In every sort of GTA open world game, all you have to do is jump into the car and push out the driver. They all have their doors unlocked for some reason. Is this really how people drive? They leave their doors unlocked? I sure as hell lock my doors when I drive my car. Do you? You should, precisely so you don't get someone kicking you to the curb and driving off in your ride. It's common sense, really. Also, if you grab a vacant car in a game, they'll always have their keys inside. No need to hot wire it or anything.
In RTSs, you'll have battlecruisers the same size as five or six infantry soldiers. How does that make any sense? The goddamn battlecruiser's supposed to be the size of the whole fucking map, right? Why would they make it a buildable unit and then make it look as big as six soldiers? How does that do justice to the battlecruiser? Frankly, it seems a bit insulting. There are probably four or five hundred people on board the battlecruiser. Maybe more. Maybe it's over a thousand, like the Galaxy class Enterprise-D. Yet here it is, floating about five feet over the battlefield and looking comparable to a squad of marines. Why would anyone think this was a good idea?
GTA games are getting better about smaller details. Cops drive around with their doors locked. If you try to car jack them, you'll see your character pull on the door a few times, not open, then the cop getting out to shoot you in the face. Also, not all the cars have their keys in them. Most of the time you are hot wiring them, that’s why they say to tap L2 and R2 simultaneously (PS3 version) to get the car to start up faster.
How much fun would SC be if a BC took up the entire screen. Seriously? Many things in the RTS world are usually never proportionate. Just like the Ultralisks... they should be a lot bigger too. That’s why they pop in those beautiful (for their day) cinematics to show off true proportions how the world really is.
Most of the time you are hot wiring them, that’s why they say to tap L2 and R2 simultaneously (PS3 version) to get the car to start up faster.
How much fun would SC be if a BC took up the entire screen. Seriously? Many things in the RTS world are usually never proportionate. Just like the Ultralisks... they should be a lot bigger too. That’s why they pop in those beautiful (for their day) cinematics to show off true proportions how the world really is.
Well, I only played Vice City and San Andreas... and I'm pretty sure you don't have to hot wire any cars in those games.
You're right, a BC taking up the entire screen wouldn't be too fun. That's why it should be off screen. It should not be a buildable unit. Have you played Dawn of War? The battlecruiser's off screen in that game, you just call down orbital bombardments from it sometimes.
Delta Assault on
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
You are all in a third level basement of someones home, in the gloom of the torch light you see a coin on the floor, you pick it up... STOP THIEF! You'll pay for what you have done!
:^:
Also, why is it that no one in JRPGs ever asks "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE?!"
Aside from the mystic family in Chrono Trigger, of course...
The thing I hate the MOST in any video game, to the point where I will turn the game off and not ever want to play it again, is nonsensical worlds.
Zelda is the biggest offender. Welcome to the vast and prosperous kingdom of Hyrule! Hey buddy, you know your "kingdom" is a town, a horse ranch, a lake, a couple of trees, and a sandbox right? There's maybe 50 people living here. 50 people does not a kingdom make. Where are the farms, where do you get your food, what do you trade and barter with, and why are there no roads leading out of this shithole despite the fact you specifically mention the fact there are other population centers around.
This, seriously, is why I've never finished a Zelda game. The world feels constructed and artificial, existing only for the purpose of housing more puzzles than citizens. Granted that earlier on this was due to technological constraints, but there was no need for Twilight Princess to be exactly the bloody same.
I've never minded this. Simply because people would bitch that they can't run a game because there's 50,000 completely pointless NPCs making the game run at negative fifty frames per second.
I've always taken the view that each on screen character represented X number of NPCs, depending on teh size of the village that X could be anywhere from 5 to 50 depending on various assumptions on the supposed population density and infrastructure available.
Perhaps I overthink things, as well.
That's, er, an interesting way of thinking about it.
The thing is, that they wouldn't even need 50,000 NPCs either. Just make it clear to the player that this is only a small slice of the kingdom. Maybe add a token farm here and there. Just make it believable.
I also assume that there is vast farm area and such as well, but not implemented because there is no point in the story for it to be there, and implementing pointless areas are a performance and monetary waste.
Yeah, I'll give you that one. I never said it was a sensible request, just one that really irks me. And there are games that do it well too. World of Warcraft shows farms and ranches along with cities and wilderness. Or even smaller games like Assassin's Creed. It's possible, to make your game world believable and relevant, just tricky.
It irks you that the world is not realistic? yet, you are playing a Zelda game, with fairies, undead, magic, etc. Maybe they don't need lots of farms, because "Farmy" magically creates all their food for them. Also, depending on the time era games are released, hardware can only do so much. If you’re talking about the world of Zelda from OOT, I think given its release on the N64, they did a rather good job.
Note that I did not once mention the word realistic. I don't want the world to be realistic, I want it to be believable. If Farmy magically creates all their food, then fine, the game should tell me that. If I'm not told these things, I simply have to assume that it's just a "game" world, something artificial, that has these gaps because it's only trying to house puzzles and enemies, rather than be a world. That's the kind of thing that breaks immersion.
Also note that I mentioned that less powerful hardware can have an impact on these things, but that's the kind of thing that needs to be designed around. Again, like I said earlier in the thread about OoT, inform the player that this is only a small slice of the kingdom, and then the absence of certain things, like farms and the majority of the populace, will not bother the player as much.
Darth Nathan on
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
edited August 2009
Because "Hello, THIS IS ONLY A SMALL SLIVER OF THE KINGDOM" wouldn't break immersion or feel contrived at all.
Apothe0sis on
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
You are all in a third level basement of someones home, in the gloom of the torch light you see a coin on the floor, you pick it up... STOP THIEF! You'll pay for what you have done!
:^:
Also, why is it that no one in JRPGs ever asks "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE?!"
Aside from the mystic family in Chrono Trigger, of course...
Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean.
I know... there are a few titles that do this (a couple Working Designs ones I seem to recall as well), but for the most part, it's "hey stranger, help yourself to all the shit in my cabinets!"
games like starcraft are not supposed to be realistic
they're only one step above the level of abstraction you find in something like chess
the means by which units and buildings produce, upgrade, attack, defend, act or exist is completely separate from how "real" things behave
the only reason they even make them "marines" and "aliens" is because a) it's cooler than abstract little bleeps of colour and b) it makes it easier to associate some intuitive qualities with them, ie a tank will probably kill a marine.
Because "Hello, THIS IS ONLY A SMALL SLIVER OF THE KINGDOM" wouldn't break immersion or feel contrived at all.
I probably shouldn't even reply to such a snarky and ill thought out post at all, but I've got nothing better to do, so;
Obviously you would not do that. Mentions of distant towns, people talking about going to visit other places, people talking about events in far off lands. Talking about how this is the finest produce from X province. Hell, even having the world map showing some far away places, but having them greyed out. That kind of thing would go a long way towards making it evident to the player that, indeed, the developers have actually put some thought into the world beyond deciding where the dungeons went.
To a degree you may introduce some disappointment to the player when they discover they can't go everywhere on the world map. However, it's much more sensible and less immersion breaking to be told that there's no reason for you to go to the rest of the world, rather than just accepting that a tenth of the kingdom is taken up by a horse ranch.
Darth Nathan on
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited August 2009
Has anyone mention how some games (ie: Oblivion) have guards that can whoop the piss out of ya at any given moment, but you are the only one able to save the Kingdom/Universe/Uncle Steve's Chevy?
That always bugged me.
It should be noted that while I find a lot of these quirks stupid, for the most part I still find all the games awesome.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
You are all in a third level basement of someones home, in the gloom of the torch light you see a coin on the floor, you pick it up... STOP THIEF! You'll pay for what you have done!
:^:
Also, why is it that no one in JRPGs ever asks "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE?!"
Aside from the mystic family in Chrono Trigger, of course...
Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean.
I know... there are a few titles that do this (a couple Working Designs ones I seem to recall as well), but for the most part, it's "hey stranger, help yourself to all the shit in my cabinets!"
And to think, people actually complain about Working Designs localizations nowadays.
(Albert Odyssey was one as well, and one of their best)
Why can these magical little round things hop over each other, without even touching them, and still manage to "capture" them? Are they crapping invisible nets as they fly overhead? Is the wind from the jump pushing them into the "jail"? It just breaks all suspension of belief I might have had when I started the game.
Crashmo on
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
edited August 2009
As far as gun-balance goes, I remember reading an article where a designer was talking about player expectations - he used the Uzi as an example. Everyone knows that Uzis fire super-fast but aren't accurate at all. They spray bullets everywhere. That's what players expect when they pick up an Uzi in game. Except Uzis in real life aren't particularly inaccurate. You aren't going to do any sniping with one, but they don't spray like they do in games. They just keep getting designed like that because of balance and expectation, and because in the end the game is more fun with inaccuracies.
Also, potions in Diablo 2. Christ, you would think your character would get water poisoning from drinking 40 potions in like five minutes. Or at least have to take a piss.
When we develop true AI, it won't take over humanity, because they'll all be too busy spending lives as villagers in some little towns giving realistic reactions to people breaking into their houses.
Scooter on
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
I know... there are a few titles that do this (a couple Working Designs ones I seem to recall as well), but for the most part, it's "hey stranger, help yourself to all the shit in my cabinets!"
And to think, people actually complain about Working Designs localizations nowadays.
(Albert Odyssey was one as well, and one of their best)
Because it was "cool" to shit on WD translations for the same reasons it was "cool" to download fansubs of anime but published subs and dubs were OMG SHITTY. Meanwhile, WD was taking Japanese pop-culture that would make no sense to most of us players, and turning them into American pop-culture references that we got. It was awesome, and some assholes are opposed to fun.
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited August 2009
Most recently, one of my biggest irks with game logic is how weapons will wear down. An actual, real-life M4A1 can fire many thousands of rounds without requiring maintenance, but burst off a couple clips in games with weapon degradation and you're looking at immediate loss of effectiveness.
Fallout 3 was especially bad in this regard; a handful of shots with the auto-shotty and you're already scraping around for another one to fix up the original. The explanation of a post-apocalyptic future for this element is completely nonsensical. There are robots over a century old wandering around and scientists building lifelike androids, but nobody can figure out how to rig up a machine shop to make new weapon parts? Considering most firearms need to be able to repaired or maintained quickly and easily, they usually have remarkably few parts. Even a rusted piece of crap could be restored to reasonable working condition with the right hand tools. It makes sense that weapons you find sitting around wouldn't be in great shape, but I should be able to fire several thousand rounds from a rifle before the thing starts to degrade even slightly.
And yeah, shotguns in video games are so terrible it's ridiculous. The vast majority require you to nearly shove it in a target's face if you actually want to do damage, but then it ends up being a one-hit kill. If I remember correctly, STALKER was one of the only games I've played in a long time where shotguns were useful against targets more than a couple feet away. Against armored targets the shotguns were virtually useless, but that makes sense. Shotguns have terrible armor penetration. However, against lightly armored enemies/bandits/monsters, shotguns could do serious damage from a good range. I watched many a bandit keel over due to blood loss from a couple handfuls of buckshot.
A huge RTS pet peeve of mine is the rock/paper/scissors mindset when it comes to units design. For example, in a lot of RTS games tanks have trouble with rifleman. This is stupid. I don't care how hard those soldiers lay down, a tank shell is going to blow the hell out of them and the machine guns on the vehicle will blow them even more to hell. Infantry also cannot "wear down" a tank with small arms fire no matter how many there are. Men of War handles this stuff extremely well, though. Without some kind of explosive, infantrymen are utterly, utterly ruined by tanks. Even light armor piercing rounds will just bounce off of heavy tanks.
Ninja Snarl P on
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
In every sort of GTA open world game, all you have to do is jump into the car and push out the driver. They all have their doors unlocked for some reason. Is this really how people drive? They leave their doors unlocked? I sure as hell lock my doors when I drive my car. Do you? You should, precisely so you don't get someone kicking you to the curb and driving off in your ride. It's common sense, really. Also, if you grab a vacant car in a game, they'll always have their keys inside. No need to hot wire it or anything.
Not to derail the thread, but - this started to change in GTA San Andreas. You'd punch or kick the driver in the face and swear at them before pulling them out (I'm not sure if swearing is necessary when you've just planted a size 13 shoe in their face). GTA 4 has locked cars that you need to kick/elbow the window in, and frequently hotwire to start.
Back to complaining!
-Loki- on
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Most recently, one of my biggest irks with game logic is how weapons will wear down. An actual, real-life M4A1 can fire many thousands of rounds without requiring maintenance, but burst off a couple clips in games with weapon degradation and you're looking at immediate loss of effectiveness.
Fallout 3 was especially bad in this regard; a handful of shots with the auto-shotty and you're already scraping around for another one to fix up the original. The explanation of a post-apocalyptic future for this element is completely nonsensical. There are robots over a century old wandering around and scientists building lifelike androids, but nobody can figure out how to rig up a machine shop to make new weapon parts? Considering most firearms need to be able to repaired or maintained quickly and easily, they usually have remarkably few parts. Even a rusted piece of crap could be restored to reasonable working condition with the right hand tools. It makes sense that weapons you find sitting around wouldn't be in great shape, but I should be able to fire several thousand rounds from a rifle before the thing starts to degrade even slightly.
To be fair, Fallout 3's weapon damage could easily be explained by the fact that the world had been through a near-complete nuclear holocaust. I'm sure that shiny chinese assault rifle you're holding is actually rusty as fuck inside. The ammo may be fucking it up too. There's some variables to consider there. A better example is Deus Ex, where you go through weapon repair kits like a politician through hookers.
A huge RTS pet peeve of mine is the rock/paper/scissors mindset when it comes to units design. For example, in a lot of RTS games tanks have trouble with rifleman. This is stupid. I don't care how hard those soldiers lay down, a tank shell is going to blow the hell out of them and the machine guns on the vehicle will blow them even more to hell. Infantry also cannot "wear down" a tank with small arms fire no matter how many there are. Men of War handles this stuff extremely well, though. Without some kind of explosive, infantrymen are utterly, utterly ruined by tanks. Even light armor piercing rounds will just bounce off of heavy tanks.
When I was playing Civ 2, and a group of pikemen took out one of my tanks, I was definitely saying "oh fuck this." Somehow a tank is cavalry (and not an armored unit?), and the pikemen's bonus helps enough to take it out? It was only around half damaged. :P
So in Civilization IV (for those who haven't played), there's a bunch of wonders, which are basically objects that represent significant human achievements such as the Eiffel Tower, Hollywood, etc...
Some of the costs are really unrealistic in comparison to each other though. For example...
The Great Wall of China costs 150 production, while the Statue of Zeus costs 300? I'd like to see the numbers on that, but I get the feeling that the Great Wall of China probably took hundreds of times more effort, time, people, and resources than any statue that's ever been created... possibly combined.
The Statue of Liberty (if you count both the 1882 - 1884 time period for creation of the statue, and the 1885 - 1886 time period for creation of the pedistal) took about 3 years to make in total after everything was financed. It's 1500 points in the game... meaning that the Space elevator (at 2000 points) is only 1/3 more resource intensive in the game, even though we might never actually even reach the level of technical resources and technological knowledge to actually create such a device, and if we do the time and cost implications will likely be astoundingly high.
Now, don't get me wrong, I know there's good game reasons for it to be like this. No one would train Space Elevator if it was, say, 200k resources instead of 2k. But it's definitely interesting to note when we talk about disparities between games and reality.
EDIT: Oh, Shadowfire, I agree with you totally on the "mismatched still can win" in Civ games. It still happens in Civ IV. I was playing a few weeks ago, and I had a modern armor that was about 1/2 damaged get killed by an Elephant. I have to call bullshit on that. I've also seen pikemen (or even archers!) "finish off" wounded tanks and modern armors (though in Civ IV they have to be a lot more damaged to do it... at least 3/4 damaged or more). The archers are especially funny... I can almost visualize an army of Pikemen rushing a tank, working their way inside, and stabbing the people who drive the tank or something... but I can't visualize how an archer would even begin to overtake a tank. Maybe shooting arrows through the viewing slit? I don't know.
I'm always vaguely bothered by the fact that every single game uses Hammerspace. Yes, I know it would be ridiculous to have to put a huge backpack on your char or limit your inventory to a very limited number of items, but it gets to me when Gordon Freeman runs around with 15 guns or Link runs around with sword, shield, bow&arrow, boomerang, 4 bottles, hammer, hookshot, etc.
My favorite remains taking out and putting on iron boots makes you sink, but carrying them around doesn't.
Ive never once thought about that. And it makes me laugh. So hard.
mastrius on
"You're like a kitten! A kitten who doesn't speak Japanese." ~ Juliet Starling
Fallout 3 was especially bad in this regard; a handful of shots with the auto-shotty and you're already scraping around for another one to fix up the original. The explanation of a post-apocalyptic future for this element is completely nonsensical.
I say the weapons in the wasteland are in such a piss poor state of disrepair for one simple reason.
The people who have the technology and resources to manufacture new weapon components and whole weapons themselves don't want to trade that out to the other assholes of the wastes for the simple fact that eventually their rock solid brand new guns will eventually be turned against them.
Buttcleft on
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited August 2009
I think everything Geralt carries in The Witcher can be reasonably concealed on his person.
cj iwakura on
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PaperLuigi44My amazement is at maximum capacity.Registered Userregular
edited August 2009
As much as I love the Trauma Centre games, the time limit and mission failed message bugged me. Yes, they worked fine from a gameplay point of view, but think about it.
"Doctor, even though you defeated the zombie cancer in a matter of minutes, you didn't apply the bandage over the sutured incision in time! Let a real doctor take care of this! (Made all the more baffling when you consider that after one of the operations, one of the characters reckoned that the operation would take another half hour)
"Unable to bear with losing one patient ever, you quit being a doctor and are never seen again."
Steering away from Resident Evil - most games handle the concept of healing yourself very, very pooly. Floating hearts that you "consume", healing herbs and sprays, medi-kits that walking over activates them instantly even in dense combat, health dispensers(!), tonics, food items (from chocolate to whole roast turkeys). The only games I've ever seen perform this well is Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, wherein you'll move slower if you have a leg injury, and you may very well have to stick a splint into it to regain your walking speed. But you'll still be pretty slow until you recover, and MGS3: Snake Eater.
Wurm Online had a similar injury system, where you were screwed if your legs got injured and it took a very long time to heal, mainly involving slapping on poultices. Mount & Blade doesn't have healing potions, either - you're at the mercy of time and your party's medicinal skills.
Theft is another weird issue; either you can steal everything that's not nailed down as long as nobody sees the actual theft take place (never mind you're just ambling into people's houses and after you leave they're a whole lot emptier), or you're bound by some moral code not to touch anything.
My favorite example of this is Fallout 3: you can take everything in that weapons locker over there, including the mini-nuke launcher, but don't you fucking dare sleep in that bed
Steering away from Resident Evil - most games handle the concept of healing yourself very, very pooly. Floating hearts that you "consume", healing herbs and sprays, medi-kits that walking over activates them instantly even in dense combat, health dispensers(!), tonics, food items (from chocolate to whole roast turkeys). The only games I've ever seen perform this well is Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, wherein you'll move slower if you have a leg injury, and you may very well have to stick a splint into it to regain your walking speed. But you'll still be pretty slow until you recover, and MGS3: Snake Eater.
Wurm Online had a similar injury system, where you were screwed if your legs got injured and it took a very long time to heal, mainly involving slapping on poultices. Mount & Blade doesn't have healing potions, either - you're at the mercy of time and your party's medicinal skills.
Theft is another weird issue; either you can steal everything that's not nailed down as long as nobody sees the actual theft take place (never mind you're just ambling into people's houses and after you leave they're a whole lot emptier), or you're bound by some moral code not to touch anything.
My favorite example of this is Fallout 3: you can take everything in that weapons locker over there, including the mini-nuke launcher, but don't you fucking dare sleep in that bed
well to be fair, sleeping in someone else's bed in someone else's house/shanty/camp is kinda stupid, cause they could come back and slit your throat, then eat your heart and take your power.
Steering away from Resident Evil - most games handle the concept of healing yourself very, very pooly. Floating hearts that you "consume", healing herbs and sprays, medi-kits that walking over activates them instantly even in dense combat, health dispensers(!), tonics, food items (from chocolate to whole roast turkeys). The only games I've ever seen perform this well is Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, wherein you'll move slower if you have a leg injury, and you may very well have to stick a splint into it to regain your walking speed. But you'll still be pretty slow until you recover, and MGS3: Snake Eater.
Wurm Online had a similar injury system, where you were screwed if your legs got injured and it took a very long time to heal, mainly involving slapping on poultices. Mount & Blade doesn't have healing potions, either - you're at the mercy of time and your party's medicinal skills.
Theft is another weird issue; either you can steal everything that's not nailed down as long as nobody sees the actual theft take place (never mind you're just ambling into people's houses and after you leave they're a whole lot emptier), or you're bound by some moral code not to touch anything.
My favorite example of this is Fallout 3: you can take everything in that weapons locker over there, including the mini-nuke launcher, but don't you fucking dare sleep in that bed
well to be fair, sleeping in someone else's bed in someone else's house/shanty/camp is kinda stupid, cause they could come back and slit your throat, then eat your heart and take your power.
"Hey, I'm super awesome, and if I die in battle, just use a (insert recovery item here) on me and I'll be A-Okay! Wait, what, that's the main bad guy?
Goddamnit. *Death warble*"
Basically heres how it works. If youre a character in a game and you get killed. Do not worry. The only way you will die is if you walk into a room and suddenly look a lot better....why? Because of CUTSCENES. Only in Scenes are characters vulnerable. If not they can die all they like. Come on back. Its fiiiine. But no. Not in those fucking scenes. Beware.
mastrius on
"You're like a kitten! A kitten who doesn't speak Japanese." ~ Juliet Starling
Steering away from Resident Evil - most games handle the concept of healing yourself very, very pooly. Floating hearts that you "consume", healing herbs and sprays, medi-kits that walking over activates them instantly even in dense combat, health dispensers(!), tonics, food items (from chocolate to whole roast turkeys). The only games I've ever seen perform this well is Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, wherein you'll move slower if you have a leg injury, and you may very well have to stick a splint into it to regain your walking speed. But you'll still be pretty slow until you recover, and MGS3: Snake Eater.
Wurm Online had a similar injury system, where you were screwed if your legs got injured and it took a very long time to heal, mainly involving slapping on poultices. Mount & Blade doesn't have healing potions, either - you're at the mercy of time and your party's medicinal skills.
Theft is another weird issue; either you can steal everything that's not nailed down as long as nobody sees the actual theft take place (never mind you're just ambling into people's houses and after you leave they're a whole lot emptier), or you're bound by some moral code not to touch anything.
My favorite example of this is Fallout 3: you can take everything in that weapons locker over there, including the mini-nuke launcher, but don't you fucking dare sleep in that bed
well to be fair, sleeping in someone else's bed in someone else's house/shanty/camp is kinda stupid, cause they could come back and slit your throat, then eat your heart and take your power.
well to be fair, your mom is sexually promiscuous
Is it promiscuity if she limits her whorey to animals, though?
Steering away from Resident Evil - most games handle the concept of healing yourself very, very pooly. Floating hearts that you "consume", healing herbs and sprays, medi-kits that walking over activates them instantly even in dense combat, health dispensers(!), tonics, food items (from chocolate to whole roast turkeys). The only games I've ever seen perform this well is Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, wherein you'll move slower if you have a leg injury, and you may very well have to stick a splint into it to regain your walking speed. But you'll still be pretty slow until you recover, and MGS3: Snake Eater.
Wurm Online had a similar injury system, where you were screwed if your legs got injured and it took a very long time to heal, mainly involving slapping on poultices. Mount & Blade doesn't have healing potions, either - you're at the mercy of time and your party's medicinal skills.
Theft is another weird issue; either you can steal everything that's not nailed down as long as nobody sees the actual theft take place (never mind you're just ambling into people's houses and after you leave they're a whole lot emptier), or you're bound by some moral code not to touch anything.
My favorite example of this is Fallout 3: you can take everything in that weapons locker over there, including the mini-nuke launcher, but don't you fucking dare sleep in that bed
well to be fair, sleeping in someone else's bed in someone else's house/shanty/camp is kinda stupid, cause they could come back and slit your throat, then eat your heart and take your power.
well to be fair, your mom is sexually promiscuous
Is it promiscuity if she limits her whorey to animals, though?
Here's my problem with a lot of games lately. I can go in a room and kill everyone in sight but I do not have the ability to spare anyone. Everyone will come cat me full more and not rest until one of us is dead. Now I can understand if you see if that is the only way you see out but at least one individual should ask for mercy and I should have the option to let them go free and see them tagged as non-hostile (at least until they get strong and come back and hunt me down).
Also, a lot of punches to the head = death. Bethesda has been all about this in their games, from Morrowind to F3. At least in Morrowind you could drain someone's fatigue and they would fall down for a while (couldn't loot them but you could make them drown :twisted:). That is the one true thing from the original fallout 1 and 2 that I miss in 3, the ability to knock someone in the face and knock them out and steal from them. I plan on asking someone at Bethesda if they ever plan to let me do this.
Also, bullets get old and with really old bullets there is a time delay effect. That means with fallout, and I mean all the games, after I pull the trigger with them really old bullets, I have at least 5 seconds before it shoots.
When I was playing Civ 2, and a group of pikemen took out one of my tanks, I was definitely saying "oh fuck this." Somehow a tank is cavalry (and not an armored unit?), and the pikemen's bonus helps enough to take it out? It was only around half damaged. :P
When I was playing Civ 2, and a group of pikemen took out one of my tanks, I was definitely saying "oh fuck this." Somehow a tank is cavalry (and not an armored unit?), and the pikemen's bonus helps enough to take it out? It was only around half damaged. :P
On the other hand, you would be amazed at what a simple entrenched militia can accomplish. The image most people have of tanks vs pikemen is an open field with the tanks just firing shells at silly men in armor, not tanks caught single file in city streets unable to move because somebody dropped a couple carriages of debris in the way. They also think of tanks as their modern versions, not the relatively crappy ones of WW1 that could barely travel faster than a person could walk, their gun nozzles so long that they got stuck in the ground when going in and out of craters, and its operators would almost die from riding around in them because of all the toxic fumes they produced.
first, we've got gym leaders. supposedly these badass, HxC trainers that have become so powerful, people seek them out to try and win coveted badges. but, you fight one like two days after getting your first pokemans aaaand the dudes like "OH MY GOD MY BEATUIFUL ONYX! YOU BASTARD WITH YOUR FIERCELY SCRATCHING CHARMANDER! *shakes fist at ten year old who whupped him good)".
then there's the fact that apparently children in this world are thrown out on their ass at age ten to roam the country side, alone and hungry, where to survive they regularly engage in prize animal fights, with a wager to boot. i imagine many piss poor trainers who simply become hobos because they accidentally caught a metapod who only knows harden.
and then the whole concept of TMs and HMs. a machine you use on your pokemon to force it to learn a move. are these like, steroids or something? i always imagine a very painful needle being inserted into a pokemon's spinal column and BAM *Pikachu learned Swift~!*
Steering away from Resident Evil - most games handle the concept of healing yourself very, very pooly. Floating hearts that you "consume", healing herbs and sprays, medi-kits that walking over activates them instantly even in dense combat, health dispensers(!), tonics, food items (from chocolate to whole roast turkeys). The only games I've ever seen perform this well is Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, wherein you'll move slower if you have a leg injury, and you may very well have to stick a splint into it to regain your walking speed. But you'll still be pretty slow until you recover, and MGS3: Snake Eater.
Wurm Online had a similar injury system, where you were screwed if your legs got injured and it took a very long time to heal, mainly involving slapping on poultices. Mount & Blade doesn't have healing potions, either - you're at the mercy of time and your party's medicinal skills.
Theft is another weird issue; either you can steal everything that's not nailed down as long as nobody sees the actual theft take place (never mind you're just ambling into people's houses and after you leave they're a whole lot emptier), or you're bound by some moral code not to touch anything.
My favorite example of this is Fallout 3: you can take everything in that weapons locker over there, including the mini-nuke launcher, but don't you fucking dare sleep in that bed
well to be fair, sleeping in someone else's bed in someone else's house/shanty/camp is kinda stupid, cause they could come back and slit your throat, then eat your heart and take your power.
well to be fair, your mom is sexually promiscuous
Is it promiscuity if she limits her whorey to animals, though?
We've entered a dark place.
(better call Garth Marengi)
Won Ton's gonna have my balls in a blender if we don't get this thread back on track pronto.
Posts
GTA games are getting better about smaller details. Cops drive around with their doors locked. If you try to car jack them, you'll see your character pull on the door a few times, not open, then the cop getting out to shoot you in the face. Also, not all the cars have their keys in them. Most of the time you are hot wiring them, that’s why they say to tap L2 and R2 simultaneously (PS3 version) to get the car to start up faster.
How much fun would SC be if a BC took up the entire screen. Seriously? Many things in the RTS world are usually never proportionate. Just like the Ultralisks... they should be a lot bigger too. That’s why they pop in those beautiful (for their day) cinematics to show off true proportions how the world really is.
Well, I only played Vice City and San Andreas... and I'm pretty sure you don't have to hot wire any cars in those games.
You're right, a BC taking up the entire screen wouldn't be too fun. That's why it should be off screen. It should not be a buildable unit. Have you played Dawn of War? The battlecruiser's off screen in that game, you just call down orbital bombardments from it sometimes.
Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean.
Note that I did not once mention the word realistic. I don't want the world to be realistic, I want it to be believable. If Farmy magically creates all their food, then fine, the game should tell me that. If I'm not told these things, I simply have to assume that it's just a "game" world, something artificial, that has these gaps because it's only trying to house puzzles and enemies, rather than be a world. That's the kind of thing that breaks immersion.
Also note that I mentioned that less powerful hardware can have an impact on these things, but that's the kind of thing that needs to be designed around. Again, like I said earlier in the thread about OoT, inform the player that this is only a small slice of the kingdom, and then the absence of certain things, like farms and the majority of the populace, will not bother the player as much.
I know... there are a few titles that do this (a couple Working Designs ones I seem to recall as well), but for the most part, it's "hey stranger, help yourself to all the shit in my cabinets!"
they're only one step above the level of abstraction you find in something like chess
the means by which units and buildings produce, upgrade, attack, defend, act or exist is completely separate from how "real" things behave
the only reason they even make them "marines" and "aliens" is because a) it's cooler than abstract little bleeps of colour and b) it makes it easier to associate some intuitive qualities with them, ie a tank will probably kill a marine.
I probably shouldn't even reply to such a snarky and ill thought out post at all, but I've got nothing better to do, so;
Obviously you would not do that. Mentions of distant towns, people talking about going to visit other places, people talking about events in far off lands. Talking about how this is the finest produce from X province. Hell, even having the world map showing some far away places, but having them greyed out. That kind of thing would go a long way towards making it evident to the player that, indeed, the developers have actually put some thought into the world beyond deciding where the dungeons went.
To a degree you may introduce some disappointment to the player when they discover they can't go everywhere on the world map. However, it's much more sensible and less immersion breaking to be told that there's no reason for you to go to the rest of the world, rather than just accepting that a tenth of the kingdom is taken up by a horse ranch.
That always bugged me.
It should be noted that while I find a lot of these quirks stupid, for the most part I still find all the games awesome.
And to think, people actually complain about Working Designs localizations nowadays.
(Albert Odyssey was one as well, and one of their best)
Why can these magical little round things hop over each other, without even touching them, and still manage to "capture" them? Are they crapping invisible nets as they fly overhead? Is the wind from the jump pushing them into the "jail"? It just breaks all suspension of belief I might have had when I started the game.
Guard: Hey you! Where'd you get that sword?
*drop sword*
Me: What sword?
Guard: Carry on.
Also, potions in Diablo 2. Christ, you would think your character would get water poisoning from drinking 40 potions in like five minutes. Or at least have to take a piss.
Because it was "cool" to shit on WD translations for the same reasons it was "cool" to download fansubs of anime but published subs and dubs were OMG SHITTY. Meanwhile, WD was taking Japanese pop-culture that would make no sense to most of us players, and turning them into American pop-culture references that we got. It was awesome, and some assholes are opposed to fun.
Fallout 3 was especially bad in this regard; a handful of shots with the auto-shotty and you're already scraping around for another one to fix up the original. The explanation of a post-apocalyptic future for this element is completely nonsensical. There are robots over a century old wandering around and scientists building lifelike androids, but nobody can figure out how to rig up a machine shop to make new weapon parts? Considering most firearms need to be able to repaired or maintained quickly and easily, they usually have remarkably few parts. Even a rusted piece of crap could be restored to reasonable working condition with the right hand tools. It makes sense that weapons you find sitting around wouldn't be in great shape, but I should be able to fire several thousand rounds from a rifle before the thing starts to degrade even slightly.
And yeah, shotguns in video games are so terrible it's ridiculous. The vast majority require you to nearly shove it in a target's face if you actually want to do damage, but then it ends up being a one-hit kill. If I remember correctly, STALKER was one of the only games I've played in a long time where shotguns were useful against targets more than a couple feet away. Against armored targets the shotguns were virtually useless, but that makes sense. Shotguns have terrible armor penetration. However, against lightly armored enemies/bandits/monsters, shotguns could do serious damage from a good range. I watched many a bandit keel over due to blood loss from a couple handfuls of buckshot.
A huge RTS pet peeve of mine is the rock/paper/scissors mindset when it comes to units design. For example, in a lot of RTS games tanks have trouble with rifleman. This is stupid. I don't care how hard those soldiers lay down, a tank shell is going to blow the hell out of them and the machine guns on the vehicle will blow them even more to hell. Infantry also cannot "wear down" a tank with small arms fire no matter how many there are. Men of War handles this stuff extremely well, though. Without some kind of explosive, infantrymen are utterly, utterly ruined by tanks. Even light armor piercing rounds will just bounce off of heavy tanks.
Not to derail the thread, but - this started to change in GTA San Andreas. You'd punch or kick the driver in the face and swear at them before pulling them out (I'm not sure if swearing is necessary when you've just planted a size 13 shoe in their face). GTA 4 has locked cars that you need to kick/elbow the window in, and frequently hotwire to start.
Back to complaining!
To be fair, Fallout 3's weapon damage could easily be explained by the fact that the world had been through a near-complete nuclear holocaust. I'm sure that shiny chinese assault rifle you're holding is actually rusty as fuck inside. The ammo may be fucking it up too. There's some variables to consider there. A better example is Deus Ex, where you go through weapon repair kits like a politician through hookers.
When I was playing Civ 2, and a group of pikemen took out one of my tanks, I was definitely saying "oh fuck this." Somehow a tank is cavalry (and not an armored unit?), and the pikemen's bonus helps enough to take it out? It was only around half damaged. :P
Some of the costs are really unrealistic in comparison to each other though. For example...
The Great Wall of China costs 150 production, while the Statue of Zeus costs 300? I'd like to see the numbers on that, but I get the feeling that the Great Wall of China probably took hundreds of times more effort, time, people, and resources than any statue that's ever been created... possibly combined.
The Statue of Liberty (if you count both the 1882 - 1884 time period for creation of the statue, and the 1885 - 1886 time period for creation of the pedistal) took about 3 years to make in total after everything was financed. It's 1500 points in the game... meaning that the Space elevator (at 2000 points) is only 1/3 more resource intensive in the game, even though we might never actually even reach the level of technical resources and technological knowledge to actually create such a device, and if we do the time and cost implications will likely be astoundingly high.
Now, don't get me wrong, I know there's good game reasons for it to be like this. No one would train Space Elevator if it was, say, 200k resources instead of 2k.
EDIT: Oh, Shadowfire, I agree with you totally on the "mismatched still can win" in Civ games. It still happens in Civ IV. I was playing a few weeks ago, and I had a modern armor that was about 1/2 damaged get killed by an Elephant. I have to call bullshit on that.
Ive never once thought about that. And it makes me laugh. So hard.
It's like some sort of continuous loop.
The people who have the technology and resources to manufacture new weapon components and whole weapons themselves don't want to trade that out to the other assholes of the wastes for the simple fact that eventually their rock solid brand new guns will eventually be turned against them.
"Doctor, even though you defeated the zombie cancer in a matter of minutes, you didn't apply the bandage over the sutured incision in time! Let a real doctor take care of this! (Made all the more baffling when you consider that after one of the operations, one of the characters reckoned that the operation would take another half hour)
"Unable to bear with losing one patient ever, you quit being a doctor and are never seen again."
My favorite example of this is Fallout 3: you can take everything in that weapons locker over there, including the mini-nuke launcher, but don't you fucking dare sleep in that bed
well to be fair, sleeping in someone else's bed in someone else's house/shanty/camp is kinda stupid, cause they could come back and slit your throat, then eat your heart and take your power.
well to be fair, your mom is sexually promiscuous
Basically heres how it works. If youre a character in a game and you get killed. Do not worry. The only way you will die is if you walk into a room and suddenly look a lot better....why? Because of CUTSCENES. Only in Scenes are characters vulnerable. If not they can die all they like. Come on back. Its fiiiine. But no. Not in those fucking scenes. Beware.
Is it promiscuity if she limits her whorey to animals, though?
We've entered a dark place.
(better call Garth Marengi)
"Hmmm. I have 27 dog heads and 8 ghoul heads. Id like to sell these please!"
*pulls out a giant fucking bag of heads from his pocket*
Merchant - "Holy fuck man!"
THAT'S A LOTTA NUTS
Oh my god dont start with me. Ive been contemplating watching Kung Pow for like 2 weeks now just thinking about how funny it is. DONT DO IT MAN.
"My nipples look like milk duds!"
Also, a lot of punches to the head = death. Bethesda has been all about this in their games, from Morrowind to F3. At least in Morrowind you could drain someone's fatigue and they would fall down for a while (couldn't loot them but you could make them drown :twisted:). That is the one true thing from the original fallout 1 and 2 that I miss in 3, the ability to knock someone in the face and knock them out and steal from them. I plan on asking someone at Bethesda if they ever plan to let me do this.
Also, bullets get old and with really old bullets there is a time delay effect. That means with fallout, and I mean all the games, after I pull the trigger with them really old bullets, I have at least 5 seconds before it shoots.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
http://www.duelinganalogs.com/comic/2007/07/30/fashion-faux-pas/
On the other hand, you would be amazed at what a simple entrenched militia can accomplish. The image most people have of tanks vs pikemen is an open field with the tanks just firing shells at silly men in armor, not tanks caught single file in city streets unable to move because somebody dropped a couple carriages of debris in the way. They also think of tanks as their modern versions, not the relatively crappy ones of WW1 that could barely travel faster than a person could walk, their gun nozzles so long that they got stuck in the ground when going in and out of craters, and its operators would almost die from riding around in them because of all the toxic fumes they produced.
first, we've got gym leaders. supposedly these badass, HxC trainers that have become so powerful, people seek them out to try and win coveted badges. but, you fight one like two days after getting your first pokemans aaaand the dudes like "OH MY GOD MY BEATUIFUL ONYX! YOU BASTARD WITH YOUR FIERCELY SCRATCHING CHARMANDER! *shakes fist at ten year old who whupped him good)".
then there's the fact that apparently children in this world are thrown out on their ass at age ten to roam the country side, alone and hungry, where to survive they regularly engage in prize animal fights, with a wager to boot. i imagine many piss poor trainers who simply become hobos because they accidentally caught a metapod who only knows harden.
and then the whole concept of TMs and HMs. a machine you use on your pokemon to force it to learn a move. are these like, steroids or something? i always imagine a very painful needle being inserted into a pokemon's spinal column and BAM *Pikachu learned Swift~!*
i think about these things too often
Won Ton's gonna have my balls in a blender if we don't get this thread back on track pronto.