I'll try a tl;dr here real quick.. First, I'm limited by my laptop (2.20ghz Core 2 Duo/4gb ram/4500M HD integrated Intel card.. Second, can't afford a monthly subscription fee and my ISP has us on a 10gb per month cap.. TL;DR: I want a RPG/action-RPG with hideously deep character customization (as in, you can play the same class twenty times and raise it differently).. And good randomly genned equipment..
Now, the problem
I've played Baldur's Gate, I've played Neverwinter Nights (1 and 2).. Played Everquest 2 and WoW (when I had decent net.. They're good, but I hate being bound to a net connection in order to play..).. I've played Knights of the Old Republic, Planescape, all the Elder Scrolls, Gothic, Might and Magic, Wizardry, Magic: The Gathering, Vampire The Masquerade, too many to list.. Virtually all the "classic" RPGs (FF7, Chrono Trigger/Cross, Secret of Mana, Dragon Warrior/Quest, and hundreds of others spanning NES/SNES/Sega/Gameboy/GBA/Dreamcast/PS1/2/3, DS, some XBOX (not that there were many RPGs haha)..)
It seems like I've played a bit of everything, with the exception of a lot of the subscription games and the newest stuff.. Granted, "new" console RPGs haven't been cutting it for me much, lately.. Like Skyrim. Amazing game, amazing graphics, tons (of quests) to do, but there isn't much/any mini-games or collectibles or pets or random-gen gear, or a lot of the other stuff that makes a great RPG.. And I can't get over these new games "streamlining" their games, when all it is in the end is dumbing it down more. I'd rather play Morrowind over Skyrim, I believe.. And Diablo 3 :| Apparently now we're too idiotic to place a couple skill points per level-up?? AND!! The new "feature" a lot of games have where you can respec or rebuild your character at any point in the game (most recently, Dark Souls 2 went this route.. So instead of playing a melee character and then replaying the game as a mage I just respecced and messed around with mage stuff before I retired the game to the dusty shelf)..
As far as console RPGs go (and I've never had a 360, so we're going PS3 only), in my opinion the best games are: Dark/Demon's Souls "trilogy", Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (Monster Hunter is probably one of my top three games of all time, and I'm beyond disgusted that the new versions either didn't get translated or went to Wii/3DS.. THANKS, CAPCOM.), Borderlands/2 (though the amount of specialty weaponry and effects is pretty low, and in a game with "millions of guns" I seem to find the exact same junk shotguns and such in the same areas pretty often.. Also, not being able to adjust scope zoom, or remove a scope altogether..), Armored Core, Disgaea 4..
I've played ADOM, DF, IVAN, Stone Soup, ToME, CataclysmDDA, Elona, Ragnarok, DoomRL, Valhalla, and potentially over a hundred others (if its free, and I see it, AND I can run it, I try it) :> All great games..
I had a terrible addiction to Minecraft at first, and still have a mild one to Terraria (heading into the 800-hour zone), and while Terraria is getting better, Minecraft isn't.. (Again, I don't do online stuff, and I avoid mods for the most part..)
Command and Conquer, Supreme Commander, Warzone 2100, Ghost Recon, ARMA, FF: Tactics and Tactics Ogre, Disgaea, Armored Core, Phantasy Star Portable, and an army of others, all scratch certain itches I get.. But.. none are greater..
.. than this awful RPG itch.. :|
I can't seem to get rid of it, offline at least. I loved the PS2 .hack games, because they attempted to mimic an online environment offline. Great stuff! I think what I'm really looking for is Everquest 2 +WoW +Guild Wars + Borderlands 2 + Neverwinter Nights + OFFLINE = My game
I like random gear, so that even when you're at the very end of the game you can still potentially find something better every time you get loot, coupled with ultra-rare less than 1% drop chance stuff.. I like Disgaea's level 9999 max! I like Monster Hunter's (and Dark Souls, to an extent) absolutely merciless enemy-onslaught, where if you don't defend yourself and think smart, you die.. I like Borderland's attempt at randomization, and the pretty amazing chunk of new/modified enemies that show up on playthrough 2.. One thing I don't give half a damn about: storyline
I could care less. Monster Hunter barely has one, DF barely has one, Terraria doesn't have one at all, and I love them more than most other games on the planet..
The hinge: character building! No amount of random loot matters, no amount of hellishly challenging battle, no amount of story, no amount of awesomeness matters at all if you can't have a blast just from raising your character. Thats what I love Pokemon, of all things, for. The game never comes out and says that your precious lil Pokemon
eats a portion of each enemy soul it kills, but they do, for a while.. And that, plus egg moves, plus shiny chances and held items, all adds up to something I can enjoy (even though there is no decapitation or gore *cries*).. (If I had to hand out an award for character building right now, it'd probably go to ToME.. ToME + Infinite Dungeon in ToME)..
I'm looking for all that previous stuff (loot, builds, challenge, reward!), with a huge somewhat dynamic world (where different enemies show up during events, or at night time, or during the rain). I'm looking for a game that randomly generates mini-boss enemies, like Diablo introduced us to.. I'm looking for fishing, collectible cards, farming, changing the color of my clothes/gear, doing trade runs and maybe even messing with a fluctuating stock market, OFFLINE! :> I don't care about the game having co-op or online play, as long as the single player is equally fleshed out and content-filled :|
So.. Suggestions? :| I have a feeling if this game were real we'd all be too busy playing it to post on the forums :> Its too many features for the commercial gaming industry to sink into a non-subscription game (they'd take a list of features that big and say "Okay, we'll put these features in the first one, save these for the 1st sequel, and this bunch for the third sequel!").. I'll take online-game suggestions so long as they're very low quality (graphics-wise) and virtually run on a vomiting dial-up connection (because thats what I end up with after our data cap hits..), long as they're beyond wealthy with diverse content.. Another suggestion/question: are there any online games like WoW/Everquest that, after killiing online service, made their games available for offline play?? That may be something..
EDIT: Also, just realized what probably sent me off on this insane quest for a game that probably isn't real, and it just hit me.. Something in GameInformer a while back.. It was.. A google search of "biggest skill tree" brought it immediately up.. Path of Exile :| See here:
http://i.imgur.com/kof6e4x.png I don't know anything about the game other than 1) that tree! 2) online
and 3) new, and probably nicer than my laptop will allow.. Still, there it is if anyone is capable and interested..