tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30943259884508872772024-03-05T00:16:45.687-07:00Tenebrous TalesA blog about Classic Dungeons & Dragons, fantasy literature, movies, video games, and other role-playing games.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-53673172449750022242015-08-24T11:20:00.000-06:002015-08-24T11:24:18.465-06:00The Gatehouse<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Episode 2 of our D&D adventures in Mirte. The party bravely enters Stonehell Dungeon's ruined gatehouse where they face ghosts, goblins and a creeping terror. They find an unexpected ally and uncover hidden treasure.<br />
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<a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4106135/blog/sessions/2-the-gatehouse.mp3" target="_blank">Listen</a><br />
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Intro/outro music by BrunuhVille.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-89983907248562995572015-06-15T10:54:00.001-06:002015-06-15T10:58:12.783-06:00Doorstep of Doom<br />
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Here is my first audio recording of our D&D adventures in Mirte. The party finishes up some last minute preparations at the borderland keep, then sets out for the northern ice sheet to explore a mysterious ancient prison. Faren and Skipper have some disagreements about how to approach the gates, and the session ends on a cliffhanger.<br />
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Check the <a href="http://tenebroustales.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-lands-of-mirte.html" target="_blank">map</a> and <a href="http://tenebroustales.blogspot.com/2013/01/mirte-recent-timeline-of-events.html">timeline</a> to get more background on the events so far.<br />
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<a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4106135/blog/sessions/1-doorstep-of-doom.mp3" target="_blank">Listen</a><br />
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Apologies for the low volume, it does get louder after about 15 minutes. Intro/outro music, <i>Ascension</i> by BrunuhVille.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-61770854590396561692014-11-17T09:30:00.000-07:002014-11-17T09:32:08.000-07:00Better CombatMy non-combat <a href="http://tenebroustales.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-encounter-resolution-system.html">resolution system</a> works great, it does a wonderful job of keeping everyone at the table immersed in their characters and the fantasy world they are playing in. There is no faster way, however, to pull them out of that world than when weapons come out and combat ensues. Suddenly you've gone from deep role-play and vivid imagination to a series of bland dice rolls with lots of misses.<br />
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I'm currently running my low-level group through <i>Keep On the Borderlands</i> and they have just begun to explore the Caves of Chaos. The castellan told them of an Ogre harassing and killing his men along the roadway north and he needed someone to go deal with the problem by bringing back its head. While the group was buying supplies, the blacksmith's 16 year old apprentice, "Wort", a randomly rolled level 0 fighter-in-training (who happened to have extraordinary strength and constitution @ 18 & 18 respectively) decided to join up with them for the promise of adventure. So we have a <a href="http://the-city-of-iron.blogspot.com/2010/11/fey-class-for-labyrinth-lord.html">Fey Elf</a>, Demon Hunter (Cleric mod), and an iron-pumping teen fighter.<br />
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The group arrived at the caves in the evening and decided to setup camp in the grove just outside the Ogre's cave, which they just so happened to explore first the following morning. I've been trying hard to incorporate my non-combat system into combat as much as possible. I honestly don't ever want to fully remove combat rolling because I think you get into a place that no longer resembles D&D anymore and you've got to maintain some semblance of stat-based attack and defense. But, there is quite a bit of bending you can do to make things far more cinematic.<br />
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As soon as the Ogre was alerted to the group's entry into his cave, he came stomping out to see what was going on giving enough time for the group to realize that some huge "thing" was coming for them. Ogre's (and most of the early level creatures) are pretty stupid anyway compared to my PCs so it seems fair for the creature to forget any sort of intelligent ambush tactic. In many cases, I skip the surprise round because there is usually a party that is clearly being more careful and methodical than the other.<br />
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The elf immediately cast entangle causing the tree roots from above to grab hold of the Ogre's arms. The monster failed his saving throw, so he was unable to move his upper body for the rest of the round. He could still kick and hop though, so keeping your distance from his lower body became important. The demon hunter had found a Valerian dagger (dagger +1) during his last adventure (Valeria is an extinct kingdom of sea worshippers - think Atlantis) and wanting to use it badly, decided to climb the vines and swing onto the beasts shoulders. The demon hunter has very good dexterity, and since the Ogre couldn't move I arbitrarily assigned him a d100 70% chance of success, which he succeeded. In this position, the Ogre could not fight back against the attackers slashing at his neck and head.<br />
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The elf later did the exact same thing while the fighter apprentice slashed at the monsters knees with his longsword. The Ogre failed his save a second time and the fighter landed the killing blow with a d8 result of 7 + 3 (str bonus). The whole thing was very cinematic and took surprisingly few dice rolls to complete.<br />
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A few moments later, when the Ogre's goblin friends became alerted to what was going on in the room below them, a couple brave ones began climbing down a make-shift rope latter to attack the heroes. The players had the brilliant idea to have Wort shake the bottom of the ladder, throwing the creatures off and instantly killing them by getting dashed against the rocky cave walls. They then used their torch to burn the trapdoor, the smoke filling the goblin chamber above and causing the creatures to flee. All this without a single combat roll.<br />
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Visualizing the battlefield with all its nuances is key to running combat encounters this way. When you minimize the transition to and from combat, I think the suspension of disbelief can keep going strong in players' minds. A brilliant idea to kill or disable your enemy before the dice even start rolling I think is wholly in the spirit of classic D&D. The player characters were only level 2, 1 and 0, they really had no business taking on a level 4 Ogre along with 12 goblins at that stage of the game, but using their heads they were able to not only able to minimize the risk, but neutralize it entirely. Nobody lost a single hit point.<br />
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I used to run combat with bland dice rolls: "roll for initiative", "you missed, he missed, you hit, he missed, you hit, etc". I've learned along the way that it doesn't have to be like this at all, not even close.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-51565286689963827832014-11-13T10:54:00.000-07:002014-11-13T11:12:32.592-07:00Custom ClassesI reject codified custom classes in D&D, even for classic D&D (looking at you B/X Blackrazor). I just think that this mimics modern D&D did with all of its silly and limited skill, feat and class lists. I don't want a book to tell me who or what I should play, or what the right way is to play it. I want my imagination fueling my character. Having said that, I love players that think creatively when designing a class.<br />
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One of the biggest misconceptions of Basic Dungeons & Dragons concerns its class system. Most, including myself, will tell you that this was the biggest barrier to playing. The idea that you could only play a fighter, magic-user, cleric, or thief seemed incredibly limited. Race as class was an entirely different problem which I won't go over right now, but suffice it to say, it was hard to convince me that this game was anything but a seriously toned-down edition to the "real" D&D in modern iterations that gave you more options.<br />
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Obviously I now know better. I know now that "classes" in old-school D&D are really just archetypes or simple templates to keep your imagination in check. When making a character in Basic or 0E D&D, I always suggest to come up with a class that fits into one of the 4 archetypes listed at least as a basis to start from. Sometimes classes can blur the line a bit. For example, a "knight" class could be either a fighter or cleric depending on if you wanted a character that held to strong moral codes or not. A "swashbuckler" or "pirate" could be classify as a fighter or thief depending on whether you envisioned the character focused on fighting or cunning more often. Classic Conan in literature is probably more of a thief than a fighter, which I've gone over in a previous entry.<br />
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Thinking about classes in this way, you quickly realize that that classic D&D had far more flexibility than its modern cousins. Freed from stat lists and restrictive prestige classes, you can literally come up with anything you want to play as long as the DM allows it.<br />
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One of my players loves playing a Demon Hunter in Diablo 3. Now, good luck finding a B/X book with a Demon Hunter class, much less Diablo 3's version of it (not that I'd want that anyway). So without someone sitting down for hours statting out the perfect class to fit the game, how do I achieve this?<br />
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First of all, throw out the idea that a character's class needs to be completely defined and planned day 1. If a player wants to sit down with the basic Cleric template and let the game define and mold who his character is, great! There's nothing wrong with that at all. How many times have you said, "that class looks awesome!", then a few hours in you decide you want to be something different?<br />
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Alt-itis can be completely avoided in classic D&D because you don't have to put anything in stone during character creation. It may be during session 22 at level 3 that he gets a series of lucky rolls against some troglodytes and his character suddenly "remembers" that his sister was killed by a troglodyte when he was 11 and he has a racial bonus against them. Or perhaps the DM simply decides that this character has gained some insight into killing cave-dwelling monsters and will now have more success against them in the future.<br />
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Secondly, if someone does want to put some effort into defining his character early on, he can put as much effort into it as he wants. Don't worry about finding a perfect balance. Pick an archetype that fits most closely the vision of your dream class and then add 2 or 3 tweaks in the positive and 2 or 3 tweaks in the negative. For example, I designed the Demon Hunter class mentioned above to use any weapon, but shuns armor heavier than leather and is penalized for wearing it. He can turn evil planar creatures starting at level 1 along with undead, but his undead turning is weaker and fails more often than the standard cleric. Also, he prays to and gains power from a god like a normal cleric cannot heal wounds, only cause them.<br />
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That's a great start at level 1, and even if he wants more specializations in other things like a particular weapon like a crossbow, I will allow him to work toward it by using such a weapon or skill during his sessions of play. A player shouldn't get everything he wants at 1st level, he should set goals for how he wants his character to turn out. Goals are not always reached when he hits a certain level either, it may happen during an interesting session where he did something impressive, or arbitrarily after putting a little more effort into character back-story.<br />
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Negative things can and should happen as well based on poor choices, or simply because the DM and player agree on something negative balancing out something positive that occurs. This is a collaborative effort and neither the player or the referee should be able to hold all the cards when it comes to defining player class and character.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-54284750493243977612014-11-12T14:48:00.003-07:002014-11-12T14:48:56.819-07:00SpellcastingOne of the biggest criticisms I've seen of D&D is its Vancian magic system. The concept of a magic-user that has to memorize spells and can only cast a limited amount per day until he has rested and studied his spell book again. There are many who attack it as being too limited and requiring adventurers to leave the "dungeon" too prematurely and often to rest and recover. D&D 4th edition did a lot to try and fix the "problem" by letting players fire off low level spells as often as they wanted. It seems many wanted things to be more "fair "so they could to be like a Jedi shooting off their powers left and right just like a fighter.<br />
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I would at least agree that, on paper, all of these old-school spell limitations sound pretty lame and limiting. And I can certainly sympathize with someone who would want to change it if they didn't understand the mindset of the system. First of all, trying to play with Vancian magic in a rules-heavy system like 3rd or 4th edition isn't going to work well. These are games designed for "encounters", a painfully derivative word that has come to mean, "interesting things that happen" (as if nothing else in the game is all that interesting and therefore undeserving of a title).<br />
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In an encounter-based game you're not thinking about the big picture. You're thinking about spaces to do "stuff" in, while the rest is sort of filler that needs getting out as quickly as possible. In classic D&D, avoiding monsters and these "encounters" was actually more important and rewarding. In classic D&D you're not supposed to run into the room with the dragon with swords drawn and blazing fireballs, you're supposed to find a way to get the treasure while avoiding the fight altogether. You're supposed to outwit the dragon, not necessarily kill the dragon. Afterall, the XP gained by killing the dragon was peanuts compared to the XP gained from a dragon's treasure hoard (where classic D&D rewarded XP based on gold piece value).<br />
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Killing mobs <u>to</u> get loot is so ingrained in peoples' minds these days from video games and superhero films, that it seems almost absurd to play an RPG of any kind where you're not doing just that. It's hard for non-classic players to really understand this concept even if you try to explain it to them. The level 1 magic user, with his one-use light spell becomes extremely important when a confrontation with a monster actually <i>does</i> happen. The key here, and a running theme throughout classic D&D, was player cunning and wit, not sword and spell, overcoming challenges. A classic player's character wasn't going to come out of a session alive if he didn't do or think of something pretty darn cool and out-of-the-box during the session. That is something that has been lost in modern D&D where brute force, and less thinking, has become the rule of the day.<br />
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However... :)<br />
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That's not to say you can't tinker with magic in classic D&D to make it more interesting. Other than a magic-user's wit and intelligence (which I'm not downplaying at all), he literally has nothing else to rely on during those early levels (where most characters live and die anyway). I want to make these classes more interesting and more dynamic to play. A house rule that I have been using in my latest campaign is for my players, an Elf and a Cleric, to be able to use their magic as a sort of fountain of power, rather than a one-shot blast.<br />
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The original house-rule I borrowed from someone else is to allow players to cast very minor versions of their spells for free. So a magic-user could light his pipe or even start fire with his Fireball spell. With Light, you could use it to send some "morse-code" styled signals. Etc. <br />
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My version of this house rule actually takes it a little further. I keep a mental note of how much of a spell is being used throughout the day and to what degree. Again, in the fireball example above, a player could decide to use his ability to "spark" some kindling perhaps 5-10 times a day, or instantly create a roaring fire for 1/2 the cost of a normal fireball. It will require some creativity to determine just what you could do in a minor fashion for some of the spells. I still haven't figured out how floating disc could be useful. But a clever player could probably surprise me in the right situation.<br />
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In any case, the player is spending his magic energy pool in creative ways that count toward his spell limit that day. I don't keep any hard rules for this, I just make a note in my head of how much he's used of his spell. Yeah, I know this is like a "mana" pool for each spell use, and some grognards may think that's heresy, but I personally believe this hybrid system fits even better with Appendix N than what we got.<br />
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My main source for this comes from Gandalf, but you could find a lot of other examples as well in D&D-inspired literature. Either because he likes being clever and subtle, or the physical drain is too much, very rarely do you see his full magical power being used. Instead, he's constantly being creative with his magic to scare or fool the bad guys. You can also see his weariness after using his magic, or in greater degree (eg holding the door shut from the Balrog and his encounter with the witch king) I like this approach more than the "bazooka wizard", that nukes everything in sight. And I feel it has a lot of old-school flavor. Magic-users can be far more versatile and creative and will never feel like they are useless after their spells have been used up after five minutes of adventuring.<br />
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Players will need to weigh the pros and cons to using their magic in one big shot, or in a lot of minor ways. Using your magic to start the fire this morning means that you're going to be in a world of hurt when you face a group of zombies later that day. Overall, though, this gives magic users far more options and freedom, something I think defines classic Dungeons and Dragons.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-38482644793824975492014-05-05T13:08:00.000-06:002014-05-05T13:08:04.523-06:00Favorite MMORPGI haven't posted much about Massively Multiplayer Online Games since I started posting here because, in most cases lately, I haven't been much of a fan. Without going into a giant history of the genre, they have become synonymous with grinding, or endless loot and experience farming for no other purpose than showing your uber "toon" off to others. This isn't to say I don't play any of them. I've played my fair share, including World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 1 & 2, and some other lesser-knowns. I don't consider myself super hardcore or anything like that, but I've been around the block a few times and for a while I enjoyed them. Most of my stints have been short-lived, my enthusiasm petering out after a few weeks. After a time they all seem to share the same faults that I had come to dislike.<br />
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But it wasn't always this way, there was a time when MMORPGs were new, even during the earliest MUD days, when online games aimed for real worlds and not just loot-grinding theme-parks. These are the games I think a lot of RPG fans dreamed about when the internet first became popular in the early 90s. One of the biggest games that launched in the late 90s that attempted (at least at first) to reach these dreams was EverQuest. While this eventually became the model for most modern game MMO game design, many people I think forget how many things modern games lost in translation to the original template. <br />
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Things like dropped loot on death which required "corpse-runs" meant that if you were high enough level and you lost your equipment in some deep dungeon, you may never see it again. Other interesting mechanics included the requirement for players to literally spend hours sitting and reading spell books to memorize them. The game also lacked many things modern MMOs take for granted, like quest markers, and even an in-game map!<br />
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I love EverQuest for everything it did and still does (although the game has changed a lot since its beginnings). If you want the real EQ experience, I recommend checking out Project 1999, an emulator that mimics the game as it was before Sony Online Entertainment screwed it up after the Velious expansion.<br />
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Anyway, my purpose of this post isn't really to talk about EverQuest, but its sequel, EverQuest 2 which I'll get to in a moment.. What I'm really trying to say in this post is that I think I've come full circle a little bit. During those early-days, including MUDs, I could tolerate the repetitiveness of these games just fine. After several years, I went through several years where I could not tolerate anything but "sandbox" worlds. Now, an MMO has changed my mind a bit.<br />
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For a long time I avoided EQ2 because I had heard that it shared basically nothing with its predecesser. "It's another WoW themepark clone", I was told (even though EQ2 actually predates WoW) and I wrote it off. This was during the time I was playing Guild Wars 2 and its shiny new event system which I will also get to in a minute. But it's interesting what can happen to your opinion when you're presented with something that completely upends your preconceived notions of it.<br />
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EverQuest 2 is a theme-park* MMO. And I apologize for throwing around terms that may be unfamiliar to some. The term, "theme-park" refers to a type of MMO that revolves around following and solving quest hubs that lead you onto another quest hub, and on and on. Basically it reminds you of a theme park because you are going to and from static attractions. There is no real, "living" world or anything like that of a "sandbox" MMO. In other words, they're not even trying to make things plausible or realistic. In general, in my opinion, <u>most of the time</u> this is "<i>can</i>" be a bad thing.<br />
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I add the caveat because EQ2 is perhaps the single exception to any MMO I've played where this actually works. Why does it work? It's certainly not because the game does any one thing better than any other game. In other words, there is not one single mechanic that this game hits out of the park. You can pick any one thing and probably find it done better or equally well elsewhere. But, you see, EQ2 does <u>so many</u> things pretty darn well that makes it shine. While most games boast one or two "revolutionary" mechanics to advertise themselves, they are lacking in other departments.<br />
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I want to talk about big. There are a lot of "big" video games out there. They are usually measured in a lot of ways; geographical world size, number of hours, number of NPCs, etc. But usually when we talk about a "big" game, we are measuring breadth, not depth. I like using the Elder Scrolls games as a good example. These are enormous games. Giant worlds, tons of stuff to find, lots and lots of dungeons to explore, loads of quests and so on. But, when you think about it, most of these mechanics are only skin deep. Most dungeons, NPCs, and loot start to feel rather similar after a while. There are a lot of them, but they don't really provide much depth.<br />
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A very good way to understand game depth is the total number of unique assets a game uses. Assets include unique graphics, sounds, music, and data. A lot of people will say Daggerfall is the biggest game ever, but only if we're defining its breadth. It's actually a really shallow game in terms of breadth. You will probably see nearly every game asset within the first couple hours of playing it since all dungeons and towns use the same textures, models and data. Daggerfall is one of the largest games in terms of breadth, but one of the smaller games in terms of depth.<br />
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Now the biggest games of all require both a lot of breadth and a lot of depth. I believe MMORPGs qualify as the biggest games since they have both in spades. It's difficult for non-MMOs to compete because once their development cycle is finished, other than perhaps a couple expansions, the game is complete. The only way they can compete is by using a lot of procedural and random generation. But that's not depth. In the table-top world, P&P games probably have a lot of breadth as well since a GM is required to continue facilitating fresh content whenever a game is played.<br />
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And the biggest video game of them all in terms of breadth and depth? I think EverQuest 2 may very well be the king. And this is precisely the reason why the theme-park model works here: <b>content</b>. EQ2, with 10 expansions and multiple, deep, systems, is overflowing with stuff to do. The best theme-parks are those with lots of attractions, and EQ2 doesn't disappoint. It's really quite ironic because since EQ2 has so much stuff in it, so many fresh places to see and experience, I feel like overtime this theme-park has actually become much more of a sandbox.<br />
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I've spent 30 hours in this game and haven't even completed the first zone. With hundreds and hundreds of zones, you can see how big this game is. And that's not even touching the myriad of sub-systems the game has to offer. I just want to go over some of these systems.<br />
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<b>Adventuring</b><br />
I want to spend a minute talking about the bread-and-butter system of pretty much every modern MMO: the quests. EQ2 follows the general follow-the-arrow-above-their-head mechanic of other games in the genre, but with some important caveats. First of all, there are a gazillion of them. Unlike its predecessor which oddly had a lack of quests, EQ2 makes good on its name and just overwhelms you with quests to complete. This is actually very important because it means that you will spend barely any time at all grinding (or just killing stuff with no reason than to gain xp and loot). The game gives you so many goals to achieve that every bit of your experience can be had with a purpose. I can't explain how much difference that really makes in a game like this, but it really helps.<br />
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Secondly, the adventuring quality of EQ2 is helped by the fact that many of its quests have permanent world effects. I was shocked to find out that after killing some monsters in a quest actually meant that the monsters were permanently gone. This means that your affect on the world actually has some permanence to it, and that is a really nice touch. Coming back to a completed area will stay completed forever. The only other game that does something like this is Guild Wars 2 in their dynamic questing system, but oddly enough, I found EQ2's system to work better since the changes you make actually stay persistent. <br />
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GW2 uses a looping system for all dynamic quests. So, for example, if the centaurs are attacking a camp you're supposed to kill them off which, eventually, saves the camp. When you're done with this, the camp stays saved only for a short time. When you come back the next day, you find the centaurs attacking the camp again because the quest has reset itself. At first this seems cool, but you eventually realize that the whole thing is a gimmick. Just a way to hide the static world making you feel like you really have no impact at all. In EQ2, things stay changed forever. And I like that far more. What's amazing is that hardly anyone realizes that a better realized system for permanent changes already exists in EQ2 which has been drowned out by the hype machine in GW2 PR department.<br />
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<b>Crafting</b><br />
Many MMOs boast crafting systems, and although EQ2's crafting system is a pretty fun sort of mini-game, I've seen something similar before in games like Vanguard. But what makes crafting really cool in EQ2 is the sheer amount of stuff you can make, and how early on in the game you can do it. This isn't something reserved for high level characters, this system runs on its very own level up system. By gathering and crafting, you gain unique crafting levels, distinct from adventuring levels. You can literally play the entire game as a pure-crafter and not kill a single monster. This is really cool and makes the system feel like it has a big part of the game and not something just tacked on.<br />
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<b>Housing</b><br />
Housing, unlike other games, plays a very big role in EQ2. Again, not something for high-levels. You can start buying homes very early on. They come in a million varieties, from a two-room apartment, to a giant castle with outdoor areas and multiple levels. Furniture can be gained from quests, loot, and from crafting. Housing is a thing of beauty in EQ2. Again, you could spend your entire game crafting and decorating your house.<br />
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<b>Dungeon Builder</b><br />
Like the housing system, there is an equally deep and interesting dungeon building system that you can create yourself and let others enter. One interesting thing here is how you can obtain "monsters" in the same way you can find drops for housing. This provides an interesting way to build up your dungeon inventory rather than just getting everything at once.<br />
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<b>Character Customizatoin</b><br />
If I'm not mistaken, I think EQ2 has the most number of race/class combinations of any modern game. Besides regular adventuring and crafting experience, the game has Alternate Advancement, points you earn like XP that you can put into very specific traits to further specialize your class. So between all the options available to me, I'm playing a Human, Rogue, Swashbuckler, Fencer. The combat system can be extremely deep because of this. Chained, heroic attacks, and different kinds of buffs and positional abilities make the game easy to learn but extremely complex to perfect. Not only are there tons of combat abilities but, lots of non-combat skills, upgrades, heroics, dragon and more that you can obtain. The number of options is dizzying.<br />
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There is an appearance tab where you can replace any item you are using with another for flavor. This is awesome since it means I never have to be locked in with what I'm using for others to see me with.<br />
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You have loads of mounts that vary from standard ground-based rides to leapers, gliders, and full fliers. You also can get pets, and lots of interesting appearance equipment. And like everything else, this stuff is available very early on, not just for the ultra-rich or high level characters. <br />
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<b>Loot</b><br />
The loot is extremely varied. Besides weapons, armor and other trinkets of varying color you can equip with, you have the aforementioned furniture and monster pickups as well as collectible "shinies" (that I've only seen in Rift and Xenoblade Chronicles). You also have Lore and Legend pickups which start a quest to learn more about monsters which can give you a special monster specific ability. You can also find other quest-starting items which can send you off to a distant continent for a completely separate quest chain.<br />
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One nice touch is the inclusion of books. A game gets a +1 in my mind when there is background lore to be read. EQ2 includes lots and lots of books, of which you can build a library around in your home or guild hall. Also, there are writable books where you can record a journal. Very nice touch.<br />
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<b>Multiplayer</b><br />
You have guilds and grouping like other games, but a really interesting mechanic is mentoring. There is so much content in this game and it is practically impossible to see everything, much less experience it while at a level to make it interesting. With mentoring, you can group with someone 50 levels lower than yourself and all of your power and equipment will scale down to your mentor. Not only does this make low level content still viable, but you still get experience for doing it. You can do this in a group or even lower your own level and do the content solo.<br />
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<b>Theme</b><br />
This may not be as important for some people, but as I've written about before, theme is very important to me. A good, engaging world can make a bad game descent, and and average game great for me. Theme includes everything rolled together: art, music, design, lore, and story. I love all of it in the EverQuest universe. The art is classic fantasy styled. No, puffy marshmallow heroes here. Monsters and heroes are modeled after 1980s fantasy art. The game has possibly the best theme song of any MMO and a crap load of songs and sounds for every zone. The world is designed to be high-fantasy swords & sorcery in a classic sense. What makes the lore great is that it's subtle. You find bits and pieces in books and quests throughout the world, forcing you to put the story together yourself.<br />
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<b></b>I like the fact that EQ doesn't require me to suspend my disbelief as much as other games. Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, Star Wars, and other IP-based MMOs are a hard pill to swallow because they stray so far from the source material. Why are there all of these random hobbits running all over Moria in LotRO? In EQ, I can love the world as a crazy, everything and the kitchen-sink, generic fantasy universe without worrying about things staying all consistent. But at the same time, the game is strictly S&S fantasy. There's fairies, dragons, goblins, trolls, gnomes, and more....and thankfully no gonzo lazer guns or space ships mixed in.<br />
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<b>Role-Play</b> <br />
With all of these features, it becomes very simple to role-play as well. The other day while doing some questing in-game, I was surprised to find a wolf following me around wherever I went. This was a person playing a Warden class who had shape-shifted. This sparked a tremendous RP opportunity to have a player-run pet.<br />
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The community is older than most, because many players grew up on the original game way back in 1999. These players are far more mature and dis-positioned to role-play than other MMOs. There's always an interesting interaction just waiting around the next corner.<br />
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I could keep going, but the bottom line is that the game is just chocked-full of content to do. That's why the theme-park model works for this game and why it may very well be the biggest game I've played. Big in both breadth AND depth. There is never a dull moment in the game, never a reason to have to grind, and never a reason to feel like you're led by the nose. For that reason, this is my favorite MMORPG at least in the standard AAA sense.<br />
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The best part is that the game is free to play. Other than the dungeon maker (which costs $15), everything else is completely free. Very little is locked behind pay content. And SOE has a reputation for making past expansions free when they release a new one. So if you like something you have to pay for now, just wait a year or so and you will probably see it become available. But with the amount of stuff to do for free already, it's unlikely you'll ever be looking for more anyway.<br />
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Come and check it out. I play on the Antonia Bayle (RP) server as Jemmajune.<br />
<br />GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-16550248631030429532013-12-10T14:03:00.004-07:002013-12-10T14:14:10.209-07:00Wow: Dungeon LordsI have to apologize and take back what I said last time about Dungeon Lords being underrated. I didn't really mean it, simply because I hadn't given the game enough play time. I usually have a good sense of sniffing out a good game and a bad game just by taking a quick look at it. My senses failed me this time and my early judgement of the game just didn't quite pan out like I thought it would. The game just isn't good...<br />
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...it's one of the best games I've ever played.<br />
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I haven't been able to put it down since I last posted. That's three weeks of playing pretty much every night. If you think that's not that long...you have to remember who's saying it. I don't play games like this anymore. With my schedule, putting a week into a game is an epic marathon for me these days. I've become so jaded with RPGs lately, I sincerely thought that I had known of and played every good one that had ever been.<br />
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I'm floored by how good this game is. I have never seen a game get so grossly mischaracterized as Dungeon Lords has. The negative reputation it has received is practically criminal. This is an awesome, awesome game. It really deserves to sit side-by-side with Gothic, Diablo and Neverwinter Nights. You often see games half as good as this get mountains of praise. But I don't want to say this without backing it up. I want to be more specific as to why this game is so good, many of these features are unique and have never really been done before or since.<br />
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Let me preface this by really taking back something I prematurely said in my last post. You <u>need</u> to play the Collector's Edition, not MMXII. The changes they did in the MMXII edition are very substantial and almost 100% detrimental to the game. Even saying that, it's a testament to the quality of this game that I would heap as much praise as I did on it even in it's latest, stripped-down state in my last post. I purchased the CE about a week ago after I had become curious about some saying that it was a different.<br />
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The problem with the MMXII version boils down to the fact that they really stripped out many of the old-school systems that made this thing shine. Specifically, the character advancement system mimics many other run-of-the-mill systems you'll find out there which goes something like: "get level->earn new skills/stats/spells->rinse/repeat". Not a bad system (but a joke compared to what the CE does, which I'll get to in a minute), but what they failed to do was to re-balance the rest of the world to work with this sort of system. For example, in MMXII, you gain spells automatically every time you level and each class is assigned a specific spell school. However, they forgot to actually remove all of the purchasable and findable spells in the game which no longer do anything. This practically renders half of the vendors and treasures in the game useless. The nerfed magic system means that one of the greatest things about Dungeon Lords is completely gone.<br />
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I could go on and on with others besides magic, but suffice it to say that many of the incredible and thought-out systems have been broken or just removed in MMXII. Repair, identification, death penalties, stat & skill allocation, and equip penalties are all shadows of what they were in the previous versions of the game. The game's graphical update is also pointless. The system requirements went way up for what was essentially a more "colorful" texture palette. No models or textures were actually changed - they were literally just made more bright. Widscreen has been implemented, but with some simple hex editing, the CE can be played in widescreen very easily (I'll explain that below). The ONLY thing that the MMXII does better is to add a lot of new random color-coded loot - but the fact that nothing was rebalanced for these uber items, the game becomes an extreme cake-walk. And that's another huge issue with MMXII: difficulty. The game is extremely simple, and I was playing on hard the entire time.<br />
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I don't want to spend this entire post talking about how MMXII messed it up. It's still a good game all on its own, even with all the poor changes and simplifications. But if you want the real experience as it was intended, go with the Collector's Edition. It's already patched to 1.5 and ready to play out of the box. The box, by the way is awesome, it comes in a metal tin with a very nice internal layout. Again, you can get this on Ebay for less than $10. Even as I write that, what a terrible shame that this game has been almost universally derided for nothing.<br />
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[/epicbackstory]<br />
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Okay, now on to the meat and potatoes of this game. Hands down, the #1 most awesome thing about this game is the character development system. I've said for a very, very long time that Morrowind had the best character advancement system in any cRPG. Dungeon Lords is the first game that seriously rivals it, if not surpasses it. That statement doesn't come lightly because my #1 game of all time is getting owned by a supposed and near-universally labeled, "terrible" game. I can't deny it though, the game let's you play practically any sort of <u>combat</u> character you can imagine. Now Morrowind also allows you to build a pretty effective passive character too, with lots of points in speechcraft, alchemy and such, but what DL does right it does really well. Let me explain.<br />
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Dungeon Lords gives you a decent selection of 7 races and 4 classes (more like archetypes) to begin with, plus another 30+ "prestige" class upgrade to later on in the game. Not only that, but you can choose to have a total of 5 simultaneous classes to take on throughout the game if you want (though not required). Now, right there alone, we're talking about thousands of combinations for character builds. That would be pretty impressive if that's all it was. But the game doesn't stop there. The game has class specific skills that can only be acquired by joining a guild or advancing to certain prestige class (eg. Fighters don't get dual wielding right off), and then there are other skills which your class may take, but aren't automatically leveled in at all when the game starts. In other words, if you aren't yet trained in the skill, you can't actually use that skill yet.<br />
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Now, here's where it gets really interesting. Your "level" in the CE version is mostly arbitrary, being level 23 doesn't really mean a whole lot. This is because the game uses advancement points that are awarded not only when you reach a new level, but for every time you gain experience doing something. Attribute stats and skill levels are upgraded with a cost modifier that gets more expensive the stronger your particular att/skill becomes. You increase these by spending these advancement points from a single universal advancement point pot. What makes this so great is that you get to decide where exactly you want to put your advancement points when you obtain them. If you wanted, you could play the entire game putting no points in your attributes (str,int,dex,agi,vit,hon), and putting everything into your skills...or vice-versa.<br />
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Obviously, your skills and attributes help determine how you do in combat. But it's how they work together that make this highly unique. The game allows you to equip any piece of weapon, armor or use any kind of spell you find, BUT you will incur penalties if you're not skilled or strong enough to use it properly. Morrowind did this, but the penalty only applied to the specific thing you were trying to use. So if you only had skill in light armor and you donned plate mail, your armor class would be greatly reduced. That's a decent way to represent a penalty, but Dungeon Lords does it even better. Wearing a set of armor you are not skilled enough to use means that you still gain the full benefit of the damage reduction it gives, but your reflexes become severely hampered - you miss more often, your swing is slower, and your general mobility is reduced.<br />
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In practice this has an incredible effect on game-play. It means that depending upon the situation, incurring penalties for higher damage reduction may be desired. For example, fighting monsters in close quarters where mobility is impossible anyway, the need for heavier armor to reduce damage temporarily outweighs your ability to move around. Terrain can play a huge role in your choice in using the right tool for the job. Crossing a narrow bridge where you're being pelted with arrows suddenly means that your heavy plate-mail and big shield is worth putting on even if you wouldn't be able to hit the broad side of a barn. At the moment, offense is unneeded for a strong defense.<br />
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DL also has a neat way of limiting the jack-of-all trades danger that affects other games. Not only do races give higher ceilings in certain areas (dwarves, for example can have a higher strength limit than elves), but classes give you learning bonuses. The cost to increase your magic skills will be far cheaper as a magic class than as a fighting class. Sure, as there is no level cap in this game, you could eventually make a do-it-all character, but it's not practical and it's certainly not as easy as simply practicing throwing fireballs to become a shake-and-bake wizard ala Oblivion and Skryim.<br />
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This brings me to a pet-peeve of mine found in nearly every RPG ever made since the beginning of time (yes, this even bleeds into tabletop RPGs). Why oh why is there never any benefit to going without armor or a shield? Some of the greatest fantasy heroes of novel and cinema went without these things. Remember Robin Hood? Conan? <a href="http://youtu.be/i3W5GDkgf2w">Inigo Montoya</a> :)? Dungeon Lords lets you build a character like this. No armor or shield skill is ever required in the game and since they skill points are all shared from a single advancement pool, it means that there is a trade-off to make when putting points into any skill. 100 points can be divided into thirds between a weapon, armor and shield, or you can put all 100 into a weapon. You can make Conan in this game and make him effective, and not just for show.<br />
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Onto magic.<br />
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The magic system in this game is really cool. There are four schools: Arcane, Celestial, Rune, and Nether. You can cast spells either as one time consumable scrolls like other games, or you can scribe them into your spellbook. You can buy spells from shops or find them as treasure. Now, first off, anyone can cast any spell, just like anyone can wear any weapon or armor, but the spell duration, strength, and range will be impacted by your skill in that particular spell school. Each school works drastically different. An arcane spell that is in your spell book can be cast an unlimited amount of times, but after each casting, there is a cooldown period. The more times you scribe a spell to your book, the more times you can cast it. Increasing your scribe skill will allow that cooldown time to go faster. Celestial magic requires you to obtain crystals, and I still don't even know how Rune magic works.<br />
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Nether magic is the most unique of the four. Instead of finding spells to scribe, you find "katals", or items dropped from creatures in the game that you can mix together to find combinations to create spells. Once the spell is cast, you have to re-mix more katals to get the spell again. Think a witches brew. It may sound complicated, but it's really not. It's a mini-game that is actually quite fun on its own. Some ingredients are very rare and difficult to obtain, but they will also provide the most potent magic. MMXII, unfortunately, completely changed this cool system and put in a mana bar that really dumbed it down.<br />
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What really makes this game come together is the way it forces you to perfect resource management. People will often write off Dungeon Lords by labeling it an "action RPG" like Diablo. It's so much more than the mindless click-fest that such a label implies. This game's combat, believe it or not, has more in common with Baldur's Gate than Diablo. Battles can be paused by going into your inventory screen. In this game, this is part of the strategy to win. Running into a group of enemies and clicking a way is a quick way to die. And death in DL is meaningful because it is harsh. You permanently lose a random attribute each time. Dying too much means your character becomes seriously handicapped and in the middle of a difficult dungeon, that may mean leaving to rebuild some broken stats. This is fantastic - I wish more games would think this way.<br />
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Anyway, pausing the game will help you plan a strategy using the limited potions, spells and equipment that you have. I have found myself pausing often during many battles to plan out my tactics. "What weapon and armor combo is best in this situation?" "Should I use the potion of power now or save it for later?" "I should probably save magic missile for the mages and use sleep on the goblins." These are common and important questions I ask myself all the time playing the game. I love old-school D&D because it is all about resource management. You find yourself looking for every advantage, every small shred of leverage, to give you the edge in your next encounter. DL mimics this well. I rarely get through a dungeon without having expended almost every scroll and potion buff that I have at my disposal.<br />
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I want to take a moment to talk about the weapon and armor in the game as well. Everything you pick up comes unidentified. There's nothing that you automatically know about something you find, even mundane stuff. That longsword your carrying could be magical for all you know. I realize this may annoy some people, but I love it. It's old school. Identification can be done at a shop for a price, or you can do it yourself with the identify skill. When trying to identify something, you're given a success percentage. More mundane items will be easier to identify, the best stuff will be difficult to discover. Repair works nearly the same way as items will wear down after a while and break.<br />
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The weapons and armor, as I explained earlier, have both a strength and a skill requirement. You may be skilled in using a battle axe, but not strong enough to swing it well. Not only that, but they have ranges as well. This is a really neat feature, making these item requirements feel multidimensional. They aren't just stat boosts in your hands as many other games portray them. They feel like they have weight. A strong magical dagger may be quick and powerful when it strikes, but it when trying to deal with multiple enemies, it's difficult to hit them without getting very close. Swinging a big battle axe from side to side can hit multiple targets in one sweep. I'm reminded of Gimli at Helm's Deep beheading a row of Orcs in one swing. You can do that in DL with a weapon with enough reach. On the other hand, a wide swinging weapon is a detriment in a confined hallway where there is little room to work with. The only other game that does that, that I know of, is Dark Souls.<br />
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Shields in DL are implemented better than any other cRPG I've played. They play a huge role in the game, and taking a barrage of arrows without one is a quick way to get killed. You can certainly play without a shield, but you'd better have a lot of points put into speed, range, and/or stealth to make up for it. I've heard many write off bows and ranged combat as useless. I'm here to tell you, it's not. It works well in this game. It's nothing to write home about, but it's certainly not a dump stat. It has its place and my current character uses a bow quite often.<br />
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I want to take a moment to talk about the story. I've seen it panned so many times for being just another generic, cliche, fantasy clone. I really don't understand this. The story revolves around several intertwined plots: The good king and bad king hate each other. Each has a powerful wizard ally who also hate each other, so the evil king gets his evil wizard to kill the good wizard and threatens to invade the good kingdom if he is not allowed to marry the good king's daughter. The good king's daughter is in love with the head of the guard, and when the good king finds out, he imprisons her boyfriend. When his daughter hears this, she runs away and is nowhere to be found. The evil king begins his invasion of the good kingdom believing the good king has hidden his daughter on purpose. So, you're tasked with not only helping to defend the kingdom, but finding out what happened to the daughter, her boyfriend, the wizards, and collecting the lost relics that are hidden around the world. <br />
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The story is surprisingly good. Even more than that, the story is executed very well and the pacing feels perfect. I've yet to feel a dull moment in the game. The voiced dialogue is very good, which is surprising because many games, even the AAA quality RPGs, seem to always screw this up. The conversations are not too long and not too short, you never feel like you're getting bored reading pages of text, yet you feel like you're getting a good feel for what is actually going on. Unlike most action RPGs where the story is just a footnote to the gameplay, I always feel like I'm part of something bigger that's going on in Dungeon Lords.<br />
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To top it off, the game is multi-player which, as I already explained in my last post, has never really been done before in a 3rd person, story-based, action RPG before. It can't be said enough just how fun this game's combat is. It reminds me of a faster-paced Dark Souls. Everything is snappy and responsive. Your actions feel like they matter, you never feel cheated by the game. When playing with just a couple other people, the fun factor goes up even further, and the monsters come in larger and larger packs. It is possible to see monsters come in groups of 30 or more. Those big battles are really fun when you and a friend are sitting back-to-back, HP and resources are running low, and you just barely hang on for the last kill. You don't get that kind of emotion from a game of Baldur's Gate even in multiplayer. And, yet, DL can be almost just as tactical and strategic as BG. There's plenty of pausing, regrouping, and changing tactics mid battle to take advantage of terrain and locations. It's got the best of both worlds going in DL - it's a frantic, fast-paced killing spree, but it's also methodical and strategic.<br />
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I am honestly having a really difficult time finding a single thing to criticize the game over. Every part of it is at least good, great, or awesome. I would right now honestly put this game at the top of my honorable mention list. It's hands-down better than Gothic 2. It's tough to say that, but that game doesn't really have anything on this when I begin to think about it. However, I'm not quite ready for it to supplant any of my top 5.<br />
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Now if you're going to play the CE, you will probably want to modify the game to work on a widescreen monitor. Follow <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ip64124ev9bp9b/Custom%20Resolution%20In%20CE.txt">these instructions</a> (Thanks PitBrat at <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/">GameBanshee</a>).<br />
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D.W Bradley deserves kudos for this amazing RPG, I believe it's by far, the best game he's ever made. It's old-school meets new-school and, to this day, there has been nothing released quite like it.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-51602773148298350362013-11-21T10:34:00.001-07:002013-11-21T10:50:27.164-07:00Underrated Games: Dungeon Lords<br />
Perhaps from reading earlier postings on this blog you've already noticed that I have an unusual taste for the obscure or underrated games and movies. It's true. I am a big fan of the underdogs and even the unwanted. In fact, I find I take interest in games far more when I hear something negative about it than positive. There's a little voice in the back of my mind that gnaws at me, that wants to figure out exactly why something gets a bad rap.<br />
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You see, I've come to realize that, especially in gaming, there is a lot bandwagon support and ridicule that goes around. There are those certain games that seem to just get near-unanimous praise or hate no matter where you go. The fact is that a lot of this is just the echo chamber. Someone hears some faint kudos about something, they repeat it a little more loudly, others chime in, and pretty soon the thing hits "critical mass" and everyone is doing it. Eventually you see just an average or mediocre game hitting top 10 lists all over the place. The same thing goes for games of derision.<br />
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I'd like to start posting a little more about some of these games that, for whatever reason, have become grossly overrated or have gotten way more criticism than they deserve. I think that many of these games deserve to get more fair looks from people, and the underrated especially should get a second chance. Now don't get me wrong, most of these underrated games still have their faults and you won't see many of them hit my list of favorites any time soon, all I'm saying is that the level of vitriol and hate for many of them is completely unwarranted.<br />
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One such game is something I recently picked up for a few bucks last week called Dungeon Lords.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcKYLHysIMuCO4JtBK25NVyDkft-nvmafAD4FIubHI8TC9Bo3MVmXOHJ0xt7gMzTRWXMyGaub64y6tykJ1qSbtqgCqcSaScfNB8XRHRZ0Cv3f4Se5u9cxj_BhFr2Fa5K3mEQdffDGpiC4/s1600/wallpaper2-800x600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcKYLHysIMuCO4JtBK25NVyDkft-nvmafAD4FIubHI8TC9Bo3MVmXOHJ0xt7gMzTRWXMyGaub64y6tykJ1qSbtqgCqcSaScfNB8XRHRZ0Cv3f4Se5u9cxj_BhFr2Fa5K3mEQdffDGpiC4/s320/wallpaper2-800x600.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Now this is a game that I had heard about ever since it first showed up on the shelf nearly a decade ago. Unfortunately, the game was released when overhead action-rpg clones were being mass-produced like crazy. The first words that I read off the box's inner flap was, "...a great looking hack-and-slash experience", and I immediately pushed it out of my mind as yet another crappy Diablo-clone.<br />
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Reviews were even worse. The game was being labeled a buggy disaster - one of the worst games ever made. And it was certainly true that the game was, and still is (even after 2 more releases) full of bugs, glitches and is poorly optimized. Originally, some were so bad that many could cause the game to become unfinishable because of a broken npc, script or a locked door somewhere. I've always thought that it was extremely unfortunate in the gaming world for people to be so critical and pay so much attention to the bugs and ignore the actual content of a product. Compare this to the restaurant industry, some of the best tasting food I've ever eaten often came from places that looked like it was used previously as 1945 Berlin bomb shelter. Yet, these hole-in-the wall restaurants often seem to be highly sought after by food enthusiasts because they can often surprise you. Yet so often in gaming, we seem to blow off everything as crap simply because it may look bad on the surface, never giving it a fair chance. Even after Dungeon Lords was given more chances to redeem itself through new updates (and the latest release is very playable), the poor first-impression was written in stone and the game was quickly tossed into the metaphorical trash-bin of gaming history.<br />
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It's sad that I only really gave it a second chance by accident. Recently, while reading through a let's play thread about Wizards & Warriors on RPG Codex, I came across someone mentioning that they had wished D.W. Bradley had done a sequel to the game rather than focus so much effort fixing Dungeon Lords. I never knew this, and was completely shocked to hear that Bradley did Dungeon Lords. Here's a guy who worked on Wizardy 5-7, lauded by many (again, maybe a bit overrated?) as some of the greatest RPGs ever made. <i>That guy</i> did Dungeon Lords? My first thought was, "what the heck happened"?<br />
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Then another thought hit me, the <i>I have a crush on underdog games,</i> thought: "why do people hate this game so much?". Here's a guy who has come up with some awesome, really awesome, games over the years. The guy knows RPGs pretty well, so why would he lay such a rotten egg, much less spend sooooo many years trying to polish it? See, that's the kind of thing that really gets my interest meter going through the roof. Bradley saw something in this game that many others didn't and don't, and I absolutely had to know what that something was. I picked up the MMXII version and have been really surprised so far at how good this game is.<br />
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I've spent the last few days playing this game with my two oldest sons - 10 and 7 years old and let me tell you, I've never had this much fun playing a cRPG before with my kids. Never. Is it still buggy? Yes. There's all kinds of little glitches, rough edges and the thing only runs with a good frame rate on my newest computer, but, holy cow it's a fun and, surprisingly, deep games. To me, a game with a lot of bugs really means that the programmer was trying to do something original, something unusual that very few have tried before. As far as originality goes, DL is far from a Diablo clone.<br />
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The best way to sum this game up is to consider it a an old-school grid-based RPG first, and an action-RPG second. I know that sounds weird, but it's true. I'm convinced Bradley approached this game with attention given to the classic systems first. Unlike your common Diablo clones today that all follow the same conventions, Dungeon Lords breaks that mold in a lot of ways. First of all, it has an incredibly deep character progression system. The current version has, I think, 35 different classes of which your character actually gets to pick 5 throughout his quest. Wizards & Warriors did something like that, but to a far lesser extent. I love that kind of thinking because it gives you a chance to mold a character throughout the game, but unlike free-form class-less systems like Skyrim, you still have a character that feels unique and needed in your party. You have enough choice that you can be who you want to be, but you don't fall into the does-it-all fireballcastingswordswinginghealerarcher class of many other modern games.<br />
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When I say that the game feels old-school, I guess it's hard to describe without playing it. It's all the little things adding up like your character getting status ailments that actually impact movement or performance in real-time. Or how there are monsters and enemies everywhere, even in the streets of the towns that will attack you. Or how there is no quest markers, or paths to follow, requiring you to use your brain to solve puzzles. The art style is non-stylized and fairly gritty. I almost feel like I'm playing Wizards & Warriors, in a real-time action-rpg combat engine.<br />
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The combat system is highly unique in that it is a hybrid skill/twitch-based system that is very fast-paced and is run from behind the back. And because it's multiplayer that supports up to 8 players, there's no other game in existence that I can think of that does it. It feels like an MMORPG in a lot of ways, but quick and snappy and without any grind. I've been saying for a very long time that someone needed to make a game like this. We either have games like Kingdoms of Amalur or The Witcher that are good and fast, but single player, or we have games like Baldur's Gate that are too slow for multiplayer to work very well. We need more games like Dungeon Lords.<br />
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Other bonuses include a very decent and mature story, a large open world, and a great randomized loot system. The monsters in the game are done really well too, their animations and AI all feel unique and different. Every battle feels fresh and, often, real group tactics are necessary to survive to get through a particular area. I can't emphasize enough how great this game is in multiplayer - if you are going to play it, find someone to play with and your experience will be far better than going at it alone.<br />
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The game certainly has its flaws, but I now feel it has received a far worse stigma than it deserves. It needs a second look from the old-school cRPG community. It's a roughly cut gem that has been written off as trash for far too long. Any game, especially one that I can enjoy myself, that can get my kids laughing (and fighting) over is a good game.<br />
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Edit: By the way, if you're interested in the game, I've heard good things about the Collector's Edition as well. The <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/dungeonlords/classes.php">class system</a> worked a little different in that version (which some say is better), but lacks the graphics upgrade and bigger loot variety of the <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/dungeonlords/classes-mmxii.php">MMXII edition</a>. I personally prefer the latter myself. Oh, and if you're a collector like me, the original game is the best one to put on your shelf as <a href="http://youtu.be/F16r7B8pc2U">it includes the map and the nicer fold-out box art</a>. You can find any version on eBay for under ten bucks.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-65507901209186673052013-11-12T22:23:00.001-07:002013-11-12T22:30:13.866-07:00#4: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall<i>Eight days ago, my ship sank and left me barely alive, stranded in a collapsed cave and looking for a way out. I discovered a passageway in the back which led me through an ancient subterranean ruin, riddled with beasts and even the undead.</i><br />
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<i>In the middle of a snow storm, I made my way a few miles south to the small town of </i><i>Longbury. Finally gaining my wits about me after a couple days rest at the Inn, I was implored by the local shopkeeper to help him. Vampires were going to try to kill him at his home that very night and I was asked to fend them off so he could make his escape from the city tomorrow.</i><br />
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<i>I spent the day shopping and found a couple nice outfits as well as a Katana which was far sharper than my shortsword. I lay up that night at the shopkeeper's home, a small single room home with a loft bedroom. At a quarter to 9 pm, the undead horrors arrived - two she-vampires with glowing eyes came crashing through the front door. I swung with my Katana with all my might, but the creature's shrugged off my blows as if made of iron. I panicked and backed away, but the vampires attacked without mercy. I thought I was dead. Then with a great crash, several guards came through the doorway and all went black. </i><br />
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<i>I awoke in a jail cell, wondering why I was chained up. I was being charged with Vagrancy because I was found in someone's home. I pleaded my cause to deaf ears, "I was only there to protect the home from the intruders!". When I asked about the Vampires they told me they had seen nothing of the kind when they entered. I stood trial and pled my case, but was convicted and jailed for 6 days.</i><br />
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<i>I'm free at last, the snow is melting all around and spring is on its way. I will join with the guild of mages and learn the ways of magic. I wont make the same mistake again, I will hunt the Vampires and find vengeance.</i><br />
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<i>-Jemma June </i><br />
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And that is a typical week of a character living in the game world of Daggerfall. The author of the manual's introduction asks the question, "What's the story of Daggerfall? The truth is simply this: <i>we don't know yet.</i>" Such an appropriate way to introduce a game with so many possibilities.<br />
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"And the best thing we game designers and programmers can do is give you what you want, and get out of your way". How many game developers think this way today? I dare someone to find any major modern game developer who speaks like this. Ultimate freedom is a lost art in gaming these days, a mechanic that got pushed out for the eye candy of, what I call, interactive movies.<br />
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Today in games, you're put into a movie set with scripted lines, lots of cardboard props and actors and a perfectly orchestrated storyline. Daggerfall couldn't be farther from this. It's a giant sandbox where you're given exactly what you need, and almost nothing more, to write your own story for your character. The game comes right out of the gate and offers you the tools to create a highly unique character.<br />
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Character creation is one of the best of any game I've ever played. The breadth of options to customize your character are great. My favorite part is building your character's personal history. The interesting thing here, and one of the things people overlook, is that when you start the game, you can read your personal story based on how you built the character to begin with. This is a really nice touch when most games never seem to recall character creation again.<br />
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Had this game come with better modding tools and we still had access to the source code, there's absolutely not doubt in my mind that this would, by far, be my #1 game of all time. I've always been a fan of The Elder Scrolls games, but Daggerfall really stands apart as the title that truly gives you a taste of what this series should be about: enormous open worlds.<br />
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Enormous doesn't even cut it for Daggerfall, though this game IS, indeed, ginormous. Unless I'm mistaken, the largest land-based video game world ever made, over 188,000 square miles, or twice the size of the island of Great Britain. The world is filled with 15,000 locations to visit including cities of varying size, ruins, dungeons, graveyards and much more. These aren't your average Skyrim-sized locations either, a <u>single</u> larger city in the game can literally have hundreds of buildings (all enterable) and thousands of NPCs to interact with. To this day, there has never been a game made with the kind of dungeons you will find in Daggerfall.<br />
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And the quests. Oh the awesome quests in this game! It's amazing how much they were able to do with these when the game was made. These are not just a bunch of random fedex missions, or kill ten boars grinds. They are hugely complex and varied, from protecting someone, assassination missions, resolving business feuds, and entangling yourself in political webs. They are deep as well, often featuring twists and turns that will catch you buy surprise. Your quest often ends with different results as you make decisions on how to complete it. Sure, you also get the "kill x" mission, but there is enough variety to make things feel fresh.<br />
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You can gain quests in a variety of ways: through guilds, tavern rumors, political leaders, shopkeepers, maps and journals, and even through common citizens. I can't think of any game that has as many quest hubs or the variety of Daggerfall. The game is so huge, you could literally spend a hundred hours in just one town, doing missions for the locals and never even see the rest of it.<br />
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You'd think with a game this massive, and as randomly generated as it is, that there would be very little variety and detail. And it's true that you shouldn't expect the kind of small scale detail as later Elder Scroll games (like being able to pick up silverware), but the game excels at the macro detail. Each province is unique with different biomes, including deserts, forests, mountains, and jungles, and each has a unique history to uncover. You can own or steal horses, carts, ships and even houses. Dungeons, above all, are the prime example of that detail.<br />
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Each dungeon location is incredible. Many have varying locations, such as castle forts, ruins, crypts, etc. Once you enter the dungeon, be prepared for the most mind-bogglingly massive labyrinth you've ever experienced before. One dungeon in Daggerfall is probably the equivalent of maybe half the dungeons in Skyrim in size, perhaps even more. You can literally spend hours in one dungeon and still leave parts unexplored. The dungeons are quite complex as well, they feature underwater sections, open-standing staircases, and lever-based elevators, secret doors, and traps. Because of their randomly-based nature, you can find some truly amazing things going on. Even some of the glitches make things more interesting. Seeing a door, for example, on the side of a sheer cliff wall is exciting, you'll feel the constant urge to see what's around the next corner, or through the underwater passageway.<br />
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They can feel frustrating at times and getting lost does happen often. But these days it's rather refreshing to play a game that doesn't hold your hand or lead you by the nose through a railroad path, disguised as a dungeon.<br />
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I love the Daggerfall campaign, it's my favorite campaign of the entire series. This is a campaign for grown-ups. It's deeply political and requires real thinking to get through. Not only is it a mature storyline, but it is branching and has multiple endings. Many of the quests can be completed in more than one way as your character can ally himself with different factions throughout the adventure.<br />
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The game does have its weaknesses, the biggest being the fact that the source code no longer exists. If this was still available to modders, I can't imagine how much could be done with it today. There is currently a makeover being worked on right now using the core engine with some promise called the DaggerXL project, but what this game really needs is a full remake by a serious studio. Even barring that, this game is still amazing and stands tall even today.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-66822586956943070222013-11-09T21:14:00.000-07:002013-11-09T21:14:36.872-07:00#5: Neverwinter Nights<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I wrestled for quite some time about putting this game in my top 5 and leaving some of the gems I've already mentioned off, but in the end I decided that this game stood out for one major reason. I'll get to that in a minute, but first let me get the basics out of the way.<br />
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Neverwinter Nights is a game that came out with very high expectations. It was riding on the coat-tails of the epic Baldur's Gate series and had a lot to prove. 3D gaming was just getting started and everyone was jumping on the bandwagon as quickly as they could, often to the detriment of game quality. A lot of people were caught up in the hype and, to this day, many games from the era were quite overrated because of it.<br />
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To be perfectly forthright, I think NWN was overrated right off the bat - it got high marks mainly for the graphics, not for the initial campaign game-play (which was honestly not very good). But in the end, that turned out to be alright because this game ultimately deserved what it got.<br />
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So what is Neverwinter Nights? It's an RPG/DM client tool that came with a sample campaign out of the box to get you started. If you were to judge this game solely on its initial campaign, you'd be completely missing the point. To this day, there still hasn't been a computer toolset quite like NWN. Sure, there have been plenty of RPGs since then that have tried to include DM tools (including its sequel), but none of have held a candle to both the accessibility and breadth of options that this game had.<br />
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It's still quite a mystery to my why there hasn't yet been another game made since that has done so well a job of mimicking the DM/player RPG experience on a computer. There have been some attempts since then, but none have come close to doing it as well as NWN.<br />
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The ultimate beauty of NWN is the plethora of amazing custom modules that can be downloaded and used to play with. Some of these modules literally rival many of the fantasy classic RPG story lines we've come to consider the best of the best and can last dozens of hours of playtime. Not only that, but there are some wondrous multiplayer servers out there with custom scripting and massive, amazing worlds to explore. It's hard to rate this game because, although the core campaign that ships with the vanilla game is less than spectacular, the amount of user-made content turns this into a diamond in the rough. It's like a hundred great RPGs wrapped into one if you consider it all together.<br />
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I've spent a lot of time scouring the web in search of the best modules and would recommend the following as the cream of the crop:<br />
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<ul>
<li>A Dance With Rogues</li>
<li>Alazander Series</li>
<li>Auren Series</li>
<li>Careena Krakona</li>
<li>Cave of Songs</li>
<li>Citadel</li>
<li>Cormyean Nights</li>
<li>Darkness Over Daggorford</li>
<li>Diablo Lord of Terror</li>
<li>Eternum</li>
<li>Eye of the Beholder</li>
<li>Honor Among Thieves</li>
<li>Midwinter/Midsummer/Midnight Series</li>
<li>Prophet</li>
<li>Rose of Eternity</li>
<li>Runes of Blood</li>
<li>Sands of Fate</li>
<li>Shadowlord/Dreamcatcher/Demon Series </li>
<li>Tales of Artera</li>
<li>The Aielund Saga</li>
<li>Torslunda</li>
<li>Tortured Hearts I & II</li>
<li>Wanderer</li>
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My personal favorite is The Aielund Saga, a colossal adventure with an amazing story which will take your character from humble beginnings at level 1 to battling demons and demi-gods at level 30. You can't go wrong with any of these though. Many of these modules require the CEP add-on, a free community-made mega-pack of extra assets to really flesh out the worlds. And don't forget to get the NWN shader mod and updated texture pack (NWNCQ) which does a great deal to bring the game's graphics up to modern standards.<br />
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With these mods (and many more), to this day Neverwinter Nights is one of the few "desert island" games that could literally take up a lifetime or two to fully experience. While I was never that fond of the move to 3D and 3E, NWN's strengths more than make up for its shortcomings. Because of that, I proudly welcome it to my list of top RPGs.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-50652201608660872822013-11-09T20:20:00.000-07:002013-11-09T21:26:37.079-07:00DelayedI apologize for being MIA for so long. It wasn't that I had run out of ideas to post about, it's that I have gotten so caught up in trying to decide which games will go into my top five that I have been experiencing quite a lot of analysis paralysis. To do these games justice, I've been having to replay them again as a refresher and have been writing their reviews concurrently which has added to the time. Also, I've been playing some games lately that have really made me consider moving some things around on my lists.<br />
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I will be posting my #5 shortly, but may be adding a game or two to my honorable mentions as well in the coming weeks and months. I just want to make certain that these games are something I truly appreciate and not just hyped up in my mind because they are new.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-43140079756622640972013-05-31T14:09:00.001-06:002013-05-31T14:30:25.801-06:00Top 5 Video Games: Honorable MentionsBelow is my long list of video games that almost make it to my top 5, but not quite for whatever reason. In general, I have a more favorable opinion of the games at the top compared to those near the bottom, thought that's subject to change depending on my mood.<br />
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Next up will be a post dedicated to my #5 favorite game of all time!<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gothic 2</span></span><br />
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There was a time a few years ago when this game unseated my long-time favorite for the top spot. Granted, the newness of Gothic 2 wore off eventually and it slid down a bit when I was able to see things more objectively, but I still have to say that if there was one game that deserves my "sixth man" award, this is it. It hurts a little to leave this off my top 5, and I can say without any hesitation that this is something very special. This is one of the very last games made with a modern 3D engine that still held true to old-school RPG mechanics. And by that I mean, puzzle-solving and high difficulty over level-grinding. This game reminds me of Fable without the cheesiness of Peter Molyneux; a beautiful, non-scaled open world full of quests galore, and highly realistic AI.<br />
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This game makes you feel like there is nobody there to hold your hand. It's very easy to wander into an area with monsters way beyond your level, but the game never stops you from doing that. It also doesn't stop you from taking on quests in any order or of any difficulty that you want. This is one of the few games during this time period that had NPC AI that used real schedules, you had to wait until dawn for the shops to open, and important characters for quests could only be found at the right time of day depending on where you were. Although this is common in later games like Oblivion and Skyrim, this game was way ahead of its time. "Radiant AI" truly started with Gothic 2.<br />
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Even monsters made use of a highly advanced AI. Like a Monster Hunter
game, each monster had its own tactics that took time and effort to
overcome. They even stayed dead permanently after you killed them,
making you feel a large sense of accomplishment after defeating them.<br />
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One other thing I have to mention about this game that no other game has ever done as well, is make you feel a sense of belonging. You don't start out feeling like a hero at all. You feel like a peasant, and you are treated like one from the very beginning. However, as time goes on and you accomplish more things, people start reacting to you differently. I don't think that any other game has ever done this as smoothly and as effectively as Gothic 2.<br />
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What hurt this game was the lack of character creation options - sure you could mold your hero between melee, ranged and magic, but you were limited to a static male human to start out with. Also, the control system was pretty poor. I would play this game a lot more often if it wasn't so difficult to actually control.<br />
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Even with its flaws, this game is amazing. And while I haven't played it myself, I've heard that the original Gothic is also superb, even if it falls just short of its sequel. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Baldur's Gate 2</span><br />
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Some may be a little shocked to see that this game isn't in my top 5, and to be honest, I'm surprised myself that it isn't there because this game is legendary among RPG fans. This game is epic in every sense of the word. Loosely based on the 2nd Edition D&D rule-set and set in the Forgotten Realms, BG2 is a massive game with tons of quests, treasure, NPCs (many of which are recruitable) and story arcs. Character creation is deep with nearly all of the 2E kits and subraces available to play with. I've always felt that 2E D&D worked far better as a video game system than a pen & paper game. The tactical nature of the combat, the strict rules, and all the options worked great with a computer DM running things.<br />
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The story of this game is pretty amazing, and features probably one of my favorite gaming villains of all time (perhaps I need to do a top 5 villain list sometime), Irenicus. There are many choices to be made during the game that can influence the characters you can recruit as well as the direction the story goes. There are factions that can be joined, including the assassins guild, where you will have a chance to ascend the ranks and battle the opposing factions. The variety of people, places and things to find is staggering.<br />
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The combat system is something that many grognards of cRPGs constantly pine for whenever a new RPG is made. Each battle can be solved in a variety of ways depending upon your party make-up, and because of the huge amount of spells, combat often reminds me of a frantic wizard battle with a large variety of spells and counter spells.<br />
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Now you may be asking why this isn't in my top 5. For me, its strengths are also part of its weaknesses. The game, especially later on, starts to become a little too overpowered and bloated if that makes sense. I've always said that D&D was a game balanced for low level characters, and the high levels kind of got left along the wayside. On paper, things work okay, but in real practice slaying demi-gods with demi-gods begins to wear thin after a while. <br />
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Another bother for me in this game is the combat system. In the late game especially, magic characters have become so powerful that combat becomes a puzzle or mini-game and really starts to bog down everything. In fact, it gets bad enough that in order to win combat encounters you often find yourself dying the first couple times on purpose just to know what spells and attacks the opposition uses. For me that, really kills the immersion. In D&D you don't get to save scum failed encounters, you live and learn with your mistakes. Of course, you do have a choice not to save/reload but much of the large story-based dungeon crawls in the game basically require this or your party will be unable to continue on at all (only way to get out is forward).<br />
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Those reasons keep this game out of my top 5. A great and enormous game, kind of buried by its own weight in a way. For someone else this may not be a big deal, as I think many people love running battles over and over again to get them pitch-perfect. Even though I love this game, the high-level combat slog puts a damper on it.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Diablo</span><br />
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No, not Diablo 2 and certainly not Diablo 3. Diablo was the game that still kept intact many of the concepts of the rogue-likes it mimicked while providing a superbly atmospheric real-time action experience. The first time I saw this game was on the back of a Warcraft II CD case. One single screenshot of one of the most amazing games I had ever seen before got me so excited that I pre-ordered almost immediately. I remembered gazing at that screenshot for weeks and weeks prior to the game's arrival in the mail. This seemed to be the game I had been waiting for, for a very long time.<br />
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When the package finally arrived in the mail, I remember seeing the black and red cover and the amazing gothic art and calling my best friend to run over as fast as he could to check it out. Over the next few days, I played the game non-stop from dawn to dusk. My friend bought the game and we were soon slaying demons together. The initial hype of the game matched the game-play so well that I soon started to feel obsessed over the game, as if the game itself was some kind of Lovecraftian relic of evil.<br />
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One day after dying a gruesome death deep in the caves and losing all of my equipment, I took the disk out of the tray, put it back in its case and packaged it back in the box. I gave the game to my mom and told her to hide it. "No matter what I say or do", I told her, "don't give me the game back". What followed was something I can only describe as the scene from Young Frankenstein where Frederick <a href="http://youtu.be/iBAYEK4Ftz8">locks himself up </a>with the monster and wants to get out. Of course my mother wouldn't give me the game back and I had to tear the house apart to finally find it after she had gone shopping. Yeah, I was hooked on Diablo.<br />
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Why is this game on my list other than for the reason above? Well, the game's good, really good. This was before we were spoiled with green, blue, yellow, and purple drops, when good drops were really rare. Hearing that ring or amulet drop became the most awesome sound in the world, it was like hitting the jackpot. The difficulty was high as well which made a great risk vs reward system. On a normal game taking on the skeleton king or the butcher was extremely difficult because you couldn't go back to an easier level and grind for experience. You had to use what you were given up to that point.<br />
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The game's theme was really dark, perhaps the darkest, most creepiest game made up to that point. Corpses were hanging all over the place, blood spattered on the floor when you killed a monster, there were terrifying screams in the soundtrack. You have to realize that at this point in time, games didn't go this far. But Diablo didn't pull any punches, it wanted to make you feel like you were literally going to a place of your worst nightmares when you played this game.<br />
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On top of that, each time you died in multiplayer, you dropped everything....<u>everything</u>. Unless you had a friend nearby who had inventory room, or you were extremely lucky, you would never see your accumulated items again. To add insult to injury, if you lost your internet connection after losing your equipment (someone picked up the phone in your house, for example), you knew you would never see your stuff again. I can't tell you the episodes of terrible of rage I would feel when the game would suddenly freeze up and I'd hear my sister upstairs yell, "oops, sorry". NOOOOOO!!!!!<br />
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But that's what made Diablo great. It was a hard, unforgiving game, and the theme matched it perfectly. Death meant something in this game, entering a new level meant risking everything each and every time. When those acid spitters started to surround me in the caves, I'd start sweating and tensing up, knowing that I could lose at any moment, and I knew I might possibly never see my new yellow sword again. Games, especially modern action RPGs, just don't do this anymore. That's why I'll never see them hold a candle to the original. All of the crazy loot drops and crap you can get in D2 and D3 will never compare to the chilling moments of survival in Diablo where each step meant life or death.<br />
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I recently came across a mod for Diablo that I like very much. It's called <a href="http://www.diablothehell.narod.ru/main.html">The Hell</a>. This mod takes everything I loved about the game and enhances it big time. The game is even harder, multi-player is better, many bugs are fixed, and there is a far greater variety of items and monsters with better AI. I highly recommend this mod to anyone who wants to make the game even richer and more rewarding than vanilla.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Space Rangers 2</span><br />
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This game will always be special for me. It's not often that I like a game that is not themed swords & sorcery fantasy, but for so many reasons SR2 does enough to make it one of my favorite games of all time.<br />
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What I love most about this game is the living, breathing universe that it is set in. I can't think of many games that give you the same kind of simulation. Every NPC-controlled ship in the game has real motivations and goals and affect the way the world works in many ways. Pirates gangs target specific ships and systems, merchant and other commercial ships travel from system to system trading their goods for profit. The economy is constantly changing based on how these NPCs move their goods and how things are being impacted around the galaxy.<br />
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For example, if pirates are raiding a nearby system, you can get news updates about the situation including quests that will ask for your help in eradicating them. Depending on the situation, the price of medicine will also go up from the supply shortages due to the destruction in the area. It is a completely dynamic system that makes you feel a part of an amazing greater world that operates with or without your participation.<br />
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The enemy in the game, the Dominators, are also dynamic and survive on their own AI. They take over systems all on their own, conquering like some Borg intelligence regardless of your participation in the war. If the game goes on long enough without your help, it is very possible for the Dominators to take over the whole galaxy. Now, why haven't there really been any games made like this in a fantasy setting? I think it would work tremendously well.<br />
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The dynamic world is not the only thing that makes this game great. The game-play itself is tight, diverse and a lot of fun. The game is unique in that it combines a lot of different systems to mix it up. In addition to the open world exploration where you'll spend most of your time, you'll engage in a turn-based tactical combat system with multiple combatants. You can recruit a helpful bystandard to your battle or even be called upon by others to help those under attack or preparing to attack. Many of the game's planetary quests are done using a text-based decision system very similar to the old Choose Your Own Adventure books, some of them are very complex and very difficult, including exploring a planet's surface, and even the adventure of serving prison time. Less often you will partake in planetary skirmishes with robot armies using a simple RTS interface.<br />
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All of these sub-systems taken on their own wouldn't be very interesting, but taken together, the game feels like a collection of working parts that operate well together. They provide a nice break from the regular space exploration and do a great job of filling in the gaps that most other space games like Elite fail to deliver.<br />
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I just love this game, it's a fun romp through the universe, even if it does get a tad monotonous if played over a long period of time. I recommend getting the reboot edition which fixes bugs and adds even more content to the game.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Wizards & Warriors</span><br />
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Of all the games on this list, I think this may surprise people the most. The game got panned pretty hard, not only by reviewers, but by many gamers even today. Some love it, but most probably dislike it. W&W suffers, more than anything else, because of its timing. The game was not only released during the same year as Diablo II and Baldur's Gate II, but just 5 days later in late September of 2000. Had it released a few months earlier or later, it may have had a better shot at success. Evidence of that can be seen in Wizardry 8 which was released the following year and got far more accolades than W&W. The result was a game that was unfairly judged based on the elephant in the room rather than on its own merits.<br />
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Some criticism of the game was deserving, it shipped with a lot of bugs, some game-breaking which also hurt its score, even if most were later fixed. This game was also criticized for so many old school mechanics that many people were trying to get away from in the age of isometric, tactical RPGs. Many, however, fail to realize that the game was designed and programmed by D.W. Bradley, who did Wizardry 5,6 and 7. This game was meant to be the ultimate culmination of his ideas from those games - the ultimate first person RPG in the vein of the classics. And in many ways, unlike the opinion of many (with the <a href="http://www.ign.com/articles/2000/09/30/wizards-warriors">notable exception</a> of IGN), I think he succeeded.<br />
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I've always felt that Wizardry 8 did too much to abandon its predecessors' mechanics in favor of modern gaming trends. Wiz 8 is much more of a hack-n-slash game with highly-linear locales and a high emphasis on grinding. W&W still held true to the old-school RPG: a massive open world to explore, crazy options for character creation, difficult and maze-like dungeons, and lots and lots of puzzles.<br />
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The reason for my putting this game on this list is simply to recognize that this is probably the best incarnation of the classic first-person RPG ever done. The game is a joy to play, the world is full of things to see and do, the combat system feels great, puzzles are fun, and customization is deep. The graphics engine is dark and atmospheric and provides just enough graphical innovation to make it feel fresh while not sacrificing the old-school feel that it was based on.<br />
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For whomever has missed this game, or those who want an accessible version of the old school style first-person RPG, this is quite possibly the best representation I can think of. I highly recommend it.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Deathlord</span><br />
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This is a game I only recently purchased for my
Commodore 64. But I've had so much fun with it, I couldn't rightly
justify keeping it off my list of honorable mentions. In a lot of ways Deathlord is to Ultima as Wizards & Warriors is to Wizardry. Take what you loved about Ultima 3, 4 or 5; huge world to explore with lots of secrets, dungeons, monsters and treasure, puzzle quests that are solved by deduction, and then multiply it 10-fold and you get something like Deathlord. I do love the Ultima games, Exodus being my favorite, but I think Deathlord is just plain better.<br />
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This game is huge. It's made up of 16 continents both small and huge, 128 different monsters, 20 gigantic dungeons, 8 races, and 16 classes. I can't think of another computer game with that many race/class combos. The game-play is very similar to the early Ultima games which comprises mainly of searching towns and dungeons for clues, gathering relics, and gaining experience points and gold to spend on levels and loot. It's classic fantasy computer role-playing at its finest.<br />
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The game is extremely hard as well. If a party member dies, the game will auto-save meaning that there is no way to really load a backup on the same disk and replay a battle. I honestly wish every RPG had this built in, especially for a game like Baldur's Gate where it's simply too much of a temptation to reload and get every fight perfect. If a character dies in Deathlord, the player will have to resurrect him or replace him with a new character. If there is a total party wipe, then the player will either have to start over completely with a new party, or use the new party to get cash to raise the old one.<br />
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The dungeons are awesome, and unlike Ultima and other early tile-based RPGS, vary wildly from one to the next. They are full of killer traps, monsters and treasure and, best of all, require you to map with paper and pencil. A game that has no auto-mapper will always get extra props from me. A great game should transcend the screen, it should be an experience.<br />
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The biggest downside for this game, personally, is the oriental setting, which is quite unfortunate. Originally, <a href="http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=8596">the developer had planned for it to be set in a standard medieval world</a>, but EA forced him to change it last minute. Leave it to EA to screw a game up, even all the way back then. This makes it difficult for westerners to figure out the Japanese word for Elf and Chainmail and ends up becoming a barrier to new players. That being said, the game itself is so good I can live with the setting, even if it takes a little more manual checking (Hint: Don't even try playing without a manual!).<br />
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Although I haven't played this game long enough to put it in my top five, it may end up there some day, that is if I can survive long enough to find out!<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Pool of Radiance </span><br />
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I've always felt like this is the spiritual precursor to Baldur's Gate. The game takes place in the <i>Forgotten Realms </i>and
was the first game to really get tactical combat right. The game is
really one of the best translations of D&D to the computer, and I
believe this is only one of the few games that uses the first edition
rule-set.<br />
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The reason why I love this game is because
it combines Bard's Tale exploration (first-person) with tactical combat
to create a very balanced and effective combination. All of the
components, from quest gathering, to shopping for items or hanging out
at the inn, to dungeon-crawling make a sweet combination. This is a
complete game here, not a cute system pigeonholed to be an RPG. The old Might & Magic games were great (2 being my favorite), but they were essentially a grind. Grind mechanics have become a convention for the lazy developer and are
pretty inferior to the old-school puzzle-solving mechanics. While PoR
has some grinding, it mixes it up enough to minimize the effects pretty
well.<br />
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This, along with its sequel, is a game that I haven't played long enough to put in my top rankings, but there is a great game here.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Fallout </span><br />
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I've already discussed this game in a lot of detail in an <a href="http://tenebroustales.blogspot.com/2013/02/emergent-storytelling.html">earlier post</a>, so I won't repeat it all here. I just want to say that there's no way I could not include this game on my honorable mentions list. The game's method of providing a completely open experience, nearly unparalleled by any game, is highly unique.<br />
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Why Fallout and not Fallout 2? Well, unlike most, I felt that the sequel, while even bigger and more detailed, was just a bit too unfocused. The game meanders a little too much and there just isn't the tight experience there like in the original. Fallout 2 is a great game, but I felt the original was just a little better.<br />
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One might also ask why I didn't put up Wasteland or even Fallout 3. Wasteland is a great game, but it still lacks the amazing options of Fallout as well as the great combat system and deep options. And, I'm sorry, but Fallout 3 is just no good at all. The game doesn't even try to simulate the deep world-changing choices of the original, nor does it make resource management all that important. Like other recent Bethesda games, it's a first-person-shooter at heart disguised as an RPG.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Space Empires 4 </span><br />
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SE4 is the only non video game RPG on my list. It was a hard decision to include it as I don't play many strategy games, at least those that don't include some sort of character development and choice. But this game is so good, I couldn't leave it off.<br />
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SE4 is the best turn-based strategy game I've played. This game is as detailed as a strategy game gets. The tech tree is so vast and detailed, and there are so many options in the way that you can build your empire that games can vary in vast ways. The game is also one of the most moddable in existence. You can tweak nearly everything including many core game mechanics. I'll admit that SE5 is even more detailed than SE4, and I love that game too, but it suffered a little from a poor interface and a little more barrier to modding (and required a better machine anyway).<br />
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SE4's game-play is just about as good as Master of Orion 2, but the more modern engine and the modding support push it over the top as my favorite space strategy game.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Final Fantasy 6</span><br />
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I know, I know, an eastern RPG?! Am I nuts? Well, no, not exactly. I put so many hours into these games during my childhood that I don't think I could keep this off my list and feel good about myself. And maybe this mention is more of a compiled tribute to all of my favorite console-style RPGs like Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, Tactics Ogre and the Final Fantasy series up to and including 6. For table-top gamers, admitting you like some of these games could be considered heresy, but having had a chance to revisit a few of these games recently, I have to say that they share a lot in common with D&D. They often feature customizable character parties, non-linear worlds (at least for some of them), and lots and lots of dungeon crawling.<br />
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Are these sandbox worlds? No, of course not. And that really makes their label as an "RPG" questionable at best. But take them for what they are, enjoyable stories with some interesting mechanics, and they can be a fun ride.<br />
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I think the thing about these games that many fail to see and what sets them apart from western computer RPGs is the meta-game systems. What I mean by that is that these games are not meant to be immersive. If you go into these games attempting to get the same, "I feel like I'm part of another world" experience as a wRPG, you're doing it wrong. These games and their mechanics are really meant to be exploited and "gamified", if that makes any sense. The best way to enjoy a console RPG is by using walk-throughs, player guides, and player collaboration. The Monster Hunter series continues to work in Japan because people understand this there. Don't play for the scenery, play to exploit. Creating the most awesome character by finding the best piece of equipment, battling the most rewarding monsters, and combing through the deepest dungeons is how you get the most out of it. In other words, don't play a console RPG like an RPG, play it like a treasure hunt.<br />
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Now, the reason why I put Final Fantasy 6 on this list is because this is simply the best eastern RPG ever made. I would put Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 4, and Dragon Quest 4 just after it, but FF6 has it all; amazing story, huge list of characters, awesome villain, lots of freedom, and great dungeons with lots of loot. You'll lose over 100 hours here hunting down the secrets of this world, building up your perfect fighting force, and finding and overcoming challenges. There's a lot here to have fun with, the type of console RPG fun that has never been outdone since in the console world.<br />
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Having said that, I don't put this game, nor any console RPG in the same area as western games. They make for a fun diversion, but they don't have the same lasting appeal to me as a true fantasy simulation. That doesn't make them completely worthless, nor worthy of some of the scorn I see them given by some RPG grognards on our side. Enjoy them for what they are, and you'll see its good qualities.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-65881735378769046662013-05-28T10:03:00.004-06:002013-05-29T11:09:17.253-06:00My Top 5 Video GamesEver since I started this blog, I've been wanting to do a post about my favorite video games of all time. I've been spending some time playing my #1 favorite over the last few days, so I thought it was the perfect time to do a countdown. Rather than do a single post, however, I thought it would be better to do a separate post on each since there is simply so much to talk about for each one.<br />
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The problem with doing favorite game lists is that you inevitably leave some games out that were just on the border, or perhaps so similar to another (that ended up being just a little inferior) that they didn't need to be on the list. Rather than just make my list even longer by doing a top 10 or top 20 or something like that, I decided to just create a list of special mentions or "runner-ups". There are simply too many great games out there that come near to perfection, even if they aren't my greatest ever.<br />
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It is incredibly difficult to narrow down a list of games as
your "best" and do it in an objective manner. Too often our tastes are
clouded by nostalgia or, the opposite, novelty and sometimes the flavor
of the moment fades into obscurity. When coming up with this list, I
tried to be as objective as possible, explicitly leaving games off that I may be infatuated with right now that I know may be impacting fair judgement. Perhaps the new games I am playing (new to me, not necessarily newly released) may end up in my favs list, but it would be unfair to do that until I've let some time to let it sink in or have had more time to play it.<br />
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I felt that limiting my list to 5 games was the best because I think that making a list any longer than that results in games being added purely out of a particular mechanic or system that I may be a little too impartial toward. Another thing I want to say is that my top 5 games likely won't stay the same forever. If you asked me just a few years ago, my favorites list would look a lot different. In a few years I may have to revisit the list and add updates. Having said that, as I said above, I'm trying to add only the games that have lasted the test of time for me, games that have been favorites for many years. Barring the retail release of Star Trek style holo-decks in my lifetime (which may not be so hard to believe considering how fast technology moves), I can guarantee you that most of the games in my top 5 (especially my #1) will be there forever.<br />
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One last thing I want to briefly mention is the the way I judge games. Right off the bat, I want to say that I don't go by some mathematical formula to figure this stuff out. If you want that, there's another guy doing this on <a href="http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/">his own blog</a>. While I can see the value of this, I feel that it boils things down in such a stale, black and white fashion, that all emotion gets sucked out of the review. Since I see video games as an art form, you can't simply run a formula to figure out their value. For example, counting the amount of colors, paint mixture, size and shadowing does not tell you whether a painting has value or not. "What feelings does the art invoke through its elements?", is the better question to ask. And, yes, this means that it all boils down to subjectivity in the end, but most people can agree that there are just certain video games that fall within their favorites because of the way the games' components come together to deliver an amazing experience.<br />
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So to begin my countdown, in the next post, I'm going to start with the runner-ups and honorable mentions together first. From there I will dedicate a single post to each of my top 5.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-7998147893314966832013-05-13T10:06:00.001-06:002013-05-13T10:06:15.216-06:00Tracy HickmanWhile visiting my parents over the weekend, I had a chance to briefly chat with Tracy Hickman for a few minutes about some of the projects he's currently working on. He was out doing a yard sale with his wife as is customary with much of the local community every May. <br />
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He sounded pretty excited about Garriot's <i><a href="https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/">Shroud of the Avatar</a> </i>project and has been putting a lot of work into making it as great as it can be. He also hinted about a new story-based boardgame he's going to be kickstarting very soon which sounds pretty awesome. This got me talking a little about how I thought it was great that I share the same vision for player-driven content with him and that I thought it was awesome that he was trying to push such innovations on a market that seems to be stuck in a bit of a rut lately. Before I left, he gave me a signed copy of <i>The Immortals</i> which was great.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHTlyQowR5uLkjcCiQXCCoBHRONJdmbPPu-lIYLKqp2d55SlEhy7KduwT69bLw4QGBxPQ47h2OVM_d5kzgP2dukM9QD_CQTGYQy48Kdf40zBkskJ8XDIA2r4Uew_HS9ThKTmPA6sv3QcA/s1600/dragons-of-autumn-twilight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHTlyQowR5uLkjcCiQXCCoBHRONJdmbPPu-lIYLKqp2d55SlEhy7KduwT69bLw4QGBxPQ47h2OVM_d5kzgP2dukM9QD_CQTGYQy48Kdf40zBkskJ8XDIA2r4Uew_HS9ThKTmPA6sv3QcA/s1600/dragons-of-autumn-twilight.jpg" /></a></div>
I'll admit that I'm not the biggest fan of his books themselves. I haven't read anything outside of the Dragonlance series, and while I enjoyed those books, I've always had a softer spot for Salvatore's Drizzt and company (sorry Tracy!). Nonetheless, I greatly admire Hickman's contribution to D&D and table-top RPGs in general, probably more than any other Fantasy novelist. His story about how he got into the hobby is pretty amazing and something I've always considered a real act of bravery. Not only were his parents against it at the time (his dad wanted him to work at Sizzler instead), but the faith that both he and I share, like many Christians, was not exactly friendly to <i>Dungeons and Dragons</i> back in the 80s.<br />
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We will never know for sure, but without the contribution to D&D from Tracy Hickman, table-top RPGs as we know them may have never truly caught on as a mainstream phenomenon in the United States. For the first time, the title of <i>Dungeons and Dragons</i> was being widely seen on store shelves, not only in hobby-shops, but in your average bookstore. Even though this is the point where D&D began to become more commercialized and bloated by rules and supplements, I can't argue that without this metamorphosis, many, including myself, may have never even heard about the game. So in a round-about sort of way, Tracy Hickman led me to this game through his work and I greatly appreciate him for that.<br />
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I hope to have more chats with him in the future, it certainly helps that he lives almost directly across the street from my parents in Salt Lake County. I'm excited about his new projects and hope I can get some personal insight into his work. Rubbing shoulders with one of the great RPG pioneers is an awesome opportunity.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-32642034891129406032013-04-11T15:02:00.001-06:002013-04-11T15:57:15.109-06:00RPG Dictatorships Cont'dI thought this podcast was really pertinent to the last post on how more rules have actually had a detrimental impact on RPGs, min 17:40 to 26:29, especially around min 24:30.<br />
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<a href="http://ec.libsyn.com/p/3/5/f/35f890c8d8aa9078/feartheboot_bonus_0046.mp3?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d01ce8230d0ce5519ff&c_id=5186767">Link</a><br />
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Fair warning: There is quite a bit of poorly "bleeped" swearing.<br />
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One comment from this section bothered me a little as well: <i>"You didn't know the rules well enough, or didn't know every aspect of it to not let yourself get into a trap". </i><br />
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This is really the reason why I stopped playing 3rd Edition, more than anything else. I may have mentioned before in an earlier post, but I was running a Pathfinder game over Skype a few years ago and we got into a combat situation with some Darkmantles that just became unfathomably complicated. By the end of the session, I was so disgusted with the rules I never touched the game again.<br />
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When did RPG preparation go from world building to rules studying? Seriously. Who honestly has fun researching monster stat blocks for each unique ability and how those abilities affect your party's skill and feat lists before every game session? RPGs should be about imagination, they should be about turning that awesome movie we saw into a game setting. We should be building dungeons with the finest of detail, and fleshing out NPCs, treasure, and traps with all our energy. That's what RPGs should be about.<br />
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But this requirement to know "every aspect" of the rules is offensive to me. First, I doubt there is anyone who can claim that, considering all of the support books for modern games. And second, I guarantee you, there is someone who will know it better. Law is only as good as its lawyer.<br />
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And if the rebuttal is, "well just DM Fiat difficult situations", or "use common sense", then why play with such heavy handed rules in the first place if you'll throw them out for classic adjudication anyway? Do you live by the rules or common sense? Make up your mind. If it's the latter, I say get rid of your fat book of rules and start building fantasy worlds, not fantasy court rooms.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-53047601503358693862013-04-10T12:24:00.000-06:002013-04-10T12:54:13.046-06:00RPG Dictatorships<i>Being at a 4E table is better than being at a classic table for
exactly the same reason why it is better to live in a country with a
rule of law than living in an authoritharian country. - </i>Moronic Blogger<br />
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I'm not sure what an "authoritHarian" country is, but it must be something like an authoritarian one. Regardless, I'd like to address this for a moment as it nails down the biggest argument proponents of modern RPGs use to defend their game.<br />
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First let's just put aside the fact that using imagery of Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, North Korea or Obama's USA to equate with a game played in your living room is not only an absurd straw-man, but pretty reprehensible to those who suffered under those regimes. I mean, if your game resembles anything like those kind of governments, I'd suggest, first and foremost, to get out as fast as possible before A) you get gassed to death, B) go hungry, or C) get shot by a drone. That's my first advice to anyone suffering under such terrible conditions, because those that truly did or do live under such countries didn't/don't have the luxury of escaping themselves.<br />
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But for a moment let's assume that the author of this quote was being just a tad bit little hyperbolic. Let's talk about how dictatorships really work. I've never heard of one where the dictator literally runs his country without laws he has setup to do the job for him. Dictators love to sit back and relax, take vacations, and go to lots of parties, you know, the whole getting fed by grapes and getting fanned by his worshipers thing. He creates a massive police force backed by a laundry list of laws and regulations to do his dirty work for him.<br />
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You see, dictators don't last long if they are dishing out their punishment first-hand. They want to maintain the propaganda of being detached from it all, like video from Hitler's Austrian retreat, his book, <i>Mein Kampf </i>("My Struggle"), or Obama's White House parties. They want to put off the aura of "hey look I'm cool, I'm one of you! Everything's going great!". A dictator looking like a dictator to his enslaved populace would soon have a riot on his hands. And that would be no good at all.<br />
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I suppose in this way RPGs are not much difference. Classic D&D DMs had a lot more power than modern DMs...or at least that's how it appears. In reality, since DMs in the old school game were essentially "the law", they had to be on their best behavior: kind, trustworthy, and above all, fair. Because if they weren't, the players would know exactly where and how to vent their frustrations and/or leave. Dictator DMs don't get away with it in classic D&D because they are held accountable for their actions every time they run a game.<br />
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And let's not confuse words here. A true dictator hides his evil behind laws and rules, maintaining a good face in public. A true leader makes good judgement because he makes himself fully accountable for his actions. He doesn't hide behind laws or rules. Even in cases where a bad DM gets out of control, players are fully able to change their group and find one that works for them. Changing DMs in Classic gives players the liberty to choose the game they enjoy most because the rules are designed to be adjusted and changed very easily.<br />
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So who is playing a game that rules most like an evil dictator? In a modern game of D&D, you have a system that claims, "we're fair and balanced because we have a lot of rules to make sure everyone plays so". A player that comes to the table can essentially dictate anything he wants just as long as he is able to find a rule in a book somewhere to back it up. So you have a recipe here of a true dictatorship, and not just one, <i>everyone. </i> Because everyone at the table can wash their hands of their own rules, "Hey don't look at me, it's the book's fault, not mine!". The term, "rules lawyering" really started during the post classic era of RPGs because anyone could dictate the game if he knew the rules well enough.<br />
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Now I'm not here to claim that if someone wants to be devious, they can't be devious in any game system. A bad DM or player is a bad DM or player regardless. But in the case of Classic D&D, the arbitrator of rules falls on the lap of 1 person and 1 person alone. Getting rid of the bad apple is not a matter of arguing over a rule in the book (which can be interpreted in a thousand ways), but a matter of a decision of common sense.<br />
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And here's the thing, you can easily change rules by changing DMs in Classic, but you can't change the rules by changing DMs in modern. The rules are the rules in modern gaming because they are part of the core rulebook. Now you see how this is starting to remind you of those poor people of true dictatorship more and more. They couldn't get away from it, the law was the law no matter where you went.<br />
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A country where a true dictator or king makes rulings for his people typically ends up in disaster because it's not so easy to get rid of them. In an RPG, however, where the DM is accountable directly to his players, he cannot hide poor play.<br />
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Modern RPGs are a dictatorship of rules and rulebooks, where players and DMs have no accountability, where they can wash their hands of wrong-doing because of rules. Being a dictator in modern D&D is just a splat-book away. Classic D&D provides total freedom because accountability starts and stops at the table not the rulebook.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-66067503868377468032013-04-08T10:49:00.001-06:002013-04-08T10:49:27.859-06:00Plot-Lines<b>Bing:</b><br />
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<i><span class="DefQuick">plot or dialogue: </span><span class="DefBody">the plot or story in a book or dramatic presentation, or the dialogue needed to develop the plot</span></i></div>
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<span class="DefBody"> </span></div>
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<b><span class="DefBody">TheFreeDictionary.com:</span></b></div>
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<i>1. A literary or dramatic plot; a story line.<br />2. Dialogue essential to the development of a plot in a drama.<span class="DefBody"> </span></i></div>
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<i><span class="DefBody"> </span></i></div>
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<b><span class="DefBody">Wikipedia (redirected to "Dramatic Structure"):</span></b></div>
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<span class="DefBody"> </span><i>the structure of a dramatic work such as a play or film...</i></div>
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<i> a drama is divided into five parts, or acts, which some refer to as a dramatic arc: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement. </i></div>
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<i><span class="DefBody"> </span></i></div>
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<span class="DefBody">A blogger recently used the word "plotline" as an ingredient to describe a sandbox RPG. If any of the definitions above bring to mind a player-driven game, I want to invite you to my new table-top game this weekend, a live reading of <i>Othello</i> where you can have an exciting adventure voicing Iago, and Desdemona with me!</span></div>
GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-72169181121425994572013-04-03T11:45:00.000-06:002013-04-03T11:52:16.456-06:00RPG = Player-Driven Narrative"Takes two to tango". A very old idiomatic expression that simply means that "stuff" doesn't really start happening until more than one person is participating. We can daydream all day long in our basements, living rooms, garages or what-have-you, but until we get off our butts and do something about our dreams, they amount to nothing.<br />
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RPGs are not very different. I spend a lot of my free time world building in my gaming closet, I draw maps, I study modules and publications to get ideas about monster and NPC design, I read novels from various fantasy authors for inspiration, and I play old-school CRPGs and fantasy board games to get a glimpse of where RPG history went. The result of these things are a collection of great gaming worlds.<br />
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But they don't matter. They are just props. A collection of props that I put a lot of TLC into, props that have lots and lots of potential, but they're still lifeless set pieces stored away in the closet of imagination (or in my binder) ready to come to life if someone decides to use them. Me or someone else. These things are not what makes an RPG. They could be used for anything at this point: I could write a fantasy novel with them, code a video game, maybe try my hand at a amateur fantasy film and put it up on YouTube. They don't have to be part of an RPG.<br />
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The key ingredient to an RPG is the players themselves. When they make decisions in the game, these objects come to life and are given a story. In my games, my players get to make decisions to affect, direct, destroy, or enhance those objects. When they walk past a street in my imaginary village, suddenly all of the dead NPCs come to life, suddenly the town drunk is yelling obscenities while tripping over himself, suddenly the guards are on patrol, suddenly the world has come to life.<br />
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Sometimes as a DM I act as a player, but I have the whole world at my disposal, not just the props where the characters are wandering through. The assassins' guild is carrying out missions, the caravans are getting attacked by giants in the mountain passes, the king is getting played by his power-hungry advisors. Many of these things never reach the ears of my players until much later, or never at all. But I breathed life into them nonetheless, they existed and lived and made decisions because I, as a DM-turned player made it happen.<br />
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Are my players forced to know about these events? Of course not. Because if they were forced to, they would no longer be role-playing. They would be READING MY SCRIPT. They would be under the illusion of role-playing, but they would be simply following a novel written by me. Any game that forces players down a road that they have not made a decision to follow is not a Role-Playing Game. They've lost their role, whether they know it or not. They are merely witnessing a group of characters, like Frodo and Sam, taking their tour through someone's canned world, adding in their input to humor themselves that really makes no difference to the end result.<br />
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Am I dissing on my game world? No of course not. I once posted about the <a href="http://tenebroustales.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-lovecraftian-approach-to-d.html">Lovecraftian approach</a> and how we should view our worlds as perhaps actually existing. I don't take that back. Our worlds should be role-played as if they are real. We should take our role-playing with complete seriousness not taking in meta elements from our own world. When we have entered that world, it should feel like it's something real, but when we leave, it doesn't continue living unless we're there to make choices in it. It goes to sleep, it freezes in time, the lights go off....that is, until we return.<br />
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RPGs are sandboxes, they are created from player decisions creating life out of NPCs, weapons and places that are nothing more than words on paper until they are acted upon.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-67566824040922769252013-04-03T10:30:00.001-06:002013-04-03T11:18:58.358-06:00Gygax Worship<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Gary_Gygax_Gen_Con_2007.JPG/450px-Gary_Gygax_Gen_Con_2007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Gary_Gygax_Gen_Con_2007.JPG/450px-Gary_Gygax_Gen_Con_2007.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
I'm a fan of Gary Gygax. He and Arneson pretty much invented RPGs. AD&D First Edition will always be my favorite core rulebook for a lot of reasons (not favorite edition though). I get why he is important and has a special place in the hearts of gamers. But let's not forget that he was a human being, not some god from the outer plane of Elysium as much as some would hope.<br />
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I see many grognards who seem to quote his name every third sentence, throwing around the word, "milieu" left and right, quoting him for truth to add heft to an argument. "Gygax's 97th game at GenCon #x ran module xyz and said abc, so that's why you're wrong" is something I commonly see among his fandom.<br />
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Let's not forget that there were a lot of other people that made D&D what it was. D&D would not be the same to me without the art of Otus, Elmore and others. The B/X rules are arguably the best written, most concise rules D&D ever published and Gygax had little to do with it. And let's not forget that Gygax sold us down the river in the later years of 2nd edition, caught up in the business and politics of it all.<br />
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We owe a lot to him for his work, but his interpretation of the game was often very unstable. You can make a case for almost any type of RPG argument by quoting something Gygax said depending on the time he said it. Did he love using minis? Depends when you asked. Did he love surprise in combat? Well he put it in his book, but didn't seem to use it much. Was Tolkien an inspiration for the game? He would say "yes" and "no". The art of role-playing games is not found within one man, just as the art of fine music is not found only in Bach, for we'd be missing the contributions of Wagner, Bach and Beetoven.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-31401799480686617002013-04-02T11:43:00.004-06:002013-04-02T11:57:10.325-06:00Railroads and RPGs Perhaps it's simply a popular concept of our times, but there has been a lot of moral relativism creeping into gaming recently. The idea that there is no "right or wrong" way to run a game, just like there is no right or wrong way to define marriage or lying or cheating or working, etc and on and on. Really, if nothing can be defined as black or white, right or wrong, anymore what's the point of human existence? If measuring something no longer matters because nothing can be measured, then what are we doing here? There can be no human progress if there is nothing we can judge as a starting point, a "control" point to progress against.<br />
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Anyway, I don't want to get into a philosophical rant today, I just want to rant about this idea that "railroad gaming" as it is called, is a valid system.<br />
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Recently I read a rather heated <a href="http://ravencrowking.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2013-03-06T12:59:00-05:00&max-results=9">back-and-forth</a> debate between a couple bloggers about what defines a railroad, sometimes known as "narrative" or "story", game. On the one side, the railroad apologist was trying to argue that because every RPG has "structure" to it, it means that they all really are railroads. Prior to that I read what amounted to a <a href="http://tao-dnd.blogspot.ca/2013/02/the-story-talectomy.html">sob story</a> about playing nice with these kind of gamers because really they "are programmed to be passive" and just can't help themselves. So as DMs, we should all just bend over and let our gamers sit back and be spoon fed Hollywood-style set games. Poor things.<br />
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I'm sorry, but arguing with people like this is kind of like arguing with a 2 year old who doesn't want to eat his vegetables. You just can't reason with immaturity and ignorance.<br />
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So let's make it simple. The bottom line is that if you're running an RPG with a pre-planned script of any kind, you're no longer even running an RPG. You can call it a theatre play in your living room, a skit, story time, or whatever else you want. But it is not an RPG - precisely because my role is no longer a role at all, at least in the fullest meaning of the term, it is a prop in a stage performance.<br />
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You've probably heard this before: "But there is no right or best way to run an RPG as long as you're having fun.". You can have fun doing a lot of things, but that doesn't make it an RPG. There IS a right way to run an RPG and the right way is allowing your players to drive the narrative. If the right way isn't "fun" for you, that's your problem. Doesn't make it right or even the best though. Just because I get straight Fs in school and had fun doing it doesn't make it right OR the best. And seriously, what's so fun about spending your time making imaginary decisions that don't matter?<br />
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D&D was designed from the beginning to be a player/character driven game, the best modules were designed this way such as B2 and X2. Decisions made in a game world should be in the hands of the players as long as those decisions with within its scope. That means that if I'm running a fantasy world, my players should be able to make any decision they want within the laws and norms of that fantasy world. If I'm dictating to them what they can and can't do, this isn't a world anymore, it's a set and this isn't an RPG.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-1563750585955116022013-02-14T10:39:00.001-07:002013-02-14T10:39:15.045-07:00Emergent StorytellingEven more important than permanent character death, emergent, or "organic" story and game-play progression, is a key ingredient of classic-style role-playing games. Over the years, this has become something that has been lost to a great extent in gaming, both on the table and computer. Why do we continue, year after year, to accept interactive entertainment to become less and less interactive like novels or movies?<br />
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Over the past week I've started playing the original <i>Fallout</i>, released by Interplay in 1997, for the very first time. Now, you may be asking why it took me so long to try this game out. The answer really boils down to the setting; I've never been a big post-apocalyptic fan, both in movies and games. It's not that I don't think that survival in a harsh, desolate environment isn't a cool concept, but it starts to become, not only depressing, but a little too near to home. Fantasy has both good and evil, heroes and villains, with every shade of the rainbow in between. Dystopian settings, on the other hand, are simply varying shades of gray and black (visually too). It's simply a little too much darkness for my tastes.<br />
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Because of this barrier to entry, I unfortunately never had a chance to witness some of the never-done-since mechanics in this game. <i>Fallout</i> (and from what I'm hearing about its sequel) is one of the most open-ended sandbox CRPGs ever made. From start to finish, there are almost zero barriers, as far as tasks that can be completed in which order, and how they can be carried out. Now, if it only ended there, I could cite several other games that could also claim that crown like <i>Morrowind</i>, <i>Gothic II, Ultima 7</i> and a few others from the 80s (incredible games in their own right). <br />
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But <i>Fallout</i> takes it a step further. Not only does this game provide a highly deep and open world to experience, but almost every action taken has a very tangible effect on everything else. One of the early examples (I say "early" only if you decide to go where most do at first) of this takes place during a meeting with an important, and powerful NPC who leads a town. In 99% of video games, such a figure would be either A) impossible to kill (has some sort of invincibility flag, or is uber strong), or B) scripted to be killed, or C) would summon some sort of unbeatable guard/wizard trope to take you down the instant that you tried to kill him. I would shocked to find out that none of these scenarios was the case.<br />
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After just a few moments upon meeting him the first time, an assassin enters the room and blows him away. Dead. Yes, I had a choice to either kill the assassin or help him, but I decided to play neutral (you know, expecting the "story" to play out artificially like other games). But, here's the real kicker: the assassin doesn't always win. The battle's outcome is 100% natural, with no scripted flags to indicate invincibility or anything like that. Either party can die. When I saw this the first time, I was shocked. Here's an NPC with his own 3D rendered video animation conversation sequence, he is entangled in various political quest-lines, and sells some of the most powerful equipment in the early game (as far as I've seen thus far). And the game, not me, <u>the game</u> decides to kill him.<br />
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So because of his death, the entire political balance in the town is turned upside down. Other factions now have a chance to rise to the top, closing several doors, but leading your character through new ones. How many other games do this? Yes, you can murder Caius Cosades in <i>Morrowind</i>, but all that does is hamper his quest-line, it changes nothing other than that. Check for similar situations in <i>Baldur's Gate</i>. <br />
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What I've witnessed here was an emergent story, one that happened directly because of my action (or inaction). I'm just in the early part of this game, but I see evidence of this in other places. If you're rude to someone, word quickly gets around town that you're a jerk and vice-versa, if you show a little kindness, you'll find everyone else reacting positively - prices will be cheaper and quests will open while others will close. Dialogue plays out dramatically different depending on such factors, as well as your character's intelligence and charisma.<br />
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What is a story? The most basic and vanilla definition is a recounting of a sequence of events. But, story has come to mean a little more - it should recount a sequence of events that have had some sort of <u>impact</u> upon someone or something. "I brushed my teeth, tied my shoes, and drove my car to work" is a sequence of events, but not really a "story", at least not one anyone cares to hear or changed anyone's life. Now, a good story means it had some kind of meaning or result that came from it. But don't get that confused with it needing to be a positive result.<br />
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Stories in games and other forms of media today have come to mean things that turn out the way the author wants. It's a story that he designed to happen a certain way and we're supposed to enjoy it. Such stories can be entertaining and hold our interest for a time, but to be impacting upon our being, they must relate somehow to our own personal lives directly. When I was about 14, I had such an experience the first time my best friend and I played Final Fantasy II on the Super NES. I found a lot to relate to with the characters and their struggles and my own life at the time, entering puberty and struggling as a young teenager. I'll never forget the moment that the grown-up, Rydia shows up, once thought dead or lost, just in time to save the party during an important battle in the later part of the game. That game had a very cathartic experience for me, because I found a strong relationship between the story and my own life.<br />
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If you don't have that connection to one's personal life in a story, your story is far less impacting. At that point, it is simply a passing fancy, to be enjoyed with a bowl of popcorn and then forgotten. So how does my experience with <i>Fallout</i> and other games embracing emergent story relate to this? Because games like this tell stories through the player and his actions, a way to almost always guarantee that you create such impacting moments. Such stories have nothing to do with "a good ending" or "good acting" or "good writing", they can often be the most boring events to third-parties, but they are wholly engaging to the person experiencing because it involved their own personal life.<br />
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Learn to run your tabletop games to encourage your players to find relatable stories that they create themselves. So what if YOUR story is ruined. This isn't about your story. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we're there to beholden ourselves to the tickling fancy of someone's whims. We're there to embrace the idea that our best and most rewarding story is when our carefully crafted stage is used by others in ways we never predicted. Just like character death, it is not wrong to allow something to happen that is negative, because many of the greatest stories are found when things don't always go just right. A good ending isn't necessarily the good guys finally triumphing over the bad guys, a good ending is the impacting, possibly life-changing, memory that the player will take with him.<br />
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<br />GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-32400883495535923382013-02-07T11:33:00.002-07:002013-02-07T12:02:51.986-07:00Review: "Dawn of the Dragon Slayer"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm always on the lookout for movies, games or books that encapsulate Classic D&D well. I had the chance to watch <i>Dawn of the Dragon Slayer</i> over the weekend on Netflix. Yes, it's a relatively low budget B movie, so before you even read more, set your standards appropriately. There's nothing I hate more than those who put these films on the same level as the Hollywood stuff. Money can buy you a lot of shortcuts.<br />
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The first thing I noticed about this film is that the acting, screenplay and camera work was pretty darn good. You can tell from the start that a lot of love went into making it, this wasn't simply a cash grab movie to appeal to the hungry masses, other than the title and marketing. And that's the thing, this is barely a movie about killing dragons, and much more about the personal journey of a young man to find himself. But before I get into why I feel this is a true D&D movie, through and through, I want to discuss some of the cosmetics.<br />
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The entire movie is filmed in Ireland, and the locations and cinematography is breathtaking. For nothing else, watch this movie for the natural eye candy. The protagonist's journey takes him across beautiful ocean cliffs, solitary meadows and valleys, and through foggy mooreland. The meat and potatoes of the movie takes place at and around a real castle fortification. I thought this was a wonderful choice rather than setting up a phony prop. The entire movie takes you out of your living room and makes you feel like you're really wandering the emerald isle.<br />
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The artists really outdid themselves with the costume work. It was very, very good. In nearly every scene, the main characters are depicted wearing something even more exquisite than the last. A lot of love and attention went into the clothing and make-up to make it feel, both creative and authentic for the time. Among indie fantasy movies, this area is often glossed over or overdone so much as to become distasteful. Watching each scene is a treat for the eyes.<br />
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Special effects were done very well also, in that they were used very sparingly and only out of necessity. The most jarring thing for me in these lower budget films is the hastily, and often poorly used, CG. Beautiful vistas are instantly marred when a clunky special effect comes out of nowhere taking you out of the mood. The dragon takes up most of the digital art effects, but it usually only appears at a distance or not at all. It's a breath of fresh air to see movies that refrain from splattering us with digital gimmickry that all too often ruins modern film.<br />
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I won't give out the story synopsis, but this is not exactly your standard "zero to hero" narrative path that we often see in other movies. This gets right at the meat of what I want to discuss with this film, and why it's a good representative of the old school game. First of all, the main character, Will, starts off like most other heroes. His family has been ravaged by the dragon, and he's been given an opportunity by his now deceased father to make a name for himself by hiring himself on as a land lord's servant on another part of the island. Suffice it to say that Will goes through many of the early bumps and bruises that early heroes experience. But then something interesting happens, the cathartic moment of "now he's made it", never really comes.<br />
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We expect our protagonists in our movies, books and games to suddenly jump out of their weak skins and turn into super heroes at some point. This trope is so common that when we see a story where this doesn't happen it's actually jarring - in a good way. You see, about half way through the film, Will finally gets his chance to turn himself into something - on more than one occasion actually. [SPOILERS] He is offered the chance to duel a visiting noble in sword combat in front of his employer and his hot daughter. He fails, miserably. He then gets a chance to kill the dragon and defend the castle on his own. He fails again. He gets into a fight with the other house hands. Yep, he gets his butt kicked.<br />
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Now, it's about this time in most movies, where the protagonist finally proves that he's more than just a simple farmer. It's at this point in most films where the protagonist impresses his boss, goes on to impress the king, slays the dragon and gets the girl. Not here. Will starts training at this point, yet even after, he's still gets his butt kicked by everyone (just a little less so). But even after all of these failures, he becomes a hero because he perseveres - because he never gives up. In the face of failure, he learns to not hide from it, but to spit in its face. He earns the girl's heart because of not winning, but losing with style. I like that.<br />
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This is Classic D&D to me. This is a classic story of a 0 level common farmer who ends up in the end, not at level 16, but at level 1. It's great to see a movie that doesn't need to lie to its audience about what real heroes are made of. It's an important lesson for us even in our real life; most of us will never become super men to everyone because we win at everything, but we can become super men to the ones around us who are the most important by our persistence and effort in the face of failure.<br />
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I enjoyed this movie, the pacing becomes a little stretched out in the middle, but it really has the whole package and a nice template for a good D&D setting or campaign. Things are a little bleak, life is unfair, monsters and magic are very rare, and there is no guarantee of success. Oh, and this is definitely wife or girlfriend approved. It's got all the signature tropes of a british drama, and enough to keep the fanasy buffs entertained. Don't go in expecting it to be anything like what comes out of Hollywood, but among the low budget fantasy scene, this is definitely a notch above the rest.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-903457416107483832013-02-06T11:38:00.000-07:002013-02-06T12:14:42.669-07:00Education & Work RantI apologize, but I'm going to take a break from my standard fantasy theme today and spend a little time ranting and raging about standardized tests (among other things). To put it bluntly: I hate them. In fact, I wholly detest the methods used throughout any kind of formalized "schooling" whether it be prep, University undergrad or post-grad study. Let me give a little back story first.<br />
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I graduated with a BS degree (such a fitting acronym) in 2006 with a composite Computer Science Major and a Spanish Minor. Because I took off two years for humanitarian service in Peru for 24 months, it took me six full years to graduate. That's a whole lot of money spent, and a whole lot of slave work given to "those who can't," professors. Other than the ridiculous piece of paper I got in the mail, the entire process was a complete waste of time. I graduated in my field not knowing how to run a "grep" or even how to concatenate two string variables. The last semester of school, the financial department made a mistake and billed me an extra $600 or so, which they had promised a few months earlier wouldn't happen. To add insult to injury, the first six weeks of my first web developer job had nothing, NOTHING, to do with the garbage education I received in college. It took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to learn to code. But even then, I learned more about programming in just a couple months than all my education time put together.</div>
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Since then, I've been a full-time web developer between two different companies and have done quite a few side projects along the way. I feel pretty proficient at this point, something I've obtained almost entirely on my own accord. The entire educational system is terribly flawed, in fact, it's really become nothing more than a propaganda tool. No, I'm not a government conspiracy believer or anything like that (more of a conspiracy "agnostic"), but I feel that the system has turned into nothing more than a way for a bunch of lazy, dumb people to feel good about themselves by torturing students. Seriously. I once took an elective from the non-tenured (read: bottom-tiered) robotics teacher who taught me more in one semester about C programming than I had gotten from all of my PHD "Computer Science" teachers combined in the rest of the six years. He was the single bright spot in my education.</div>
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So "standardized education" segue-ways into standardized testing and what brought me to rant about this today. I have recently been on the lookout for a new job in my field. I've been with my current company for 5 years and feel I've far outgrown it. Now, first of all, I totally get employers wanting to weed out the wheat from the chaff. In my current company, I often participate in interviews with potential candidates to "test" them with some simple code questions. When you're sitting in the room with them, "feeling them out" so to speak, I don't see anything wrong with getting a general idea of their capabilities from them. That's fine. But the problem arises from employers treating potential employees like college students and handing out these robotic tests.</div>
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So I have been asked by a few employers to take some of these online tests to judge my skill in the field, one of which I took very recently. I don't even know where to begin with how idiotic this thing was. First of all, at least 50% of the questions could be answered almost precisely by doing a basic Google search on the topic. The test uses Javascript to detect if you're trying to open other browser windows to cheat which can be defeated by simply turning off Javascript or simply using a separate computer. Nearly all of the rest of the code can be narrowed down pretty easily by the same method.</div>
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Now, you might be thinking, "well an employer probably knows you'll cheat and adjust the test accordingly". Wow, that's scientific! Give these guys a cookie, I've just got to work with such geniuses! Except it's not. Some of us may feel that because they're adjusting the test for cheaters, we won't cheat or we will purposefully answer incorrectly to put our score in realistic territory. Or perhaps, the employers will believe that we're overcompensating and expect us to do this...and...and...and...someone shoot me if I have to take one of these things again. So that's #1. The test proves practically nothing other than the fact that someone may not know that Google exists. </div>
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Secondly, many of these questions are just awful, and many are designed to trick you. You see, in this test, nearly everything I came across were ultra-obscure methods, functions or operators, not only unnecessary, but some were outright terrible coding choices. So what happens is you begin to over-think everything, wondering if this is just another mind trick. </div>
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For example, PHP has a function called, <i>eval()</i>. This came up and was used in one question. Now, this function technically CAN work if used carefully, but it is an extremely poor choice to use when executing code. In other words, there is honestly no situation on planet Earth where you need to use this because it can create so many other problems. So among the answers there was the correct result (if this was used right) and a "syntax error" result. So it gets you thinking, are they trying to hint that the correct answer is "syntax error" because this is a terrible choice of a function to use? Or are they literally looking for a correct answer and actually think this is a good function choice?</div>
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So this brings up another thing about these tests. In the real world, if someone brought up some code like that to use, I'd tell them to throw it in the trash and buy me lunch for a week for even attempting to pass it off to me. But obviously you can't say that to the computer! You've got to play their stupid games to give some developer who wrote the cursed thing, his kicks and giggles. And that pisses me off more than anything else. I'd love to punch the guy in the nose who came up with this stuff.</div>
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So most of this test had crap like this sprinkled throughout. Another question used global variables. Now I've been doing this stuff long enough to know that globals are amateur code, they NEVER EVER need to be used in any sized project. They are instant security loopholes, they are spaghetti code, and they are messy things. Am I supposed to take this question seriously? Or are they trying to hint that this is a poor coding choice and select the "syntax error" answer again? Who knows!</div>
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It's really insulting to me that before I'm even allowed to talk to anybody, I'm required to take these joke tests that does absolutely nothing for the employer. There is pervasive culture of egomaniacs in the programming community. People love to talk a big talk about all the obscure frameworks, libraries and functions that exist in the field that they feel they are good at. Trust me on this, most of these things are completely unnecessary for good software design, be it desktop or web. So you have the OOP fanatics who will "epeen" all day long about how <i>this</i> method or <i>that </i>method is so incredibly superior to procedural code when the arguments are pure hogwash. I wrote <a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4106135/why-oop-sucks.txt">this up</a> just as a small example to illustrate much of the idiocy in OOP. Good procedural design is proven to be faster than OOP, and can be just as expandable, modular, and accessible as the latter. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.</div>
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It's pretty common knowledge that the IT field is full of social rejects. I worked with several teams of guys who lived with mommy, left their workstation full of mountain dew cans and pizza boxes. They could never complete a project on time, were always late or absent, but BOY could they code when they felt like it. Guys like this would ace these tests, if he got off his butt to actually apply for a job in the first place. So you have the perfect framework for people who feel the need to overcompensate or "prove" something to the world. Their social lives are messed up, so they get praise for their jargon and making sure you know they are smarter than you (even when they really aren't).</div>
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I believe that many employers in this field are filled with guys like this from top to bottom. They'd probably like to hire a few programmers, but wouldn't have a problem bringing guys in to "show them up" just for fun. That's where these absurd tests come in. These are tiny people, who are lacking in so many areas in their life that they have the need to bring others down to their level to make themselves feel better. </div>
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I worked for a couple years with a guy like this. Socially retarded, but brilliant when it came to actually coding. After months and months of taking his (undeserved) superiority complex, I had finally had it. I found some of his code was full of errors and jokingly let his superior know about it. When he heard that I had accused him of poor coding practices, he was crushed. He missed work over the next couple of days and refused to speak with me for several weeks.</div>
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This is the key with dealing with these kind of people. I've learned some important lessons in this field. 99% of programmers I've met are mostly faking it, in fact the same could be said for nearly every "successful" inividual. Oh, many have got the lingo down real well. They use this as a bully scare tactic, or, "don't even dare questioning my superiority". They use this as a facade to hide their weaknesses and it is absolutely amazing how many smart people fall for it. Visiting web forums, I encounter guys like this all the time, many of which have BSd their way into moderator positions and have half the community supporting their garbage. When one of these kind of people tries to push you, you've got to hit them where it hurts most - where *they* feel they are strong. You've got to stand up to them or they'll walk all over you with their phony jargon. </div>
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Employers are not much different. Oh, they try to put on a show that "this is serious", and "this is professional business". The reality is that a bunch of developers are snickering at your application in the break room seconds before you walk in the door thinking of ways to trip you up. I had an employer interview me once who asked me what a certain highly obscure Python function did. I saw this coming and said, "I'd look it up on Google". His answer was something to the effect that, "well it's good to know these things on your own". My answer was, "it's better to know how to use every tool at your disposal. Nobody knows everything. A poor programmer relies only on his memory". <br />
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Another time, an employer asked me to write a MySQL query with a simple task. My query was a little long, but it did the job. He immediately criticized it and made edits to show me how mine was more inefficient. I refused to back down, and told him that both got the job done and that it was clearly something that I wrote up on the fly and would be cleaned up before production. These jokers memorize a list of questions, with the planned and perfect answer, then use it to lambaste your own answers if they aren't perfectly up to snuff with their planned list. "Oh, but they are just testing your response in a adverse situation" you might say. Bull. Nobody needs to be an utter prick just to test your skills. When I see that kind of stuff happen in an interview, red flags go up - time to give the bullies the proverbial finger and smile while walking out the door. Let's test them to see <i>their</i> reaction to an adverse employee.</div>
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These phony tests do nothing to really test people, unless testing means pissing them off. I trained a brand new employee several years ago who knew zero about coding. Nada. But he was a good guy, he came to work on time, he completed his assignments, and he was teachable. Within a month he was a decent coder, and I could rely on him for many projects both large and small. I'd hire a thousand janitors to code for me if they had the right work ethic. Why do so many employers not see this simple fact? Because they're phony morons. They've bought the "standardized education" garbage hook, line and sinker. It's pretty simple.</div>
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I'm done being treated like a robot college student. I don't have to anymore, I can and do confidently submit my resume to several employers around the country each week. I have the "piece of paper", I have a great job a wife and kids. I don't beg for a job, I make them beg for me. When I get bullied by these people, I bully them right back. I deserve to be treated with respect, not treated like some greenhorn fresh out of college. You should too.</div>
GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-80748685166979814292013-02-05T12:54:00.000-07:002013-02-05T12:56:04.521-07:00Permanent Character DeathThis is one of those topics that I love to talk about. It never ceases to amaze me how many people over the years have utterly perverted, more than almost any other RPG principle, the idea that character death is an admirable, even desired, quality. I seem to stumble upon a blog post, article, video, or podcast at least once a week where someone is either <a href="http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2013/02/thoughts-on-permadeath.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ToboldsBlog+%28Tobold%27s+Blog%29">raging</a> over the <a href="http://kotaku.com/5980890/the-problem-with-permanent-death">concept</a> or <a href="http://rpgcircus.com/node/169">accepting it from completely the wrong angle</a>. The thing is, I've yet to see someone genuinely against it who's reasoning doesn't revolve around an immature infatuation with their character. As if their whole world comes crashing down if they have to start all over again.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The good old days.</td></tr>
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I'd really like to know where this trend originated from. D&D started as a perma-death game, no question about that. It was extremely hard to resurrect a character, and very difficult even to keep them alive all the way to their max level. Back in the early 80s, people simply accepted the concept, and many embraced it as an integral part of the game. Somewhere along the line, perhaps among a few of the earlier CRPGs like Ultima and Might & Magic, and even with 2nd Edition D&D, game developers started allowing for, not only saving back-up games, but making it harder and harder to die. <br />
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I recently read a blurb from an early CRPG developer, maybe it was Garriot or someone else from EA (can't remember exactly), state that one day we'd have technology with real stories, "just like the movies", to make games with. When Blizzard came along with Warcraft and then Diablo, I think the idea of immortal characters and scripted stories seemed to explode. It seemed as if everyone back then was clamoring to turn video games into linear stories with highly developed cut-scenes as quickly as possible. In other words, <br />
"character" story was replacing "world" story very quickly.<br />
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Go back and read the AD&D DMG and some of the modules for First Edition and take note of the amount of detail that went into, not just world building, but the simulationist, runs-on-its own concepts, that permeated the early game. There's really no better way to sum this up than to understand how the term "campaign" has changed from 1980 to today (see <a href="http://jrients.blogspot.com/2007/08/what-is-campaign.html">this</a> and <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/10/changing-meaning-of-campaign.html">this</a>). A campaign today means that we are running a Final Fantasy style A->B->X procedural story where the characters progress from a novel-style ascending tension situation, to a climax, and finally to a conclusion. If your characters die during that period of time, what happens to the story? Poof, it's done. Not only are the characters' screwed, but so is the DM and all of his hard work. Therefore, it becomes a requirement that everyone stay alive to enjoy the story.<br />
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Plain and simple, this type of game-play is not an RPG. I don't care if there is level progression, loot, dwarves, elves, and girls with giant ... swords. This is an adventure game disguised as an RPG. Here's the number one problem when it comes to understanding the purpose of character death: people are far too focused on the world revolving around their character, instead of their character revolving around the world. Understanding this is akin to the Pope finally accepting that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way around.<br />
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Think back to all of the great fantasy epics. What made them epic? Not *just* the loss and failure, but what happened as a result to loss and failure. Thorin's family and friends are killed which provides the catalyst for him to set out on a journey to reclaim what was lost, Gandalf is beaten by the Balrog only to give his friends a chance to rise to the occasion, and Theoden dies on the battlefield as a sacrifice to give his descendants a better future.<br />
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Sometimes death, at first appearance, isn't heroic at all. I often hear from some that character death should only occur in a spectacular or pre-set way, when the big bad arrives, or some other heroic event happens. It is common for DMs to say, "I promise not to kill your character unless you do something really stupid, or for bad dice rolls." Again, this is geocentric thinking, not heliocentric. Remember that the world does not revolve around your character even when its inconvenient. Every action in a living, breath fantasy world has a reaction, and a consequence. Otherwise, the world is merely a movie set with hidden pads and ropes keeping the actor safe.<br />
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Another complaint I often hear in CRPGS is that you'll eventually lose the character to bugs, or players will simply hit the reset button before the loss can be saved. The first criticism can also be applied to table-top games. "The dice fell of the table unintentionally so that wasn't fair!", or "That monster really had an AC of 7 not 6, so I would have killed him!". It boils down to: "you did something unfair and I shouldn't have died", but what they really mean is, "My character is more important than proper role-play". Both criticisms share something in common in that these players simply don't understand the concept of heliocentrism, or the world is the main character.<br />
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To understand this a little better, recall <a href="http://tenebroustales.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-lovecraftian-approach-to-d.html">my earlier post</a> where I spoke about the Lovecraftian method of Role-playing. The idea is that we attempt to view the game world as a place that<i> could really possibly </i>exist. This is a perfect application of the concept because when "bugs" happen, we use them as unexplained events from another place that need to be accepted as an inadequate translation by the DM or computer. I once played in an indie text MMORPG a while ago where a bug caused all of the sea creatures to begin spawning on land. Suddenly, sharks and jellyfish were being found in forests and deserts. A lot of people went nuts at how this was ruining the game, but a few wise players decided that they were going to "role-play" it out as a sign from the gods and something not fully explainable.<br />
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The same principle can be applied to death situations that happen through bugs or other unintentional factors. Rule #1: Stay in character no matter what. Your character is STILL playing in this world, even if there are bugs. That may change the perception of the player (and piss him off), but it certainly doesn't change the perception of the character that things are happening, literally the way they are, within his own universe. <br />
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Think of it another way. There are some theories about there being a decent chance that human beings are in a simulation themselves. We could be in our own sort of video game and not even realize it. So those stories of people dying suddenly, people seeing aliens, bigfoot and ghosts may be "bugs" in our own game. But how do we take these events? We accept them <u>because we have to </u>- they are part of our reality, just as your character should accept it as part of his.<br />
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As for people resetting the game when things go bad, I'm reminded of Baldur's Gate, one of the greatest CRPGs ever made. Do you know how simple it is to reload when a character dies in that game? It's really easy - too easy. But understanding why you <u>shouldn't</u> separates the men from the boys. I highly recommend taking a look at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL73B6586E4373F3B3">this YouTube series</a> to witness someone who takes the idea of no-reloading very serious. Get an idea of the depth and richness that can be found in a game when played the <i>right way</i>. <br />
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It takes a lot of mind training to fully accept this concept. We have been dealt a buffet of harmless, care-bear worlds to explore in today's gaming. But it's easiest to remember that life goes on, even when a character's life doesn't. Try to imagine that, when that person died when he slipped and fell on those poisoned spikes, the world just gained a level and found some loot. That dungeon now has a story to tell. It has the skeleton of a lost adventurer lying in its depths ready to be explored by others. It contains powerful weapons, perhaps now distributed and used by its inhabitants. That dead character probably has a family, friends and others who have been served by him. Each of them will be impacted by his death in a far greater way than could have happened in life.<br />
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A world full of dead player characters means far more than a world full of DM-generated props. Your world has now taken a life of its own, built organically from the hands of its players. That old ruined tower beyond the woods with the undead wandering its grounds? That was built by John's character a few years ago when he played in the campaign. Want to know what happened there? You'll have to find out yourself. Why do the townsfolk hate elves? Well that's because my cousin's character really pissed them off once...but he also may have had a hidden secret to share if you ask the bar keeper.<br />
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None of this can happen without characters who have lived, died and made a permanent impact on the world. Now for those players who detest rolling up new characters all the time, change your system. Old school RPGs can have new characters created in less then 10 minutes. Don't play games that combine heavy grinding with permanent death either (That's another can of worms that I'd like to open some other time). Don't worry about backstories, homelands, etc, unless he has some relationship with past events or characters. Let your character's story be told during play, not outside of it. Let the world shape your character as you shape it.<br />
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Remember the words of Obi-Wan: "You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine." Don't hide from character death, embrace the most important character of all: the game world.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3094325988450887277.post-40657928351268574762013-02-05T10:24:00.000-07:002013-02-05T10:24:29.586-07:00Putting Magic Back Into Monsters: Kobolds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Kobolds have always been a tough one because there is no uniform description. But I can tell you that I've hated all of the descriptions given in the game books. A dog, reptile, or miniature dinosaur creature never seemed to fit for me.<br />
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Here's a description from a story from Emma Hardinge Britten that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobold">I recently found</a> that I do like from 1820 England:<br />
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<i>We were about to sit down to tea when Mdlle. Gronin called our attention to the steady light, round, and about the size of a cheese plate, which appeared suddenly on the wall of the little garden directly opposite the door of the hut in which we sat. </i></blockquote>
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<i>Before any of us could rise to examine it, four more lights appeared almost simultaneously, about the same shape, and varying only in size. Surrounding each one was the dim outline of a small human figure, black and grotesque, more like a little image carved out of black shining wood, than anything else I can liken them to. Dorothea kissed her hands to these dreadful little shapes, and Michael bowed with great reverence. As for me and my companions, we were so awe-struck yet amused at these comical shapes, that we could not move or speak until they themselves seemed to flit about in a sort of wavering dance, and then vanish, one by one.</i></blockquote>
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I particular I like the "black and grotesque...carved out of black shining wood" bit the most. The very first image that come to mind when I picture this is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shillelagh_(club)">Irish Shillelagh</a>, which are clubs (used as ancient dueling weapons) made by being "smeared with butter and placed up a chimney to cure". This gives them a very pitch-black, shiny, appearance. I own one of these myself.<br />
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From the history, it seems Kobolds were found, more often then not, in mines or doing chores around the house like Hobgoblins. One important distinction, however, is that Kobolds appear to be far more kindly creatures than Hobgoblins. In light of this for my campaign in the future, I would most likely make them be fairly neutral in their natural environment, or perhaps slaves to evil overlords. But I would avoid making them out to be evil or vicious as that seems misaligned to their real nature.<br />
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A separate wikipedia entry states that, "house kobolds usually live in the hearth area of a house", which could explain the black wood appearance. I imagine them being fey spirits inhabiting animated small wood-like bodies, blackened from the black pitch and soot from hiding in fireplace hearths and filthy, coal covered, mines. A few may have horns, but most would be slightly smaller than Goblins, and slightly bigger than Hobgoblins.GaelicVigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14090409075091814946noreply@blogger.com0