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GothicGothicness
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 04 Oct 2003
Posts: 110
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| A sad year for PC RPG lovers |
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Okay aside from WOW ( which is a MMORPG, like you all didn't know )
We got nothing this year  if it weren't for Piranha bytes and Gothic 3 the future would look just as dark.
WHY? WHY? WHY? I know there's a lot of PC RPG fans.
Maybe it's just because good RPG's cost a whole lot of resources to make, and they don't sell as good as something simpler?? |
Tue Dec 21, 2004 11:03 pm |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
It wasn't a good year but I don't think the future is that bleak. Vampire: Bloodlines was the best game I played this year and it was good enough to get a listing somewhere among my favourites. For the future....KotOR2 (PC), thinking about getting Seal of Evil, thinking about Power of Law, Freedom Force vs TTR, The Fall, Dungeon Lords, might pick up Restricted Area, Star Wolves, G3, BioShock, Arx2, Divine Divinity 2, Dragon Age, Oblivion, Fallout 3...and too many Russian / Euro projects that I'll check out when it's clear they'll come out in English. It's no longer the golden age of cRPGs but there's still some life in the genre.
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Wed Dec 22, 2004 8:51 am |
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tolgerias
High Emperor
Joined: 15 Jul 2004
Posts: 770
Location: The Netherlands |
yup this year wasn´t worth very much and i have bought no new rpg´s but luckily the futere is a litlle bit brighter
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If you can't debate without namecalling then don't bother visiting us. -Myrthos |
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Wed Dec 22, 2004 9:38 am |
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GothicGothicness
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 04 Oct 2003
Posts: 110
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Yes, I forgot about dungeon Lords  I hope it'll be as great as its potential!!!
As for bloodlines, I just say one thing NO NO NO, it wasn't nearly done upon release, I mean using the console or else you can't finish the game, none should buy games released in a state like that. ( A true shame it could have been a great game otherwise), now all it did was make me want to bite the activision people in the throat for rushing it. |
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Wed Dec 22, 2004 10:56 am |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
Using the console took me all of 20 secs...I'm not going to let a game I would enjoy pass me by for something as trivial as that. I realise many people won't agree but there are many great games that weren't released in good shape originally - Gothic is a good example.
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Wed Dec 22, 2004 10:45 pm |
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corwin
On the Razorblade of Life
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 8376
Location: Australia |
No-one mentioned either Beyond Divinity, or Kult; two games I enjoyed. I realise that with RPG's, you either get a feast or a famine, but 2005 is shaping up as a very good year.
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If God said it, then that settles it!
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Wed Dec 22, 2004 11:56 pm |
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Remus
Overgrown Cat
Joined: 03 Jul 2002
Posts: 1657
Location: Fish bowl |
It's not a trivial issue when the bug can breaks or stop the game progression. A techie gamers can easily solve the bug but that's not all about it - what about average PC users or majority of buyers that never visit any game forums?. I overcame the crash by using console but it was annoying and Troika really need to shed the image of developer that often release buggy games or poor in technical aspects. Probably the lesser known and smaller developer Starbreeze with The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay has done better: created the game engine that as pretty as Doom 3 and yet consume less PC resources when running, excellent animation (not gliding on floor when walking as in Bloodlines's opening cut-scenes eventhough just couples scenes), ...
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Thu Dec 23, 2004 4:06 am |
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Namirrha
Noble Knight
Joined: 03 May 2002
Posts: 218
Location: Utah County, Utah. |
Sort of. I would characterize this as a mediocre year for PC RPGs. Quite a few RPGs came out, but few that really made me want to run out the door and buy them. Every time I began to have some expectations, I would read a review which would hurt my hopes by saying "terrible gameplay," "terrible story and dialogue," etc. As it is, I think the games I want are Silent Storm + its expansion pack and Vampire. (And KOTOR, but that's last year's IIRC. Haven't had time to buy it yet.)
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Give me the shadows, shield me from the light, and I shall let nothing pass in the darkness of the night. |
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Thu Dec 23, 2004 5:39 am |
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genji
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 11 Dec 2004
Posts: 39
Location: Melbourne, Australia |
If you can't handle buggy games, don't use a PC. Bugs and crashes due to hardware problems come with the territory. PC games get rushed because developers know they can release patches to fix most problems. And I would say (although I admit there is no way I can really know this) that most people who play PC RPGs regularly are not "casual" gamers who don't know how to use forums. Excluding certain MMORPGs, PC RPGs are not as "mainstream" as, say, a Pokemon game.
Please don't hurt me for mentioning Pokemon
Actually, that's probably not a good example, given that console/handheld games aren't very buggy at all. The Sims is probably a better example of a game that "casual" people would play on the PC.
Wooo, straying off the point here. Anyway. Vampire was worth every cent, and I haven't really needed to use the console at all. There's an official patch out now. Hopefully it will make things more playable for most people.
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In dreams I walk with you |
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Thu Dec 23, 2004 10:56 am |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
quote:
Originally posted by Remus
It's not a trivial issue when the bug can breaks or stop the game progression. A techie gamers can easily solve the bug but that's not all about it - what about average PC users or majority of buyers that never visit any game forums?. I overcame the crash by using console but it was annoying and Troika really need to shed the image of developer that often release buggy games or poor in technical aspects. Probably the lesser known and smaller developer Starbreeze with The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay has done better: created the game engine that as pretty as Doom 3 and yet consume less PC resources when running, excellent animation (not gliding on floor when walking as in Bloodlines's opening cut-scenes eventhough just couples scenes), ...
I did say "I'm not going to..." - I was speaking from a personal perspective.  No, it's not good that a game has gamestopping bugs, however, I don't see it as simplistically as many do. Again (as I said the first time) - I don't expect many to agree with me.
Let me take a different line: the only gamestopping bug I encountered in Bloodlines took me a few seconds to fix and it has now been patched. Now, take KotOR as a comparison: I can point out dozens of reviews that handed out perfect 10/10s, it won RPG of the Year everywhere and Game of the Year in lots of places...but I find the interface to be hideous. The inventory, personal equipment and journal screens are horrendous and interfere with every single hour of play for me. Nearly everyone who reads this will see the Bloodlines issue as significantly more important but the interface in KotOR is a far bigger problem for me.
As for Starbreeze, I'm not sure what that point proves. That Starbreeze is a better developer? Perhaps. I wasn't interested in their game Enclave and I'm not particularly interested in Riddick. I'm also not sure that that the ubiquitous comparison between Vampire and other FPS's (Riddick is an FPS, yes? I haven't paid much attention) is valid for many reasons.
HL2 is an FPS that took 6 years to create with a budget exceeding $40M and some people complain that Vampire isn't up to that same standard - an RPG that took half as long to make but is twice as long on budget of ~$8M using someone elses engine. Does FPS vs RPG compare in the first place? All that customised dialogue, lots more facial animation, different solutions and disciplines, journal screens that an FPS doesn't use bla bla - plus it's longer anyway? Don't know.
In fact, for all we know, working with Source was a real problem. Troika didn't pick the engine because it was the best technical fit -- Activision had already made the call. How often was Source changed and things needed to be re-worked because Valve updated the engine? How old is the version Troika are using? Is it possible that Troika had to enter feature lock 6 months ago to get it finished and Valve spent that 6 months polishing the performance in HL2? Or does Troika just suck? Dunno.
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Sat Dec 25, 2004 11:04 pm |
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GothicGothicness
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 04 Oct 2003
Posts: 110
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This matter is not about how serious the bug is etc, what it boils dowm to is beta testing. If one person played through the game ONCE they'd know this bug excisted since it's not only on a specific system.
Bloodlines also has an enormous amount of quest bugs, I ended up failing some quests before I had even recieved them. It's one thing to release a game in a state with some bugs ( like close to all PC games are sadly enough ), another to release a version that has not even been beta tested.
Again it's not Troika's fault, the people at Troika WERE angry at activision for forcing them to release before it was done. ( one of the employees said for example that the fire-arms weapons were not nearly done ) |
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Sat Dec 25, 2004 11:17 pm |
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genji
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 11 Dec 2004
Posts: 39
Location: Melbourne, Australia |
Well, I can't say I've run into any of those sorts of bugs. Maybe I'm just lucky. Most of mine just involved me getting stuck behind a sliding door and using /noclip to get out.
The imbalance in the weapons is also apparent. It's only towards the end of the game when you find an SMG that isn't impossible to aim. What's amazing to me is that, even with all of these problems, the sheer brilliance of the game still manages to shine through.
I completely agree that bugs are the least of a game's problems if the interface is clunky and obstructive. I almost gave up playing Deus Ex 2 after 5 minutes with the inventory system. It was completely unchanged from the console version, not even letting mouse and keyboard players use drag-and-drop. Thankfully, many of the interface problems were alleviated in future updates.
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In dreams I walk with you |
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Sun Dec 26, 2004 6:57 am |
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Remus
Overgrown Cat
Joined: 03 Jul 2002
Posts: 1657
Location: Fish bowl |
quote:
If you can't handle buggy games, don't use a PC.
Haven't seen that argument often. Quoted for emphasize.
quote:
I did say "I'm not going to..." - I was speaking from a personal perspective. No, it's not good that a game has gamestopping bugs, however, I don't see it as simplistically as many do. Again (as I said the first time) - I don't expect many to agree with me.
Don't take my comments too personally. I'm aware you're speaking from personally perspective, and i'm not criticizing you to to have personal opinion on Bloodlines or because liked the game much more than other peoples. However i wanted to point up that the issue is not as simple as from limited personal perspective. If considerably amount of criticisms from gamers and reviewers at RPG Codex, PlanetVampire, Obsidian board, Mistress's Lair, Gamespot, IGN, GameSpy, etc lingering around more or less on same issues (bugs, performance issue, glaring blunders (bad animations in cut-scenes), then Troika (and Troika fans) really need to look into that aspects seriously and be open minded, unless you think that as big conspiracy out there to bad badmouthing Troika and bring them down.
Just face it, so far all three Troika games receive mostly mixed reviews, so-so reception from gamers. Still, as a gamer i always hope Troika would one day make another excellent game. Apparently so far they haven't done that. Fallout?, it's among my top CRPGs but i also recognize the fact that Troika mostly doesn't consist of the same peoples who made Fallout so many years ago. I have more faith in Obsidian eventhough they started and split up much later from Black Isle and Interplay.
quote:
As for Starbreeze, I'm not sure what that point proves... Does FPS vs RPG compare in the first place? All that customised dialogue, lots more facial animation, different solutions and disciplines, journal screens that an FPS doesn't use bla bla - plus it's longer anyway? Don't know.
First, i'm not comparing FPS with RPG. What i see is the ability of a small and lesser known game studio who can produced their own game engine, run fast, optimized, very good and consistence gameplay, good animation and good cut-scenes, consistence Ranged combat + hand-to-to hand + stealth and even successfullly ported the game to PC without typical bad console legacies. Overall high production value. I'm not saying Troika totally sucks, as shown in Bloodlines they're good at many RPG aspects but mixed with mistakes and some glaring issues.
Second, you forgot to mention that in Bloodlines Troika didn't have to extensively implement the physics system as in HL2, which intergrated it into gameplay (weapon, puzzles), or the more advanced A.I system, tons of scripting to carrying up the behaviors of multiple enemies and allies in combat plus the destructible buildings/terrains. Bloodlines also inefficient in unloading physical and virtual memory back to Windows when closed, especially after hours playing the game. How's that have anything to do with RPG or not RPG?.
quote:
HL2 is an FPS that took 6 years to create with a budget exceeding $40M and some people complain that Vampire isn't up to that same standard - an RPG that took half as long to make but is twice as long on budget of ~$8M using someone elses engine.
Actually, that sound like making FPS is not as easy as you thought - forcing Valve to spent 6 years with around $45M budget (what Gabe said) and delayed the game for whole year. So people at Troika must be out of mind when negotiating or agree to do an RPG in much shorter period!.
Seriously, eventhough they licensed the engine and considerably reduce the development time, with Bloodlines at the state right now, Troika still need several months to polish up the game. Really, i couldn't agree more with IGN's reviewer words putting Bloodlines as a "flawed gem". It's waste of opportunity and the capability of Source engine; Bloodlines gave me dreadful first impression with the early opening cut-scenes. The scenes move so fast as someone burst in and did something to someone else, which probably for Troika to cover up the lack of character walking animations. It really look bad for a professional game maker. Those kind of things usually reserved for low quality games - try out games like Breed and you'll know i meant.
Beside that and several other issues Bloodlines looks good generally until half-way through - the King's Way quest, and the awful, endless monotonous combats near the end. What make that it even worse is at the first place the combat system isn't very fun anyway as already commented on in several reviews. And don't tell me Bloodlines is a "pure" and "true" RPG so combat don't count toward the end score. Combat always has took up considerable portion in cRPGs like BG, BG2, NWN, etc, and even the more talky game, PS:T. If Bloodlines really a "true" CRPG, then what the heck's the portion near the end that contain excessive amount of bad guys throwing themselves at you?. How on earth Troika can consider those parts as fun and necessary? Or it's another case of "sorry, we don't have enough time to put in quests so combat is all you guys get", or "we're late on milestone and publisher is breathing down our neck"?.
PS - Another thing - Troika still trying to do too much things in one game than they could possible handle. In an interview after the release of Arcanum Tim said they're aware about the issue. I think they can cut away 1-2 clans and such in Bloodlines (how many people would play 5-7 times through with different clan?). I prefer quality over quantity plus things can't be done properly should be thrown out or else they pull down overall game quality.
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Sun Dec 26, 2004 7:08 am |
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genji
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 11 Dec 2004
Posts: 39
Location: Melbourne, Australia |
quote:
Originally posted by Remus
Haven't seen that argument often. Quoted for emphasize.
I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean, but I'll take it that you don't agree, or find my argument extreme. This is fine, of course, but let me elaborate. I'm not saying that people who play PC games should accept the existance of bugs that can ruin a game-playing experience. Of course they should try to fix them. This is what patches are for. Learning to download them and look on forums for sulutions is part of the deal that people accept when they decide to play games on a PC - a very, very complex machine that can fall victim to many problems.
I'm not saying that developers should not be faulted for bringing out games riddled with problems. But they fall secondary to in-game things like interface, plot, etc.
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In dreams I walk with you |
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Sun Dec 26, 2004 9:11 am |
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Remus
Overgrown Cat
Joined: 03 Jul 2002
Posts: 1657
Location: Fish bowl |
I agree with all you said except the part "Learning to download them and look on forums for sulutions is part of the deal that people accept when they decide to play games on a PC ". That's very ideal expectation. I don't have that kind of problem myself but i meant average PC users and majority of buyers out there - you won't believe some of the weird things people did or wrong concept they have about PC/software. A while ago an artile on MozillaZine reported that some peoples still have no idea that spyware exist; or different between "browser" and other programs. And many game buyers didn't bothered register at official forums let alone regulary visiting forums. They could easily end up spending much more time to solve their problem or just return the game to gamestore. How many of them can resolve a bug within few 20 seconds or minutes?
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Mon Dec 27, 2004 12:31 am |
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