Quote:Reviews are there to help a person decide if they think it's worth buying a game, and only petty fanboys such as yourself actually use reviews as a replacement for their own earned opinions, and can go around proclaiming how much "MetRod suckS!!" and "Halo BLOWS!!!1!1!". This is precisely what you're doing, trying to bash a game that you have not even played for a split second. This is beyond your usual display is buffoonery: it's laughably pathetic.
1) Repeating falsehoods that have been disproven don't make them true
2) Your "opinions" about my points aren't worth my time and I'm going try my hardest from now on to just ignore your idiocy.
Quote:The problem here is GENERALIZATION. ABF has played Arean and Daggerfall and perhaps a few other open-ended RPGs and is trying to force his opinion of them onto Morrowind, which he has not played. Now, had ABF said "I've played several open-ended RPGs, but I think non-linear ones are better", which I believe you did at first, then I would have no problem, but ABF brought Morrowind into the argument [and he was the first to mention it, I went back and looked] and tried to explain how in playing Morrowind OB1 had, in essence, played the other games in the series. On a certain level I agree with this, if you play an open-ended RPG you likely know what to expect from other games in the genre, but you just can't play one game and then come up with an opinion of another even one in the same genre and EVEN one in the same series, you just can't! ABF, if you want to talk about linear RPGs being better than open-ended RPGs go right ahead, but don't bring up games you haven't played. It's not helping you at all, believe me.
You are right, I mentioned Morrowind first, in the context that playing Arena gave me insight on why OB1 had said that he liked Morrowind more than Baldur's Gate... not complete of course but more so than not playing any of the TES games by far. Seemed like a perfectly good idea at the time. Perhaps I should have asked those questions earlier in the thread, though, instead of first saying some things... but I did ask some questions about Morrowind partway down page I. Biased? Looking it now yeah it is somewhat based on opinions from Arena/Daggerfall, but they were still good questions that perhaps could have helped things a lot had they been answered... You answered one of them (about towns) and OB1 refused to answer any though I'm sure he could if he actually wanted to. By that point though OB1 was past 'listen to what I was saying' mode so they got ignored... though if you look at that thread page three is better (discussing story). :)
Arena, KotOR, Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II, Quest for Glory, Daggerfall, etc... the introduction of more nonlinearity into RPGs introduces clear themes that you can pretty much say will occur since they almost always do. Yes, every game is different, and in huge ways in some respects, but there are similarities too...
Like, Baldur's Gate, BGII, and KotOR. Obviously they have nothing open-endedness-wise on a TES game, but they are also not utterly linear. There is a main story to follow that is mostly linear. However, there are lots of sidequests, many explorable areas that are optional, etc... you can spend a lot of time not doing the main quest. Definite non-linear aspects, though certainly on scope they don't compare to TES. Or even Fallout, given that most of the nonlinearity is about sidequests and wandering around and not having a hugely variable storyline or letting you be whatever party you want (in BGI you simply cannot play it with any chance of success and be evil)... in BGII though it was fine because there weren't huge-huge numbers of quests and they fully fleshed out everything. It is a huge game (probably 100 hours for most people their first time), though, so there's a lot to do... the key for that kind of game is having some non-linear aspects to give the player some choice and variety while keeping most of the game more linear to allow for more depth in each area.
As for KotOR, it feels kind of like Baldur's Gate in 3D crossed with a console RPG. Linearity? It does let you choose the order of planets, but once on each one you don't have a lot of choice. Yes, there are sidequests you can ignore or not, but not that many compared to the main quest... most of the stuff you do on each planet is for the main quest. I've described the whole issue with Bioware overextending on the scope of how much territory they were covering before, so I shouldn't have to again... not as bad as Arena (or a MMORPG), certainly, but it was no Baldur's Gate II. Somewhere in between, I think... closer to BG, but on the whole not quite there. Though KotOR is definitely a great game, so my criticisms of it are really of a 'this game is awesome and it could have been even better' type.
Anyway, TES. I'll admit one thing about them: while the I maintain that scope of the improvements in most of those major categories that TES (and most nonlinear titles) are lacking in were only improved somewhat over the past TES games, they improved in a lot in others and the effect of the changes may well have lessened the impact on the players of some of the other things... either that or the as I said 'you get used to them' things. I imagine that conversations are one of those... you just get used to the fact that they are lacking. That wouldn't stop me from wishing that they were a lot better, but as I've said the fact that you cannot do great and deep conversations with lots of unique NPCs in a very non-linear RPG is one of the reasons that I'd say I like more linear ones more... What to I mean? Like graphics. Better graphics and, more importantly, uniqueness and a designed world instead of a random one would definitely help with the tedium and repetition problems... it doesn't solve them, as a game that huge with that much to do will inevitably eventually get boring (see: MMORPGs, the prime culprits in that category)... but there has to be something said for simply giving you the choices. And a TES game wouldn't really be a TES game with a more linear design... it's good to have a variety of games out there and TES fills a niche that not many other games really try to copy directly (though many have some elements of nonlinearity).
Are you saying that you think Morrowind has a good and well presented story (that is, the main story, stories behind the sidequests, etc... I know the world of The Elder Scrolls has a lot of depth behind it, and that Bethesda can do some decent quest writing, but I've never been impressed by their dialogue, really, and their quest stuff seems more like average (well, on the good side of average) than anything else... but I'd certainly like to hear your opinion.)? Or a deep conversation system with lots of characters with unique replies (I don't think so for that one as I recall you admitted that it's not the best)? Is there a variety to the gameplay or do you eventually find yourself playing it just for the sake of some better items or a couple more levels (whether just for the sake of the levels because you're just about all-powerful already or to challenge some harder dungeon)? Every RPG has some aspect of tedium and repetition so I wouldn't expect Morrowind to totally get rid of it, but one issue I would immediately think of when I hear of a game as overwhelmingly long as Morrowind (almost makes BGII look short... :)) would be that no matter how interesting the world is and how much you like the setting that it'd eventually get tiresome and the repetition would set in... upon which time you still have like 50 or 80 or 100 more hours to finish the main game story, if you even care to. (if you haven't guessed, this is where MMORPGs are worst. That whole genre seems to be designed around the idea that the players are paying so they should spend their lives playing this game... so they have very little reward for lots of work and require lots of time and effort doing things that you don't consider all that fun just to keep up. Morrowind is surely not that bad, but I don't know exactly where it fits in...)
I mean, sidequests are great. I like them. But the main story should be engaging as well... it was all well and good to get away with "kill the evil boss monster" PC RPG stories 10 years ago or more, but it's somewhat out of style now... even games that do have such gameplay (like Diablo II... though Diablo II didn't exactly have a fantastic story and it's probably at best equal (and probably worse) than a Bethesda story, at least they TRIED... that is not something that a game like Diablo II would have bothered with 6 or 8 or 10 years earlier.) have at least decent stories to explain it out (I'm not judging Morrowind there, mostly. Even if it was great, it seems a bit hard for any company to stretch a good story over that number of gameplay hours without getting it strained by long lulls and downtimes...)
Quote:"I've played several open-ended RPGs, but I think non-linear ones are better"
That's what I was trying to say and is the message I was trying to get across when I created the thread... but yes the thread didn't really reflect that, which is both OB1's fault and mine, but that really was my original intent and is a much better question to talk about than Morrowind exclusively.
Good gracious gravy, I can't even see you anymore since that hole you've kept on digging has gotten deeper and deeper. 