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RPGDot Forums > Gothic - General

Author Thread
Val
Risen From Ashes
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Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA
   

Such a game would be like EverQuest. No point other than power-leveling your character. No thanks. I want a good story, like in BG2 or Planescape that will draw me in and entertain. You could play the game you describe forever, but it would get boring because the gameplay would undoubtedly be repetative. On the other hand, I still play BG2 and Planescape. Why you ask? For the same reason I re-read a good book, because it's well told and it still draws me into it.
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Post Mon May 06, 2002 5:39 pm
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Yog Sothoth
The All in One
The All in One




Joined: 01 May 2002
Posts: 1086
Location: Between Space and Time
   

Absolutly right!
Tah's why i read "The Lords of the Ring" 3 times...
and played BG 3 times...
Post Mon May 06, 2002 6:02 pm
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SuperCowMan24
Blademaster of the Moo
Blademaster of the Moo




Joined: 20 Apr 2002
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Location: Texas, USA
   

try elder scrolls 3 morrowind. Its very good, the world is huge, and with the editor you can create unlimited adventures. There is a main quest, but you dont even have to do it, its optional, and when you finish it you can still play.... its a well done game, but it lacks the depth of gothic. And there is a skill cap (I HATE THOSE) so, i say combine the character system of morrowind (removing the caps of course) and the gameplay and story of gothic... add in an easy to use construction set, and multiplayer capability, so you can play your character with friends.... i think you will have a decent game there.....
oh ya, in morrowind, you could eventually max out all skills, it would be cooler to only be able to use the skills you specialized in, and not the ones that were secondary.
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Post Tue May 07, 2002 12:53 am
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TheLonePaladin
Mighty Warrior
Mighty Warrior




Joined: 27 Feb 2002
Posts: 1808
Location: San Francisco, CA
   

untrue val. if the game were as hubba said, with a hundred cities to dwell in, then you'd have to play the game over a thousand times to go through every possible storyline. of course some aspects would be the same, but almost every single game would be 100% unique. if thats boring to you, you have serious issues.

cow man also had some good points.

EDIT: excuse me, hes not just a cow man, he's a SUPER cow man
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Post Tue May 07, 2002 1:08 am
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Nazgul
Head Merchant
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Joined: 02 May 2002
Posts: 56
   

The game HubaHuba described sounds alot like a normal life. Why play a game of that when you have your own life to live?
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Post Tue May 07, 2002 3:18 am
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Wruf
City Guard
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Joined: 30 Mar 2002
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I agree totally with Val.

Ultima Online So much land. So many monsters. So very, very bored. I just killed another Dragon, so I can go shout buy vendor at some nondescript NPC to get a ship to go to another boring land to do the same thing over again. Why do I play it? To hang out with friends. These are not games. They are Glorified Chatrooms. They'll never be anything else.

Gothic So much to do, yet it has a plot. People who actually talk and sound interesting. There are things to achieve. You can save the World, it does draw to a conclusion, there is satisfaction there. A sense that you did something. A game can be highly non-linear but it must have both a beginning and an ending and one must be sufficiently entertained in the interim.

Gothic (and others like it, such as Ultima VII, Planescape and dare I say it, even things like Skies of Arcadia -- which I enjoyed greatly) is the true definition of a game. In a game you should have a starting point and numerous goals and one big goal. It doesn't have to be totally linear but it does help brainfood-wise if it has stories mixed in with the goals. But here we're treading on the difference between an RTS (mission based game) and an RPG.

Skies of Arcadia was linear but it was wonderful. It gave you lots to do and lots to explore. It gave you options about how you wanted to do things and it came to an eventual conclusion. It was enjoyable and entertaining. Games like Ultima Online, no matter how much you can do in them simply aren't. You go there to hang out and chat but to do stuff at the same time as hanging out and chatting.

This is why I fear Morrowind won't be very successful because if it's anything like Daggerfall, it'll be incredibly open and this will entertain for a while but it will have a number of nondescript, undetailed missions which you won't want to take part in ... such a big number in fact that by the time you've gotten past your fiftieth mission, you're bored of the game. Unknowing that you were only through about 5% of the game. To make a true game and verily, a true RPG, you need goals. You need interesting goals. You have to care to complete these goals which means you should like your character and the lands around you. Since you see, one interesting and fun goal to reach, one that's well thought out, planned and has a lot of story is worth more than 50 boring nondescript missions/tasks.

That's something that Ultima Online (the people of which often fill me with loathing), Daggerfall and so many others failed to do and that's why they fall beneath the definition of a true game. Make something as open as you like but if it isn't fun and if it doesn't have a conclusion then it's not a game. It's a simulation, like the Sims.

And frankly, simulations bore me.

Edit Oh, in case you're wondering, the reason I used Ultima Online instead of Everquest to pick on is because I've only read reviews of Everquest yet I play UO often. Though from what I understand, Everquest is just UO in 3D. I can only go through points of reference though I did want to stress myself what makes a game and an enjoyable one at that.
Post Tue May 07, 2002 3:31 am
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Yog Sothoth
The All in One
The All in One




Joined: 01 May 2002
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i've tryed to play Daggerfall (Elder scrolls 2, so the precursor of Morrowind) but i just didn't made it... after two weeks i stopped playing... i've tryed 10 times from when it was released untill now.
The problems are 2:
1. it's FULL of bugs
2. it's too big and the quests tend to be all the same... i think that in one or two weeks of play you can see all... and still you have done nothing!!! You can join guilds and very few are the real interesting quests... then all is a "bring to me this" or "kill that" or "bring a message to". No more no less... (does anyone here remember Darklands? HUGE!!!!... but at the end boring). Gothic is different. You can be motionless in one of the three camps and just look the others. They (seem to ) live!
The story has to be always in your mind! If you lose yourself in a huge world, there is the possibility that the attention lessens quickly.
It's the lesson we receive from the motion picture industry... catch the attention!!
Post Tue May 07, 2002 8:56 am
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DungeonKeeper
Village Dweller
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Joined: 04 May 2002
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Well, it's my experience that those who live there lives without any direction are usually not very happy and have pretty boring lives. to have your goals laid out for you and to take the nessesary actions in getting there is a very rewarding experience.Whats my point? the point is its this same kind of interaction that keeps us glued to a game if its done correctly so i would have to agree with Val. Besides to have such an open ended game with a massive world would require a massive amount of time to play. I for one like to finish a game before going on to the next and well, with all the great RPG'S coming out this year Im satisfied with a 100 hours of gameplay
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Post Wed May 08, 2002 2:41 am
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TheLonePaladin
Mighty Warrior
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Joined: 27 Feb 2002
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quote:
Originally posted by DungeonKeeper
I for one like to finish a game before going on to the next


good point. hadn't considered that. but still, every once in a while, isn't it nice to go to a place, no matter how unrealistic (in fact, that often makes it better) where its like your life, only what you do isn't normal. no one wants to play a game where they wake up, eat breakfast, shower/brush teeth, (shave if its been awhile, those days make me feel cool ) go to school, hang out with friends, do the school routine, hang with friends, do homework, and then argue online with ppl whether or not its ok to call women chicks (summary of my day).

at least i hope they don't

but wouldn't you wanna play a game where you wake up, cleanse yourself, deck yourself out in plate mail/mage robe, wage war against orcs, chat it up with your brothers in arms/magic, and seranade a beautiful princess (*cough, chick, *cough. sorry j/k) ? and the next day, you might do something similar, or you might slay a dragon, visit the market place and hang with the commoners, or anything out of the ordinary?

i know i would.
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Post Wed May 08, 2002 4:36 am
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Jaz
Late Night Spook
Late Night Spook




Joined: 20 Jan 2002
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The original poster it right, Gothic ruined my social life as well. I mean, ome on, nowadays I have a life-size standee of Gorn in the middle of my living room ...
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Post Wed May 08, 2002 5:08 am
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TheLonePaladin
Mighty Warrior
Mighty Warrior




Joined: 27 Feb 2002
Posts: 1808
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quote:
Originally posted by Jaz
nowadays I have a life-size standee of Gorn in the middle of my living room ...


what happened to jackal? did you break his mighty warrior heart?
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=Follower of Righteousness=
"Though the gates that stand between the mortal world and the immortal Realm of Chaos are now closed to me, still I would rather die having glimpsed eternity than never to have stirred the cold furrow of mortal life.
I embrace death without regret as I embraced life without fear."
Post Wed May 08, 2002 10:40 pm
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DungeonKeeper
Village Dweller
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Joined: 04 May 2002
Posts: 13
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I think i know where youre going with this TLP If you were to take your views and vals and combine them you'd have what i would call an Epic RPG, something like this, you would start out as a young boy or girl at that age when you first leave home and set out on your own there is no begining prelude the story unfolds before you but you simply dont pick up the sword and start becoming a hero you have to , earn your way, how? by getting a job, say like a blacksmith's assistant or gopher and you learn about weapons for the first time, you have to find a home this means many nights sleeping on a bench somewhere till eventually you save enough to get a place, i think some small side quests at this point that dont involve the use of weapons would be nice, i dont think id want to go as far as the brushing of teeth or combing of hair i can play the sims if i want that kind of interaction. a side plot begins that involves your boss( the blacksmith that will become a mystery you have to solve and solving it will only set you a litlle closer to the big picture and open up an even larger mystery, i think gothic is the closest game to this description that i know of and i think the day and night cycles are just about perfect in gothic in the meantime in the game you also have year cycles and will eventually grow older and wiser and learn to barter and intervene better just based on an age bonus, if done properly there could be a five or ten year period between chapters i mean it would take at least 5 years to collect enough savings to buy the proper attire and so forth, you might get framed for something and get sentenced for 5 years in prison and when they lock you down the chapter ends And at point a cutscene comes in and the next chapter begins with you being released from prison years later . This is just an example but i think such a game could be done within 150 hours of game play. i didnt really go into the details because this note is longwinded enough as it is but you can imagine the possibilities.
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Post Thu May 09, 2002 1:04 am
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TheLonePaladin
Mighty Warrior
Mighty Warrior




Joined: 27 Feb 2002
Posts: 1808
Location: San Francisco, CA
   

well yeah, DK, that'd be cool. but every once in a while, don't you wish you could skip all that part where you have to learn and be ridiculed into understanding by your elders, earn a living and so forth? i always go back to nox when discussing the perfect RPG, and there's a reason. it had the potential to become just that: the perfect RPG, but nooooooo, you had to go and become the super human dude who saves the world and travels home. i would've loved that game, if you joined the fire knights, spend like five years just being one of the regular kinghts.(game time, prolly the equivalent of a few months, maybe a year depending how fast u move thro a game) maybe after that you could've slain hecubah.

and rune. i wanted to go to Copperude and fight regular old vikings. but nooooooo have to go stop ragnarok. all this end of the world crap is getting in the way of my good time!!
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=Follower of Righteousness=
"Though the gates that stand between the mortal world and the immortal Realm of Chaos are now closed to me, still I would rather die having glimpsed eternity than never to have stirred the cold furrow of mortal life.
I embrace death without regret as I embraced life without fear."
Post Thu May 09, 2002 2:23 am
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Jaz
Late Night Spook
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Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 9708
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quote:
what happened to jackal? did you break his mighty warrior heart?


Of course not, Tom, there just isn't a Jackal standee .
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Post Thu May 09, 2002 1:39 pm
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TheLonePaladin
Mighty Warrior
Mighty Warrior




Joined: 27 Feb 2002
Posts: 1808
Location: San Francisco, CA
   

quote:
Originally posted by Jaz
Of course not, Tom, there just isn't a Jackal standee .


and you let that little problem get in the way?
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=Follower of Righteousness=
"Though the gates that stand between the mortal world and the immortal Realm of Chaos are now closed to me, still I would rather die having glimpsed eternity than never to have stirred the cold furrow of mortal life.
I embrace death without regret as I embraced life without fear."
Post Thu May 09, 2002 10:56 pm
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