Wake me up when the Incline begins...

[Ninjerk]

Spoiler

 

[agris]

fuckin' weird you've got that in your back pocket Ninjerk

 

[octavius]

There are plenty of great FRUA and NWN1 and NWN2 mods that have more than credible writing.

The better the writing, or the more the modder tries to write a good story, the worse the combat usually is, since storyfags don't care much about tactical combat and encounter design. At least that's my general impression of FRUA so far.

EDIT: Our own Dorateen seems to have found a good balance is his quite recent Hearkenwold module, though.

 

[Ninjerk]

fuckin' weird you've got that in your back pocket Ninjerk

I haven't been able to forget about it since I saw it (probably over a year ago).

 

[mondblut]

But surely nobody called Fallout/Torment/early 2000s IE games as looking(or playing) old tho, at the time.

Diablow was all the rage, and even back then the world was already full of newfag retards who were all "what, I keep clicking on an enemy and it doesn't die, wtf? and what's a 'turn'?"

 

[Jazz_]

So when consoles and Unity get wiped out from the face of the earth? sleep tight

 

[pippin]

But surely nobody called Fallout/Torment/early 2000s IE games as looking(or playing) old tho, at the time.

Diablow was all the rage, and even back then the world was already full of newfag retards who were all "what, I keep clicking on an enemy and it doesn't die, wtf? and what's a 'turn'?"

PST was CRPG of the year for Computer Gaming World, btw. The initial reception to Diablo is largely overstated in retrospective, it was only with Diablo 2 that Blizzard managed to conquer the markets.

 

[D!!]

Not to derail this thread, which is surely going somewhere fast, any highlights/recommended fan campaigns? I own DF and HK.

That's actually pretty easy, you can just sort by subscribers in Steam. Community is relatively small and good modules makes it to the top quickly. Antumbra Saga and Mercurial for Dragonfall are really high-quality and lenghty campaigns. And for HK it is a sequel to Antumbra Saga - The Caldecott Caper.

Greatest thing about Shadowrun from HBS is the simplicity of the formula that just works. Nice art style and music, missions-runs with fun turn-based combat spiced up with great writing supported by tabletop background lore and cool hub areas. It delivers exactly what it promises and that formula is easy to exploit by modders. As a result there are plenty of fond memories about my adventures in this world made by absolutely different authors. Reminds you about D&D CRPGs adaptations of the past, right?

 

[SausageInYourFace]

but still none of them feeled me with the wonder

Really love your typo there.

Well, maybe not the games are different but you are - or we are.

Looking for some kind of feeling that will not return and can not return. If you played a game like Baldurs Gate in your formative years it invoked in you a sense of wonder that completely transported you into a different world for weeks. Now, you are older, you have less time but you have seen more things, you are at a different place in life and you view these games from a different perspective. You fire Pillars of Eternity up and it somehow fails to bring you back to that place in time, that feeling that you had when you were fifteen and would spend the night exploring the wilderness in Baldurs Gate. You'd help a child find its dog and suddenly it turns into a demon and leaves for another dimension and you with a good cuck of xp, you'd think WHOA! that was amazing! If you were to play it today, you're likely to think 'Hm, that was shitty quest design, I didn't even do anything to solve this quest. And why was my character not more suspicious finding this child here at night?' and you'd analyze it like that and probably discuss it in detail on the Codex. And you'd wonder where the sense of wonder is gone and think its the games fault, but really, maybe its just you who has changed, and it is the context you play these games in.

And this is not to say there are no rational reasons to dislike the big KSs for example. All of them had pretty glaring flaws in at least one core deparment. But the thing is, most of the classics do too; yet we look at them in a different way, we are, at the very least, likely to show much more leniency to them. Maybe part of the reason for this is because our feelings are different. Then we try to rationalize our feelings and explain them with objective reasons.

Nostalgia can be a powerful force.

And I notice one thing in the way I play. I don't - because I can't (have you noticed that a lot of Codexians enjoy games with shorter playing time now?) - sit down for many hours every day, every week and let myself get sucked in into a game world, like I used to. Sure, sometimes there is some of that old spark again but in general this kind of stuff doesn't happen all that often anymore. The kind of feeling where you wake up in the morning and think about the game and what you are going to do and you can't wait to get home and play until late night to beat some boss or find some item. You'd think its probably the games fault that you don't get immersed anymore like you used to ('DivOS has great combat but the story is not good, so that must be the reasion!') - but it happens with me with old games, too. And not just ones I know already but even classics I play for the first time fail to grab me like they might have done a few years back.

Of course I am not trying to say that invalidates any criticism or that the new KSs are really just classics that we fail to see. I do, too, think that we have seen a bunch of great games but probably not a timeless new classic, yet. And there are reasons for that. Games have changed, objectively changed, and you can point these changes out.

But also the context we play these games in today has changed a great deal*. And of course that is also going to change how we percieve them and think and feel about them.

(*And with context I don't just mean age or personal life situation, I also mean the historical context, or the context of your environment; like the exsistence of the internet, our ability to discuss games to death on forums, to watch youtube videos and reviews, to find walkthroughs and all kinds of other stuff online that changed the way we play. Or the overabundance of other games. Back in the day, I would read one PC Magazine, go buy a game after a good review, and then be alone with it for I don't know how many weeks. And unless someone else I know bought it too, I'd be completely alone in the game bubble. And it would be the only game I was likely to buy for quite a while, first cause I wouldn't have more money and secondly cause there were no other games coming out I was interested in.)

 

[Jazz_]

I am not sold on the nostalgia argument, I think if a game is special you appreciate it regardless, I was there and played Deus Ex, Gothic, PST, BG etc when they came out and had a great time, somehow VTMB went under my radar and I ended up playing it for the first time 10 years after it came out, despite being older/more cynical/whatever I had a fantastic time with it and put me into that sort of ''gaming trance'' where you are immersed and fascinated by all the details, the lore, the setting, etc.

The problem with POE is that it was basicly a bland mixture of fantasy tropes already explored by other thousands games, hard to get that feeling of ''wonder'' from it.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The Codex languish'd in Decline's dark night.
God said "Let Grimrock be!", and all was light.

 

[Invictus]

I am not sold on the nostalgia argument, I think if a game is special you appreciate it regardless, I was there and played Deus Ex, Gothic, PST, BG etc when they came out and had a great time, somehow VTMB went under my radar and I ended up playing it for the first time 10 years after it came out, despite being older/more cynical/whatever I had a fantastic time with it and put me into that sort of ''gaming trance'' where you are immersed and fascinated by all the details, the lore, the setting, etc.

The problem with POE is that it was basicly a bland mixture of fantasy tropes already explored by other thousands games, hard to get that feeling of ''wonder'' from it.

I also agree, I replay Darklands every couple of years and the game is still fantastic; yeah having to micro manage the party is kind of annoying but frankly the game holds up incredibly well, as do most of the classics RPGs so the rose colored glasses effect is not to blame here...and yeah that feeling of fantasizing all day long at school or work before getting home to play is such a rare thing these days.
That sense of wonder is such a rare thing nowadays and that feeling of playing something truly relevant I have felt maybe 4 or 5 times on the last 10 years with the Souls series or Stalker... possibly the last RPG was the Superdemo of Grimoire which just felt like home you know?
I didnt mean that all the 2012 kickstarers were a disappointment or even recent releases like AoD, it is just none felt as definitive as those classics games and yeah the time of their release has less to do with it than the quality of them; I also played for the first time a lot of classics 5 or 6 years after release (like most of the Infinity Engine games) and the deciding factor to their greatness is that they are fucking good despite their age or technical limitations.

 

[Makabb]

You need to wait till 22/22/22 for Elder Scrolls 6

 

[Lurker King]

Hey now so good old fashioned controversy; you think that AoD or Underrail are BETTER than older games because graphics and shit? Hell that is interesting, so Underrail is better than say Fallout and AoD is better than Darklands? I said both games are great but truly you want to say that whenever they decide to do another greatest evah games here in the Codex both of those games will be higher than Darklands of Baldur's Gate? Now who is beign delusional bub in his KKK edgy as a blade wannabe conoseur pose?

I don’t think that AoD and Underrail are better than older games because they have graphics, I think that AoD is better than Darklands and Underrail is better than BG in particular, since you mentioned these games as classics that provided an experience that you couldn’t have with AoD or Underrail. AoD is better than Darkands because it has better combat, better writing, unparalled reactivity. Underrail is better than BG because it has better combat system (proper turn-based instead of RTwP), well thought fights, great crafting, etc. Both have shit writing and FedEx quests. BG is miles ahead in the art department; it has better graphics, but is worse in everything else. And please, don’t say you enjoy the game because it’s a wonderful adaptation of AD&D, because it is not. You have better adaptations such as Temple of Elemental Evil and Knights of the Chalice.

I think that Darklands is fantastic to this day, even if brought the monstrosity that is RTwP, but BG is not a classic by a mile. If anything, BGs are the first popamole games that want to come across as oldschool cRPGs. The irony is that in this sense PoE is a proper spiritual sequel of BGs: it’s popamole to the core, has a generic setting, mostly retarded writing, the combat is a mess, etc.

 

[Lurker King]

How can a game like AoD be a classic when it looks & plays like a 15 year old game? Any of those old classics was like that when they came out? Did Fallout/Torment etc looked like 1983's games at their release time?

Because what makes a cRPG a classic is not the graphics, but something else (the combat system, or the reactivity, etc.).

Anyway, you can bet on that it will be ignored..

But here is the thing. I don’t think that there is anything wrong with games like AoD and Underrail being ignored by the masses who enjoy PoE or Skyrim. In fact, I think this is exactly how things should be, since in most cases quality is not correlated to popularity. This happens with music, movies and books. I don’t see how things should be different with cRPGs. If anything, it should be a matter of pride, not shame.

The truth is that the bigger is the culture circle the worse are the standards. For the masses, PoE is not a classic in the cultural sense, but Skyrim is. For another hundred thousand, PoE is a classic in the cultural sense, but not AoD. For another tens of thousands, AoD is a classic in the cultural sense, but not PoE. The truth is that being a classic in the cultural sense means absolutely nothing.

AoD didn't beat anything at anything.

You may provide some laughs for the ones who think like you, but for everyone else you come across like a balloon full of hot air. Do you have any particular criticism to AoD combat system? How about the writing or the reactivity? You have nothing substantial to say because you don’t know, and you don’t know because you are a retarded edgy that doesn’t like discussions about game design.

 

[Lurker King]

Looking for some kind of feeling that will not return and can not return. If you played a game like Baldurs Gate in your formative years it invoked in you a sense of wonder that completely transported you into a different world for weeks. Now, you are older, you have less time but you have seen more things, you are at a different place in life and you view these games from a different perspective. You fire Pillars of Eternity up and it somehow fails to bring you back to that place in time, that feeling that you had when you were fifteen and would spend the night exploring the wilderness in Baldurs Gate. You'd help a child find its dog and suddenly it turns into a demon and leaves for another dimension and you with a good cuck of xp, you'd think WHOA! that was amazing! If you were to play it today, you're likely to think 'Hm, that was shitty quest design, I didn't even do anything to solve this quest. And why was my character not more suspicious finding this child here at night?' and you'd analyze it like that and probably discuss it in detail on the Codex. And you'd wonder where the sense of wonder is gone and think its the games fault, but really, maybe its just you who has changed, and it is the context you play these games in.

You can enjoy an old game for one the following reasons:

(1) Because it reminds you of your experiences in your formative years.
(2) Because it has some awesome features.
(3) Because someone said to you that these games are classics and you have no personality.

The rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia present in (1) can be a bummer. I know I can’t have exactly the same experiences now. Most of my old friends are fat, bald and have children. For them, cRPGs are a thing of the past. At best, I can talk about cRPGs in the Codex and that’s it. Yes, you also have the fact that after you learn to analyze game features, you become more self-aware and demaning, but I don’t think that the complaints about PoE are just based on nostalgia. Even if despise BG, It is easy to pinpoint some of the features that were central to BG 2 that are not present in PoE: mage duels, overpowered itemization and better character building. If someone thinks that these features made BG2 great, then they are entailed to dismiss PoE.

 

[an Administrator]

Play Etrian Odyssey

 

[ZagorTeNej]

In my case some of the recent releases (AoD and Underrail being the best examples but even something like Inquisitor I enjoyed more than I thought I would) did manage to invoke that same special feeling older classics did so I really don't buy the nostalgia/my tastes have evolved so much/don't have free time arguments, to me they're mostly just excuses for big name Kickstarter darlings not living up to the hype (and being soundly beaten by a few indies in what I consider the most important aspects). Not to mention that nearly every Codex (semi) revered classic I've tried (or replayed after a long pause) years after its release entertained me for hours.

Not all eras are as fruitful when it comes to any medium and video games are no different in that regard. With few rare exceptions I'd certainly trade all studios today combined for say Troika or LGS in a heartbeat, it's about quality not quantity.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

It's called growing old. If you expect the same feeling of excitement and wonder you had when you played the greatest games of your teen-years... well, good luck.:D

 

[an Administrator]

It's called growing old. If you expect the same feeling of excitement and wonder you had when you played the greatest games of your teen-years... well, good luck.:D

Well i'm not sure about this. I'm not old and when i play classic titles(like Fallout2, Morrowind, VTMB, etc.) i feel a sense of excitement that i can't find in many new CRPGS.

 

[boot]

kickstarters promise everything and deliver nothing. If anything they've made things worse. Now anyone can churn out some garbage and call it an RPG. They have the graphics and complexity of browser based games. And half of General Rpg Discussion is filled with kickstarter threads!

DISGUSTING!

The classics are good because they are good. It has nothing to do with their age.

 

[Lurker King]

They made things worse because they lowered the standards even of a niche group of players who enjoyed isometric games. Now we have a bunch of retarded people in our midst saying how incline the Shadowruns are. Celebrity worship + emotional investment + kickstarter = decline.

 

[Serus]

Shadowruns (at least the second part - the only one i played) was incline. Not as in - "it is a timeless classic" - incline but as in "a turn-based, party based crpg with an ok-ish story/setting" - incline. This is what "incline" means to many people - there are crpgs being made that aren't shit. They don't have to be great or "classics" to be considered incline. "Incline" is a relative term. Incline = compared to "Decline" that was before it (in the mid-late 2000s and early 2010s). That is the crucial thing some people are missing all the time despite other people repeating it all the time. There was a period when literally the only non-action hybrid CRPGs that weren't total shit were... probably Vogel's or the like and a simple and ugly (but good) game as Knight of the Chalice was a shining beacon of hope in the dark. Look at Shadowruns and similar games made in the last few years in this context.

 

[mondblut]

Diablow was all the rage, and even back then the world was already full of newfag retards who were all "what, I keep clicking on an enemy and it doesn't die, wtf? and what's a 'turn'?"

PST was CRPG of the year for Computer Gaming World, btw. The initial reception to Diablo is largely overstated in retrospective, it was only with Diablo 2 that Blizzard managed to conquer the markets.

CGW was a prestigious magazine no longer welcome on retard market by second half of 90s. And at least in russistan, diablow was huge, universally admired by the plebs and hated by monocled RPG conossieurs. We had to ban it from fidonet ru.game.rpg just to keep the retards out, ffs.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Do you have any particular criticism to AoD combat system?

Not particularly. In fact, it's the only thing in AoD that's salvageable.

How about the writing

Complete crap. Setting is interesting, but that's all.

or the reactivity?

I'm not terribly impressed by someone's ability to script different ending slides. The reactivity I care about is being able to interact with the game world and have it react to what I do. That is, have something like using charm on someone you can't beat and steal his armor to make it easier, like I did in Arcanum, and come up with it myself, not have a list of options from which to choose "Steal armor -> Kill him".
Also AoD doesn't really have a game world to speak about. It's a collection of set pieces and you're being teleported between them.

You have nothing substantial to say because you don’t know, and you don’t know because you are a retarded edgy that doesn’t like discussions about game design.

Yeah, well, I've only seen you claim VD is the best game designer and writer in existence, if that's game design discussion then so is "AoD is complete and utter crap and VD sucks at writing".