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[HideousBeing]

Personally I think the games industry is spending way too much time/money on graphics. We are really reaching a point where we're getting diminishing returns on graphics. Eye candy is definitely nice, but it uses up a ton of developer resources and excessive shaders usually aren't necessary for the gameplay.

[Foa]

Personally I think the games industry is spending way too much time/money on graphics. We are really reaching a point where we're getting diminishing returns on graphics. Eye candy is definitely nice, but it uses up a ton of developer resources and excessive shaders usually aren't necessary for the gameplay.

At the current rate of graphics ( in which no one can tell the difference between Blu-Ray, and HD ) they'll have to focus on gameplay elemnts, BUT NIEN, they just repackage things with minimal change, I mean most of what is innovated was just lesser edits. ( lesser < minor ) .

Why do we need food that looks like god, but tastes like the devil, WHY MAN WHY?

[LeoLeonardoIII]

You also don't notice the awesome little graphical things while you're playing unless you take a moment to walk around and enjoy the scenery. If you're blasting aliens you tend to not notice the perfect sheen on the water created by three layers of semitransparent texture, realtime lighting with reflection / diffraction / diffusion ...

Honestly I'd play a game with 100 zombies on screen and they all look like crap rather than one with 10 zombies that look photorealistic, all other things being equal. It's a tradeoff in storage memory, CPU and video card processing, and development time and money. If they spend an extra 200 hours working on graphics that's 200 hours they could have saved (making the game cheaper for everyone) or spent adding features.

But the games sell because people see screenshots and video, and reviewers care about graphics and talk about them a lot. So if you want your game to sell you have to have good graphics.

Or cater to the niche market mentioned earlier, which has apparently not been proven to exist. I'd love some links on that one.

[alway]

I actually found Dragon Age to be quite fun. Much more so than Fallout 3. I would have enjoyed it more if it was larger and more open, but the story lines were very good if you actually spend the time digging through the dialog. There were a few disapointments I came across, but for the most part the game was excellent. I got around 35 hours out of my first play through, and I may go back and play through it again at a later date.
It isn't bad, just a different type of game. Some prefer linear, some non linear... Both have their strengths and weaknesses. As for me, I judge RPGs on how good their story lines are. Other RPGs pale in comparison in that regard.

[Rowanas]

Blergh. RPGs are about investment in the characters. Storylines are only there to give the characters a goal, an aim and a way to capture your imagination.





And to give you bad dudes to slaughter like cattle.

[dragnar]

Really RPG now refers to two entirely different types of game.
1. JRPGs, focused mainly on plot, character development is usually nothing more than level-ups and equipment. Also extremely linear in most cases.

2. WRPGs, focused on character development, often with an open-ended plot that is not as epic as that in JRPGs, but allows the player more freedom.

[Draco18s]

Asking for reasonable pay is railroaded. Some of the rules specifically state that you should stop getting jobs.

You must be talking about the rules on Reputation.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Reputation can be a tricky beast. A solid street rep can
do a lot to bolster a runner’s career, convince contacts to do a
favor and get her out of tense situations without trouble. On
the other hand, too much notoriety and the runners will have
a hard time finding work, earning trust or intimidating opponents.
Likewise, if a runner’s rep stretches out of the shadows
and into the public sphere, she’ll find that other shadow denizens
are avoiding her like the plague while the heat breathes
down her neck.
Reputation breaks down into three factors: Street Cred,
Notoriety, and Public Awareness. Each of these should be
tracked as a separate score by the gamemaster, or noted on the
character’s record sheet.

Notoriety you get for fucking up (why hire the guy who's bungled three jobs in a row?)
Street Cred you get for doing a good job (hire the guy again)
Public Awareness is (more or less) how much you show up on the news.  Generally has very little effect, though if you can manage a 10, then you're so well known that there's probably a movie about you (someone I know managed this, and being the infiltrator/disguise artist that he was, he stared as himself).

Notoriety should be about 0 when you start and shouldn't really change (if you're doing a good job).
Street Cred goes up as you earn experience (Karma / 10).
Public Awareness goes up as both of the other two go up ([Street Cred + Notoriety] / 3)

So I think you're thinking of the penalties of gaining Notoriety, good thing there's this rule:

Characters can reduce their Notoriety by permanently sacrificing
some of their Street Cred. For every 2 points of Street
Cred burned, Notoriety can be reduced by 1.

[nil]

Really RPG now refers to two entirely different types of game.
1. JRPGs, focused mainly on plot, character development is usually nothing more than level-ups and equipment. Also extremely linear in most cases.

2. WRPGs, focused on character development, often with an open-ended plot that is not as epic as that in JRPGs, but allows the player more freedom.

Exactly.  I'm not remotely interested in playing J-style RPGs now, but when I was younger I used to really like them.  Linear storylines aren't "bad," just different.

[KaelGotDwarves]

I don't care WRPG or JRPG, I stand by my statement that parts of DA:O are absolute crap and the developer(s) who spent the time making believable camel toe for the female characters and authorized the shallow dating-sim aspect of the game which involved giving crap to someone until they love you is 1. retarded, and 2. breeding another generation of kids with no imagination and will continue to bitch about how they are nice people giving tons of shit to girls/boys without actually putting in emotional involvement because much like their lack of emotional involvement with their DA:O characters, they are not emotionally involved with girls/boys/life in general.

/Rant mode continuing

Basically it's so much of what's wrong with the world today. It's a blatant money grab seeking to profit from (I'M SUCH A DEEP HERO) lonely nerds while being absolutely mediocre compared to what games can be, and then marketed the hell out of to be THE BEST THING EVER. Then again, it's not like lonely nerds have ever not set themselves up for blatant money grabs  For a $50 game, it has at most a fraction of the replayability (or just playability) that DF has.

Hence my appreciation for games like Cortex Command, World of Goo, DF... etc.

[nil]

Heh, well just because it's a J-style RPG doesn mean it's a good one.

Besides, I never trust things that are that heavily advertised.

[dragnar]

I have always liked JRPGs as well as WRPGs, but they are a very different type of game. JRPGs act more like a more immersive movie or book if done well, while WRPGs try to give the player freedom to truly act like a different person while playing.

Neither one should try to be like the other, but they have to do what they do well.

[alway]

Definately. DA:O, if you take away the story lines is a relately bland game. The combat is merely okay, the proffessions I didn't even use once through my entire play through the game, and the quest goals are usually not too compelling. However, I don't think the game mechanics were why I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it more like a good book or movie than as a game, and in that regard it was certainly memorable.

Take the story line for getting military aid from the Arl Eamon for example: (note: story may vary slightly based on choices made)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. learn via knights in a small town Eamon is deathly ill and they seek a legendary urn to attempt to heal him
2. arrive at village near Eamon's castle and find there are undead attacks on a nightly basis
3. kick zombie @$$ during the night
4. enter castle through hidden passageway
5. discover man who poisoned Eamon, making him ill, and find he is not the cause of undead as suspected
6. find small child possessed by demon caused undead
7. sacrifice mother of child in order to remove demon from child
8. Eamon's castle saved and suchlike, but Eamon still in coma
9. go to capital city in search of Genitivi for leads on the wherabouts of urn searched for by knights
10. told by assistant of Ginitivi he is in a far away village
11. when in the village, no sign of Genitivi, ambushed by members of a cult
12. return to capital city, confront "assistant" who then reveals himself as another member of the cult, discover Genitivi's research in back room and go to area mentioned
13. strange things in village mentioned in research, come across altars and the knights who are dead
14. village is inhabited by the cult
15. find Genitivi who was held prisoner
16. enter ruins in mountain, full of cult members
17. cult turns out to be a cult of dragon worshippers, dragon is nearby and can optionally be killed
18. once through ruins, come across a gaurdian responsible for protecting the urn you seek
19. Indiana Jones style puzzles and such leading up to the urn, finally retrieve it and return to Eamon.

That alone could make for a book or a movie.

[Neonivek]

One thing I think American RPGs could learn about Japanese RPGs is the importance of characters and how you can't delegate it off to the side.

Please don't take this too far. It means exactly what it says I am not implying anything not explicitly written above.

As for DA:O's story it is ok. Which for an RPG is BAD.

If I were to state the game's largest problem with story then Id probably would say its straight forward nature despite its red herrings.

Though I am spoiled by some of the Suikeoden games (namely 2) which does Geopolitical warfare quite well...

[o_O[WTFace]]

Many RPG games are crap because they can be, just like movie sequels.  Cool graphics and leveling up through killing means people will buy it, no exceptions. 

[dragnar]

Many RPG games are crap because they can be, just like movie sequels.  Cool graphics and leveling up through killing means people will buy it, no exceptions. 

This sort of thinking once almost destroyed gaming, and it does seem to be resurfacing, though in a lesser form... for now. Now all we need is another ET...
(though to be fair to the creator of ET, one guy was given a few months to program a game based on ET. That's all he was given. No ideas, no art, no nothing.)