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[dennislp3]

Scaling enemies defeats the whole feeling of leveling and getting stronger. If the world levels with you the only benefits that leveling imparts is new abilities...but that rarely translates to much more than a different way to kill someone in an equally efficient manner.

[Graknorke]

Does not having interactivity make junk better?

Giving it interactivity in the same way as non-junk makes junk worse, yes.
Fallout and TES only get away with it because they are games entirely about pissing around, a bit more rubbish to sift through isn't bothering anyone so much.

[Parsely]

Scaling enemies defeats the whole feeling of leveling and getting stronger. If the world levels with you the only benefits that leveling imparts is new abilities...but that rarely translates to much more than a different way to kill someone in an equally efficient manner.

Tell me about it. It makes everything feel very artificial, and in games like Elder Scrolls it just doesn't make sense that the entire world is just progressively getting more dangerous over time.

[Shadowlord]

I'm not sure what the first game to have the grid inventory was. "Diablo 1" is the earliest I remember right now.
I think the goal of the system was to limit the player in items they could carry, so you couldn't pick up every item that dropped to later sell and so you couldn't buy infinite (Or near to) amounts of potions. Also the grid was there to represent how big an item was.

The Summoning (an SSI game) from 1992 had a grid/slot-based inventory, but each item was the same size and it included bags and the like which could hold additional items. Here's a screenshot (taken inside DOSBox):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You have the main inventory grid in the center, and then if you put a bag in your hand (which I have done here), you can see and move items inside the bag, which are in the blue box.
If you're wondering, the gold buttons are action buttons for the items in your hands, and the blue buttons are spells that are prepared and selected, the sword is my HP, and the staff with the gold on it is my mana, and my agility is lowered because bags of lightness have full weight in your hands for some reason. (And I totally do not remember what I was supposed to be doing at this point in the game or how to get out of where I am.)

Edit: I forgot the img tags :V

[Mech#4]

That system looks pretty good for what it does. You've got, what, about 25 inventory slots plus an extra 10 with every bag. Items don't stack and you're carrying some food (though maybe it's a weak healing item?), wands, a key, bow and some rune stones. If most of those are one use items then it's not overly cluttered. Is it showing when a bag has something in it or not? The 2nd bag from the bottom right looks flatter and the two to the left of it aren't as full looking as the ones above.

[Shadowlord]

Yeah, the bags look different depending on how much stuff is in them. (There's another appearance for totally empty, those two have a few items in them still)

Considering 2/5ths of my inventory space is bags, though, I do have a lot of items. I have a bag that contains just gold coins, just in case I needed them in the future (and they don't stack), bags with all kinds of runes which are one-use items, a bunch of magic equipment, and various other things like nightshade and a mango. I think I was only holding onto the apple and mango in case I needed one of them for something (or an apple core), since I can just drink healing potions (which I can refill endlessly with the liquefy spell). Plus I have bracers of regeneration in a bag too. Most magic items have a limited number of charges (or amount of time) before they run out, though.

[Biowraith]

The earliest game I can think of with a grid inventory is Dungeon Master (1987) - the system it used was basically identitical to he one described for The Summoning.  I don't think it had any shops to buy/sell at though, so you really only carried items you might actually need (besides some junk for weighing down pressure plates).

[Mech#4]

Well, by grid I meant the tetris-block style in "Diablo". You know; armour is 2x3, helmet is 2x2, shortsword is 1x2. That system is alright, as long as the game includes an auto-organise button like in "Dungeon Siege 1" or "Sacred 2". I don't think I've seen a game which had odd shapes like L's or T's at least.

On a small tangent; I remember one game, might have been called "Shadowcaster", that had a shop system where you put items on a rotating table. The shopkeeper came out from behind a pillar, looked at the item and put what he would offer in exchange and spup the table around back to you. If you accept you pick the money up or spun it to modify your offer.

[Darkmere]

If games like Diablo or w.e. would actually do me a super and drop loot that would either correspond to sprites or not hide gold coins up rat-asses Id be happier too. 

Go play Titan Quest. Every skeleton in a horde drops the complete trash rusted-though armor and broken sword they couldn't scratch you with. And their rusted shield, battered helmet, ratty socks and moldy boots. There's so much "realism" the game lets you ignore all the useless trash items... so about 95% of all items will drop but don't display the names because... you want to ignore them. It added nothing.

[0x517A5D]

Well, by grid I meant the tetris-block style in "Diablo". You know; armour is 2x3, helmet is 2x2, shortsword is 1x2. That system is alright, as long as the game includes an auto-organise button like in "Dungeon Siege 1" or "Sacred 2". I don't think I've seen a game which had odd shapes like L's or T's at least.

Ah.  That means you've never seen S.T.A.C.K.E.R.: NUCLEAR SCAVENGER.



Three years ago, in 1986, an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant scattered deadly radiation across Europe.  100000 people were hastily evacuated and a Zone of Alienation created around Chernobyl.

Soon stories began to leak out of the Zone - of mutated animals and men, of the earth and sky twisting into weird shapes, and of alien objects with wonderful powers that would drop out of thin air.

For these, people would pay well. So scavengers were drawn to the Zone.  Men drifted there from across the USSR, to make a living gathering what they could from this lonely, hostile new world. These men became known as "Stackers".


Features

    Loot, drink, smoke and fight your way through three levels of irradiated hell
    Overcome dogs, soldiers, swamps and fanatics with rocket launchers
    Discover the perverted secrets of Soviet science
    Struggle with outdated 80s equipment
    Have your wishes granted in the mysterious heart of the Zone


Get Out Of Here, Stacker!

[Rolan7]

If games like Diablo or w.e. would actually do me a super and drop loot that would either correspond to sprites or not hide gold coins up rat-asses Id be happier too. 

Go play Titan Quest. Every skeleton in a horde drops the complete trash rusted-though armor and broken sword they couldn't scratch you with. And their rusted shield, battered helmet, ratty socks and moldy boots. There's so much "realism" the game lets you ignore all the useless trash items... so about 95% of all items will drop but don't display the names because... you want to ignore them. It added nothing.

That sounds convenient.  I really liked how in Angband (or maybe just variants I played) you could auto-squelch loot based on some settings.  Made a game based on grinding and permadeath a little more smooth.

This isn't exactly a peeve but, I really miss the Tales of Middle Earth roguelike.  A ton of unique enemies straight from canon, and named artifacts, with a massive overworld.  It really felt like Middle Earth.  And that one deep mini-dungeon where the earth shifted every few turns... Can't remember the name, it was something like the Heart of the Earth.  You were questing to destroy the One Ring, unless you specifically worshipped Melkor.  Oh yeah, the gods system...  I tried Tales of Maj'Eyal but the mechanics AND setting were so different.

[EnigmaticHat]

First Person Shooters that descend into a grind.

What I mean by this is the whole field locks down and the small space in between teams turns into a WW1 style killzone that no one can pass through.  The number 1 reason for this is splash damage disproportionate to the size of the level.  This is the main reason I've had a better experience with the battlefield series on Xbox 360 than on PC; the popular custom servers tend to turn up the player counts which turns everything into a hell of infinite grenade spam down short passages.  Great for leveling up, but... not great as an actual game.

Just got Nuclear Dawn for 2.50 because pocket change, and was immediately reminded of Battlefield 2142.  Not JUST because the graphics and loadouts were very similar, but also because you couldn't go anywhere without fucking dying.  For some brilliant reason the class with the shotgun and the highest health class have a grenade launcher and rocket launcher respectively, AND every class except the rocket guys can get 3 grenades which are devastating compared to everything else in the game.  Now, this was on a tight map and you don't get the rocket/grenade launcher until later on in the game, so it MIGHT not always descend into that.  But still... how long has 2142 been out that you couldn't learn from its mistakes?

On that topic, a second pet peeve that is in both 2142 and Nuclear Dawn: the shimmer cloak.  That's were the cloak is visible because it distorts everything behind it.  Seriously, this NEVER works.  Experienced players can always see right through it.  If your character's power is being invisible, they should ACTUALLY be invisible.  It worked in TF2, it works in every MOBA ever, there's no excuse anymore.

[Draxis]

On that topic, a second pet peeve that is in both 2142 and Nuclear Dawn: the shimmer cloak.  That's were the cloak is visible because it distorts everything behind it.  Seriously, this NEVER works.  Experienced players can always see right through it.  If your character's power is being invisible, they should ACTUALLY be invisible.  It worked in TF2, it works in every MOBA ever, there's no excuse anymore.

Shimmer cloak can work well; look at Halo CE or Tribes 2, for example.  It's a nice compromise in games with action over large, open areas, or alternately ones with fast and constant movement.  Sadly, few FPS these days seem to have either in large quantities.

[Tawa]

My biggest pet peeve is probably those games that are just past the line between Nintendo Hard and almost unbeatable. You know how one side has that stuff that's so unrealistically playable and nigh-impossible that it's just kinda funny, like Ghosts 'n' Goblins and Kid Icarus, and then there's the games that provide an above-average level of difficulty while remaining winnable, like Fire Emblem?

Those games that are just hard enough to fall closer to the former than the latter, but aren't so hard that it's funny, like those insanely esoteric text adventure games and the NES port of the first Metal Gear, are objects of my hatred.

[alexandertnt]

I don't think those games are hard at all. The solutuon is to do a Depth-first search by hand, algorithmically trying all the possible game states until you find the winning one. Thats not hard (infact it's super easy and guarantees a solution), it's just really, really horribly tedious and boring.