OB1, are you joking or do you have a serious point? Because I know I've liked every single one of Bioware's games (sure, I haven't played SHattered Steel in years, but I'm sure it's a decent giant robot sim...). Yes, I have some complaints about NWN. But not so much that when the thing gets a bit cheaper I won't get it... it certainly looks like it'd be worth $20 or $30...
Anyway, what in the world is your point? So I hadn't played KOTOR. So?
You also forget one more thing about this list. 'Most Wanted' doesn't mean games I'll get as soon as they are out. So I well might wait until KOTOR 2 is cheaper until I get it, but that doesn't change its status on my list...
As for KOTOR... I've just started. Would you like some first impressions? ... well, I'll tell you either way. :)
KOTOR... as I thought, given that it's primarially a console game, takes the d20 rules but simplifies them. A simple light/dark alignment system, only three classes, etc... oh, it's still got a lot of depth for sure, but compared to a Bioware PC D&D RPG the system has been noticably simplified. This isn't awful (most of the d20/D&D 3 system is here and intact), but it's what you get with it being a console game.
Yes, I'll get used to the control and display systems. But on first glance I see a bunch of small annoying things that I have to mention.
First. INVENTORY. This is the biggest thing that they seem to have changed. Can you max out your inventory? Do you have limited inventory slots? Do you even have that basic D&D thing of a WEIGHT LIMIT? And WHY IN THE WORLD DOES IT HAVE A SHARED PARTY INVENTORY??? That is so, so stupid! I want seperate inventory screens for each character and I want a normal inventory display where I can see small images of each item on the screen at the same time! Oh yeah, and I want the descriptions to appear on a right click, not on a left click, because that means a big box on the side of the screen has to be devoted to that description... one of the many ways this game panders to consoles, hurting its PC playability.
Yes, in Baldur's Gate II you get various 'bags of holding' to hold stuff, so it'd be nice to have them have early on (and easily accessible) things like a power pack holder (weapon energy), potion holder, etc... but you realy should have a obviously limited inventory that is seperate for each character and that has a weight limit based on their strength, like the d20 rules say you should.
Oh yeah, and It's pretty dissapointing to see that you can't choose your character's voice set... this is minor, but it's still annoying. At least the default seems decent.
As for the game itsself... seems good. One pretty annoying thing is that when you click on your other party member(s) on screen (in combat, specifically) it doesn't select them. I'm used to it doing that in most PC RPGs so the fact that it doesn't, and you have to either hit 'Tab' or click on their portrait, is pretty annoying. Most of my other complaints are similar interface issues, about how I like the Infinity engine (or other similar systems that all the Interplay-style PC RPGs have) better than this console-styled one. Like, items. Okay, so it's nice that you can switch between the items in your quick item spots with the little arrows, but I'd prefer to be able to drag items there from my inventory and configure it as I wish! Oh wait, the inventory is not that well designed... right...
More? Hmm... oh, right, combat. I mean in addition to forcing you to use tab instead of the obvious clicking on the other character to switch to them during combat. (that may not work in the console version but it REALLY should have been in the PC!) As you can probably guess, I want a normal combat system, not those little boxes which I have to scroll through... by 'normal' I mean 'either a rightclick popup ring of options or a row of buttons on the screen'. Given this game's interface, I think the rightclick ring would work better. Though that's more a Black Isle thing, not Bioware, I think it'd be perfect for this game... you know, where you move the mouse onto the screen and then right click and the options pop up. Attack, Skills (click to get a listing), Force (if you're a Jedi), Items (like the grenades), etc... I definitely think that a system like that would work better for a mouse control system.
On a similar note, I know OB1 will think I am crazy, but (just based on a couple hours of gameplay) I can't help but find myself thinking that I'd rather this game had a more normal topdown perspective. Seriously. And this isn't for performance reasons... the game runs surprisingly well on my PC, at 800x600 anyway. I just think that PC-style RPGs are more fun from that perspective. Especially combat, that'd definitely be better if it was from a more overhead perspective (and with a action choice system like I detailed earlier)... yes, the game has nice 3d graphics. But I'd love to see what this game would look like with great high res images instead... :)
Now, don't get me wrong. It's a very good game. Probably a great game, even. I just wish that it had been made more focused for the PC. Not a game-killing set of problems by any means, but enough to be worth mentioning.
Okay, one more thing. They actually give a seperate notation for dialogue options marked 'Persuade' for ones that are activated by your skills? What in the world are they thinking? That is so stupid!
As for performance, framerates are fine at 800x600. Though in the graphics screen I can't enable anti-aliasing, soft shadows, or frame buffer effects... probably need a better graphics card. :) I might want to see if it can run well at 1024x768... maybe.
Fine, so you probably want something more concrete on the good side other than 'it's a really good game'. Okay. Just about all the spoken lines (as in lines characters in the game would speak) are actually voiced. That's a first for one of these RPGs, for sure... the older Bioware games had just as many disks (this is a 4 disk game, BG had 5, BG2 4...), but that's because of those massive graphic maps (the level map drawings are very large files), not because of voice. I'm sure that as a tradeoff people have somewhat less to say, but it seems like a reasonable amount of conversation, so it seems a relatively minor downside. In previous Interplay-style RPGs only major dialogue lines at big plot points (or voiceovers during chapter beginnings) would be spoken, and the rest of the games would just have to be read... it's very nice to see it all given voice. And it adds to the immersion too. :) Oh, and it's very cool that the aliens speak in their languages and not in Standard.
As for the graphics themselves... they are good. Not great, but good. Everything seems to be lacking a bit in detail (texture detail and variety, for instance... the poly count itsself is fine...)... perhaps as an effect of it being designed as a console game, where that isn't as noticable? It looks nice, and definitely looks like Star Wars, but it's not as good as it could be and not so great that it leaves me thinking 'no way would this be as good in top-down'. Which helps explain (if you want more explanation) why I think that it'd be a better game topdown and with drawn backdrops (though 3d characters might be nice... they are probably easier to make and animate than 2d ones and they look great. Certainly better than the sprites of the Infinity Engine, which looked good in '98 but were getting old by the last few years... now if they could do everything with Disciples II-quality sprites I might think that they (if they were doing another topdown game) should stick with 2d, but it really depends. Either way works, honestly. I just want it to look good. And the KOTOR characters look good, even if they do lack somewhat in detail and complex texturing. :)
On another note, Bioware's next PC RPG is Dragon Age. It's not D&D or even d20 this time. It's a RPG with a totally new setting and ruleset. 3d, but it'll be a topdown, party-based RPG. Just what I wanted to see them make. Well, not *just*. I'd rather it was D&D, really. But this is pretty good.
http://www.bioware.com/games/dragon_age/
Some of the KOTOR characters lack... character. Namely, the main man... what's his name... the guy who looks like.... um, well I equipped him with goggles the whole time.... Um, the guy who lost his wife and won't open up to you unless you force it out of him. Story for him is great, but wow what a stereotype as far as the appearence. Canderous is similar. At least in FF and other games everyone is so different they are almost another species.
As for the interface, what you describe is totally different from the console controls. I can't even relate. XBox used L and R to select a target and A interacted directly.
As far as your complaints.... Honestly, I can't understand a couple things about PC style inventory. First off, what's with that silly grid where you have to "fit" everything into place? I've SEEN those character sheets, you don't EVER do that in D&D, you just write it down! I get weight and limited inventory. I've dealt with both before in many console RPGs. However, as a general rule, people started hating that VERY quickly. Square soon realized limited inventory just wasn't fun so they let people carry 99 of everything in the game, if they could find it. Honestly, I want a PERFECT file :D, that means gimme gimme! At the very least, they should have some sort of bank system so you can still have everything, just not with you, thus presenting the same limited inventory challenge when taking on dungeons and such.
And another thing, before you say anything about how organizing things on a grid is somehow more realistic, it's not. C'mon, even with these limitations, these guys are carrying around several hundred tons of metal at any one time COMPLETELY out of sight. I know "magical bag of holding", but that's just a silly excuse :D. The only game that EVER actually explained how someone could really HOLD so much stuff, in an acceptable way, EVER, was, well, Pokémon (inventory is transformed into and stored as energy in a "backpack"). Not that it's a problem mind you, I don't mind little things like that being unrealistic. I just don't like when they try making a small PART of something annoying for the sake of realism when the very basis of that component isn't realistic to begin with.
As for the headings that actually say "persuade" and such, what's the complaint exactly? You want to know what you are doing and what stat it's based on, right? Why not just TELL the person that information up front? What's so wrong with that? Neverwinter does that too. I really don't see what's so stupid about it.
As far as combat, your complaints are PC version exclusive I'm afraid... I guess the controls really aren't better in the PC version as I had assumed...
Camera view... Honestly, the behind thing worked, most of the time anyway, very well. I will freely admit that there were a decent number of times where I wanted the camera more of a raised angle. Often it was just the monotony of being that SAME elevation back there staring at my character's backs the whole run (not exactly an awe inspiring view of heroism from back there...). There was a whole axis on that right control stick that could have been assigned to elevation, wasted. Understandably, there were likely a lot of things they would have to draw tops to if they had let you do that (think of rolling the camera up only to notice the top of that hill you ran by is nonexistant and you can SEE THROUGH TIME), but it's certainly something I would have appreciated.
The whole light/dark system was supposed to be unique, actually applying allignments to the quest itself in a major way. Tell me, are there PC RPGs that make use of the 9 way alignment system of normal D&D in such a way as the story is totally different depending on it? Probably so... But hey, Bioware is trying to sell it, and if that involves lying to a naive console gaming public about a "first ever" feature that isn't really first ever, they'll go ahead and do that.
Still a GREAT game though. Tell me, are you experiencing glitches right and left?
Quote:Still a GREAT game though. Tell me, are you experiencing glitches right and left?
Glitches? Um, other than this annoying memory leak that makes the game run slowly to the point of being unplayable after playing for a few hours (and that was before I patched it (I patched the game today, but that was after I played... it did the 'slowdown to unplayability' thing again and I thought 'hey there might be a patch'...) so it might have been fixed), no... at least I don't think so. What do you mean?
Quote:As far as your complaints.... Honestly, I can't understand a couple things about PC style inventory. First off, what's with that silly grid where you have to "fit" everything into place? I've SEEN those character sheets, you don't EVER do that in D&D, you just write it down! I get weight and limited inventory. I've dealt with both before in many console RPGs. However, as a general rule, people started hating that VERY quickly. Square soon realized limited inventory just wasn't fun so they let people carry 99 of everything in the game, if they could find it. Honestly, I want a PERFECT file , that means gimme gimme! At the very least, they should have some sort of bank system so you can still have everything, just not with you, thus presenting the same limited inventory challenge when taking on dungeons and such.
And another thing, before you say anything about how organizing things on a grid is somehow more realistic, it's not. C'mon, even with these limitations, these guys are carrying around several hundred tons of metal at any one time COMPLETELY out of sight. I know "magical bag of holding", but that's just a silly excuse . The only game that EVER actually explained how someone could really HOLD so much stuff, in an acceptable way, EVER, was, well, Pokémon (inventory is transformed into and stored as energy in a "backpack"). Not that it's a problem mind you, I don't mind little things like that being unrealistic. I just don't like when they try making a small PART of something annoying for the sake of realism when the very basis of that component isn't realistic to begin with.
'explained how you could hold that much stuff'? Play Baldur's Gate I or II, DJ. Really. Or play NWN and create a character with very low strength. See how much you can hold (weight-wise)... yeah, not too much. Yes, it is a bit unrealistic to have a strong warrior be able to carry several hundred pounds of armor (if you have a mostly full inventory of suits of armor for instance) around all the time. I would just assume that they put it down between fights and stuff. :) But it's a million times more realistic than having now inventory limit at all. And a much, much better design.
You are kind of right about inventory spots and real D&D. Real D&D doesn't have limited inventory spots. What it has is a weight limit. It's called 'sensibility'. People shouldn't be able to go around carrying fifty suits of plate mail! So there's a weight limit. The inventory spots thing was for PC games to make inventories easier to design, I assume. So having unlimited inventory spots isn't the big problem. Having what appears to be no weight limit is.
As for 'perfect', DJ, this is not Final Fantasy. This is D&D/d20. That is utterly impossible. There are so many more types of things in D&D that that's an utterly impossible idea to even begin thinking about, and you know it, inventory limits or no. What you do is try to get the people you have to have equipped the best possible stuff... :)
D&D. The way real D&D works is you have a backpack. That is what holds your stuff in your inventory. You have a weight limit. It is based mostly on your Strength, naturally. Being a pen and paper game you need no 'interface' or 'quick item' slots or any of that stuff so all of that is invented by the game designers... the system just has to set rules for weight and for what can be equipped where. Which is why different D&D games can do this somewhat differently.
Now, I will admit that some of the D&D games have done some things to avoid inventory limits. Baldur's Gate I has nothing, but in BGII there are various bags of holding. By the expansion pack, you have an arrow case, a scroll case, a gem bag, a potion case, and a general bag of holding. Each has a low, static, weight no matter how many items are in them (though they have a limited number of items they can hold). This gives you a virtually unlimited inventory... but this is very high level characters and you have a lot more items to hold than low level guys where most of the stuff you could be carrying is just loot from baddies to sell in town, so it's more needed. And that's more bags of holding than is normal for one of these games I think.
Anyway, in that game those are rewards for getting really far into the series and playing a lot, not just something you get at the start... you have to deal a lot with inventory limits. It's a big part of D&D and it is definitely not one that this game should have dropped. Quite dissapointing.
Quote:As for the interface, what you describe is totally different from the console controls. I can't even relate. XBox used L and R to select a target and A interacted directly.
I didn't describe the interface, DJ. Well, I kind of did, but in the form of comparing it (negatively) to PC RPGs. You know the list, Fallout, Baldur's Gate, etc, etc... haven't you played ANY of those?
In the PC version, when combat starts it auto-pauses (well you can turn that off but you'd have to be pretty stupid, or impatient, to want it that way). Your characters auto select an opponent. Three little buttons appear over the target. The first one lets you choose either normal attack or one of your special abilities (power shot, etc). The second... no use yet for me. Force? Mines? The third is for grenades. You click the icon to choose that option or click the little arrows right above and below the icon to change between the choices. Items work the same, except in four boxes in the bottom corner (four categories obviously).
To change character, you either click on their portrait in the bottom left corner or hit tab. To unpause you either hit the unpause button or hit spacebar (at least THAT'S the same!)
As I said, this kind of direct control of course works better with a gamepad. But with mouse, it's just clumsy and obviously inferior to a normal button (like Baldur's Gate) or rightclick menu (Torment, Temple of Elemental Evil, etc) system.
Quote:As for the headings that actually say "persuade" and such, what's the complaint exactly? You want to know what you are doing and what stat it's based on, right? Why not just TELL the person that information up front? What's so wrong with that? Neverwinter does that too. I really don't see what's so stupid about it.
Absolutely not! I want it to just give me a list of dialogue options! Let ME figure out which one is right, or which one seems more like it is there because of my Persuasion, or Intelligence, or whatever! I think that it is insulting your user's intelligence to do something as blatant as listing 'Persuasion' on the dialogue option. It is a clear indication that the game designers think the players are stupid and can't think for themselves and I don't want it in a good RPG. That isn't in Baldur's Gate or Torment!
Quote:As far as combat, your complaints are PC version exclusive I'm afraid... I guess the controls really aren't better in the PC version as I had assumed...
Depends on what you want from them, really. What I wish it would be is a interface that is a improved-but-similar version of the interface in Baldur's Gate II. Or Icewind Dale II, if you want that one, because of its improved customizability... :)
What it IS is a console-styled one that has been adapted to PC. The adaption is as good as could be expected without making any actual gameplay changes, but the mere fact that it still has the same basic game interface designs as the console game is a big negative in my book.
Quote:Camera view... Honestly, the behind thing worked, most of the time anyway, very well. I will freely admit that there were a decent number of times where I wanted the camera more of a raised angle. Often it was just the monotony of being that SAME elevation back there staring at my character's backs the whole run (not exactly an awe inspiring view of heroism from back there...). There was a whole axis on that right control stick that could have been assigned to elevation, wasted. Understandably, there were likely a lot of things they would have to draw tops to if they had let you do that (think of rolling the camera up only to notice the top of that hill you ran by is nonexistant and you can SEE THROUGH TIME), but it's certainly something I would have appreciated.
I'm not complaining about the camera while you are adventuring. It's as good as I can expect from a third person title. I'm talking about combat only. I thought I was clear about that... that 'behind the character' view just is not as good as a top-down one for directing strategic combat! It just is not. You don't have as good a view... it makes it harder. And it makes switching between characters confusing as your viewpoint suddenly changes. It also makes it much less obvious what other characters' sightlines are without selecting them -- in a topdown view I'd be able to SEE that my other character was behind me and couldn't fire at those guys yet, while in this one I can't do that until I switch to him... this is an annoying flaw and between these various issues combat does not work as well as it would from a standard topdown viewpoint.
Though you do make a point about elevation -- this IS a 3d game, for good or ill, so it'd be nice to be able to move the camera up and down. Even if it auto-centered afterwards (like Warcraft III), it'd be nice... but as you say this way was a whole lot easier to design so I can understand why they didn't.
Quote:The whole light/dark system was supposed to be unique, actually applying allignments to the quest itself in a major way. Tell me, are there PC RPGs that make use of the 9 way alignment system of normal D&D in such a way as the story is totally different depending on it? Probably so... But hey, Bioware is trying to sell it, and if that involves lying to a naive console gaming public about a "first ever" feature that isn't really first ever, they'll go ahead and do that.
Well, with PC RPGs honestly in a lot of them the 'good' campaign is a whole lot more developed. One of KOTOR's biggest strengths is how it really lets you be either good or evil, and actually shapes the plot to a big extent depending on that... that isn't that common in PC RPGs really. What I meant was that you have more variations on alignment. It's not just a simple 'good to evil' continuum, it's more a four pointed one (Lawful to Chaotic and Good to Evil on different axes of the plane). A more complex player alignment system. As for the game design with playing as different parties, as I said it really depends on the game. In a more open-ended game like Fallout you can be what you want to a large degree. In Baldur's Gate I though you really have to be good... BGII improved on that a lot, though. You can be evil if you wish. But it's a lot easier to be good. It's not that simple of course, though, as the alignment system suggests... frequently in the game you come across moral dilemmas that don't directly affect anything except maybe your Reputation score (seperate from alignment, this one actually changes as the game progresses -- remember, in most D&D games once you choose a character's alignment it's permanant! There are only a few exceptions to this in D&D games (like a plot point in BGII where one character can go from Lawful to Chaotic if you do things wrong, and The Nameless One whose alignment changes depending on your actions). So you have a Reputation that increases or decreases at certain points where you do (or do not do) good things. I don't know how it compares to KotOR... in BGII anyway your 'goodness' won't affect how the game ends really. But it definitely has an impact on the game as you play it. In who is in your party, how you act to NPCs, etc...
Oh, on that note, another aspect of most of these games is party alignment. As in, if your party is (namely your main character) Good with a high reputation, Evil (or even Neutral, with a high enough reputation) PCs (Player Characters) will complain (If I hear Jaheira complain one more time about 'all things needing to be in balance'...)... Evil characters will even leave if your rep is too high.
In that way the Light/Dark meter is similar to that -- just a scale that goes up or down -- but the difference is that in the D&D games that meter is backed with a complex nine-point alignment system while in KotOR, like with much of its ruleset, that meter is the whole alignment system (as in simplified). (If you want another example of a simplified ruleset, look at the saving throws...)
Hey, I just found another thing to mention! Death. Well, first, combat difficulty. In the early parts it's really easy... I haven't even had to use many healing packs. One, I believe, before the lower city... Well, until I just died (near enterance of the lower city)... but before that, really easy. I'm sure it gets harder though. Still, you shouldn't be gaining levels and getting to level four or so with no challenge...
Anyway, death. In normal D&D rules, when you get to between 0 and -5 HP you are out. You died. Now, let's talk about how this works in the Infinity Engine (BG, IWD, etc). You aren't permanantly dead, however... if you pay enough at a priest's, or if you are higher level and have a ressurect spell (on someone still alive), you can bring them back. Now, this leads to a lot of saving before battles and then loading if you die because dying is a MAJOR hassle -- when someone dies they drop all of their equipment onto the ground. That means that when they are resurrected, they have nothing. You have to go and pick it up. And re-equip all of their items. Every time. This is annoying, yes, but it makes you cautious about death and is a more realistic system (realistic as in it follows the rules of the universe well and makes sense when you follow their laws). Below -5 is permanant death, by the way, but that's quite rare, fortunately. Once you're down you can't be hit again... in that case, you just have to load. :)
Anyway, in this game if someone dies in combat it's like a console game and they are just "unconcious" until you win the fight, when they come back. Now, this may be a lot simpler and may greatly speed up gameplay, but I don't like it as much! Yes, the death system in BG is incredibly annoying at times. Yes, it's frusterating to have to resurrect my whole party sometimes and re-equip everyone's items (my main character in BGII has a rod of resurrection and if your main character dies it's instantly game over (in the BG games that is) so as long as the main character (who is my toughest warrior) lives I can bring back the whole party...). Yes, I have actually refought fights just to avoid that. But it makes more sense. That system is annoying and tough, but logical. This one... it's simple, but illogical. I'd rather it was annoying, myself. :)
KOTOR gets harder the farther along you go. Battles near the end are extremely difficult. I remember I was almost at the end and you have to fight a lot of guys and I died there several times.
Wait, are you saying that you would have liked a crappy top-down 2D perspective for everything or just combat?
Everything. It'd help combat most, for sure, but I really do think that most RPGs are better from a topdown perspective... this game reinforces that. Yes, the graphics are nice. As I said they aren't stellar (I was expecting better, honestly, which makes it easier to take this position), but they are nice. But... it'd look great in 2d! :)
I'll directly compare this game, graphically, to Baldur's Gate II (2000). I think that BGII's level maps (that is the drawn environments) are better than this game's 3d. However, KotOR wins on characters... Infinity's characters are its weakness, I'd say. But I would definitely say that I think the world as a whole is better looking in BGII.
What's so much better about this game being in 3d? Most of the graphical stuff is the same -- you still have a lot of repetitive-looking areas (yes, they now might be actually different shaped instead of having areas that are just the same image with some slight modifications to which characters are in it and stuff, but that isn't much of a difference, if it even is one at all...), you still have the limited variety of NPCs (that is, faces/body types) and voices, the same idea of a few things that normal NPCs keep repeating, etc... it's just from a third person viewpoint instead of isometric. And as DJ said it you can't even move the camera up and down! Oh yeah, it's SO much better that obviously 3d works better for RPGs like this than 2d...
Admit it, it's mostly an opinion matter (as in for exploration), not an objective one. Though I hold my position that in combat isometric is objectively better for a combat style like this.
I bet you wouldn't have that stance if you saw the area on the Sith world with the huge statues.
That's because you're insane. A top-down perspective would only slightly help combat, if at all, but a top-down perspective for exploring would be a terrible mistake. I pray you never get to decide on these matters.
Quote:I probably disagree.
It's a huge area with hall walls on each side and near the back of the area are huge statues over a hundred feet tall. You won't get an experience anywhere near that with 2D top-down.
According to ABF you could.
Yeah, but ABF says all kinds of things.
Oh, I'm sure it looks cool. And you are right, isometric views at times can make things that you would expect to look great be unimpressive. I can't deny that. But I am of the opinion that on the whole the pluses outweigh the minuses. As in, the plusses like greater detail, more 'character', significantly improved combat, etc. outweighs the negatives like how sometimes things don't look as impressive as they could.
Quote:That's because you're insane. A top-down perspective would only slightly help combat, if at all, but a top-down perspective for exploring would be a terrible mistake. I pray you never get to decide on these matters.
Fortunately they don't listen to you and know that for PC rpgs topdown is significantly better, because their next PC RPG is isometric. With a nice looking 3d engine, I might add, so I'm sure that you can move the camera around at times if you wish -- which could solve the problem of things not looking as nice as they could because you could move the camera down and see things at a third-person-ish viewpoint. Though that mostly rides on art direction. :)
In short, PC RPGs wouldn't be so predominantly isometric, even the 3d ones, if the gaming companies, and gamers, didn't know that there were some pretty good reasons. You, sadly, don't get it, but that's just too bad. And somewhat sad. :(
Their next game is Jade Empire, genius. And that game uses the same perspective as KOTOR. Isometric perspectives are only good for strategy games and 2D games. When you enter the realm of 3D gaming the only reason why foolish fanboys cry for their archaic perspective is solely because they are stubborn and afraid of change. This is why the PC gaming world has been stagnant for so long, with very little innovation happening. This is why the kb&m is still the only standard control setup, even though it prevents developers from pushing for innovation and trying out new things. This is why I can't stand most PC fanboys. They're the worst type of gamer by far.
OB1, can you read? I said "their next PC RPG". Which is Dragon Age. For PC. Which I mentioned several times before recently. Idiot.
http://www.bioware.com/games/dragon_age/
As for the rest, thanks for reading what I had to say and considering my reasons for why 2d is better... sure looks like you paid (no) attention... it's not just about not wanting change. But you don't care about understanding my point, as usual, so I don't think I'll bother explaining a second time. At least not all of the stuff you never bothered to respond to... maybe I will quote some posts? :)
I cannot understand how you can possibly say that there are no advantages to top-down for party based RPGs. If I didn't know better I'd say that you haven't played any, because it's so obvious that there are some huge advantages to having a more overhead perspective... but other than that I can't think of any good reasons for how you could possibly think that way. I have a party of TWO and I'm already finding a lot of things (particularly in combat, but also somewhat out of it) to complain about because of problems related to a third person perspective... I can barely imagine how horrible a third person perspective would be with a party of five or six!
Or maybe my "mistake" is actually wanting to tell all of my characters what to do in the fight like you should in an RPG and not just leaving the other one to the AI? If that's your answer... well, let's just say that it's not good.
But what really annoys me is that I make several really long posts and you respond with barely a couple of sentences. Didn't want to do all that reading?
Quote:OB1, can you read? I said "their next PC RPG". Which is Dragon Age. For PC. Which I mentioned several times before recently. Idiot.
<http://www.bioware.com/games/dragon_age/>
Dumb fuck, Jade Empire
is their next PC-style RPG. It may not be coming out for the PC, but it's still a PC RPG. And don't give me crap about the combat system being "console-like" because it's still much more Baldur's Gate than it is Zelda.
Quote:As for the rest, thanks for reading what I had to say and considering my reasons for why 2d is better... sure looks like you paid (no) attention... it's not just about not wanting change. But you don't care about understanding my point, as usual, so I don't think I'll bother explaining a second time. At least not all of the stuff you never bothered to respond to... maybe I will quote some posts?
I cannot understand how you can possibly say that there are no advantages to top-down for party based RPGs. If I didn't know better I'd say that you haven't played any, because it's so obvious that there are some huge advantages to having a more overhead perspective... but other than that I can't think of any good reasons for how you could possibly think that way. I have a party of TWO and I'm already finding a lot of things (particularly in combat, but also somewhat out of it) to complain about because of problems related to a third person perspective... I can barely imagine how horrible a third person perspective would be with a party of five or six!
Or maybe my "mistake" is actually wanting to tell all of my characters what to do in the fight like you should in an RPG and not just leaving the other one to the AI? If that's your answer... well, let's just say that it's not good.
But what really annoys me is that I make several really long posts and you respond with barely a couple of sentences. Didn't want to do all that reading?
I read every single one of your posts and as per usual your arguments are devoid of all sense of logic and good reason. In your very narrow, tiny mind, you can only conceive true 3D angles as being either first-person or
right behind the character, when in fact they can accommodate any type of RPG. If you have a hundred troops then you're going to want to zoom back very far, but just six or eight teammates?? Only a foolishly stubborn PC fanboy such as yourself would cry for shitty isometric cameras. You're the reason why PC fanboys are hated so much.
Quote:Dumb fuck, Jade Empire is their next PC-style RPG. It may not be coming out for the PC, but it's still a PC RPG. And don't give me crap about the combat system being "console-like" because it's still much more Baldur's Gate than it is Zelda.
I said PC, not PC-style... Jade Empire is only on X-Box. :)
Quote:I read every single one of your posts and as per usual your arguments are devoid of all sense of logic and good reason. In your very narrow, tiny mind, you can only conceive true 3D angles as being either first-person or right behind the character, when in fact they can accommodate any type of RPG. If you have a hundred troops then you're going to want to zoom back very far, but just six or eight teammates?? Only a foolishly stubborn PC fanboy such as yourself would cry for shitty isometric cameras. You're the reason why PC fanboys are hated so much.
I could probably say the same about you and console fanboys, and I guess I will. Except you're worse than most. You do not bother with logic, blind determination that your opinion is the only possible one is good enough...
Quote:I said PC, not PC-style... Jade Empire is only on X-Box.
You said PC RPG, not RPG for the PC-only.
Quote:I could probably say the same about you and console fanboys, and I guess I will. Except you're worse than most. You do not bother with logic, blind determination that your opinion is the only possible one is good enough...
Oh yes, I'm
such a console fanboy even though I have all of the systems and a PC. As an aspiring game designer with zero funds I have to develop for the PC, and you have no idea how many limits there are. I can't do a fraction of the things I want to do because PC gaming has the same exact gameplay limitations today and it did fifteen years ago, and that's mostly because of PC fanboys not wanting anything to change. There isn't even a standard for analog controls, for crying out loud. That's just insane.
Quote:You said PC RPG, not RPG for the PC-only.
When I say PC RPG, I'd generally mean a RPG on the PC...
Quote:Oh yes, I'm such a console fanboy even though I have all of the systems and a PC. As an aspiring game designer with zero funds I have to develop for the PC, and you have no idea how many limits there are. I can't do a fraction of the things I want to do because PC gaming has the same exact gameplay limitations today and it did fifteen years ago, and that's mostly because of PC fanboys not wanting anything to change. There isn't even a standard for analog controls, for crying out loud. That's just insane.
On this subject you are utterly discounting the entire PC gaming side of things, so it's not a bad comparison at all... as for change, if things work really well as they are why do something totally different?
Analog controls... gamepads usually have them. Not always, but usually. Joysticks of course do. What flight sim developers would do is just require a joystick, you know. Yes, it limits your audience somewhat, but it's really the only good solution for games like that. But for most games mouse and keyboard can perform adaquately. For some genres it's the best control mechanism possible (PC-style RPGs, all kinds of strategy games, wargames, (graphical or text) adventure games, FPSes, many third-person action titles, etc), and for others it can make do for people without gamepads or joysticks. Not as good, but that's why you buy a joystick, nice gamepad, or steering wheel if you want better controls for games that control better with some other kind of input device. :)
Oh yeah, and no one who talks like that (attacking PC gaming so much and lauding console gaming so much) could really call them a PC gaming fan. "I hate PC controls and PC style games and PC gameplay and PC everything but I'm a PC gaming fan"? That may be a slight exaggeration, but not by much.
Quote:When I say PC RPG, I'd generally mean a RPG on the PC...
Well you needed to make that more clear.
Quote:On this subject you are utterly discounting the entire PC gaming side of things, so it's not a bad comparison at all... as for change, if things work really well as they are why do something totally different?
Wow, what a sad, sad response. While the console industry has developers like Nintendo innovating every which way whenever they can because they know that staying stagnant will kill the industry, you have people like you on the PC side fighting for things to stay the
same, which will most definitely be the death of the industry.
Quote:Analog controls... gamepads usually have them. Not always, but usually. Joysticks of course do. What flight sim developers would do is just require a joystick, you know. Yes, it limits your audience somewhat, but it's really the only good solution for games like that. But for most games mouse and keyboard can perform adaquately. For some genres it's the best control mechanism possible (PC-style RPGs, all kinds of strategy games, wargames, (graphical or text) adventure games, FPSes, many third-person action titles, etc), and for others it can make do for people without gamepads or joysticks. Not as good, but that's why you buy a joystick, nice gamepad, or steering wheel if you want better controls for games that control better with some other kind of input device.
Gamepads just assign keyboard keys to buttons. There are very few PC games that support analog control. There's a reason why fighting games, third-person action/adventure games, beat-em-ups (like DMC), platformers, and various other types of games are scarce on the PC. There's simply no control standard for any of them. You can't release a great, original 3D platformer for the PC without including kb&m support, which basically ruins the controls and forces you to greatly limit the way you design the controls. If you're not making a strategy game, FPS-style game (that includes the likes of Max Payne), or sim, you're going to have great creative difficulties.
Quote:Gamepads just assign keyboard keys to buttons. There are very few PC games that support analog control. There's a reason why fighting games, third-person action/adventure games, beat-em-ups (like DMC), platformers, and various other types of games are scarce on the PC. There's simply no control standard for any of them. You can't release a great, original 3D platformer for the PC without including kb&m support, which basically ruins the controls and forces you to greatly limit the way you design the controls. If you're not making a strategy game, FPS-style game (that includes the likes of Max Payne), or sim, you're going to have great creative difficulties.
You simply include both analog and digital controls and live with the fact that the analog controls will make the game easier. That's what almost all console ports of games that have analog controls on consoles do, you know (Rayman 2, Rayman 3, and Rogue Squadron, for examples)... a few don't (BG&E, Oni (though that's really more a PC-first title than a port from consoles)), but those adapt some other way. You are wrong, unquestionably. There is only a problem if the developers are lazy or if they don't bother to adapt to the PC. So you have to include keyboard support... so? Why is this a big deal? I don't get it. Get a gamepad! Or live with it. It's not exactly hard. For anyone. Except you, that is.
See, you seem to see the keyboard as this horrible hurdle that makes playing games impossibly hard. For some genres, it's the exact opposite. Moving to consoles is a massive hurdle that requires huge sacrifices that greatly hurt the fun of the game. See: Wargames, Strategy games, PC-Type RPGs, Sims (simcity-type, not vehicular). So you have a vague nugget of truth there but it's so horribly distorted out of context and twisted that it's definitely wrong. PC and consoles are merely different. Consoles are most certainly not intrinsically better than PCs. They are just different and each system has it's own strengths. On your question about fighting games or 3d platformers on PC, I could as well ask about wargames, pc-style rpgs, vehicular simulations (MechWarrior, flight sims, racing sims, X-Wing, tank sims, sub sims, etc...) or strategy games on consoles... they don't occur in a much higher frequency.
Quote:Wow, what a sad, sad response. While the console industry has developers like Nintendo innovating every which way whenever they can because they know that staying stagnant will kill the industry, you have people like you on the PC side fighting for things to stay the same, which will most definitely be the death of the industry.
You yourself have said you dislike a lot of Nintendo's "innovations" as of late, and anyway PCs were ahead in many fields for a long time so consoles have more ground to make up... they don't have lots of buttons (the number of buttons on the keyboard is a huge advantage for some genres), a precision control (mouse), as much adaptability, etc...
Quote:I read every single one of your posts and as per usual your arguments are devoid of all sense of logic and good reason. In your very narrow, tiny mind, you can only conceive true 3D angles as being either first-person or right behind the character, when in fact they can accommodate any type of RPG. If you have a hundred troops then you're going to want to zoom back very far, but just six or eight teammates?? Only a foolishly stubborn PC fanboy such as yourself would cry for shitty isometric cameras. You're the reason why PC fanboys are hated so much.
Either you don't pay attention to me or you have serious comprehension problems. I'm pretty sure that it's both. What do you think I mean by 3d isometric? Do you have any idea? In general, if you have a full 3d engine, that means full camera control (something KotOR doesn't have, by the way). As in you can move it around. And hopefully you'd make it so that the game is fun from multiple camera angles. Though for party-based RPGs a higher overhead one is better... I know that if I could play KOTOR from a more overhead perspective I'd switch to it in a second. It'd make so many things so much easier (this is the aspect you keep ignoring, OB1 -- the fact that I have said it's more than just 'I like it that way'. You haven't responded as if I have said anything else, but I most certainly have!)... must I REALLY go thorough it all again? I guess I have to. Hopefully this time it'll get through the brick wall you hide your brain behind. First, switching characters. When you have a bunch of characters in a third-person viewpoint, switching is harder. Even if it's just a key or something, it is still harder -- you have a constant perspective shift, as each time you switch you would switch to being behind that character. This is a definite problem, because while you may get used to it it is never a good thing and most games that have had such a system have either minimized its use or been the worse for it. Notice how for instance most sports games use a more overhead perspective, not a close-in third person one. This is because that way you can see your whole team, or at least a good chunk of the field. If you were just in one character's head you'd just have to hope that the AI controlling everyone else was good because you'd never be able to follow it all... and if it switched you automatically constantly to be closest to the ball (say, in a baseball game) it'd be incredibly confusing and awful. No, for sports games a higher viewpoint is obviously hugely better. It works exactly the same way in PC-style party-based RPGs (as in less so in single-character ones, because you have just one person...). You cannot manage the whole party easily. Yes, you still can have issues in isometric. But it's dramatically less, especially in combat. Dramatically less. If you have an imagination, as you claim to, imagine trying to fight a battle in Baldur's Gate II (upper-level, so you need to use more skills and not just 'attack monster') with a camera like KotOR. Worse yet, a INTERFACE like KotOR. It'd be horrendous! I couldn't imagine having to scroll through a spellbook of dozens of spells if I could only have one icon displayed on the screen at a time! It would absolutely never work. And that's not to mention everything else... you'd need many more buttons. That's solvable, but finding a clean way for a console RPG to have that kind of variety of abilities and have a combat system that flows quickly would be a major challenge. Which is why for KotOR Bioware wisely simplified things. Anyway, I'm sidetracked. Camera. I'm controlling person A. They get in range of the enemy! Okay. So where are my other people... you can hit the button to switch. Then you have to figure out where exactly they are. Go through menus. Switch to next. Etc. It'd take a lot longer than it would with a mouse and keyboard interface and an isometric viewpoint (and you still don't seem to quite get that a game with a movable 3d camera could be isometric if the primary viewpoint is from some overhead angle -- think Dungeon Siege perhaps?), and it'd be a whole lot more confusing. If I'm confused about character positioning (as in, I don't know where my other party member is or if they are in the combat) with just two people, if I had six... and factor in the hassles of pathfinding... it'd be a nightmare. You'd also need great AI for this stuff... you want to make sure that the characters roughly stay in their formation (a vital function for parties) and need to have an easy way or rearranging them so that they can quickly be resituated (in a PC title, it's as simple as selecting all of your characters and clicking on the ground somewhere, and it's something you will do a lot) to face a new threat... these are basic things which would be much clumsier and harder to arrange if you had a third-person (or first-person) viewpoint.
There is a reason that most party-based PC RPGs that are first person do not have your party being actual seperate characters, they just have your whole party being represented by the one viewpoint (see Might & Magic or Wizardry). The other way would be a massive pain and would probably be more work than fun. And your people would probably be killed by things you didn't see a whole lot more frequently, unless you were really on your guard (not just switching to each person, but moving them around if they're in danger, finding all the enemies, etc... something easy on a isometric view where you can see everything, but a tedious job I am sure from third or first person...).
Okay, let's continue, if you don't get the point yet. Let's pretend that we have a third person title like KotOR but it was designed for the PC so that it doesn't have all of those interface and system design problems that KotOR has. It even has a free camera (though a good one that also follows your character well). You'd still have issues with switching characters, issues with understanding what is going on in combat (and remember, you want to be controlling your WHOLE party, not just one person in it!), issues with figuring out where everyone is while not in combat (say you want to take one person into a room to check for traps... it'd take longer than in an isometric view to even start (figuring out where all your people are, selecting one and going in, looking around, etc...). And it seems like it'd be easier to miss someone in the area, and then if you switched to them to get them out you'd probably lose the trap display... that doesn't gaurantee mistakes (nor does isometric mean they won't happen, for sure), but it makes them a whole lot easier to make...). It'd also make it a lot easier to not notice enemies you are going to fight, especially if your party is more spread out (remember, there are many formations available here, like BG). Of course in BG with Party AI On (that is they do their own thing when not controlled) you can have some issues as well, like with someone chasing an enemy and getting hurt or killed for it, in isometric you can solve that by turning off party AI. In third person that would not work as well because you almost have to have AI on... if you turned it off you'd greatly increase your micromanagement, much more than in a isometric title. Maybe multiple levels, like 'just follow main character but don't attack or chase anyone or anything' would be good? But that would mean a lot more work for the programmers... anyway, it'd be a tough issue that it would be very hard to get right, as I think I have made clear. This isn't to say that it could never work in third person/first person, but to say that it intrinsically works better from a higher view. And that's really my point.
As far as the look of the graphics go, as I said beforethat's almost purely personal opinion. I happen to love, for the most part, the look of Infinity-engine titles. Yeah, as I said there are some unimpressive parts I wish were better. But that is true with any game, really. Making it 3d wouldn't totally solve that -- I am sure that some things would be made to look blander in 3d than they look in drawn 2d art! Anyway, this is an opinion issue and should be mostly seperated from the substantive gameplay issues I discussed before. It's also definitely an issue, but it's a different one.
Quote:You simply include both analog and digital controls and live with the fact that the analog controls will make the game easier. That's what almost all console ports of games that have analog controls on consoles do, you know (Rayman 2, Rayman 3, and Rogue Squadron, for examples)... a few don't (BG&E, Oni (though that's really more a PC-first title than a port from consoles)), but those adapt some other way. You are wrong, unquestionably. There is only a problem if the developers are lazy or if they don't bother to adapt to the PC. So you have to include keyboard support... so? Why is this a big deal? I don't get it. Get a gamepad! Or live with it. It's not exactly hard. For anyone. Except you, that is.
Wow, I never knew you were so knowledgeable when it comes to programming. Oh wait... you don't know
jack shit and are simply talking about of your
ass like you usually do. Okay, that makes more sense.
Seriously, you don't have a fucking clue as to what you're talking about. There are numerous problems when it comes to adding analog joystick support to PC games, which is why so few games support it (even a big game from a big third-party like BG&E). First of all with most types of programming languages adding analog support is an extremely difficult task, especially if you're a small developer with very limited resources. Secondly there's no standard controller, so not only do you have to add something complex and non-standard like analog support for your game, you have to come up with complex configuration tools to accommodate hundreds of different types of controllers. And finally, if you really want to take advantage of analog controls you have to completely disregard the kb&m controls and render them basically useless, which takes away most of your potential audience. Or you can make decent kb&m controls and built the game around that set-up, but make a worse game because of that. Like I said, idiot, there's a reason why there aren't many original platformers for the PC.
Quote:See, you seem to see the keyboard as this horrible hurdle that makes playing games impossibly hard. For some genres, it's the exact opposite. Moving to consoles is a massive hurdle that requires huge sacrifices that greatly hurt the fun of the game. See: Wargames, Strategy games, PC-Type RPGs, Sims (simcity-type, not vehicular). So you have a vague nugget of truth there but it's so horribly distorted out of context and twisted that it's definitely wrong. PC and consoles are merely different. Consoles are most certainly not intrinsically better than PCs. They are just different and each system has it's own strengths. On your question about fighting games or 3d platformers on PC, I could as well ask about wargames, pc-style rpgs, vehicular simulations (MechWarrior, flight sims, racing sims, X-Wing, tank sims, sub sims, etc...) or strategy games on consoles... they don't occur in a much higher frequency.
The funny thing about that is that just about all of those types of games have been done on consoles fairly well (with some difficulty in translation, of course), but
none of those console genres that I mentioned have been done well on the PC.
Quote:You yourself have said you dislike a lot of Nintendo's "innovations" as of late, and anyway PCs were ahead in many fields for a long time so consoles have more ground to make up... they don't have lots of buttons (the number of buttons on the keyboard is a huge advantage for some genres), a precision control (mouse), as much adaptability, etc...
The keyboard and mouse is not meant for gaming. All PC games were built around this cumbersome, unintuitive control set-up, and completely disallows any other genre to thrive on it. With consoles, if you want to make a new type of game, you release a new type of controller! New systems come out around every four years so console gaming is always evolving, while PC gaming has remained the same for over a decade.
And I made fun of some of Nintendo's gimmicky Gameboy things, but they have made considerable strides in innovation over the years. Just look at the DS, which could be the first major gameplay innovation since the invention of 3D.
Quote:Either you don't pay attention to me or you have serious comprehension problems. I'm pretty sure that it's both. What do you think I mean by 3d isometric? Do you have any idea? In general, if you have a full 3d engine, that means full camera control (something KotOR doesn't have, by the way). As in you can move it around. And hopefully you'd make it so that the game is fun from multiple camera angles. Though for party-based RPGs a higher overhead one is better... I know that if I could play KOTOR from a more overhead perspective I'd switch to it in a second. It'd make so many things so much easier (this is the aspect you keep ignoring, OB1 -- the fact that I have said it's more than just 'I like it that way'. You haven't responded as if I have said anything else, but I most certainly have!)... must I REALLY go thorough it all again? I guess I have to. Hopefully this time it'll get through the brick wall you hide your brain behind. First, switching characters. When you have a bunch of characters in a third-person viewpoint, switching is harder. Even if it's just a key or something, it is still harder -- you have a constant perspective shift, as each time you switch you would switch to being behind that character. This is a definite problem, because while you may get used to it it is never a good thing and most games that have had such a system have either minimized its use or been the worse for it. Notice how for instance most sports games use a more overhead perspective, not a close-in third person one. This is because that way you can see your whole team, or at least a good chunk of the field. If you were just in one character's head you'd just have to hope that the AI controlling everyone else was good because you'd never be able to follow it all... and if it switched you automatically constantly to be closest to the ball (say, in a baseball game) it'd be incredibly confusing and awful. No, for sports games a higher viewpoint is obviously hugely better. It works exactly the same way in PC-style party-based RPGs (as in less so in single-character ones, because you have just one person...). You cannot manage the whole party easily. Yes, you still can have issues in isometric. But it's dramatically less, especially in combat. Dramatically less. If you have an imagination, as you claim to, imagine trying to fight a battle in Baldur's Gate II (upper-level, so you need to use more skills and not just 'attack monster') with a camera like KotOR. Worse yet, a INTERFACE like KotOR. It'd be horrendous! I couldn't imagine having to scroll through a spellbook of dozens of spells if I could only have one icon displayed on the screen at a time! It would absolutely never work. And that's not to mention everything else... you'd need many more buttons. That's solvable, but finding a clean way for a console RPG to have that kind of variety of abilities and have a combat system that flows quickly would be a major challenge. Which is why for KotOR Bioware wisely simplified things. Anyway, I'm sidetracked. Camera. I'm controlling person A. They get in range of the enemy! Okay. So where are my other people... you can hit the button to switch. Then you have to figure out where exactly they are. Go through menus. Switch to next. Etc. It'd take a lot longer than it would with a mouse and keyboard interface and an isometric viewpoint (and you still don't seem to quite get that a game with a movable 3d camera could be isometric if the primary viewpoint is from some overhead angle -- think Dungeon Siege perhaps?), and it'd be a whole lot more confusing. If I'm confused about character positioning (as in, I don't know where my other party member is or if they are in the combat) with just two people, if I had six... and factor in the hassles of pathfinding... it'd be a nightmare. You'd also need great AI for this stuff... you want to make sure that the characters roughly stay in their formation (a vital function for parties) and need to have an easy way or rearranging them so that they can quickly be resituated (in a PC title, it's as simple as selecting all of your characters and clicking on the ground somewhere, and it's something you will do a lot) to face a new threat... these are basic things which would be much clumsier and harder to arrange if you had a third-person (or first-person) viewpoint.
There is a reason that most party-based PC RPGs that are first person do not have your party being actual seperate characters, they just have your whole party being represented by the one viewpoint (see Might & Magic or Wizardry). The other way would be a massive pain and would probably be more work than fun. And your people would probably be killed by things you didn't see a whole lot more frequently, unless you were really on your guard (not just switching to each person, but moving them around if they're in danger, finding all the enemies, etc... something easy on a isometric view where you can see everything, but a tedious job I am sure from third or first person...).
Okay, let's continue, if you don't get the point yet. Let's pretend that we have a third person title like KotOR but it was designed for the PC so that it doesn't have all of those interface and system design problems that KotOR has. It even has a free camera (though a good one that also follows your character well). You'd still have issues with switching characters, issues with understanding what is going on in combat (and remember, you want to be controlling your WHOLE party, not just one person in it!), issues with figuring out where everyone is while not in combat (say you want to take one person into a room to check for traps... it'd take longer than in an isometric view to even start (figuring out where all your people are, selecting one and going in, looking around, etc...). And it seems like it'd be easier to miss someone in the area, and then if you switched to them to get them out you'd probably lose the trap display... that doesn't gaurantee mistakes (nor does isometric mean they won't happen, for sure), but it makes them a whole lot easier to make...). It'd also make it a lot easier to not notice enemies you are going to fight, especially if your party is more spread out (remember, there are many formations available here, like BG). Of course in BG with Party AI On (that is they do their own thing when not controlled) you can have some issues as well, like with someone chasing an enemy and getting hurt or killed for it, in isometric you can solve that by turning off party AI. In third person that would not work as well because you almost have to have AI on... if you turned it off you'd greatly increase your micromanagement, much more than in a isometric title. Maybe multiple levels, like 'just follow main character but don't attack or chase anyone or anything' would be good? But that would mean a lot more work for the programmers... anyway, it'd be a tough issue that it would be very hard to get right, as I think I have made clear. This isn't to say that it could never work in third person/first person, but to say that it intrinsically works better from a higher view. And that's really my point.
As far as the look of the graphics go, as I said beforethat's almost purely personal opinion. I happen to love, for the most part, the look of Infinity-engine titles. Yeah, as I said there are some unimpressive parts I wish were better. But that is true with any game, really. Making it 3d wouldn't totally solve that -- I am sure that some things would be made to look blander in 3d than they look in drawn 2d art! Anyway, this is an opinion issue and should be mostly seperated from the substantive gameplay issues I discussed before. It's also definitely an issue, but it's a different one.
Okay wow, how do I tackle this terrible, ignorant mess of a post. Let me respond to some or your more particularly stupid posts.
Football games need an overhead perspective because everything happens in real-time and the players are all over the field at one time, and you cannot afford to miss what's behind you. In a PC RPG like KOTOR the game fucking
pauses for you when an enemy approaches, and the levels are built in a manner in which you do not need to change the camera whatsoever. You do
not, I repeat
NOT, have to see the entire fucking world in order to play the game. You are either the worst player in the world or the biggest idiot in the world, or both. Probably both.
Baldur's Gate has a convoluted mess of an inventory and battle system, like most PC games have. And do you know
why that is, my retarded little friend? It's because making things more complicated is
far easier than making things simpler. This is why every developer in the world admires Nintendo. Bioware isn't a tenth as talented as Nintendo is and they are very much used to doing things the easier, complicated way, so in simplifying their RPG for a console they didn't do it extremely well. But they're still learning, so you have to cut them some slack.
Oh how I wish you weren't so dumb, but I'm afraid that this will never change. By all means, continue being your usual stupid self.
Quote:Seriously, you don't have a fucking clue as to what you're talking about. There are numerous problems when it comes to adding analog joystick support to PC games, which is why so few games support it (even a big game from a big third-party like BG&E). First of all with most types of programming languages adding analog support is an extremely difficult task, especially if you're a small developer with very limited resources. Secondly there's no standard controller, so not only do you have to add something complex and non-standard like analog support for your game, you have to come up with complex configuration tools to accommodate hundreds of different types of controllers. And finally, if you really want to take advantage of analog controls you have to completely disregard the kb&m controls and render them basically useless, which takes away most of your potential audience. Or you can make decent kb&m controls and built the game around that set-up, but make a worse game because of that. Like I said, idiot, there's a reason why there aren't many original platformers for the PC.
I'm talking about how games play, not how they are programmed. And I know that as far as gamepads go the PC supports digital buttons and analog axes.
BG&E? Just sheer laziness. Rayman 3 has full analog gamepad support, after all.
You are right that there is no standard controller, so a controls configuration system is required. And yeah, that probably is harder to program. But it's for the best... no one who is sane would WANT a standard gamepad for the PC!
Quote:The funny thing about that is that just about all of those types of games have been done on consoles fairly well (with some difficulty in translation, of course), but none of those console genres that I mentioned have been done well on the PC.
sidescrolling platformers of course have been done well on PC. 3d ones have been done well too, but mostly as console ports. Fighting games? Sure, that's a weakness. Same with beat em ups. Third person action is plenty fine on PC though, if you mean games like Max Payne... Racing is the other genre that PC is a bit weak on (on the non-simulation side, that is), but there are still quite a few of them. And there are many, many more racing sims.
Consoles have had wargames, flight sims, pc-style rpgs, and strategy games, you are right. But they do not work as well and generally end up dumbed down. If you want the full complexity you pretty much have to use the PC... you must admit that that is true. Each one has strengths based on what their controls can do better. It's bad logic to say that consoles are better because they have things that PC doesn't do quite as well because PC can do them, and do them better than consoles can do the genres that PC are better at!
Quote:The keyboard and mouse is not meant for gaming. All PC games were built around this cumbersome, unintuitive control set-up, and completely disallows any other genre to thrive on it. With consoles, if you want to make a new type of game, you release a new type of controller! New systems come out around every four years so console gaming is always evolving, while PC gaming has remained the same for over a decade.
And I made fun of some of Nintendo's gimmicky Gameboy things, but they have made considerable strides in innovation over the years. Just look at the DS, which could be the first major gameplay innovation since the invention of 3D.
I'll just repeat myself. For some genres, the keyboard and mouse are the best possible controller. Thus the keyboard and mouse are a great control scheme that work fantastically for all of the genres that are most popular on PC. Your disliking it does not in the slightest change that fact.
However, you are right about different controllers. That is why joysticks, steering wheels, and gamepads were developed, in addition to things like voice headsets, VR headsets, tilt controllers (you know, where just turning the pad moves), flight stick sets (as in the ones with a joystick with many buttons and a throttle controller for the other hand), etc... the stumbling block is that many people don't have these, but I would bet that most all hardcore gamers have some kind of gamepad and probably a (maybe old) joystick. Those are common controllers and there are plenty of games out there, as I said, that require joysticks to play. And they allow for you to play many types of games more comfortably. :)
Quote:Baldur's Gate has a convoluted mess of an inventory and battle system, like most PC games have. And do you know why that is, my retarded little friend? It's because making things more complicated is far easier than making things simpler. This is why every developer in the world admires Nintendo. Bioware isn't a tenth as talented as Nintendo is and they are very much used to doing things the easier, complicated way, so in simplifying their RPG for a console they didn't do it extremely well. But they're still learning, so you have to cut them some slack.
As I have made clear, I most definitely would disagree that it is overcomplicated. As I said before I definitely think that the BG inventory system is dramatically better than the one in KotOR. And it isn't even anywhere near close. It is far easier to use, far quicker to do things in... just better in every imaginable way. I don't know how you can say that it's worse, because that arguement makes no sense at all to me.
Inventory. Okay, in BG you get one inventory screen. You have a paperdoll figure with lines connecting boxes for equippable items by type. It shows your weight limit and armorclass. Below you have the boxes for items. If it's BGII, you may have some containers in some of those slots... for these you double click to open them and get a list of the items inside which you can then move into the main inventory. It's a simple inventory system, with all items being just one block (unlike a Diablo II where items are different sizes)... I guess that that's because BG is D&D and that has a weight-based inventory system, not really blocks. Oh, and in some games you have more blocks... I believe that BGII has more blocks than BGI. Icewind Dale II definitely has more than previous games. It can be a minor pain at times, but never too bad... the only reason that you may have a full inventory is if you're carrying a lot of junk from enemies to sell, and if all of your people are really full you can always just drop some. Or put it in some chest or something onscreen, in BG anything in a chest or other box onscreen (as opposed to being just dropped on the floor) will stay there forever. :) Anyway, you greatly overstate its complexity and the level of challenge of using the system. To equip you just click and drag. Very easy. Easier than KotOR, actually, where you have to go to the seperate equipping screen and then click on the category and then scroll down and click on the item! That is much, much slower! Same in the main inventory. You have to slowly scroll through this list instead of just being able to see them all. Oh, and when you have a full party of 6 in BG you have a lot of inventory slots so it's not really that often that everyone can truly carry no more... sure, in KotOR you can sort it by item type. But in BG you can drag items into groups by type in the inventory grid, which is similar and you can see the rest of that character's items at the same time as well... Anyway, I think I have made my case for the superiority in every way of the BG inventory system over KotOR.
I also think that while the battle system is more complicated in BG than in KotOR, that is absolutely necessary because BG has a much more complex system to organize. KotOR has no character special abilities, no item special abilities, so seperate stealth mode, no party formations, no resting, a tiny fraction of the number of spells (sorry, force powers -- there are 13 normal force powers and 14 each of light and dark. BG and its sequels have hundreds of spells, and by BGII's expansion you will have forty or more memorized at the same time...), fewer saving throw categories, fewer equippable item slots, auto-target and weapon selection buttons above the target instead of click to target and buttons on a bar on the bottom of the screen... need I continue? I think you get my point that BG has a much more complex system to model so of course it has a more complex interface to deal with it. And I really like the complex ruleset, so of course I prefer BG. Or BGII more appropriately, BGII is a way better game than BGI... :)
Quote:Football games need an overhead perspective because everything happens in real-time and the players are all over the field at one time, and you cannot afford to miss what's behind you. In a PC RPG like KOTOR the game fucking pauses for you when an enemy approaches, and the levels are built in a manner in which you do not need to change the camera whatsoever. You do not, I repeat NOT, have to see the entire fucking world in order to play the game. You are either the worst player in the world or the biggest idiot in the world, or both. Probably both.
Sure there's autopause, and I covered that for sure, but one of my points was that it slows you down quite as bit as you have to constantly re-orient yourself... and my OTHER major point which you seem to have ignored was that I was also talking about a game with five or six characters and how horrible a system like KotOR's would be for a game like that. You cannot see where your characters are without a significant hassle! You want to just belittle that point, but I don't think it is like that... these ARE real issues that DO affect how you play, to a greater or lesser extent depending on which one you are talking about. You cannot (or should not) just dismiss it like that. And it has nothing at all to do with how good I am at the game... though I think I'm doing perfectly fine, if you really want to know. There are just a bunch of annoying things about the game.
Though maybe I should clarify some things. You don't have to look at the WHOLE world with each character. What you have to do is locate the enemies, then figure out if you can target them (thanks for having a maximum targetting range, Bioware! Yet another awful decision on your part that makes combat a pain!). If the other character(s) are too far away, or are around the corner from the enemies, you can only choose attacks for your main character (or the one who initiated combat, if it's someone else) and must unpause and move the others into position to begin fighting. This is a very annoying problem that greatly delays combat, slows down your ability to fight, and gives the enemy some free attacks that they shouldn't have. You know, when you are slowly moving into position while the game is running because you can't give move orders while paused. Yes, with a better design (like 'click on location to have person move there' as a movement option) a 3d RPG could avoid some of these things. But some of them are unavoidable from a third-person perspective... only an isometric view would truly fix it all.
More about that flaw recently noticed. You can't move while paused. That is, you cannot give a move order 'move to here' while paused. This is a huge flaw in KotOR. Setting 'move to here' orders while paused is one of the most common things I do in BG and its lack in KotOR is very sadly missed... it makes you have to unpause to move, and this can be a serious problem if you want to move multiple people at the same time. Yet another thing on the litany of control-related flaws in that game, but this one is a more serious one than most. I was playing KotOR yesterday and really noticed this missing feature...
And if you had six characters you would multiply the problems by three or four at least. A game with the KotOR interface/control system and a full party (six) would be hugely hard to play and dramatically more complex than the same game in isometric. You'd also have many more essentially unavoidable deaths. This kind of game is intrinsically harder to play from this perspective.
(Oh, don't get the wrong idea. I think KotOR is a great game and I'm having a lot of fun playing it. But I can't help but notice all these little problems... I like it and wish that it had tried harder (okay, so it wouldn't be isometric. But as I have made clear not all of the game's problems are soley because of its perspective...). :)
Quote:I'm talking about how games play, not how they are programmed. And I know that as far as gamepads go the PC supports digital buttons and analog axes.
BG&E? Just sheer laziness. Rayman 3 has full analog gamepad support, after all.
You are right that there is no standard controller, so a controls configuration system is required. And yeah, that probably is harder to program. But it's for the best... no one who is sane would WANT a standard gamepad for the PC!
No, BG&E was not a case of laziness. It's just far too much work for a game that wouldn't sell that well on a PC anyways. Like I said, if it's too much work for someone like Ubi imagine what it's like for a garage developer.
And I'm not talking about one controller that would be used for everything, I'm talking about a set of standards for analog controls. There is no standard for the PC.
Quote:sidescrolling platformers of course have been done well on PC.
Not platforming-intensive sidescrollers. And that's because you'd need a gamepad for that, which would alienate many potential buyers. Try playing Eduardo The Magical Toaster with a kb and you'll have a very difficult time.
Quote:3d ones have been done well too, but mostly as console ports.
Some have been done well if they supported analog gamepads, but work terribly with a kb&m. And again, that alienates most of your potential customers.
Quote:Fighting games? Sure, that's a weakness. Same with beat em ups. Third person action is plenty fine on PC though, if you mean games like Max Payne...
Max Payne plays
exactly like a FPS. I'm talking about stuff like Devil May Cry, Mark of Kri, Castlevania, etc. None of that stuff could be done on the PC.
Quote:Racing is the other genre that PC is a bit weak on (on the non-simulation side, that is), but there are still quite a few of them. And there are many, many more racing sims.
Yeah but nobody likes racing sims.
Quote:Consoles have had wargames, flight sims, pc-style rpgs, and strategy games, you are right. But they do not work as well and generally end up dumbed down. If you want the full complexity you pretty much have to use the PC... you must admit that that is true. Each one has strengths based on what their controls can do better. It's bad logic to say that consoles are better because they have things that PC doesn't do quite as well because PC can do them, and do them better than consoles can do the genres that PC are better at!
Yes Starcraft and C&C are definitely better on the PC than the N64, but they are
still good and fun on consoles. The reverse is not true for most console genres on the PC. That's my point.
Quote:I'll just repeat myself. For some genres, the keyboard and mouse are the best possible controller. Thus the keyboard and mouse are a great control scheme that work fantastically for all of the genres that are most popular on PC. Your disliking it does not in the slightest change that fact.
Again you didn't try to understand my point. PC genres were developed around the cumbersome kb&m control set-up, while controllers on consoles are developed around
game ideas. That makes an incredible difference.
Quote:However, you are right about different controllers. That is why joysticks, steering wheels, and gamepads were developed, in addition to things like voice headsets, VR headsets, tilt controllers (you know, where just turning the pad moves), flight stick sets (as in the ones with a joystick with many buttons and a throttle controller for the other hand), etc... the stumbling block is that many people don't have these, but I would bet that most all hardcore gamers have some kind of gamepad and probably a (maybe old) joystick. Those are common controllers and there are plenty of games out there, as I said, that require joysticks to play. And they allow for you to play many types of games more comfortably.
Aside from joysticks, not many games support or really take advantage of those other control devices, which is why there are so few genres that work on the PC. There's a big enough flight fan base that developers can make games that
only work well with joysticks, but the same is not true for any other genre on the PC.
Quote:As I have made clear, I most definitely would disagree that it is overcomplicated. As I said before I definitely think that the BG inventory system is dramatically better than the one in KotOR. And it isn't even anywhere near close. It is far easier to use, far quicker to do things in... just better in every imaginable way. I don't know how you can say that it's worse, because that arguement makes no sense at all to me.
Inventory. Okay, in BG you get one inventory screen. You have a paperdoll figure with lines connecting boxes for equippable items by type. It shows your weight limit and armorclass. Below you have the boxes for items. If it's BGII, you may have some containers in some of those slots... for these you double click to open them and get a list of the items inside which you can then move into the main inventory. It's a simple inventory system, with all items being just one block (unlike a Diablo II where items are different sizes)... I guess that that's because BG is D&D and that has a weight-based inventory system, not really blocks. Oh, and in some games you have more blocks... I believe that BGII has more blocks than BGI. Icewind Dale II definitely has more than previous games. It can be a minor pain at times, but never too bad... the only reason that you may have a full inventory is if you're carrying a lot of junk from enemies to sell, and if all of your people are really full you can always just drop some. Or put it in some chest or something onscreen, in BG anything in a chest or other box onscreen (as opposed to being just dropped on the floor) will stay there forever. Anyway, you greatly overstate its complexity and the level of challenge of using the system. To equip you just click and drag. Very easy. Easier than KotOR, actually, where you have to go to the seperate equipping screen and then click on the category and then scroll down and click on the item! That is much, much slower! Same in the main inventory. You have to slowly scroll through this list instead of just being able to see them all. Oh, and when you have a full party of 6 in BG you have a lot of inventory slots so it's not really that often that everyone can truly carry no more... sure, in KotOR you can sort it by item type. But in BG you can drag items into groups by type in the inventory grid, which is similar and you can see the rest of that character's items at the same time as well... Anyway, I think I have made my case for the superiority in every way of the BG inventory system over KotOR.
I also think that while the battle system is more complicated in BG than in KotOR, that is absolutely necessary because BG has a much more complex system to organize. KotOR has no character special abilities, no item special abilities, so seperate stealth mode, no party formations, no resting, a tiny fraction of the number of spells (sorry, force powers -- there are 13 normal force powers and 14 each of light and dark. BG and its sequels have hundreds of spells, and by BGII's expansion you will have forty or more memorized at the same time...), fewer saving throw categories, fewer equippable item slots, auto-target and weapon selection buttons above the target instead of click to target and buttons on a bar on the bottom of the screen... need I continue? I think you get my point that BG has a much more complex system to model so of course it has a more complex interface to deal with it. And I really like the complex ruleset, so of course I prefer BG. Or BGII more appropriately, BGII is a way better game than BGI...
You disagree that it's overcomplicated because you are a PC fanboy and do not possess the imagination required to think beyond simple complexity (sounds like and oxy-moron but isn't if you you know what I'm talking about). Can you imagine if Pikmin were developed for the PC by a PC developer? They'd probably make the most convoluted controls possible, and if you were to hear that someone was porting it over to a console you'd cry foul and complain about how it could never be done. Pikmin isn't a super-deep strategy game, but considering the amount of stuff you do in the game it's incredible how simple the controls are. That is an extremely difficult thing to do, and is why Nintendo is the best.
Quote:Sure there's autopause, and I covered that for sure, but one of my points was that it slows you down quite as bit as you have to constantly re-orient yourself... and my OTHER major point which you seem to have ignored was that I was also talking about a game with five or six characters and how horrible a system like KotOR's would be for a game like that. You cannot see where your characters are without a significant hassle! You want to just belittle that point, but I don't think it is like that... these ARE real issues that DO affect how you play, to a greater or lesser extent depending on which one you are talking about. You cannot (or should not) just dismiss it like that. And it has nothing at all to do with how good I am at the game... though I think I'm doing perfectly fine, if you really want to know. There are just a bunch of annoying things about the game.
Though maybe I should clarify some things. You don't have to look at the WHOLE world with each character. What you have to do is locate the enemies, then figure out if you can target them (thanks for having a maximum targetting range, Bioware! Yet another awful decision on your part that makes combat a pain!). If the other character(s) are too far away, or are around the corner from the enemies, you can only choose attacks for your main character (or the one who initiated combat, if it's someone else) and must unpause and move the others into position to begin fighting. This is a very annoying problem that greatly delays combat, slows down your ability to fight, and gives the enemy some free attacks that they shouldn't have. You know, when you are slowly moving into position while the game is running because you can't give move orders while paused. Yes, with a better design (like 'click on location to have person move there' as a movement option) a 3d RPG could avoid some of these things. But some of them are unavoidable from a third-person perspective... only an isometric view would truly fix it all.
More about that flaw recently noticed. You can't move while paused. That is, you cannot give a move order 'move to here' while paused. This is a huge flaw in KotOR. Setting 'move to here' orders while paused is one of the most common things I do in BG and its lack in KotOR is very sadly missed... it makes you have to unpause to move, and this can be a serious problem if you want to move multiple people at the same time. Yet another thing on the litany of control-related flaws in that game, but this one is a more serious one than most. I was playing KotOR yesterday and really noticed this missing feature...
And if you had six characters you would multiply the problems by three or four at least. A game with the KotOR interface/control system and a full party (six) would be hugely hard to play and dramatically more complex than the same game in isometric. You'd also have many more essentially unavoidable deaths. This kind of game is intrinsically harder to play from this perspective.
(Oh, don't get the wrong idea. I think KotOR is a great game and I'm having a lot of fun playing it. But I can't help but notice all these little problems... I like it and wish that it had tried harder (okay, so it wouldn't be isometric. But as I have made clear not all of the game's problems are soley because of its perspective...).
Wow, you really
are the worst gamer in the world. I have
never heard anyone complain about KOTOR's combat being too confusing because of the camera angles. Not even by people who've never even heard of Baldur's Gate, let alone played a game with that style of combat. You sir, just suck beyond belief in most 3D games.
Quote:Wow, you really are the worst gamer in the world. I have never heard anyone complain about KOTOR's combat being too confusing because of the camera angles. Not even by people who've never even heard of Baldur's Gate, let alone played a game with that style of combat. You sir, just suck beyond belief in most 3D games.
You just can't understand what I am trying to say. You obviously have no comprehension whatsoever of my point, and if that much explanation doesn't do it nothing will. Again your reading comprehension "abilities" show themselves... to be nearly nonexistant.
KotOR. You've never cared that you can't move while paused? Never gotten hit while moving to a new place and then selecting your attack? Never had issues with trying to move and give commands at the same time? Never complained about how it takes more steps to go through your inventory or equip things? Have no problem with the fact that you can't target enemies beyond a certain range? Never been annoyed by having to move characters around the corner and into the fight, while your other person is offscreen and invisible (only visible by their healthbar at the bottom of the screen)? Never had a fight where enemies came up to you on a blind side and attacked? Never were irritated by how you have to scroll through your list of attacks instead of having them out in a row of buttons to choose from? Et cetera. I find it all hard to believe. Sure, some of these are things you'd notice MUCH more on PC than consoles. But not all.
I'd also mention the simplified rules (in detail), but it's clear that you don't consider that a problem so I won't. :)
And as usual you pull out one short segment... I love how you ignore 95% of my points in every post...
Quote:You disagree that it's overcomplicated because you are a PC fanboy and do not possess the imagination required to think beyond simple complexity (sounds like and oxy-moron but isn't if you you know what I'm talking about). Can you imagine if Pikmin were developed for the PC by a PC developer? They'd probably make the most convoluted controls possible, and if you were to hear that someone was porting it over to a console you'd cry foul and complain about how it could never be done. Pikmin isn't a super-deep strategy game, but considering the amount of stuff you do in the game it's incredible how simple the controls are. That is an extremely difficult thing to do, and is why Nintendo is the best.
Can you remember what my biggest complaint about Pikmin was? Yeah, that it was far too simplistic. I think it'd have been a MUCH better game if it had been more complex. It's too simple. There are many, many great strategy games out there, most all on PC, and that isn't one of them. Not an awful game, but far too simplistic...
Anyway, KotOR has a more complex CONTROL SCHEME than BGII. Just mouse and spacebar vs. a bunch of keyboard keys. What it has is a simpler INTERFACE. Can you recognize the difference there? :)
You clearly hate complex interfaces. They don't usually bother me. Now, wargames often do get overly complicated, and that's not my favorite genre. But BG? No, I will never even come CLOSE to agreeing with you that it has a complex interface. It doesn't. Actually, it has a nicely streamlined one that lets you do anything you could want to with a minimum of fuss... there are a great many games with more complex interfaces out there. BG's is decidedly average for the genre. Not overly complex, but not overly simplified either... I think the Infinity Engine interface is fantastic. Easily my favorite RPG interface, and definitely one of the easiest to use, when you consider how complex the ruleset it is implementing is. :)
Oh, sure, there can be bad complexity. BG just isn't even close enough to that to consider it as a possibility, in my opinion.
Quote:Max Payne plays exactly like a FPS. I'm talking about stuff like Devil May Cry, Mark of Kri, Castlevania, etc. None of that stuff could be done on the PC.
But PC does have many action games with third-person viewpoints. Jedi Knight 1/2/3, Heretic 2, Giants: Citizen Kabuto (though that's part strategy game...), and plenty of others... what's lacking are the action-platformers, not the third person action titles. Yes, most of them either are console ports or control a lot like FPSes. But the change in perspective really changes how you play the game and console ports are PC games too. :)
Quote:Yeah but nobody likes racing sims.
...Um, don't you like Gran Turismo...
Quote:Yes Starcraft and C&C are definitely better on the PC than the N64, but they are still good and fun on consoles. The reverse is not true for most console genres on the PC. That's my point.
As you already know I won't agree with that. When the control scheme is worked on for a decent amount of time console titles can come over to PC just fine. I should know, I have quite a few of them... Rayman 1, 2, and 3, Driver, Extreme-G 2, Puzzle Fighter, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Giants, Rogue Squadron, Centipede, Mega Man X, X4, and X5, Future Cop LAPD, MDK2, etc... all of those work just fine on PC... yes, a couple have issues. And a few more are not as good without a gamepad. But sometimes games require add-ons to be more fun... it's the same on consoles you know. :)
As I said, console games translate better to PC than PC games do to consoles.
Quote:Aside from joysticks, not many games support or really take advantage of those other control devices, which is why there are so few genres that work on the PC. There's a big enough flight fan base that developers can make games that only work well with joysticks, but the same is not true for any other genre on the PC.
And joysticks open up a large genre to PC developers. Gamepad-intensive games could go that way, but those can work better on keyboard (though generally it can be not too much fun for a bunch of console-oriented titles) than sims could so they don't bother.
Quote:No, BG&E was not a case of laziness. It's just far too much work for a game that wouldn't sell that well on a PC anyways. Like I said, if it's too much work for someone like Ubi imagine what it's like for a garage developer.
And I'm not talking about one controller that would be used for everything, I'm talking about a set of standards for analog controls. There is no standard for the PC.
No? Wouldn't the one in Microsoft's default joystick drivers count? I mean I don't know the programming, but I know that in the joystick device properties area you can make generic gamepads with up to 4 buttons and 3 or 4 axes... that suggests some kind of standard.
And BG&E was most certainly laziness. Like Oni. There is absolutely no excuse. Almost all console ports support gamepads/joysticks, after all! I have a lot of PC games that also came out on consoles and it's only a small few that don't support gamepads... that suggests something other than 'it wasn't worth their time'. :) Either sheer laziness or they honestly thought that the keyboard scheme worked better. And it generally isn't the latter (though that was the case, most probably, in Oni).
Quote:Not platforming-intensive sidescrollers. And that's because you'd need a gamepad for that, which would alienate many potential buyers. Try playing Eduardo The Magical Toaster with a kb and you'll have a very difficult time.
Like Rayman 1? Yes, console port, but it proves that it can be done, and well... though of course I'd definitely say that the Keen games involve lots of platforming. As do plenty of other shareware platformers. Maybe not as fast paced, but they most certainly are full of platform action. :) If you disagree I question if you have played many.
As for using keyboard, it works fine if you only have to use two or three buttons regularly. Much more and gamepads really show how much better they are.
Quote:Again you didn't try to understand my point. PC genres were developed around the cumbersome kb&m control set-up, while controllers on consoles are developed around game ideas. That makes an incredible difference.
Hmm, then why is it that I hear some PC developers complaining about how limiting console controllers are? Oh yeah, maybe because PC controls are good at some things too... as for 'designed around game ideas', that's not true and you know it. Oh, some controllers were originally designed around a game idea. But after that... well, let's just say that it works the other way around. Games are designed around the controllers.
Quote:You just can't understand what I am trying to say. You obviously have no comprehension whatsoever of my point, and if that much explanation doesn't do it nothing will. Again your reading comprehension "abilities" show themselves... to be nearly nonexistant.
KotOR. You've never cared that you can't move while paused? Never gotten hit while moving to a new place and then selecting your attack? Never had issues with trying to move and give commands at the same time? Never complained about how it takes more steps to go through your inventory or equip things? Have no problem with the fact that you can't target enemies beyond a certain range? Never been annoyed by having to move characters around the corner and into the fight, while your other person is offscreen and invisible (only visible by their healthbar at the bottom of the screen)? Never had a fight where enemies came up to you on a blind side and attacked? Never were irritated by how you have to scroll through your list of attacks instead of having them out in a row of buttons to choose from? Et cetera.
As a matter of fact,
no. Just like no one else beside you have problems with the Metroid games. You just plain suck, ABF.
Quote:I'd also mention the simplified rules (in detail), but it's clear that you don't consider that a problem so I won't.
And as usual you pull out one short segment... I love how you ignore 95% of my points in every post...
Quote:
I don't ignore them, I just don't feel like responding to every single one of your ridiculous posts. It's like trying to catch up with
everything Hitler said when you only have the time and patience to respond to a few things. Jews are evil, whites are the supreme race, etc. I can respond to that, but when it comes to other specific races and ideas being evil, I just don't have the
time, you know what I mean?
Quote:Can you remember what my biggest complaint about Pikmin was? Yeah, that it was far too simplistic. I think it'd have been a MUCH better game if it had been more complex. It's too simple. There are many, many great strategy games out there, most all on PC, and that isn't one of them. Not an awful game, but far too simplistic...
Anyway, KotOR has a more complex CONTROL SCHEME than BGII. Just mouse and spacebar vs. a bunch of keyboard keys. What it has is a simpler INTERFACE. Can you recognize the difference there?
You clearly hate complex interfaces. They don't usually bother me. Now, wargames often do get overly complicated, and that's not my favorite genre. But BG? No, I will never even come CLOSE to agreeing with you that it has a complex interface. It doesn't. Actually, it has a nicely streamlined one that lets you do anything you could want to with a minimum of fuss... there are a great many games with more complex interfaces out there. BG's is decidedly average for the genre. Not overly complex, but not overly simplified either... I think the Infinity Engine interface is fantastic. Easily my favorite RPG interface, and definitely one of the easiest to use, when you consider how complex the ruleset it is implementing is.
Oh, sure, there can be bad complexity. BG just isn't even close enough to that to consider it as a possibility, in my opinion.
Pikmin is great and you are dumb, but let's not get into that right now. My POINT (something you never ever seem to grasp) was that the controls in the game would (on the PC) be extremely convoluted, but Nintendo was able to make it extremely simple while still being as effective as it ever could be. You're missing the point again, stupid!
Quote:But PC does have many action games with third-person viewpoints. Jedi Knight 1/2/3, Heretic 2, Giants: Citizen Kabuto (though that's part strategy game...), and plenty of others... what's lacking are the action-platformers, not the third person action titles. Yes, most of them either are console ports or control a lot like FPSes. But the change in perspective really changes how you play the game and console ports are PC games too.
Each and every one of those games you mentioned control
exactly like a FPS, fool!
*sigh*
So,
sooo dumb...
Quote:...Um, don't you like Gran Turismo...
PC racing sims, the kinds that PCs have more than consoles.
Quote:As you already know I won't agree with that. When the control scheme is worked on for a decent amount of time console titles can come over to PC just fine. I should know, I have quite a few of them... Rayman 1, 2, and 3, Driver, Extreme-G 2, Puzzle Fighter, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Giants, Rogue Squadron, Centipede, Mega Man X, X4, and X5, Future Cop LAPD, MDK2, etc... all of those work just fine on PC... yes, a couple have issues. And a few more are not as good without a gamepad. But sometimes games require add-ons to be more fun... it's the same on consoles you know.
As I said, console games translate better to PC than PC games do to consoles.
Every PC genre has been ported over to consoles, you dolt, but only a couple of console genres that only somewhat work on PCs have been ported over. You will
never see a game like Mark of Kri, Devil May Cry, Virtua Fighter, Zelda, or Castlevania done on the PC because it's NOT POSSIBLE TO DO IT WELL. The PC is home to three or four original genres that can be done at least pretty well on consoles, but the reverse is not true.
THAT is a fact and if you deny that then I refuse to waste any more time with someone of such incredible ignorance.
Quote:And joysticks open up a large genre to PC developers. Gamepad-intensive games could go that way, but those can work better on keyboard (though generally it can be not too much fun for a bunch of console-oriented titles) than sims could so they don't bother.
Joysticks work well for ONE genre. ONE genre.
Quote:No? Wouldn't the one in Microsoft's default joystick drivers count? I mean I don't know the programming, but I know that in the joystick device properties area you can make generic gamepads with up to 4 buttons and 3 or 4 axes... that suggests some kind of standard.
And BG&E was most certainly laziness. Like Oni. There is absolutely no excuse. Almost all console ports support gamepads/joysticks, after all! I have a lot of PC games that also came out on consoles and it's only a small few that don't support gamepads... that suggests something other than 'it wasn't worth their time'. Either sheer laziness or they honestly thought that the keyboard scheme worked better. And it generally isn't the latter (though that was the case, most probably, in Oni).
It's good to know that you know so much about developing games for the PC and can confidently say as a matter of
fact that the hard-working developers at Ubi Soft were simply TOO LAZY to include analog support. Since you're so smart maybe you could help them next time.
Quote:Like Rayman 1? Yes, console port, but it proves that it can be done, and well... though of course I'd definitely say that the Keen games involve lots of platforming. As do plenty of other shareware platformers. Maybe not as fast paced, but they most certainly are full of platform action. If you disagree I question if you have played many.
As for using keyboard, it works fine if you only have to use two or three buttons regularly. Much more and gamepads really show how much better they are.
Please, the Keen games are barely even platformers. Platformers have complex
platform jumping. Keen does not have that very important aspect. And it's not about how many buttons there are, it's about the positioning of your digits.
*sigh*
So, so dumb.
Quote:Hmm, then why is it that I hear some PC developers complaining about how limiting console controllers are? Oh yeah, maybe because PC controls are good at some things too...
For the only types of games that could be done of them, stupid! WOW you are one stupid mofo!
And those PC developers complain when they try to port over games that were made with convoluted controls and are not talented enough to make them work efficiently. An example of a PC developer that
is talented enough is Ion Storm, who very successfully ported over Deus Ex to the PS2, one of the most complex FPS/RPGs out there. And the controls worked amazingly well (except for the analog sensitivity and the fact that you couldn't switch the stick movements), a hundred times more efficient and clever than the PC controls.
Quote:as for 'designed around game ideas', that's not true and you know it. Oh, some controllers were originally designed around a game idea. But after that... well, let's just say that it works the other way around. Games are designed around the controllers.
Oh... oh you are
absolutely right, what the hell was I thinking?? It's not like the N64 controller was designed for specific 3D gameplay ideas like Mario and Zelda... gosh no, that's not what happened. And the DS wasn't designed with new gameplay ideas in mind either, heavens no.
Yup, like usual you are totally right. What was I
thinking??!!?
Quote:Oh... oh you are absolutely right, what the hell was I thinking?? It's not like the N64 controller was designed for specific 3D gameplay ideas like Mario and Zelda... gosh no, that's not what happened. And the DS wasn't designed with new gameplay ideas in mind either, heavens no.
Uh, the N64 was EXACTLY what I was thinking of. I guess I should have been more specific. The N64 controller was designed for Mario 64. Then, for the next four years game developers had to make things fit on a gamepad that they would probably not have chosen to shape that way. Which was exactly my point: Once you're past the game it was designed for, console games, just like PC games, are centered around what the controller is.
Quote:Joysticks work well for ONE genre. ONE genre.
Yeah, and as I said, it's a big one, that really could be called several different genres... military (flight/tank/sub/etc) sims, driving sims, civilian flight sims, space flight sims, mech games... all quite different categories of "sim"...
More later.
Quote:As a matter of fact, no. Just like no one else beside you have problems with the Metroid games. You just plain suck, ABF.
Uh, you didn't even bother to read the post, did you? No, I didn't think so. Because none of those have even the slightest thing to do with how good you are at the game. They're all about interface, OB1. Not how challenging the game is or how good I am at it, about the interface. But as I well know facts are irrelevant where you are concerned, so I'm not surprised that when I come up with legitimate points you just try to insult them away. Typical of you.
Quote:Pikmin is great and you are dumb, but let's not get into that right now. My POINT (something you never ever seem to grasp) was that the controls in the game would (on the PC) be extremely convoluted, but Nintendo was able to make it extremely simple while still being as effective as it ever could be. You're missing the point again, stupid!
I'm not missing your point, I'm disagreeing with it! Difference there. :) I do not think that on PC the controls would be very confusing. See, unlike you I have no problem using a 'mouse'. It's a very easy thing to use. And when a onscreen interface is well designed, I don't mind if there are a bunch of buttons and features. As I said, in some ways simplicity is good -- while I have played some wargames, their exceedingly complex button interfaces are confusing and I've never really grown to like them that much --, but strategy games? Realtime, that is? Most of the ones I have used are fine. And I'm sure that if it came from a competent developer Pikmin would be as well.
Now, Pikmin on consoles. As I've said a billion times now, of course when it's a console game you have to simplify. That's the nature of console games -- they are less complex. But still, I think they over-simplified. Gather Pikmin, pick things up, drag them around... it's not exactly deep. I definitely feel that the game would have been more fun with more depth. On GameCube, even -- I'm not talking about wanting it to be on PC. It could work fine on Cube with more complex gameplay. More complex gameplay doesn't necessarially mean a hideously complex control scheme, after all...
As in, Nintendo made it simple and effective, but too much so. And I'm talking about gameplay, not controls.
Quote:Each and every one of those games you mentioned control exactly like a FPS, fool!
*sigh*
So, sooo dumb...
First, Giants doesn't really control much like a FPS. Well it kind of does but because of the gameplay and controls it ends up being quite different. I know you disagree with my opinion that when you go to the third person viewpoint the whole game changes even if the gameplay doesn't, but I think differently. I really notice it in games with both cameras like JK... the game really plays very differently from the third person perspective. You disagree, obviously, but that's my opinion. What's that PC demo I was playing... oh, right Enclave. X-Box port really, from last year. Third-person action game with a first-person view. And just like JK it almost feels like a totally different game when you switch perspectives.
Oh, how about the old PC game Die By the Sword?
Quote:PC racing sims, the kinds that PCs have more than consoles.
They are really hard and I don't play them either, but I recognize them as a good genre for people who like that kind of thing... like flight sims. :)
Quote:Please, the Keen games are barely even platformers. Platformers have complex platform jumping. Keen does not have that very important aspect. And it's not about how many buttons there are, it's about the positioning of your digits.
Um, then all that jumping between platforms and dodging obstacles I did in Keen wasn't platforming? Thanks for telling me, because I'd never have known that jumping between platforms wasn't platform jumping...
Or how about (other shareware platform/action titles) Jazz Jackrabbit, Jill of the Jungle, Xargon, Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, Realms of Chaos, Crystal Caves, Paganitzu, etc, etc... yeah, I think that Apogee and Epic published a couple of platformers. I cannot even begin to understand how you are denying that games which involve running around jumping between platforms, getting items, and defeating enemies aren't platformers, but it makes about as much sense as saying that Sonic isn't a platformer because you go faster and might jump less than you do in Mario 1. As in, absolutely none.
Quote:Every PC genre has been ported over to consoles, you dolt, but only a couple of console genres that only somewhat work on PCs have been ported over. You will never see a game like Mark of Kri, Devil May Cry, Virtua Fighter, Zelda, or Castlevania done on the PC because it's NOT POSSIBLE TO DO IT WELL. The PC is home to three or four original genres that can be done at least pretty well on consoles, but the reverse is not true. THAT is a fact and if you deny that then I refuse to waste any more time with someone of such incredible ignorance.
OB1, that is 100% false. There is no genre that the PC cannot do well, and you know it. PCs have gamepads just like consoles, after all! So saying that they cannot do it is idiotic and is as wrong as you could possibly be.
So, when you port a PC game to consoles you need to totally remake the game. New graphics, usually, new simple control scheme, simplification of some aspects of the game, etc... but when you go from console to PC? All you have to do is support higher resolution graphics and put in a customizable control scheme. And recommend whatever controller type is best for your game. Simpler and easier and that's why it happens so much more. Think about it. How many PC games get ported to consoles? An exceedingly small number. How many console games get ported to PC? A great many. That says a lot, and it's not just about the relative sizes of the PC and console markets. PCs are easier to port to.
Now, who don't fighting games get ported? Probably because they think the audience is small and because they don't want people playing them on keyboards. Zelda-type games? There are a few (Zelda games of course would never be on PC, and neither would be first-party Sony or Microsoft titles, and the other third parties really don't make many games in this genre...), certainly. If you're talking about adventure-RPGs or action-RPGs, I could mention King's Quest VIII, the Quest for Glory series, maybe Ultima (IX? That one was third-person 3d...), Hype, BG&E... not many as I said but there are a few, if you stretch the genre definition a bit. If you stretch it farther, add stuff like Diablo. Anyway, there are a few.
I don't know anything about Mark of Kri or DMC, really, so I can't say much about those games. Castlevania? 3d platform-action, right? Kinda... anyway, most 3d platformers on PC are console ports, that is true. Croc 1 and 2, the Rayman games, etc. Not the strongest genre on the PC, sure, but there are a couple. Oh, how about Tomb Raider? Though that's really an action-adventure, it should be mentioned somewhere here. :)
Quote:And those PC developers complain when they try to port over games that were made with convoluted controls and are not talented enough to make them work efficiently. An example of a PC developer that is talented enough is Ion Storm, who very successfully ported over Deus Ex to the PS2, one of the most complex FPS/RPGs out there. And the controls worked amazingly well (except for the analog sensitivity and the fact that you couldn't switch the stick movements), a hundred times more efficient and clever than the PC controls.
I've only played the Deus Ex demo, but I don't remember it having an overly complex interface... now System Shock 2, that had a complex interface, but that game is also in a large part an RPG. :)
Don't worry ABF, I'll stick up for you!
OB1 Wrote:Well you needed to make that more clear.
Well I think it was perfectly clear! Ha!
...
...
...
I can't be bothered reading the rest of this stupid thread.
Don't bother, it's just OB1 acting like a moron like usual. Can't admit that a game he loves might have flaws in it even when they stare him in the face constantly.
On that note, I've been playing some more and it fully supports my position on parties and close cameras (first or third person). Party cohesion is dramatically harder to deal with. Yes, in a isometric game characters might get way behind or go wandering off. But if you're paying attention, that won't happen much because you have a view of all around. But in a game like this, where most of the time you control just one character, it can be a major irritation! The other characters most of the time trail well behind you. This means that while character one is in range of enemies, the others are well back and can't target them yet (this like many of these things is a game design flaw, not a flaw intrinsic to third-person cameras). So you need to either beat a hasty retreat with character one while making the others catch up as fast as possible (trying to minimize damage done to the main one, though it can't all be avoided) or just start attacking with character one while you switch to the others to catch up. This is a problem because you aren't moving them all at once. You're moving just character one and the others are following, so you have to rely on the AI. And AI is hard so of course it's not perfect. So you run in to unavoidable issues with a camera choice like this. Not game-killing by any stretch of the imagination, but it leads to you taking more damage than you would like and not having quite as much control over battles as would be ideal (since you need to spend a bunch of time running around with people instead of managing what the other people are doing). As well as having one character enter many fights well before the others can -- you can't see behind you so unless you frequently switch while moving (which would lead to major confusion with the changing perspective and delays as you switch between the people), after all, so you can't see the others falling behind... or passing and setting off some enemy across the room while your attention is focused on the ones in front of you. That's not something that would happen much in an isometric game but it's already happened multiple times in this one.
As you can tell if you read my posts, I don't have huge problems with KotOR. It's a great game. But it's got a whole lot of little issues that annoy and make it not as fun as it could be, which is why I feel that I have to mention them.
On another note, a good thing and a bad thing. On the good side, I got by first 'You must gather your party before venturing forth' message. On the bad, it didn't have the voiceover from BG1... :) ... okay, so that got incredibly annoying. But I got used to it and it's kind of a GOOD annoying, you know? At least, in a game like this where you don't see it much... it definitely gets really irritating when it keeps repeating it while you're trying to get people to the exit area like it does sometimes in BG.
1. Starcraft II
2. Warcraft III 2nd exspansion?
3. KOTOR II sith lords.
4. Civilization 4
Thats about it.
Good grief, you are the most idiotic, stubborn fool I have ever met in my entire life. You know nothing of the process of game design and even less about how to play games, so I will not lower myself to your level and continue this ridiculous debate. ABF, it is a good thing that you have no friends as they probably would have killed you by now. It really is a blessing in disguise.
Why is it that I'm always the one who has to be the bigger man here and step out of an inane debate? Will you ever become mature enough to do so yourself?
Quote:Why is it that I'm always the one who has to be the bigger man here and step out of an inane debate? Will you ever become mature enough to do so yourself?
After you become mature enough to consider things other people say?
Quote:Good grief, you are the most idiotic, stubborn fool I have ever met in my entire life. You know nothing of the process of game design and even less about how to play games, so I will not lower myself to your level and continue this ridiculous debate. ABF, it is a good thing that you have no friends as they probably would have killed you by now. It really is a blessing in disguise.
No, you are just clueless. Did you notice what I've been complaining about in this post? Interface and controls design. Not gameplay, or graphics (as in quality or something... okay, I mentioned it, but not as a major point...), or anything, just interface and controls design. Yes, I said that a more overhead perspective would be better and gave a couple of concrete examples of why the third person viewpoint is always worse, but far more of my complaints are game-specific -- things that they could have done better in this same game (without many changes), and I wish that they had done. Most of the things I mentioned could have been solved, I am sure... as I said, you only don't see them because you don't want to. Play it again and look for these things and you'll notice that all of them are there.
But the fact that I'm not complaining about major things should clue you in to the fact that I think it's a very good game and, because there are no major flaws, the little things I notice bug me more...
ABF, you are an immature little punk. If you don't stop ruining people's threads and grow up I'm going to start deleting your posts. What was created as a nice thread about what games we want to get, you turned into another one of your ridiculously idiotic and nonsensical debates. I can't say it's one of your worst since, well, you always say incredibly idiotic things. But it's still fucking annoying.
Oh, of COURSE it's all my problem! Naturally! You have no responsibility at all! How could I be so foolish as to think that your half of this conversation should matter at all? Seriously, how are you so blind? You act so stupid, so blind to other ideas, and so rude, and then act like it's the OTHER person's problem? Only you could think that that is even remotely true, I am perfectly sure. I can't understand how you can look at a thread like this and say that I am the problem. It's not me who starts the insults or never listens to any opinion the other person makes... that's almost all you. You have problems and blame me for them but you are more guilty than I am. This thread was going fine before you got involved... as usual, once you enter the discussion all rational talk goes right out the window and it just becomes 'you are an idiot for not understanding/agreeing with me. And that's sad, but not something you seem to be able to deal with... instead you blame it all on me. And make yourself look even more like a fool.
Quote:This thread was going fine before you got involved...
You know, I think this single sentence shows how much of an idiot you are better than I ever could with a thousand words. Before
I got involved...??
I made this thread, you
twit :screwy:
I meant the discussion about KotOR here, obviously...
Oh, and do you have PC version of KotOR? Have you actually played it? I can't tell from this thread, because of responding to my specific issues (most of which, as I have said, are PC-specific -- though not all --) you just insulted me...
Yeah my friend has the PC version.
Hey guys! I just made billions thanks to me being one of the google founders and all! I just came in to give- *looks around, noticing ABF and OB1 throttling each other*.... um.... I'll see you later... *slams door and runs away*
DJ... was... a google founder?
If you hadn't gotten involved maybe DJ would have continued the conversation we had started, but now that won't happen... a typical reaction of others whenever we start arguing. But the fact that it generally goes fine without you around (I don't know about the other way around) is something you should take to mean that there is nothing so horribly wrong about how I act. It's mostly how you take what I say to mean and how YOU act. Oh, sure, in plenty of cases I've said something I shouldn't, but to me anyway it always feels like I'm trying to talk about whatever subject I thought we were talking about while you spend most of your time insulting me for spurious reasons. And it makes me just not want to talk with you much at all because I know that you will never listen for one second to anything I have to say and will never begin to consider anything, period. And that not fun at all to be on the other side of.
I mean... look at this post! I make several long posts criticizing in detail the small interface features which annoyed me. And you, instead of saying some ways I could circumvent them or some ways that they aren't as big of a problem as I said they were (which is what I would call a decent response that most reasonable human beings who wanted to talk about it would follow), just insulted me. Which goes nowhere. So I tried to restate it and add some things. And you might respond (often inaccurately) with a heated tone about one sentence, and fill the rest with insults. That is not the way to debate and not the way to conduct a conversation! It REALLY feels like I'm constantly trying to actually for ONCE have a conversation that is reasoned and covers the subject at hand (like, here, KotOR's design and interface) but that you won't respond in kind. And since that is true you'd probably be better off acting like a lot of other people here and not saying anything at all, if that's how you want to act.
There's a reason why other people ignore you, ABF. It gets very tiresome responding to just plain retarded posts non-stop, 24/7. You need to get a life.
You guys are like a married couple and I mean that.
As for a relavent comment on the topic of this thread or rather what the topic has been changed to over the course of this thread: I never had trouble with the battle system and I never noticed any flaws. That being said I'm not much for PC RPGs so that could have something to do with it.
As I said, the things I mentioned are mostly things that people without experience in INterplay-style PC RPGs would never notice, and some of them are also PC-specific... but for most of them you either have to have a lot of experience with previous Bioware/Black Isle RPGs or really look for the issues. :)
I will expand on one thing that is probably in the X-Box version too. Combat movement and targetting. So, you are running around (in an open area, not one with lots of doors -- that is different). You sight an enemy around the corner. The game auto-pauses. Now, your first instinct would be to target the enemy, right? Then to press the button or click the portrait and switch to your next character and do the same for them. But a lot of the time in this game it doesn't work that way. The other two people might fall a bit behind and instead you'd have to switch to them, unpause (because you can't order movement-to-point commands while paused like you can in Infinity games), move the other (two) people into position (as quickly as you can, so that your main character doesn't get hurt much -- unless you unpaused and turned and ran with your main character to regroup, which also certainly is an option), and then give them their commands. Or let the CPU do it all for them but I consider that a unacceptable option. This isn't a huge problem, it's just a bit annoying and slows down the game. But I don't see how this could be fully avoided from this perspective -- in a 3d game you can't be giving people attack commands on enemies they can't see, after all, like you can in a topdown one!
If you play the game you should see what I mean. Though without a game to compare it to, like BGII, it's probably a lot harder to really get what I mean...
My little brother used to be really into the whole D&D and Baldur's Gate thing so I have played BGs 1 & 2. You're just sucky at 3D games.
I almost always let the AI give my other guys commands and concentrated on what my main guy was doings. It worked just fine for me.
OB1, I'll respond to you once you learn to act like a decent human being. Which given you may be never, but I'm hoping...
Quote:I almost always let the AI give my other guys commands and concentrated on what my main guy was doings. It worked just fine for me.
And that explains why you didn't notice it. You did what I said I'd really rather not do and just ignored the other people. The tactical combat is the biggest part of the gameplay and controlling everything that is going on should be one of the most fun parts of the game (like it is in BG)... this makes it a bit less so.