Top 10 games at FiringSquad

Jung · Feb 26, 2004

I would like to see Gothic on that list. I thought it was better than PST.

Azael · Feb 27, 2004

Dgaider said:
[As for me posting here, I'm doing so because I enjoy intelligent conversations about topics that needn't revolve around NWN exclusively. If my presence is disruptive, however, than I'll certainly leave if St. Proverbius wishes me to go.

You'd leave if asked to? If only the same applied to the really disruptive posters the internet would be a better place. Personally, I think it's nice to see people in the industry here, even if they do work for Bioware. :wink:

Spazmo · Feb 27, 2004

I'm all too happy to see Dave Gaider here. It kinda zings people who say our constant whining alienates developers. Besides, if he learns something, all the better.

DemonKing · Feb 27, 2004

Sheriff05 said:
That's why were all here, just take or give your lumps like anyone else
I don't think *disruptive* is anything people around here worry about.

Yeah but *abusive* is different.

It's no surprise more developers don't hang out here when the best criticism some people can come up with is "NWN OC is shit".

That's abuse.

Now if people told Mr Gaider why the "NWN OC is shit", then that would be constructive criticism. It would be even more consturctive if you found a slightly wittier and more eloquent way of saying "shit", since no one likes very much arguing their point if the first thing someone brings to the argument is "<insert name of CRPG you helped develop here> is shit", since it gives the impression that the guy making such a statement is not interested in a constructive discussion, only in abusing something.

Transcendent One · Feb 27, 2004

Dgaider said:
Oh, is that how that works?

Fair enough. I prefer constructive criticism, myself, but you're free to like or dislike whatever you wish (generous of me, I know). The bile I see here sometimes is a bit tiresome, but I guess I can see how some might have been very disappointed with the direction NWN took. So be it. If I worried about everything I've worked on appealing to everyone I'd have gone crazy a long time ago.

I usually back my points up when possible. Of course I think most people (myself included) are so tired of discussing NWN on various boards that I feel it's not appropriate to post an essay every time I talk about it that will have all the points as to why I think it's not a good game. You know, there'll always be one idiot or another who'll try to argue your points over and over and over until you can almost bet money on the fact that that person will be the first there trying to prove you wrong whenever you post something like that (not saying there's anyone like that on Codex, but still).

Volourn · Feb 27, 2004

Yes you are 'cause I am that person in question. :D That's why I'm here. Can't allow you guys to think only people who do one liners then leave disagree with you. And, I don't mind being flamed. I find it amusing. And, sadly, I don't think RPGCodex is tired of discussing NWN. All evidence points to the contrary - for both good and bad reasons.

Transcendent One · Feb 27, 2004

Okay fine Volourn you figured it out :oops:

Vault Dweller · Feb 27, 2004

Dgaider said:
As for me posting here, I'm doing so because I enjoy intelligent conversations about topics that needn't revolve around NWN exclusively.

We like to have you here, even if we disagree on certain things. There are plenty of other topics to discuss. If a person enjoys this site he's always welcome here.

Edit: I just realized something. Does that line above mean that you can't have intelligent conversations at the Bioware boards? I thought as much :lol:

Sheriff05 · Feb 27, 2004

DemonKing said:
It's no surprise more developers don't hang out here when the best criticism some people can come up with is "NWN OC is shit".
That's abuse.

Abuse?? hardly, at this point it's the common conception
you don't even see die hard fans defending the NWN original campaign

Now if people told Mr Gaider why the "NWN OC is shit", then that would be constructive criticism. It would be even more consturctive if you found a slightly wittier and more eloquent way of saying "shit", since no one likes very much arguing their point if the first thing someone brings to the argument is "<insert name of CRPG you helped develop here> is shit", since it gives the impression that the guy making such a statement is not interested in a constructive discussion, only in abusing something.

He's read *why* a million times on his own boards, I don't think we need to have another discussion on NWN nor would I expect Gaider to bother to defend it here, Those arguments are old hat at this point. Anyone who vistis this site regulary is aware that many folks here think NWN *is* or *has become* SHIT and he's knows that.
My original comment "What's D Gaider doing here anyway, blah, blah" was way more a jab at the game than him personally, believe me. It's no suprise to him that there are bunch of disgruntled ex-fans out here in the ether.

I haven't seen people that expect to have their asses kissed or have thin skins sticking around here for long, have you?
If he hangs around and contributes, more power to him, like Spazmo said
maybe he will learn something-

EEVIAC · Feb 27, 2004

Spazmo said:
Besides, if he learns something, all the better.

I'd hope the "learning" was a two-way street.

Major_Blackhart · Feb 27, 2004

Well, I never played NWN so I can't comment on that, but Gaider should feel free to peruse our boards a little more. Also TB combat beats RT in terms of combat. Just look at the success of Silent Storm and all the praise it's getting.

Anonymous · Feb 27, 2004

Dgaider said:
Greyhawk said:

And NWN, well, NWN's such a trash that even a lot of Bioware fans admit the game was a huge disappointment and that it relied too much on stuff done by the community modders rather than Bioware themselves who simply hyped the hell out of the game and threw in a trashy OC and provided the mod tools and DM client for that.

Click to expand...

Uh-huh.

Rather enamoured with that refined palette of yours, eh? :wink:

Hey fatty, arnt you suppost to be out bastardizing rulesets, eh?

MODERATOR EDIT: Don't be naughty, Patrick.

Dgaider · Feb 27, 2004

Well, I don't know how much I'm here to learn something (gosh, that's not too condescending

), but you're right that I'm not here to argue about NWN either. I've heard it all before and then some.

But if the topic is old hat, then why the vehemence? Why spew bile (I like that image, sue me) every time the game is even referenced?

Not that it'll hurt me or make me mad or anything... but I also doubt that you'll convince me or anyone else that there isn't room for all those people who appreciate different styles of gameplay nor that doing so makes them all uneducated dolts (which is what is being implied if not said outright).

I also suspect that it's the thoughtful dialogue that will do far more to convince people of your opinion than the bile spewage ever will... but I would be willing to bet you all already know that.

Dgaider · Feb 27, 2004

LlamaGod said:
Hey fatty, arnt you suppost to be out bastardizing rulesets, eh?

Not at all.

Aren't you late for your lobotomy appointment?

Oh, wait... pardon my insensitivity. Obviously you already had yours.

Spazmo · Feb 27, 2004

Ignore Pat, we all do. I was kinda kidding about learning stuff, but... just play Geneforge.

As for NWN, we've been over why the OC is bad so damn many times that it gets pointless to regurgitate the arguments all the time. Just refer to Saint's review if you want to know why we dislike it. Besides that, the whole NWN argument has gotten really stale. Yes, the expansions bring the game back up all the time, but most of us, having been burnt on the original game, haven't bothered with SOU or HOTU.

So that's why we spend all our time bitching about KotOR now. Seriously, didn't any of your beat testers notice how overpowered force wave is?

Volourn · Feb 27, 2004

LOL Force wave is definitely THE power to use. :D That, and the other holding type powers.

Sheriff05 · Feb 27, 2004

Dgaider said:
But if the topic is old hat, then why the vehemence? Why spew bile (I like that image, sue me) every time the game is even referenced?

Well since you ask all that *bile spewage* makes guys like me that
supported the original vision of the game back in 1998 and watched it take one wrong turn after another feel a whole lot better.

Dgaider said:
but I also doubt that you'll convince me or anyone else that there isn't room for all those people who appreciate different styles of gameplay nor that doing so makes them all uneducated dolts (which is what is being implied if not said outright).

Sure Dave. half-assedly do a mediocre job on mulitple styles of gameplay instead of doing a few right, dismissing hardcore D&D fans for the RPG casual, making design decision based on *polls* all the while promising folks more than you could possibily deliver is at best a questionable business decision.
I also find it odd you guys somewhere forgot the difference between Brand and Product loyalty along the way.

Yeah -I think anyone that takes your *finished product* of NWN as anything
close to what people like myself *hoped* it would have been is an uneducated dolt.
I know *Dolts* buy more games, so I guess can't blame you.

LCJr. · Feb 27, 2004

Geez no Sid Meier's Pirates!. Oh well it's only one persons opinion. I have to admit wasting a lot of time on SimCity when it came out but still wouldn't put it at #1.

Torment may have sold but I wonder how many people actually played it all the way through? I've talked to a few people that bought it and "couldn't get in to it". I found it a little disorientating at first but it didn't take long to draw me in. My only complaints are how linear it becomes after leaving Sigil, some annoying quests like the "DreamMaker" and the overuse of Vrishka's Curiousity Shoppe of Quest Solutions. I'm sure the buggy release and Interplays typical lack of support didn't help things either. I know I was getting pretty frustrated with it before I found Platter & Co's unofficial fix pack.

Dgaider · Feb 27, 2004

Spazmo said:
I was kinda kidding about learning stuff, but... just play Geneforge.

I have. I think it's great and we could learn a few things from it. There are a few lessons to be learned from all good games, and NWN is no exception. I never said NWN was perfect and I don't claim so now.

And I'm not going to get into trying to defend the specifics of NWN or KotOR... as I said, that's not why I'm here, and I suspect I wouldn't be convincing anyone of anything anyhow (not that I could speak at length about the Force powers implementation anyway... I'm just a writer and level designer).

As for Sheriff: if spewing bile makes you and your friends feel better and less bitter about our villanous betrayals, then you go right ahead. I'll be over here twirling my moustache.

Sheriff05 · Feb 27, 2004

Dgaider said:
[
As for Sheriff: if spewing bile makes you and your friends feel better and less bitter about our villanous betrayals, then you go right ahead. I'll be over here twirling my moustache.

Less bitter? Nah....not till the games deader than PoRII
As for *villanous*..it's not really a good description,
I'd say *corporate* sums it it pretty well
but then you couldn't twirl your mustache, just your checkbook-
Let's stick to your metaphor-

dagamer667 · Feb 27, 2004

Role-Player said:
Planescape: Torment is the best RPG released on the PC, along with Knights of the Old Republic. However, it came three years before Knights and it's a testament to Torment's design that after those three very long years, it's still good enough to stand toe-to-toe with BioWare's latest. Unfortunately, Torment is also one of the most obscure and unpopular games, the one nobody picked up. "It's like Baldur's Gate, but a weird setting", "You can't design your party", and "That perspective makes it look too much like Diablo" are all common complaints.

Click to expand...

I never heard anyone complained about Torment's perspective in the sense of it looking too much like Diablo, though i did get noticed many complaints about the locked 640x480 resolution, and its huge sprites.

The sprites were just the right size to contain some detail. Locking the res at 640*480 was a truly boneheaded decision, however. Couldn't they at least lock it at 1024*768 or something? Something that doesn't look too bad on a PC display.

Saint_Proverbius · Feb 27, 2004

Dgaider said:
I have. I think it's great and we could learn a few things from it. There are a few lessons to be learned from all good games, and NWN is no exception. I never said NWN was perfect and I don't claim so now.

NWN's big problem for me was the campaign itself. It was rather bland, and BioWare seems to come up with one trick and then flog it heavily through the course of your games. In NWN, this one trick was the Bring me the head of quests. Of course, there's also the problem of every single chapter being find me one of X items by going in one of X directions. HotU was more linear, but it certainly didn't feel like it was following one generic formula through each act like the original campaign did. There also wasn't much choice in the manner of which you could do things.

Those are probably the biggest things to learn from in NWN. One thing though, I personally liked the idea that NWN went the single character route rather than the party route. However, when you do a single character campaign, you have to allow a number of options for handling every event. Instead, NWN's campaign was designed as though it was a party based CRPG. You can't have the same design for both because of the nature of them both. Throwing gobs of monsters all over the place as well as traps everywhere works fine for party based games, but for single character, it's annoying. It means I have to take along a thief if I'm not a thief, for example, because there's no diplomatic Cleric/Paladin/Bard route through events or a strict combat method for fighters and so on. A single character CRPG has to make allowances for each class architype, a way for a thief to do things because that thief isn't as good at combat as the fighter.

I do suspect that someone at BioWare has played Avernum 3, because HotU used two puzzles from Avernum 3. There's this one about the bridge, and the other one was in the golem area, but it's been a while.

And I'm not going to get into trying to defend the specifics of NWN or KotOR... as I said, that's not why I'm here, and I suspect I wouldn't be convincing anyone of anything anyhow (not that I could speak at length about the Force powers implementation anyway... I'm just a writer and level designer).

The big problems with KotOR, IMHO, were that many of the evil actions didn't have a consequence, especially the big evils like screwing up the fish people's health potion stuff. Others would be that evil dialogue bits with party folk would often result in the same dialogue response as the good dialogue stuff. I tend to like it when I select a dialogue option that there be a unique reply to that option rather than an ambiguous answer that fits several dialogue choices.

Leaving around the hints on datapads also got a little annoying.

As for me posting here, I'm doing so because I enjoy intelligent conversations about topics that needn't revolve around NWN exclusively. If my presence is disruptive, however, than I'll certainly leave if St. Proverbius wishes me to go.

This is RPGCodex. Everything is disruptive here from what I've been told about the site, so you should fit right in. Different perspectives never hurt anyone, on both sides of the fence.

Ibbz · Feb 27, 2004

Planescape sales numbers...

Scott Warner said:
We did sell-through around 400k worldwide on Torment. There seems to be an ongoing legacy that the game did very poorly at retail, which isn't true. It actually sold more copies than the Fallouts did.
Those aren't Final Fantasy numbers, but it certainly was profitable for the company.

Saint said:
NWN's campaign was designed as though it was a party based CRPG. You can't have the same design for both because of the nature of them both. Throwing gobs of monsters all over the place as well as traps everywhere works fine for party based games, but for single character, it's annoying

Gobs of monsters whether in a party based RPG or a single character RPG are a bad idea. Especially when there is no reason for them to be there, ala the Slaads and other monsters populating the Charwood castle quest.

I also found the henchmen characters rather boring, certainly not up to the standard of the BG2 NPC's. SOU and HOTU went some way in rectifying this. Coincidentally I think Biowares games could be significantly better if they were more reactive, where the choices a player makes actually makes a difference to the rest of the world. Epilogues go some way to achieving that - I was actually very disappointed that at the end of KOTOR all I got was some scene reminscent of the end of the first Star Wars movie instead of being told how the choices I made throughout the game affected the universe.

EEVIAC · Feb 27, 2004

Saint said:
The big problems with KotOR, IMHO, were that many of the evil actions didn't have a consequence, , especially the big evils...

The Sith Academy is another example. Why, if I align with my evil heritage and take down the leaders of the Academy, do I have to clear out the Academy map? Whereas if I take the light option, everyone leaves me alone. (I guess you could argue for the chaos that destroying a controll system would cause, but it still didn't make sense to me.)

There was a definate improvement though in the evil resolutions - the Sandral/Matale feud and the Zaalbar/Mission denoument were particularly enjoyable. The non-combat options and variable paths were also much appreciated.

Saying this, I'm hoping that KOTOR is a definative step for Bioware away from "traditional RPG's." (Which is good for me because I haven't really enjoyed Bioware's earlier games, my reconcilliation with BG notwithstanding.) If someone wants to make a great trad-RPG in the style of Fallout, that's fine - but I'm as interested in Sims 2, The Movies, Fable, and even Jade Empire, for immersive gaming as I am in Golden Land, Restricted Area, or Blades of Avernum.

I'm sick of games that change depending on who the publicist is talking to. The Fall is "just like TB" on one hand, but "RT and action-packed" on the other. It doesn't have any definate, real personality - which makes me extremely wary of the end product. More developers should tell the fan base to shut up, this is what the game is, and we made it this way because we wanted to. Just think, Dave, tell the fans to "fuck off" and you never have to write a romance again. Its a worthwhile trade-off, surely.

Tris McCall · Feb 27, 2004

Spazmo said:
I'm all too happy to see Dave Gaider here. It kinda zings people who say our constant whining alienates developers..

I'm just amazed and pleased to see developers posting on these boards. I spend most of my posting-time on pop music message boards, and the chances of, say, Bruce Springsteen swinging by the New Jersey Rocks bulletin boards to chat are less than nil. Thankfully, the games industry is still small enough, or informal enough, that you can cuss out one of its major players to his (virtual) face, and have him cuss right back. It gives you hope.

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