Cordeos

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Posts posted by Cordeos

  1. Posted

    Comparing Skyrim's UI to Morrowind seems like a really weird example to me.  The UI in Skyrim is more "evolved" in that it follows all the current "hot" trends in UI design in order to look appealing to current audiences, but those trendy features end up being applied with seemingly no regard for their effect on the usability of the system, with the end result being a nightmare to navigate.  Aside from being a bit uglier, Morrowind's UI almost seems like a straight upgrade over Skyrim's, because it literally just presents the exact same information in a more organized and less confusing way, perhaps because whatever was trendy in UI design at the time simply happened to be more appropriate for an RPG.

     

    So much of game design seems to be just blindly following whatever the current trends are, so the longevity of most games end up being tied directly to that of the trends themselves, resulting in a convoluted series of peaks and valleys as the trends of the time fall in and out of favor in hindsight.  Think about games from the SNES era, which are still considered eminently playable followed immediately by the early 3d era, considered by many to be a dark age full of unplayable games, as trends like the use of fixed camera perspectives and tank controls have been judged very harshly by future generations.

     

    You simply don't have to deal with that kind of non linear topology when looking back on movies as far as I can tell, which gives them a huge leg up on games.

     

    I really have to disagree with your assessment of Skyrim's UI. In Morrowind each menu was independent so to go from quests to map you had to close quests and open maps. There was no real sorting or filtering in the

    Morrowind menus. The in game map was significantly less useful than the physical map that came with the game. I agree Skyrim made trendy choices in terms of UI, but they also made ease of use choices which i really appreciate. The Morrowind Quest UI was super annoying to use, to the point where I used the wiki on my phone over dealing with it during my most recent play through. The map gives you almost no information without hovering over areas. The inventory using images instead of words made items with the same icon indistinguishable.

     

    Morrowind Quest UI:

    2015-01-31_00003_zps7288fc02.jpg

     

    Morrowind, map, invetory, spells, Character Stats UI

    2015-01-31_00006_zps3867b4da.jpg

  4. Posted

    Not sure if it counts as a self-imposed challenge per se but the times I played Skyrim and Oblivion as a pure mage, never using any physical weapons or armor, were probably the most fun for me. Not that I actually got any closer to finishing the main story, but...

     

    Its self imposed in that you are forcing yourself to use those games bad magic systems :)

  5. Posted

    No fast travel.

     

    No fast travel is also a great way to experience all kinds of things you miss. I did this in Skyrim and was so happy to really see the great world design that I missed the first time through. 

    I did a play through of Fallout New Vegas where I was playing as a mass murderer. My character was named Kratos. I maxed out strength and endurance, ignored all other stats. Focused on melee, unarmed and explosives. I didn't do any quests or even talk to people, I just attacked instantly. The game was quite hard until I got to the boomers, loaded up on grenades and blew everyone up. 

     

    Hitman Blood Money, Don't bring any guns on a mission. This can make the game easier in that you can pass through metal detectors without problems, but usually means you don't have any silenced weaponry for long range stealth kills.

     

     

  7. Posted

    hey, would you mind making a new thread with your thoughts on various history podcasts? It seems a shame to bury information away in this thread as I'm sure others will be interested. And it helps derail this thread! You appear reasonably well qualified to give some recommendations, and sensible enough to admit that "other opinions are available" :)

     

    Back on track: it's great that our succession game has it's own historian on hand :)

     

    Audible.com also now has a ton of history classes recorded by professors if you are interested, I have found them to be really solid. I listen to tons of history audiobooks on audible because i have found the history podcasts to be too much surface scratching, not enough in depth. 

  8. Posted

    On games aging better or worse than movies. I feel like it really depends on if a more modern game has improved on older ones. It was really hard to go back and play Morrowind after playing Skyrim because the UI has improved so much. On the other hand I will play Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun over Command and Conquer 3, because I feel that Tiberian Sun was the better game. (Might be related to less innovation in UI happening in the RTS space). My favorite fighting games are still Bushido Blade and One Must Fall, despite those games being old. Modern fighters just don't scratch the same itch.

    Improvements in playability is probably the major reason some games do not age well. Modern games have really improved on menus and controls. We were just used to bad UI in the old days, but going back now can be hard. Although old films can have bad acting, bad cinematography and hokey stories so maybe i'm wrong on that.  

    Just like today tons of bad movies that will be mostly forgotten were produced in the early age of cinema. I remember my local PBS station used to show random old movies and TV shows, usually ones that were easy to license and as a result a lot of them were horrible. I specifically remember a film that revolved around a father who was complaining about the costs of his daughters wedding. He was upset because catering was ten dollars a person, which seems pretty reasonable now. These are the movies that will be forgotten.

     

    Games are becoming the same way, there are a lot of throw away games from even the early days that are not worth going back for except on a nostalgia kick. Games that had bad controls or horrible stories don't need to be played by younger gamers and probably wont be. However games like Half Life 1 was well designed enough and had an excellent story that I feel it will stand the test of time.

     

    Sorry this post is so messy, but I am supposed to be working :) will probably edit and post more thoughts later.

     

    Also the Crusader Kings 2 thing. I have often married my heir to someone in the line of succession to another throne, then assassinated multiple other heirs so my grandchild will get both my kingdom and theirs. 

  10. Posted

    I have to say, visually it's looking good. I'd like some variance on the races/factions though, Chaos, Eldar, Imperial and Orkz again as the starting lot for a strategy game >_< Mix it up a little guys. Swap out the Orkz for the Tyranids or something at least.

     

    Still, we have barely any info, so will be keeping an eye on it, that's for sure.

     

    I assume if the game does well they will add more races as they did in Dawn of War 1.

  11. Posted

    The baseball team of all women with beer guts and beards reminded me of a team I build in some version of NBA 2k for dreamcast. Physical traits had no effect on ability in that game, so I made a team of max height and either the minimum or maximum weight, essentially football linebackers and spaghetti noodles. Because the game was designed around the standard basketball player sizes, the larger players would sort of merge if they were too close together. 

     

    Later I added some extremely short players which made the game hard because I couldn't see them behind my sumo wrestler players. Good times.

  12. Posted

    bfga3small.jpg

     

     

    Turn based over map with real time battles. (Total war style I assume). They don't get into if and how you get more ships, but I love the captains system.  

     

    " instructing a captain to pull out of combat when his ship had taken a certain amount of damage. Perhaps you want him to disengage early because you’ve spent a fortune upgrading his weapons systems, or because the crew are particularly talented and should definitely live to fight another day. Whatever the case, as soon as the threshold is reached, he should activate his warp drive and scarper.

    A particularly brave captain might refuse the order, however, insisting that his crew be reduced to space dust rather than retreating. At this point, you have a choice – allow him to follow his dreams of glory/death, or put your foot down and force obedience. If you choose the former course, dissent within the ranks will grow and other captains will become more likely to rebel against orders, but if you rattle the chain of command, a ‘Blame’ point will be assigned to the captain. If he accrues three, he’s for the chop, publicly executed to set an example. All glory to the Emperor."

    http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/01/21/first-look-battlefleet-gothic-armada/

     

    This game and the announcement of Warhammer: Total War have me pretty excited for the future of Warhammer and 40k RTS.

  13. Posted

    When I played Grim Fandango on my living room TV, I realised exactly what Schafer was striving for. The game looks absolutely gorgeous with no UI distractions, also I found that the backgrounds looked much nicer than on my computer due to a combination of the distance and TVs typically having better upscaling technology. It's really sad that the game never got to be on a platform where its control scheme actually made sense the first time around.

     

    I'm super excited to use put the HD version on my projector.

  14. Posted

    Maybe just go with a vanilla ruler and no DLC? Not sure what would happen if a saved game was used with a DLC miss-match. I would totally be interested in this. Maybe have people post what happened during there rule in here before passing the save on. We could build up a nice little story. 

  19. Posted

    The game Star Trek: Bridge Commander wanted to be? I always loved the concept of a game where you were a starship captain issuing orders on the bridge so I'm pretty excited about this game. Its almost funded and i really hope its at least better than Bridge Commander.

     

    I don't know how much randomness this game will have, if it will be more like FTL where the encounters are fixed but they happen in different orders and locations or if the game will have fixed locations and events. Anyone else here back it?

     

     

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fugitivegames/into-the-stars/posts/1103891

  21. Posted

    My favorite game of all time (Not going to say its the greatest game of all time, as that feels too bombastic) Is Grim Fandango.

     

    I love that era of LucasArts puzzle games, before they because a Star Wars only shop.

     

    It has a very unique and interesting art style based around Day of The Dead art. It has a very fun film noir story, with interesting well voiced characters and great writing. The soundtrack is live recorded jazz and fits the game extremely well. There are so many excellent nods to other works in it, like an entire section of the game being based on the film Casa Blanca. Whenever I go back and play it, I will notice something else I had never noticed before.

     

  23. Posted

    Have you tested out those areas with lower settings? If so does the frame rate drop not occur? 

     

    I have played several games that have areas that lag due to something happening in the background with no relation to graphics. Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance for example, would occasionally slow to something like 50% normal speed then get back to 100% for no reason I could figure. Bad code in the game itself, not the graphics may be at fault.

  24. Posted

    I've been playing on the equivalent of King difficulty in Civ 5. Can't remember the name. 

     

    I don't think that every element of 5 should be in BE, as they are  unique games and I'm sure there are mechanic specific AI tweaks that the devs needed to throw in. That said, the AI really is a lot more aggressive at this level in Civ 5. I think I'll just step up the difficulty, but it makes me wonder how Apollo difficulty stacks up to Diety. 

     

    All told, the game is pretty enjoyable. I like the aliens a lot, and the narrative elements that were thrown into the victory conditions are right up my alley.

     

    My Apollo game is giving me more hope, earlier in it I defeated an attacker and grabbed several of their cities to reduce the size of my boarders. I had smashed most of their army by the time we made peace and another nearby faction immediately declared war on the weakened attacker and captured what was left.

     

    last night two factions, similarly powerful to myself declared war on me on the same turn. Then a third much weaker faction joined in a few turns later when my forces were stretched thin by the other two. I believe I can win, but if the last strong faction joins in, I will be in serious trouble and may have to retreat back to my starting continent. This is the kind of dangerous AI I love to play with.