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Could someone fill me in on the Avernum series a little? Is Avernum 1 the game I want to play? And then the sequels are old? But he's remaking them or something? All very confusing 
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Feb 19, 2014 23:32
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Adventurer is 'easy mode' in Xeen. Warrior is what the game was balanced around originally
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Feb 25, 2014 13:44
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All this gold box talk is kind of amazing to me. Did those games really have that much tactical depth? I dimly remember playing pools and silver blades briefly when I was younger, but never to completion or anything.
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Mar 3, 2014 04:42
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Is Lords of Xulima similar? The world map sure as hell looks like a direct homage to old M&M games
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Dec 26, 2014 17:45
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ProfessorCirno posted:Outside of poor press, MMX suffers from Ubisoft's super bland as gently caress cliche fantasy setting. It's a fun game, but the actual world just isn't as fun or cool to explore as it should be. Whoever worked on the 'new' setting for M&M completely missed that the classic M&M games had a very strong dose of whimsy and a sense of humor. Sometimes absurd, sometimes light, but always present (Flick a Farthing? Fool! You have no Farthing to Flick!). The ashan world or whatever is the blandest possible angels vs demons setting you can imagine. It has no whimsy whatsoever, there are no goofy circuses or leprechauns hiding in the bushes, there are no silly alliterative text boxes for events. Indeed, the bleached translation suffers both from the lack of such and the actual translation itself being of mediocre quality to begin with in the case of Homm5. It's one of those cases where the lightning in a bottle was Jon van Caneghem and his team at NWC, and the loss of them gutted the series. They paid significant homage to the raw gameplay of the classic series (both in Homm and in MMX), but they missed a good part of the heart and soul, right down to the goofy as gently caress hit animations and sfx when you smacked a dwarf in the red dwarf mines (STEP RIGHT UP!). I don't hate MMX or anything, I think it's a fine game (as is Homm5 for that matter), but it can't replace Xeen or Homm2/3 for me (and that's not nostalgia speaking, I've played all of the above in the last few years).
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Dec 27, 2014 02:33
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Grimrock isn't trying to emulate MM at all, it's a throwback to Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder, games defined by their pseudo realtime nature and puzzles, and it almost perfectly replicates the Dungeon Master experience - and Grimrock 2 takes that formula a significant step farther. MMX is (in theory) trying to capture the feeling of MM1-6, and particularly 5-6, moreso than 6-8 (we'll forget 9 entirely). And like I said, I don't have a gripe with the game mechanically, it's just a lot less charming, and that has a big impact on it's 'stickiness' for me in terms of 'hey, I want to load up a fun rpg and waste some hours'. Same reason that I find Homm2/3 a lot more appealing than Homm5/6, even though 5, post expansions and patches, is arguably much more refined in terms of gameplay.
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Dec 27, 2014 04:16
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Tarquinn posted:You're a horrible person if you do not like Gothic (1+2). I like Gothic but that game is like the wiki definition of 'janky euro rpg'
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Dec 27, 2014 04:19
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Don't forget Drakengard
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Dec 29, 2014 21:53
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Yeah I put a few hours in Xulima - I really like the overall aesthetic of the combat, it reminds me of Xeen in a good way. I'm not sure about the overworld third person stuff yet though, it feels really slow and annoying to get around, and the little interaction I've seen so far (gimmicky traps) aren't particularly entertaining. I'm also kind of over 'walk in a circle to get into fights' as a means of leveling up :/ Dunno, I'll mess with it some more. If not, I still need to finish Grimrock, and everyone says GR2 is amazing so
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Jan 1, 2015 06:11
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Learning how to ignore poo poo is even more valuable than learning to use consumables as an rpg player! (one of my most fun Baldur's Gate playthroughs was a laser focus on the main story where I plowed through the encounters at a really low level with poor equipment, and had to struggle using every tactical trick, scroll, potion, and wand I could scrounge up) (also makes jrpgs a lot less lovely when you don't get ocd about their terrible secrets)
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Jan 3, 2015 11:17
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Genpei Turtle posted:TL;DR, read the CRPG Addict's take on BT3--I think his criticisms are all basically spot-on. There goes my afternoon. This guy is crazy to be playing all of these, but it's fascinating to see them through the lens of 'modern' eyes. It's especially interesting to me because I've been realizing, slowly over the last few years, that I generally think most RPG gameplay is poo poo. They almost universally suffer from inverse difficulty curves, I have come to loathe inventory management with a passion (I blame mmos for this, but I hate it everywhere now), and a lot of times progression is a treadmill that does little to advance actual gameplay depth. But while those criticisms are valid for a lot of modern rpgs, they aren't necessarily true for a lot of older rpgs. Of course those have entirely different problems... Fun to read though, I think rpgs were my favorite genre at one point, even though that's not quite so true any more (I still really want a modern King's Field  )
victrix fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Feb 8, 2015 |
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Feb 8, 2015 15:41
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seorin posted:Definitely agreed on inventory management. Aside from 'immersion' (lol), I have a hard time figuring out what it's ever supposed to actually add to a game. Torchlight became unplayable for me because of that. I wish I could freely talk about the discussion I had with some of the designers behind a-big-popular-mmo-i-cannot-name about inventory junk prior to release. It basically boiled down to 'yes, we realize all this stuff serves no purpose but busywork for the player, we're going to do it anyway'. Months and months later, they added a bunch of stuff I had whined about pre release to mitigate some of the most awful aspects of it. Still sucks poo poo today, same problems. Ugh. Hate it. Hate it. It's becoming pathological, but I don't give a poo poo. It's not fun, rarely adds anything to gameplay, and when you play a game where it is done well, you don't even notice its there, which is exactly what good ui/ux design should be. quote:On the other hand, level progression (in a well designed RPG) serves two major functions: difficulty adjustment and positive feedback. This is a complex topic, not something I feel like getting into a giant quoteathon about, but in brief, I agree with all of you that a) leveling up to become superhuman and smashing stuff is fun b) using levels to 'self regulate' difficulty is a great thing (some of my most memorable rpg runs are ones where I blitzed through the game) and c) level scaling is often very poorly done, but can be a superb tool if used well. My problem with rpg difficulty is closely tied to the same issue I have with games of many genres, that being that difficulty is rarely well designed, and relatively few games are what I consider to be very difficult and challenging in an enjoyable manner. It's doubled up in rpgs, because while you can in theory push through most of them at the minimum character/gear level, often there are hard walls to progress in your path. The good ones (western and eastern both, not just classic wrpgs) give you a playpen and let you break it however you want. The best ones seem to have been built with player competence in mind as much as character power. But those are fairly rare, and far too common are the games where you start out as struggling weenies with very limited tools and options at your disposal in terms of gameplay. And then you pass a hump, and from there to the endgame, your abilities and options widen tremendously... but nothing in the game seems crafted to make you actually use all or (or even a majority of) the tools at your disposal, instead you can mash the metaphorical (f)ight button and win. So I suppose you could argue that I'm simply complaining about bad game design period, rather than difficulty specifically, but that very particular arc of difficulty is something I've grown less and less fond of over the years, and its turned me off to a fair number of otherwise decent rpgs. I don't find it fun to develop a group of supermans and womans if the game never fights back with supermonsters and smart encounters. What's the point of giving you a huge range of interesting abilities and equipment to use if they end up as a few dozen flavors of 'win fight' without any real thought invested? As more 'pure' rpgs tend to be more cerebral challenges than hybrids incorporating lots of action or realtime elements, if that aspect of challenge is on a brickwall/ezmode spectrum, I find the gameplay falls almost totally flat for me, and the game is left standing on its other merits (story, writing, graphics, music, etc, the non 'game' parts of the game). And to be clear, I don't (generally) go into most rpgs expecting that they'll have that level of thought put into their gameplay, and I'll usually look towards other genres or specific games for a challenge that I enjoy, but I can't help but be disappointed when I do pick up an rpg I was anticipating for whatever reason, and running into that same gameplay arc of 'gently caress this is rough to 'zzzzzzzzzz'.
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Feb 8, 2015 22:36
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Bruteman posted:I still remember it vividly years later Trauma will do that to you
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Feb 12, 2015 13:48
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Wtf, bards tale got a remaster?!
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Jan 12, 2019 23:59
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szary posted:I finally took the plunge and purchased Grimoire V2. I'll let you know if it breaks me or transforms me into a Neanderthal ubermensch. Grimoire? Isn't that the game from... Crazy Cleve Lord Blakemore posted:If everybody who enjoys playing Grimoire wrote a review for it, we'd have 95% positive rating on Steam! Please write a review for Grimoire if you have had fun playing the game, even if you are now in a second playthrough! Help push Grimoire back up to it's original 92% positive rating before the assault of the SJW refunders!  yes, yes it is I'm sort of impressed it actually came out. Not enough to give the guy any money mind you.
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Jan 26, 2019 19:28
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Dr. Quarex posted:Yeah there is no doubt that it is an impressive work even if it and he are vile I was flipping through the news updates, it's hilarious how he's still a pathological liar. quote:“I have decided it is just a nice thing to do for people who have been waiting years to play my game if I offered a 10% discount on the game during it’s first week. After this ends, I want to assure anyone waiting for the game that Grimoire will never, ever sell at a discount at any time it is on the Steam store ever again. I won’t permit it to be sold below it’s retail value for any reason. I am too proud of my finished product to permit it to be turned into simply another commodity in a Steam sale.” 
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Jan 26, 2019 20:17
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caedwalla posted:Picked up StarCrawlers and Wiz8 for less than $10 total in the Steam sale if anyone wasn't aware. Is there an effortpost on stats/gear/mechanics for this somewhere? Just started playing, have a four man (robot?) party now, and not clear what gear upgrades I should care about just yet
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Feb 5, 2019 04:44
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Speaking of bargains, Tower of Time is pretty keen I didn't see a lot of chatter about it online, but it's a really neat setting with some thoughtful game mechanics
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Feb 6, 2019 02:44
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prometheusbound2 posted:As someone who loved the Infinity Engine and isometric Fallouts, how hard will the early 90's Dark Sun RPGs be to play? I still have fond memories of the first to this day When Baldurs Gate 1 came out I thought it was just a newer version of DS1
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Feb 24, 2019 21:27
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UU has great atmosphere
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Feb 27, 2019 18:31
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Any opinions on Bards Tale 4?
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Aug 25, 2020 16:51
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Word, I'll take a look at it - early reviews I saw were mixed but it sounds like they patched/updated a bunch of stuff and the few more recent bits of info I could find were fairly positive. Also Quarex wtf did you get red text for goodposting about cons?
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Aug 25, 2020 17:58
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Barudak posted:Absolutely top to bottom hated Bard's Tale IV but I beat it which makes it better than many a game. This is singularly bizarre
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Aug 26, 2020 14:39
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Figured people here would have some opinions, in no particular order, what'd people think of: Numenera's story? Did it come to a satisfying conclusion? Pathfinder: Kingmaker as a whole?
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Sep 1, 2020 19:43
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I'm increasingly souring on non-combat skill gates in rpgs across the board. They're uninformed choices with unknown consequences dressed as character building (and bluntly, most RPGs aren't Roleplaying, they're Rollplaying, if they do manage it well, it's done via dialogue choices that usually aren't gated by random skill checks). I think in general I've enjoyed games where you could pick a broad 'path' at character creation, and that would influence every encounter in the game (e.g. something like going corp vs ganger in cyberpunky games). Picking Toaster Repair vs Arcane Lore (Assgoblins) just isn't good in any way. It's even worse when there are 10 levels of assgoblin lore. How many assgoblins are there in Tolkeinlandia? Who knows. Better consult a wiki to make sure you took the proper amount. Similarly for skills, I'd rather just have people either be Trained/Untrained or Skilled/Unskilled in whatever, and if you really need an extra layer of fuzz with a third outcome, let backgrounds provide a middle tier of 'Familiar'. This is immediately obvious at character creation (of course the farmer knows repair and animals, of course the corp guy knows computers and communication), and it plays out in fairly expected ways throughout a game. Unless the setting is completely outlandish, you'll have at least some vague idea of whether you, or someone in your party will help with interactions in a given area. And then on top of all that, because no dev is going to lock players out of the critical path based on skill choices, most skills are just a bonus, whether providing more trash loot to clog up the worlds least interesting minigame, or more consumables to not use. The ones that have no combat use at all end up being either completely uninteresting throughout, or actively harmful to predicting combat difficulty for the devs if choosing them is done at the cost of combat choices.
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Sep 7, 2020 05:42
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I was pretty interested in playing through NWN2/MotB, but I found the actual controls/play of the game so uncomfortable I never made it anywhere
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Sep 14, 2020 03:16
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Outward is a lot of fun to play coop, very classic eurojank in feel
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Feb 25, 2021 07:13
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re: old rpg nostalgia and design, I could probably wax starry eyed about the feel maaaaan for a page, but I do think one interesting consequence of that time is that it resulted in the absolute explosion of mega-rpgs in the 90s and 00s when people who grew up playing those games on restrictive hardware and platforms finally had their hands on the development reins and the power to make their vision fully realized This is distinct from the early FPS era, because there wasn't anything else quite like Doom or Quake before Doom or Quake (yes, yes, pre-Doom fps games /pedant) But for RPGs you had this massive pent up desire to create games that matched what was going on in our heads while we played them. I think World of Warcraft was the ultimate zeitgeist for that particular expression, though others may disagree vehemently on that specific point (one unfortunate side effect of the rpg explosion was discovering some of my childhood heroes were emperors without any clothing, turns out making early games that loomed large in my memory did not in any way translate to large budgets or large scale games)
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Mar 2, 2021 15:24
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These popped up in my Steam sale explorations this time around: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1069160/SKALD_Against_the_Black_Priory/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/895480/Fates_of_Ort/ The former is in dev and has a playable prologue, the latter is out (and coming to switch in a week or so I think)
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Jul 4, 2021 06:38
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Seriously, that looks cool
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Jul 6, 2021 01:48
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I'm kind of enjoying plumbing the depths of Steam this sale  https://store.steampowered.com/app/1514780/Battle_for_Esturia/ Also good lord there are Too Many Games
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Jul 7, 2021 06:45
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I kinda like the opposite, if the game leans into "now you face 5000 peons, go hog wild!" Stuff like MM6 where the endgame is maps full of dragons but you're essentially a flying battleship by that point I wouldn't call it good exactly, but definitely better than the lovely invincible puzzle bosses like you said
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Jul 7, 2021 14:40
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I also really enjoy a good balls hard final dungeon if it's actually epic and really lets you cut loose with all your power Handled with varying degrees of 'not great' in most games, I think jrpgs in general have done it better than wrpgs I've played A really cool environment and some nasty enemies that would be bosses earlier in the game is fun
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Jul 9, 2021 17:41
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Sacred cows Big problem for modern genres too
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Jul 26, 2021 06:32
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Lunchmeat Larry posted:Not quite, he thinks he's literally one of the few Neanderthals still alive today and that Neanderthals are now just people with Aspergers (which is NOT autism) and are misunderstood due to their higher brain functions. He believes every innovation and improvement in human history was brought to us by Neanderthals and that homo sapiens are a hollow, useless and violent race, and also that his Neanderthal superpowers were unlocked by him drinking drain cleaner as a child. I'm glad that after *checks notes* literal decades later, this dude is still providing me with free entertainment
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Aug 25, 2021 10:36
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I just found out that the Geneforge remake didn't hit all of its Kickstarter goals. That... probably shouldn't surprise me I guess. Glad it made enough to get done at least  Doing so lead me to discovering his latest is also just barely scraping past the finish line: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spiderwebsoftware/queens-wish-2-the-tormentor
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Sep 7, 2021 07:37
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I forgot to repost this here, but I figure there might be some overlap in the fanbase: https://thingonitsown.itch.io/heros-hour Basically HoMM spiritual sequel, biggest difference being real time combat with an auto battle feel Some of the factions are near 1:1 HoMM rips, as is the map, heroes, movement, town development, etc.
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Sep 7, 2021 21:16
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Skwirl posted:Can you pull that same necromancer bullshit where you get a bazillion skeletons every time you win a battle? 
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Sep 7, 2021 21:48
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Joe Chill posted:I started playing Might & Magic - World of Xeen and I'm enjoying it alot! I was in the mood for a nice and breezy RPG and this is perfect. Xeen might be my favorite M&M game so far; the game auto-notes everything and your inventory now organized where it was a huge mess to deal with in M&M3. it's absolutely the warm blanket and hot cocoa on a cold snowy day of rpgs not really something I'd recommend without hesitation to someone today, but if you vibe with what it's going for I think it's nearly perfect at that
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Mar 20, 2023 02:33
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lookin to train? gggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggood job!
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Mar 20, 2023 13:50
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