[quote who="Aractain" reply="166" id="2684572"]Its a pretty simple forumla. First start with your monomyth, or as I call it exaggerated human experince. Second get your self a structure which offers the illusion of choice and scope while being manageable by lowest common denomintor human (without whom, there would be no Dragon Age at all). Third ??? (Something about good gameplay). Fourth Profit. Really
Bioware puts a lot, a lot of focus on their characters. Not all stories are character driven like that, but a lot of Bioware games are. I am going to give them credit for that. So what if some of the story-line is a bit recycled. As has been mentioned a dozen times before, pretty much all the modern authors do this, whether they want to admit it or not. It's the flavor, the twist, the tweak, whatever you want to call it that makes an idea&nb
[quote who="Jarenko" reply="58" id="2683136"]That could be a good compromise. I'm not really sure what their vision is for SP. What about other games like GalCiv II? I was never too into that one in particular so I'm not sure how balanced the different races were or if there was one that was more powerful in reality if not by design. I just don't see what purpose having one faction stronger than others serves. The storyline for the gam
Maybe they can introduce a point system of some kind, like a multiplayer mode that only gives you so many points to create factions that are balanced as opposed to messing with the original faction ideas that are in the single-player. In your example, if you think mages are powerful, it would cost more points to chose that sovereign over a fighter sov. This way they're not sacrificing anything in single-player and providing an user created only faction map sort of thing.
[quote who="Jarenko" reply="51" id="2683077"] To me and to most people who play multiplayer games, balance is important. It is clear that it is not important to you and your friends and that is fine but it has little bearing on the actual discussion at hand. [/quote] Justb because you don't like what you are hearing, doesn't mean it has little bearing on the discussion. Elemental doesn't need clan support, and it doesn't have to b
[quote who="Tridus" reply="49" id="2682939"] And the number of people playing that mod multiplayer is a rounding error compared to the people playing normal Civ multiplayer. MP balance is important if your goal is to not have most people just use the most powerful faction every game because it's the most powerful faction. [/quote] Your not going to get that in Elemental, and it's not necsesary anyway. If your friends and you are only after playing the
[quote who="Jarenko" reply="47" id="2682860"] Besides that, this was about faction balance. While it IS possible for Portugal to take over the world, you can hardly claim that Portugal is on par with other factions overall. It is not. Looking over multiplayer games, it is always the same few countries in the lead. [/quote] Perhaps you are playing with the same people which would explain why you see the same countries? Also, the goal of EU and Crusaders
[quote who="Jarenko" reply="45" id="2682844"] Quoting Nesrie, reply 44 Quoting Jarenko, reply 42 MP balance is important in a game like Elemental. Games like Europa Universalis are not balanced in MP because they are based on history. History is not balanced. No matter how you twist it, Portugal will never go toe to toe with France and yet both are viable "factions" if you will. Right because all games
[quote who="WhiteElk" reply="482" id="2682776"]Yeah, I shoulda said "knows the frequency of the booms" vs "how infrequent [they] have become". Just wanted to point out that Stardock knows precisely the frequency of this event. [/quote] Yeah one of them said something like 50, but i just find that figure suspect. Unless the forum visitor numbers are so low, so terribly low that I am actually having 10% of the errors.
[quote who="Jarenko" reply="42" id="2682716"] MP balance is important in a game like Elemental. Games like Europa Universalis are not balanced in MP because they are based on history. History is not balanced. No matter how you twist it, Portugal will never go toe to toe with France and yet both are viable "factions" if you will. [/quote] Right because all games that deal with history are not balanced... guess 2K missed that memo [e d
[quote who="WhiteElk" reply="480" id="2682741"]The forums have been kind to me of late. No booms and no delays :~) I suppose the network team already knows how infrequent the boomings have become. The logs tell them so. [/quote] I had three today already. I've seen claims there are only 50 a day or something like that. I am sure by the time the day is over I'll have 5 total. Somehow it seems unlikely that I, alone, am experiencing 10% of the booms.</p
[quote who="Annatar11" reply="143" id="2682665"] The means something part is the subjective part of art. Art can mean nothing to someone and everything to someone else. You are correct with your comparison although I think i might have compared a STOP sign to another sign for emphasis. Because art is subjective in the eyes of a the beholder, that's why it's so easy for people to argue about it, and not agree. That's also how you wind up with some people claiming all video games are art a
[quote who=" Aractain " reply="138" id="2682619"] Quoting Annatar11, reply 137 That is not true. Have you studied art by chance? All photographs are not art. Art is an expression, not just a thing. Art is not classified by what it is but what it expresses, what it conveys. If you walk around your house taking photographs of your stuff so you have an inventory of your things for insurance purposes, that is not art. If you walk around yo
EU3 isn't balanced. If it the Paradox crowd is around, lacking balance won't be an issue provided its not just a 2 vs 2, 4 vs 4 brawl. It doesn't sound like Elemental is going to be like that (a giant ongoing brawl) to me.
[quote who="Polynomial" reply="134" id="2682546"] Quoting Autarkhos, reply 131 It had style and it examined both objectivism and the value of choice. As far as I could tell, anyway. The game was dull as hell other than that, though. Do you like any games? Bioshock was an important game for the industry and one hell of a good game to boot. [/quote] This was a stupid question to ask, since the answer is obviousl. You seem to have serious
[quote who="Annatar11" reply="129" id="2682400"] Art is subjective. The classification of art is not subjective. If one painting is art, so is another. If one statue, then so is another. If one game is art, then so must all other games be. The subjective part is which of these pieces of art you like and which you don't, but not whether or not it is, in fact, art. [/quote] That is not true. Have you studied art by chance? All photographs are not art. Art is
[quote who="Autarkhos" reply="126" id="2682370"] Quoting Nesrie, reply 124 Any games you don't like you consider art? Heavy Rain and Bioshock are two off the top of my head examples, as well as some of the really art-y flash "games" (interactive movies, really, but that's a different discussion) that you see about. [/quote] Just making sure you weren't focusing on only games you like as an art form, which of cousre would be a natural t
[quote who="OMG_blackmage" reply="79" id="2682354"]No what I was targeting was the phrsse you said Quoting Nesrie, reply 68 My question is, why the hell would you use an engine that can't do something that was pretty popular in original in its sequel? Of cousre this leads some people to believe that going 3D destroys 2D strategy type games. I am not sure its the move to 3D that's the problem so much as which
[quote who="Autarkhos" reply="123" id="2682338"] Monkey Island's an adventure game I'd count as art. So is Silent Hill 2 for the survival horror genre. It needs to actively tell a story with levels of meaning beyond the obvious in order to be counted as art in the gaming world. Otherwise every single game could be counted as a work of art, and I don't think that's territory where we want to go, really. [/quote] Any games you don't like you consider
You spent 2 paragraphs making an argument about 3-D not destroying 2-D strategy games. You honestly said "no" to an a question that was never asked. I am sure you are aware that HD graphics don't have to be 3D right? And if you were responding to my comment about Majesty 2, a series which evidently you have never played, the issue was never about the game being 3D but that everything in the game is stagnant, making the replayability zero, nilch, nada. They also completely removed the AI, no A
Heh, i was excited for a moment, then i got boomed again.
[quote who=" Autarkhos " reply="114" id="2681962"] No, they're really not. Ebert was pretty much right, a lot of games AREN'T art. Just like a terribad movie without any value isn't a piece of art, your typical game also isn't. Point to me a game you view as art. You keep repeating the same thing that doesn't apply to the discussion at hand at all. You sound like a broken record. It seems you think it's an amazing p
[quote who="OMG_blackmage" reply="74" id="2681953"] Quoting Nesrie, reply 70 Way to completely miss the point. Congratulations. No I got the point just fine, those were questions I'm asking you and majesty 2 who complained about the randomized dungeons. [/quote] Yeah, you weren't asking questions. You were making a point, probably about a game you never played. Have you played Majesty 1 or 2? And don't make the assumption that anyone w
[quote who="Andorfiend" reply="71" id="2681670"] And I'll also state that, for the record, games are not considered an art form because of their graphics. They are considered an art form as an interactive story telling media. [/quote] Haven't you heard, Mr. Ebert doesn't think video games can ever be an art form. Oh and he got this opinion by playing maybe 2 games in his life.
[quote who="sydneysiders" reply="465" id="2681598"]been behaving well here...... knock on wood.... [/quote] Mine was too until it took around a minute to post. I suppose that's better than getting a boom? [e digicons]:hugme:[/e]
Stardock Forums