Official Off-Topic Thread

[Photocopier]

Pixeljoint's down for me atm, anyone else or just me?
EDIT: false alarm it's back now

[JJ Naas]

PJ works ok for me...

...

I've recently been playing a demo of an indie-rpg Eschalon Book II. I've never played the first game, but at least this one is pretty good. It's turn based, the graphics are ok, it plays well and intuitively and incorporates many of the things that made the 90's rpgs like Ultima 6-8 and Baldur's Gate good. That genre is these days pretty much dead (Diablo doesn't count) and sort of old-skooly, but for whatever reason those games went out of fashion, it wasn't because the gameplay was bad. So I'm thankful that someone still makes games like those, and Eschalon Book II fills that gap perfectly. The story is a bit lame and the graphics could be better at times, but I'm still seriously considering of buying the full version.

[EyeCraft]

Oh man. I bought Eschalon Book I ages ago, and played it a tonne. I really love it. Been meaning to get the second one, but I know that it would eat a lot of my time. 

[JJ Naas]

Eyecraft: yeah, this would take a lot of time. It took me about 5-6 hours to explore every corner of the demo area which covers about one tenth of the entire map. Very enjoyable game, I'll definitely get the full version at some point. The only problem I have is with the plot. The main plot is a standard "fetch x number of magical items to save the world". You're also managing only one character, which is fine, but it removes in-party subplots like in Baldur's Gate, those soap opera moments between the party members were awesome. There was some of that in Ultima as well. Talking of Ultima, the world of Eschalon is a very standard fantasy world, it doesn't have much depth. In Ultima, be it Britannia, Serpent Isle or even Pagan, the world feels so alive and so full of history and mystery and occasional weirdness.. Garriot's weird-ass philosophies, some really tragic npcs, occasional madness ("take me to my nightmare"), teleport storms, participating in blood rituals. I loved exploring Serpent Isle which was also scattered with old ruins of the ancient civilization, more modern villas and cities built on top of the ruins, The world of Eschalon is a bit too bland. But I'm judging by the demo which is unfair. Still.. they've got an awesome engine and the graphics have a timeless look to them, they'd really benefit having a better writer for the next game.

(I felt like rambling about this.. sorry.)

[crab2selout.png]

Kinda sounds like how I felt when playing Elder Scrolls 4. Lots of quests and such to make use of your time, but I found the world mythology incredibly boring and generic. I ended up deleting it from my harddrive once I realised all I was going to get was a fuzzy,empty feeling by completing a big list of quests for a world that bores me.

[JJ Naas]

Kinda sounds like how I felt when playing Elder Scrolls 4. Lots of quests and such to make use of your time, but I found the world mythology incredibly boring and generic.

I was hooked on Oblivion mostly because it was one of the few rpgs in which playing a rogue character wasn't completely pointless, so I finished the Thief-quests and became the guild master.. and then lost interest. But it was generic as well. A world in another space and time SHOULD offer occasional total weirdness and unfamiliarity, weird landscapes, really odd creatures and strange customs and cultures. There are bigger culture shocks available on this planet than on most of the game fantasy worlds.

[Jorund]

This happens a lot on RPGs lately, many are following the Bethesda style where "action" is important, they strip away any depth in the story cause most people don't care about it, and since this boring RPGs are successful economically this won't change. Even Dragon Age, being devoloped by Bioware, was kind of boring.
I like Mass Effect though, but it's not pure RPG.

*sigh* I missed old Fallouts.

[Helm]

Actually Eschalon isn't heavy on story for a completely different reason to the other games you listed. It is old-school in that what's more interesting is the story that plays out in your head instead of the one provided. I'd like it if it was even *more* open-ended and reacted to stuff the player did, really. Dragon Age is *full* of story, and it's boring in my opinion to go through. If I wanted a third-rate fantasy novel, I'd just go out and buy one.

Eschalon isn't a fantasy game primarily in the sense that there's not much fantastical about it. All the tropes of it are common in this sort of gaming now. It's an immersive simulation type of game. You get from it what you put in most of all.

[JJ Naas]

Helm: It may very well be that Eschalon is at heart more like early Ultimas, ADoM, Desktop Dungeons, Nethack or the oh-so-glorious Nahlakh, very "make your own story" -kind, and as such it seems like a great game. But it comes with a quest log/npc interaction system that is similar to the ones in Ultima/Baldur's Gate/Oblivion -like games, so I guess I automatically compare it to those rather than the Nethack -like games.

[Helm]

That the game has an option early on to denounce the main quest of trying to find the killer of whomever and instead go on exploring the world for your own purposes should clue you in.