any other FPS/RPGs out there?

otherone · Post by **otherone** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 5:45 am

any other games of this genre out there? Bloodlines was the closest thing Ive found to the DX series..it was alright but the gameplay wasn't too great

Mr_Cyberpunk · Post by **Mr_Cyberpunk** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 7:08 am

Only know 2 MMORPGs that come close:

Neocron
The Face of Mankind

FOM is probably as close to DX as you can get I would have to say (given that it is based on DX anyway)

Post by **Jonas** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 11:24 am

Boiling Point takes a lot after DX in terms of gameplay, except it's one big open world rather than a linear series of locations. It's not QUITE as story-driven as Deus Ex, although they do a good job of keeping you interested, and the setting isn't as interesting, but it's tons of fun at times (although there are some bugs in there which will make you introduce your head to your desk repeatedly - don't buy the game if you lack the means to download a 200+ MB patch). The stealth is decent once you get a hang of it, and the open world gives you tons of freedom in choosing your approach to a mission.

Else I'd say go for Splinter Cell 3 (far less linear than the first two games) and Thief 3 (which is just plain awesome). Both are some good solid sneakers, and the Thief 3 story easily compares to the story of Deus Ex.

Dragon · Post by **Dragon** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 3:37 pm

do also unreleased ones count ?

EER · Post by **EER** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 3:41 pm

If you're looking for an RPG that 'just happens to be First Person', I enjoyed Morrowind. Quite the story, "ultimate freedom" (where have we heard that before

) and fun alltogether imho.

Mr_Cyberpunk · Post by **Mr_Cyberpunk** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 4:05 pm

Oblivion is coming out soon anyway..

Boiling Point is a great game, but the bugs let it down soo much. (the unpatched version, you couldn't even steer the car properly)

If your into the whole Future Conspiracy thing, Metal Gear Solid 2 is kinda similar to the shock value of Deus Ex. I was like freaking out at the end of the game..

Dragon · Post by **Dragon** » Mon Nov 07, 2005 5:10 pm

EER wrote:If you're looking for an RPG that 'just happens to be First Person', I enjoyed Morrowind. Quite the story, "ultimate freedom" (where have we heard that before ) and fun alltogether imho.

morrowind has not been bad but the thing with 'ultimate freedom' is rather a joke. i felt pre-pathed all day long and where you had the coice the crappy interface (that stupid quest book) totally ruined the fun. also the mass of bugs made it a cubersome experience.

i hope oblivion takes out those bugs and revamps the quest system, that would help the cause a lot.

Mr_Cyberpunk · Post by **Mr_Cyberpunk** » Tue Nov 08, 2005 3:56 am

I heard that Oblivion will have generated quests this time, because each NPC has its own behaviours, wants and needs. It'll be interesting to see what they did.

Theif is warren spectors Steampunk version of Deus Ex in short, I haven't really played it much but I can say it is rather good.

If you like cyberpunk games:

Syndicate Wars is by far one of the best ISO RTS games ever. I enjoy taking over Australia because all the units are drunk hehehe.

Omikron The Nomad Soul, Omikron has an openended gameplay much better than Deus Ex, it allowed characters to die and you could still keep going. The game had several endings I've been told. Definately worth a look. Omikron 2 was announced about a month ago.

EER · Post by **EER** » Tue Nov 08, 2005 8:24 am

Dragon wrote:
EER wrote:If you're looking for an RPG that 'just happens to be First Person', I enjoyed Morrowind. Quite the story, "ultimate freedom" (where have we heard that before ) and fun alltogether imho.
morrowind has not been bad but the thing with 'ultimate freedom' is rather a joke. i felt pre-pathed all day long and where you had the coice the crappy interface (that stupid quest book) totally ruined the fun. also the mass of bugs made it a cubersome experience.

thats why I put ultimate freedom within quotes

it is really buggy though I agree, after a patch of 20 it became a little better though.

I hope Oblivion is less buggy from the start

Post by **Jonas** » Tue Nov 08, 2005 9:59 am

Don't bet on it.

It is the eternal fate of "complete freedom" games to be released with more bugs than a Mexican motel.

Dragon · Post by **Dragon** » Tue Nov 08, 2005 5:47 pm

Jonas wrote:Don't bet on it.

It is the eternal fate of "complete freedom" games to be released with more bugs than a Mexican motel.

not really, it's a question of software-design... unfortunatly most game coders did not visit university courses about software engineering or have seen SmallTalk from the inside.

correct design will avoid most bugs. and furthermore i refer here to really obvious bugs like crashing of the game during loading or due to logical errors (like missing animations in mods or alike). most of the bugs ruining morrowind had nothing to do with the attempted freedom, as bugs concerning that i would not be picky about that much than bugs happening due to logical errors.

Mr_Cyberpunk · Post by **Mr_Cyberpunk** » Tue Nov 08, 2005 10:18 pm

Most of those freedom bugs are either Engine related or that the designers majorly F**ked up. The easiest way to solve freedom programming is have everything running like binary on a stack of critera turned on by ingame events. Morrowind was really good at doing this.

Here's how you go about doing it:

- Starting the World -
- Created Character -
- Character begins exploring the world -

- Character can go become a blacksmith - Blacksmith = On
-- Character can go work in the Gold Mine
-- Character can go work in the Blacksmith Shop
-- Ect..

- Character can go become a warrior - Warrior = On
-- Character can go become a Mercenary for the Guild
-- Character can go become a soldier in the military
-- Character can go become a pirate
-- Ect..

Scenarios like this are used in game, it usually come down to the point of initiation where you get problems.

---- Player talks to Master Blacksmith
---- Receives Aprentice Blacksmith rank
---- Quest begins - Find Iron Ore
---- Player goes to the Iron Mines
---- Player steals Iron Ore --or-- Player Mines Iron Ore after getting permissions
---- Player returns to Master Blacksmith with Iron Ore
---- Player receives 100Exp
---- Player receives 2000 Gold
---- Player receives Iron Broadsword
---- End Quest - Find Iron Ore Complete
---- Else End Quest - Find Iron Ore Failed

Yet no penalty is infered, but you could add one.

Post by **DDL** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 12:34 am

Ah..but you then have to deal with all the randomness players come up with..

---- Player talks to Master Blacksmith
---- Receives Aprentice Blacksmith rank
---- Quest begins - Find Iron Ore
---- Player goes to the Iron Mines
---- Player hurls rock at easily avoidable Orc wandering the mines, for no good reason
---- Orc (and friends) chase player
---- Player runs like hell back to town
---- Orcs follow, kill everyone in town
---- Blacksmith is dead, quest is buggered

Or the slightly more esoteric...

---- Player talks to Master Blacksmith
---- Receives Aprentice Blacksmith rank
---- Player stacks crates behind the blacksmiths till he climbs over the wall and steals the Iron Broadsword before he should get it
---- Blacksmith is confused: conversations get a bit strange
---- Player kills blacksmith, buries him in sheep corpses
---- Player sets fire to sheep corpses
---- Player chases people around town with burning sheep corpses

And yes, a lot of these games DO cope with this sort of thing relatively well, but possibly they spend so much time preparing for obscure contingencies that other bugs creep in unnoticed. Bug-fixing really is like stamping on ants: for every one you get, two more crawl out.

That said, finding ways to break games is always good for a laugh.

Mr_Cyberpunk · Post by **Mr_Cyberpunk** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 12:39 am

Actually in Oblivion its apparently encouraged. Have you heard some of what the AI can do. Really funny stuff.

You can fix those bugs by making it intentional for someone to go on a stabing rage or something. Its just a matter of understanding the players I guess.

Dragon · Post by **Dragon** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 1:13 am

there is one major problem in morrowind and games alike it that i do not want to commit in my project (hence i came up with a special way to solve the problem [not implemented yet, just planed on paper]), and that's the on-off-switch-problem.

such games work by having a set of boolean or integer variables which do either mark an event as 'happened' or count something (like for example the quests in morrowind use integers to mark the 'progress' in the quest). that system does suffer a lot of problems and works against the freedom you want to do because a player (and i've been one doing this a heck lot) does not always play after the quest but mixes around if a certain quest is 'blocked' (i just say Tribunal bug that resulted in that endless talking screen when you kill that one-guy of the dark brothers or how they had been named). that simple state principle has a heck lot of flaws. increasing the number of states or variables to keep track of the state doesn't solve the problem, simply pushes it further away.

i don't know how oblivion turns out in this regard and pre-talk of devers or testers/previewers is most of the times utterly off hence i do not say yet that it is good or not. i hope they make the quest system better this time as it drove me mad in morrowind as most of the quest had been 'blocked' and i could not get rid of them (even with walkthroughs i could not finish them as somewhere along the line a state-variable got messed up by a game-bug).

EDIT:
@Mr_Cyberpunk: not true. making the player guess what the developers want you to do is boring and annoying. making the developers guess at what the players want to do is better but often results in you hitting only one group of gamers. the true game should make no assumptions about what the player wants to do but allow him to mess with all he can. that is what i strife for.