Shallow

[Boombro]

 

I want to blame EA and Activision for everything wrong with the industry. Completely soulless. Neither the people who make their games nor the people who buy them matter to these people at all. I've been boycotting them for a while now.

Yeah, EA and AV are freaking horrible, Ubisoft seems to join them. Bye bye AC, dishonored 2 is my assassin fix.

 

I myself wish for demos, winter sales have been an action movie for me like:

 

"Come on, come on, download!"

"Has it been an hour?! Oh god, only 40 minutes. Let try another 20 minutes."

"Is it good? Is it bad? What is good?"

 

 

It just a big pain in the ass. Some devs have demos, but it should be the common norm to have them around with such high price tags. Two hours is not enough.

[Athanasa]

Honestly... the games current story is frankly as shallow as the map size. I feel as though both needed to be significantly larger for this game.

Bah, map size is fine. It's the character run speed that's stipidly fast. That and topography. It's so flat you never have to detour to get somewhere, which you did in Skyrim. It gave the entire game a (somewhat artificial) feeling of size when you had to travel twice as far to get anywhere without falling to your death.

 

The story suffers from the same issue, though. It moves too fast, with a lack of pauses to break up the breakneck flow. "Hey, do this! Get this settlement! You General now." ... "What?" I get it, the market these days suggests that people want a fast story progression. However, did Beth stop to think that maybe those types of people weren't usually the fanbase of Fallout games?

 

I'm going to use books as an example. Harry Potter books, actually. As J.K Rowling built the world and her books, they matured with every book to match the age of those original fans that fell in love with the series when they were 8-14 years old. It would have been complete *censored* of JK decided, on the 5th book, to go back to the tone of the first book to attempt to 'attract more children into the franchise'. BOOM! Story line disrupted, the carefully cultivated 'feel' of the story and world is gone, and fans are justifiably pissed.

 

It's not a good comparison, because book graphics don't age. And they're not games. And Fallout was always marketed at adults, so it won't have the same 'maturity growth'. But it's still odd that Beth seems to have suddenly decided, "Screw the old fans who probably have jobs, money and loyalty to Fallout. We want to target a younger, more impulsive and fickle audience."

 

Still, with the reputation that some games have had for narrative in the past, I don't feel it's too far wrong to compare them to books. How have we gone so far backwards, from the rich stories we had in games like Baldurs Gate (a game from 1998) to what we have now? Are writers just too expensive to hire?

 

 

And made DA:I. the shittest game when it comes to questing ever. the games you talk about are from a long forgotten past.

Try original sin.

Oh my god. The most recent Original Sin is amazing. Or at least, I felt it was. It felt like Baldurs Gate again, in terms of the isometric world view. Except the combat was so much better for not being D&D. Manipulator style wizards best wizards. (Let's not talk about Icewind Dale. "Make your own characters! But... because of this, we can't give them personalities.)

 

 

Muh childhood. My god, the theme was so good. The music managed to cover so much.

These days, if you want good OSTs, you go for Square Enix games. RIP powerful game music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U88zyFLzIXQ

 

 

Edited December 28, 2015 by Athanasa

[Boombro]

 

oh my god. The most recent Original Sin is amazing. Or at least, I felt it was. It felt like Baldurs Gate again, in terms of the isometric world view. Except the combat was so much better for not being D&D. Manipulator style wizards best wizards. (Let's not talk about Icewind Dale. "Make your own characters! But... because of this, we can't give them personalities.)

For me the best turn base RPG would be the trails in the Sky. Oh boy, now that is a great game. Hardly anything tops it as JRPG. A must play to anyone.

 

Can I can RP in Ice wind? As a matter of fact, does anyone know of RP games like beth? not made by beth? You know, be anything, tons of side quests and hardly a backstory? I hardly find games of that kind.

[Ekscalybur]

 

 

Honestly... the games current story is frankly as shallow as the map size. I feel as though both needed to be significantly larger for this game

It not about the size, it about what in it.

 

AC games gives you pretty much whole countries, but it is AC.

 

VM:B has micro areas, and look how that great that game is (yeah it super buggy but still.)

 

The map of fo4 needs to be even smaller, not bigger. Thus enriching what in it more.

 

 

this time they've phoned the gameworld in as well leaving nothing of any interest.

Not even general atomics, the old state house and mayor bunker?

Or are you talking about quests and/or cities in general?

 

 

.....Wut????

 

Would you be happy if the next Fallout game consisted of 2 city blocks? Had 1 dungeon, the Vault you walk out of and had a gigantic Achievement Get!!! when you left it signifying you won the game?

 

Even smaller? The game is now barely a few miles wide, and is only an inch deep. You want to remove the only dimension the game is large.

 

 

Do you go to forums for Turn based strategy games and complain they have too many turns?

[flamenx01]

 

 

 

Honestly... the games current story is frankly as shallow as the map size. I feel as though both needed to be significantly larger for this game

It not about the size, it about what in it.

 

AC games gives you pretty much whole countries, but it is AC.

 

VM:B has micro areas, and look how that great that game is (yeah it super buggy but still.)

 

The map of fo4 needs to be even smaller, not bigger. Thus enriching what in it more.

 

 

this time they've phoned the gameworld in as well leaving nothing of any interest.

Not even general atomics, the old state house and mayor bunker?

Or are you talking about quests and/or cities in general?

 

 

.....Wut????

 

Would you be happy if the next Fallout game consisted of 2 city blocks? Had 1 dungeon, the Vault you walk out of and had a gigantic Achievement Get!!! when you left it signifying you won the game?

 

Even smaller? The game is now barely a few miles wide, and is only an inch deep. You want to remove the only dimension the game is large.

 

 

Do you go to forums for Turn based strategy games and complain they have too many turns?

 

I think he means that the devs would be better spending more time on content for the map rather than just making a large map full of dull empty buildings with no lore, quests or unique gameplay.

[nonoodles]

Whatever you do, please don't say anything that will make BGS think it's okay to shrink the map further and throw in more OPTIONAL stuff like settlement building (that throws a really long shadow over the game; to wit, consumer response) because who cares about the main quest in their games anyway. I for one do care. Very much. : P

[TheOriginalEvilD]

Here's a timeline of how my first play through went:

 

Hours:

 

1-10ish - Played the main quest and most side quests as they were given to me, working thoroughly to clear out each area I came across, etc etc.

 

10-100ish - Discovered settlement building and spent several days building massive towers and then demolishing them only to start over.

 

100-1110ish - Oh, maybe I should finish the main quest. Wait, that's it? REALLY?

 

:starts new play through to side with other faction:

[Boombro]

"I think he means that the devs would be better spending more time on content for the map rather than just making a large map full of dull empty buildings with no lore, quests or unique gameplay."

 

That what I meant.

 

Think about it, does the map size matters that much? The main problem is the lack of quests, lore, NPCs. Not the map size. It never a problem when the game is good and rich itself.

 

A rich, dense small map>a big empty map.

 

Let say we cut fo4 in half, but the devs put more than extra 20% quests, NPCs, better towns, more underground, more above sea level in that half.

 

Would you want that, or more of the fo4 we have right now?

 

What the point of a big map that is useless like fo4 map? what even the point of a big map then? You would walk more? Run more?

 

Stop asking for bigger maps, we need better maps!

[BadReplicant]

I don't think the map should be any smaller just more thought out. They just need to focus on what's enjoyable and fun instead of what they feel is impressive and detailed. That's a very subjective view, though. To bring up Skyrim *clears throat* the world was bigger and I guess less detailed but the areas were unique and the layout felt fun, the fields surrounding Whiterun, or the marshes leading to Solitude, the trail to the greybeards, etc. it seemed well thought out and made you feel immersed. If it was more detailed and smaller it would've ruined the aesthetic and felt cluttered.

 

This jump in graphics, settlements, voiced protagonist, and gun mechanics I think took away from their time making the things that I care about, towns, characters, random events, side quests and making the world feel alive and carefully planned.

 

I really don't want their maps any smaller just because this one lacked character. I don't think anyone would be saying this if their were more towns around the edges of the map filled with strange culture and odd quest lines.

[Warmaker01]

speaking of good people losing their jobs and games getting worse over the years who remembers Westwood?

I remember them. I however didn't get into PC gaming until EA bought them out, so I missed out on them. A lot of people missed them.

 

i dont get it either, i seriously think the Battlefront and battlefield series would be better off if the team who made them (the recent one for Battlefront) had been independent of EA. who knows... it could just be that they wouldnt have the funding and EA owns both licenses but look at Star Citizen it just recently hit 100 million dollars just on crowd funding.

You're on a roll today with pushing my annoyed buttons :laugh:

 

I miss old school DICE. BF1942, BF2, BF2142. I put in a tremendous amount of time in those titles and had plenty of fun. The funny thing is that they had some great titles and a good reputation (to me at least) even with EA owning them. But that started changing after BF2142. Then came some changes in how DICE did things starting with BF3 and how they just never fixed that damn game. I also remember that before BF3 released, DICE says that the business practices Activision did with COD would not be done with Battlefield. Then what happens with BF3? They copy Activision's playbook.

 

Then comes Star Wars Battlefront. DICE has more than a decade of doing FPS games with

- 64 players

- Combined arms combat: Wide array of vehicles, infantry

- Large maps

- Prior experience with a Sci-Fi FPS (BF2142) to include walker-units, motherships flying above the battlefield where players can opt to spawn in and fight from, player flown transports filled up with teammates, drop pods, etc.

 

Produce a Star Wars Battlefront game with:

- 40 players tops, even on PC

- Small maps

- A dearth of Star Wars vehicles, which are half the draw of the franchise

- Can you even use the prone position?!?

- AT-AT's on rails :mellow:

 

The game looks, sounds stunning. But when you look at the guts of it and what DICE used to do before, I just wonder what happened. Not to mention the Frostbite Engine used since BF3 is capable of doing large maps with combined arms combat and highly quality graphics, very busy combat. SWBF is so scaled back in contrast.

Edited December 28, 2015 by Warmaker01