Deus Ex 3

[Hashi]

words are cheap, you're all cheap. Actions speak louder then words, and my actions will say that I'm not as cheap as you bums

[Jonas]

Fair enough, Action Man.

[Mr_Cyberpunk]

words are cheap, you're all cheap. Actions speak louder then words, and my actions will say that I'm not as cheap as you bums

I consider you classist and an ambassador to all classists everywhere..

[Jaedar]

You know what my opinion on RPGs is? My opinion is that any RPG that isn't set in a fantasy world featuring elves and orcs

Setting doesnt matter(for gameplay).. so yeah that is a crap criteria.

that doesn't feature skill progression through actions (seriously, you can get better at lock picking by bashing orc heads in with your sword? That's not how a true RPG should work), that doesn't let you create your own character from scratch including choosing from several races, classes, appearances,

A defensibly opinion, definitely.

and that doesn't have a story centered on saving the world from an invasion by demons or dragons, is not a true RPG

Again, this is story, not gameplay.

In my opinion, Bethesda is the only studio in the world that still makes true RPGs.

Again, a defensible position, just not one I agree with.

Well as I've pointed out, if you don't count the augmentations

So if you disregard half of the character advancement, you get no new abilities? That seems like a bad argument to me. Augs are just skills by another name(both skill points and augs are given from exploration and plot right?)

We are ALL going to play this. Some of us may play it PURELY to bitch about how dumbed down it is, but nevertheless, we are all going to play this.

True, but I play almost all games released on the PC

Side note: upgrading augs with XP actually makes sense - it represents your character getting used to them and learning how to use them in different ways; picking up new techniques basically. As justifications for levelling up go, it's not too bad.

Have to agree on this one... Its not too shabby, if its execution is good.

I'm sure Jaedar will disagree, but I think Fallout 3 is a good example of it being possible for another company to take over an established IP and make a sequel that stands up on its own as a good game.

Good game? That is up to you, and I wont lose any respect for you if you think its good. Good sequel? hell no, its the same setting in name only, the gameplay bears no real similarities, and the RPG elements are so incredibly streamlined they may as well not be there.

Don't expect anything else out of me on this one, I've said what I needed to say.

Fair enough, but I still needed my internet Fix

[Nameless Voice]

Good game? That is up to you, and I wont lose any respect for you if you think its good. Good sequel? hell no, its the same setting in name only, the gameplay bears no real similarities, and the RPG elements are so incredibly streamlined they may as well not be there.

So what's so incredibly different about the setting, apart from the ridiculous lack of progress in the 200 years since the war? The setup is the same, the style is the same, all the major players are there. What do you see as missing?

The gameplay has been changed from third-person with turn-based combat to first-person with real-time combat (with a rather peculiar VATS system). That completely changes the feel of the game, but as I said I'm a sucker for first-person, single-character RPGs (of which there are far too few).
The core gameplay itself is still very similar - you explore the wasteland, talk to NPCs, get quests, fight enemies, complete quests, get XP, and upgrade your character with the XP.

The exact definition of a role-playnig game is ... subjective. For me, an RPG should allow you to create and develop your character, talk to NPCs, complete quests, fight enemies, and solve goals in different ways depending on your character's abilities. All three Fallouts have these aspects.
Fallout 3's system has the major flaw that it's too easy to be good at everything. Attributes aren't powerful enough, skill points are a little too numerous, and getting a perk every single level allows you to pick too many. The fact that you're often in a situation where you're trying to decide which of the perks that you can pick is the least useless means that they did something very wrong there - perks should leave you with difficult choices between multiple, equally useful options, without the chance of taking them all.

Fallout 3 is, in some ways, far more linear than the original games, at least in terms of the main quest, which is a shame. But that's not a point which you mentioned as to why you think it's an unworthy sequel.

[Mr_Cyberpunk]

Fallout 3's biggest problem is that it shares all the flaws of Oblivion, and then adds its own in the form of Vats- ie. their I-Win button that essentially gives the player god mode and is a pretty major game breaking mechanic.

[Jaedar]

So what's so incredibly different about the setting, apart from the ridiculous lack of progress in the 200 years since the war? The setup is the same, the style is the same, all the major players are there. What do you see as missing?

The major players are there in name only. Bos are no longer an elitist "protect the knowledge" but instead paladins in power armor. Mutants sent fr.o.m. Intelligent super humans to orcs With machineguns. And so on.

[Nameless Voice]

Fallout 3's biggest problem is that it shares all the flaws of Oblivion, and then adds its own in the form of Vats- ie. their I-Win button that essentially gives the player god mode and is a pretty major game breaking mechanic.

It doesn't have all of Oblivion's flaws - some things are much improved over Oblivion. The way everyone levels up with the player is present to some extent, I think, but toned down enough as to not be completely ridiculous. Conversations are far more interesting and there's a larger variety of voice actors, which does wonders for the hated "same person everywhere" problem.

Yeah, I refuse to use VATS partly because of that reason.

So what's so incredibly different about the setting, apart from the ridiculous lack of progress in the 200 years since the war? The setup is the same, the style is the same, all the major players are there. What do you see as missing?

The major players are there in name only. Bos are no longer an elitist "protect the knowledge" but instead paladins in power armor. Mutants sent fr.o.m. Intelligent super humans to orcs With machineguns. And so on.

The BoS not being like their western compatriots is a major plot element? The Outcasts are the traditional Brotherhood types, and consider the main BoS guys as traitors for betraying their goals.

The super mutants... well, the Fallout universe has basically used FEV as a magic to turn people into anything in the past (Harold, the Master, centaurs), as well as being modified to be lethal to irradiated humans (FO2). The strain being used in DC is different from the one found in the West, so it makes as much sense as anything else that it would have basically the same effect on "clean" humans as the Western variant had on irradiated ones.

[Jaedar]

The BoS not being like their western compatriots is a major plot element? The Outcasts are the traditional Brotherhood types, and consider the main BoS guys as traitors for betraying their goals.

Steel be with you friend. QED

It doesn't have all of Oblivion's flaws

Agreed. I would say that F03 is a better game than oblivion, but for some reason, I enjoyed Oblivion much much more.

The thing that really makes me dislike Bethesda's Fallout is that everything is just a watered down version of their original counterparts. The factions used to have these brilliant backgrounds, but now they just sort of exist. And the 200 years thing, ffs. And the overpopulated wasteland. And the fact that the plot is basically just a combination of the plot of the two original fallouts(Water, and Enclave wanting to wipe humanity clean). Also, vampires... why?

Nothing in F03 makes any sense if you think about it, but in the original ones(at least the first) everything made perfect sense.

[Nameless Voice]

Overpopulated wasteland? Depends on if you're talking about enemies or NPCs. Bethesda always have far too few NPCs in towns and cities, and Fallout 3 is no different. But Bethesda games always make up for it by having an over-abundance of hostile NPCs in the wilderness. Oblivion, Fallout 3, they always make me think that the vast majority of the world's population are bandits or raiders. (Though, to be completely fair, Fallout 2 had insane numbers of raiders, slavers, and other hostile encounters, too. It just wasn't as noticeable as in Fallout 3.)

I also noticed the whole "main quest mashup" about water and the Enclave - the main quest isn't really very original.
I could rant about some of the quests being rather silly (e.g. vampires?), but I'd have to be fair and point out the silliness in earlier Fallout game, too. I seem to recall a quest to recover someone's spleen, and let's not even go into some of the bizarre random encounters in Fallout 2.

One thing I don't like about Bethesda's (recent) RPGs is the way they have a giant arrow constantly telling you exactly where to go next. It's not as noticeable in Fallout 3, since you can just select some other quest, but it was really excessive in Oblivion, which had long journal entries pop up on-screen to make sure you wouldn't have to turn on your brain for even a second: "THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT BEING HONEST WITH YOU, YOU SHOULD TRY EAVESDROPPING ON THEM NOW."
I'm afraid that's an increasing trend these days, though. No one wants people to feel stuck and need to explore/think/experiment too much any more.

About the "better game than Oblivion" - I think Bethesda learned a lot from working on Fallout 3, and I'm interested to see how they incorporate this knowledge into the next Elder Scrolls game.

[chris the cynic]

I know I'm very late to the table with this one, but here goes anyway.

Side note: upgrading augs with XP actually makes sense - it represents your character getting used to them and learning how to use them in different ways; picking up new techniques basically. As justifications for levelling up go, it's not too bad.

Unless you know something I don't, and you may, this is just speculation.

Upgrading augs with XP could make sense. It could not make sense. It depends on how the augs are upgraded, and how it can be rationalized.

It could be that it takes the form of, having upgraded with XP now know exactly where you should be standing to use your augs to shish kabob an enemy perfectly and so your odds of a successful shish kabob go up by X%. That would make a certain amount of sense.

It could be that having used XP to upgrade your shish kabobing arm a new knife suddenly appears on it out of nowhere. That doesn't make a lot of sense.

Of course, XP has never made much sense: "I've explored a lot, now I'm a master hacker." So the fact that what little we know indicates that this could potentially make some kind of sense on some level is a good sign. I just think that the "could potentially" part is important to remember.

At this stage we really don't know what upgrading with XP means, and as such I think that saying, "As justifications for levelling up go, it's not too bad," is premature.

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To what follows goes into more detail about potential problems. Given how little we know of the system in question it is possible that none of it applies in the least.

The leveling in question, being based on mech augs, can't be rationalized as well as certain other things.

For one thing, they lack mystery. Adam isn't receiving abilities from some magical force that requires him to mature/advance before being given access to the cool stuff. Adam's XP unlocked cool stuff will be coming from a machine attached to his body. Not an alien machine that isn't a fully understood, but rather a machine that was built in that factory over there by this company using this design. He should know everything it can do, and it should be able to do all of it from the beginning. (With the possible exception of bombs. If they put a bomb in him to dispose of him if he becomes disloyal he probably shouldn't know about that.)

That doesn't prevent what Jonas said from being true. Its just that for Jonas' explanation to work it has to be more along the lines of "If i combine X, Y, and Z then that'll make me better in combat," or, "If use my augs to do X exactly the same way, but do A differently, that'll work better," than something like, "Hey, look at this thing I just discovered my augs can do," because if its something new, as opposed to some combination/modification of old things, that's not going to make any sense in terms of getting to know the augs unless by that we mean stealing the design to see if there were any neat tricks the manufacturer neglected to tell him about.

The last thing I'll say is in terms of what a mechanical augmentation might represent. (This one, by the way, has absolutely nothing to do with what Jonas said.) Regardless of what your personal feeling is about the takedowns, they do make a certain amount of narrative sense. All of them. Even ones involving move after move after move you have no control over. This is because mech augs potentially represent the ability to do something the same way every time.

If there is a single best way to throw a right hook, why leave it up to the user to try to pull it off? Why not just have the mech arm automatically throw a perfect right hook when the user wants to throw a right hook? If there is a single best way to punch through a wall and break someone's neck, why not have the augs automatically do that when the user wants to punch through a wall and break someone's neck? If there's a multiple move combination that the agent needs to get right repeatedly, why not have the augs make sure that happens. Why leave the agent in charge of the little details when the augmentation can be programed to do it right every time*?

It makes a certain amount of sense for certain things to be preprogramed into the augs and carried out automatically when the agent decides to activate that program. The Human Revolution team seems to be embracing this idea.

The problem it potentially presents is that when you embrace this idea you've embraced the idea that (within the context of the narrative) your character, or at least his arms, can immediately shish kabob the best shish kabob he, or at least his arms, will ever shish kabob. Which is to say, without having a mechanic alter his shish kabobing bits the character can never improve his shish kabobing technique (at lest insofar as it involves those bits.) That means if you want to have the character improve based on experience you've got to find a way for that improvement to be totally unrelated to his technique as it is carried out in his mechanical bits.

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* The major potential advantage of where HR seems to be taking things in terms of the takedowns is that you skip that whole training thing. (To be clear, this is an advantage for the fictional characters in the fictional world, not an advantage for the player or the developers.)

If you want your biological agent to do a move very well consistently they need to practice and practice and practice that move. If you want them to do a combination of two moves very well consistently, even if they've practiced the hell out of both movies individually, they need to practice that combination over and over. So on and so forth. Even then they're not going to throw a perfect punch every time they try, or time a combination perfectly, or do whatever perfectly. Human beings simply can't pull that kind of consistency off (though they can come close, given years upon years of training.)

Machines can. (I suppose I should add, "within tolerance.") The important thing is that Adam theoretically would never need to practice the arm parts of the five move combo he uses to take out one guard or the 8(?) move combo he uses to take out a pair (though he still needs to move his legs and torso correctly so that's still some practice required.) The bit about years of training being necessary to get that kind of consistency goes away. If he should find out that a different combination of moves would work better, he isn't going to need to practice them before he can switch to that without a drop in efficiency, he can make the switch right away.

In terms of gameplay, of course, none of this matters. What matters is that you hit a button and have an out of body experience, when it ends your enemies lay unconscious or dead (depending on how long you held the button) at your feet.

[Jonas]

Unless you know something I don't, and you may, this is just speculation.

Upgrading augs with XP could make sense. It could not make sense. It depends on how the augs are upgraded, and how it can be rationalized.

PC Gamer's website is down right now, but the rationalisation of upgrading augs with XP representing getting used to your new augmentations is something I read in an interview with one of the EM guys. It's official, it's not something I'm just making up.

[chris the cynic]

PC Gamer's website is down right now, but the rationalisation of upgrading augs with XP representing getting used to your new augmentations is something I read in an interview with one of the EM guys.

Ok, well that's what I get for not reading every thing about the game. I'd read multiple things where they talked about using XP to upgrade augs, but nothing where they said why. I'm not entirely surprised you knew something I didn't.

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I still think it depends on what upgrading means. Which, as far as I know, we haven't heard yet. (Did it say in the interview?)

If it means something like how the vision enhancement was upgraded in Deus Ex then getting used to your new augmentations would involve them gaining radically different abilities (like getting used to night vision somehow giving you the ability to use sonar.)

If it means something like how the cloak was upgraded in Deus Ex then we're talking about getting used to it causing either the battery to last longer or the power requirements to drop.

Those examples are, obviously, both very silly. They're things you'd almost certainly avoid doing if you were making augs be upgraded by getting used to them. My point though is that right now we don't, or at least I don't, have enough information to rule out things like that, and thus not enough information to say where this belongs on the scale of justifications for leveling up.

[Mr_Cyberpunk]

It doesn't have all of Oblivion's flaws - some things are much improved over Oblivion.

Funny last time I checked you were saying it was a sequel to Fallout seems to me its a successor to Oblivion, and I will agree with you that it did a lot of things better than oblivion, but you'd expect that given the amount of time they had to improve their Frankensteinified engine (and it seems Obsidian are going to push that even further). I still stand by my claims though that Morrowind was their best game, I'd also go further to say that if it weren't for the bugs Daggerfall would have been their best instead. Morrowind was a step in the right direction, and then Oblivion screwed it all up by removing what made their games so good to play- Fallout 3 shares that problem, it doesn't share the fun that we had playing Fallout 1 and 2 instead feels like I'm playing Oblivion with an IWin button- If it had been Morrowind.. well I probably might not be so hostile towards it- morrowind had the detailed mechanics to make it fun- Oblivion doesn't it seems very void of them in an effort to make the player feel better about themselves being AWESHUM.

[Jonas]

I still think it depends on what upgrading means. Which, as far as I know, we haven't heard yet. (Did it say in the interview?)

Not that I remember. And yeah, you're right they'll have to plan it carefully. On the plus side, if they do make it more "new techniques" instead of "incremental improvements", that would be pretty great - Deus Ex was all about visible progress over small increases in arbitrary numbers (even if most of the weapon mods were arguably pretty incremental).