Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Except it isn't just an RPG it's a very specific genre of RPG which is the tactical real-time party based cRPG.  That would be saying that classic twitch arena shooters still exist because we have Call of Duty.

The last major release in that particular genre was Dragon Age: Origin which took a streamline approach compared to previous titles and even more massive divergences in later sequels.

[umiman]

RPG as a whole isn't, but party-based ones along the lines of BG or whatev' have definitely been in a slump for a while now, I'd say.

That's true. Poor party-based-ones-along-the-lines-of-BG-or-whatev' genre.

[gimli]

re ToEE - CoE:

As we all know, ToEE had a disastrous release. Crashes, tons of bugs etc. CoE is a community modpack, which has been in development for years [the first release dates back to 2003] in order to fix the bugs & crashes, enhance the gameplay with adding new areas, items. etc.
This is the full changelog up to v8.1.0.
As you can see, it's a huge freakin' list of fixes, tweaks and enhancements. This is probably one of the biggest community "let's fix it" modpacks released for a game ever. It just shows that the game had a huge potential @ release, even tho it has failed because of being in a beta state at release. [I never had any crashes with the 7.x CoE modpack btw..]
Anyway, just some additional notes: The story in the game is not on BG II. level, but the combat system and the combat itself blows out other cRPGs out of the water IMO, but again I always preferred the turn-based combat [..especially if it's based on a system like d&d 3.5] over other systems like the RTwP.. The game and the battles ain't that hard at all, since CoE is "newbie friendly", [especially if you powergame] but even in that case, it's fun as hell. [+ Which RPG is hard if you powergame anyway?]
Ideally, the perfect cRPG recipe is [again..IMO]: The deep story[line] and quests of BG II. combined with the ToEE CoE combat system/gameplay.

[umiman]

Patch 1.03 is out for Steam.

Everyone else has to wait a few days because of reasons.

[thegoatgod_pan]

RPG as a whole isn't, but party-based ones along the lines of BG or whatev' have definitely been in a slump for a while now, I'd say.

That's true. Poor party-based-ones-along-the-lines-of-BG-or-whatev' genre.

What about Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Shadowrun, Shadowrun's superior sequel Dragonfall etc?  There are at least as many big party-based rpgs as there were in the 90s.

[Virtz]

RPG as a whole isn't, but party-based ones along the lines of BG or whatev' have definitely been in a slump for a while now, I'd say.

That's true. Poor party-based-ones-along-the-lines-of-BG-or-whatev' genre.

What about Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Shadowrun, Shadowrun's superior sequel Dragonfall etc?  There are at least as many big party-based rpgs as there were in the 90s.

Outside of maybe Shadowrun, yeah. Those are hardly party-based. Having immortal tag-along characters is not the same as controlling the entire party in tactical combat and actually needing them. Dragon Age: Origins had that, but that was quickly abandoned in 2 and 3. So yeah, pretty dead in the mainstream, at least.

[Sergarr]

RPG as a whole isn't, but party-based ones along the lines of BG or whatev' have definitely been in a slump for a while now, I'd say.

That's true. Poor party-based-ones-along-the-lines-of-BG-or-whatev' genre.

What about Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Shadowrun, Shadowrun's superior sequel Dragonfall etc?  There are at least as many big party-based rpgs as there were in the 90s.

Outside of maybe Shadowrun, yeah. Those are hardly party-based. Having immortal tag-along characters is not the same as controlling the entire party in tactical combat and actually needing them. Dragon Age: Origins had that, but that was quickly abandoned in 2 and 3. So yeah, pretty dead in the mainstream, at least.

What about M&M X? It's not a classic "tactical" combat, but it's party-based and you control every character...

[pondicherry]

About M&M X, I like the game but I have some problems with it, like for no rational reason the game lags a bit (my pc should handle it 100%). And well, the story is not that deep or complex enough to let you immerse yourself. You will have the feeling of a fake freedom in the game (get it ?). But the music is fine and the UI is fine too.

[Frumple]

What about M&M X? It's not a classic "tactical" combat, but it's party-based and you control every character...

M&M in general is party of a pretty different bloodline and style of game, compared to stuff like PoE. Looking at X, it doesn't really mess with the formula. The first-person dungeon crawler thing, party or not, is a distinct sort of beast. You've also been seeing a decent trickle of that sort of thing on handhelds, anyway.

[gimli]

What about M&M X? It's not a classic "tactical" combat, but it's party-based and you control every character...

M&M in general is party of a pretty different bloodline and style of game, compared to stuff like PoE. Looking at X, it doesn't really mess with the formula. The first-person dungeon crawler thing, party or not, is a distinct sort of beast. You've also been seeing a decent trickle of that sort of thing on handhelds, anyway.

MM X. is ok, but Wizardry VII. & VIII. are much better with regard to the "first person style" RPGs. [PS. Both are in the top 15 on Codex's Top 70 PC RPGs list as well..]

PPS. Wizardry VII. is probably one of the longest RPGs ever created, but if you like the RPG genre, you must play these games at least once in your lifetime.

[Sergarr]

What about M&M X? It's not a classic "tactical" combat, but it's party-based and you control every character...

M&M in general is party of a pretty different bloodline and style of game, compared to stuff like PoE. Looking at X, it doesn't really mess with the formula. The first-person dungeon crawler thing, party or not, is a distinct sort of beast. You've also been seeing a decent trickle of that sort of thing on handhelds, anyway.

MM X. is ok, but Wizardry VII. & VIII. are much better with regard to the "first person style" RPGs. [PS. Both are in the top 15 on Codex's Top 70 PC RPGs list as well..]

PPS. Wizardry VII. is probably one of the longest RPGs ever created, but if you like the RPG genre, you must play these games at least once in your lifetime.

Hey, I played Wizardry 8. The only flaw of that game was that it was too short, the world was kinda revolving around the party (since combat is turn-based, and others cannot enter combat with each other) and even at maximum speed high-level combat took way too long. But I thought that if you've combined the deep combat and skill system of Wizardry 8 with persistent quasi-living world of M&M series (it wasn't quite full living, but that would've been easy to rectify), you would get the ultimate open-world RPG. They even had (relatively) compatible world structures!

[gimli]

IIRC part 8. can be completed in like ~45-50 hours if you aren't a newbie. Part 7. is much longer, but again IIRC....I haven't played these games for years. So I would say 70h++ is needed for part 7.
Oh and btw here is a good article by Rowan Kaiser [Joystiq's RPG columnist] and I agree with it: Best class system in RPGs belongs to Wizardry VII

Anyway..on topic [I've completed the game now]:

Both the Stronghold and the crafting system could really have done with being fleshed out a bit more. 

I generally enjoyed the companions personalities, although their quests were pretty lacklustre and as has been discussed there should have been more of them - at least one of each class.  I also found it a little jarring when they'd interject during a conversation and the NPC we were talking to wouldn't acknowledge what they'd said at all.  And while previous systems of party member attitudes were pretty crude, I found myself missing them somewhat here where they seemed largely oblivious to how you acted (including if they made a request or suggestion and you went the other way).

The story seemed mostly pretty standard and fairly predictable PC fantasy rpg fare, although I agree the big twist was fairly interesting.

On the third chapter being lacking, for me a big part of that was I'd hit max level by then and had my gear about as good as it was going to get, which takes away a lot of the motivation to run further quests outside of the main story or to further explore areas along the way

I absolutely agree. PoE needs a few expansion packs which additional content and tweaks before it hits the level of the top 25 RPGs, but it's still a very good game on the RPG market. Now I am in the mood to play BG2. I am thinking about buying Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition. Anyhere who bought it? Is it worth to buy with regard to the new gameplay features & areas? Also...hm...Full widescreen support. Sounds good.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Now I am in the mood to play BG2. I am thinking about buying Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition. Anyhere who bought it? Is it worth to buy with regard to the new gameplay features & areas? Also...hm...Full widescreen support. Sounds good.

There's a BG:EE thread or two buried in the forums if you'd want to dig them up. The criticisms with the enhanced editions should still be relevant since BeamDog hasn't done much at all with the game since release.

Actually on topic:
I've been looking at some character builds and that has renewed some interest in the game. I want to make a custom six man party all about guns and more dakka. However I think I'm going to wait until there's a mod that adds pre-battle-buffing and the ability to spot hidden objects outside of stealth (maybe even one that adds simple AI logic). Those are probably the biggest changes I just don't like at all.

[Sergius]

So, I'm carrying around my giant miniature space piglet, which I assume was a KS reward or something. Then out of the blue, this:

Edér: "Hey pig! Hey pig! Woo pig! Ha, look at him with his little tail."

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. But I definitely lost all my respect for the guy

[GrizzlyAdamz]

I cannot wait for a hidden-object-outside-stealth mod. Hopefully a kind soul is already working on one.

How would a firearms-only party deal with critters that are resistant to piercing? Haven't gotten to enchantments yet...