Valorian Endymion

Rob comment during the discussion on historical accuracy, about how a thing that would be realistic might be seen as unreal, remind me, there is a certain troope, the "Aluminum Christmas Tree" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AluminumChristmasTrees), used to refer when a thing that exist in real life is thought to be too unreal or fantasy by audiences when it appear in a work of fiction. A example would be a work which portraits, a Middle Ages that is more colorful, detailed our happy, might be seen as too unreal by a audience which thinks that everything in middle ages was "dark, gritty, detailess, colorless and covered in mud". Better one, Squall´s Gunblade? (FF 7) too unreal? maybe not.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistol_sword Or in that movie Excalibur, people often complain that the armor look unrealistic and was made by some one which didn´t knew anything, except that while not time accurate (which was intentional and made sense in the movie), was designed by a historical armor expert... Now on the subject of worlds - Shining Force II (this was maybe my first jrpg, also this was maybe the first game that made me realize that I love games and stories where a bunch of cool characters go around in a adventure, while having some slice of life moments, I know this kind of stories often anime have), Danganronpa, FF XIII/XIII-2, Might and Magic I-VI (the early part of the Might and Magic franchise had a curious mix of fantasy and sci-fi, that is rare for a western rpg), BlazBlue, and maybe other, but I can´t remember now.

Koei annouced that they will bring the Nobunaga´s Ambition - Ascension to PS4 and PC (steam) in 24th of Out. https://twitter.com/KoeiTecmoUS/status/761547943761448960 It is a standalone version of NOA with a new "Office Play" where you can play the role of a officer in the period with (from what I understand) some roleplay systems. Also it will add naval and siege battles. http://www.koeitecmoamerica.com/ascension/outline.html Talking about this games... I have been playing the ROTK XIII which now does have a english version. It is really good, but in some aspect not so polished as NOA, still there is the huge focus in individual characters, I mean, it is almost The Sims levels, you often have to visit officers, talk to them several times, help them in what ever they are doing and so on.

- One thing that kinds bother me is the lack of morale system (specially in historical strategy games), I was looking that short video about Cossacks 3 and seeing the units "dissolve" (since they won´t run away and will fight to the last man) when in contact was strange, I do understand it in older games, but in modern ones is kind weird. - The thing about customization (of ships of something else), is that to really work it should be well tied with the game and does present interesting choices, not just in system and rules level, but even in visual level. Per example, many game which allow you to play around with a "dress up" element when customize something, often fail to deliver good choices*, instead all you got make your ship or character look horrible (MMO3 was champion in this, because of the ridiculous small size of the ships you could barely see anything). Battle for Middle Earth allowed you to create your own heroes, which was kind cool, however, there was almost no option to customize them, which was a huge let down (and half of the option didn´t even appear to fit correctly in the models). - I don´t have a problem with Elves, more games should have them, specially in the future, instead I often have a problem with bad design races in many 4x, which often are "exotic" just for the shake of it (to the point of stop begin exotic and start looking just plain bad), without tying it to presentation or gameplay. MMO3 had a species of creatures which where crystal (or stones or something), which on concept looks very alien and its cool, but guess what? they play exactly like everyone else, which bring more questions that answers (like, how they build anything without arms? how can their ships begin boarded? how the hell a species of talking stones can carry guns? why and how they could became monarchy?). Star Ruler 2 kind suffered from that too. Also why humans in space 4x often have the most vague or generic design? Also, I am curious on what game exactly Rob was talking about breaking the fourth wall, the only ones which came in mind, are some space 4x which often feature a "humorous" alien specie (I guess a left over from Star Control, which did that really well...), Now good examples are games likes Endless Legend/Space, since created interesting factions and proper deliver them in both gameplay/visuals, even Stellaris is ok, they look "alien" without going in the absurd territory (so even if limited in gameplay difference, they still work).

Wasn´t Tom Chick which once said that to something begin a strategy game, all that was need was the manipulation of time, space and resources? It´s a vague concept, but works very well and allow games such as The Sims (which does have a higher audience with women) and even Dota/Lol to join in.

Yeah, I would agree with Rob, that unlimbering guns in Ultimate General Gettysburg, much be a bit too much, but in some cases, it kind worked - at least visually, in Total War, it was fun and a bit immersive to see (also there never was too much canons so it didn´t became annoying), but one case it such feature, might be need, at least visually, was in cossacks and some other RTS, where canons and other stuff move at such absurd speed that became just ridiculous to see. Cossack was quite hilarious, specially, since canons and bombards don´t had sprites for the crew, so you suddenly see 200 bombards moved by ghosts at light speed. Unlimbering and limbering can be a good term between, not having to painfully watch your canons moving at slow pace or having them moving too fast. On the subject of Early Acess and continuous upgrades, I think, the trick lies in good planning, most of the not successful stories all ways sound a bit like a mix between lack of planning (of the long term upgrades, and how much are you willing to go on) and a underestimation of the genre in question (people often think that a game like minecraft,dwarven fortress and survival games, are "simpler" to do, so it is easy to over promise/feature creep). With rising costs and the overall complexity of games, having a good long term plan could be a good idea to avoid trying to do everything at once that would risk a lot of feature creep or development cycle of hell. Danielle comment about things begin removed, yeah it does happen, but it is never worded in such way, as it mostly like lead people in confusion or straight to torches and pitchforks, but I do remember see a lot of times, with careful wording, systems begin remade for better simplicity/design. On the final subject of woman audiences and strategy games, I humble opinion, I do wonder that maybe on thing that does happened was the lack or the poor coverage of strategy games (sure today is much better). For many people (and I mean both men and women) the face of strategy game still things like Starcraft/Warcraft, the first begin, RTS does already have the stigma which surrounds them and often drive people way or Civilization, which, maybe due is turn-based nature, the mostly like to really draw people from the outside, despite might been more complex/abstract that the other two. But all others used to be (and some times often still) tread as "niche/obscure too complex" games despite not begin as such (and I mean in a tone that doesn´t conveys a difficult with the said game, but rather a dismissal look upon it), or aren´t covered (which is understandable, give the large amount of game today, the small amount of hour or personal available). I do agree that maybe character or narrative driven strategy games would have a higher appeal, just remember games, such as Final Fantasy Tactics and many other strategy jrpgs (or even vn and other related games which features some strategy layer), which might enjoy a relative higher audience with women (I guess, but I could be wrong), even Sengoku Basara or Dynasty Warriors and even period drama pieces about conflicts (such as the Sengoku period) often also enjoy this (and again, all of them often are character and narrative driven).

The Shadow of Mordor was quite curious, because when it it first show up, it sounded like the most cliché (dark gritty "realism") and such away from Tolkien (in a bad way), that was really surprising see in the end that it was a very good game. FF XIII was a game that while I didn´t believe much in the hate that the game got, I wasn´t expecting much, however, I found it to be one of my favorite game, despite some issues. Same with FF Type 0, I had read some not very good reviews and port reports, but in the end, again, I found out to be among my favorite games.

Very fun podcast! Another game with a lot of inspirations from Pirates, is Mount & Blade, which does have the very similar vibe, of you either joining a faction or going rogue on your own. I wonder if maybe another reason why we don´t see game trying to have mini-games like Pirates, it is because mini-games (and QTE to extend) became, not without a reason, subject to such criticism, that even someone manages to get them right, maybe is just too risk sometimes to even try it. Anyway, about the whole merchant part of the game, I remember using it mostly on early game, but later I stopped using it, Now I think the reason, the system is in the game the way it is, is because, back there, there was a lot of "why not?" mind set which many over ambitious game had, helped by the fact they maybe back there, we didn´t think adding system to a game to the way we think today (where we plan the whole early-mid-endgame, ect...), so it was easy to just add stuff to a game.

The Elder Scrolls speed run was amazing, specially for Arena and Daggerfall, I laughed a lot during the Daggerfall run, since I played that game so much that seeing it again not only bring memories, but also somehow that game managed to be broken and glitch in ways I didn´t even suspect (like the jump buffer thing, also punching and kicking to climb on stuff) despite year playing it.

The latest Extra Credits episode, kind fit in the subject, sure is not about alternative story, but how games could deal with fixed historical outcomes and still have some sense of agency and self- expression: Now, I think this would be a hard trick to pull for strategy games, since unlike in the game they talk about, which is about subject lot of people might not know about, so there still a sense of suspense/expectation, things like Waterloo, players might know so well, that even if you have some potential choices, the outcome is so well know, that this choices appear meaningless to the player. I mean, it is no impossible to do it, just maybe very hard, specially since the player can play and perform in such optimized ways, that would be very hard to explain, why his actions had no effect in the outcome. This also remind me about a old mod for EU II that was very focused "realistic historical approach" that often it clashed hard with the open nature of the game - per example, playing as England, you as a player, can win the Hundred Years War, but the game was so "history driven" that start in fact to punish me (like a angry Dungeon Master), throwing random event that just screwed me because I "dared" to no do what they expect, at one moment, things got so surreal, that a event just start deleting my armies (and my gold too). I then start another game as France, and pretty much didn´t nothing, just expecting event to kick in and give me stuff (I don´t remember exactly how it worked, but I remember that annex vassals and stuff was way easier). It kind became the question - you give the player two door to choose from, but the instant the player go to the other door you punish him so hard, that you make him wonder, why do you give him this option to begin with?

That random generator is just amazing.

Since the rate of jrpg and other Jjapanese games begin ported to pc have increased, between this and the price of consoles (specially where I live), I feel less like ever trying to buy one, off course, there still that eventual game which isn´t likely to show up at pc (like let´s say, Persona) that kind once in a while still make me wonder the idea, but not much else. On the subject of games with a "chill out" mode, Danganronpa 1 and 2 features the "School Mode", which is unlocked after you finish the game - and essentially, is just the interaction with the other characters along with a minigame that involves gathering resources to build stuff, without the trails, murders and other stuff of the main plot.

What happen to some "open world" games sometimes, is that while today is rather easy to build a large word in term of space, the trick part is the needed design of space and places and simulation systems to make it feel alive. The lack or the difference that good design of space and places make is when you look the difference between Morrowind/Skyrim vs Oblivion. Now the simulation systems is bit more complicated, because they can get very resource heavy, more that the graphics itself (just look at Dwarven Fortress), early rpgs could get around to begin rather simple and feature things like npcs with day/night cycles (games early as Ultima IV had it). But I imagine that modern graphics heavy rpgs getting this kind of systems is more trick. Also there is the problem of scale.... in fantasy or sci-fi settings you don´t need to represent large urban spaces, so you can get away with the capital of the kingdom begin just 10 buildings, however, this small scale means that you can afford to create a simulation system for this limited numbers of npcs (and other stuff such as dialogues). Now in more modern settings (GTA/Just Cause, Ubisoft games) you have this huge worlds, but you can´t interact with almost nothing, nor enter in buildings (at least in most), simple because the sheer scale would make almost impossible. The result is the sense of emptiness.

I often remember about playing King´s Bounty on my Sega Genesis, when I hear Jethro Tull - Thick as Brick, and far a while (I don´t know exactly why) I thought that King´s Bounty battle theme was similar to a actual part of Thick as a Brick ( think is around 3 minutes, when they start sing that part "see there is a son in born...."). There is some jpop/jrock music, which reminds me of playing Ragnarok Online.

I am enjoying the game a lot, is way better that I expect in several aspects - there is, off course, some not so good or weird aspects (such as dwarves ransom orcs), but most of them appear to me as matter of adjustment (such as the heavy public order penalty, parts of diplomacy) rather that the whole thing (as happened in vanilla Rome 2), that said, the rest - battles, quests, atmosphere, heroes works really well for me. Adding to this the mod support (and the mod are already coming in) and eventual patch/expansions/dlc (where mostly like I are going the see the people behind Charlemange working) made the game very good too me. About agents, let me tell you a funny experience I had in Attila, where, while playing as Huns, I got driven out of the Sassanid empire, by nothing else that their agents, which employed a pretty effective "guerrilla" war, even if I bring my own agents, I was not much able stop them, since most their provinces where very developed and could pull more agents as they need, meanwhile, the Sassanid kept their armies (and their vassals) too close to enough that I could not split around, but never facing me, just watching me. So I had to keep my horde close by and never advancing too much, since their agents would slow down someone and I need to keep them together. Not much later and I had to make a fast retreat to avoid more generals getting killed.

I leave the music in the first days or sessions playing, but specially on civ I often turn off to listen to podcast while playing. That is a good question, because given the way often you need to play civ where you can´t afford to stay too much in same era or you might fall behind everyone (specially, since civ does not have much ways for you to catch up once you are behind), so yeah, often you will never use much your early stuff. There is a new interview - http://www.pcgamesn.com/civilization-vi/civilization-6s-new-world-order-hes-always-a-dick-but-now-he-might-be-a-dick-somewhere-else They explain a little better about those hidden agendas - from what I could get, each civ might have a couple of them, which are triggered by your actions (or what is going on around them), some might be historical while other not. Also wonders might be tied to specific hexes, such you can only build Pyramid in desert hexes.

Here is a brief description of how United States will be in Civ 6 - the leader will be Roosevelt http://www.pcgamesn.com/civilization-vi/civ-6-america-units The leader graphic appear slight more cartoony, but not too much, however is hard to tell, without seeing the animations. Here is another article, this one have a video with gameplay: http://www.pcgamer.com/new-looks-and-classic-gameplay-60-turns-of-civilization-6/

I don´t think that sequels by themselves are bad to storytelling (or something else), what is bad is poor planning, structure and understanding (by this I mean, per example, know why people liked or disliked this or that). To be fair, sequels (or franchises) could, with good planning, improve storytelling, because instead of squeezing the whole plot in a single volume, you spread it around, meaning that each part and it own elements, have more space to develop and breath. Therefore, in fact, despite begin a series, is actually easier to get in to, because instead of single volume which tries to fit something of the size of the Lord of the Rings, you get piece by piece, that is easier to digest to new people, but also have the depth which older fans can enjoy. Specially if you keep in mind, that many times, a game total "length" isn´t, like say, a book or movie, spend in just the development of the story, so instead of having "300 pages", in a game you might, depending of it design, you might trying to fit Game of Thrones in "100 pages", since the other are used to something else. Outside of storytelling, sequels could also lead to polish of skills, that could lead to foundations to new games (or concepts/ideas which could used by them). Overall, I don´t think sequels as bad, but as a part of landscape which both have people which desire to make them and the people which to play them.

Gamespot have been doing a roundup of some the reviews - http://www.gamespot.com/articles/total-war-warhammer-review-roundup/1100-6439959/ and the total war on twitter is retweeting a lot of them too.

Yeah, it does look like Civ V, however, the mountains, plains look better, the river that appear in the screenshot still much like in Civ 5. However, the trees do stand out, they keep me reminding of Warcraft III for some reason. I liked the colorful tone. But as other said, I am curious to see how the UI and Leader will look like.

I do agree with Rob that maybe that kind of stuff happening might sometimes by because a very similar group of people, which for one reason or another, build their entire personas around that way of thinking and now, since they can´t keep their personas unless there is something, therefor they will keep fishing for anything. So much, that when you think about, Stellaris nor Rowan themselves might have nothing do to, just coincidence and some crosswire here and there (If understand from the podcast, Bradwell was involved? that might helped the attention) that somehow managed to get in their radar, also the fact that maybe hadn´t anything else to go - I mean, except maybe a review of Uncharted (I think on IGN, I am not sure), that might also got that kind of attention due criticism or lower score (and If I remember right, even it was not a low score at all, it was 8 point something, and yes some people still go angry). Something I noticed, when I was following more closely Heroes of Might and Magic fan base, is the away around that kind of reaction, where people don´t get angry with you for low score, they got mad if you give high score to a game they didn´t like (or they decided to not like), this often happened with Heroes, due Heroes III success casting a weird shadow, where other games, would viewed by part of the fanbase with disdain (and lots of rosed tinted nostalgia glasses) and people which dared to enjoyed them (and given higher scores) looked down, despite any potential merit they could had. I do remember that during Civ V launch, seeing people way too angry that someone dared to like civ 5....not that there wasn´t thing to criticize, but you could spot those posts, that might be similar to what Rowan got, ready to make some "theories" of how this or that review got this or that score....but inverse in tone. Moving to the subject to character creation: There was a curious transition from early 80-90 rpg games, which often where direct ports of tabletop systems, that due that for one side, they offer a greater sense of the character you build begin something you did, in sense of self-expression, but also, due complexity, lead to entire games with overcomplicated rules and dead ends that could ruin our experience. From this we moved to a almost too light systems, where nothing you created did matter and there was less sense of self-expression or trade off. Just compare Daggerfall, where unless you know, it was easy to build a unplayable character at later levels (things like choosing any of the language skill was sure doom, good luck trying to level up that, or choose weakness to paralisis, which would also get you killed once you meet up with Ancient Vampires or Liches), to Skyrim, where despite I loving the game, the fact you could level up all skills, sometimes make all my character look the same. Oh, one more thing - I do like, the mix between sci-fi and fantasy, that is one reason some of my favorite rpgs where Might and Magic and Final Fantasy.

I saw a link to this reedit thread - https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/4ivi8k shared by the civ twitter profile - it is a compilation of all info around.

Hum, I think might be because the war goals. I am not sure, since I have not tried a war. In my current game (which the update didn´t broke) my to close neighbors are quite friendly. One quick thing I find out now, is that by upgrading he capital in a planet (it is one tile of the surface, in case of colonies the first spot you choose) you can upgrade the other buildings around - this can help a lot to get more energy. You will need influence, but some techs can give you more. Also I managed to allow a meteor crash in one of my planets... I could send a science ship but I got distracted and when I saw, it was too late.

That was unexpected.... specially coming this year... Anyway, the "formation" feature looks curious, much of the congestion in Civ V was caused by the map begin smaller that the scale needed to feature a large number of units. I am not sure how moving several of them at the same time and plus terrain will work out.

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair I loved the game, the mystery and characters where great, specially because, unlike the first game, where I had watched the anime before, this time I don´t know what to expect. They could just added a better explanation of how some minigames work, I take me a while to figure what I was supposed to do in the Monomi´s minigame or in Rebuttal Showdown during the trials. However, the Logic Dive was fun. Warning Lots of Spoilers!

Oh got it now! I am sorry - I did read the parts of the thread but mistake that my post my would fit.