Codex was buck broken by gay bear. Ass all open, head empty.

[raeven]

Anyone who claims that Arcanum is somehow vastly ideologically different than BG3 is delusional.

Is this a graphic made by people who want Arcanum to secretly be about the protocols of Zion or some shit?

 

[Sweeper]

Is this a graphic made by people who want Arcanum to secretly be about the protocols of Zion or some shit?

Either them or the Resetera pearl clutching types, but I have to say as a rabid antisemite the gnome conspiracy quest even had me going "Jeez guys, tone it down a bit". You could try arguing that it's merely a parody of chud beliefs but uh, idk how successful that argument would be. In any case Arcanum came out back in 2000, BG3 23 years later. The Overton window has shifted so much in between the two games that the only delusional people here are the ones who think they're "ideologically the same". They can't be because the zeitgeists are completely different.

I do however wish that people would stop talking about the bear sex and shitting more on BG3 for its biggest sin, the 5e ruleset. I don't have to play BG3 to know it's a shit game, and that's because I've looked up the mechanics. Deep as a puddle and just as wide.

 

[Kev Inkline]

OP is so long-winded and obscure I had to ask chat-gpt to give me a summary of 100 words:

The author contrasts cRPG discussions, highlighting flaws in classic titles and praising recent releases like Baldur's Gate 3 for revitalizing turn-based combat.
They critique nostalgia-driven criticism and political themes in gaming discourse, urging focus on gameplay over narrative.
The Codex forum's shift is attributed to factors like marketing stunts and nostalgia, leading to frustration with perceived decline in critical analysis.

 

[tritosine2k]

You can't sell turn based game. Then there comes Baldurs Gate 3, it takes 5E and implements it relatively faithfully

majority of players aren't playing it for art or game design choices by devs but they have no choice and want the game to act some sort of "proxy" :

BTW it's the same with "soulslop" that's worse in many ways bc. apparently they believe this stuff is decent and theres thought going into it rofl.

Gay bears = nihilism fits like a glove. Just like those bossfights in soulslop are some glorified kitbash trashmob fight they endure and "learn". "Wow, it's fucking nothing".

 

[HumanMech]

I do however wish that people would stop talking about the bear sex

Let's talk about the octopus sex then

 

[raeven]

I do however wish that people would stop talking about the bear sex

Let's talk about the octopus sex then

It was so hot!!!

 

[Mauman]

One of the reasons I love Arcanum. It was made in a time that could use "forbidden" ideas for fiction.

Do I believe there is a Jewish conspiracy? No.*

Do I believe that certain races should be treated differently or are inherently bad/lesser? No.

Do I enjoy Nazi iconography? No, but I don't really care about it either.

I DO enjoy fiction using "problematic" ideas to make interesting and unique worlds, however. We don't get stuff like that anymore. It's a shame that people have become unable to distinguish fantasy and reality to such a degree.

*Anyone with half a brain can see that there is a Global Elite out there that want to control the world to a degree (what degree is a matter of debate), and some of them ARE of jewish descent (such as Soros and his evil ilk). Plenty of non-jews involved with this as well, so calling it a "Jewish conspiracy" is fucking stupid beyond belief.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

You have terrible taste in CRPGs

Ok now it's your turn to tell us about the amazing experiences you've had with the great masterpiece Drakensang that let's say Tyranny wouldn't match(and I hate the latter game too btw.)

Let's go for the 2nd period.
Divinity: Original Sin
Wasteland 2
Underrail
The Age of Decadence
Pillars of Eternity
Tyranny
Divinity:OS2
Tower of Time
Torment:whaever
PoE2
Pathfinder Kangmaker

The period following the RPG wasteland era began in 2012, when the release of Legend of Grimrock heralded a glorious new era of hemi-semi-demi-Incline, in which developers looked backwards to subgenres that had been abandoned in order to move forward with new developments while remaining faithful to RPG mechanics. Sadly, it didn't last, but it was succeeded by the current tacticool RPG era. Good to great CRPGs in the period 2012-2023:

• Legend of Grimrock
• Dark Souls (PC port of 2011 PS3 game)
• Paper Sorcerer
• Shadowrun Returns (and two quick sequels over the next two years)
• Legend of Grimrock II
• Might & Magic X
• Lords of Xulima
• Wasteland 2
• The Witcher III
• Underrail
• Age of Decadence
• Dragon's Dogma (PC port of 2013 version of 2012 PS3 game)
• Stranger of Sword City
• The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
• Salt & Sanctuary
• Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar
• Conan: Exiles (technically MMORPG, but can be played single-player)
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance
• Kenshi
• Outward
• Operencia
• Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children (squad-based tactics game with extensive character customization/progression)
• Wasteland 3
• Dungeon of Naheulbeuk
• Solasta (another two campaigns released over the next two years)
• Wildermyth
• Urtuk (squad-based tactics game with extensive character customization/progression)
• Elden Ring
• King Arthur: Knight's Tale (squad-based tactics game with extensive character customization/progression)
• Jagged Alliance 3
• Age of Incandescence

And that certainly isn't an exhaustive list.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

only delusional people here are the ones who think they're "ideologically the same"

I'll remind you that you're 1200s(AD) disgusting bluehaired leftist el abomination and I'm 10k BC reactionary. If you take this perspective you'll understand why I don't see the circa 2000s games as non-liberal, my entire point simply is that a lot of these people made way for what we have today and a lot of them can't really defend their disgust at it in any way other than these people just "went too damn far". So for you some surface level things in arcanum seem somewhat right wing but I do see that this is all covering up a very liberal lens through which it's all depicted, so realistically the only thing that has changed is that the people who write it are much lower quality than they've used to be and as such they're much more blunt.

majority of players aren't playing it for art or game design choices by devs but they have no choice and want the game to act some sort of "proxy"

Yes, but that's not really the point, and to explain it I'll first handle the below:

I do however wish that people would stop talking about the bear sex and shitting more on BG3 for its biggest sin, the 5e ruleset. I don't have to play BG3 to know it's a shit game, and that's because I've looked up the mechanics. Deep as a puddle and just as wide.

As opposed to deep and wide as codexes collective asshole after bear visit system underlying dragon age origins or the tactfully and surgically implemented The Dark Eye in Drakensang? Not to mention the amazing adaptation of D&D to Star Wars in KOTOR oh that was awesome.

This is the core point I'm making in this thread. Imagine a hypothetical BioWare founder(I think all of them left the company by now) who was with it since it all started. When BG1 was starting its development it was decided it will be a real time(without pause at this point) RPG using the RTS engine they've made earlier. The reason is obvious, the genre was in decline for a couple of years now, so you have to compete for the 10 years old attention span with the new kings of PC gaming RTS and FPS. All the other developments an BioWare since then were progressing in that mindset. Then there comes BG3 and outsells all bioware games of the last decade all while reverting the very first mass market appeal decision bioware made when developing their RPGa, meanwhile codex hivemind loses its sanity and acts as if it's the worst thing since Fallout 3. Then it spills to other games from the last decade or so and somehow the definitions of decline become suddenly the games old good new bad posters look up to.

 

[thesecret1]

BG3 is a 5/10 game and I've rated it as such in the poll. Large reactivity all falls flat when the player doesn't give a shit about the world or characters whatsoever, and it sure was hard to give a shit about Forgotten Realms (probably the shittiest setting there is) and all around terrible characters that are almost universally either annoying or boring and overact their emotions like crazy. I dropped my playthrough when I had the option to either join the bad guys in act 1 or help the druids and rapefugees, and realized I absolutely do not care about either of those factions, or even a single character representing either of them. Dogshit writing and worldbuilding thus renders the positives of reactivity null and void.

As for combat, I enjoyed the mechanics but hated the encounters. It's like Larian set out to waste my time with a plethora of easy fights that, however, take forever to finish.

I respect the individual parts of the game even if it doesn't work as a whole, hence the 5/10, but to claim it's deserving of a GOTY (albeit, granted, this year was pretty shit for RPGs) is crazy. If anything, it should be several places lower on the list.

 

[Shaki]

You focus on the whole "reeeee BG3 woke" argument, when the biggest problem is that it's simply a bad game. I don't like woke shit, but I can live with it when the game has something good to offer. But BG3 doesn't.

It's decline because:

1. The character system is extremely shallow and stupid, removing the most important part of C&C/reactivity - game reacting to your class/build choices, and having to face their consequences (or reap the rewards). In BG3 most classes play exactly the same, differences are cosmetic, choices on character level up pretty much don't exist, and even more roleplaying focused part of the skill system is fucked up. Due to how game works, it doesn't matter if you have a rogue, anyone can open locks. Your 8 int barbarian will be nearly as good at deciphering arcane runes as your 20 int wizard, etc.

2. Combat is braindead easy, which completely invalidates any enemy/encounter design, and it's without even using retarded shit like instawinning fights by pushing enemies into pits, barrelmancy, etc.

3. Itemization is one of the worst I've ever seen, 99% of items are extremely boring, barely have any difference in "power level", and mostly add some retarded shit like 9000 items with some "lightning charges" or "momentum charges" that are completely fucking useless. On some chars I still used weapons, armor, etc. from the first 10 hours of the game until ACT3, because I never found any clear upgrades, and it's really not very fun searching through 100 armors I picked with exactly the same AC and deciding which one to use based on some useless additional effects like the mentioned charges, or +1 to some saving throw and shit like that. It's a fucking waste of time.

4. Which leads to another point - shitty itemization and lvlups not having much choices, make exploration feel boring and bad. You should want to explore that cave, kill the monsters for XP to get fun new choices at lvlup, you should want to explore that cave to find some exciting items. But it doesn't happen in BG3. The only reason left to explore, would be a storyfaggotry, and unfortunately even Codex fans of the game admit the writing/atmosphere fucking sucks. Literally the only place in the whole game I've really had fun exploring, was the witch hut/dungeon in ACT1, that's it.

5. As with previous point, when systems sucks, combat sucks, exploration sucks, what's left there to make you keep playing the game at all? Main story. But yeah, it also FUCKING. SUCKS.

Yeah it's fucking woke, but does it even matter at this point? You could remove all wokeness, and it would still be a shit game.

I just don't see any reason to like it as an RPG/tacticool fan. It sucks in every aspect. I genuinely believe the main reasons normies like it, is for the "Larian le quirky writing haha kick squirrel fuck the squid", dating sim companions, and production values, which are things that I absolutely don't give a shit about. If you removed all the cutscenes (and sex, bears, squids and squirrels quirky fun factor along with it), voice acting, replaced companions with nameless mercs, left only the "meat" of the game, do you think many people would still play and like it? I don't. It just fails at a fundamental level, and the only reason why normies don't care, it's because they don't give a fuck about fundamentals, normie will eat shit as long as it's covered in shiny frosting and they saw it in some tiktok videos.

That's what this game is - shiny shit that went viral on social media. Nothing else.

(Also, BG3 didn't bring back turn based gaming you retard, nuXCOM did a fucking decade ago)

 

[janior]

karlach is a nice musclemommy

 

[Silverfish]

Fallout from GOTY thread #3

I'd be furious as well if I had voted.

Larian is getting death threats about mod support now,

Good thing Swen wears a suit of armor, then.

 

[VerSacrum]

(Also, BG3 didn't bring back turn based gaming you retard, nuXCOM did a fucking decade ago)

Was this even half as popular with the mainstream as BG3? Somehow doubt it.

 

[Lord of Riva]

(Also, BG3 didn't bring back turn based gaming you retard, nuXCOM did a fucking decade ago)

Was this even half as popular with the mainstream as BG3? Somehow doubt it.

popular enough to spawn hundred of games in this vein in the mainstream probably even being responsible for BG 3 and it's predecessors (as in DOS)

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

It's decline because

You can say all these things but in vacuum it means nothing. Is it decline in comparison to now celebrated(on codex) kotor or forever celebrated DAO?

Also, BG3 didn't bring back turn based gaming you retard, nuXCOM did

Not in RPGs, especially not in mainstream ones. It remains to be seen if BG3 will move the needle though.

 

[Swen]

(Also, BG3 didn't bring back turn based gaming you retard, nuXCOM did a fucking decade ago)

Was this even half as popular with the mainstream as BG3? Somehow doubt it.

popular enough to spawn hundred of games in this vein in the mainstream probably even being responsible for BG 3 and it's predecessors (as in DOS)

Lol Xcom wasn't responsible for DOS games you doofus. Larian always loved turn based games but publishers didn't believe in those games back then.

 

[Funposter]

I couldn't be bothered to read this post while I take a shit, ergo it's too long.

 

[Grauken]

(Also, BG3 didn't bring back turn based gaming you retard, nuXCOM did a fucking decade ago)

Was this even half as popular with the mainstream as BG3? Somehow doubt it.

BG3 has over 500000 reviews on Steam, nuXcom only 36000, so while nuXcom had a bit of traction, BG3 easily outclasses it

 

[HumanMech]

karlach is a nice musclemommy

Spoiler

 

[Lord of Riva]

(Also, BG3 didn't bring back turn based gaming you retard, nuXCOM did a fucking decade ago)

Was this even half as popular with the mainstream as BG3? Somehow doubt it.

BG3 has over 500000 reviews on Steam, nuXcom only 36000, so while nuXcom had a bit of traction, BG3 easily outclasses it

You understand causality though, yeah? One thing leads to another.

(Also, BG3 didn't bring back turn based gaming you retard, nuXCOM did a fucking decade ago)

Was this even half as popular with the mainstream as BG3? Somehow doubt it.

popular enough to spawn hundred of games in this vein in the mainstream probably even being responsible for BG 3 and it's predecessors (as in DOS)

Lol Xcom wasn't responsible for DOS games you doofus. Larian always loved turn based games but publishers didn't believe in those games back then.

The thesis was that Bg3 supposedly brought back TB games, which does not make any sense

 

[Lord_Potato]

As in the title. For some time now, I've noticed that any discussion of bigger cRPGs released in the last couple of years(nearly a decade really) ends up with everyone proclaiming how shit they are and how they really can't match to masterpieces like KOTOR2, Alpha Protocol and Dragon Age: Origins. Somehow, people happened to forget how the whole cRPG "market" looked like after the deserved death of Troika and move of Bioware towards console games.
I want to remind you the period between 2004 and 2014 and set it against 2014-2019 - yes, I'm giving a massive handicap to the newer releases.
So between January 2004 and January 2014 if you were on the market looking for something resembling the IE games/Fallout and I'll be very liberal. I only care about isometric point of view and tactical combat(RT or TB doesn't matter) and I'll be much more agnostic in the first period. Anyway enough talking. I filter out super small games and vogelware because Vogel releases a game yearly so it really evens out no matter what you do, we don't need more clutter to make this point.

In the first period we have:

Spoiler

NWN2 with the expacs
1st Expac
2nd Expac
1st Drakensang Game
2nd Drakensang game
Dragon Age 1
Dragon Age 2
Knights of the Chalice
Shadowrun Returns
Aarklash Legacy
Expeditions:Conquistador

And that's about it. As you can see I've included some games that I guess some of you would include as part of a sort of cRPG renaissance(the last 3 positions released in 2013) so the real stink isn't felt there. Let's go for the 2nd period.

Spoiler

Divinity: Original Sin
Wasteland 2
Underrail
The Age of Decadence
Pillars of Eternity
Tyranny
Divinity:OS2
Tower of Time
Torment:whaever
PoE2
Pathfinder Kangmaker

Now I did a lot to pad the releases in the earlier period, I hope you can see that. The latter one had games like Blackguards or Sword Coast Legends or Expeditions Vikings etc. but I've decided to be nice and not include it, had they been 2013 releases I would've counted them on previous list. What I want to say by this listing is that somehow, with heavy handicap the latter period produced much more of the kind of RPGs that Codex is generally interested in. Now obviously an argument about quality vs. quantity can be raised, but it's not like Drakensang is a high bar. What this listing isn't showing is that RPGs as a genre were certainly very alive in that period, many very era-defining games were released in that period. Ask any normie you want, he'll be able to list masterpieces such as Oblivion, Fallout 3, Mass Effect, The Witcher(2?) yadda yadda. This is a period where all studios had major difficulties finding money for making anything that didn't have action combat, when everyone was proclaiming turn based combat as an artifact of a begone era etc. etc. There is a reason it's dubbed the decline and renaissance is also being postulated as coming at the end of it.

The few games that were released back then have built up some legendarily reputation while the latter titles(as well as those between the end of 2018 and today) are more likely to be derided and you have to be clinically insane. Dragon Age:Origins for instance is a game with 3 classes, where 2 of these classes play exactly the same and the game offers very limited amount of combat options, its combat system is based on cooldowns etc. etc. and yet it will get more praises for combat than Deadfire in spite of the fact that both from system, gameplay and design perspective it's just better at every single point of it. I won't go on about the claims that KOTOR had better combat than PoE2, because this is just Alzheimer tier

People pretend have somehow forgotten approximately 25 years of execs, journalists, analytics, developers etc. saying that turn based combat is dead. You can't sell turn based game. Then there comes Baldurs Gate 3, it takes 5E and implements it relatively faithfully(remember Sword Coast Legends - Hasbro execs probably thought that that was the way for videogame adaptations to go) implements a turn based combat system that maybe isn't a challenge for someone who ate his teeth at RPGs but then again very few games are. I know the kinds of people who NEVER play TB games and they've played this one and thought it's amazing. It is a proof that everything codex hivemind said since its inception was correct. What does Codex have to say about it then? You tell that yourself.

I am not great fan of Owlcat games, but aside from the fact that again, they've adapted Pathfinder PNP system relatively faitfully(apparently there's a huge stat bloat for enemies but I have no idea about Pathfinder) and to give them huge credit for something, they went for something that was always there in RPGs but was never realise and that was adding some degree of quasi-strategic overworld game. It's there because they've adapted preexisting modules that had these things in them, but that was always a direction that cRPG's could've expanded towards and that is worth mentioning already. What will they get on this forum though as of AD 2024? You've guessed it.

Hurka Durka it's because it's politics in my gaming

First of all, you are a disgusting, crazy leftists by the standard of 1200 AD Europe. I am a reactionary by the standards of 10000 BC when Sons of Tur fought Sons of Ari on the frostbound steppes of Hyperborea. We are not the same, there has been a lot of decline between me and you. On little bit more serious note this forum has shifted rightwards politically over the years - I've shifted too, far more than the average - and it's likely that it annoys me just like it annoys most of you(and trust me - more than most of you). Secondly as I've said in another thread this is sadly something you will have to live with because:

Modern videogame writers are people with literature degree from 4 years ago, and if you haven't been asleep for the last 100 years you know exactly what kind of person graduates with a degree in literature, fails as a writer for literature graduates, then fails as a genre fiction writer and then ends up writing for videogames or p&p RPG's - that person took all the racial/sexual agitation seriously, edit and expresses it with no subtlety end of edit there's no other way for them to survive university otherwise.

Now that being said a lot of the classics started having some subversive elements in them as soon as anything resembling full time writer showed up in them. Majority of devs were always liberal, you can almost bet they were atheists too. I think my fav example of this is Arcanum(terrible game btw), which, although it has some edgy content(Isle of Despair), frames industrialisation through the lens of at the very least a social democrat with orcs and half orcs being a racial allegory and so on. Unless you want to go mad or stop playing games and only come here to complain(in which case you're a bitch and should do something else with your life), then there really isn't any way around it than to just ignore writing all together and focus on the aspect where by all means the genre had recovered that is gameplay which is by all means the better out of the two.

The problem is that this wasn't a thing just couple of years ago, outside of general Pillars of Eternity well... scepticism after it mindbroke a bunch of people in here. However, while people complained about things like armour system in Divinity:OS2 you could still see they've enjoyed it, same went for pathfinder etc. You've had people just approaching all this like reasonable. So what happened that broke codex hivemind? I cannot imagine anything than a psychic effect of the bear sex marketing stunt for BG3. It must have caused you to materialise him during sleep and as his cock entered your orifices your minds escaped the dreamland to never come back. Convince me it's not the case because I don't see anything else, other than this place turning into circlejerk where we have a procession of generations crying old good new bad except in 2010 "old" was 1998 and in 2024 it was 2008. I don't believe in the latter so I'll stay with the psychic bear sex hypothesis.

Generally I agree with the overall tone of this post, and yet since you offended Troika, I cannot grant you my support.

You can't have my sword nor axe, at least until I bury it in this thick skull of yours.

Go screw yourself and have a terrible day.

 

[Swen]

Codex completely and utterly mind broken BG3 is now the new gold standard for CRPG's and is the absolute, uncontested king.

Love to read to the butthurt comments and denial here, this is what I hear when I read posts from Shaki and other broken codexers:



Codex is still in the anger and denial phase:

 

[Shaki]

Codex completely and utterly mind broken BG3 is now the new gold standard for CRPG's and is the absolute, uncontested king.

Love to read to the butthurt comments and denial here, this is what I hear when I read posts from Shaki and other broken codexers:

I don't think we're the ones butthurt, you're the one screeching and coping since you lost Codex GOTY.

 

[Ladonna]

Best restaurant in the world;

Gorillions can't be wrong.

Oh, I just saw an ad where the latest BG3 patch is about bringing "kissing" in to the game. Apparently something that the fanbase had been screaming for.