20th September 2004, 11:43 AM
Uh... viewpoint? Why, exactly, are you talking about that as if I was? I wasn't even referring to viewpoint or graphics here, as should have been blatantly obvious... I said that that's how console games are because they mostly are. Console RPGs -- and I mean not just recent ones quite obviously but also most of the older ones -- generally have you going through a sequence of towns where you talk to the locals and get equipment before heading out to the next wilderness. Graphics are a totally different category of this that has absolutely nothing to do with my main point. Anyway, KotOR doesn't have fully prototypical console RPG towns. It's got fetch-quests in towns and quests in town and stuff like typical PC (modern Interplay-style -- PC RPGs have such massive variety that it's impossible to generalize for the whole genre, unlike console RPGs which have a significant amount of similarity) RPGs have. But when you look at towns in Fallout, or the Baldur's Gate games, or Torment... it's not close. Those games all have far more depth in their towns. Even Icewind Dale II is pretty close to what you've got in KotOR... not there, but not way far behind. What do I mean by this? I'm talking about how many relevant people (ie not just generic ones) there are to talk to. How many shops you've got. How many stores that sell similar things you will find, and what makes them unique. How many quests you will do in this city without leaving it. How much of the game you will spend in each town. I'm not sure what you thought I meant, but perhaps that will help you understand what I mean by the fact that the towns are simplistic.
The graphics element is slightly related, but only in a small way. KotOR's cities look okay. Sure, KotOR doesn't have the best graphics engine ever. But it's an RPG, not a genre known for having the best graphics, and it's quite competent. And it runs well on slow systems as well. :) Scale-wise the cities are either small or large but empty of meaningful content. THIS is the problem. There just isn't much to do in these cities! THIS is what I mean by that it feels more like a console RPG -- in those titles as well you generally don't do a whole lot in the towns. It is different in a Fallout or Baldur's Gate. Look at Sigil in Torment, Baldur's Gate in Baldur's Gate, or Amn in BGII and compare them to the cities in KotOR and you would know exactly what I mean when I say that the cities in KotOR are pale in comparison as far as actual content goes. I'm not complaining about the graphical look... I'm complaining about actual content. There just isn't much to them.
Oh, here's one more great comparison to console RPGs. Similarity between towns. In console RPGs each town blends together to a large degree -- you've got the same merchant types, the people to talk to to give you the next place to go to, etc... yes, it's more complex than that, but you get the idea. In KotOR lots of cities have a same-ness as far as actual things (and not just graphics) are concerned. Yes I'm in Tatooine and there are some Jawas over there and people complaining about the bad state of things on this planet, but with just five locations (bar, Czerka office, hunting lodge, racing track, landing area) in town it is necessarially limited. Manaan is larger with five large zones but it's got about three things on each zone... not exactly a good use of space.
Oh, and on this note I guess I have to conceed one point. Map size. The city parts feel smaller than the large city maps in an Infinity title. Now, it's hard to compare because in BG for instance different city zones can be wildly different in size with the smaller ones perhaps similar in size to a KotOR zone, but the larger ones... yeah, BG has bigger areas. It's not as noticable in the PC version with quick load times, but the issue is really more about total surface area. With so many sizable towns to deal with each one ends up smaller and less unique. It's made even harder for BioWare when you consider how different each town is...giving each a unique character (as they do do) with so many areas doesn't seem easy and I obviously when combined with all of these factors we got left with smaller (possibly on a physical scale, definitely on a 'what is there to do or interact with' scale) towns. Which is too bad. I really like KotOR and like the places that I've been and I wish that they had more depth to them! If the cost of that depth -- depth I'm kind of used to in PC RPGs -- is fewer areas, so be it. Expand the ones that are left to make up for it. But it'd have been great to see.
The graphics element is slightly related, but only in a small way. KotOR's cities look okay. Sure, KotOR doesn't have the best graphics engine ever. But it's an RPG, not a genre known for having the best graphics, and it's quite competent. And it runs well on slow systems as well. :) Scale-wise the cities are either small or large but empty of meaningful content. THIS is the problem. There just isn't much to do in these cities! THIS is what I mean by that it feels more like a console RPG -- in those titles as well you generally don't do a whole lot in the towns. It is different in a Fallout or Baldur's Gate. Look at Sigil in Torment, Baldur's Gate in Baldur's Gate, or Amn in BGII and compare them to the cities in KotOR and you would know exactly what I mean when I say that the cities in KotOR are pale in comparison as far as actual content goes. I'm not complaining about the graphical look... I'm complaining about actual content. There just isn't much to them.
Oh, here's one more great comparison to console RPGs. Similarity between towns. In console RPGs each town blends together to a large degree -- you've got the same merchant types, the people to talk to to give you the next place to go to, etc... yes, it's more complex than that, but you get the idea. In KotOR lots of cities have a same-ness as far as actual things (and not just graphics) are concerned. Yes I'm in Tatooine and there are some Jawas over there and people complaining about the bad state of things on this planet, but with just five locations (bar, Czerka office, hunting lodge, racing track, landing area) in town it is necessarially limited. Manaan is larger with five large zones but it's got about three things on each zone... not exactly a good use of space.
Oh, and on this note I guess I have to conceed one point. Map size. The city parts feel smaller than the large city maps in an Infinity title. Now, it's hard to compare because in BG for instance different city zones can be wildly different in size with the smaller ones perhaps similar in size to a KotOR zone, but the larger ones... yeah, BG has bigger areas. It's not as noticable in the PC version with quick load times, but the issue is really more about total surface area. With so many sizable towns to deal with each one ends up smaller and less unique. It's made even harder for BioWare when you consider how different each town is...giving each a unique character (as they do do) with so many areas doesn't seem easy and I obviously when combined with all of these factors we got left with smaller (possibly on a physical scale, definitely on a 'what is there to do or interact with' scale) towns. Which is too bad. I really like KotOR and like the places that I've been and I wish that they had more depth to them! If the cost of that depth -- depth I'm kind of used to in PC RPGs -- is fewer areas, so be it. Expand the ones that are left to make up for it. But it'd have been great to see.