[taidan]

[GcDiaz]

Does Bioshock PC only allow ONE active save game at any given time? What's this about "accounts" anyway? This isn't Shadowrun.

EDIT: Oh, ok. Windoze user accounts. Dummy should've installed for all.
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Steam/PSN/Xbawks: GcDiaz

Let's bring sexy back!

[dhex]

no but it does have a save game limit - which totally fucking sucks. i stagger saves, and i save extra when i find something neat i might want to retry or show someone else.
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[zak]

I jumped on this bandwagon and got the game today (PC version). Didn't read much of this thread before because I wanted to approach it with an open mind, so sorry if I say something that's been already said.
I played for a few hours and got to the part where you reach Atlas and the submarine.

I also replayed System Shock 2 a few days ago, so, like it or not, my mind keeps drawing parallels between the two games. It doesn't scare me as much as SS2, dunno why. It's probably the voices. The hybrids had this kind of synthetic ring to their voice, they wailed and screamed, whereas the splicers kind of just sound like crazy people. Even the computers in SS2 sounded scary as hell, delivering crazy speeches in monotone voices. And with all the modern graphics Bioshock isn't all that scary. It took a guy jumping out from behind a couch to give me a scare (kind of like in Doom3 - gets really old, really fast). It does have great atmosphere, but all in all the deep ocean and genetic engineering just doesn't feel as desperate as deep space and aliens.

There's no inventory, but I sort of understand this decision since now you get to carry around more weapons and ammo, without having to micromanage inventory space. The plasmids are really fun.

What sort of bothers me is the lack of skills. Hacking is useful, and it has that fun minigame, but it's too easy in the end. The weapon modding skill has been replaced with those upgrade machines (although you still upgrade damage, clip size and reload times). And research is now just taking pictures of the enemy, which, excuse me, is dumb and makes no fucking sense whatsoever.

In a way they removed all choice from the game (heard there are two endings, but I'm not talking about that - not talking about the little sister thing either). Whereas in SS2 you played the game in a certain way, focusing on certain skills, and building a character, in Bioshock everyone will have basically the same experience, since you'll be doing everything in your first run. You can burn your enemy with plasmids, get bored of it and switch to blowing them up with a grenade thrower. You have access to all the possible ways of getting rid of the splicers, without having to choose a path like in SS2. At some point I was burning everything with plasmids, and wondering if I should use my guns more. Or maybe I should hack some security cameras instead of destroying them. The game lets you do everything you want, but maybe it shouldn't.
It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I expected more.

On the other hand it's very cinematic, and uses a variety of methods to tell its story. The beginning sequence where you ride that bathysphere is great, and so are the audio logs (although they were more helpful in SS2, from a gameplay perspective). And I love fighting the big daddies, but it's starting to wear a little thin after a couple of battles.

Going to bed now, and looking forward to playing some more tomorrow, but unless something major happens I'm afraid it's gonna get pretty dull after a few more hours of play.

[Dracko]

The hacking becomes harder as the game progresses.

Though one of the problems affiliated with that is the alarm and breakdown pieces are randomly placed, and it isn't rare that you'll find there is simply no way to beat the mini-game because these parts block the way.

I'm glad they got rid of the skill sets. That's a vestige of older games, in a time where such things were felt to be necessary. They could have done more to compensate for it, or not done anything at all, Hell, but I appreciate that they're trying, at the very least.
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[Dark Age Iron Savior]

[internisus]

YES

[Dracko]

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

So things like how good an archer someone is or how good they are casting healing spells should depend on the player's skill?
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[sethsez]

[Dracko]

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

Well, for one thing, player skill affecting how good the character is at archery necessitates real-time combat.

I'm interested in your ideas for implementing a real-time system which determines how good a character is at casting healing magic.
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[sethsez]

[internisus]

[sethsez]

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

[internisus]

[sethsez]

[internisus]

It's not broken gameplay design just because it's possible to take advantage of one of its fundamental features by wasting enormous amounts of time repeating tasks over and over! After all, current RPGs allow just that through grinding -- what you're talking about is the same thing. What do we say about current RPGs and people who grind to level 99 before they leave the first dungeon? Do we say that the game is broken, or do we say fuck those people?

[sethsez]

[Hot Stott Bot]

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

[internisus]

Who says your man can't have pre-existing traits? Have some imagination!

Sethsez, dude, I'm not sure what to say to you. I mean, every line you have there makes me want to say "yeah fine but you're assuming that this kind of design can't be done well with people all like thinking while they're doing it."

Like. For example. You're worried about people taping their buttons down. I understand this. You would have a lot of bitch-ass gamers with sticky buttons. While economy would expand, morale would die. As a solution, I offer this humble thought: perhaps such a notion as we have been discussing up here could be implemented in such a manner than a person has to be all pressing buttons to do things rather than holding them down. I think that you will find such a strategy to be satisfactory for all involved parties.

If you like this modest idea, please contact me privately so that I can discuss some other innovations with you. The original ideas that I have outlined above are still untested, so I am prepared to offer you a generous price for their use. If you are interested, I suggest getting in on this burgeoning money-seed early, before it breaks on the open market.

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

[internisus]

i mean -- and this is hard to imagine i know -- a game could start -- this is all hypothetical -- with the player-character as, like, a character who is like characterized as i dunno a guy who has been living let's say for a year or more and as such a living dude who is alive and keeping himself that way he has some experience maybe you know killing animals with arrows and therefore he has skills with arrows and things that shoot arrows

this is just an example, i wanted to make it concrete so you could picture it being a real premise for a game. if you are up to it try switching the whole arrow thing for like swords or something but make sure you keep the idea of the character as a character who was a character before you picked up the joystick. i know this is unusual so i appreciate the stretch of imagination you are undertaking with me on this fantastic voyage.

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

So archery is one of his skills in his skill set.
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[internisus]

by thinking in terms of "sets" of skills you are undermining the organic integration of stats and gameplay that is the point of this exercise.

[Ratoslov]

[slipstream]

Dracko, quit being a jackasss just because everyone isn't goose-stepping in line to your opinions.
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[Maztorre]

If you want to discourage grinding to boost skills a simple solution that is internally consistent is to have a cap on how much skill can be obtained from each type of enemy. After a certain point the game/character will acknowledge that they have nothing more to gain from battling these foes, or whatever.

[Maztorre]

Pretty much.

[Intentionally Wrong]

You guys sound like you're trying to characterize a forest by examining individual trees, when really you should be more interested in the geological qualities of the land itself.

Yes, if verisimilitude and immersion are important qualities for your game design, then skill-sets, managed-time systems and the like are unnecessary distractions. We've been over all this before.


Dracko, I am consistently impressed with the vigor of your criticism; you aren't blinded by enthusiasm the way I often suspect I am. That said, you have a very specific idea of where videogames' future lies. I think you're too quick to dismiss anything that isn't a step closer to that future. Just from the opinions I've seen you voice on other media, I'm sure you'll disagree with what I'm about to say, but I still think it's important so I'm going to say it anyway: a work does not have to make the most efficient possible use of its medium in order to be worthwhile.

Actually, I think we've had that argument on here before, too.


Guys, the self-correcting difficulty slider represented by a level-based game isn't nearly the perfect solution some of you seem to be implying that it is. Yes, such a system does enable some players to progress through a game at an appropriate difficulty level. I'd like to believe that I was doing this in Persona 3! More often, though, many players find the game far too easy and a small handful find it too hard. That's because players do not grind until the game is "just challenging enough"; they grind until the boredom of grinding outweighs the excitement of getting stronger.

It seems that isn't the issue here, though. To hear you talk about the guys who break these systems, you'd think we were talking about child molesters or something. In tabletop gaming, it's called min-maxing, and a lot of people revile it there, but that's at least understandable: it usually destroys the atmosphere of cooperation and mutual dependence that makes your more gamist RPGs function. What does that matter in a single-player game, though? It doesn't. If a guy gets joy out of tipping the pinball machine backwards and seeing how high the score counter will go, let him have his fun. He's going to find ways to do that no matter how easy or hard you make it for him; Internisus is right in that you should be trying to enable the majority rather than disable the minority.

I've got to agree that these skill-based advancement systems are probably more trouble than they're worth, though. It didn't work in Final Fantasy 2, it didn't work in The Elder Scrolls, and it sure as fuck didn't work in Fable, although in the end Fable never really tried. I'm sure one day a game will come along that proves me wrong. In the meantime, I'm convinced it doesn't work as well in a videogame as it does on paper.
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JSNLV is frequently and intentionally wrong.

[Dracko]

[dhex]

[boojiboy7]

dhex, have you played Black yet? It is a game that has no ambition other than being a blast, and man, I love it for that.

[dhex]

yes, but i did not think much of it. it sadly reaffirmed that the consoles de japanesos types don't know shit from fuck when it comes to fps games. or maybe i didn't like the controls a whole hell of a lot (that's definitely part of it, moving from a mouse to a joystick is like moving from a hitachi magic wand to a really low pressure showerhead)

the movies, though, i loved those! it was such a letdown to see the game wasn't nearly as hot as the trailers...in a world...we had a job to do...now all that's left...is to pick up...the...pieces...

and so forth. truly fantastico!
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[boojiboy7]

Oh well, to each his own, I guess. I am curious what Black would have done in the PC market.

[dhex]

it could have been operation wolf 2.0, really.

that's the game it reminded me most of.
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[boojiboy7]

I could see that, I guess. One of the problems I think the game has is that the designers weren't too sure no how to guide you to a place without just making it the blatantly only place you could go. the second level, for example, is just way to unguided in that there are some definitely incredible moments to be had, but only if you already know where you are going.

[sethsez]

[Dracko]

I see you've cleared the basics.
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