Trithemius

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Posts posted by Trithemius

  1. Posted

    Well, you can sell all your hot-ticket items for more money, so there is money to be gained from that. It becomes pretty annoying when you can't sell these awesome things for more than a quarter of what they're worth. I'd agree that it's something of an underdeveloped idea, though.

    I'm actually a bit sad that there is no bartering like there was in Morrowind. I think it would be quite neat to be able to barter expensive heavy armour for expensive light armour, for example. I expect that some merchants might have more cash lying around (merchants in the Imperial City, vs. merchants languishing in the backwaters of the province) but I still have fond memories of trading ebony armour for glass armour in Morrowind.

  2. Posted

    Also, as far as "narrative meaning", it means that the Oblivion crisis is an actual threat, because it wouldn't be much of anything if you didn't know any of the casualties because they were all nameless and expendable.

    Yep! I think this was an astoundingly clever bit of engineering on the designers part. I wonder if it was unintended at times, but I am quite prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. :)

  5. Posted

    I thought it was great and that it was cute, which is not really how I thought I would ever describe an enjoyable game (because obviously I am a manly man who normally likes demons and war and stuff; not sassy reporters with sticks and the catchiest race music since Wipeout).

    I'm also trying to work out what themes I am relating to in Oblivion. Perhaps my character's vampire killing ways indicate a pathological dislike of goths in real life? :erm:

  7. Posted

    Personally, I liked the Morrowind story - even if Iolo was not there to give my character a handjob the second I stepped off the boat.*

    * disparaging Ultima VII reference

  8. Posted

    I want a new SMAC! I'd really really like a game that focussed on futuristic infrastructure repair, and made more of a deal about the reascent to space.

    Something involving the consolidation of the planet into one, or at worst a few, polities and then colonisation of the system would make a neat game - that "scale" seems underused to me, it's all either one planet or interstellar.

  10. Posted

    Civ4 is good! Although I have been seduced away from it by a Rome Total War mod (Roman units and commanders give their orders in Latin! I am in ancient warfare dork heaven!).

    SMAC was not really a Sid Meier's project though, I believe that Brian Reynolds did most of the design for Civ2, Colonisation, and SMAC?

  11. Posted

    I preordered mine, and if it is not there I shall smite the employees at the gamestore, hip and thigh!

    And fantasy is not a stale genre, although some of the exponents of the genre are not really doing a good job of convincing people this. Under the tide of mediocrity and blatant imitation there are some people with interesting approaches - it just remains to be seen if this can migrate to the computer game genre.

  15. Posted

    I've been arguing with Swedes, Finns, and other assertive nationalities on computer-based wargaming forums about why their country shouldn't be represented in x instead of their vile neighbouring rival nations (where x is your historical computer wargame of choice).

    Other than playing xs, that's about it.

    Oh some work-like thing too.

  17. Posted

    - The Ur-Quan Master (StarControl 2 conversiony thing here!) :tup: :tup: :tup:

    - Fable: the Lost Chapters :tup::tmeh: :tmeh:

    - GTA: SA (again) :tup: :tup: :tmeh:

    - Rome: Total War + Europa Barbarorum (full conversion mod here!) :tup: :tup: :tup: (+ :tmeh: because its a beta :deranged:)

    I'll chime in with a "me too!" for the KotORII thingy - if they can make the end-game + lead-up work as it should be and fix the dialogue/alignment issues then that'd be awesome sauce.

  19. Posted

    Also I agree that Civ 4 is not that sexy. I don't know what they've done, but graphically it looks a lot more like any RTS out there. Some of the new gameplay sounds interesting (civics and religion), and as a Civ addict I will almost certainly give it a try, but I am a bit scared that they're actually taking the streamlining thing too far with Civ 4. The approach may have worked to produce a very accessible family-friendly game with Sid Meier's Pirates!, but I'm not sure Civ is the kind of game that needs to be further distilled or broken down at this point. Well, who knows what I'm talking about.

    I must I don't much like the look of it either. I am really interested in how they did the religions and governments this time around; hopefully it'll be something interesting like Master of Orion 3 was originally going to have (the "ethos" system) rather than a rehash of the functional, but aged, "social engineering" of SMAC/X.

    For the record, I thought Civ 3 was totally awesome and well-balanced, even though it seems to be the least popular Civ with everyone else.

    The combat mechanic is a bit iffy at times, but I mostly use a mod that sorts out that, and many other, quibbles I had with Civ 3.

    Civ 3 fans might want to check out this, if they haven't already.

  20. Posted

    The only relatively complex RTS that I've enjoyed was Shogun: Total War ... but even that wasn't overly complex, and it was really the atmosphere that I enjoyed about it. Can't stand Medival or Rome. I'm definitly going to pick up Advance Wars DS when I get the chance.

    Is the Total War series a real time strategy? The strategic level is turn based, but the battles happen in real time...

    I find it a pretty appealing blend of turn-based-strategy and real-time-tactics. :)

    Have you tried Medieval and Rome on "arcade" mode? Or is it the strategic map part that you dont like? (I am not wild about it myself, although having strategic movement being a factor is kinda neat instead of the old Risk-like map).

    (Anyone else find Shogun: Total War really reminiscent of the old MB boardgame Shogun?)

  21. Posted

    Micromanagement tends to be involved with logistics, which are the essential basis of all strategic plans. As a war nerd, I find the logistical complexity of most "strategy" games to be lacking.

    To be honest, you seem to be looking for something tactical (you said this) not something that is grandly strategic.

    I tend to agree that grandly strategic games are probably not so good for the portable format and are not easily accessible. However, I don't think they are supposed to be. There is, afterall, a reason why you get talk of "just one more turn" amongst most Civ (etc) players and why Firaxis can make an ad campaign out of Civ-Anon; these kinds of games are life-destroying, if you let them. Is that bad (in gaming terms) I don't think so, just different.

  22. Posted

    Text adventures had the best graphics. I mean the letters looked EXACTLY like real letters.

    There is a great line like that about King of Dragon Pass. It has awesome resolution, but the frame-rate is about 1 every 120 seconds.

  23. Posted

    Are you female?

    Even if you are a dude, Yufster will still call at you like you are a lady.

    SOAP OPERAS?? no. Also what do you mean, that games should emulate soap operas/love stories/psychological thrillers? How is that the ultimate evolution of anything?

    I don't like the sound of your idea. It would bore me. It really sounds like you don't like games at all, and would just rather watch Neighbours or Friends or something.

    I'm inclined to agree however. I enjoy the idea of more involved social relationships in game, but I don't see that they need to be prosaic in order to be "realistic". I'm dubious about realism myself, I much prefer verisimilitude (and not just because it is pretentious) because it allows for elements that are outside my experience to be approached in a way that persuades me that they are feasible.

    I don't want to worry about neighbours from hell in my games, I already have a chains-moking, SUV-driving, dipstick next-door. If I was going to play any matchmaking game where I had to ensure good husbands for my daughters I'd want it to be Machiavellian Hapsburg Matchmaker rather than xTreme Paranoid Sub-urban Dad. Or fucking Princess Maker for that matter.

  24. Posted

    Alternative games. Would that be a better name than "indie" games?

    What sets of attributes are these labels intended to describe? Are they worth describing using the existing terminology? Does "independent" status have anything meaningful to say about the game itself?

    No more than 2,500 words, on my desk by Friday. 20% of internal marks allowance. No APA citations.

  25. Posted

    Okay, Perhaps my theory is incorrect, then. Maybe being nerdy has nothing to do with being a great gamemaker. Gabe Newell and Will Wright are definitely excellent examples of this. So I propose a new theory, ignoring other important variables like industry and retailer influence, and other bureaucracy mumbo-jumbo:

    It doesn't matter how much mathematics or science or any other discipline you know, but perhaps what makes a gamemaker (like a filmmaker for games) good is that (s)he understand that what makes a game is not the fact that you know all these software engineering methods, game programming algorithms, or 3d mathematics, or physics to make one, but it is the understanding that the game itself is a work of "art", in a way. The fusion of literature, music, editing, gameplay is what creates the game, and programming is second to that vision. The games does not need to resemble anything else like a movie or a more conventional game, but instead it needs to stand on its own and bring its own ideas to the table.

    Therefore, no matter how much someon loves games and has been trained to program and is pretty good at 3d mathematics and such, it does not guarantee that he will become a good gamemaker, unless he really "gets" the point mentioned above.

    A lot of people get lost in the fact that they have this engineering team that has all this vast knowledge of game programming, and a team of artists. So they decide to make the game in the likes of *insert cool game here* instead of coming up with their own little monster. And this is why a lot of games suck.

    (Discuss again?)

    What about games that don't really have an overriding narrative? I am thinking of simulation games, and specifically stuff like Civilisation and the Total War series. Are these "games that suck" because they, essentially, lack this element entirely?