I wouldn't hold out for retro-fits, but the optional system seems to be the only compromise available. I'm all for it.

How so? I'm genuinely interested in how using probability to determine success or failure in cRPGs was about technical limitations. I was under the impression it was borrowed from P&P RPGs where the use of probability via dice throws have been integral from essentially the beginning of the concept.



Which has no place in an RPG otherwise creating a character is meaningless.



Which is how it should be in an RPG because the character is the one making the attempt. The player is only directing him to try. The player's ability or lack thereof has no place in determining whether a character succeeds or fails when ordered to complete a task. That is essential to the concept of an RPG.



The player should have no such role in an RPG. Stats shouldn't be supplementary otherwise, again, the character has become irrelevant because he is just an adjunct to the player's innate abilities.

This isn't really about personal preference. This is about what an RPG indisputably is. I haven't been in a P&P session in a long while but I don't remember being asked to wave an axe around to help decide whether my character could hit anything he was fighting. I recall dice being rolled to determine his success or failure because my skill with an axe wasn't relevant in the slightest.

Quoted for the win :thumbsup:

Spinoffs which are actually the real main series.

Yeah, okay, but in P&P RPGS what, fundamentally, is a dice roll? It's a means to an end. It's a shortcut. It's a way of rendering complicated, unwieldy, impractical and/or downright impossible actions to an executable, manageable, do-able form, whether that's picking a lock or slaying a dragon or whatever it is. It's end that concerns me, not the mechanics of how we get there.

Or: the fact that the mechanics have been the same for four decades does not mean they need to remain the same in the future.




Right. This really is just an issue of semantics. As I am using the language: in the genus "RPG" there are several sub-types, including "C-RPG", "Action-RPG", "J-RPG", "S-RPG", "MMORPG" etc. and so on. They are different species, but still members of the same family. As you are (would seem to be?) using the language: "C-RPG" and "RPG" are synonyms, and the other sub-types do not belong to the same genus. So, for me, Deus Ex and Secret of Mana and Steambot Chronicles are all RPGs and can be described as thus, whereas for you I suspect none of them would be.

I should just stop talking about RPGs, and talk about videogames instead. It would probably make life simpler, and is more generally comprehensible.

I want to see fewer, not more dice-rolls in my videogames. And more cross-pollination of genres too.

But is Fallout that series? It's plenty great for TES, because it's already a FPS/Adventure/RPG hybrid. But Fallout is full on RPG.

Fallout 3 and Fallout: NV are FPS/Adventure/RPG hybrids too. It's already happened. For better or worse, we've had that paradigm shift already.

(And the FPS bit and Adventure game bit need not be at odds with the RPG bit, need not cancel it out. They can enhance each other. They do already.)

Genre distiincitons are more blurred than ever, and will become blurrier still, to the point of rendering them almost obsolete. It's getting that way already, certainly at the most interesting edges of the gaming landscape anyway.

Ever heard about the old roman saying "the dice has been cast"?
I'm not saying the generals were roleplaying with dice now, but surely there is something in it, when they decide to do an action, they "cast the dice".

And as I was saying that when learing about probability in maths, you use a dice alot. Because it's a good tool to calculate probabilites with. And RPG's are all about probabilites. What is the probability of my character getting a critical head shot on that enemy, when I've got 75% in the skill required to use firearms, and a weapon with a critical hit chance of 3% and a perk that adds +5% Critical Hit chance to that? What is the probability of successfully picking that lock when I've just got 23% in the lockpicking skill, but I also have a lockpicking set that raises my chance by 50%?

It's all about numbers, and what your character is good at because you decided what he should be good at. When you get the chance to raise a skill, should you put the 20% in the gun skill to be able to kill off the guards easier, or in the lockpick skill to be able to get through the door the guards are guarding easier?

That is also a huge part in a RPG's - consequences of your action.

I think that if you raise your lockpick skill of your character to 100%, it's not YOU who is good at it. You are just as good at lockpicking then as you were before you started playing the game. But your character has developed, through you by raising his skill in this area, to be able to pick a lock with ease. Same thing goes for everything else. And since Fallout now is real-time 1st person shooter, of course the combative skills will lie on YOUR skills instead, the skill in the game itself will just be a damage bonus for your character but he'll still be the same marksman as he was day one as he will be when he fights the end boss.

I think the minigames should be rid with anyways, and instead there will be animations of your character trying to pick the lock and either succede or fail, and there'd be different animations for that. The time it takes to pick a lock could also be longer the worse skill your character has with picking locks. It's only logical. More logical than there be 5 different stages of lock difficulty, and nothing inbetween. At least you should be able to try a Very Hard lock if you want to. And there's also a good thing in this for real-time lovers - the dealing with locks (aswell as hacking, healing et cetera) will be in real-time! The game won't pause for YOU to pick the lock for your character, the game time will still move while your CHARACTER picks the lock for YOU, using HIS skill that YOU raised.

Negative thing would be that you could get spotted by someone, or die if you try doing it under enemy fire, but you can't have it all (actually, I'd like that).

But it's the mechanics that define the genre. You could slay a dragon or pick a lock in any type of game. In an RPG however you create a character whose abilities determine whether he can slay that dragon or whether he can pick that lock. Your DM doesn't hand you a lockpick or ask you to throw darts at a picture of a dragon to determine in any way how your character does. RPGs have to be concerned with the mechanics of how we get somewhere otherwise there is nothing to separate them from a generic action adventure game where your abilities to solve puzzles and slay monsters are the only things taken into consideration. RPGs are all about mechanics that allow your character's abilities to be expressed otherwise there is no point in having a character in the first place.



Well cRPG just means computer RPG. They are played on a different medium from a P&P RPG but there is no reason they should completely diverge from what role playing games are because I'm moving around with a mouse now. Actually I would say most of the subtypes that you listed (although I have honestly have no experience with JRPGs so I'm going out on a limb there) are perfectly valid RPGs they just have different focuses with the exception of action-RPGs which I find a nebulous and extremely ill defined grouping. Are some action RPGs real RPGs? Yes. Are all of them? Definitely, definitely not as far as I'm concerned after playing stuff like Mass Effect.

That is perfectly fine but if you want to see fewer dice rolls in your videogames you probably don't want to play RPGs. Which is again perfectly fine but there's no point in maintaining the genre if we're going to cast off the elements that define it.

Sounds like FO3 to me. Can't even try to pick the lock or hack without a certain skill threshold, and your weapon skills directly affect your combat performance, regardless of how good you are at aiming as a player.

You may not like the kind of RPG it is, but it's still an RPG. Claiming that FO3/FONV are anything but RPGs is rather silly.

It's also prudent to keep in mind that at this point fully half of the Fallout RPGs have featured a non-turn-based mechanic with player skill factored directly into shooting and things like that. That half has its own (likely larger) group of fans who have their own expectations aside those of the FO1&2 supporters.

Claiming "Fallout is something" doesn't hold much bearing anymore seeing as fully half of the RPG portion of the series has its own, new, and distinct identity.

Doesn't sound like Fallout 3 to me since in the end it's my ability at a minigame or my ability at an FPS that will determine if my character succeeds or fails not my character's abilities. If I have a character with 50 skill in lockpick and I have him try to pick a 50 difficulty level lock it should be pretty tough. He should have a good chance for failure, maybe even a critical failure that jams the lock. Yet because there is a handy and childishly easy minigame for me to do instead my character will never once fail to pick this lock flawlessly. That is not how a good RPG should work.



I don't recall ever claiming they're not RPGs. I've said they aren't "pure" RPGs which even the developers concede by labeling them "action" RPGs.



I'm well aware of all this. What does it have to do with what's being discussed?

I'd be willing to be that if Bethesda lets obsidian do another game it will probably be a spin-off type game (like NV). It wouldn't surprise me if they decide to release a FO every 1-2 years: one numbered Bethesda game (FO4), one unnumbered obsidian game (like NV). Personally I'd like to see the two work together cuz obsidian has members who worked on the original FO, so it will be more true to the series and have more RPG elements, but bethesda seems to be better at making a game feel very open and fun to explore (regardless of who makes it, hopefully FO4 will combine the best of both and add some cool new stuff).

Gah.... NV isn't a spin-off. It's an indirect sequel.

I know, but you know what I mean.

It is pretty obvious what evil means...

I say Obsidian should not get a second chance and should just work on Aplha Protocal.

Sorry, it just gets annoying having to explain why NV is not a spin-off, but more or less a sequel to Fallout 2.

And Sebor, you never explained what it is that's so horrible about New Vegas.

Not giving a sh*t about any faction, not really wanting to take over (but that's just while RP), boring story, weak enemies, only three good fully automatic weapons, no interesting locations, nothing that really makes me want to play again, no use for awesome weapons, repetative stories, unmatching dialogue, glitches, feeling of being in a 3rd world country, and just general lack of life. I could write a book on this.

Wow you perfectly described FO3 to me.....

i think he is psychic, i feel the same way.

I'm almost tempted to ask him to elaborate.

I would like for obsidian to do the rest of the series, but I doubt that would happen. It'd be cool if they did a joint project or at least let obsidian do the writing.

Caring about faction - Kay, and you cared about FO3's 4 factions? 2 of which were mostly cannon fodder.

Boring story - I found it to be far more interesting than the FO1/2 rip off and the ultra slow 30 minute intro as a baby.

Weak enemies - Well, they're weak the third time around, and yeah I do think that a lot of them need a form of scaled to player level but still, could always wear clothing on Very Hard and no use snipers.

Only three good fully automatic weapons - The m16, RCW+, Flamer, Incinerator, GMG, Automatic Rifle, 10mm SMG, 12.7 SMG, I'd say there are more than three but that's just me. And FO3 did not really have more.

No interesting locations - I found a lot of them to be very interesting but it's still better than FO3 who tried to clutter the world with crap around every corner.
It's like, I enjoyed Scary Movie because while a parody it had pacing, but Vampires svck tries to force feed me with a joke every 5 seconds, NV is SM, FO3 is VS.
But that's just me, if you like stuff happening every 5 seconds then I guess good for you, but it gets far too much for me and just seems forced and cluttered.

Nothing makes me want to play again - :shrug: it has tons of possibilities for roleplaying, far more than FO3 did, only thing that makes me "Ugh..." to play it again is that the gameworld is far too static and enemies become predictable. So with combat I can understand it, but the roleplaying part I cannot.

No use for awesome weapons - Alien Blaster, Archimedes and Fatman? Archimedes is a fun weapon in the "lulz, laz0rs!" kinda way, AB is still pretty damn powerful but Fatman did get way too big of a nerf and is far too rare to be useful.

Repetitive stories - Where?

Unmatching dialogue - You mean the problem some have with the lip and voice sync?

Glitches - FO3 had the same, and IIRC some are still not fixed.

Feeling of being in a 3rd world country - Uh-huh, better than FO3's gameworld which felt like the bombs hit 10 years ago when it says it's 200 years past the Great War.
FO3 simply made no sense with it's gameworld compared to previous games' lore and logic.

Lack of life - Better than FO3's enemy every 30 meters.
The gameworld felt too inhospitable with that many enemies.

I think that you described Fallout 3 here

with the exception of the third world country

I live in one of them

And it doesnt look like New Vegas

More like a Post Post-Apocalyptic

like it should be

Personally I perferred the way Fallout 3 was made over New Vegas. I understand Obsedian has people who helped make the first Fallout games (which I admit I never played), but I just like Bethesda's style of making free-roaming sandbox RPGs more like how they do The Elder Scrolls series. So honestly I'm hoping the next Fallout game is made by them and not Obsedian.