I'm all excited for New Vegas... giggle...

[nerdenstein]

Were you being Sarcastic Jonas?
Sorry can't tell over the internet

And erm, I don't think SWTOR looks that bad tbh.
I really enjoyed KOTOR, but whether TOR will be quite as good is a totally different story.
Just have to wait and see I guess.
Same for Deus Ex 3.

[Jonas]

Were you being Sarcastic Jonas?

Yes. Very.

When people magically know how bad games will be before they're released, it always makes me roll my eyes so hard they start bleeding. The only appropriate response is copious sarcasm.

[gamer0004]

Were you being Sarcastic Jonas?

Yes. Very.

When people magically know how bad games will be before they're released, it always makes me roll my eyes so hard they start bleeding. The only appropriate response is copious sarcasm.

It's a preposterous stance you're taking. For instance, if you do not like the whole concept of an MMORPG, you know it will suck [for you]. That doesn't mean others won't be able to enjoy it either, but I guess there are people who enjoy My little pony adventures III as well, so in that sense that doesn't mean a game is "good".
For instance, I know Deus Ex 3 is going to be a crappy game, if only because of their art direction which is something I really dislike (not just because this is a prequel to Deus Ex, but simply because I don't like such a predominant style (unless there is a good explanation; think Bioshock.) nor these literal metaphors such "the rich live above, the poor live below" which we will see, AGAIN, in DX:HR).
Of course the question is: does this mean DXHR will be a bad game? I dunno, I certainly won't like it, and that's the only usable criterion.

Some people thought Halo 3 was the best game ever when it was launched, while others thought it absolutely sucked*. So as an "objective" criterion it's not really useful (which means it's personal). But what is? Reviews? I know some games which got good reviews yet which nobody (or hardly anybody) really liked. The best example I know, I think, is Lord of the Rings Online. Being a fan of tLotR myself I have tried it out. It's a "good game" according to reviews, and in fact I don't think it's not a good game either. But its gameworld differs too much from Middle-Earth as Tolkien described it, which means I can't really love it. On the other hand, people who liked the movies won't play it either, since it's "gay", because of its focus on narration and because it just isn't really cool, even though the developers did their best. Technically it's a great game; great narration, great graphics, good music and sounds, rewarding and exciting gameplay. But it just doesn't really have a target audience which is why so few people play it. It got great reviews, but if nobody really likes it (i.e. liked it enough to play it), is it really a good game?

We can only decide whether a game will be good or bad depending on our own preferences. Most people on this forum have played a lot of games, which means that by now most of us know what we don't like in games (but we can always be positively surprised by certain innovations).
For instance, if developers boast about a moral choice system I know it's an RPG I might as well forget about, since I know I just won't be really immersed or intrigued. When I'm constantly forced to make moral choices which also affect me later on I will simply choose the good option, no matter what. I just like being the good guy. This, however, means I cannot really role-play.

In Jade Empire, for instance, there was this girl, supposedly a really good friend with whom you grew up, who was constantly whining about how she had a bad feeling about what was coming. In the game, I always chose to listen to her, because I didn't want to choose the "evil" (in Jade Empire choices were not supposed to be either good or evil, but it basically came down to "be a friendly, helpful guy or a total dick", which comes pretty close) option which meant I would tell her to shut up because I had more important business to attend to.
In real life, I would've been honest and would've told her that it's just a feeling and that I can't make decisions based on her sixth sense. And guess what? People understand. In real life that is, in games with a moral choice system people will think you're a dick. In fact, your character is influenced because you could not bear listening to some whining bitch for the thousandth time, which means later on you are limited in your choices or disliked or whatever.

Therefore, I only like a dialog system like Deus Ex. In Deus Ex it's all about rational arguments, about thinking about what you're doing and what you're going to do. Which is a far more natural system, since I hardly ever make moral decisions in real life. Most of the conversations I have are completely neutral. The problem is, with a moral choice system, choices either need have to be moral or pragmatic decisions. I.e. choices about being good or evil or deciding which kind of weapon you want or which skills you want to train.

In Deus Ex, you could be nice to Anna or not. If you chose not to be nice to her it didn't mean you are controlling an evil asshole as a character, but rather that your character didn't like her. If you didn't give 5 credits to a sick woman, it didn't mean you were evil. Which is good, because there are all kinds of reasons why it's not evil: because it's unfair to other plague victims, or because you needed every credit you had to be able to save the world, which is also kind of important.

My post is derailing horribly, so I guess I'll stop my incoherent rant here.

* I have never played it, so I'm not here to start a flame war.

[nerdenstein]

Were you being Sarcastic Jonas?

Yes. Very.

When people magically know how bad games will be before they're released, it always makes me roll my eyes so hard they start bleeding. The only appropriate response is copious sarcasm.

Ahh Thought Soo..
I concur.

Also, Gamer0004, Well thought through responce.
When my eyes stop bleeding because I've been staring at this monitor for ages studying,
I'll read the rest of it

[Jonas]

words words words

You spent 906 words to explain that a game can't be good if you don't like it.

You are wrong. End of my argument. Over to you.

[EDIT] Actually no, one more thing. Are you trying to tell us you've never experienced something you thought you wouldn't like and realised that you do in fact enjoy it? You've never seen a film with the expectation that it would suck, only to be surprised by its quality? You've never in your whole life played a game in a genre you don't like, only to find that this specific specimen is actually quite good?

If so, I weep for you. You must have a very boring life.

[gamer0004]

You spent 906 words to explain that a game can't be good if you don't like it.

You are wrong. End of my argument. Over to you.

[EDIT] Actually no, one more thing. Are you trying to tell us you've never experienced something you thought you wouldn't like and realised that you do in fact enjoy it? You've never seen a film with the expectation that it would suck, only to be surprised by its quality? You've never in your whole life played a game in a genre you don't like, only to find that this specific specimen is actually quite good?

If so, I weep for you. You must have a very boring life.

If you would have carefully read what I said, there is no way to determine whether a game really is "good" or "bad"; only whether you like it or not, and that's the only thing that matters.

As for "Are you trying to tell us you've never experienced something you thought you wouldn't like and realised that you do in fact enjoy it?": I in fact said, which can be READ in my previous post:

Most people on this forum have played a lot of games, which means that by now most of us know what we don't like in games (but we can always be positively surprised by certain innovations).

Let's say you're in a restaurant and have to decide what to order, you're not going to order shrimps (or whatever you don't like) if you ordered them a couple of years ago and was absolutely disgusted by them. You know you don't like to eat them, so why try it out again?
Perhaps ten years later you might be tempted to try it out again, since taste and opinion can change over the years. But this is not about ten years, but rather one or two or maybe a few months. If you played WoW one or two years ago and found you didn't like the concept of an MMORPG, then why would you suddenly like this new MMORPG?
Be honest Jonas, are you tasting dog shit on a daily basis? I sure hope not. It smells unpleasant and perhaps you have ever tasted it (though you probably haven't) and found out it doesn't taste too great either. And yet it is normal we don't like shit, even though we haven't ever tested it, but we can't say we won't like a game because it has features we know we hate?

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
I don't want to find out to have wasted €50 AGAIN, on a game I don't like.

[Jonas]

If you would have carefully read what I said, there is no way to determine whether a game really is "good" or "bad"; only whether you like it or not, and that's the only thing that matters.

Really, because for such a huge fan of subjectivity, "that god awful MMO" sure is an unsubjective phrase to use. Especially about a game nobody has played yet.

Besides, you're wrong. I've played The Sims, and it was obviously an original, well designed game with high production values. I didn't like it though. Conversely, the 2008 version of Prince of Persia? Far too repetitive, unchallenging, and arbitrary game - yet I loved it.

Let's say you're in a restaurant and have to decide what to order, you're not going to order shrimps (or whatever you don't like) if you ordered them a couple of years ago and was absolutely disgusted by them. You know you don't like to eat them, so why try it out again?

What an incredibly false comparison you've got there. If I've played Max Payne and I didn't like it, I'm not going to play Max Payne again. I might give Max Payne 2 a shot though, and I certainly wouldn't tell everybody Max Payne 2 is an awful game because I didn't like Max Payne. If I find a menu in a restaurant with shrimp v2.0, or... some other dish in the shell fish genre, hell - I might give it a shot. I mean I hate shrimp, but I'm okay with lobster.

Perhaps ten years later you might be tempted to try it out again, since taste and opinion can change over the years. But this is not about ten years, but rather one or two or maybe a few months. If you played WoW one or two years ago and found you didn't like the concept of an MMORPG, then why would you suddenly like this new MMORPG?

Because it could be radically different from WoW? I mean would you tell me anybody who doesn't like WoW also wouldn't like EVE Online? Those ain't exactly identical, ya know?

Be honest Jonas, are you tasting dog shit on a daily basis? I sure hope not. It smells unpleasant and perhaps you have ever tasted it (though you probably haven't) and found out it doesn't taste too great either. And yet it is normal we don't like shit, even though we haven't ever tested it, but we can't say we won't like a game because it has features we know we hate?

I'm pretty sure we are instinctively coded to be utterly repulsed by shit, presumably because actually eating the stuff - especially other people's - can be extremely, extremely bad for your health. What I'm getting at here is that you somehow managed to come up with an even more preposterously useless simile than your shrimp rubbish above.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

I would dig out some quote about keeping an open mind, but I can't spare the time. Instead, a nice Tom Francis quote: you are "incapable of distinguishing between 'good' and 'similar to the last thing I liked'."

I don't want to find out to have wasted €50 AGAIN, on a game I don't like.

I'm not asking you to blindly buy every new game that's released. I'm asking you to not condemn a game you haven't played, and which nobody else has ever played, because you didn't enjoy other games in the same category of games. I really wouldn't think that'd be so much to ask. You don't even have to help making these forums a nicer place, I'd just like you not to actively strive to make them worse. If you think it's "cool" or "edgy" to hate popular games, regardless of whether or not you've ever given them an honest shot, and you like to make a big deal out of that sort of thing, I recommend the RPG Codex or - in a pinch - Through The Looking Glass.

[loony636]

I think that perhaps I was somewhat premature in my assessment of SWTOR as "awful" simply because its seen by a lot of KotOR purists as a betrayal of the format that made the first two games so enjoyable. I wasn't saying that the game in and of itself may not be terrible, I was just part of a large group hoping for KotOR 3, not an MMO. Whether or not the MMO is bad I think is beside the point; the fact that its not like the other two games is enough to upset me.

The fact that its an MMO not only makes me disappointed that its not going to be the same as the previous two games, it means that chances are I wont get to play it. I just don't have the dough to fork out $30+ a month for a game. I usually get around that by importing games from overseas, meaning I can buy most release titles for $50, but obviously that's impossible in this case.

Moreover, there's the past case of Galaxies to consider. I know that this game isn't the same game by any means, but the game, while I have never played it, has been almost universally condemned as a failure. That, too, does not bode well for SWTOR, but its not a decisive factor by any means since it can be easily avoided by just waiting to see reviews of the game once its released. Obviously that means that you can't tell if the game wont become a flop in the future, but at least you can enjoy the game in its early stages.

Perhaps its just me being conservative and not liking changes, but after KotOR II was the victim of corporate greed in a big way that severely detracted from the overall quality of the game, I'd really like for the sequel not to suffer the same fate. Whether it will, of course, is a question that wont be answered for at least 12 months, but the fact that its an MMO is enough to turn me off it already. The mere mention of KotOR 3 is enough to set me off, since it reminds me of the traumatic time when we all found out that SWTOR was an MMO, not the KotOR 3 we wanted.

I apologise if I came off as brash, but I want my KotOR fix dammit!

[Hashi]

eh online shitty games dont interest me. KOTOR 1 and 2 were leet, but this online shit with the next kotor, no matter how good it may be in its genre, means nothing to me. wow sucks too, eve might be alright if I were willing to put time into it (already put time into Civ)

as for games Im not really willing to try new games (last new one was red faction: guerrilla and while it was absolutely fun just to blow shit up, it had the worst single player iev ever experienced) and I dont put as much time into gaming anymore to bother trying new games (except civ lol, but thats not new). Also all the new games dominate my computer and im not willing to play games on low res.

[Xesum]

The Destruction and fun in RF:G made up for the story.

[m3rc1l3ss]

I'll wait for the GOTY if they decide to release DLC.

I made that mistake last time lets just hope valve does not run any incredibly good sales on the non GOTY version this time

[DaveW]

The Destruction and fun in RF:G made up for the story.

Not sure if they quite make up for it. The singleplayer element is pretty damn bad.

[Jaedar]

Goddammit why must Obsidian always say the right things to make me hyped? Every single interview they say something that sets of my good game alarm. I didn't enjoy FO3... at all basically, but I'm still seriously considering buying New Vegas.

Also I feel a bit sad for them, since 90% of all journalists seem to think Obsidian=Bethesda. Can't be good for their self-esteem. Probably good for sales though(and maybe if Obsidian does well enough with New Vegas their next project will be more like Motb? A man can dream).

[bobby 55]

I can't say that I overly enjoyed Fallout 3 either. New Vegas does look like it's a hoot, and since I pre ordered already to get some goodies, I hope it's a ripper.

[Kman]

By the looks of things, it seems that this game might share the same fate as Fallout 2 did.

Many fans didn't think it was as a good enough follow-up to the original Fallout and complained about various things, mainly:
-Use of real-world weapons in place of futuristic weapons created for the game universe.
-Too many pop-culture references.
-Not as dark in tone.
-A crap end boss.
and many more things that broke the immersion that the first game had done so well.

So far, the screens and info on "The Vault Fallout Wiki" seem to point towards a similarity, with the 1st and 3rd examples so far anyway.

Then again, don't judge a book by it's cover. The game is still a day one purchase for me.