So in my wait for this game I've decided to write fanfiction and play as many similar games as possible. I'm downloading Witcher 2 right now and replayed Skyrim recently. Any other suggestions? Preferably something I can play on the 360 as my PC is not made for anything older than Knights of the Old Republic.

 

If you can play KotOR you can play Baldur's Gate.

 

If you have a high pain threshold maybe Dark Souls?


For the gameplay scenes... they look very ARPG but it is still very early and we have yet too see one where you control a team instead of only one member.

 

And Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment, and both original Fallout games.

 

Good Old Games is having an old D&D game sale right now, actually!

Just throwing that out there.

 

I think it's extremely irritating when people say this shit. Allow me to reveal how much of a noob I am, I mean, the nostalgia I have for BG1 only exists because I got to play it at a friend's house when I was like ten or twelve or so. I didn't own a computer capable of playing anything until like 2008. I was blown away by it as a kid, but I maybe got 10 hours to play it, tops.

I played Deus Ex in 2008, all the thief games in 2009, BG2 in 2010, beat BG1 for the first time sometime in 2008, played all the TES games in 2011, never even played Oblivion until like 2010, which prompted me to go back and play the older ones (which are bigger and have more skills and interactivity than oblivion, let alone skyrim). This isn't a case of me being some old fogie with rose tinted glasses.

Skyrim has half as many skills as Daggerfall, for instance. The claim that older games are bigger, better, and more diverse than newer games isn't made up, I mean, if you really don't believe me, we can go there, I can link some wikis and count some features and we can all lament upon how the industry is somehow spending more money to provide us less functionality with each iteration.

 

Dude has a point. Games are steadily becoming less and less complex as time goes on, in everything from mechanics to storyline. I can accept deficiency in one or two areas, but what we're seeing now is a steady decline in everything but graphics. I like a nice bit of scenery porn as much as the next guy, but graphics do not make a game.

I don't have quite the level of vitriol that Raine and Chime do, but it galls me that gamers who enjoy complexity, moral ambiguity, in depth stories and graphics are getting the short end of the stick.

 

Okay, older games are bigger and better.

Is it obligatory to give a shit?

 

It's your loss if you don't.

 

If I feel like a loser about this, I'll let you guys know.

 

If you care about the quality and diversity of games beyond what your current tastes run to, yea.

 

Considering that in the brief history of games that the industry has had 3 crashes? Yeah you should care to see that games get better. (1977, 1983, and the Arcade crash of the 90s.)

 

So games are getting better? I thought you guys were making the case that they're getting worse?

I'm confused.

 

No, he's rightly worried that there will be another crash because of how jaded lots of gamers are getting. EA buying up everything because so many devs and publishers were hemorrhaging money and the only economically feasable thing to do was sell is the first step, and even EA is losing money.

 

The implication is that if there is a fourth crash, there won't be any games.

Well, let's be honest here, Steam + indie games will still be around if there's a crash, but can't you read the writing on the wall? Capcom, Square, and EA are all posting losses on games that sell 2-3 million copies. The mobile market - that's certainly not the goldmine everyone claimed it would be. Xynga is culling left and right. Microsoft's newest console is designed to be a cable box.

If you really like your precious 'splosions so much, you're going to be disappointed when all the companies that make them all vanish. We've already lost THQ, who was a big publisher. At the rate things are going, it's only matter of time.

Did you enjoy Dead Space? EA closed the studio this January.
Did you enjoy Dragon Age? EA will likely close the studio if DA3 doesn't perform well (well, they SHOULD close the studio, after three successive underperforming titles, let alone SWTOR, which they're still not even making a profit on), if not DA3, they surely will if ME4 nose dives.
Et cetera

Furthermore, why wouldn't you want better games? Why wouldn't you care that the horror and RPG genres have been done away with by most publishers. What if movie producers suddenly dropped romance, drama, or action movies? The culling of an entire genre, the subversion of one genre to another, it isn't healthy for the industry, but it certainly doesn't bode well if you like the current games you're playing. If the industry continues to play 'follow the leader' games you like today will be supplanted with games you don't like, tomorrow.

 

If there's another video game crash - and there probably won't be - it'll be because AAA games are getting outrageously expensive, not because of disappearing complexity.

FURTHERMORE, if/when that happens, indie games will continue to rise up to take the place of those companies, because interest in video games is actually still incredibly high, certainly high enough to support a market even if idiot gamers complain about everything, which they fucking love to do because for some reason, people actually pay attention to them.

EDIT: Gonna have to address this.

They're posting losses because they're spending absurd amounts of money on their games. Microsoft is also backpedaling on virtually every decision they've made about their console because apparently they did absolutely no research into what consumers actually want out of a new console.

THQ is a hilariously bad example. They made this thing called the uDraw, which was a tablet accessory for consoles. They spent an absolutely immense amount of money on it and it tanked so hard it completely bankrupted the company. Their other products did okay, but nowhere near well enough to make up for that loss. That isn't a problem with the video game market, that's just something that happens when you take risks! They backfire.

 

Please, I would link at least some part of the decline in profitability in relation to an overemphasis on graphics AND an under emphasis on complexity. For one, I met numerous "casual players" at my college last semester who were complaining about the latest Asasssin's Creed playing like all the rest and how they weren't at all interested in the latest one that's coming out. Ubisoft has three concurrent ACs in production as well; they're putting a lot of their eggs in one basket.

There's a reason why BioWare made Mass Effect. Partially, it was because, 'lol guns sell', but it was also because they know you need a more diverse portfolio, you can't crank out the same game every 12 months unless you're Call of Duty, which will reach its fatigue state at some point or another.

It's also why I doubt we'll see another Dragon Age after this, at least not for a long time. If we do, I'll be genuinely surprised. But then again, maybe not, it has been EA's prerogative to shun new IPs.

 

I can certainly agree with Solomon that some gamers complain too much.

EDIT: But also with Chime about AC. I only played the first two to the end because I actually noticed differences/improvements going from AC to ACII. From what I've seen of Brotherhood, Revelations and ACIII at my friend's place (he buys everything, so I can always count on him to let me try out a new game), they're the same game in terms of gameplay. Not enough incentive for me buy them just for the story which I can learn from YT.

So yes, I am a 'casual gamer', but I think I'm at least a step higher than the mindless drones who continue to grab new CoDs on release and expect something new.

Which is why I'm waiting for DA:I and hoping for Bioware to deliver. To show that 'yes, we can improve'. And while ME3 SP was a huge letdown, at least gameplay improved at the core.

 

If you don't get passionate about games, you're not a gamer.

 

Uh huh, well, it may seem like we complain more than the average person, but the average 'gamer' is more in touch with technology and the internet, where complaining is easy and often easily spread around virally.

There's nothing wrong with complaint or criticism. Especially when companies EA would stand to gain a lot from us bending over for them.