What RPG to play?
MonoCanalla
Member Posts: 291
in Off-Topic
And I mean apart from any Infinity Engine or inspired (such as Eternity, Tides of Numenera, etc...).
Dragon's Age I was meh, not a waste of time but nothing special. Skyrim is garbage but an almost perfect potential for editor. Fallout: New Vegas was excellent but because Obsidian was behind. Is there something else to play? How is Mass Effect?
Dragon's Age I was meh, not a waste of time but nothing special. Skyrim is garbage but an almost perfect potential for editor. Fallout: New Vegas was excellent but because Obsidian was behind. Is there something else to play? How is Mass Effect?
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But am I forced to play basic boring NWN2 before MotB?
What strange master's studies involve video games, I wonder...
Temple of Elemental Evil. Most faithful DnD adaptation to a videogame ever.
Drakensang + River of Time (newer but a prequel). Basically based on the German DnD, The Dark Eye.
For something more action oriented:
Try Witcher 1 + 2. Action/RPGs with a heavy emphasis on the RPG part unlike Diablo or Dark Souls for example. Difficult too.
Star Wars KotoR 1 + 2. Uses d20 so it's very similar to the DnD mechanics.
Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines. Made by the people that made Temple of Elemental Evil. Buggy but an unofficial patch fixes almost everything.
Depends on your type of RPGs.
The Mass Effect series also emphasize the RPG part, than just shooting.
Actually, it is not a Master's Thesis, but a Major's thesis which is required by Brazilian Universities.
Be prepared, however, for a long and detailed explanation of what goes on in my case.
I'm majoring in Letras with 3 different emphases, namely Portuguese, English and Libras (Brazilian Sign Language) - each of which will produce a different degree due to systematic reasons. Letras studies the literary and linguistic arts, and has two different modalities: Bachelor's and Magister's - the Bachelor's focuses on Translation and Linguistics for the most part, while the Magister's focuses on Language Education and Literature as well as Historical ("dead") Languages. Each modality has a number of different Emphases - that is, Languages - which are chosen by the alumn - the languages offered by my university are currently English, French, German, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish for Bachelors and all of those plus Greek, Latin and Libras for Magisters. The bare course itself has 3 semesters, each modality adds 2 semesters to that, and each language adds further 2 semesters to the time for completion (with the exceptions of 1 for Libras and 3 for Latin and Greek) - bear in mind that Bachelors must have at least 2 Languages in their emphasis, with one of them being Portuguese - that makes the course last at least 4 years if you don't fail anything (even if you would somehow have completed all disciplines in less than four years, you would have to pick extra disciplines because all courses have a 4 year minimum, if you don't, your degree won't be validated and if you drop out it will expire in 2 years, requiring you to do the entire process again). I am currently juggling between both modalities, even though my official is Magister's, but once I complete all of the Bachelor's Disciplines, they will be obliged to acknowledge my own competence in it and emit my extra 2 degrees. This puts the total time required for me to receive all of my degrees and graduate at 6 years.
Furthermore, the structure of Brazilian Universities is different in that the best ones are public - that is, completely government run and free of charge - including my own University - however, to enter them, students must first take a grueling test where they will be pitted against each other in a battle of minds for the slots available on their courses, which are never enough to meet the demand (and honestly, most people who take the test are too simple-minded to gain access to the knowledge offered by the institution). This test is a multiple choice test with an additional written test called "Vestibular" (adjectival form of vestíbulo, from Latin Vestibulum - lit. "Entrance Corridor/Hall") which takes days and happens for four straight hours in each of the four days and is composed by 30 questions on each subject on a global perpective (so history and geography questions are far more likely to contain questions related to the rest of the world than Brazilian matters) - the subjects are as follow: Portuguese, Geography, Mathemathics, Physics, Chemistry, History, Geography, Foreign Language (same languages as Letras' Bachelor's emphases) plus the Text. The tests are conducted in public schools where the testtakers are kept under constant vigil by the ever-watchful eyes of the Fiscais (lit. "watchpeople) - the total number of people taking the test each year is about 30000 people, each hoping to seize one of the slots for themselves - over 50 courses are offered, and each of them has usually only around 50 slots to fill - only the very best manage to succeed, the unenlightened are culled away by the process with no hope of return for their money (the enrollment fee for the test alone is around 40 dollars - please note that the average monthly income of a Brazilian is about 400 dollars). If cheating is verified to have occured, the testtaker is forever expelled from taking the test again, and depending on its severity, might even face criminal charges against their being - do note that cheating also includes the wearing of hats, eating during the test, having electronic devices on your person during the test (barring those used for health reasons, such as hearing aids and insulin checkers and injectors, but even then only with the recommendation of a certified doctor), disturbing the peace, getting up during the test without authorization from a watchperson, sleeping during the test, using pencils or non-black inked pens in the test, carrying any liquid other than water on your person during the test and wearing baggy clothes.
- Might & Magic series. Notably VII, VIII and X (that one's new) - good old-school RPGs
- Wizardry 8 - good old-school RPG, can be quite hard. It's a bit older, but not much and still pretty playable
- Realms of Arkania - the old DOS games were interesting. Especially the third one. The first installment got a remake last year and I hear it's unplayable without the patch and very good with it.
- Drakensang - I personally find this one "meh", but I hear some people like it.
...plus, if you don't mind RPGs with a bit more strategy (Temple of Elemental Evil borders on RPG strategy already)
- Jagged Alliance (older game. more of a "strategy with RPG features", but very interesting)
- Shadowrun Returns (new, cyberpunk-themed tactical RPG and I liked it very much)
If you're willing to dip into older games then I find System Shock 2 rewarding. It's a great cyberpunk FPS/RPG/horror, and there are a few graphic update mods that make it easier on the eyes. Don't play it alone with the lights off. You can get it on GoG.
In a similar vein Deus Ex 1 is a classic. The plot gets twisty and odd as most conspiracy thrillers do, but the atmosphere and world are great. Again, it's an FPS/RPG hybrid.
Thanks for the advices. Can somebody rate me:
-NWN2 MODS. Worthy?
-Legend of Grimrock
-Deus Ex: Human Revolution
-The Witcher 3
PS: Somebody bought me Mass Effect Trilogy. I guess it should be my start.
Do you know if they've fixed that by now?
The only real complaint is that the occasional Boss Fight forces you to take an all-guns-blazing approach that doesn't fit with the rest of the game. For 95% of the game you can avoid combat, use non-lethal takedowns, hack turrets and robots to become neutral of fight for you etc, but at a couple of points you're forced into a firefight. Just make sure you've got a fully-upgraded Combat Rifle in your inventory even if you're playing stealthily.
Star Wars: The Old Republic did a few things very well. All group quests could be repeated daily, so if you were playing a healer or tank you could run them a few times to compensate for generally slower levelling. Having an AI companion also took a bit of the sting out of the usual "kill X mobs" quests as you could take on packs and reduce downtime compared to other games. Upgradeable gear let you pick a look and keep it, avoiding a lot of the colour-clash issues that plague other MMOs.
The first set of endgame content was very disappointing though. Bugged to hell, unimaginative fights were one problem. The decision to keep things Alliance/Sith neutral by having Hutt & Rakata raids meant that a lot of it didn't feel like Star Wars, just some generic Sci-fi. The game was more fun having a bunch of low-level alts than one or two powerful characters.
I don't know, to be honest; I lapsed for a while and now any time I open the launcher it spends an hour and a half installing all the patches I've missed.
When I was playing it initially, though, I didn't notice any slowdowns or extended load times. This was about a year ago--but then again, my internet connection is pretty fast, so that may have helped.
@MonoCanalla
The fetch quests aren't that numerous--and actually most of the time they're sensible. "Fetch three lightsaber parts" is actually "Fetch components X, Y, and Z from that area and find out what happened to their last owner(s)." So when you come back you actually get to talk about what happened instead of just getting credits and XP. The "Kill 20 womprats" missions are clearer in their purpose, letting you know exactly why the womprats need to be killed and (again) letting you take whatever stance you need to for your character to accept the mission.
Again, it's still an MMO, so even with the justifications (and they're all well-written, at least from what I've experienced) you may find the fetch-and-kill quests to be tiresome. But actually if you enjoyed Dragon Age and KOTOR, you'll probably get a kick out of it.
(Also it's free to play unless you want the goodies that come with a $10 investment, so there's very little risk involved.)
Final Fantasy (VI, VII) is like a not interactive good book with repetitive dungeon crawling. That's why I don't play anymore.
Skyrim is not interactive, not good literature, extremely realistic and beautiful (except people), yet not repetitive but definitely not original. As I said, a blessing for good modders. Too bad I don't play it on PC. Well, I don't play it at all.
So said that, my hope is a classic rpg I didn't play, the NWN2 modding community if runs in Mac as it seems (as by playing Mac, I can't enjoy the Baldur's Gate mods), and Mass Effect, which everybody says is worthy. Shadowrun mods could be great too.
Regardless, solid game with a few puzzles that caused me to hate everything. Never beat it as a result.
For example, I tried both Subraces and Stratagems. I unzipped in override and portraits, and didn't work. I tried to winskin the .exe, and no luck either (nothing happens). Also, few things from the entertainment sphere of my life would give me joy as much as if I could make my own mods for this game...
I quit a while ago when my subscription expired, mostly because I do not find its plot very compelling, but also because the playerbase is composed by a bunch of fundamentalist half-wits.
To edit the game's file I recommend using Near Infinity, it's a Java program so you don't need Wineskin for it, you can find it here.
Hope this helps
I remember those times when I was in a graveyard looking ahead and seeing no monsters. It was all the standard organ music and such. Then suddenly, the combat music would play, but since there was no monster in front of me, I turned around... to see a bunch of vampires or other nasty undead attacking me and shrieking away. Scared the bejeebers out of me sometimes when the transition was particularly abrupt.
It's almost Planescape level writing throughout but the 13 month development cycle me1ans it collapses in on itself in the end, unless you mod back what was cut.
Then after, SSI made Ravenloft. I loved the campaign setting of the table top, and I was so excited. Problem is, you were forced to play just in the realm of the mummy Lord, so it all was Egyptian desert like. Disappointing in a way. I was expecting the gothic transilvanian experience. Besides, this game was less linear, but what non linear, full world experience was in the 90s meant, you could freely bump into Gish level enemies at the beginning. in my opinion that's better than the current Bethesda system, but it lead to so many reloads.
http://crpgaddict.blogspot.de
he's still in 1990 though slowly catching up so it might take a few more years till he gets to the games discussed here