QFT

'TERRIBLE' doesn't even begin to describe my disappointment

:clap:

Every time I see video of God of War, I think, "Geez, this game looks horrible." :shrug:

Wrong, I've got a friend who's skating through a civil engineer in robotics education with high marks, but he couldn't get into oblivion because it was a little overwhelming, he plays mostly rock band and other stuff like that.

I know it's attractive to say casual gamers are dumb, because people who considers themselves hardcoe and care enough about the label, like to consider themselves smart, which is kind of ironic.

The fact of the matter is that most people don't stop because they unable to comprehend something, but rather because they stop caring about the reward. Casual gamers require more reward for work, than a hardcoe gamer.

Let's also not forget that the industry looks at hardcoe and casual gamers as a difference in amount of their free time they spend on gaming. hardcoe gamers are not necessarily people who play hardcoe games.

I laughed hard when I saw the guy with his cap.

What the hell, does he not realize how ridiculous he looks?

I would say it is a stretch. there is a certain level of complexity below which the game can't go, before it ceases to be an ES game except in name only. That level is of course a matter of personal opinion. All features are somewhat superfluous, fair enough, but a certain amount of any features is required and expected.

Do perks do what attributes did? No. Will the perk system mean as much differentiation between builds is possible as was the case with attributes? I would say yes, more so, and choices are required now. One level of depth is gone, a different one has replaced it. Same with armour. There were more choices with separate pieces than there will be with extra types. Some lament this, obviously, they want to mix their steel cuirass with any greaves or trousers. Others however, are glad there will be more than one look to the steel cuirass they can choose, and are getting a choice they didn't have before. Are the first group right because they have a greater number on their side? No, it's opinion.

Same with spellmaking vs. having to make tactical choices regarding what to equip, and which one element to use for destruction spells against a given enemy. A lot of choices are gone, but choices made in preparation, in safety; now there are choices required, in the field, in combat. Who is objectively to say which is more 'hardcoe'?

18, or 10 or 40 skills allow choice, the reductionist hyperbole says a system that doesn't allow choice is the same.

could be why he's nervous to be beside him... todd could have gave him the pimp hand off camera ant told him to shut up and let him answer his darn questions and be done with him

To be fair, its not like Oblivion or RDR were the "Inception" of games, or at least I found them fairly simple to follow. He himself even says GoW doesn't have a deep or great story. Its not one I wanted to get into until I got it as a gift for free (judging by me username you can tell I enjoyed it lol) It can have some fn parts to play through.

But everyone has their own preferences. I feel like playing a game before making any assumptions is good, maybe you should give the game a try too? lol jk

When did "Yes" become a word that didn't indicate agreement? Casual gamers aren't dumb gamers. Ever. "hardcoe" gamers are the only ones with that perception.

I'M ANGRY, KILL EVERYTHING RAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!

He acts like its hard to wrap your head around Twisted Metal

haha very sorry about that, I misunderstood your yes as in "yes they are", all is good than :foodndrink:

me too :S

That is indeed an amazingly large stretch. I would call that a logical leap at best.

No. After Oblivions video with a burning dog, i dont.

I actually believe it's called a "slippery slope" logical fallacy. It's like saying "If you're ok with them cutting back on graphics for consoles, then you would be happy if this was a text-based game."

Heh, it's a vertical slope.

You are my new favorite person.

You actually think Todd isn't aware of all the negativity surrounding DA2? That's a pretty ridiculous assumption; Todd isn't a dike, he's not going to throw Bioware under the buss like a [censored].

Errr ...

Spell-making wasn't hardcoe. It was just a cool idea, but not thought to its end. It got thrown in and totally ruined roleplay-based decision-making for mages.
So they had two choices:
- making it much better
- drop it
They decided to drop it and to invest their ressources somewhere else. After all they made magic a lot more interesting than it was in Oblivion.

Armor degration could indeed be seen as a "hardcoe element". But then it actually didn't add much to the gameplay after all.
You had to refresh your stuff every now and then by clicking on a hammer.
It's a nice idea, but there has to be done a lot more with it to really make it interesting.



So not everything, which was cut out, makes the game less hardcoe. Some things just make it better.
Also if those features had not been there before, nobody would've noticed. Also there are thousand other cool things one could add ... but the game doesn't get better (or more hardcoe) just by adding stuff ... the added stuff needs to be thought out to offer good gameplay.
Spellmaking and armor degration didn't add good gameplay. The one thing was just a poor redundant clicking-thing (no decision-making required, no added depth), and the other thing only added a little bit more customizability, but totally destroyed one of the main-RPG-elements for mages (finding/getting better spells).

Oh Todd Howard, those preprogrammed phrases are doing you wonders. He pretty much side stepped the guy's question and everyone praises him for it. :banghead:

I know you're trying to avoid creating problems with Bioware, but don't just go running back to the 3 or 4 lines you've memorized for every interview you've ever done. Actually try to act genuine.

Personally attacking someone who I've never even met in person is fun!

It was a ballsy, loaded question; using another companies' game as its bait; of course Todd isn't going to bite.

The reductionist hyperbole just asks when less choice will stop being acceptable.

Bioshock 2, for instance, is what I imagine a heavily "dumbed-down" (or streamlined if you prefer) version of TES might look like. It essentially has magic, there is a choice of weapons, you have health and magika, and there are even ways to increase your skill level in any of these given areas. There are even attributes working behind the scenes (even though you have little control over them outside of Gene Tonics). It also has perks and pseudo-perk trees [gene tonics] and you can even combine plasmids like Skyrim magic. With these options, there are actually a large number of ways to play your character. There is choice here.

That said, even if one were to add some of the basic TES elements it's lacking (make it less "on rails", add towns and open exploration, character creation options for races and race starting perks, a visible inventory system and clothing choice), it would still be an extremely dumbed-down streamlined version of the game. The question that people who hyperbole the decrease in choice ask is, "Is this acceptable?"

Bioshock 2 is a very fun game, in my opinion. I played through it twice, each time with a totally different plasmid and weapon focus. I'm sure they could make a fun game out of "Bioshock but with swords instead of guns and magic instead of plasmids".

Who is to objectively say that that game would be worse than, oh say, Morrowind? No one, but what can be said objectively is that RPGs are generally defined by the number of roleplaying choices they give you. Assuming equally accessible controls and ignoring the storyline for a moment, the objectively "better" RPG would then be the one that gives the player the greatest amount of roleplaying control, or choice.

A good answer from Todd even though the question was a bad one, if flawed a bit in theory. Everything about Skyrim to me feels like it fixes the flaws that Oblivion had and further improves the product by adding in new features. Let's all face it the Attribute System in Oblivion was flawed, horrible and it doesn't matter what any Fan Boy tells you. The system was flawed and yes they could've made changes to it but they didn't and I'm glad they didn't leave a flawed feature in the game. That same statement goes towards skills like Acrobatics, Spellmaking and Athletics as well. I'm not worried at all about Skyrim and quite frankly these 52 days need to blow by quickly. Should we be skeptical of Skyrim, yes but is it going to be a bad game and a bad RPG, I can say no to that automatically.

It's a loaded question.

Who, before a game's release, and in charge of areas of PR, is going to do anything BUT spin that in as positive a way as possible?

The validity of the question is there; gamers have a fear of games becoming "Dragon Age 2-ified". I don't think Todd was going to give him a truthful answer; just a skirted one.