thank you the amount of cohesive feedback is making me reconsider my first statement, Like i said i have faith that Bioware will release a kick ass game that will make my head explode from all the awesomeness I'm in it for the story I have 8 sheps 4 female 4 males and I will be there day 1 to wrap up this story, and if some things are stripped down i will be of course pissed but if the story is still great I'm in it to win it.Shadesong said:
No "Meaningless Stat Games" in Mass Effect 3
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
No. Just, no. Let me try to make this as clear as I can.Therumancer said:
BioWare makes games. You buy them if you like them. It's that simple, Bioware doesn't owe you anything. The self-righteous prick here is you, thinking that you are actually entitled to anything just because you bought a product. Buying that gives you that product and nothing more. Bioware doesn't care about you and there's no reason they should. They care about their game, and how much money it makes.
Now, to end on a friendly note, you might want to tone down the wall of texts a little, it's not a good way of getting your point across.
Yes well I think that accuracy is something that shouldnt be determined by stats so I agree with you there. I have had trouble getting into Stalker because on this. I think weapon sway and things like that can be stat affected, recoil as well.PhoenixVanguard said:
Nah, dude, it's totally cool. I love intelligent discussion. Unfortunately, I've had this chat a few times more than I probably should, so I apologize if I'm blasting through any of my points briskly. I'm just getting weary of trying to use logic on the immovable brick wall that is the interwebz. I know, I know... the definition of insanity, right?RedEyesBlackGamer said:
There are so many definitions one could go out and find, but to make this easy, let's go with wikipedia:
A role-playing game (RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development. Actions taken within the game succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines.
So my take is this:
- You are taking on the ROLE of Commander Shepard. To a greater degree than most RPG's out there, you BECOME him. You choose what he looks like. You choose what he says and what he does. You are not forced into being an angtsy spikey-haired teeny bopper with mommy issues, like some whiny blonde jerkwad in a certain other RPG series...
- You also develop Shepard statistically... leveling up, getting squad loyalty, research, character class, etc.
- Your mission's success or failure is completely dependent on the CHOICES you make in that role of Commander Shepard. Missing loyalties, failed research, poor decision making... this leads to complete failure or overwhelming success.
- You also direct your squadmates, with the ability to tell them where to stand, what power to use, and can also pause the game at any time to strategically survey what's happening and change your tactics accordingly.
As for being called an RPG solely because of Bioware's track record, that's silly. The ESRB has requirements of how long they play a game for these days. They played it and said "This is an Action RPG." I'm also pretty sure Gamestop, Steam, and other retailers are going to want to make sure it's labeled in accordance with their guidelines in order to maximize their profits. Nobody is going to just say "Oh, Bioware said it's an RPG, so whatev. Slap on the RPG tag, George."
Compare the above to Gears of War, a game I enjoy, but shares nothing in common with Mass Effect outside of the cover mechanic. Shoot your way through a level. If you die, start from scratch. Rinse and repeat 10x, then watch the ending. Outside of "left" or "right", you make 0 narrative choices. You don't upgrade any weapons, you don't engage in long and meaningful dialogue with people, and nothing changes over the course of multiple playthroughs except your underwear.
So is Mass Effect an "RPG"? No. It isn't. The term is becoming worthless in today's evolving age. Is it an Action RPG, an RPG Shooter, or any sort of combination involving the word "RPG" in it? Yes. Yes it is.
Then we agree. I say shooter with RPG elements and "Action RPG" isn't exactly far off from that.The.Bard said:
Actually no, stat games are more the like of elemental resistences and dice rolls for critical hits. I'm not really sure what goes on under the hood of Mass effect though, seems fairly straightforward.RedEyesBlackGamer said:
If anything, this just seems like an eloquent way of saying that the stat changes when you level up skills will have a more noticible effect.
Of course, you can feel free to insert your own reality to it.
But thats our point - it's not a roleplaying game if it's purely based on the players personal skill.PhoenixVanguard said:
In the old Hitman games I could choose multiple routes, I could choose who to leave alive or who dies but everything I did I did using my skill as a player - never the skills of the character.
In the thief games it's the same - I had a lot of choices, I had a lot of player agency but every skill was based on my skill as a player NOT as a character.
In Deus Ex, in ME, in Alpha protocol the chances of success were affected by the player actions but the main success comes from the characters skill. As the characters skill increases the target reticule becomes more accurate and more stable allowing the player to better guide the character but it's the character that matters.
Without Stats the character is never seperate to the player it's just the player in a different set of clothes possibly speaking with a different accent.
To me a role playing game is about the strategy of preparing the character to survive the danger, not on the twitch ability of myself being capable of handling the danger directly.
[This may not be relevant to ME3 since they never said they were removing stats, just unnoticable changes to stats, but I just wanted to point out that your definition of role playing is not the only viable definition]
I think the major problem with all the arguments about Mass Effect 3 being dumbed down from "RPG Splendor" is because people assosciate RPG's nowadays with WoW. Is WoW successful? Yes, you bet, but that doesn't mean that EVERY SINGLE RPG ELEMENT comes from a game like World of Warcraft or one similar to it.
I'm just tired. Tired of the way gamers throw out anger at a game that hasn't even been released. I am worried that it may not be as good as the previous games, but that happens with any sequel.
For instance, Portal 2, I thought it would be the repetition of "the cake is a lie" in every chamber, but it was the best game I've played this year thus far. So I try to be calm about the game, look at the good stuff they are putting in, and just look forward to what will be a great game.
For I bet to everyone who thinks it will be bad that it will be. A negative attitude towards this will only lead to a negative outcome.
For instance, Portal 2, I thought it would be the repetition of "the cake is a lie" in every chamber, but it was the best game I've played this year thus far. So I try to be calm about the game, look at the good stuff they are putting in, and just look forward to what will be a great game.
For I bet to everyone who thinks it will be bad that it will be. A negative attitude towards this will only lead to a negative outcome.
The long posts are needed to cover all the details. The length of my posts has come up before, and simply put if I shorten things it leads to other problems.Nimcha said:No. Just, no. Let me try to make this as clear as I can.Therumancer said:
BioWare makes games. You buy them if you like them. It's that simple, Bioware doesn't owe you anything. The self-righteous prick here is you, thinking that you are actually entitled to anything just because you bought a product. Buying that gives you that product and nothing more. Bioware doesn't care about you and there's no reason they should. They care about their game, and how much money it makes.
Now, to end on a friendly note, you might want to tone down the wall of texts a little, it's not a good way of getting your point across.
Other than that, your wrong. Pretty much every business is going to say it doesn't owe it fans anything. Musicians do it all the time, they are more than willing to embrace all their fans who follow them for being radical and revolutionary, until they wind up becoming big enough where they sign a major contract in exchange for churning out tons of soulless teen pop crap. They band pretty much goes "hey, we're going to take the money, we don't owe you guys who got us to this point, kept us fed, and allowed us to work on our music anything. We just make music, and you decided whether to buy it or not, since your outnumbered by the teenie boppers and we have a contract, guess which way we're going har, har, har".
That debt exists, it's just that nobody wants to acknowlege it when it becomes inconveinent, it's "we thank our fans for supporting us and allowing us to do this" up until they don't need those fans anymore. I'm not the first person to compare game developers to Rock Stars and there are reasons for that.
There isn't any way of enforcing that debt (well, at least not yet), but nobody should be surprised when they wind up getting sh@t for it. You take a dump on millions of people and then wipe your butt afterwards on $100 bills, you have no right to get uppity when the people on the receiving end decide they don't like you.
Honestly though, as the information age continues, and contract law becomes more... interesting, this might change. As crazy as it might sound, there are already some indications that what a band might say during a concert could count as a verbal contract
if it can be verified. This is largely because we're looking at situations where someone might give a presentation before say a corperate board, and then do something very differant from what they said and say "hey I didn't sign anything, so it wasn't binding". Enough witnesses to a promise along with something like a tape recording, and you can see arguements made about a verbal contract, and while it's a slow process, that kind of thing is on the rise through precedent. Someone promises something in an interview, or before a crowd, and we might very well wind up with cases where that counts as verbal contrart with tons of people with thousands of witnesses and recordings that form a physical record. That happens and we might very well find game developers, rock stars, and others held accountable to promises made to their fans, or even just implied. I could say more, but it would get increasingly off topic, and we're nowhere near that point yet.
Dont be silly, seriously. So every game beyond tetris is an RPG cause you play a role, la la la la. No sorry, RPG is a genre with expected traits and norms so when they take out some of those ideas it is becoming less of a RPG.Faerillis said:
Obviously not every game where you play a role is an RPG but those old RPG elements, the behind-the-scenes dice rolls, the overstocked inventories, etc... Those elements were adopted to deal with a lack of capabilities in computers at the time. They were easy and mathematical, brilliant and fine in their own rights but hardly what should define the genrebombadilillo said:
Any game in which you play an unprescribed role with the ability to make meaningful choices, gameplay or storywise, is an RPG. Those other elements have nothing to do with it.