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On September 18 2012 04:07 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On September 18 2012 03:09 Yacobs wrote:
Well, for those of us who play games for gameplay and not for "main plot," having only 3 or 4 characters in your party is simply insufficient and disappointing. If you're not playing for the plot, then what you are looking for is not an Obsidian game. The gameplay in Obsidian games is generally fairly mediocre. It's the industry-best quality of writing and character development that makes their games stand out.
I guess you missed the part, you know in the freaking Kickstarter video, where they name-dropped IWD and BG2? I don't know, friend, but those games seemed to be about gameplay, not reading an interactive novel.
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On September 18 2012 18:19 Talin wrote:
What the hell. IWD2 is by far the best Infinity game from a technical standpoint, it runs smoothest, controls tightest, is actually designed and paced well and throws challenges and encounters at you all the time instead of making you spend 50% of the time walking (and watching loading screens) to get to some place relevant.
The wood was ONE terrible/frustrating zone in IWD2, but pretty much everything else is super tight, fun and challenging. Plus the 3.5e rules give a lot more variety to different classes and tightens up the mechanics in general, and the ability to create a party and experiment with different combinations of characters and strategies gives it actual replay value.
Story and character development is just flavor. Gameplay is gameplay, and combat encounters were the core (and only) actual gameplay in all those games. If they don't get combat right (like IWD2 did), there is no game, and no amount of in-depth character development and story will make up for it.
From a "technical standpoint" rofl. Since it is the last infinity engine game released in 2002, four fucking years after BG1 it had to be superior from a "technical standpoint". I don't even understand what you mean by "smoothest and tightest" when the UI is pretty much the same and the system requirements are actually higher.
The challenges are actually boring and extremly repetitive. Difficulty isn't a problem either since since the inifinity engine games are not arcade games nor roguelikes and you can pretty much brute force your way through the game with save/load if you are too physically challenged to kite and use pause. It is pretty much the same shit than in the previous infinity games Kite/kite/kite and definitly less challenging than SCS for BG1&2.
The game also boasts the worst level ever designed in an infinity game the fucking wood (but also the glacier, Ice Temple etc... ) which is one of the most ugly, repetitive and dumb shit i have ever seen in a video game. While the modron haze in Planescape was a joke, this level is meant to be serious lol. Most of the puzzles and challenges are kinda awful too and the best examples are probably the monastary trial or the chessboard. This shit isn't even close of the detail and originality of the encounters in the Durlag tower (Remember Tosc is 3 years older lol.)
Overall the game isn't really more beautiful than IWD1 and while some areas are gorgeous like the monastary, most of the stuff is kinda bland. (Some of the best content is actually recycled straight from IWD1 lol). So basicly the only real improvement is the higher resolutions available, but you can always mod the older infinity games so w/e.
The storyline is absolutly trash (The motivations behind the Chimera legion are so dumb that it is hilarious) oh and the improvements with the 3.5 DnD are barely noticeable (Mages can wear armours !) and should only be considered exciting by the most bored DnD nerds.
So no IWD2 isn't really better than IWD1.
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What are you people talking about combat not being good enough in Black Isle games?! Icewind dale and PST still had better combat then Kotor and DAO (or DA2). NWN2 had better combat then NWN1, and last expansion for NWN2 had real fun combat and limited resting system (although it had other shortcomings). Even Mask of Betrayer has some awesome combats.
Only RPG with better combat was BG2 (and some in BG1), as they made so many challenging fights in 1st playtrough with different groups (sequencer mages, beholders, kangaxx, the high level hidden group that you need rogue stone to fight, sewer fights, dragons, drow and so on).
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On September 18 2012 21:20 Boblion wrote:Show nested quote +On September 18 2012 18:19 Talin wrote:
What the hell. IWD2 is by far the best Infinity game from a technical standpoint, it runs smoothest, controls tightest, is actually designed and paced well and throws challenges and encounters at you all the time instead of making you spend 50% of the time walking (and watching loading screens) to get to some place relevant.
The wood was ONE terrible/frustrating zone in IWD2, but pretty much everything else is super tight, fun and challenging. Plus the 3.5e rules give a lot more variety to different classes and tightens up the mechanics in general, and the ability to create a party and experiment with different combinations of characters and strategies gives it actual replay value.
Story and character development is just flavor. Gameplay is gameplay, and combat encounters were the core (and only) actual gameplay in all those games. If they don't get combat right (like IWD2 did), there is no game, and no amount of in-depth character development and story will make up for it. From a "technical standpoint" rofl. Since it is the last infinity engine game released in 2002, four fucking years after BG1 it had to be superior from a "technical standpoint". I don't even understand what you mean by "smoothest and tightest" when the UI is pretty much the same and the system requirements are actually higher.
Pathfinding was better (which was a big issue with earlier Infinity games), and controls were less clunky in general. It's difficult to describe controls in other words, but they were just better in IWD2.
As for challenges being repetitive, other than all of them being combat (which is a pretty damn broad generalization to make), I don't see how that's the case at all. The game gives you plenty of opportunities to use mostly every class skill or ability in the game, and a lot of opportunities to beat the challenges in a variety of different ways.
On September 18 2012 21:20 Boblion wrote:
Difficulty isn't a problem either since since the inifinity engine games are not arcade games nor roguelikes and you can pretty much brute force your way through the game with save/load if you are too physically challenged to kite and use pause.
If we're going to categorize Infinity engine games, they're actually strategy games with some minor puzzles/adventure elements. But the core gameplay is all about progression, resource and combat management. The game can be exploited in a number of ways to go through them (load/save, import/export characters etc), but that's hardly the point of playing it, is it? Just because the option to do that exists doesn't make encounter design irrelevant.
On September 18 2012 21:20 Boblion wrote:
The game also boasts the worst level ever designed in an infinity game the fucking wood (but also the glacier, Ice Temple etc... ) which is one of the most ugly, repetitive and dumb shit i have ever seen in a video game.
Obviously the wood is terrible, but it's like what, 5% of the game (and even that only if you get stuck in it for a long time)? It makes no sense to judge the entire game on it. There's nothing wrong with the Glacier/Temple at all.
The sheer amount of walking and dealing with pesky random encounter mobs wastes a lot more of player's time in BG1/2 than the wood does in IWD2. Hell, BG1 had the player walk through samey looking, completely flat forest areas for the first 2-3 acts, and that didn't prevent either game from becoming a timeless classic.
And there were no technical limitations to better level design in any of the games for the game's age and release date to be relevant in any way. Even in BG1 there were well designed outdoor areas, it's just that the majority of them weren't.
On September 18 2012 21:20 Boblion wrote:
The storyline is absolutly trash (The motivations behind the Chimera legion are so dumb that it is hilarious) oh and the improvements with the 3.5 DnD are barely noticeable (Mages can wear armours !) and should only be considered exciting by the most bored DnD nerds.
Most of the video game storylines range from trash to mediocre in my eyes, so I don't really care either way. I'd rather have a good game about generic evil forces trying to take over the world, than a mediocre game with the story and characters written by GRRM. But like I said, I don't want to get into that argument as that's everyone's personal preference.
The only point I made earlier related to the story is that you don't actually play the story and characters, so a bad-to-mediocre story can't be nearly as detrimental to the game as bad-to-mediocre gameplay can be (especially with modern standards).
Anyhow, it's pretty hard not to notice the improvements made by 3.5E if you're being reasonable. From a limited list of like 10 classes (even with kits in BG2) where some are not really viable, some feel and play the same as others, to what we had in IWD2 where most of the classes had unique abilities and there were many more customization choices.
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On September 18 2012 18:31 Talin wrote:
I'm not getting into how important or not important the story is (as that's subjective anyway), I'm just saying that it isn't actual gameplay. PST did have reasonable enough combat for its time (it wasn't stellar, but nothing was really missing either), and Baldur's Gate 2 is, as far as I'm aware, more widely acclaimed than PST and it was very much combat-oriented as well.
Basically, combat is what you actually play and how you progress through the game content. If it isn't fun and deep enough, the game won't be either.
Also IWD2 wasn't really marketed aggressively to begin with and at that time it was already overshadowed by Neverwinter Nights and Morrowind that were both technologically more advanced and easily grabbed the mainstream attention. If it came out a year earlier (or nearer to the release of D&D 3E rules), I'm sure that it would be a much better known game now as it is the pinnacle of Infinity engine.
That is not true at all. You can progress through most of PST with very little fighthing if none at all. If I remeber correctly, you are only forced to fight some trash in end game, and you can probably just run past that as well.
So really, depending on how you played the game, the "gameplay" could be almost purely dialogs. And PST dosn't have reasonable combat. There are no interesting encounters, your partly building options are very restricted, and interface sucks as well. It is very weak compared to IWD and BG.
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On September 15 2012 18:44 Lucumo wrote:
Yeah, just bought it in a bundle this week(Baldur's Gate I & II + Addons, Icewind Dale I & II, The Temple of Elemental Evil and Planescape Torment.
Best buy ever. A collection of a few of the best games ever made. If you haven't played them before, you should clear your schedule for the next few weeks.
This news, along with the upcoming release of Baldur's Gate:Enhanced Edition (and possible sequels) is the best news in gaming I've heard in a long, long time.
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On September 18 2012 23:04 AM wrote:Show nested quote +On September 18 2012 18:31 Talin wrote:
I'm not getting into how important or not important the story is (as that's subjective anyway), I'm just saying that it isn't actual gameplay. PST did have reasonable enough combat for its time (it wasn't stellar, but nothing was really missing either), and Baldur's Gate 2 is, as far as I'm aware, more widely acclaimed than PST and it was very much combat-oriented as well.
Basically, combat is what you actually play and how you progress through the game content. If it isn't fun and deep enough, the game won't be either.
Also IWD2 wasn't really marketed aggressively to begin with and at that time it was already overshadowed by Neverwinter Nights and Morrowind that were both technologically more advanced and easily grabbed the mainstream attention. If it came out a year earlier (or nearer to the release of D&D 3E rules), I'm sure that it would be a much better known game now as it is the pinnacle of Infinity engine. That is not true at all. You can progress through most of PST with very little fighthing if none at all. If I remeber correctly, you are only forced to fight some trash in end game, and you can probably just run past that as well. So really, depending on how you played the game, the "gameplay" could be almost purely dialogs. And PST dosn't have reasonable combat. There are no interesting encounters, your partly building options are very restricted, and interface sucks as well. It is very weak compared to IWD and BG.
The 'encounters' and 'combats' are dialogue-based. That's the point of the game. Instead of 'grind for item to click on enemy to win', it's grind/search for items and information then click dialogue option to win'. The party building also has no reason to be large because each character is integral to the plot, something MotB does extremely well and BG2 does comparatively poorly (does anyone really care about Valygar, or Cernd?)
Ya if you judge it by normal RPG combat standards it falls short, but it was never something to be judged on that scale in the first place. It's a game with an entirely different nature than those it tends to be compared to - not to say the combat, such as it is, couldn't have been polished somewhat.
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On September 18 2012 23:43 Lenwe wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2012 18:44 Lucumo wrote:
Yeah, just bought it in a bundle this week(Baldur's Gate I & II + Addons, Icewind Dale I & II, The Temple of Elemental Evil and Planescape Torment. Best buy ever. A collection of a few of the best games ever made. If you haven't played them before, you should clear your schedule for the next few weeks. This news, along with the upcoming release of Baldur's Gate:Enhanced Edition (and possible sequels) is the best news in gaming I've heard in a long, long time.
What? Where was this bargain?!
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There is a promo going on @ gog.
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Planescape Torment has a great story, but a lot of terrible combat and pretty weak UI.
Baldur's Gate 2 has pretty good combat, a mediocre story and acceptable UI.
IWD has good combat again, nearly no story worth speaking of, and basically the same UI as BG2.
I would love to see something that has the real character depth of PST and the combat of BG2 and IWD. I think me and most of the CRPG fans on earth think this. But a great project, so hopefully something rad comes out of it.
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On September 19 2012 04:54 Rayeth wrote:
Planescape Torment has a great story, but a lot of terrible combat and pretty weak UI.
Baldur's Gate 2 has pretty good combat, a mediocre story and acceptable UI.
IWD has good combat again, nearly no story worth speaking of, and basically the same UI as BG2.
I would love to see something that has the real character depth of PST and the combat of BG2 and IWD. I think me and most of the CRPG fans on earth think this. But a great project, so hopefully something rad comes out of it.
I think at the very least with Josh Sawyer and more specifically Chris Avellone involved we can expect great charecters and story. Combat is another matter.
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On September 19 2012 05:32 Chillax wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2012 04:54 Rayeth wrote:
Planescape Torment has a great story, but a lot of terrible combat and pretty weak UI.
Baldur's Gate 2 has pretty good combat, a mediocre story and acceptable UI.
IWD has good combat again, nearly no story worth speaking of, and basically the same UI as BG2.
I would love to see something that has the real character depth of PST and the combat of BG2 and IWD. I think me and most of the CRPG fans on earth think this. But a great project, so hopefully something rad comes out of it. I think at the very least with Josh Sawyer and more specifically Chris Avellone involved we can expect great charecters and story. Combat is another matter.
Combat in MotB was, at the very least, solid, so I don't think we have to worry there.
If you want to worry about something, worry about world-building: Planescape, KoTOR2, MotB, F:NV - (and VtM:B, which Tim Cain worked on at Troika) are all very strong RPGs and every single one is built on a pre-designed world. This is the test: what does Obsidian do when creating their own IP?
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On September 19 2012 06:53 Dfgj wrote:
Combat in MotB was, at the very least, solid, so I don't think we have to worry there.
If you want to worry about something, worry about world-building: Planescape, KoTOR2, MotB, F:NV - (and VtM:B, which Tim Cain worked on at Troika) are all very strong RPGs and every single one is built on a pre-designed world. This is the test: what does Obsidian do when creating their own IP?
Alpha Protocol 
Also F:NV is obviously based on Fallout which was originally created by Tim Cain (seems like after Fallout 3 nobody remember the first two existed  ). He also worked at Arcanum. Planescape also allowed a lot of liberty in presenting the game world and you could hardly say they(black isle folks) did a bad job. I wouldn't worry too much about their ability to make interesting settings. So far all info about the game seems great. Sounds like they are going with a pretty standard fantasy world, which is a bit disappointing, but I understand why would they play it safe. The prospect of getting a game in vibe of old IE classics is enough for me  .
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On September 19 2012 07:09 AM wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2012 06:53 Dfgj wrote:
Combat in MotB was, at the very least, solid, so I don't think we have to worry there.
If you want to worry about something, worry about world-building: Planescape, KoTOR2, MotB, F:NV - (and VtM:B, which Tim Cain worked on at Troika) are all very strong RPGs and every single one is built on a pre-designed world. This is the test: what does Obsidian do when creating their own IP? Alpha Protocol Also F:NV is obviously based on Fallout which was originally created by Tim Cain (seems like after Fallout 3 nobody remember the first two existed ). He also worked at Arcanum. Planescape also allowed a lot of liberty in presenting the game world and you could hardly say they(black isle folks) did a bad job. I wouldn't worry too much about their ability to make interesting settings. So far all info about the game seems great. Sounds like they are going with a pretty standard fantasy world, which is a bit disappointing, but I understand why would they play it safe. The prospect of getting a game in vibe of old IE classics is enough for me .
Forgot AP, didn't play it :o And yeah I know about Fallout but I wanted to use the F:NV iteration as an example since it was based on Bethesda's world-building design (and that's something they do pretty well).
We don't know much about the world of this project so far, so I can't comment yet - for all we know, the amount of ruins means we're going into a Fantasy Fallout sort of combination. Be optimistic, but recognize this is sort of uncharted territory.
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United States47024 Posts
On September 19 2012 07:09 AM wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2012 06:53 Dfgj wrote:
Combat in MotB was, at the very least, solid, so I don't think we have to worry there.
If you want to worry about something, worry about world-building: Planescape, KoTOR2, MotB, F:NV - (and VtM:B, which Tim Cain worked on at Troika) are all very strong RPGs and every single one is built on a pre-designed world. This is the test: what does Obsidian do when creating their own IP? Alpha Protocol Also F:NV is obviously based on Fallout which was originally created by Tim Cain (seems like after Fallout 3 nobody remember the first two existed ). He also worked at Arcanum. Planescape also allowed a lot of liberty in presenting the game world and you could hardly say they(black isle folks) did a bad job. I wouldn't worry too much about their ability to make interesting settings. So far all info about the game seems great. Sounds like they are going with a pretty standard fantasy world, which is a bit disappointing, but I understand why would they play it safe. The prospect of getting a game in vibe of old IE classics is enough for me .
TBH the prospect of getting an Obsidian title that isn't rushed out the door and bug-ridden because of it is enough for me.
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On September 19 2012 04:54 Rayeth wrote:
Planescape Torment has a great story, but a lot of terrible combat and pretty weak UI.
Baldur's Gate 2 has pretty good combat, a mediocre story and acceptable UI.
IWD has good combat again, nearly no story worth speaking of, and basically the same UI as BG2.
I would love to see something that has the real character depth of PST and the combat of BG2 and IWD. I think me and most of the CRPG fans on earth think this. But a great project, so hopefully something rad comes out of it.
Planescape Torments combat wasn't bad. It just wasn't great.
Baldur's Gate 2's story was pretty much awesome. No idea why you would say it is mediocre.
But anyways...
As far as Obsidian goes, I highly recommend playing Alpha Protocol if you haven't. Probably the modern game that most allows for user choice and branching development. Great writing, highly replayable, and while the actual gameplay maybe isn't the greatest thing the story, writing, and dialogue definitely make up for it.
If I was rich I would put lots of money into Project Eternity. I am very poor, so I give 25 bucks. Let's hope they still got it. I want the spiritual successor to PS: T dammit!
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Another update was posted today.
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I wouldn't mind a very standard fantasy world, to be honest. I'm getting tired of all the anachronistic weapons that infest fantasy games nowadays. It's fine every now and then but not if every fantasy game uses them.
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EPT
