PC FRPG likes & dislikes

[rhoenix]

This is basically a list of all things you liked from certain computer-based fantasy RPG games, and things you didn't. This can be plot elements, but preferably game mechanics choices and other nice touches you felt helped immerse you in the game more, or make it more enjoyable.

The main purpose of this thread, aside from being a loveletter to the RPG games we all know and love, is because I'm trying to see if I can get the right stuff together to make my own RPG.

Here are a few of mine:

Dungeons & Dragons Online:
==================
+ You can enter any given quest on one of five increasing levels of difficulty, the first of which is easiest and doesn't allow parties.
+ Chests give specific rewards per party member, so sorting loot between characters is negligible.
+ It is possible to play the entire game & unlock most of its content for free, with enough time and patience for getting favor rewards
- Being in a party is strongly encouraged to the point of being nearly required for survival and finding all secrets of a given quest, especially in higher difficulties

Diablo II:
==================
+ Magic items came in several varieties - Magic (which had a specific prefix and suffix in terms of magical ability), Rare (which could have several magical attributes), Set (similar to Rare, but whose abilities were unlocked the more items one has of that set), Runeworded (made by putting Rune stones in socketed items), Crafted (created with specific recipes and the Horatric Cube), and Unique (the weird and powerful stuff, usually).
+ Areas to explore are all connected by Waypoints for ease of travel in-game
+ Combat, gameplay, and progression were all straightforward, and easy to figure out

- it was possible to completely screw up a character build to the point where it was unsalvagable
- Skill point system allowed for several builds per character, but it ended up restricting growth in specific ways due to how each skill had to be "levelled" by getting more Skill points

Nocturne:
==================
+ Resistances and weaknesses make a strong difference in this game, due to how they're treated in combat, making even random battles require some thought and planning
+ Able to get nearly all the monsters in the game as part of your party, even most bosses eventually
+ Long game with good storyline and characterization, and excellent atmospheric setting
- Difficult game, due to the Resistances and how they work - it's very possible to get a game over from a random battle if you don't take them into account, or don't pay attention

[Batman]

On your own head be it. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Um-you didn't Master Bruce.
Well consider yourself warned NOW.

1. The Good
-Weightless money. Yes, in the real world, money (especially coinage) has weight. In the real world people with the kind of money where that weight becomes a CONCERN ALSO can easily afford transportation for it via beasts of burden, a cart or something. CRPGs rarely provide for that.
(Money having weight back in the GoldBox games was amusing every once in a while-'Okay, why the hell can't our paladin move anymore?'-'Oh. I see. Um-let's head back to the bank, shan't we?' but in the end only annoyed without adding anything to the gameplay.)
-Relics and Artifacts (M&M 6&7) Yeah, every fantasy setting has its rare immensely powerful items, but M&M made the INTERESTING again for a while.
Artifacts are your run-of-the-mill...well, artifacts. Immensely rare, immensely valuable, immensely powerful.
RELICS, on the other hand-came with a twist. Yeah, the gloves of Goliath would boost your strength by 50-at the cost of 50 points in intelligence.
So Relics were always a tradeoff.
-The M&M6 skill/magic proficiency system. You got a skill/knew a spell, you could use it. But by becoming and exper/master at it, you got BETTER at it beyond the amount of skillpoints you sunk into it. Skill checks were easier, spells would be cheaper to cast or last longer, weapons would do more damage or you'd get more attacks etc.
-The 'practice makes perfect' method of skill improvement in Wizardry 7 and 8 (and possibly earlier installations of the series I never played). You level up, you distribute skill points, the usual. But skills ALSO improve as you USE them. (The same goes for Dungeon Master 1&2 but I'm not sure anybody but me ever played those around here).
-ToEE finally having magic item creation. Yeah, it meant the mage would forever lag behind the rest of the party experience-wise but the blasted thing was level capped anyway.
-Unlimited mundane missiles. Sorry, but having to lug around a fuckton of ordinary arrows/bolts/bullets that cost a pittance to begin with is just irritating. One of the very few things IWDII did right was the introduction of the Everlast Arrow.
Just for starters.

[Stofsk]

As far as Diablo 2 is concerned, I actually hate its magic item system. Seriously, the amount of affixes are ridiculous, because 99% of items you pick up will have a completely useless/underpowered affix. Set items were for the most part, totally useless (except for the Exceptional versions), and extremely difficult (to the point of don't bother) to complete with one character - thereby guaranteeing muling, which Blizzard expressly discourages (that's why there's no simple and easy way to swap items over between multiple characters, and why your stash is so tiny)

Since I've been playing it quite regularly recently, I'll talk a bit about Oblivion:

+ The world. The attention to detail is amazing, truly amazing. I love simply walking around and finding things. The atmosphere is also impressive. I went down a crypt, taking out bandits. I then found a note saying something about how one of the bandits was actually missing after exploring a section of the crypt you haven't seen yet. When you go down there, you get attacked by a zombie - it was pretty cool. The crypt was already spooky, but the zombies just pushed it into another level.
+ The gameplay. I originally was hesitant about the idea of a first person hack and slash game, but I'm impressed at how well it works. The controls are simple and intuitive, easy to pick up, and fun.
- The leveling system. I like how you can learn any skill you want in the game, I just hate the whole 'efficient leveling' thing. But on the other hand, leveling results in all the monsters you face being tougher - which leads to the interesting idea of the game getting tougher as you level. The trouble is, efficient leveling means tedious work to make sure you're doing everything right to get the right bonuses at level up - and that detracts from the enjoyment of the game in my opinion.
- Lack of interesting characters. When you click on an NPC and talk to them, it gives you the impression that NPCs only exist to further your quest rather than be interesting characters in their own right. I find the lack of character to easily be the weakest part of the game.

[Hotfoot]

To me, the pinnacle of freedom was Morrowind. Oblivion is still really good, but if you blitz through the main quest line, you miss a lot of the actual game, and in Morrowind the main quest had you exploring the world pretty well, and by the time I hit a certain point in the main quest I had been brought to most of the major areas of the island and had been introduced to the many numerous subplots, and the interplay between the various guilds and subgroups was a lot more interesting than Oblivion.

At the end of Morrowind, even though it was piss-easy, I felt like I had accomplished something cool. The immersion factor was high, even with its limitations. You could also add so much through mods, and even change things you didn't like in the baseline game. While it's seen by many as a weakness that the core game in the Elder Scrolls series isn't a bit more solid, at the very least they give you the tools to change a lot of stuff in it. Considering that so far no RPG I've ever played is without something I don't like, it's something I think a few games need more of.

Now, as far as story goes, it takes a lot to impress me these days. Baldur's Gate had an excellent story with characters that I grew to love to this day. The interaction, the banter, the conversations, they were all fantastic, and wrapped up in such an epic story to boot. For such a primitive game, it managed to do so much.

But what Baldur's Gate gaveth, Neverwinter Nights tooketh away. NWN was such a shit game that I'm ashamed to say I stopped playing Morrowind for it. To put that into perspective, that's like pausing Serenity to watch Phantom Menace. Since then, Bioware has gone from being awesome to owing me. They made up part of it with KOTOR, another part with Jade Empire, and if Mass Effect had been longer, they might have had a net positive. Dragon Age is up in the air for me right now, I can't be bothered to try, and Mass Effect 2 might just bring the company back into my good graces enough to give it a shot eventually, but oh how the mighty have fallen.

This is rambling a bit, but there you go. I wish there was an RPG that managed to grab me and make me care, but lately, I don't know.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Dude, wait, what? How can you praise Morrowind for having weak core elements yet the tools to correct them, and slam NWN for the same in the same breath?

NWN is awesome - yeah, its core campaign isn't too hot (though the Hordes of the Underdark expansion is quite good), but it's got a ridiculously powerful editor suite and ungodly heaps of custom content that make the original Half-Life look like just another Doom rip-off. And the game/community is still active today, to boot.

[Stofsk]

Also, I thought Mass Effect's length was decently long. But I visited almost every system I could. (and even so, missed a couple because I actually wanted to finish the game)

[Hotfoot]

Dude, wait, what? How can you praise Morrowind for having weak core elements yet the tools to correct them, and slam NWN for the same in the same breath?

Simple: the campaign in NWN SUCKED. The main story in Morrowind didn't. Morrowind's flaws revolved mainly around little things that were annoyances, mostly around the fact that leveling was exploitable, NWN's flaws were around game-breaking game design, like the fact that casters ruled all thanks to the "rest every 30s" design "feature".

NWN is awesome - yeah, its core campaign isn't too hot (though the Hordes of the Underdark expansion is quite good), but it's got a ridiculously powerful editor suite and ungodly heaps of custom content that make the original Half-Life look like just another Doom rip-off. And the game/community is still active today, to boot.

The core campaign and most of the expansion campaigns sucked ass. By the time Hordes of the Underdark came out, I had given up. The editor, meanwhile, had also been sold as being so easy to use that anyone could use it to run a D&D game. That was bullshit. You needed to know programming in order to properly edit the damn thing and it wasn't that simple. Mods for Morrowind came out days and weeks after launch that made things marginally better here and there, improving on an already good base game. I have not found a mod today that makes the core game of NWN into something even remotely as appealing.

I mean, both the mod communities for NWN and Morrowind are pretty damn hot. I'll even give NWN credit for taking quality mods and making them "official", even though paying for a mod means I'm much less likely to play it.

Part of the charm of Baldur's Gate that was lost in NWN was the NPC interaction. You had a party of five plus yourself that you could interact with, and more to the point, would make up for how you sucked. D&D rules are designed so that a party of different classes (especially the core Fighter/Cleric/Wizard/Thief) are needed for success. NWN gave you two people and you had to cross your fingers that you could manage. Especially with those fucking lethal as hell traps they had. Go fighter and take a cleric? Get blasted by traps. Take a rogue? Rest more often because you're not getting healed mid combat. The list goes on. I mean, who would ever take the bard NPC anyway, unless you were playing a cleric and didn't mind carrying someone who sucked. I mean, if you were looking for a power walkthrough you were pretty much limited to Wizard, Sorcerer, and Cleric. You walk in to a room, blast everything with your spells, and then get them all back. I mean, in that context, the worst abuses of Morrowind's broken mechanics seem laughable. It's not like 100 sneak, 100 athletics, or 100 acrobatics would clear entire dungeons almost effortlessly like that.

The only time this didn't really matter as much was in the multiplayer, which still pretty much sucked anyway because of the massive connection issues the game had when it first came out. Maybe they're fixed now, but at this point, it's too little too late.

[General Havoc]

I'm sorry, Hotfoot, I know it's your opinion and all, but you are talking patent nonsense.

I'll grant, NWN was not the stupendous RPG that I expected from Bioware, but let's put a few things in perspective here. To begin with, NWN was not that damn bad. Yes, it was a derivative, formulaic RPG, and yes, it was not fit to shine the boots of the Baldur's series. However Neverwinter was one of the easiest-modded games in the world, moreso than Morrowind. Like yourself, I found that it weaned me off of Morrowind, for the simple reason that I played about 100 hours of top-quality modified content, entire campaigns, that are still among the greatest examples I've ever had in gaming.

Yes, these were user-generated mods, which you can't give credit to Bioware for, but even leaving that aside, NWN had two different expansions, both of which were miles better than the original game. Even had they not been however, NWN came out seven years ago. You admitted yourself that Bioware has produced not one, but several gems in that time. KOTOR, for god's sake, was one of the best RPGs ever produced by anybody. Jade Empire was not KOTOR's level, but was still a superb game. And while Mass Effect had flaws, I've never heard anyone claim that it was too short.

I've not yet played Dragon Age (it's on order), but everyone I've talked to has told me that it's beyond awesome, a tour-de-force even by Bioware's standards. That's not hyperbole. Literally every single person I have spoken to who has played the game is raving over it, including people who have not touched the genre since Baldur's Gate. I completely fail to see how it is that you "can't be bothered" to try it, after they made what you consider to be a bad game five games ago. You've admitted that everything they've made since NWN was excellent, with the biggest complaint being that it wasn't long enough. That's like saying that you refuse to try Diablo 3, even though you love almost everything Blizzard has ever done, because they still "owe" you from the expansion pack to Warcraft 2.

I'm sorry, if Bioware made one game you disliked, seven years ago, and followed it up with four masterpieces, they do not "owe" you even in the tongue in cheek sense. I fail entirely to see how "the mighty have fallen" because of a single game that they made nearly a decade ago, even if we took it to be as bad as you claim it was (which it was not). Bioware is so far in the positive for me that they would need to make eight consecutive pieces of crap to even get to "neutral" for me. They are the only company whose games, to me, are buy-on-sight, no questions asked. Nobody else, not even Blizzard, makes it into that category.

If you think a company that makes one mistake in a decade of wonderful, engaging, and generally amazing games is "fallen", and "owes you", then I think this genre might not be for you. Of the top RPGs I have ever played, Bioware was responsible for all of them save one, and that last one (Planescape) was developped by a company that worked with Bioware to make it and used Bioware's engine to bring it to life.

EDIT: All right, on reflection, I'll admit that the above is not entirely true, because Morrowind was legitimately one of the finest RPGs ever made, and I should by rights add it into my "top RPGs" list. The point however still stands. I will grant you that Morrowind was a much much better game than NWN, certainly. But that does not by itself make Bioware a bad game maker, nor does it negate the fact that every RPG they've made besides NWN has been solid gold.

[Hotfoot]

I'm sorry, Hotfoot, I know it's your opinion and all, but you are talking patent nonsense.

I'll grant, NWN was not the stupendous RPG that I expected from Bioware, but let's put a few things in perspective here. To begin with, NWN was not that damn bad. Yes, it was a derivative, formulaic RPG, and yes, it was not fit to shine the boots of the Baldur's series. However Neverwinter was one of the easiest-modded games in the world, moreso than Morrowind. Like yourself, I found that it weaned me off of Morrowind, for the simple reason that I played about 100 hours of top-quality modified content, entire campaigns, that are still among the greatest examples I've ever had in gaming.

You misunderstand my circumstances. I was playing both games at release. Morrowind came out about 3-4 months before NWN, but because of the fond memories of Baldur's Gate, I rushed through my runthrough of Morrowind to make time for NWN. I went from playing a game I was having a blast with to a game that made me want to boycott the company forever. The mods on release for NWN were practically nonexistant. Maybe if you picked up the Diamond Edition years after the original game was released, then there would be "100's of hours of top quality modified content", but for me? The best there was was the demo for Witch's Wake several months after release. Morrowind, meanwhile, had base dozens of things to do aside from the main quest line without even the mod community. Throw in that the mod community added in hundreds of hours of their own content as well, and we have an issue.

Yes, these were user-generated mods, which you can't give credit to Bioware for, but even leaving that aside, NWN had two different expansions, both of which were miles better than the original game. Even had they not been however, NWN came out seven years ago. You admitted yourself that Bioware has produced not one, but several gems in that time. KOTOR, for god's sake, was one of the best RPGs ever produced by anybody. Jade Empire was not KOTOR's level, but was still a superb game. And while Mass Effect had flaws, I've never heard anyone claim that it was too short.

I think you're overstating how good these games were. I won't deny that I really enjoyed KOTOR and that I rather liked Jade Empire, they felt very much like attempting to get back to where they were with Baldur's Gate. And yes, Mass Effect was short, very much so. My longest playthrough was 20 hours. That's infinitesimal for most RPGs, and that's with me doing every single possible side quest. My playthrough of Morrowind, cut short by NWN, amounted to over 100 hours, and that was without the expansions.

I've not yet played Dragon Age (it's on order), but everyone I've talked to has told me that it's beyond awesome, a tour-de-force even by Bioware's standards. That's not hyperbole. Literally every single person I have spoken to who has played the game is raving over it, including people who have not touched the genre since Baldur's Gate. I completely fail to see how it is that you "can't be bothered" to try it, after they made what you consider to be a bad game five games ago. You've admitted that everything they've made since NWN was excellent, with the biggest complaint being that it wasn't long enough. That's like saying that you refuse to try Diablo 3, even though you love almost everything Blizzard has ever done, because they still "owe" you from the expansion pack to Warcraft 2.

Is this what it's like to feel like Stark?

Look, I had actual play time with the game at Gencon. I have actually gone through at least one of the "origin stories" at least in part. From what I played, I was not overly impressed. Every game that Bioware has made since NWN has been using some variation of the NWN engine and has tried to add in some sort of enhancement to make it more like Baldur's Gate, because that game was their magnum opus. They've been adding things here and there that bring back elements of it, but they seem to continually miss the mark. Baldur's Gate wasn't even a perfect game, it was balls to the wall hard and frustrating at times because D&D sucks. It was awesome despite those facts because of good writing and excellent characters.

Note that I'm actually interested in Mass Effect 2, but not Dragon Age. There are reasons involved, like I did like the combat and party interaction parts of Mass Effect. In fact, one of the reasons I'm ragging on Dragon Age is that the conversation system took a step back from Mass Effect.

Also, please understand, there's a wide selection of terms between "Good" and "Excellent". Everything from KOTOR to Mass Effect falls in between the two of those. NWN falls firmly in the "Poor" catagory.

As far as Diablo 3, I grew to dislike Diablo 2, so I will not bother with it. Starcraft 2, same deal, I didn't like their last RTS, why should I bother with a new one?

I'm sorry, if Bioware made one game you disliked, seven years ago, and followed it up with four masterpieces, they do not "owe" you even in the tongue in cheek sense. I fail entirely to see how "the mighty have fallen" because of a single game that they made nearly a decade ago, even if we took it to be as bad as you claim it was (which it was not). Bioware is so far in the positive for me that they would need to make eight consecutive pieces of crap to even get to "neutral" for me. They are the only company whose games, to me, are buy-on-sight, no questions asked. Nobody else, not even Blizzard, makes it into that category.

If you think a company that makes one mistake in a decade of wonderful, engaging, and generally amazing games is "fallen", and "owes you", then I think this genre might not be for you. Of the top RPGs I have ever played, Bioware was responsible for all of them save one, and that last one (Planescape) was developped by a company that worked with Bioware to make it and used Bioware's engine to bring it to life.

You have an extremely high opinion of Bioware's games after NWN that frankly, I do not share. They are not masterpieces, they are not spooge-worthy, frankly, they were fun games, but they were only steps on a ladder back up to former glory in many respects. They were pretty, sure, that helps. They even had cool stories, though the interaction with them was...less than ideal. Their best effort so far in my mind was Mass Effect, bar none. It's rare that I actually complete multiple runthroughs of any game, but I did with Mass Effect (which was possible because the game was so short).

EDIT: All right, on reflection, I'll admit that the above is not entirely true, because Morrowind was legitimately one of the finest RPGs ever made, and I should by rights add it into my "top RPGs" list. The point however still stands. I will grant you that Morrowind was a much much better game than NWN, certainly. But that does not by itself make Bioware a bad game maker, nor does it negate the fact that every RPG they've made besides NWN has been solid gold.

One of the few reasons Bioware has the reputation it does is because it lacks any sort of serious competition. That's why they could get away with NWN and not get completely blasted. What other PC RPGs are there these days? What competition has Bioware actually had for the last seven years. Elder Scrolls and the Witcher have been the only serious competition for a while. NWN2 was decent, but riddled with bugs. KOTOR2 was supposedly better than the original until you got to the end. Alpha Protocol might be a decent game when it ever comes out, but Obsidian has been riding the Bioware wave for years now. I mean really, what games have there been to compare Bioware's supposed masterpieces to? It's easy to be the king of the hill if you're the only one playing.

It's a big leap to go from liking a game to calling it a masterpiece. I liked KOTOR, even though you were screwed if you tried to bring blaster characters with you later in the game, even though you could never be a fully badass Jedi because you needed to take your first levels in a non-jedi class, even though Bastila's conversion to the Dark Side felt like total bullshit, especially after the excellent twist earlier on. Even with Carth O'whiny and the fact that he was the romance option for female characters and the ugly-ass options for male faces, I really liked KOTOR. It's definitely a game that was worth a full price purchase for the number of hours I played and the overall enjoyment I got out of it. It was also one of the VERY few good Star Wars games, and those are rare as hell. You basically have Dark Force/Jedi Knight, X-Wing/TIE Fighter, Rebellion, and KOTOR. Most everything else is shit, so it's easy to get too excited about the good games when they do come out.

That said, I would take other shooters over Jedi Knight, I would take other space sims over X-Wing/TIE Fighter, I would take other 4X games over Rebellion, and I would take other RPGs over KOTOR.

Jade Empire was good, and it was nice to see an original effort from Bioware for a change, but one of the big things that originally sold me on the game, the moral decisions, was really just a lot of smoke and mirrors. You could either be a dick, or be a saint. The philosophies built around each were horseshit beyond that point, and it's really the entire way the "moral system" is in all Bioware games. At least in the Witcher, there are things like consequences to your actions, unlike Bioware where being the good guy is the best way to play through the game.

Admittedly, that is a bit of a problem in Baldur's Gate as well, but at least there you had Viconia and Edwin to help soothe the pain.

So, for the TL; DR version: Just because I liked a game doesn't mean I don't see the flaws inherent in it that have been there since NWN. The stink of NWN is present in all of these games, and I resent the fact that a crappy toolset was sold to me under the pretense of being a game.

P.S. "I know it's a subjective matter but your opinion is wrong" is a hilarious way to start off. Throwing in numerous appeals to popularity later on is even better. I wasn't aware opinion was made truth through democracy.

[General Havoc]

If you'll permit me to start with the end...

P.S. "I know it's a subjective matter but your opinion is wrong" is a hilarious way to start off. Throwing in numerous appeals to popularity later on is even better. I wasn't aware opinion was made truth through democracy.

I did not say your opinion was wrong, I said it was patent nonsense. You claimed that you thought Bioware's games in general and Dragon Age in specific were lackluster because of a single game they created seven years ago. That is why I made the comparison to Blizzard. You can hold whatever opinion you like, but if you hold the opinion because of reasons that are nonsensical, you should anticipate being told that your opinion is just that.

You misunderstand my circumstances. I was playing both games at release. Morrowind came out about 3-4 months before NWN, but because of the fond memories of Baldur's Gate, I rushed through my runthrough of Morrowind to make time for NWN. I went from playing a game I was having a blast with to a game that made me want to boycott the company forever. The mods on release for NWN were practically nonexistant. Maybe if you picked up the Diamond Edition years after the original game was released, then there would be "100's of hours of top quality modified content", but for me? The best there was was the demo for Witch's Wake several months after release. Morrowind, meanwhile, had base dozens of things to do aside from the main quest line without even the mod community. Throw in that the mod community added in hundreds of hours of their own content as well, and we have an issue.

Don't get me wrong, Morrowind was unquestionably superior in my mind to NWN, with or without the modified content, and was certainly so out of the box. I rate Morrowind as one of my favorite RPGs ever, and NWN does not cross that list. But I truly (and yes, this is merely opinion), don't think that NWN was that bad. Yes, it had broken combat, but then Morrowind had the same. It was stupidly easy to break Morrowind in your favor from the get-go, and the combat system was... problematic... to say the least. The expansive and immersive world, the storyline, and the unique open-ended gameplay however more than redeemed Morrowind, which to-date is one of the only open-world games I can stomach (I didn't care terribly much for Oblivion, I have to admit). NWN had no such redeeming features, and the party system was non-existant, but it was diverting at the least, and I enjoyed the time I put into it. I do however understand if others did not.

I think you're overstating how good these games were. I won't deny that I really enjoyed KOTOR and that I rather liked Jade Empire, they felt very much like attempting to get back to where they were with Baldur's Gate. And yes, Mass Effect was short, very much so. My longest playthrough was 20 hours. That's infinitesimal for most RPGs, and that's with me doing every single possible side quest. My playthrough of Morrowind, cut short by NWN, amounted to over 100 hours, and that was without the expansions.

Now you see, the above is not patent nonsense, it is reasonable opinion, opinion butressed with explanations and examples that fit the subject under discussion. Obviously, being as it's opinion, I can't gainsay it. I also enjoyed KOTOR tremendously, and Mass Effect (Jade Empire lacked something for me, but I can't put my finger on what). Perhaps it's a matter of expectations, but I don't see that Mass Effect's 20-hour playtime is at all infinitesimal. 100 hour playtimes are extremely rare, save in the most open-world of open-world games. Even Oblivion did not offer such (at least to me). Plot-driven RPGs almost never clock in above Mass Effect's timeframe. Baldur's did not (on second thought, BGII might have), neither did KOTOR, nor any other RPG I can think of in that same timeframe. Even the grind-happy JRPGs don't tend to go that far. Only Morrowind (and others like it such as Daggerfall) enter that level of timeframe, and that only with enormous repetition. I grant, I never played a lot of the truly old-school RPGs, and so there might well be others I'm not seeing, but I found Mass Effect to be of sufficient length, though as I was still enjoying it, I would, of course, have not have turned down more.

Is this what it's like to feel like Stark?

I see you have missed the point.

Hold what opinion you like about Dragon's Age. I certainly can't gainsay it personally yet, as I haven't played the damn thing. I wasn't citing everyone else's opinion to claim that yours is "wrong", I was citing them to indicate that it might be short-sighted to condemn the game sight unseen.

Look, I had actual play time with the game at Gencon. I have actually gone through at least one of the "origin stories" at least in part. From what I played, I was not overly impressed. Every game that Bioware has made since NWN has been using some variation of the NWN engine and has tried to add in some sort of enhancement to make it more like Baldur's Gate, because that game was their magnum opus. They've been adding things here and there that bring back elements of it, but they seem to continually miss the mark. Baldur's Gate wasn't even a perfect game, it was balls to the wall hard and frustrating at times because D&D sucks. It was awesome despite those facts because of good writing and excellent characters.

Well if you are of that opinion, then you are of that opinion, and again, I certainly cannot gainsay it. Though I will point out that if you think D&D sucks, why would you even consider a game based on the conventions of that system and genre? Granted, Baldur's was flawed in various ways, but D&D was sort of intrinsic to the game. It's like trying to take the Basketball out of NBA 200X.

As far as Diablo 3, I grew to dislike Diablo 2, so I will not bother with it. Starcraft 2, same deal, I didn't like their last RTS, why should I bother with a new one?

I cited Blizzard's games as an example, not because I thought you should or should not like those games in particular. To illustrate said example, you claim that because you disliked Diablo 2, you do not wish to bother with Diablo 3. This is reasonable. I do not agree, as my opinion differs, but it is certainly reasonable. If however you were to say that you do not wish to bother with Diablo 3 because you disliked The Lost Vikings (a Blizzard game from the 90s), that would be unreasonable. It is still an opinion, but it is patent nonsense, as the quality of the Lost Vikings has no bearing on whether or not Diablo 3 is of any good.

You have an extremely high opinion of Bioware's games after NWN that frankly, I do not share. They are not masterpieces, they are not spooge-worthy, frankly, they were fun games, but they were only steps on a ladder back up to former glory in many respects. They were pretty, sure, that helps. They even had cool stories, though the interaction with them was...less than ideal. Their best effort so far in my mind was Mass Effect, bar none. It's rare that I actually complete multiple runthroughs of any game, but I did with Mass Effect (which was possible because the game was so short).

I could not disagree with you more, and I'll thank you to take your fantasies about spooge elsewhere. I found the games in question to be masterpieces, out and out, flawed perhaps, but Masterpieces nonetheless. You did not. Perhaps it was lowered expectations on my part or perhaps it was simply a different perspective, but I felt KOTOR was one of the few games that lived up to the hype, and matched Baldur's in execution. I enjoyed it as I've enjoyed few games ever. Mass Effect was excellent, not as good perhaps, but a ride I thouroughly enjoyed. Jade Empires... well... I didn't dislike it, but I suppose I never really got into it as much. I couldn't explain why, it just never gelled. Just my viewpoint.

One of the few reasons Bioware has the reputation it does is because it lacks any sort of serious competition. That's why they could get away with NWN and not get completely blasted. What other PC RPGs are there these days? What competition has Bioware actually had for the last seven years. Elder Scrolls and the Witcher have been the only serious competition for a while. NWN2 was decent, but riddled with bugs. KOTOR2 was supposedly better than the original until you got to the end. Alpha Protocol might be a decent game when it ever comes out, but Obsidian has been riding the Bioware wave for years now. I mean really, what games have there been to compare Bioware's supposed masterpieces to? It's easy to be the king of the hill if you're the only one playing.

Well you might have a point there. I might expand that to say what other PC games are there these days. The pickings are slim across the board, and certainly in RPGs. I personally thought Witcher was godawful, but that's a narrative opinion more than anything, and while Elder Scrolls are a good series, I feel they peaked with Morrowind. YMMV.

Few however is not the same as none. There have been other RPGs out there on the PC market, some of which have been excellent (in my opinion), and some less so. Anachronox for instance, Omicron (less good, but inventive at least), Avernum, Vampire Bloodlines, Temple of Elemental Evil, the Gothic series, Fable, A Bard's Tale, Deus Ex 2, Fallout 3... all of those are just ones from the last five or six years (or so). Some of them were good, and some not, but there's been at least that much competition. I'm not saying we're overflowing with RPG titles, but there have been more than just Bioware's offerings, and they're not the only ones on the hill.

Plus as I recall, the reason they got away with NWN was that opinions on it were relatively mixed. I don't think it was a great game, but quite a few people enjoyed it, including myself. There was a fair bit of flack directed their way for the broken promise of the "ultimate RPG experience", but it wasn't a Daikatana-class failure.

It's a big leap to go from liking a game to calling it a masterpiece. I liked KOTOR, even though you were screwed if you tried to bring blaster characters with you later in the game, even though you could never be a fully badass Jedi because you needed to take your first levels in a non-jedi class, even though Bastila's conversion to the Dark Side felt like total bullshit, especially after the excellent twist earlier on. Even with Carth O'whiny and the fact that he was the romance option for female characters and the ugly-ass options for male faces, I really liked KOTOR. It's definitely a game that was worth a full price purchase for the number of hours I played and the overall enjoyment I got out of it. It was also one of the VERY few good Star Wars games, and those are rare as hell. You basically have Dark Force/Jedi Knight, X-Wing/TIE Fighter, Rebellion, and KOTOR. Most everything else is shit, so it's easy to get too excited about the good games when they do come out.

That said, I would take other shooters over Jedi Knight, I would take other space sims over X-Wing/TIE Fighter, I would take other 4X games over Rebellion, and I would take other RPGs over KOTOR.

Jade Empire was good, and it was nice to see an original effort from Bioware for a change, but one of the big things that originally sold me on the game, the moral decisions, was really just a lot of smoke and mirrors. You could either be a dick, or be a saint. The philosophies built around each were horseshit beyond that point, and it's really the entire way the "moral system" is in all Bioware games. At least in the Witcher, there are things like consequences to your actions, unlike Bioware where being the good guy is the best way to play through the game.

Admittedly, that is a bit of a problem in Baldur's Gate as well, but at least there you had Viconia and Edwin to help soothe the pain.

While I agree that KOTOR was one of the few good Star Wars games out there, I suppose I never minded the things you did. I never got the sense my character was gimped by having started out as a non-Jedi (but then I enjoyed Telos, so apparently I'm insane). I thought the plot went well, I didn't find Carth too whiny, and I didn't even mind Bastilla's Heel-Face Turn. Frankly, I don't care for Star Wars games with the perennial exception of TIE Fighter (and now KOTOR), and like yourself I would take others first. KOTOR won me over on its own merits.

Jade Empires didn't gel with me, so I can't really speak with authority on its morality system, but I don't think Bioware has a habit of shafting the evil people in their games. KOTOR was notorious for the delicious things you could do as an evil character, and you mentioned Baldur's. Mass Effect had a totally different alignment system, but I didn't feel the "Renegade" path was any less fleshed out.

So, for the TL; DR version: Just because I liked a game doesn't mean I don't see the flaws inherent in it that have been there since NWN. The stink of NWN is present in all of these games, and I resent the fact that a crappy toolset was sold to me under the pretense of being a game.

Again, I disagree, but it is a reasonable opinion to have. If you see the taint of NWN in all of Bioware's games to date, it is perfectly reasonable to decide to skip Dragon Age. There are many reasonable reasons to skip Dragon Age. You don't like RPGs, you don't have the time or money, you don't own a computer/console that can run it, you just don't feel like it, etc... What is not reasonable is to skip it because you felt an unrelated game from a decade ago was bad, which was the original reason you gave, and thus the reason I objected to it.

[Hotfoot]

I did not say your opinion was wrong, I said it was patent nonsense. You claimed that you thought Bioware's games in general and Dragon Age in specific were lackluster because of a single game they created seven years ago. That is why I made the comparison to Blizzard. You can hold whatever opinion you like, but if you hold the opinion because of reasons that are nonsensical, you should anticipate being told that your opinion is just that.

Game studios must develop a relationship with their fans, and making shitty games hurts that. It is through this relationship that fans are willing to take chances on games that are not sure things. Dragon Age, for all its hype, is not a sure thing. In case you failed to notice, I actually have played all of the games I've mentioned here, and have obtained them all legally, though not all at full price.

So you can shove your nonsense into whatever inventory system you use to keep your rabid fanboyism for Bioware.

Don't get me wrong, Morrowind was unquestionably superior in my mind to NWN, with or without the modified content, and was certainly so out of the box. I rate Morrowind as one of my favorite RPGs ever, and NWN does not cross that list. But I truly (and yes, this is merely opinion), don't think that NWN was that bad. Yes, it had broken combat, but then Morrowind had the same. It was stupidly easy to break Morrowind in your favor from the get-go, and the combat system was... problematic... to say the least. The expansive and immersive world, the storyline, and the unique open-ended gameplay however more than redeemed Morrowind, which to-date is one of the only open-world games I can stomach (I didn't care terribly much for Oblivion, I have to admit). NWN had no such redeeming features, and the party system was non-existant, but it was diverting at the least, and I enjoyed the time I put into it. I do however understand if others did not.

I will stand by the point that every aspect of Morrowind was better than NWN out of the box, with the only exception being multiplayer. Morrowind's methods of breaking the game were possible with any character, no matter how you made them from level one. That's different from finding out halfway through the game that you can't effectively win because you didn't pick the right class.

Now you see, the above is not patent nonsense, it is reasonable opinion, opinion butressed with explanations and examples that fit the subject under discussion. Obviously, being as it's opinion, I can't gainsay it. I also enjoyed KOTOR tremendously, and Mass Effect (Jade Empire lacked something for me, but I can't put my finger on what). Perhaps it's a matter of expectations, but I don't see that Mass Effect's 20-hour playtime is at all infinitesimal. 100 hour playtimes are extremely rare, save in the most open-world of open-world games. Even Oblivion did not offer such (at least to me). Plot-driven RPGs almost never clock in above Mass Effect's timeframe. Baldur's did not (on second thought, BGII might have), neither did KOTOR, nor any other RPG I can think of in that same timeframe. Even the grind-happy JRPGs don't tend to go that far. Only Morrowind (and others like it such as Daggerfall) enter that level of timeframe, and that only with enormous repetition. I grant, I never played a lot of the truly old-school RPGs, and so there might well be others I'm not seeing, but I found Mass Effect to be of sufficient length, though as I was still enjoying it, I would, of course, have not have turned down more.

An RPG should have 40 hours minimum of play time in my book. My first run of Mass Effect was around 12 hours because I skipped a lot of the boring sidequests.

I see you have missed the point.

Hold what opinion you like about Dragon's Age. I certainly can't gainsay it personally yet, as I haven't played the damn thing. I wasn't citing everyone else's opinion to claim that yours is "wrong", I was citing them to indicate that it might be short-sighted to condemn the game sight unseen.

But it's not sight unseen. I've played it. I was in front of the computer for, like, an hour with this game. It failed to connect and I don't have enough faith in Bioware to take a chance on it.

Well if you are of that opinion, then you are of that opinion, and again, I certainly cannot gainsay it. Though I will point out that if you think D&D sucks, why would you even consider a game based on the conventions of that system and genre? Granted, Baldur's was flawed in various ways, but D&D was sort of intrinsic to the game. It's like trying to take the Basketball out of NBA 200X.

Because the awesome parts of Baldur's Gate were awesome despite the crap in the combat. Amazingly, I can like a game and even exalt it over some key flaws as long as they are at least functional and can be worked around.

I cited Blizzard's games as an example, not because I thought you should or should not like those games in particular. To illustrate said example, you claim that because you disliked Diablo 2, you do not wish to bother with Diablo 3. This is reasonable. I do not agree, as my opinion differs, but it is certainly reasonable. If however you were to say that you do not wish to bother with Diablo 3 because you disliked The Lost Vikings (a Blizzard game from the 90s), that would be unreasonable. It is still an opinion, but it is patent nonsense, as the quality of the Lost Vikings has no bearing on whether or not Diablo 3 is of any good.

The pattern of a game company making games that I enjoy, however, is very important when deciding if I'm going to give a damn about their new experiment, especially if their last experiment was a dismal failure.

I could not disagree with you more, and I'll thank you to take your fantasies about spooge elsewhere. I found the games in question to be masterpieces, out and out, flawed perhaps, but Masterpieces nonetheless. You did not. Perhaps it was lowered expectations on my part or perhaps it was simply a different perspective, but I felt KOTOR was one of the few games that lived up to the hype, and matched Baldur's in execution. I enjoyed it as I've enjoyed few games ever. Mass Effect was excellent, not as good perhaps, but a ride I thouroughly enjoyed. Jade Empires... well... I didn't dislike it, but I suppose I never really got into it as much. I couldn't explain why, it just never gelled. Just my viewpoint.

KOTOR just had to not suck to live up to it's hype. When it came out it didn't have many games to compete with.

Well you might have a point there. I might expand that to say what other PC games are there these days. The pickings are slim across the board, and certainly in RPGs. I personally thought Witcher was godawful, but that's a narrative opinion more than anything, and while Elder Scrolls are a good series, I feel they peaked with Morrowind. YMMV.

Few however is not the same as none. There have been other RPGs out there on the PC market, some of which have been excellent (in my opinion), and some less so. Anachronox for instance, Omicron (less good, but inventive at least), Avernum, Vampire Bloodlines, Temple of Elemental Evil, the Gothic series, Fable, A Bard's Tale, Deus Ex 2, Fallout 3... all of those are just ones from the last five or six years (or so). Some of them were good, and some not, but there's been at least that much competition. I'm not saying we're overflowing with RPG titles, but there have been more than just Bioware's offerings, and they're not the only ones on the hill.

Fable was a console RPG, Avernum is based on 20 year old tech, Deus Ex 2 was not an RPG by most measures, Fallout 3 was basically Oblivion + Sci-Fi, which wasn't bad, but it was basically another Bethesda game, but yeah, slim pickings.

Plus as I recall, the reason they got away with NWN was that opinions on it were relatively mixed. I don't think it was a great game, but quite a few people enjoyed it, including myself. There was a fair bit of flack directed their way for the broken promise of the "ultimate RPG experience", but it wasn't a Daikatana-class failure.

It was to me. They billed the campaign as another Baldur's Gate styled epic, complete with awesome characters, and promised that the tools would be so easy to use that anyone could make their own campaign super-easy. It failed on all counts there. Like Daikatana, it failed to make me its bitch.

While I agree that KOTOR was one of the few good Star Wars games out there, I suppose I never minded the things you did. I never got the sense my character was gimped by having started out as a non-Jedi (but then I enjoyed Telos, so apparently I'm insane). I thought the plot went well, I didn't find Carth too whiny, and I didn't even mind Bastilla's Heel-Face Turn. Frankly, I don't care for Star Wars games with the perennial exception of TIE Fighter (and now KOTOR), and like yourself I would take others first. KOTOR won me over on its own merits.

The plot was good, but you can't have excellent twists followed by weaksauce. It drags the whole thing down.

Jade Empires didn't gel with me, so I can't really speak with authority on its morality system, but I don't think Bioware has a habit of shafting the evil people in their games. KOTOR was notorious for the delicious things you could do as an evil character, and you mentioned Baldur's. Mass Effect had a totally different alignment system, but I didn't feel the "Renegade" path was any less fleshed out.

Hah. Bioware has always made it harder for evil characters. You get less cash, fewer quests, etc. Even in Mass Effect, if you went full asshole, you were actually denied quests.

Again, I disagree, but it is a reasonable opinion to have. If you see the taint of NWN in all of Bioware's games to date, it is perfectly reasonable to decide to skip Dragon Age. There are many reasonable reasons to skip Dragon Age. You don't like RPGs, you don't have the time or money, you don't own a computer/console that can run it, you just don't feel like it, etc... What is not reasonable is to skip it because you felt an unrelated game from a decade ago was bad, which was the original reason you gave, and thus the reason I objected to it.

When you know a company that fails outside of a familiar structure is making a game outside that structure, should you tempt fate by buying it at full price?