of those games that I personally really disliked. Though that might be because I disliked the entire game to begin with and thought it was far too hyped up. (Like the Last of Us, which all the game designers hold up as great and powerful, where I think "Eh its okay. Its not spec ops the line.")

Borderlands is like stupid brilliant. The idea is gloriously simple. You take the random weapons and loot of a diablo clone and mix that with a first person shooter. The results on the other hand are a whole new way to deliver loot... I maybe over hyping it. We have had a lot of games with random weapons, but BL was the fist were the games really felt different besides just dealing different amounts of damage. Each weapon is like it's own little experience and that fundamentally changes loot. Your not just picking up bigger and bigger numbers, now you are basically looting new bits of game play.

Its not the first RPG to do that. There have been many games like that. Skyrim for example has a leveled item system that progresses while you progress.

Diablo 3 for all its problems all the items level with you, as do your enemies.

You missed the fundamental point I was making. In a game like dialbo you get weapons that deal more damage, but don't really function differently. A sword is a sword is a sword. Wether it is level 100 or level 1 you use it the same way. In BL all the weapons function differently. When you pick up a new revolver, you will use it differently then your old revolver even thought they are both still revolvers. The small tweaks in accuracy , recoil, clip size mean you have to adapt your play style with each new weapon.

Interesting so they basically combined rpg with rainbow six?

 Asherian Command wrote:

Interesting so they basically combined rpg with rainbow six?

No.

Borderlands (2, you should just skip 1) is a diablo clone. Everything diablo has borderland has it too.
Borderlands is played like an bog standard fps (though it has better shooting mechanics than cod).

 Asherian Command wrote:

nomotog wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

nomotog wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

Borderlands is one of those games that I personally really disliked. Though that might be because I disliked the entire game to begin with and thought it was far too hyped up. (Like the Last of Us, which all the game designers hold up as great and powerful, where I think "Eh its okay. Its not spec ops the line.")

Borderlands is like stupid brilliant. The idea is gloriously simple. You take the random weapons and loot of a diablo clone and mix that with a first person shooter. The results on the other hand are a whole new way to deliver loot... I maybe over hyping it. We have had a lot of games with random weapons, but BL was the fist were the games really felt different besides just dealing different amounts of damage. Each weapon is like it's own little experience and that fundamentally changes loot. Your not just picking up bigger and bigger numbers, now you are basically looting new bits of game play.

Its not the first RPG to do that. There have been many games like that. Skyrim for example has a leveled item system that progresses while you progress.

Diablo 3 for all its problems all the items level with you, as do your enemies.

You missed the fundamental point I was making. In a game like dialbo you get weapons that deal more damage, but don't really function differently. A sword is a sword is a sword. Wether it is level 100 or level 1 you use it the same way. In BL all the weapons function differently. When you pick up a new revolver, you will use it differently then your old revolver even thought they are both still revolvers. The small tweaks in accuracy , recoil, clip size mean you have to adapt your play style with each new weapon.

Interesting so they basically combined rpg with rainbow six?

The way I put it is that they mixed diablo with call of duty. It's actually like my problem with the game. They should have done diablo with doom.

Borderlands is very, very good; nomotog keeps posting my opinions before I can LOL. Borderlands is why I would call a perfectly serviceable game like Wolfenstein "just a shooter."

There is really no sense in comparing Skyrim with Diablo. They have zero in common.

I think there is a problem with the term "RPG" as used in the video game context. Video game marketing (including reviews) tends to use the term to describe anything and everything. It seems like having an inventory system is enough.

I think there are currently two schools of thought concerning Western RPGs.

The first approach, let's call it the BioWare school, is features-based. Although it is a well-established trend, this especially refers to ME2/DA2, when BioWare moved past their KotOR style in favor of making action/tactical games with the following "RPG elements": parties (non-customizable), levels (few choices), inventory systems (increasingly streamlined), and conversation options (binary and/or ineffective). The BioWare school is pretty much the industry default.

The second approach, you guessed it the Bethesda approach, emphasizes player-side immersion. In contrast to most games, where you obediently do what the game says ("would you kindly"), passively enjoying/hating whatever the studio and publisher have put together for you, player input into games like Skyrim is critical. Characterization (motivation, background, personality, etc.) come from outside; it's the player's job to bring that stuff. This is a very different understanding of the word 'role' in 'roleplaying game' but it is a lot closer to the traditional tabletop RPG sense.

The mainstream/default/"BioWare" style sense of 'role' is a lot closer to how we use the word 'role' when describing an actor's part in a movie. To oversimplify the process for the sake of the metaphor, an actor executes on a script rather than writing it. And most video games ask much much much less from players than scripts ask from actors.

The second approach, you guessed it the Bethesda approach, emphasizes player-side immersion. In contrast to most games, where you obediently do what the game says ("would you kindly"), passively enjoying/hating whatever the studio and publisher have put together for you, player input into games like Skyrim is critical. Characterization (motivation, background, personality, etc.) come from outside; it's the player's job to bring that stuff. This is a very different understanding of the word 'role' in 'roleplaying game' but it is a lot closer to the traditional tabletop RPG sense.

I don't find Skyrim compares to tabletop at all, at least not favorably. Skyrim and the like aren't immersive at all for me, they're stiff toy boxes populated by the player and mostly-dead cardboard standees. If Skyrim was a pen & paper rpg, the GM would be half asleep, playing angry-birds on his iPhone and kind of lazily tapping on some one sentence entry in a table in the book whenever you do something.

It doesn't make them bad really. They're fun enough when I want run around a sandbox hitting some of the scenery when it plays an attack animation at me.

I think you are mischaracterizing what I posted. Skyrim is not an adequate substitute for table top RPGs. And I don't think that is quite what Bethesda is aiming for. What I proposed is that the kind of roleplaying you do in games like Skyrim is similar to TT RPGs in that the player generates characterization instead of assuming it as in BioWare games.

Dark Souls (Either 1 or 2, both have flaws and merits) are worth looking at for any designer.

If, for no other reason, to be able to say "Difficulty doesn't sell? Then why did Dark Souls?"

While the game itself in terms of freedom is not as changeable or malleable as a tabletop RPG, you do have the option to ignore the quests completely and go on a thievery spree. I play Skyrim with a sort of "Lust for power" attitude to make me want to continue playing. Considering a lot of rewards can be used in one way or another to improve your character, that's what I use to drive my actions in the game.

So a bit like:

Thievery spree = more gold = better gear/ better homes.

Quest = Quest Reward = Easier to do stuff

More Power = Better feeling of superiority

It's that feeling of superiority that personally draws me to playing it.
Just thought I'd add another point of view to the discussion (even if it's only just my opinion, doesn't hurt to throw in another perspective).

nomotog wrote:


You missed the fundamental point I was making. In a game like dialbo you get weapons that deal more damage, but don't really function differently. A sword is a sword is a sword. Wether it is level 100 or level 1 you use it the same way. In BL all the weapons function differently. When you pick up a new revolver, you will use it differently then your old revolver even thought they are both still revolvers. The small tweaks in accuracy , recoil, clip size mean you have to adapt your play style with each new weapon.

To further elaborate how picking up a new weapon even though it may be the "same" as your current one.... You can have a revolver. It has a "magazine" of 6 rounds. Bad guy drops a new one (oddly enough, he didn't have it when he was trying to attack you... damn Psychos), THIS revolver has a capacity of 9 rounds, and it shoots a grenade type round. So, I have more shots between reloads, BUT I have to completely aim differently because the bullets have the physics of a grenade (as in, I have to "lob" rounds at the bad guys)

Each "brand" of gun does something different as well. One brand has a "teleport grenade on reload" feature where, the fewer rounds you've shot, the bigger the boom on the far end of your "throw" is. Some guns do elemental damage, so extra fire, cold (IIRC?), electricity, acid and the like, and each behaves differently and will work better on some enemies over another.

If you haven't given any of the Borderlands games a shot, I'd strongly recommend it. As said each gun is almost a new experience. Plus each character has a distinct playstyle from each other. The story is "serious" but doesn't take itself seriously (Seriously... there's a "character" named Butt Stallion)