Zewp

As far as MMOs go, this is one of my favorites and pretty much the only one I still make time for. It's a game that you can easily pick up for an hour, have a bit of fun, and then go do something else. It's probably the first MMO where I read all the quest text/listen to dialog, because it's just that good. The combat is also pretty fun and I love the skill system, because it encourages diversity and creativity. There are so many possible combinations of skills and weapons that you'd be hard-pressed to find an optimal build on your first character. You certainly can pull a build off the internet, but some of my best (and most fun) builds came from just experimenting in game. So, I dunno. I certainly don't feel the game deserves the bad rap it gets. I've found that most of the critique comes from people who were expecting Skyrim Online or were just never going to like an Elder Scrolls MMO to bgein with. It's BuyToPlay now, so if you're still unsure just grab it in a 50% off sale and give it a go. I can guarantee you'll at least get your money's worth out of playing one of the three campaigns and if in the end you don't like it, you can just drop it with no hard feelings and your wallet only $30 lighter.

I tried this quite some time back but had trouble figuring everything out. I'll try it again sometime when I have a large chunk of time to figure everything out properly.

As I said, if you wish to call those games RPGs that's entirely up to you. I don't consider hack 'n slash games with lite RPG elements RPGs, because character development alone does not an RPG make. There are RPG elements in countless games today, yet we don't call those games RPGs. There is no such thing as a 'pure RPG'. There are RPGs and there are non-RPGs. Dragon Age Origins is an RPG, Borderlands is not.

Thanks osmosys. I was looking for something like this. I wish there was some forum 'thank you' feature or something.

Fair enough, if you want to consider any game that has character development and RPG then that's your prerogative. I don't consider them RPGs, but consider them to be action games with RPG elements, at most. For me, an RPG is a game that not only has character development, but where player agency also plays a big role in the game. You should have an impact on the world and the world should react to your actions and decisions. Aside from the character existing, this is not the case in games like Borderlands where there is only one way to play through the game. The easiest recent example would be Dragon Age, where your actions have a direct, visible impact on the story and how it plays out. That's not to say I dislike games like Borderlands, just that I don't consider them RPGs simply for containing basic RPG elements.

We will never again get truly great RPGs as long as the RPG developers are developing games for the Skyrim/Borderlands crowds. Those games are not bad, but they are not truly RPGs. The closest they come to being RPGs is that they have a system of character development, which on its own does not make an RPG. Baldur's Gate, Fallout 1, 2 and (arguably) New Vegas, Dragon Age: Origins, Planescape: Torment - these are examples of RPGs. Skyrim and Borderlands scrape the bottom of the barrel of RPG-dom. Luckily we have projects like Underrail, Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera trying to return the RPG genre to its roots, but it remains to be seen if they can be successful in an environment where gamers are just out for instant gratification.

Well, they're amazing games even at the normal price. I highly suggest picking them up if you've never played them. Some of the finest CRPGs ever released.

What exactly where you expecting? The actual quest has multiple pathways and multiple endings depending on your choices throughout the quest. That's a lot more than FO3 offered, where pretty much all the quests were completely on rails.

I think you played a complete different game from what I did, because the NV I played had loads of quests that had vastly differing outcomes depending on your choices throughout the quest. Just a single example was the ghoul quest, Come Fly With Me. You could sabotage them so they crashed their rockets instead of reaching their destination. There were many other quests with alternate pathways and endings, whereas Fallout 3 had very little such quests. There were also instances where you could wipe out certain factions as an alternative to doing their quests.

This. Is the OP really complaining because he can't pirate a game to LAN on multiple PCs?

Shidentora, just what in oblivion's name are you on about?

I don't think we've ever had a mafia game here. I see someone else had a sign-up thread a few years back but that didn't seem to go anywhere. If you don't know what Mafia is, the Mafia Wiki is a very good place to start. The basic formula of mafia is that there are two groups of players. The informed party (mafia members) and the uninformed party (civilians). The mafia members know who each other are, but the civilians don't know anyone else's role. The aim is for either party to eradicate the other. During the day phase all players converse and eventually vote on a player to be lynched, which then reveals that player's allegiance and removes him from the game. During the night phase the mafia conspire to secretly lynch one player. At it's heart, mafia is a game of intrigue, plots, deception and betrayal. It works very well in a forum setting, provided nobody cheats. It's really amazing fun, so I highly suggest you sign up even if you've never played before. It's not very hard to get into. Do note that if you wish to play you're going to have to be available to post and vote at least once a day (and some of you will have to be available for nightly votes) between Monday and Friday. The game will only run on weekdays, because most of us are busy over weekends and that makes participation a bit difficult. The minimum participation is posting at least once a day in the thread, but the more often you can post and interact with fellow players, the better for you. So, if you're interested in playing please post it in this thread and I'll add you to the list of players. For the purposes of the format I'm going to be using, we'll need as many players as possible, but I would say 16 players are going to be the minimum. 20 players or more would be ideal, because it means I can flesh out the game a lot more with multiple factions and different roles. The theme for the game will be Elder Scrolls, but due to the nature of Mafia, do not expect it to be 100% lore friendly. Daedra sightings have been confirmed, however.

This. F2P or Buy2Play is a noble idea, but often the developers have to make compromises on the game to ensure they still make money off it if sales start slowing down and these compromises often cheapen and/or make the game a chore to play.

Why do you keep setting up strawmen? I never said I was fine with the game and I never said the people who died in service of Russia had anything to do with what's currently happening. I'm saying that there seems to be a double-standard here. The russian government stomps all over human rights and not a peep is made. A videogame developer stomps over Russian history, and suddenly everyone is up in arms and it's the apocalypse. Seeing as you seem to have trouble understanding, I'll illustrate it in pictures for you. Russian response to government stomping on human rights. http://i42.tinypic.com/2jev80m.jpg Russian response to Relic stomping on their history. http://i44.tinypic.com/2pyp3ih.jpg Now kindly stop misrepresenting my arguments and stop putting words in my mouth.

And yet peoples' human rights are being dumped on by their own government right this very moment, but the one issue that gets the biggest response is that a videogame company misrepresented some historical facts.