As a final post on the matters of superhero MMOs, I am now severely 'meh' on Champions Online. I understand I should take everything I read with a grain of salt, everyone has different opinions on what makes games fun, etc etc, but from a read-through of how combat, leveling and gameplay works in the game? It's really not jumping out at me. And perhaps the nail in the coffin is this. I'm not sure if it's ironic that the unofficial character builder is what turned me away, or what.
The truth is I struggle to wring out builds with personality that I would be happy to play from that. They all feel a bit samey to me as I wrestle around the open ended character creation. Let's see, I've made a super-strong tech-suit guy, a sword armed vampire (with 'bite' and 'summon wolves' and everything), a rejig of one of my lesser villains I played in City of Villains, hell, even a beastial werewolf among other things.
It hit me when I looked back at the builds I made. They all centered around a small number of powersets. Tech suit, Might, Martial arts (usually unarmed, occasionally 1 sword), very rarely Munitions (and then only for characterful reasons) and Supernatural. The only character who used none of these was the villain rejig who was a mix of 'Force' and 'Fire'. I have no interest in elemental or sorcery superheroes, and only a minor (it being a secondary thing) at best interest in heroes who's focus in ranged combat. If I play this 'open ended you can make anything with your character' game I'd be missing out on about 2/3rds of the character possibilities, and from the remainder I struggle to put together a really characterful build that is unique enough that it's worth putting in the builder.
I am a major Roleplaying nerd, I need to feel a character I make is not only unique enough that it's unlikely others have made them, but interesting and captivating enough to me that I want to play them. Hell, one of my favourite characters I ever made up back in City of Heroes was a sociopathic super-hero-hunter who did it for sport, then developed an obsession with a superheroine who beat him. That was some fun roleplay.
Well, drifted off the point a little bit, but it's my blog so I can do what I want! Ha! And my audience just have to sit and read the ramblings I go on ab- wait, where are you going, come back!
Showing posts with label RPG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RPG. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
Superhero MMOs part 3
Champions Online.
I can write the most about this at the moment since I've been reading up a fair bit on it. In the then untitled part 1 I voiced my ethical concerns about looking forward to the game, so here I'll just talk about what excites me about it, and where I've got concerns.
The fighting systems looks interesting and the requirement to use energy building attacks so you can unleash more devastating ones is something that sounds good on paper, but I'll hold off having an opinion until later.
I have to say, my only major concern at the moment is the server system. Rather then having different servers running separate and independent of one another as most MMOs do, CO is using a shard system. Basically there's one massive server and every location in it has a maximum number of players, once that's surpassed the server makes a new location for excess and so on and so forth. While this means it's easy to meet up with friends in game, it's also highly problematic. City of Heroes had plenty of times when some of the servers would go down, and players had to migrate to other servers just to play. Imagine that on a single server, if it went down every single player would be screwed.
Plus I'm a roleplayer, even when there aren't official server designations people try to label servers into types. If I'm roleplaying, I don't want to be bothered by some wanker begging people to power level him and calling them cocks if they don't
But I have to say despite that it looks pretty good. The nemesis system is clever, at level 25 - a little over halfway to max level 40 - you can create a Nemesis using the same system as is used in character creation (with the ability to describe the kind of villain they are, mastermind, thief, psychotic, etc) who is used in generated missions. I have no doubt people will come up with ways to make shit Nemesis for easy experience, but this really gets me going.
The character creation looks impressive. The physical creator looks more in depth then City of Heroes, but I've heard it has less actual costume pieces, at least to begin with. The actual leveling up and power system looks incredible. I'm seriously all goey in my manparts with anticipation. Just reading the half or so mix-and-matchable powersets they've released details on so far has me coming up with dozens of character ideas.
You see, instead of just picking your class and powersets, the game is open-ended in its design. You pick your opening powers from any powerset you want, and later on you earn roles that you can switch in and out of (with four total equating to most MMO class slots - Balanced, Offence, Defence, and Support). Individual powers within the sets have a number of power requirements you need to satisfy, usually just X (a lower number) of powers already from within that set, or Y (a higher number) of powers from outside of that set. A gun-wielding hero can dip into Supernatural and grab Regeneration with immense ease, or a Might-based hero can dip into Battlesuit for technological attacks.
I know I shouldn't be getting any distractions, now that my Honours Thesis is due in two and a half months, but fuck me this looks awesome.
I can write the most about this at the moment since I've been reading up a fair bit on it. In the then untitled part 1 I voiced my ethical concerns about looking forward to the game, so here I'll just talk about what excites me about it, and where I've got concerns.
The fighting systems looks interesting and the requirement to use energy building attacks so you can unleash more devastating ones is something that sounds good on paper, but I'll hold off having an opinion until later.
I have to say, my only major concern at the moment is the server system. Rather then having different servers running separate and independent of one another as most MMOs do, CO is using a shard system. Basically there's one massive server and every location in it has a maximum number of players, once that's surpassed the server makes a new location for excess and so on and so forth. While this means it's easy to meet up with friends in game, it's also highly problematic. City of Heroes had plenty of times when some of the servers would go down, and players had to migrate to other servers just to play. Imagine that on a single server, if it went down every single player would be screwed.
Plus I'm a roleplayer, even when there aren't official server designations people try to label servers into types. If I'm roleplaying, I don't want to be bothered by some wanker begging people to power level him and calling them cocks if they don't
But I have to say despite that it looks pretty good. The nemesis system is clever, at level 25 - a little over halfway to max level 40 - you can create a Nemesis using the same system as is used in character creation (with the ability to describe the kind of villain they are, mastermind, thief, psychotic, etc) who is used in generated missions. I have no doubt people will come up with ways to make shit Nemesis for easy experience, but this really gets me going.
The character creation looks impressive. The physical creator looks more in depth then City of Heroes, but I've heard it has less actual costume pieces, at least to begin with. The actual leveling up and power system looks incredible. I'm seriously all goey in my manparts with anticipation. Just reading the half or so mix-and-matchable powersets they've released details on so far has me coming up with dozens of character ideas.
You see, instead of just picking your class and powersets, the game is open-ended in its design. You pick your opening powers from any powerset you want, and later on you earn roles that you can switch in and out of (with four total equating to most MMO class slots - Balanced, Offence, Defence, and Support). Individual powers within the sets have a number of power requirements you need to satisfy, usually just X (a lower number) of powers already from within that set, or Y (a higher number) of powers from outside of that set. A gun-wielding hero can dip into Supernatural and grab Regeneration with immense ease, or a Might-based hero can dip into Battlesuit for technological attacks.
I know I shouldn't be getting any distractions, now that my Honours Thesis is due in two and a half months, but fuck me this looks awesome.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Superhero MMOs part 2
Let's continue on from this small gem of a post.
As you might guess from that link, this post is about Champions Online. As someone who loves roleplaying games, enjoys roleplaying, but is bored stiff of the usual fantasy cliches, the prospect of a superhero based MMORPG is one that makes me moist.
So to deny the presence of the contenders in this market would be an act of stubbornness that is totally in keeping with my character, but doesn't match with my cool, calm, incorrect self image I've built up about myself. Let's talk about the warriors in this somewhat small ring, discussing their pro's and con's from my entirely selfish perspective.
City of Heroes
Ok, time to be honest. I've played this before, I played it for nearly two years, and in the end I just got bored of it. My main RP character was pretty much dead (at which point I killed him off, for good). It's a good game, and it's the only MMO that kept my attention for long.
It was a good game, it's well established and it's got a solid roleplaying society. However, what killed the character creation for me was the classes. I understand the need for classes in an MMO environment that contains PvP, they make it MASSIVELY easier to balance things, especially in comparison to each other, and it makes it easier for players to work on their playstyle (they know that if they play class X, they should play the game in manner Y). This doesn't mean I enjoy them. I'm not a munchkin or powergamer, I prefer more choices (with the potential for accidently (or delibrately) breaking it) rather then less choices (in order to prevent breakage). Yes, I know it's a very selfish view to take, but it's just my preference. I'd rather have a game with more choices then a perfectly balanced game. This is primarily because I don't play MMOs to be competitive. If I want competition, I play something like Chess or Monopoly where everyone is perfectly balanced already.
DCU Online
DC Universe Online (an MMO based around the DC comic universe, you know, Superman, Batman, etc) is also in the works. It's not going to be ready until much much later, but it's being worked on. Of course, being neither our nor close to release, there isn't a huge amount of info on it. And, I must admit, I haven't been following it closely. I gave it a brief look-through recently after checking out the Champions Online powersets for the fifth time that day.
First impressions are... mixed. It's got some things I like, some things I find a bit tacky/dodgy, and alot of gaps in information. One thing I have to admit admiring is it's method of dealing with loot. Loot is a fact of life in the modern MMO model. You play/grind the game through for two rewards:
1. The gradual, guaranteed reward of experience and levels. This is what makes each individual action worthwhile in the game (at least until you hit max level).
2. The random, unpredictable action of loot. That is what keeps people playing past max level, and punctuates an evening's worth of gaming with a few moments of "hell yeah!" to convince you you're having more fun then you are.
Ahem, sorry, tangent. Anyway, loot. In a superhero game, appearance is everything. In a Fantasy MMO your equipment is MEANT to change your look, it's a primary factor, it's a sign of "hey hey, look at how awesome I am, I've got this sweet loot".
However, like I said, in a Superhero game you want control over your appearance. Superman doesn't look exactly the same as everyone else with the same gear, why should your superhero? So, how does DCUO get around it? Easy, it allows you to toggle on and off which pieces of gear are visible. I think this is a neat solution to the problem, and one I'm going to shout the awesomeness of from the rooftops.
Champions Online
Ya know what, I'm tired. Let's continue this another day. TUNE IN NEXT POST FOR THE ADVENTURES OF COMPLAINY, THE BLOG POSTER.
As you might guess from that link, this post is about Champions Online. As someone who loves roleplaying games, enjoys roleplaying, but is bored stiff of the usual fantasy cliches, the prospect of a superhero based MMORPG is one that makes me moist.
So to deny the presence of the contenders in this market would be an act of stubbornness that is totally in keeping with my character, but doesn't match with my cool, calm, incorrect self image I've built up about myself. Let's talk about the warriors in this somewhat small ring, discussing their pro's and con's from my entirely selfish perspective.
City of Heroes
Ok, time to be honest. I've played this before, I played it for nearly two years, and in the end I just got bored of it. My main RP character was pretty much dead (at which point I killed him off, for good). It's a good game, and it's the only MMO that kept my attention for long.
It was a good game, it's well established and it's got a solid roleplaying society. However, what killed the character creation for me was the classes. I understand the need for classes in an MMO environment that contains PvP, they make it MASSIVELY easier to balance things, especially in comparison to each other, and it makes it easier for players to work on their playstyle (they know that if they play class X, they should play the game in manner Y). This doesn't mean I enjoy them. I'm not a munchkin or powergamer, I prefer more choices (with the potential for accidently (or delibrately) breaking it) rather then less choices (in order to prevent breakage). Yes, I know it's a very selfish view to take, but it's just my preference. I'd rather have a game with more choices then a perfectly balanced game. This is primarily because I don't play MMOs to be competitive. If I want competition, I play something like Chess or Monopoly where everyone is perfectly balanced already.
DCU Online
DC Universe Online (an MMO based around the DC comic universe, you know, Superman, Batman, etc) is also in the works. It's not going to be ready until much much later, but it's being worked on. Of course, being neither our nor close to release, there isn't a huge amount of info on it. And, I must admit, I haven't been following it closely. I gave it a brief look-through recently after checking out the Champions Online powersets for the fifth time that day.
First impressions are... mixed. It's got some things I like, some things I find a bit tacky/dodgy, and alot of gaps in information. One thing I have to admit admiring is it's method of dealing with loot. Loot is a fact of life in the modern MMO model. You play/grind the game through for two rewards:
1. The gradual, guaranteed reward of experience and levels. This is what makes each individual action worthwhile in the game (at least until you hit max level).
2. The random, unpredictable action of loot. That is what keeps people playing past max level, and punctuates an evening's worth of gaming with a few moments of "hell yeah!" to convince you you're having more fun then you are.
Ahem, sorry, tangent. Anyway, loot. In a superhero game, appearance is everything. In a Fantasy MMO your equipment is MEANT to change your look, it's a primary factor, it's a sign of "hey hey, look at how awesome I am, I've got this sweet loot".
However, like I said, in a Superhero game you want control over your appearance. Superman doesn't look exactly the same as everyone else with the same gear, why should your superhero? So, how does DCUO get around it? Easy, it allows you to toggle on and off which pieces of gear are visible. I think this is a neat solution to the problem, and one I'm going to shout the awesomeness of from the rooftops.
Champions Online
Ya know what, I'm tired. Let's continue this another day. TUNE IN NEXT POST FOR THE ADVENTURES OF COMPLAINY, THE BLOG POSTER.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thoughts on Infamous
Having finished Infamous twice now, once good and once evil, I have to say that I both love the game, and at the same time I'm disappointed by it.
It is a great game with great gameplay, an enjoyable story, and is a great experience for any gamer. However, my complaint comes from the moral choice system. I have already said in this post what my idea moral choice system for any modern superhero game would be, so I won't go into that.
Infamous's moral choice system makes the common mistake of "Good" or "Evil", no real middle ground involved. However the vast majority of the story ignored which choice you made. The only impact your goodness or evilness had was the power upgrades available (which, of course, is gameplay rather then story), a couple of brief mentions, how the public reacted to you, and one or two cutscenes. The entire rest of the game's story ignores the fact that you're either an asshole or a saint and reacts the same way. The only real story factor that is influenced by your good or evil nature is how your girlfriend reacts to you.
That to me was disappointing. I wanted to feel some kind of difference on my second play through, when the only appreciable change was there were more explosions, evil-side.
Building on the explosion factor and moving in a completely different direction for point 2: Something I found unusual is that the evil side had a genuinely easier time with the final boss fights. Indeed most things, with only one real weakness at all.
You see, the common theme among comparisons between good and evil characters is that good characters get little bonus' to health, healing, etc etc, and evil characters blow shit up. That is followed to the letter in Infamous, with the good upgrades all being about precision attacking and with every hit of your basic lightning bolt attack giving you more energy and health, and all the evil upgrades consisting of "Here is an explosion".
I'm not exaggerating, pretty much every evil power upgrade adds an explosion somehow, or makes a pre-existing explosion more likely to happen and stronger. Basically this means that evil characters do a great deal more damage at the cost of getting less energy and health. However seeing as Infamous takes place in a city chock-full of electricy and you can drain the stuff for health and energy, this really doesn't matter much. In fact, the only time the evil side is weaker then the good side is when there is no electricy to drain, which happens very rarely and usually is only so you feel threatened while getting from point A to point B, rather then actually fighting things.
When I fought the final boss as the good side, precision meant jack shit all since he was genuinely tougher then an armoured truck, and the health and energy boosts are rendered irrelevant by the excessive amount of energy drain power cables conveniently sticking out of the earth. So it took a few goes but I beat him.
Fighting the final boss with the evil side rolls around and suddenly the excessive amount of explosions are ridonkulously useful. In fact I got through the fight in a single go. And I don't attribute this to me being better the second time through, since I don't believe I had appreciatably improved since finishing the game the first time. Apparently being able to stick 7 miniature explosive electrical charges on someone's face was enough to slow them down appreciatably, as opposed to the good option, where I was able to precisely put a single explosive charge in their face, which made them scratch their nose but otherwise had little impact.
Long story short: There needs to be more difference between good and evil for it to really be a selling point for the game. And the game is too easy for evil people.
It is a great game with great gameplay, an enjoyable story, and is a great experience for any gamer. However, my complaint comes from the moral choice system. I have already said in this post what my idea moral choice system for any modern superhero game would be, so I won't go into that.
Infamous's moral choice system makes the common mistake of "Good" or "Evil", no real middle ground involved. However the vast majority of the story ignored which choice you made. The only impact your goodness or evilness had was the power upgrades available (which, of course, is gameplay rather then story), a couple of brief mentions, how the public reacted to you, and one or two cutscenes. The entire rest of the game's story ignores the fact that you're either an asshole or a saint and reacts the same way. The only real story factor that is influenced by your good or evil nature is how your girlfriend reacts to you.
That to me was disappointing. I wanted to feel some kind of difference on my second play through, when the only appreciable change was there were more explosions, evil-side.
Building on the explosion factor and moving in a completely different direction for point 2: Something I found unusual is that the evil side had a genuinely easier time with the final boss fights. Indeed most things, with only one real weakness at all.
You see, the common theme among comparisons between good and evil characters is that good characters get little bonus' to health, healing, etc etc, and evil characters blow shit up. That is followed to the letter in Infamous, with the good upgrades all being about precision attacking and with every hit of your basic lightning bolt attack giving you more energy and health, and all the evil upgrades consisting of "Here is an explosion".
I'm not exaggerating, pretty much every evil power upgrade adds an explosion somehow, or makes a pre-existing explosion more likely to happen and stronger. Basically this means that evil characters do a great deal more damage at the cost of getting less energy and health. However seeing as Infamous takes place in a city chock-full of electricy and you can drain the stuff for health and energy, this really doesn't matter much. In fact, the only time the evil side is weaker then the good side is when there is no electricy to drain, which happens very rarely and usually is only so you feel threatened while getting from point A to point B, rather then actually fighting things.
When I fought the final boss as the good side, precision meant jack shit all since he was genuinely tougher then an armoured truck, and the health and energy boosts are rendered irrelevant by the excessive amount of energy drain power cables conveniently sticking out of the earth. So it took a few goes but I beat him.
Fighting the final boss with the evil side rolls around and suddenly the excessive amount of explosions are ridonkulously useful. In fact I got through the fight in a single go. And I don't attribute this to me being better the second time through, since I don't believe I had appreciatably improved since finishing the game the first time. Apparently being able to stick 7 miniature explosive electrical charges on someone's face was enough to slow them down appreciatably, as opposed to the good option, where I was able to precisely put a single explosive charge in their face, which made them scratch their nose but otherwise had little impact.
Long story short: There needs to be more difference between good and evil for it to really be a selling point for the game. And the game is too easy for evil people.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Super hero MMOs
Champions Online
As I have mentioned previously, I was a regular player of City of Heroes. Despite knowing it was the right move to abandon the game when I did, I still occasionally feel pangs of longing to return to the pixelated spandex and beat up two dimensional characters, and that's just the PvP (HA HA, I kid, City of Heroes PvP was atrocious).
To those of you not in the know, at one point during the maintaining of City of Heroes, Cryptic, the lead developers, sold the game to NCSoft, the publishers, and went off on their own. Except they didn't, not really, they instead decided to make Marvel Online, a rival Super-hero based MMO from the ground up, using the feedback they'd received about City of Heroes but had been unable to use because of engine limitations.
But then Marvel pulled their sponsorship, so all would be right in the field of fair-play. So Cryptic changed it from Marvel Online to Champions Online, and once more things were not right in the field of fair-play.
So now here I am, stuck between a rock and a hard place. The rock? Potentially enjoyable online superhero gaming. The Hard Place? Pain in the arse arbitrary morals. I know I owe NCSoft nothing, they're as much a faceless corporation as Cryptic is. It just bugs me that Cryptic split off to make their own game in the exact same area their previous game is based, using information gained from their previous game. It doesn't feel right or ethical to me.
But holy shit, they have a specially designed pre-conceived character type about Technology Suits. Holy shit. I have a nerdrection.
As I have mentioned previously, I was a regular player of City of Heroes. Despite knowing it was the right move to abandon the game when I did, I still occasionally feel pangs of longing to return to the pixelated spandex and beat up two dimensional characters, and that's just the PvP (HA HA, I kid, City of Heroes PvP was atrocious).
To those of you not in the know, at one point during the maintaining of City of Heroes, Cryptic, the lead developers, sold the game to NCSoft, the publishers, and went off on their own. Except they didn't, not really, they instead decided to make Marvel Online, a rival Super-hero based MMO from the ground up, using the feedback they'd received about City of Heroes but had been unable to use because of engine limitations.
But then Marvel pulled their sponsorship, so all would be right in the field of fair-play. So Cryptic changed it from Marvel Online to Champions Online, and once more things were not right in the field of fair-play.
So now here I am, stuck between a rock and a hard place. The rock? Potentially enjoyable online superhero gaming. The Hard Place? Pain in the arse arbitrary morals. I know I owe NCSoft nothing, they're as much a faceless corporation as Cryptic is. It just bugs me that Cryptic split off to make their own game in the exact same area their previous game is based, using information gained from their previous game. It doesn't feel right or ethical to me.
But holy shit, they have a specially designed pre-conceived character type about Technology Suits. Holy shit. I have a nerdrection.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
This blog is dying
Not really, it's just looking a bit emaciated after I haven't been feeding it the required number of weekly posts. I'm going to continue starving it on account that I'm a lazy prick, but for now have a short post.
JADE EMPIRE
One of the games Bioware have pumped out after I jumped heavily on their bandwagon post-Neverwinter Nights 1, and with the dubious honour of being the one I haven't played. Until NOW, that is.
Let's get one thing out of the way. The character advancement system seems... dull. Like, really, REALLY dull. There's NO meat to it, differentiating between characters isn't easy, since there are only three stats (the all-inclusive 'Body', and the rather baffling 'Mind' and 'Spirit') and the only other customisation is for martial arts styles which is more like generic upgrades. The lack of equippable weaponry and armor is sort of mind-scratchingly bewildering as well.
However, for a game with such dating graphics it's aged well. Like, REALLY well. There's a unifying artistic theme that just strikes the right note. A sort of 'Magi-punk china' feel that just draws you in and immerses you quite well. When one of the Big Bad Evil Guys (The 'Black Hand') violates the aesthetic (he looks like a black clad samurai) he stands out and seems otherworldly, but he still looks like he BELONGS. It's not like dumping a medieval Knight in the middle of a street, as anachronistic artistic styles in a game can sometimes look like.
Although I would like to see ONE RPG where your village doesn't get destroyed. Seriously, if I'm ever in a quiet harmless town and I see a protagonist walking past, I am getting the fuck out of dodge.
JADE EMPIRE
One of the games Bioware have pumped out after I jumped heavily on their bandwagon post-Neverwinter Nights 1, and with the dubious honour of being the one I haven't played. Until NOW, that is.
Let's get one thing out of the way. The character advancement system seems... dull. Like, really, REALLY dull. There's NO meat to it, differentiating between characters isn't easy, since there are only three stats (the all-inclusive 'Body', and the rather baffling 'Mind' and 'Spirit') and the only other customisation is for martial arts styles which is more like generic upgrades. The lack of equippable weaponry and armor is sort of mind-scratchingly bewildering as well.
However, for a game with such dating graphics it's aged well. Like, REALLY well. There's a unifying artistic theme that just strikes the right note. A sort of 'Magi-punk china' feel that just draws you in and immerses you quite well. When one of the Big Bad Evil Guys (The 'Black Hand') violates the aesthetic (he looks like a black clad samurai) he stands out and seems otherworldly, but he still looks like he BELONGS. It's not like dumping a medieval Knight in the middle of a street, as anachronistic artistic styles in a game can sometimes look like.
Although I would like to see ONE RPG where your village doesn't get destroyed. Seriously, if I'm ever in a quiet harmless town and I see a protagonist walking past, I am getting the fuck out of dodge.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Considering GMing
Nerdtastic. To those who know me and don't wish to tarnish the herculean image you have of me with the nerderific stuff I'm about to sprout, look away.
So my nerdtasticality is springing back.
To those new readers, look back through my archive and, at one point or another, I will have mentioned that I've GMed an internet based PnP RPG. If you have no idea what those acronyms mean, then you're in the wrong place. Though since I'm generous, I'll give them to you.
GMed: Games Mastered. Basically been the referee/storyteller.
PnP: Pen and Paper. Non-computer based, done physically using dice (or other random generators, or imagination if you're a moron), and pens and paper to record results.
RPG: Role Playing Game.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm ashamed of myself, let's move on to the post.
The thing is, I'm not SO ashamed I don't want to give it a try again. I've found a pretty cool RPG system, Silhouette. It's even got a universe I don't mind too much. Next time I'll have to screen my players better, since I had some REAL duds.
1. Quiet girl. Sat around not talking much and wondering why no one dragged her into it
2. Know it all. Demanded to play a randomly complex character, was upset when things didn't revolve around him, and had an irritating habit of doing really, REALLY stupid ideas.
3. Overly eloquent dude. "I reach over and flick the ship into autopilot, then say to (soldier) 'So what happened back there?" THERE! Was that so hard to type! No. You don't need FOUR GODDAMNED LINES to say that! Nor do you need to take five minutes to type it all, slowing EVERYTHING down for everyone else. I went and got lunch MULTIPLE times during your typing.
4. Sex fiend. He seemed WAY too interested in the female characters. I found out later he tried to sollicit cybersex from them out of the gaming sessions. "We should RP out our characters in the background, don't you think?"
5. Hot chick. "What's your character like?" "Haughty hot chick." "Oh....kay. What's their personality?" "Haughty hot chick." "Appearance?" "Haughty hot chick."
I shouldn't be too rough on 5 or 1. They were the only ones I'd make an effort to invite back if I tried again. They were good value.
So what's the appeal of the Silhouette system? I'm pretty sure I've discussed the system before, but what the hell I'll do it again.
Normally games have a dichotomy of success and failure in the dice rolls, with some having 'critical success' or 'critical failure' if you roll exceptionally high and low. Silhouette dice rolling works on 'margin of success/failure'. If you fail by a certain amount, the GM is free to ascribe penalties. Most in-built mechanics require the margin of success. E.G. If you attack someone, the margin of success of the attack then has the weapon used's damage multiplier applied to work out how much damage is done.
At first I was intimidated by the rules. There are ALOT of them, and some of them involve maths I honestly never thought I'd need in life after high school maths. But then I finally realised something: Most of them are pretty optional, or so specific you don't NEED to remember them off-hand.
One problem I do have is the lack of guidelines with the vehicle creation rules. Basically you can make ANYTHING your imagination can come up with. This is good, but when you have NO idea what is normal, what is excessive, and what is lacking, it makes it intimidating. Plus it requires the same over the top maths.
Still, Silhouette system, here I come. Probably in Jovian Chronicles. Who can say no to 20 meter tall giant robots blowing shit up?
So my nerdtasticality is springing back.
To those new readers, look back through my archive and, at one point or another, I will have mentioned that I've GMed an internet based PnP RPG. If you have no idea what those acronyms mean, then you're in the wrong place. Though since I'm generous, I'll give them to you.
GMed: Games Mastered. Basically been the referee/storyteller.
PnP: Pen and Paper. Non-computer based, done physically using dice (or other random generators, or imagination if you're a moron), and pens and paper to record results.
RPG: Role Playing Game.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm ashamed of myself, let's move on to the post.
The thing is, I'm not SO ashamed I don't want to give it a try again. I've found a pretty cool RPG system, Silhouette. It's even got a universe I don't mind too much. Next time I'll have to screen my players better, since I had some REAL duds.
1. Quiet girl. Sat around not talking much and wondering why no one dragged her into it
2. Know it all. Demanded to play a randomly complex character, was upset when things didn't revolve around him, and had an irritating habit of doing really, REALLY stupid ideas.
3. Overly eloquent dude. "I reach over and flick the ship into autopilot, then say to (soldier) 'So what happened back there?" THERE! Was that so hard to type! No. You don't need FOUR GODDAMNED LINES to say that! Nor do you need to take five minutes to type it all, slowing EVERYTHING down for everyone else. I went and got lunch MULTIPLE times during your typing.
4. Sex fiend. He seemed WAY too interested in the female characters. I found out later he tried to sollicit cybersex from them out of the gaming sessions. "We should RP out our characters in the background, don't you think?"
5. Hot chick. "What's your character like?" "Haughty hot chick." "Oh....kay. What's their personality?" "Haughty hot chick." "Appearance?" "Haughty hot chick."
I shouldn't be too rough on 5 or 1. They were the only ones I'd make an effort to invite back if I tried again. They were good value.
So what's the appeal of the Silhouette system? I'm pretty sure I've discussed the system before, but what the hell I'll do it again.
Normally games have a dichotomy of success and failure in the dice rolls, with some having 'critical success' or 'critical failure' if you roll exceptionally high and low. Silhouette dice rolling works on 'margin of success/failure'. If you fail by a certain amount, the GM is free to ascribe penalties. Most in-built mechanics require the margin of success. E.G. If you attack someone, the margin of success of the attack then has the weapon used's damage multiplier applied to work out how much damage is done.
At first I was intimidated by the rules. There are ALOT of them, and some of them involve maths I honestly never thought I'd need in life after high school maths. But then I finally realised something: Most of them are pretty optional, or so specific you don't NEED to remember them off-hand.
One problem I do have is the lack of guidelines with the vehicle creation rules. Basically you can make ANYTHING your imagination can come up with. This is good, but when you have NO idea what is normal, what is excessive, and what is lacking, it makes it intimidating. Plus it requires the same over the top maths.
Still, Silhouette system, here I come. Probably in Jovian Chronicles. Who can say no to 20 meter tall giant robots blowing shit up?
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The problems with KotOR 2
Let me start off by saying I can appreciate what Obsidian were trying to do with this game, trying to delve somewhat into the philosophical stance of the Force, if it can be genuinely trusted as an amorphous energy field interacted with through the means of ring-worms, or if it should merely be seen as a tool. They tried to expand upon the different philosophies of the light side and the dark side, attempting to present the extremes of both as the problematic doctrines they would likely be were they to actually exist.
Now let's get into the real fact of the matter. The real fact of the matter is that were Knights of the Old Republic 2 a sexual act performed by a beautiful woman, it would convince me a life of celibacy is a reasonable alternative.
The additions to the roleplaying advancement system from KotOR feel more like a "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if X!?" rather then "We've done testing, and analysis and decided this will be a balanced addition." This meant that playing as anything other then the super-speedy "I get 7 attacks per turn and thus do seven times the damage of EVERYONE ELSE" Jedi is effectively choosing the harder path. Note I say 'harder' not 'hard' since the game is ridiculously easy. I understand you're meant to feel like an all-powerful Jedi, but on my three playthroughs I never felt like I was in any type of danger at any point.
But as the first Knights of the Old Republic proved you can get away with less then amazing gameplay if the story is worth it, and for me KotOR 2 just proved this. It proved it by having a horendous story, and thus not getting away with it.
A common cliche used in games where the past of the character is very important is to give them amnesia so they have to slowly discover what it is they did and why it triggered the impending zompocalpyse, hopefully before they get their faces eaten off. KotOR2 did something similar to this, in that your backstory is very important to the current story, but they it forgets to tell you what it is until about 5 hours in, and even then it's only dribs and drabs. Seriously, how hard would it be for them to throw in something early on letting you know that you don't like the Jedi, you're a war general, and you were responsible for one of the worst attrocities in the entire Mandalorian War (WHOOPS. SPOILERS)? I always try to play the light side goodie goodie first in games with moral choices, so it would've been nice to know that suddenly having my character loving the Jedi is a complete about-face for the mad bastard with a poor memory.
One of the goals of characters on your side is to have them someone the playercan sympathise with, even if they're not entirely likeable if you can sympathise with them and their situation it's much easier to care when they're in trouble. In this regard KotOR 2 failed miserably, as the only character who's even joining you made sense was the personality-blank Zabrak, who was a supposedly melee fighter but who had so few hitpoints there was no point in taking him anywhere, thus you just left him on the ship, whipping him and screaming "Make me a goddamned lightsaber".
All the others either joined the party so late in the game or made so little sense with their presence most of the time you were sitting there saying "Why the hell are you even here!? Don't you have jobs you people could be doing rather then mooching off of the food processor of my ship!?"
There is one exception to this though. the elderly female ex-jedi DOES have a reason to be there, as she tries to 'teach' you, but seeing as the only way to make her happy is to be a manipulative wanker and she happily insults everyone who dares to breath the same air as you, I was getting a bit of a creepy vibe from her and decided to leave her in the ship. (WHOOPS. SPOILERS) Then later on when her betrayal happens and you have to track her down, are you supposed to feel sorry for her, surprised at the betrayal, or angered maybe? I didn't feel any of that, I was just glad I got the chance to kill the smug little pain in the arse in the end, and was wondering when the final dialogue would end so I could put my lightsaber in her creepy face.
And that's another problem. In Knights 1 there was a major genuine threat (a giant ever-growing armada of evil space ships coming from an unknown source intent on squashing the galaxy flat beneath it's boot? I'd call that a threat), but in Knights 2 you just never feel it. Early on in the game you get introduced to Sith Frankenstein and his Sith Assassins, then you bounce around for a while without any major menacing of you except from the easily defeated "I can't believe it's not HK-47" assassin droids (which I wish I could learn more about but can't because they released the game six months early), and even those droids aren't much of a threat.
After a while you're introduced to the threat of Sith "Long Dark Robes and stupid mask" (or LorD RASM for short). Well I tell a lie, you don't meet Lord Rasm, you meet his apprentice, who you kick the snot out of and she joins you. I didn't realise that was the normal way to get employees in the Star Wars universe. Lord Rasm is supposed to be heavily threatening, but that's the thing, neither he nor Sith Frankenstein seem to have a real goal other then "Cause shit and screw things up for the player". They don't seem to have any genuine kind of plan, and barely seem to acknowledge each other's existence beyond one or two cutscenes. In fact the randomness of their actions make it difficult to work out who the Sith troopers you meet belong to, or if you just happen to be running across they out of coincidence. They feel less like powerful Sith Lords and threats to the galaxy and more like annoying little boys on the right carpet who've worked out how to use static electricity to zap people.
Finally, the pacing of the game makes little sense. As an example, early on in the game you're fighting your way through a space station/ship. Well I say fighting, you're just walking through it and occasionally you see a spawn of Sith Assassins ten feet away who were supposed to be invisible, but it's quite obvious they were just created. You kill them, take their stuff (very little of which makes sense "Barry, why are you carrying that antique armour into battle?" "Well I don't want to lose it, do I? I wish Sith Frankenstein would give us lockers...") and move on. At no point do you feel rushed, with plenty of time to wander around and take all the stuff you see. You get through it all (whoop-di-do), get to your escape ship without any threat in sight for the last three rooms, walk in, and suddenly the exciting music starts up.
"It'll take some time to get the engines working! You'd better give the gun turret a workout!"
Wait, what? Is that normal practice in the Star Wars universe? The engine is starting up, quick, shoot up the hanger for a laugh.
Suddenly it goes to a cutscene where you're all under fire while getting into the ship. Huh!? Where did this come from!? Was I meant to feel like I was being rushed? Then you're in the gun turret and shooting at the same soldiers you killed in Knights 1, with no explanation how they got there. You just went THROUGH the ship they would've arrived on to get to your own ship! Surely you would've noticed one or two as you were taking all their shit!
Which is another thing, the game never explains where they came from. Supposedly they're all just leftovers from the Sith in Knights 1, who decide to join up with the Sith Lords, but to me that makes no sense. "We've all just got our aces kick in the war, let's join up with these guys and keep fighting a war we have no chance of winning, under some people who have no real objective." And why keep the same uniforms? They're just associated with losing now. Or maybe they were on discount at the "Evil henchman uniform rental shop" because of all the lightsaber holes.
That's one thing that makes no sense. They never really explain where these Sith guys came from, and them having huge infrastructure around themselves makes little sense, it's just there to give them an aura of menace and so you can kill lots of people on your way up to them. They might as well call their armies "XP & Loot Battalion"
(WHOOPS. SPOILERS) Since the Big-Bad of the end is in your party the entire time, it feels like Darth Frankenstein and Lord Rasm are there simply to waste time while you're getting to know her so you feel bad about having to fight her in the end.
One final complaint (the final being written out at least, I have MANY more complaints): One of the genuine appeals of playing as a Jedi in games is the chance to use a laser sword to cauterise bad guy's anus' shut. Unless you play KotOR 2 in a very specific order you might spend ages before you finally get a god-damned lightsaber. You might not even get one if you forget to check specific places in locations you can't go back to. Call me picky, but if I'm playing as a Jedi, I want access to a lightsaber by the time the enormously long introduction is friggin' finished, not twenty minutes before I have to face the first boss. It all seems very deliberately pushing you towards playing the 'optional' planets in a specific order, but without any hints what that order is meant to be. If you don't do Nar Shadaa first, you'll be without lightsaber OR HK-47 (the two good things about the game) for ages, something that sucks more then.... something that sucks enormously.
I tell a lie, one last complaint. I understand the engine used in the game had limitations, but surely the cutscenes didn't have to be THAT awkward. 50% of the time the cutscenes made no sense and you had to guess what the hell was meant to be happening, something not made easier by the bugginess of certain things. This is a problem that existed in KotOR 1 as well, but in number 2 it just seems so much more prevelent.
But seeing as I've spent so long pounding the game, I should end on a good note, I suppose.
The game has HK-47 in it.
Query: What more do you need?
Now let's get into the real fact of the matter. The real fact of the matter is that were Knights of the Old Republic 2 a sexual act performed by a beautiful woman, it would convince me a life of celibacy is a reasonable alternative.
The additions to the roleplaying advancement system from KotOR feel more like a "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if X!?" rather then "We've done testing, and analysis and decided this will be a balanced addition." This meant that playing as anything other then the super-speedy "I get 7 attacks per turn and thus do seven times the damage of EVERYONE ELSE" Jedi is effectively choosing the harder path. Note I say 'harder' not 'hard' since the game is ridiculously easy. I understand you're meant to feel like an all-powerful Jedi, but on my three playthroughs I never felt like I was in any type of danger at any point.
But as the first Knights of the Old Republic proved you can get away with less then amazing gameplay if the story is worth it, and for me KotOR 2 just proved this. It proved it by having a horendous story, and thus not getting away with it.
A common cliche used in games where the past of the character is very important is to give them amnesia so they have to slowly discover what it is they did and why it triggered the impending zompocalpyse, hopefully before they get their faces eaten off. KotOR2 did something similar to this, in that your backstory is very important to the current story, but they it forgets to tell you what it is until about 5 hours in, and even then it's only dribs and drabs. Seriously, how hard would it be for them to throw in something early on letting you know that you don't like the Jedi, you're a war general, and you were responsible for one of the worst attrocities in the entire Mandalorian War (WHOOPS. SPOILERS)? I always try to play the light side goodie goodie first in games with moral choices, so it would've been nice to know that suddenly having my character loving the Jedi is a complete about-face for the mad bastard with a poor memory.
One of the goals of characters on your side is to have them someone the playercan sympathise with, even if they're not entirely likeable if you can sympathise with them and their situation it's much easier to care when they're in trouble. In this regard KotOR 2 failed miserably, as the only character who's even joining you made sense was the personality-blank Zabrak, who was a supposedly melee fighter but who had so few hitpoints there was no point in taking him anywhere, thus you just left him on the ship, whipping him and screaming "Make me a goddamned lightsaber".
All the others either joined the party so late in the game or made so little sense with their presence most of the time you were sitting there saying "Why the hell are you even here!? Don't you have jobs you people could be doing rather then mooching off of the food processor of my ship!?"
There is one exception to this though. the elderly female ex-jedi DOES have a reason to be there, as she tries to 'teach' you, but seeing as the only way to make her happy is to be a manipulative wanker and she happily insults everyone who dares to breath the same air as you, I was getting a bit of a creepy vibe from her and decided to leave her in the ship. (WHOOPS. SPOILERS) Then later on when her betrayal happens and you have to track her down, are you supposed to feel sorry for her, surprised at the betrayal, or angered maybe? I didn't feel any of that, I was just glad I got the chance to kill the smug little pain in the arse in the end, and was wondering when the final dialogue would end so I could put my lightsaber in her creepy face.
And that's another problem. In Knights 1 there was a major genuine threat (a giant ever-growing armada of evil space ships coming from an unknown source intent on squashing the galaxy flat beneath it's boot? I'd call that a threat), but in Knights 2 you just never feel it. Early on in the game you get introduced to Sith Frankenstein and his Sith Assassins, then you bounce around for a while without any major menacing of you except from the easily defeated "I can't believe it's not HK-47" assassin droids (which I wish I could learn more about but can't because they released the game six months early), and even those droids aren't much of a threat.
After a while you're introduced to the threat of Sith "Long Dark Robes and stupid mask" (or LorD RASM for short). Well I tell a lie, you don't meet Lord Rasm, you meet his apprentice, who you kick the snot out of and she joins you. I didn't realise that was the normal way to get employees in the Star Wars universe. Lord Rasm is supposed to be heavily threatening, but that's the thing, neither he nor Sith Frankenstein seem to have a real goal other then "Cause shit and screw things up for the player". They don't seem to have any genuine kind of plan, and barely seem to acknowledge each other's existence beyond one or two cutscenes. In fact the randomness of their actions make it difficult to work out who the Sith troopers you meet belong to, or if you just happen to be running across they out of coincidence. They feel less like powerful Sith Lords and threats to the galaxy and more like annoying little boys on the right carpet who've worked out how to use static electricity to zap people.
Finally, the pacing of the game makes little sense. As an example, early on in the game you're fighting your way through a space station/ship. Well I say fighting, you're just walking through it and occasionally you see a spawn of Sith Assassins ten feet away who were supposed to be invisible, but it's quite obvious they were just created. You kill them, take their stuff (very little of which makes sense "Barry, why are you carrying that antique armour into battle?" "Well I don't want to lose it, do I? I wish Sith Frankenstein would give us lockers...") and move on. At no point do you feel rushed, with plenty of time to wander around and take all the stuff you see. You get through it all (whoop-di-do), get to your escape ship without any threat in sight for the last three rooms, walk in, and suddenly the exciting music starts up.
"It'll take some time to get the engines working! You'd better give the gun turret a workout!"
Wait, what? Is that normal practice in the Star Wars universe? The engine is starting up, quick, shoot up the hanger for a laugh.
Suddenly it goes to a cutscene where you're all under fire while getting into the ship. Huh!? Where did this come from!? Was I meant to feel like I was being rushed? Then you're in the gun turret and shooting at the same soldiers you killed in Knights 1, with no explanation how they got there. You just went THROUGH the ship they would've arrived on to get to your own ship! Surely you would've noticed one or two as you were taking all their shit!
Which is another thing, the game never explains where they came from. Supposedly they're all just leftovers from the Sith in Knights 1, who decide to join up with the Sith Lords, but to me that makes no sense. "We've all just got our aces kick in the war, let's join up with these guys and keep fighting a war we have no chance of winning, under some people who have no real objective." And why keep the same uniforms? They're just associated with losing now. Or maybe they were on discount at the "Evil henchman uniform rental shop" because of all the lightsaber holes.
That's one thing that makes no sense. They never really explain where these Sith guys came from, and them having huge infrastructure around themselves makes little sense, it's just there to give them an aura of menace and so you can kill lots of people on your way up to them. They might as well call their armies "XP & Loot Battalion"
(WHOOPS. SPOILERS) Since the Big-Bad of the end is in your party the entire time, it feels like Darth Frankenstein and Lord Rasm are there simply to waste time while you're getting to know her so you feel bad about having to fight her in the end.
One final complaint (the final being written out at least, I have MANY more complaints): One of the genuine appeals of playing as a Jedi in games is the chance to use a laser sword to cauterise bad guy's anus' shut. Unless you play KotOR 2 in a very specific order you might spend ages before you finally get a god-damned lightsaber. You might not even get one if you forget to check specific places in locations you can't go back to. Call me picky, but if I'm playing as a Jedi, I want access to a lightsaber by the time the enormously long introduction is friggin' finished, not twenty minutes before I have to face the first boss. It all seems very deliberately pushing you towards playing the 'optional' planets in a specific order, but without any hints what that order is meant to be. If you don't do Nar Shadaa first, you'll be without lightsaber OR HK-47 (the two good things about the game) for ages, something that sucks more then.... something that sucks enormously.
I tell a lie, one last complaint. I understand the engine used in the game had limitations, but surely the cutscenes didn't have to be THAT awkward. 50% of the time the cutscenes made no sense and you had to guess what the hell was meant to be happening, something not made easier by the bugginess of certain things. This is a problem that existed in KotOR 1 as well, but in number 2 it just seems so much more prevelent.
But seeing as I've spent so long pounding the game, I should end on a good note, I suppose.
The game has HK-47 in it.
Query: What more do you need?
Saturday, January 24, 2009
I did not care about Aeris' death
Aside: Every time conversations turn to tattoos I say the same thing. "I don't really care either way about other people getting them, but for me I don't think that's my style. And even if it was, I can't think of what I would get." That is at a change. They still aren't my style, but I've worked out what I would get. The symbol used by The Flash, the DC character. I'll explain why NEXT post.
In this post, I feel I must defend a statement I made in my last post, after a couple of people mentioned it to me.
This statement is the rather controversial one, in which I said I felt nothing for Aeris when she died in Final Fantasy 7 (WHOOPS. SPOILERS.) I didn't feel anything at the time because of my attitude when playing the game, and I didn't feel anything when recently replaying the game because of my newly found dislike of FF7. Well, dislike is the wrong word. Allow me to clarify both individual playthrough's perspectives.
1. First playthrough (approx early 1997).
Final Fantasy 7 was pretty much my introduction to RPGs. It was the second game we'd gotten on our brand new PlayStation (as in, 1, the original, the first therefore not needing a sequel designation), and it was being touted as the sperm-based emissions of the second coming of Jesus in CD form. It was such a huge game it needed 3(!!) CDs! Think about that folks! That's like, nearly 2 gigabyte of size! You don't get games like that anymore, oh no.
It was released back in January 1997, literally a dozen years ago now, and I was at the grand old age of 10. The story was shallow enough I could understand what was going on, but deep enough for me to feel like it was an epic, grand tale of adventure and awesomeness. The character were easy to understand but had actual LINES, so it felt like I was part of a movie or something.
Aeris, in the middle of this, just shat me to tears. Her personality was wooden and forced and her joining Cloud just felt ridiculous. She shows up, flirts at 'you'/Cloud (rather then with the character) and one of her first acts is to dress up the big-tough-soldier your character is meant to be in women's clothing, bringing about huge numbers of rather awkward jokes that even to a 10 year old felt in poor taste.
At no point did she demonstrate any real degree of personality to me, a ten year old, beyond the statement "I've got a magical bloodline, and I've got a thing for the protagonist". And so, for that reason, my ten year old brain decided not to include her in my party (and instead to stock it with the manly menly options, since I thought they'd kick more butt betterer). Not that character selection seemed to do much. All it really affected to any degree was some minor dialogue, who tried to go on a date with Cloud, and the limit breaks.
Since she was never in my party, when she suddenly left my party my only reaction was "Good thing I never bought her any crap, I'd hate to lose that money". Then when you saw her again and she was stabbed, my only thought was "Damn, now I want a sword like Sephiroth's even more".
I had no emotional reaction to Aeris' death in Final Fantasy 7 on my first playthrough.
2. Recent replay (approx mid-2008).
You'll note I said in the above section "Final Fantasy 7 was pretty much my introduction to RPGs". As you can imagine, this means I've played many, many of them since then. I have laughed at Deekin's antics (although I admit it took me a while to warm up to the little bastard), felt genuine surprise at the reveal in Knights of the Old Republic, and agonised over the choices in Mass Effect, among many other RPGs I've played. I have played most of them through multiple times, and felt the sting of altitis in an MMO.
Note all of the games on that list are Western style RPGs. For me the Eastern style RPG is not so much a game, but a DVD movie with an exceptionally irritating type of menu to play the game where you can get things wrong. I understand many people out there enjoy the games, but I am not a JRPG fan, and I sincerely doubt I ever will be. For me the joy of RPGs is the customisation, watching the game react to your creation of your own character, and how different types of characters respond to different combat scenarios.
As I said, I genuinely enjoyed Final Fantasy 7 when I first played it, but recently I tried replaying the game and found it rather dull. To use an awkward metaphor it was kind of like the fond memory of your first kiss on the playground, before you realise girls aren't yucky but at the same time quite enjoyable. Having a fond memory of that is fine, but if you go back to that experience 12 years on and start trying to get kisses on the playground you should be locked away. What does that awkward metaphor mean? I mean that just because you have fond memories of something, doesn't mean that it's any good in a dozen years time.
Move on people. Final Fantasy 7 was a grand game when it was released, but now there are many many more games in the area, we don't need constant games and movies drawing on it. Remember it fondly, don't drag it kicking and screaming into modern times.
Ahem. Sorry, tangent rant.
In my recent playthrough I found the story came rather flat. It was 2-dimensional pretending it was 3D, a bit like the original Wolfenstein but with more obvious characterisations of bad guys (and to be more obvious then Nazi's takes a bit of doing). Of course, the glaring differences between JRPGs and Western RPGs reared their ugly heads and I was left wondering if there was any real genuine customisability in the game beyond making everyone as balanced as possible and making sure someone on the team had "Steal" materia. Seeing as you seem to be needing to genuinely try to be able to lose, it did lose some of the "on the seat of your pants" danger it was going for at times.
The inability to decide ANYTHING about your own character besides which two friends he takes along, all the while inexplicably leaving everyone else behind, left a sour taste in my spoiled little Western-RPG-sensibilities. Even if you love tang when you're a child, after you've tasted quality chardonnay it's difficult to go back.
And then I came to the part where I was re-introduced to Aeris. The intervening years hadn't granted her personality any points, and she was still flat as a board intellect wise. "I'm a nice girl who gets caught up in all the chaos, BUT JUST SO HAPPENS I've got a magical bloodline, and I've got a thing for the protagonist". I tell a lie, her personality has grown a whole sixteen more words in the intervening 12 years.
Again, any attempt to feel sympathy and care for her was bludgeoned to death early on when she once more threw my tough grizzled soldier in a dress, rather then let him cut his way through the crime boss' henchmen. Which made no sense, as that's what the character ends up doing once they get inside anyway.
Not to mention she is one of the first things to really throw out my suspension of disbelief. Quiet gentle slum-girl is able to fight just as well as super-soldier terrorist? Even in Anime they'd at least justify it with her having some magical ninja background or something. Then again, at about this point in the game you're being attacked by roving rocket-launching monster robot houses, so I suppose I'm just being picky.
Then came the grand vanishing and her death... and once more I felt nothing. No, I tell a lie, I thought "huh, it would be a semi-reasonable plot twist, if I didn't already know about it." Second lie. I also was impressed at Sepiroth's sword's ability to cut through the sternum. That's a bloody hard bit of bone, right there.
And so, again, I didn't really care about her being killed. Since her particular speciality (magic, according to the stats which seem to affect damn near nothing) was already covered by other party members I liked more, I never took her in the party. I never grew to like the character, and so when her particular collection of 1s and 0s were removed from my party screen, it... didn't bother me.
I do understand that at various points in this post I seemed to have lapsed away from my original position about lack of empathising with Aeris, but at the same time it's all linked. The JRPG style of storytelling makes it difficult for me to relate to the characters, since I feel more like an observer then a participant, which jars with my engrained RPG ideas.
I dunno, maybe I'm just emotionally stunted. I felt nothing at the end of the second act (WHOOPS. SPOILER) of Neverwinter Nights 2, although that could be attributed to horrendous writing. Then again, as a counter, I was genuinely bummed in Mass Effect, when... Oh no, you'll have to play that one yourself.
In this post, I feel I must defend a statement I made in my last post, after a couple of people mentioned it to me.
This statement is the rather controversial one, in which I said I felt nothing for Aeris when she died in Final Fantasy 7 (WHOOPS. SPOILERS.) I didn't feel anything at the time because of my attitude when playing the game, and I didn't feel anything when recently replaying the game because of my newly found dislike of FF7. Well, dislike is the wrong word. Allow me to clarify both individual playthrough's perspectives.
1. First playthrough (approx early 1997).
Final Fantasy 7 was pretty much my introduction to RPGs. It was the second game we'd gotten on our brand new PlayStation (as in, 1, the original, the first therefore not needing a sequel designation), and it was being touted as the sperm-based emissions of the second coming of Jesus in CD form. It was such a huge game it needed 3(!!) CDs! Think about that folks! That's like, nearly 2 gigabyte of size! You don't get games like that anymore, oh no.
It was released back in January 1997, literally a dozen years ago now, and I was at the grand old age of 10. The story was shallow enough I could understand what was going on, but deep enough for me to feel like it was an epic, grand tale of adventure and awesomeness. The character were easy to understand but had actual LINES, so it felt like I was part of a movie or something.
Aeris, in the middle of this, just shat me to tears. Her personality was wooden and forced and her joining Cloud just felt ridiculous. She shows up, flirts at 'you'/Cloud (rather then with the character) and one of her first acts is to dress up the big-tough-soldier your character is meant to be in women's clothing, bringing about huge numbers of rather awkward jokes that even to a 10 year old felt in poor taste.
At no point did she demonstrate any real degree of personality to me, a ten year old, beyond the statement "I've got a magical bloodline, and I've got a thing for the protagonist". And so, for that reason, my ten year old brain decided not to include her in my party (and instead to stock it with the manly menly options, since I thought they'd kick more butt betterer). Not that character selection seemed to do much. All it really affected to any degree was some minor dialogue, who tried to go on a date with Cloud, and the limit breaks.
Since she was never in my party, when she suddenly left my party my only reaction was "Good thing I never bought her any crap, I'd hate to lose that money". Then when you saw her again and she was stabbed, my only thought was "Damn, now I want a sword like Sephiroth's even more".
I had no emotional reaction to Aeris' death in Final Fantasy 7 on my first playthrough.
2. Recent replay (approx mid-2008).
You'll note I said in the above section "Final Fantasy 7 was pretty much my introduction to RPGs". As you can imagine, this means I've played many, many of them since then. I have laughed at Deekin's antics (although I admit it took me a while to warm up to the little bastard), felt genuine surprise at the reveal in Knights of the Old Republic, and agonised over the choices in Mass Effect, among many other RPGs I've played. I have played most of them through multiple times, and felt the sting of altitis in an MMO.
Note all of the games on that list are Western style RPGs. For me the Eastern style RPG is not so much a game, but a DVD movie with an exceptionally irritating type of menu to play the game where you can get things wrong. I understand many people out there enjoy the games, but I am not a JRPG fan, and I sincerely doubt I ever will be. For me the joy of RPGs is the customisation, watching the game react to your creation of your own character, and how different types of characters respond to different combat scenarios.
As I said, I genuinely enjoyed Final Fantasy 7 when I first played it, but recently I tried replaying the game and found it rather dull. To use an awkward metaphor it was kind of like the fond memory of your first kiss on the playground, before you realise girls aren't yucky but at the same time quite enjoyable. Having a fond memory of that is fine, but if you go back to that experience 12 years on and start trying to get kisses on the playground you should be locked away. What does that awkward metaphor mean? I mean that just because you have fond memories of something, doesn't mean that it's any good in a dozen years time.
Move on people. Final Fantasy 7 was a grand game when it was released, but now there are many many more games in the area, we don't need constant games and movies drawing on it. Remember it fondly, don't drag it kicking and screaming into modern times.
Ahem. Sorry, tangent rant.
In my recent playthrough I found the story came rather flat. It was 2-dimensional pretending it was 3D, a bit like the original Wolfenstein but with more obvious characterisations of bad guys (and to be more obvious then Nazi's takes a bit of doing). Of course, the glaring differences between JRPGs and Western RPGs reared their ugly heads and I was left wondering if there was any real genuine customisability in the game beyond making everyone as balanced as possible and making sure someone on the team had "Steal" materia. Seeing as you seem to be needing to genuinely try to be able to lose, it did lose some of the "on the seat of your pants" danger it was going for at times.
The inability to decide ANYTHING about your own character besides which two friends he takes along, all the while inexplicably leaving everyone else behind, left a sour taste in my spoiled little Western-RPG-sensibilities. Even if you love tang when you're a child, after you've tasted quality chardonnay it's difficult to go back.
And then I came to the part where I was re-introduced to Aeris. The intervening years hadn't granted her personality any points, and she was still flat as a board intellect wise. "I'm a nice girl who gets caught up in all the chaos, BUT JUST SO HAPPENS I've got a magical bloodline, and I've got a thing for the protagonist". I tell a lie, her personality has grown a whole sixteen more words in the intervening 12 years.
Again, any attempt to feel sympathy and care for her was bludgeoned to death early on when she once more threw my tough grizzled soldier in a dress, rather then let him cut his way through the crime boss' henchmen. Which made no sense, as that's what the character ends up doing once they get inside anyway.
Not to mention she is one of the first things to really throw out my suspension of disbelief. Quiet gentle slum-girl is able to fight just as well as super-soldier terrorist? Even in Anime they'd at least justify it with her having some magical ninja background or something. Then again, at about this point in the game you're being attacked by roving rocket-launching monster robot houses, so I suppose I'm just being picky.
Then came the grand vanishing and her death... and once more I felt nothing. No, I tell a lie, I thought "huh, it would be a semi-reasonable plot twist, if I didn't already know about it." Second lie. I also was impressed at Sepiroth's sword's ability to cut through the sternum. That's a bloody hard bit of bone, right there.
And so, again, I didn't really care about her being killed. Since her particular speciality (magic, according to the stats which seem to affect damn near nothing) was already covered by other party members I liked more, I never took her in the party. I never grew to like the character, and so when her particular collection of 1s and 0s were removed from my party screen, it... didn't bother me.
I do understand that at various points in this post I seemed to have lapsed away from my original position about lack of empathising with Aeris, but at the same time it's all linked. The JRPG style of storytelling makes it difficult for me to relate to the characters, since I feel more like an observer then a participant, which jars with my engrained RPG ideas.
I dunno, maybe I'm just emotionally stunted. I felt nothing at the end of the second act (WHOOPS. SPOILER) of Neverwinter Nights 2, although that could be attributed to horrendous writing. Then again, as a counter, I was genuinely bummed in Mass Effect, when... Oh no, you'll have to play that one yourself.
Monday, January 19, 2009
RPG design programs
I just realised something recently, I think more people have read my blog now then seen the picture of me naked at Stonehenge (it was for a dare). My words are now better known then my arse. Part of me is joyful about this, part of me... feels a sense of loss.
Automated RPG design. It's a wonderful thing.
A few posts ago I mentioned my wish for there to be more Silhouette RPG programs for designing vehicles and characters. It would make it far easier, where you could just throw the numbers in, and the program did all the mathematical calculations for you. It sounds like I'm just trying to be lazy at first, right? Well, I sort of missed the point of being lazy. I've designed my OWN Excel sheet for Silhouette vehicle design. I won't put it up for download anywhere, since it's very rough, doesn't look fancy, and in alot of places I've just ad-libbed things. Still, for someone who pretty much failed maths in High School, I think putting together cells with formulas like the following is pretty impressive.
=((F4+F7)^2*(F4+F7)^2+(E5+F7)*E5^2)*F6
=(D11*D11)+((E21^2+E23^2+E25^2)-H25)*F27
Granted it's mostly just multiplication and addition, but still it looks pretty damn complex. And considering I did formulas of varying complexity for over 100 cells (at least) in accordance to the rules laid out over 20+ pages, I'm impressed with myself.
Professional work is much prettier, though. Take into account a new program I've downloaded recently because of my interest in the RPG "Mutants and Masterminds", it's like a simpler version of the HERO system, using D20 RPG rules as a base. First time I looked through it, it didn't grab me. However this time though I can see why it's celebrated as one of the better D20 systems. Plus it has around about the variability of HERO (probably just a bit less) without requiring as much over-the-top-detail. The Program is called "Hero Lab 3.0", and can be used for Mutants and Masterminds, 3.5 D20 OGL, and even World of Darkness. Sometimes simplicity is a strength in and of itself.
While I am immensely proud of my excel sheet, I prefer if someone else does the hard work for me.
Automated RPG design. It's a wonderful thing.
A few posts ago I mentioned my wish for there to be more Silhouette RPG programs for designing vehicles and characters. It would make it far easier, where you could just throw the numbers in, and the program did all the mathematical calculations for you. It sounds like I'm just trying to be lazy at first, right? Well, I sort of missed the point of being lazy. I've designed my OWN Excel sheet for Silhouette vehicle design. I won't put it up for download anywhere, since it's very rough, doesn't look fancy, and in alot of places I've just ad-libbed things. Still, for someone who pretty much failed maths in High School, I think putting together cells with formulas like the following is pretty impressive.
=((F4+F7)^2*(F4+F7)^2+(E5+F7)*E5^2)*F6
=(D11*D11)+((E21^2+E23^2+E25^2)-H25)*F27
Granted it's mostly just multiplication and addition, but still it looks pretty damn complex. And considering I did formulas of varying complexity for over 100 cells (at least) in accordance to the rules laid out over 20+ pages, I'm impressed with myself.
Professional work is much prettier, though. Take into account a new program I've downloaded recently because of my interest in the RPG "Mutants and Masterminds", it's like a simpler version of the HERO system, using D20 RPG rules as a base. First time I looked through it, it didn't grab me. However this time though I can see why it's celebrated as one of the better D20 systems. Plus it has around about the variability of HERO (probably just a bit less) without requiring as much over-the-top-detail. The Program is called "Hero Lab 3.0", and can be used for Mutants and Masterminds, 3.5 D20 OGL, and even World of Darkness. Sometimes simplicity is a strength in and of itself.
While I am immensely proud of my excel sheet, I prefer if someone else does the hard work for me.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Someone make Silhouette programs for RPGs
Ace Ventura is the first place I ever saw a Mangina. What is a mangina? Don't google it.
I've worked out what I enjoy about roleplaying games (as in, the pen and paper ones). Considering I've never played them, I can't imagine that qualifies. It might, but for now I'll just write it off saying "It's obviously something else." It's not the ability to munchin* out uber characters, since my characters are decidedly un-uber, and never made to min-max outside of the normal "Well this guy is a light-armour wearing melee-er, so I'll get him weapon finesse and a high dexterity" or it's equivilent.
What I love is the ability to codify different concepts of characters. A while ago I bought the Hero system character creator version 3. A long while ago now. Before I even started this blog. Do you know how many characters I made? Over 100.
I made up over 100 characters, probably 90 of them unique (there were a few who had a couple of characters who had more then one stat sheet, for various reasons) including: Back story, motivation, powers, personality and appearance.
I love just making up characters, and give them some type of permanency through a series of numbers defining who they are in a sense of physical (and sometimes social) interaction.
I recently downloaded an excel spreadsheet, that was incredibly designed (thank you, Adam Kent) allowing me to make Star Wars Saga edition RPG characters. They need to use this in the sequal to Knights of the Old Republic (I don't count the upcoming MMO). (EDIT: Since a couple of people have gotten here through google searches looking for this excel sheet, I went back and found where I downloaded it from. Here.)
This works against me sometimes. I love the Heavy Gear system (named Silhouette, used in a variety of gaming systems) from what I've read of second edition. However there are no computer programs to allow you to make characters OR vehicles in it (and it has the best vehicles creation system in a game I've ever seen. And I've seen a reasonable number of RPG systems) available on the internet.
If it had those programs, I would rant and rave about it for MONTHS. But I just. Can't. Find. Them.
I'm tempted to write my own excel spreadsheet about it all.
Yeah, I can't do it.
*In Roleplaying terms, a Munchkin is someone who ignores all attempts at 'story' and character development in order to 'win' and make the most powerful character possible.
P.S.
A quote for future reference that I must keep hold of. The law of comedy threes.
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me a third time, COMEDY."
- ANt (all capitalisation is deliberate)
- 99. Someone I know who I find quite physically attractive (it's a she, just so you all know) recently lost all attraction from me. Why? Nothing they did. I just had a horrible dream where I walked in on an Eiffel tower involving her. Don't know what an Eiffel tower is? Don't ask. I know it's unfair, since it's nothing she did (and no, for those Freudians out there, it doesn't mean anything), but still... bang, attraction GONE.
I've worked out what I enjoy about roleplaying games (as in, the pen and paper ones). Considering I've never played them, I can't imagine that qualifies. It might, but for now I'll just write it off saying "It's obviously something else." It's not the ability to munchin* out uber characters, since my characters are decidedly un-uber, and never made to min-max outside of the normal "Well this guy is a light-armour wearing melee-er, so I'll get him weapon finesse and a high dexterity" or it's equivilent.
What I love is the ability to codify different concepts of characters. A while ago I bought the Hero system character creator version 3. A long while ago now. Before I even started this blog. Do you know how many characters I made? Over 100.
I made up over 100 characters, probably 90 of them unique (there were a few who had a couple of characters who had more then one stat sheet, for various reasons) including: Back story, motivation, powers, personality and appearance.
I love just making up characters, and give them some type of permanency through a series of numbers defining who they are in a sense of physical (and sometimes social) interaction.
I recently downloaded an excel spreadsheet, that was incredibly designed (thank you, Adam Kent) allowing me to make Star Wars Saga edition RPG characters. They need to use this in the sequal to Knights of the Old Republic (I don't count the upcoming MMO). (EDIT: Since a couple of people have gotten here through google searches looking for this excel sheet, I went back and found where I downloaded it from. Here.)
This works against me sometimes. I love the Heavy Gear system (named Silhouette, used in a variety of gaming systems) from what I've read of second edition. However there are no computer programs to allow you to make characters OR vehicles in it (and it has the best vehicles creation system in a game I've ever seen. And I've seen a reasonable number of RPG systems) available on the internet.
If it had those programs, I would rant and rave about it for MONTHS. But I just. Can't. Find. Them.
I'm tempted to write my own excel spreadsheet about it all.
Yeah, I can't do it.
*In Roleplaying terms, a Munchkin is someone who ignores all attempts at 'story' and character development in order to 'win' and make the most powerful character possible.
P.S.
A quote for future reference that I must keep hold of. The law of comedy threes.
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me a third time, COMEDY."
- ANt (all capitalisation is deliberate)
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