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The RPG Scrollbars: Richard Cobbett's weekly RPG column

tuluse

Arcane
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
11,400
Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Fallout 3: Megaton

:rpgcodex:
 

Neanderthal

Arcane
Joined
Jul 7, 2015
Messages
3,626
Location
Granbretan
Prostituting your "wife" in Fallout 2 were always funny, good method o concluding quests, lets not fight mate ere rape me wife.

This feature was even listed as a selling point in a lot of the old PCGamer magazine ads. I never did figure out how do it. Were you supposed to talk to one of the pimps in New Reno or something?

Erm can't remember, might have sold her to Cats Paw, but used her in a few other situations. Gonna hav to replay.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
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Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Richard Cobbett's RPGs of 2017: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/12/05/the-rpgs-of-2017/

The RPGs of 2017
Richard Cobbett on December 5th, 2016 at 1:00 pm.

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So… 2016. (FX: ‘Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh….’) It’s not been the greatest of years, from just about every celebrity you might have loved deciding to peg it, to America electing the Curious Orange. As far as RPGs go, it’s also been fairly quiet, thanks to lots of stuff deciding to stay in the oven for a few more months. That’s not to say we’ve had nothing, not least Early Access versions of many of these games. Awards are coming later this month! But in terms of big, BIG, BIG releases, it’s been kinda quiet. Next year though? Whoooo-boy, do we have a lot of awesome stuff on the way. Here are some of my picks for the games I’m most excited to get my hands on in 2017.


Torment: Tides of Numenera
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It takes balls with their own gravity wells to compare your new game to one of the smartest and most beloved of all time… but having admittedly only played a bit of the Early Access version (not wanting to spoil too much), I have really high hopes. The world of Numenera is a fascinating place that feels like an ideal replacement to Sigil and its Planes, and I loved my initial experiments with its combat system – the focus not being on bashing hundreds of enemies, but tight, intricately written encounters that can be solved in a zillion ways, from pointing out that your enemy is staggeringly out-classed, to fiddling with the scenery and turning things like light bridges and defence systems to your advantage. Hopefully the devs got the notes from early on, notably that the intro was terrible and should be burned in fire.

Mass Effect: Andromeda
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I’m a touch more… cautiously optimistic about this one than I was a few months ago, thanks to some not very good trailers and some very weird announcements. (“We wanted our aliens to be weird and crazy and like nothing you’ve never seen before, but then we gave them trousers because people got squicked out talking to naked people and basically they’re now crocodiles in battle armour. Also, here’s a trailer about our new galaxy of opportunity that just features Humans and Turians shooting each other.”) But I still have faith. BioWare’s skill at creating characters alone is enough to draw me in to see what the Andromeda galaxy has to offer, and I can’t wait to see what else is out there. Even if it does look like it’s going to be depressingly shooty-based rather than going back to more fittingly exploratory type RPG action.

Divinity: Original Sin 2
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My favourite thing about Divinity: Original Sin wasn’t that it was a great game – though it was – but that it gave me another great example of something finally clicking. After years of not liking the Divinity games at all (though respecting their ideas and goals!), it was great to play one that cut right to the core of the series’ problems and strengths – great concepts, now with a rock solid foundation. I’m also a big fan of what Divinity: Less Original Sin is trying. While it is prettier and has better production values than the original, the focus of the thing is on massively expanding the core RPG features, with the big selling point being a party that often has conflicting goals. In multiplayer, you and your friends can work together or compete as you see fit, with bastardry including planting contraband on each other and calling the guards, or dying a green poison potion red and passing it off as a health potion. In single-player, the plan is for the computer to do the same, creating dynamic encounters where every character has their own story, and none of them can be trusted. It’s one hell of an ambitious bit of design, but for the first time, a crazy idea I have full faith that the team can actually pull off.


I just hope that even though the plan is for it to be a bit more serious than the kinda anarchic ‘throw everything in’ first game, it retains the sense of humour and whimsy where literally anything could be around the next corner. I’d miss that if it was gone.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole
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Look, I know what rude thing the title is meant to sound like, but what the hell is a ‘fractured butthole’ anyway? I’m not going to Google it, just in case, but… c’mon. Is that really the best you could do? Anyway, Cartman vs. Fartman: Dawn Of Just Ass or whatever may have bounced developers from Obsidian, but the jump from RPG tropes to superhero tropes is a clever idea to keep things fresh. My only real concern is that much of The Stick Of Truth got by on novelty – of the setting, of the random twists and turns of the plot, etc – rather than most of its core stuff like that poorly designed combat system. By the end, I’d had a great time, but it was definitely kinda on the edge of the jokes wearing out and I was glad to see the credits finally roll. Will this one have enough to breathe new life into it? Will the gap between games make it feel fresh again? Will I stop asking rhetorical questions nobody knows the answer to?

Vampyr
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Okay, Dontnod. Life is Strange was fantastic. Now, let’s talk vampires. They’re such a cool monster for games, not least because of their straddling the line between power and weaknesses – everything from the sun to a Subway sandwich on garlic bread. Their nature also leads to some great possibilities for choice, like who to bite, and the fact that an overly public vampire is usually a vampire with a long bit of wood slammed through its chest. Or a rockstar, if you’re Anne Rice. Or a sex god in True Blood. Or-


Look, never mind. Plenty of games, like Bloodnet, have tried to capitalise on this and failed, and in my mind, only Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines has really succeeded. Vampyr will hopefully be on that side of things, promising amongst other things that it’s possible to win without taking a life, that anyone can be a target, and that tracking down and executing folks in its 1918 London setting will involve manipulating their habits and relationships rather than just running up and having a quick snack. All of this sounds extremely cool to me, as does that setting.

Outcast: Second Contact
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Poor Outcast. It wasn’t played by enough people back in the day to even become a true Beyond Good And Evil style cult classic, demanding far too much of computers in the era before 3D cards, and being clunky as hell now that anyone can actually play it. It’s a game with much to offer though. The story of Cutter Slade may not be the most original ever – basically, think Bruce Willis in his prime going through a Stargate and finding more than just a desert or a woody part of Vancouver on the other side. Outcast makes that world such a gorgeous place that it really doesn’t matter though, with a genuine sense of taking out a corrupt theocracy one world at a time.

Purely on the visual side though, it’s a testament to the original game’s quality that just ramping things up to big-boy resolutions and sharpening them up should still leave it looking stunning. Having thoroughly enjoyed it at a resolution of nothing by sod-all back in the day, I can’t wait to see it in all its glory.

A House Of Many Doors
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My only sadness about writing for Sunless Sea is that doing so meant never really being able to play it. You can’t really enjoy piecing together mysteries and learning about a world when you have everything laid out in front of you. That’s why I’m really looking forward to A House Of Many Doors – a game heavily inspired by Sunless Sea, and indeed part funded by Failbetter, but in a twisted parasite dimension of many-legged crawling trains, weird cities, and procedurally generated poetry. Beyond that, I know literally nothing about its world and the mysteries to uncover, but I’m really looking forward to sitting down and discovering them early next year.

Hero-U: Rogue To Redemption
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Okay. As this one groans on, I have to be honest, my expectations… aren’t that high any more. What began as a relatively simple adventure/RPG hybrid has largely blossomed into a warning story for other Kickstarters. As a huge Quest For Glory fan though, I’d love to be wrong, and still look forward to playing around in this slightly hard to describe spin-off about a rookie Rogue trying to find his place in a world of heroes and villains. That’s all I’ll say for the moment, I think. Fingers crossed, but waiting to see.

Mage’s Initiation
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Speaking of Quest for Glory inspired games. Mage’s Initiation is another one that I originally listed last year, which is still distinctly MIA. It’s due out soonish though, pinky-swear, so that RPG players who like to adventure it up a bit can take control over a rookie mage on both a sprawling adventure to prove himself, and one that splits into multiple paths depending on the exact kind of sparkles you prefer. I’ve only played the super, super, super early demo of this one, but more Quest for Glory is good Quest For Glory, even after Quest For Infamy and Heroine’s Quest the other year.

Shroud of the Avatar
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Ah, Richard Garriott’s return to both an Ultima style universe, and to judge from the engine and UI, 2003. As with Hero-U, I want to be more excited about this one than I actually am, but admittedly quick check-ins of the project haven’t exactly inspired me just yet. I want to believe, Lord British. Really. Anyone who reads this column should know about the Ultima drinking game (related, take a shot). Right now though, this one still feels like a lot of pieces that’s doing better at selling virtual stuff, Star Citizen style, than truly coming together into a modern game. Again though, don’t scream if you’re a fan. That’s only from surface level glimpses, and the reason they’re surface level is that I prefer to wait for games to be finished and fully baked before settling into them. I’m hoping that as we get closer to the first episode of the story’s release, we’ll see things looking more polished… and more like anyone involved has played a recent RPG.

Star Control: Origins
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Disclosure alert, I’m currently working on The Long Journey Home, a space RPG that’s very heavily inspired by Star Control. I’m still really looking forward to seeing this one though, for the reasons I mentioned above with A House Of Many Doors, as a big fan of the Star Control series from waaaaaaaaaaay back who wants another good installment, and because I really want to see what Stardock creates. I’ve always liked Stardock, it’s always had the sense of humour that a Star Control game needs, and has proven its space-chops with the GalCiv series. So, fingers definitely crossed!

Honestly, I don’t know a huge amount about the plans for this game specifically, except for the trailer and a few screens released a couple of months ago, but I’m really looking forward to seeing more. Besides, can’t be any worse than Star Control 3…

The Long Journey Home
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Eh. Fingers crossed it’ll be cool. Roguelike with a heavy focus on character, RPG with a heavy focus on freedom, funny aliens, lots of cool stuff to discover, yadda yadda. Might be good. I hear the writer’s an opportunistic prick though. Can’t even spell his own aliens half the time. I mean, what’s so hard about ‘Cueddhaest’ anyway?

Also, wow, April Ryan’s put on weight…

The Bard’s Tale IV
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The Bard’s Tale isn’t a series I have much direct nostalgia for. As you’ve probably noticed, I tend to prefer story-based RPGs over dungeon blobbers and the like. (Blobber: noun. 1. First person RPG where your party moves around as blob to kill things; 2. Mr. Blobby’s nickname at school). The Bard’s Tale though is looking like a truly gorgeous example of its kind, with its Celtic setting, high-quality enemy models and animations, and absolutely stunning special effects. Think Myst, only you can beat up most of the obstacles, and better yet, nothing to do with Myst. Even though it’s not my sub-genre particularly, it’s a world I’m really looking forward to exploring.

Pyre
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Loved Bastion. Didn’t click with Transistor. Which direction will Pyre go? It’s as weird a premise as you’d expect from Supergiantgames – a party RPG where you… how can I put this? Pretty much, you save the world by playing basketball. It’s not quite that simple. For basketball, read ‘an arcane rite that just happens to be more sport than sorcery’. Your conversations and decisions affect your team’s mood and thus how well they perform on the pitch/incantation site/whatever, on a road-trip style RPG.

Weird. But interesting! A good combination.

Call of Cthulhu
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Ah, the most misunderstood horror of all time. The source, explorations into secrets of the universe that render humanity merely a speck in God’s eye. The games – GRAAAH! TENTACLES! ALL THE TENTACLES! SO MANY TENTACLES! Hopefully Cyanide’s Call of Cthulhu will be different. Generally at least they can be relied upon to have an interesting, if not super-polished, take on the games they put out, and this one does look very pretty in a grim, dark kind of way. If not, maybe The Sinking City will fit the bill – a trip to a particularly damp part of New England. Bring your wellies.

Destiny 2
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I recently picked up a PS4 to catch up on some games that I’ve been wanting to play for a while, ignoring the fact that my Steam backlog is already on the ‘shameful’ side. I’m still umming and aahing over picking up a copy of Destiny for cheap, mostly because of my shameful lack of knowledge about what it is. My mental file-cards basically consist of ‘a wizard on the moon’ and ‘every week some guy appears to sell special guns and people thought this was worth weekly news stories for some reason’. But I probably won’t get around to it, because Destiny 2 is reportedly due to hit the PC, as the first game obviously should have as well. So… yeah. That’ll probably be worth waiting for. I know lots of people who got obsessed with it over the last couple of years, even if the flame has died down in recent months. Either way, it’d be good to play another Bungie game. You’ve been away too long, guys…

And that’s around 2000 words of my picks. What’s jumped up for you? In particular, I want to find time to check out a lot more indie stuff next year – if you’re working on cool stuff, do let me know. Can’t play everything, but I don’t want 2017 to be just a year of big AAA releases. Ping any cool stuff to the usual address…
 

agris

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 16, 2004
Messages
6,764
he really has no taste or insight, does he? it's just a list of the largest 'RPGs' slated to come in 2017, by budget and press attention.
 

Rahdulan

Omnibus
Patron
Joined
Oct 26, 2012
Messages
5,105
I guess there's something amusing in Torment being listed before Andromeda if that's the case.
 

pippin

Guest
Quoting anything related to Torment and PST gives you e-cred with ignorant kids. Nothing to do with the games themselves though.

I am interested in at least three of those games I think.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/12/12/the-rpg-scrollbars-the-scrolls-of-honour-2016/

The RPG Scrollbars: The Scrolls Of Honour 2016
Richard Cobbett on December 12th, 2016 at 1:00 pm.

scrolls.jpg


As mentioned last week, it’s been one of those years. Lots of the biggest RPGs that we were expecting decided to spend a few more months in bed, or simply skip 2016. Can’t blame them! It’ll mean an awesome 2017, even if looking back there’s only been a few big names to pick from. Still, tradition is tradition! This week, another year marks another set of the RPG genre’s most fiercely fought-over fictional awards.


(Disclaimer: Actual fighting may also be fictional, all awards are based on the incredibly scientific principle of Wot I Think, awards cannot be exchanged for money, goods or services unless they too are entirely fictional. Please write all questions or complaints onto the back of a Myst CD using a Sharpie, break it into four pieces and bury them in interesting points around the globe for future treasure hunters to encounter, reforge, and then gag “Oh, god, Myst…” Or indeed, not. Completely your choice!)


The Belated Scroll Of Acceptance – The Elder Scrolls Online
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I don’t particularly like The Elder Scrolls Online, but something I do always like to see is a company standing behind a game and trying to make it work. I can’t think of many better examples than TEScO, which arrived already clutching at the MMORPG bandwagon as it slowly began rolling out of town, quickly revealed itself to be more Dark Age of Camelot 2 than anything else, and basically landed with a flatulent pfffft. Since then however the team has taken that on board, initially building in features like thievery and the chance to join the Dark Brotherhood, and then finally launching One Tamriel – a whole new start for the game that actually gives it the freedom of an Elder Scrolls game rather than the restricted zones and tight pathing of old. Hopefully the gamble pays off, because the TEScO we’ve got now really much closer to what it should have been at launch, and a great starting point for adding more of the content that people have been holding on for, like the epic island of Vvardenfell.

The Soiled Scroll Of Disappointment – Fallout 4 DLC
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Speaking of games that I don’t like… sigh. I really was looking forward to Fallout 4 last year, but the rubbish story, shooter-heavy action and focus on building settlements couldn’t have been much further from what I wanted. Oh, for stories inspired more by Nick Valentine or travelling journalist Piper. But that’s okay, right? There was still lots of DLC promised and that had the chance to save it! Well, not so much. After all, New Vegas had excellent DLC – even in its weaker moments, at least trying to do interesting things with the engine! But no. Cue Bethesda doubling down on trivial nonsense like settlements and the completely idiotic Vault-Tec Workshop (Guys, you know the nuclear apocalypse? It’s over, people!) It’s going to be ages before another of these games. Please don’t let this be the direction Bethesda plans to keep going for that, or the next Elder Scrolls. You’re not going to be the next Minecraft. Stop it.

The Torn Scroll of Virtue – Tyranny
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Ah, yes, as the year rolled quickly to an end, so did Obsidian’s new ‘evil is good’ RPG, making it a sure contender for the best half of an RPG to pretend to actually be a whole one. Grr. It wouldn’t have taken much to conclusively end the story in a way that would still leave scope for further expansion of the world, with what we got feeling rather closer to the final boss just not bothering to show up than saving themselves for the sequel. From the start, Tyranny felt like a bit more of an experience than a raw RPG game – a rare chance to be the baddie that was compelling because of that rarity. Making it even stranger is that it’s certainly not afraid to go into detail about what happened next, so… why not just bite the bullet and figure out where to go next after everyone is having the post-adventure afterglow of a bad job well done.

The Torn Scroll Of Tear-Dripped Sadness – Underfell
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Maybe not a 2016 thing exactly, but… you know Undertale? That really cute, fun, talk-to-the-monsters game? The one that stood out based on its sense of friendship and compassion and all that hoopla? No offence to the folks behind Underfell, an AU based on it, but… did we really need to have a version that asked “Yes, but what if the monsters WERE really evil monsters?” Not saying it shouldn’t be allowed or anything, but… what the hell did you do to Sans, you bastards? Don’t worry, guys. When those plushies arrive, we’ll totally hug and make it all seem better again…

The Blooded Scroll Of Unnecessary Rage – Siege of Dragonspear
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Poor Siege of Dragonspear. Of all the gaming controversies of the last few years, this one still stands out as the least necessary and most over-blown. While certainly not up to the standards of Baldur’s Gate 2, Dragonspear deserves to fade from memory with some recognition for being a solid return to the Infinity format, regardless of one unfortunate bear-baiting line that the writers should have known better than to put into Minsc’s voice, and an unfortunately twee bit of dialogue that really didn’t warrant the microscope it was put under. No, it wasn’t a great bit of character writing, but it’s not as if NPCs don’t routinely share surprisingly personal things with protagonists. The maelstrom of anger and controversy largely buried Dragonspear, but you know what… it was okay. Not amazing or anything, but a solid enough return to Baldur’s Gate that kinda dropped the ball on the titular siege, but still did some interesting stuff around the borders and was overall a fun nostalgic trip back to the age of Infinity.

The Xerox Scroll For Unnecessariest Prequel – Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
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Look, I liked Human Revolution a lot. It was an interesting trip back to see how the Deus Ex universe got the way it did, from a sufficient point that it could still feel fresh and new and like its own story. Mankind Divided though, not so much. This completely unnecessary story based on a frankly ridiculous premise about the world turning against augmented people ended up mostly devoted to introducing lots of baddies who we know all too well we can’t just wander over and punch in the cock because they have to still be around so that JC Denton could do that back in 2000. At no point in the writing of this did anyone seem to consider why we were meant to be gripped by a conspiracy that we already know can’t be stopped or even exposed, headed up by a man who wears a trenchcoat because it’s easier than having a personality. By the time the story’s disappeared up its own conspiracy loving anus, it just doesn’t matter any more. There’s still plenty of room for Deus Ex out there, but next time, maybe justify its existence. Oh, and not do a tutorial in Dubai that makes Spec Ops: The Line feel like Half-Life 2.

The Densely Written Scroll Of Delicious Text – Sorcery! 1-4
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Have we praised this series enough? Not quite! Inkle took the beloved Sorcery series and truly made it their own with this four-part classic. The best part by far is the third, breaking free of all linearity for an open-world of exploration, time-travel and a race against time to defeat both the Seven Serpents that block your progress and make it to the fourth part before your nemesis sees you coming. After these and 80 Days, I really can’t wait to see what they’re working on now.

The Pleading Scroll of Insufficient Weight – CD Projekt
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Hey, guys. You know how it’s going to be ages until Cyberpunk 2077? And you’ve mentioned before that The Witcher isn’t necessarily over? Spin-off game starring Ciri. Just saying. Asking. She didn’t get enough love in The Witcher 3, and no, I’m not talking about sex scenes. Not even after modders started experimenting with the models. But it’s such a perfect idea for an interquel – a new character to see the world with, a Witcher by trade if not by nature, with her own powers. Great gaps in the story to fill in with adventures, both during the flight from the Wild Hunt and potentially after the game ends. It’s the perfect way to give us another hit of Witcher goodness, especially if the creative folks who brought us the likes of the Bloody Baron have time to write campaigns for the upcoming Gwent spin-off.

The Scroll of Wasted Potential – Mean Streets Of Gadgetzan
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Gawd, was this trailer too good for a card-set. I want a whole game set in this city.

The Blood-Written Scroll Of Surrender – Dark Souls 3
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Third time… wasn’t the charm. I give up. You win, Dark Souls. You… you win.

The Dark Scroll Of Challenge – Dwarves vs Dwarves!
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We Are The Dwarves, meet The Dwarves. Fight! Who will claim the title? Literally!

The Scroll Of Unseeming Alacrity – The Witcher 3 Speed Run


Over the last couple of years, I’ve probably spent about 80 hours playing The Witcher 3. Want to see some bugger blitz right through it in two? Thought you might…

What can I say except… sir, congratulations. You are the Witchiest of us all.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Huh: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/01/16/the-rpg-scrollbars-a-heretical-quest-for-glory/

The RPG Scrollbars: A Heretical Quest For Glory
Richard Cobbett on January 16th, 2017 at 1:00 pm.

qfg_1.jpg


Now, as long-time readers of this column will know, there’s a few games I like to go back to on a regular basis. Ultima VII, of course, as one of the finest RPGs ever brought to our plane of existence by carol-singing angels who admittedly suck at QA. Quest For Glory IV, as pretty much the perfect fusion of adventure, RPG and, once again, crazy amounts of bugs. I adore Quest For Glory IV. So, this week, pardon my indulgence at just wanting to show you something cool: Quest For Glory IV… for Hexen.



I’m hoping that featuring it here doesn’t activate the Activision Lawyerbots, especially as they seem about as interested in their ownership of this franchise as in a reboot of Jones In The Fast Lane. The fact is though that it’s unfinished and currently on hold while the creator works on a different project, and any continuation is likely to be in the distant future. Speaking to the author, his verdict was, basically, ‘what the hell’. What’s already there felt worth bringing to a wider audience to check out.

Part of what I like about it is that it’s a bit different from your usual revamp. Typically we see the likes of “Chrono Trigger… but in 3D!” or “Final Fantasy VII… now in 2D!”, often begging the question of why the projects couldn’t just trade and consider the job done. Quest For Glory IV 3D is something of a re-imagining of the game as a shooter, a bit like King’s Quest: Mask Of Eternity re-imagined the series’ classic action as an action-adventure, only unlike King’s Quest: Mask Of Eternity, not complete garbage.

qfg_2.jpg


What makes it cool though is at least in part what an awkward fit basically everything is to Quest For Glory, and how it’s been bent around to serve the not particularly impressive Hexen engine – a slightly upgraded Doom clone notable mostly for having crazy amounts of internal scripting. Quest For Glory for instance features gorgeously painted backgrounds depicting a Translvanian setting at turns sinister and beautiful. Doom engine games usually cap out at ‘sinister’, and a polygonal version of it at that.

But in this case, it actually works. More or less. I confess, I wasn’t too impressed with the very opening, where the hero escapes the Dark One’s clutches in a small cave layout that looks a lot like the mazes of Realms of the Haunting. My suspicion was that this was Quest For Glory In Name Only – that it would be some basic dungeons with a vague Quest For Glory vibe, especially seeing the Hexen weapons hovering at the bottom of the screen. As a Magic User for instance, you don’t escape by relying on your spells and skills, but by walking across one of those thick tightropes that Doom games occasionally liked (most famously Blood’s circus level, above the snake pit).

qfg_3.jpg


On getting outside though, things become much cooler. As much as the map is built out from 2D wallpapers, the locations are immediately recognisable. The Dark One’s sign surrounded by slime. The Rusalka’s lake, where she waits to drag the unwary down into the depths – here standing naked in the beautiful lake like one of the anime girls from Shadow Warrior. Borgov Castle, complete with huge Necrotaur patrolled pathways. Mordavia Town with its scarecrows and pumpkins. Sure, it’s blocky, and your path through it is linear rather than the free-wandering of QFG IV proper, but you can see the love for these screens and fleshing them out beyond their boxy layouts.

Not everything looks great. Mordavia Town in particular really suffers from the engine. With the help of the familiar music though, the interiors pick things back up again. Much of it’s in the detail. Olga’s shop may not be the clustered hall of seemingly random crap as the game, but she’s got her cats and a a roasting fire and hanging garlic over the window. The Adventurer’s Guild has its secret passage and weird bucket-treading gym equipment. The monastery and Crypt of the Dark One look terrific, and it even manages to find a way of working in the cut-scene where the hero drinks some cursed wine and has a vision of the terrible end of the world.

qfg_4.jpg


Now, I appreciate that if you don’t know Quest For Glory IV then all of this is meaningless. Semi-related, please play Quest For Glory I-IV because they’re absolutely amazing games. However, even if you don’t know exactly what’s going on, Quest For Glory 3D actually bothers to tell the story in an extremely clever way. Wandering around, you’re routinely teleported in front of a plot card, showing the location/action/character from the main game on one side, and an easily written description in the style of the actual game’s text boxes on the other. Walk through the story and you simply appear where you were, ready to continue. It’s so much more effective than just sticking up a bit of text where the likes of ‘You collected the silver key’ are meant to go.

While unfinished, there’s a serious chunk of game here, running from the arrival in Mordavia to the first assault on the Castle. Sadly, the game doesn’t change based on your character class and there aren’t any choices or puzzles beyond walking to the next trigger point. There’s still at lot here though, including bonus (mostly jokey) characters scattered around, finding key items and otherwise. If you wanted a true modern recreation of the game, yes the simplicity and artifice less slip away than leave together in the back of a valet-driven car. However that’s the point. We have a huge sprawling, detailed, beautiful version of this game and it’s called Quest For Glory IV. Quest For Glory IV is a passionate attempt to see it from another angle… or in another dimension. I really admire how well it’s done, even if this does end up being the only slice of that we get, right up to ending things on a big fight scene rather than just coming to a complete stop. Check the videos to see how that goes.

Of course, any and all of this can and probably will change if the project restarts – finishing the story, and going back to add even more flavour. It’s certainly enough for now, even if plenty of Hexen still remains amongst the Mordavian gloom.

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Fan of the series? Check it out here, right here, along with tons of other bits like a tour and walkthrough of the infamous fan-made Quest For Glory 4.5 (which I played for Another Place many ears ago now…), a list of the many abandoned fan-games and the few that made it out, including Heroine’s Quest and Quest For Infamy. Meanwhile, if you’ve yet to play the original series, you’ll find them here on GOG, here on Steam, and the fan remake of QFG2 so that you can run through the whole series in glorious VGA right here… exactly as God intended it before upgrading to a Pentium II.

But move quickly if you’re going to get this one. Just in case the lawyers strike.
 
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Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Don't get mad, it's just an experiment:

DISCLAIMER: QFG4 does not need to be in 3D and this project will never be a complete 3D conversion of QFG4. It's just a fun action game set in the story and world of QFG4. I made it for fun and not because I felt it was needed. If others happen to enjoy it too then that's a bonus.

CONTENTS:
Part 1 - Character Selection, Dark One Cave, Swamp, South Western Forest & Rusalka Lake.
Part 2 - Rusalka Lake, North Western Forest, Borgov Castle Gate, Town Gate, Exploring Town, Burgomeister Office, General Store & Adventurers Guild.
Part 3 - Adventurers Guild, Thieves Guild, Monastery, Monastery Basement, Exploring Town, Dr Cranium's Lab & Hotel Mordavia.
Part 4 - Hotel Mordavia, Exploring Town at Night, Nikolai's House, Town Gate, Central Forest at Night & Graveyard Wraith Battle.
Part 5 - Graveyard Wraith Battle, South Eastern Forest, Eranas Peace & Storming Borgov Castle.

QFG4 3D is a total conversion single player 19 map mod for the classic game Hexen with the ZDoom enhancement. The mod contains new levels, textures, decoration, weapons, monsters, NPCs, cutscenes, music & sounds taking players on an old-school linear 3D action adventure set in the world and story of the great classic Sierra game Quest for Glory IV - Shadows of Darkness.

Before anyone else says it I'd like to say that QFG4 doesn't need to be in 3D, nor is my project an attempt to convert every single part of the game to 3D (if you want to do everything in QFG4 then go play QFG4 haha). I created QFG4 3D just for fun and to see if I could actually do it lol. Plus it was rather fun to create new areas/views not seen in the original game (eg I show more of the town & give you 360 degree views of each original game location). If others happen to enjoy this project too then that's a bonus. :)

For more information, screenshots, animations+descriptions of all weapons & monsters you’ll face, and of course the download links for the demo and required files check out my QFG43D website here:
http://webspace.webring.com/people/ed...

Version 0.1 (Demo 1 2016)
Large test world demo to see if I could create believable QFG4 locations, graphics, characters and story elements.
Changes/Additions:
- New title screen & menu graphics
- Created areas: dark one cave, swamp, western forest, lake, castle entrance, massive extended town area with building interiors (Burgomeister Office, General Store, Adventurers Guild, Thief Guild, Nikolai’s house, Monastery & Basement, Dr Cranium’s Hall & Lab, Inn), eerie night version of extended town, central forest at night, Erana’s peace day & night versions, and deadly castle road.
- Created NPCs: Katrina, Rusalka, Gatekeeper, Burgomeister, Nikolai, Igor, Olga, Chief Theif, Dr Cranium, Yuri, Hans, Franz, Domovoi, Piotyr Ghost, Anna Ghost, and bonus NPCs (only seen in original game cutscenes).
- Created monsters: Badder, Vorpal Bunny, Necrotaur, Revenant, Chernovy Wizard, Wyvern, Wraith, Master Wraith, Pit Monster Tentacle, and special bonus monsters Necrotaur Guards & Goon Guards.
- Created new Hexen Characters based on QFG4: Paladin, Wizard & Thief (menu graphics for each character replaced with QFG4 graphics).
- All Weapons either replaced or changed: Battered Sword, Zapped Fine Sword, Paladin’s Flame Dart Spell, Piotyr's Paladin Sword, Force Bolt Spell, Frost Bite Spell, Chain Lightning Spell, Wizard’s Staff Fireball Spell, Dagger, Serpent Staff, Firestorm Gloves, and Wraithverge (using a combination of Hexen weapons & Witchaven weapons all heavily modified by me).
- Many In-game Intermission Cut scenes created to convey QFG4 story using original QFG4 elements.
- Enormous amount of new decorative objects created using objects from QFG4, Hexen, other Doom mods, and realm667 mod packs.
- Many new area, weapon & object sounds added from exported QFG sounds.
- New high quality music soundtrack added from exported QFG music.
- Many existing Hexen textures replaced and re-drawn by me using either screenshots from QFG4 or realm667 texture packs.
- New World effects added: Glowing lights (GL effects), smoke/steam/fog effects, and multiple fire effects.
- Special end game story full screen cut scenes created.

The guy's website is hilariously retro: http://webspace.webring.com/people/ed/d_blakeley/Mods/QFG43D/QFG43DIndex.html
 

agris

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Did you guys see the recent Cobbett in-game cameo?

dw7d1z6mlw9y.gif


shamefully stolen from r/neckbeardRPG. I couldn't not post it.
 
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Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
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Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/01/23/the-rpg-scrollbars-the-genius-in-the-inventory/

The RPG Scrollbars: The genius in the inventory
Richard Cobbett on January 23rd, 2017 at 1:00 pm.

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I forget which game it was, exactly. If I had to pick one, I’d say probably the text adventure Humbug. It doesn’t really matter, as it’s not really the game’s fault, but I still remember the sadness of being told to go into the inventory and realising that while I was thinking of a big room full of bubbling liquids in interesting flasks and other cool science stuff, the game was actually saying ‘look in your pockets’. Especially as if it was Humbug, it’s a game about wandering around and exploring your crazy inventor grandfather’s house. I must have searched for whole minutes, back in 1990.

There’s never been a game that really harnessed that desire, but still, it explains a lot about one of my favourite things in RPGs – particularly those of the early 90s – that the inventory often was a place to experiment rather than simply pluck the correct item at the correct time. Even if then, as now, it’s often been more accident than design.

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Now, I am not talking crafting. Heroes. Don’t. Craft. I’m thinking of more a general sense of cleverness, invention and mad ideas allowed by the rules of the game and in particular your gathered equipment, where exploring and experimenting leads to the world feeling more complex, more interesting, and more pliable, without blocking everything off with the local equivalent of “I can’t do that,” or the hand of the programmer coming in to smack away an interaction with an out of context ‘nope’.

In particular, I’m thinking of the way that a good RPG tends to be a mess of interlocking systems, with the emphasis firmly on ‘mess’. Unlike a traditional adventure, there are simply too many interactions and situations to be hard-coded. Unlike most other games, the genre’s demand for interesting items, skills and spells constantly magnifies the scope for stuff to be overlooked, for good or bad. Often it’s in things being overlooked that interesting stuff happens. For example, take Deus Ex, and how it’s officially impossible to do a no-kill run because the plot demands you kill baddie Anna Navarre either at Point A or Point B. However, because the AI has the ability to open any door, it’s possible to raise an alarm, have someone else open the one she’s guarding, and blitz out. In my favourite ever example, Two Worlds, the villain spends most of his time standing near the starting village, pretending to be your mentor. He’s too tough to beat up personally, but there’s nothing stopping you kiting him over to some other folks and finishing the game in literally two minutes. When rule is overlaid on rule overlaid on rule, unexpected situations – ‘edge cases’ to use the design parlance – are rife.

And of course, frequently awesome.

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Inevitably, Ultima VII – take a shot – has some of my favourite examples. As much as we deservedly praise its world simulation, I think we can all agree that the real goal of Ultima VII has nothing to do with defeating the Guardian and everything to do with breaking Britannia over one knee. Oh, the possibilities! Making ladders out of crates to sequence break. Avoiding penalties for stealing by smashing the cases things are in, apologising profusely when caught, then casually wandering back later to take all the stuff that used to be inside them. So many powder kegs…

And of course, the true game-breakers – the ability to pour poison down any enemy’s throat just by clicking a vial on them, or send anything from a guard to a dragon into a screaming tizzy by using a soiled diaper on them. Diapers that you can gather in infinite supply in Lord British’s castle, and ‘arm’ with a trip to the nursery. Clearly unintentional, but convenient! And all it took was someone not being too specific about only being able to feed things to friendly people or dragons being a bit above such things.

But I don’t count this as a bug. I love when NPCs have to follow the rules, and the rules are actually applied. I hate for instance knowing that if I’m given some spell called “Death’s Deadly Cloud Of Instant Death”, every boss in the game is going to simply no-sell it because fuck you, that’s why. If you don’t want me casting that spell, then either don’t put it in the game in the first place, or give me a really good reason. I will happily accept a fireball spell doing nothing against a fire elemental. Against some regular dude, I expect a HP meter falling faster than Top Gear’s ratings.

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Fallout for instance really went above and beyond here, with fans quickly learning two amazing tricks – reverse pickpocketing, and healing to death. Reverse pickpocketing is the art of taking a bomb, activating the timer, quietly shoving it into someone’s trousers, and then getting the hell out of Dodge before it explodes. As long as you’re not on the map when it happens, you can return with the relevant character quietly assassinated and nobody any the wiser. Hurrah! Or alternatively, you can use a quirk of the stock health-giving Super Stimpaks. They immediately heal for a ton of points, but at the cost of a metaphorical kick in the balls a couple of minutes later. A canny player can therefore just pump their target full of them, stand back, and watch as they collapse dead. Neither of these tricks was ever presented openly to the player, but were simply clever ideas based on looking at the rules and going “Hmm…”

(Reverse pick-pocketing was of course later added to Fallout 3, complete with an achievement. Rather taking the fun out of things in my book, but… well, there you go. It’s at least easier to do subtly as long as you don’t get caught in the act. The same mechanic also allows for forcing NPCs to wear specific armour, though you take a karma hit even if you’re doing them a favour – one of many reasons that karma reaaaaaaaaaally doesn’t work in that game…)

Over time though, the march has been pretty definitively towards trying to avoid this kind of thing, with the major exceptions we see being the game-breaking variety rather than immersion-boosting ‘of course it works’ flavour of cool inventory items. Speedrunners for instance habitually use tricks like being able to stick an item through a wall in Bethesda games to jump ‘out of bounds’ and ignore vast chunks of the game, or more overt stuff, like how Morrowind’s alchemy neglecting to prevent potions improving your, uh, alchemy, made it possible to become godlike in just a couple of minutes, or how items in the air can be used as steps in Oblivion. And that’s cool, obviously, but not quite the same as when exploring the real-world potential of something like Deus Ex’s LAM or Hitman: Blood Money’s magic coin. For me, part of the charm of the examples here isn’t their cheating potential, but the fact that they feel like clever, actual uses for items that you might have – like you’re some fantasy MacGuyver, figuring out that with your strength mod, you can avoid the fight that the designer wanted you to have and build a set of stairs with those crates in the corner, or that blinding the basilisk with a custard pie will prevent its petrifying gaze. (An actual example from Nethack, as in The Dev Team Thinks Of Everything).

And let’s not even get STARTED on Dwarf Fortress.

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Easily my favourite modern successor to all of these games was Divinity: Original Sin, which both set about doing the Ultima VII thing and making a world that would be bulletproof even in a multiplayer setting. The easiest way of doing this would have been to lock everything down. Instead, it opted to make it so open that you can just murder everyone and still progress. Some of the tricks allowed in beta were patched out, like being able to teleport any item out of a locked building and just pick it up. Most though stayed, like having one character distract an NPC while another stole everything in their house, making you feel like an expert grifter rather than just adventurer, or playing with rules like trying to knock down a locked door dealing weapon damage by just repeatedly hitting it with fire. As before, the bosses weren’t given any special immunities to most of this stuff. You could quite easily set traps or yoink them out of their intended combat area, with even the developers surprised when one player saved an item called the Lava Core for the final boss and one-shotted it.

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I’ve yet to play much of the sequel – like most of this year’s, I have the Early Access version, but prefer to wait until It Is Done. But as you can probably imagine, I’m looking forward to it. It’s the first RPG since that quiet afternoon playing Humbug that really feels like it’s going to embrace the creativity and bastardry that I want from my RPG systems. Tricking another player into drinking poison at a crucial moment by taking a poison potion, colouring it red with some dye, and reverse-pickpocketing it into their bag? That’s the kind of game I want to play, to say nothing of having much more scope to try messing with the scripts with spells and triggered items and things on timers. Hopefully it’ll do it well and inspire more to try similar – to flesh out worlds in terms of opportunities and situations rather than simply flags and collectibles. Unlikely, I know. But hey, if the next Dragon Age or Witcher or big AAA attempt even tries to sprinkle a little chaos into an increasingly tiresomely locked down genre, I reckon we all win.
 

Deleted Member 16721

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I disagree with nearly every point this writer makes in the first article. Where are the hardcore RPG heads that write articles at?
 

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