Moar! I must get some of those interviews with him when he says truly retarded things. Where's the one with the popular thing about "It's fallout, let's put explosions" like I heard sometimes?Cimmerian Nights said:
V.A.T.S. article at DaC
- Thread starter Per
- Start date
Cimmerian Nights
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Yeah, I would've liked to have gone into more detail like this instead of mostly just vaguely referring to "RPG fundamentals", but I'd still be writing if I did.TheWesDude said:i stopped reading. this is exactly the point i have been saying for years is a core requirement for RPGs. there is no point in further reading for me because i know its going to be parroting opinions i have already
It's a whole 'nother debate in and of itself. As is a full-blown crtitique of FO3 which this is not. Or the whole dumbing down/selling out angle as well. It's great fodder, but this piece has already taken kind on a life of it's own with those themes over at the Escapist : http://www.escapistmagazine.com/for...-Common-Denominator-and-Hit-a-Bullseye?page=1
Hey, cool to see it stimulate some love/hate on both sides of the issue.
I remember this list was pre-FO3, but a gold-mine nonetheless.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=15427
I think the article spends too much time with the exposition and too little time deconstructing VATS.
But it does eventually manage to identify the two biggest problems, one of which is a single variable that has already been addressed by modders. And hopefully NV will address the other. We do know that they are (FINALLY!) adding slow-mo replays to RT combat.
But it does eventually manage to identify the two biggest problems, one of which is a single variable that has already been addressed by modders. And hopefully NV will address the other. We do know that they are (FINALLY!) adding slow-mo replays to RT combat.
Cimmerian Nights
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
By other, I assume you mean how they neglected melee/throwing. Movement is such a huge part of melee (obv. you have to be adjacent to foes to hit them), and VATS is completely devoid of movement. I don't know how that can be rectified. Talk about half-bake, they really dropped the ball on melee.Dionysus said:
That's not retarded, that's lying! Every game developer does that; even I like to exaggerate a bit about my games every now and then.Cimmerian Nights said:
Your homework isn't done yet. Where's that famous quote of "It's Fallout, Let's put Nukes" that everyone talks about so much?
Or is it just a dumbed down and distorted phrase?The article only touches on the targeting issue with regard to melee. I think you could have done more in discussing the targeting thing, like noting that they sacrificed gameplay for entirely for cosmetic reasons. I remember that punching someone's leg in Fallout could be animated as kicking them in the head (and sometimes blowing their upper torso away), but the devs didn't allow their animation constraints to limit gameplay options.Cimmerian Nights said:
The Moral Democracy
The Moral Democracy
""Exaggerate"" O.K. every sales pitch, every marketer can wow us with dramatics while the facts can remain - warm and fuzzy - open to interpretation.
But,
where does one draw the line, (between truth and misrepresentation, a.k.a. bearing false witness )
are you implying that EVERYONE lies.
And,
since EVERYONE lies it's O.K.!!
It's o.k. to lie, MARKETING VIDEO GAMES IS A LICENSE TO LIE, a license TO STEAL !!!!!!
It's o.k.!!!!!!!! You say they all lie, you lie, so lying is o.k.
The moral standard in business communication ... the lie!
I'm LOL ... maybe I am -exaggerating-
... have a *good* life! 
4too
The Moral Democracy
Dario ff said:
""Exaggerate"" O.K. every sales pitch, every marketer can wow us with dramatics while the facts can remain - warm and fuzzy - open to interpretation.
But,
where does one draw the line, (between truth and misrepresentation, a.k.a. bearing false witness )
are you implying that EVERYONE lies.
And,
since EVERYONE lies it's O.K.!!
It's o.k. to lie, MARKETING VIDEO GAMES IS A LICENSE TO LIE, a license TO STEAL !!!!!!
It's o.k.!!!!!!!! You say they all lie, you lie, so lying is o.k.
The moral standard in business communication ... the lie!
I'm LOL ... maybe I am -exaggerating-
... have a *good* life! 4too
whirlingdervish
Brahmin Cavalry Commander
Dionysus said:
..or for no legitimate reason at all.
They took certain targetted shot options out of FO3 without reason, including the groin which was one of the most effective and most well liked options in the 2 original Fallout games.
One could argue that they removed the groin shots because it could be seen as offensive to someone (like child killing) yet the entire game was full of the same caliber of mildly offensive "funny" that you'd get from a kick in the balls. This was a game made by people who's idea of funny includes decapitating grandmas, nuking everything in sight and using a teddy bear/garbage launcher to blow people into gibs.
Not only did they break the difficulty of combat in the game by introducing VATS to the mix as a halfassed attempt to make stats matter in 99% of the game (combat), but in doing so they shortchanged everyone on the options for strategy and on the damage variety provided by targetted shots in previous titles.
Sadly, there are just so many ways in which VATS is a giant screwup that one article probably can't and shouldn't contain them all.
4too, Umm... you can't read my mind. 
I only said that they were lying/exaggerating about the aspects of the game, and that's something very common among game developers, as well as the "fake" promises.
I never said it's ok, it's just hard to resist, hence that's why it's so common.
I only said that they were lying/exaggerating about the aspects of the game, and that's something very common among game developers, as well as the "fake" promises.I never said it's ok, it's just hard to resist, hence that's why it's so common.
UniversalWolf
eaten by a grue.
This article makes me glad I've never played "Fallout 3" and never will.
Me too. After being spoiled by playing Jagged Alliance 2 the Bioware RTwP system just isn't one bit fun at all. It's RT with a thin pretense of being something more, and that pretense only makes it worse than regular RT like Diablo. Yes, I think Diablo combat is more fun than RTwP. To put it another way, would Diablo be more fun if you had to repeatedly pause the combat? No.Kordanor said:
The Human Condition
The Human Condition
I know bro, it was too easy for ME to exaggerate,
, 
, ah ... any mouth stuffing was not intended for any personae real or imaginary.
What?
Well, wait, this straw man I evoked begs to differ ...
[misdirection] "Hey is that the Good Year Blimp up there!" [/misdirection]
4too
The Human Condition
Dario ff said:
I know bro, it was too easy for ME to exaggerate,
, , ah ... any mouth stuffing was not intended for any personae real or imaginary.What?
Well, wait, this straw man I evoked begs to differ ...
[misdirection] "Hey is that the Good Year Blimp up there!" [/misdirection]
4too
Cimmerian Nights
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
The exclusion of groin shots is also another example of VATS limiting strategic options even more. Head shots had a chance to KO, Eyes shot to blind, Legs to slow them down, Arms to disable and groin shots had the highest chance of bypassing armor (also increased knock down?). Another strategic choice gone. Which is a moot point in melee VATS anyway - you can't target anything.whirlingdervish said:
There is the aspect of groin shots being edgy I guess (it was rated M), but if that's the pretense then again, we see game mechanics and game design dictated by marketing rather than an overriding game design philosophy, and the end result is fewer strategic options.
I didn't even touch on how any AP based perk was nullified by VATS. I wouldn't be surprised if some other perks got nerfed in VATS as well.whirlingdervish said:
Pretense has a lot to do expectations going in. Diablo never claimed to be more than a fun dungeon-hack experience. It's when we're fed the disingenuous company line about 'innovation' and 'evolution' when it's a step backwards in almost every aspect that damns something even more when it's not the case.
UniversalWolf said:
Now, let's get this straight.
Essentially, the BioWare’s RTwP, should you autopause at the end of each round, give your orders, and than restrain yourself from giving new orders in the middle of the next round, will have only one difference from turn based. The difference is that everyone will act simultaneously, not one after another. It is nothing like Diablo.
Whether one likes it or not is purely personal preference. I for one happen to like it (maybe, because I used to play PnP RPG in a group that had its own self-made system, where in the begining of a combat round the players told what they would do, and then everything was resolved by the DM - also with simultaneous actions).
Of course there are also numerous exploits, unique to that system, but as I said, whether you use them is completely up to you.
Now, other RTwP systems, like WH40K
oW’s, are indeed little different from pure RT. There pause is just a minor feature you could use, if you wished.
UniversalWolf
eaten by a grue.
That's not how it works, at least in PST, which I just finished yesterday - with autopause at the end of rounds turned on the whole time.Blackfang said:
There is no "combat round" that constrains everyone's actions. A character's "combat round" begins whenever you issue orders to that character, and is independent of any other character's "turn." Which means The Nameless One can start a combat round in the middle of Dak'kon's combat round. What's more, combat rounds are not of equal length (in fact, it's possible in certain cases for one character to act for several rounds before another character finishes one round). In other words, it's RT combat with a variable time delay for various actions, which equals sluggish, herky-jerky, RT combat that makes you pause and unpause repeatedly.
What you're describing is phase-based combat like the kind that exists in, for example, the Combat Mission games.
In IE games all characters can also move freely during their cooldown periods.
UniversalWolf said:
Well, someone of us is mistaken here.
I'll write down some of my... observations... of that system, in hope that we'll find an understanding:
1. Everyone's standard attacks, spells, abilities (knockdown etc) last no more than a round. After completing any of them, a character can only move till the end of round.
2. After a character actually starts any of the above, should you order him something different, he'll stop the previous command and begin the new at the beginning of the next round (in the newer games, you have to force-abort the previous command).
3. I can't tell for certain, what happens when you give some order in the middle of a round to a previously inactive character. Maybe that would account for your different-length rounds.
Also, that misunderstanding could be caused by the animations. The attack animations in all the RTwP BioWare's games, except KotOR, do not represent actual attacks. Do you have the to-hit rolls turned on in the feedback?
Anyway, don't know if you've played KotOR, but should you try it, you'll see, that the system is acting just as I explained. (In KotOR there are no extra attacks for level/BAB, only for special abilities, and those abilities have their own correct animations.) KotOR's system is essentially the same as NWN's (and little different - if any - than that of the previous games), but clearly shows all the mechanics I've explained.
...it really is not like "I want to screw your peoples´point"...but...after having read at least as many posts on NMA as I read really stupid attemps of creating ImHerSon in Fo3...it seems to me as if everything needed was "here". Just do not call it Fallout. Call it Nao-Mju-Tents-A-Low-ed, or whatever, and fucking script it, animate it, worldcraft it and...so what? [ Yeah, 0rwell, I really thank you for the auto-script , haven´t been called a motherfucker for about 90 minutes now] Instead of tinkering on something even the creators admitted to being lacking, not to say a lackey, analyzing "models" and blah...let´s get it done. or keep imdb-ing.
Blackfang said:
In the IE games it immediately starts a new action, as UW said. There is no turn structure, just cooldown times.
If my memory is correct it was ".. letz put nucular explosions in it" or something.Dario ff said: