Tolwyn and the Nephilim

Nomad Terror said:
I dunno. It was *really* easy to screw up the war effort entirely towards the end of WC3. If the Victory doesn't push forward with the T Bomb, Earth falls. That sure gave me the impression of how vital the Victory's position was. Destroy Kilrah or humanity falls.
Yeah, that's true... but prior to the truce, Confed was winning. It was the Kilrathi that had to resort to a dirty trick to get a fighting chance... Confed leaders were stupid to fall for that trick, obviously, but that still doesn't mean that humanity as a whole needs to be tinkered with. So Tolwyn's argument that it was all a big fluke makes no sense.
 
Oops so we are in agreement on the whole "Confed probably would have won without miracles without the truce" thing.

I just mean that Tolwyn didn't want a human race anymore who fell for dirty tricks and then had to pull off seemingly impossible tricks to correct their blunders.
 
Yes, Confed fell for the Kilrathi false peace treaty and civilians in government, politicians and all were foolishly to believe it yet they only people who did not believe the treaty were the military including, Taggart, Banbridge, Tolwyn and other officers. The government should have run a background check before going ahead with the peace treaty the government wanted.

At the moment I would be in favour that Confed would need miracles every once in a while to win a campagin or a war. It what makes history. What we do in the past and present is determine by what people see it in the future. I hope this makes sense others.
 
The Miracle is called PLAYER. in a game based on a fictional universe,and where the story is of utmost importance, you sometimes put the player in a dire position, so that his victories are more worthy. Playing for dozens or hundreds of hours just to save the kitty from the tree is not very fulfilling.

Quake and UT can get by without stories because they are competion-based, not story/plot-based. Even with its great gameplay, Wing commander wouldn't go far without a compeling storyline. nor would Quake 3 arena without its mp component.

so yeah, confed is pretty good in putting itself in very bad situations. That's why they screwed up after Vega, again after Enigma and once more after beating the kats. Then the very powerfull and evil bugs came along. After all, the kats were really beaten, and the civil war card can only be used once in a while. That's all par for the course. No new threat, no game. Unless they release WCO, and then we will just fly around calling people n00bz0rx and griefing each other. Or maybe, just maybe, we will make up a great online gaming comunity, for a change :)
 
A good storyline makes a damn good game.
No offense to those who enjoy FPS but they are very boring and repetitive, as it they are all the same, move around pick up things and shoot things. I suppose I would say the same things with RTS or flight sims but FPS is getting all the same
 
Dahan said:
A good storyline makes a damn good game.
Many good stories are not games at all. Your thesis needs adjustment.
No offense to those who enjoy FPS but they are very boring and repetitive, as it they are all the same, move around pick up things and shoot things.
This makes no sense. First of all, many FPS games these days come burdened with these "storylines" everyone is so needlessly fond of today. Everyone, right or wrong, raves on and on about Halo and Half-Life and whatnot and their ever-so compelling plots, disproving immediately your position that the FPS genre lacks in story.

Videogames aren't some kind of fine art. They were fun long before 40-minute cutscenes existed, and they still can be without them.

That aside, it's stupid to take some group of games and boil them down to their core elements. Everything boils down to some idiotically simple level, you can't have it both ways and ignore such things about whatever you've personally limited yourself to enjoying.

The much-vaunted Grand Theft Auto games are only twice as complex as Pong, being that they have you move things (like Pong,) but also include a harm-people button. You move and harm people, oh how open-ended and revolutionary. Why, I wish I had invented a game of such staggeringly powerful vision that it contained two whole functions.
I suppose I would say the same things with RTS or flight sims but FPS is getting all the same
There are games that some people enjoy playing, and there are games that suck, and it's best not to focus too hard on why. This is definitely a sum-of-their-parts issue, and it takes an impossibly narrow view of things to say it's because of X component.

Your game can have the Best Story Ever and still suck balls. It can have none at all and be more fun than anyone deserves to have. Applying some kind of arbitrary litmus test is needlessly narrow-minded and irritating to everyone around you.
 
Dahan said:
A good storyline makes a damn good game.

Right, yeah. And also gameplay. Far more importantly gameplay. I'd rather play a fun game with a crappy story(Ninja Gaiden) than a crappy game with a great story(Final Fantasy)
No offense to those who enjoy FPS but they are very boring and repetitive, as it they are all the same, move around pick up things and shoot things. I suppose I would say the same things with RTS or flight sims but FPS is getting all the same

Wow, you're right. I mean, it's like all those adventure games I played. THey all had me picking up items and solving puzzles. How the hell did I ever put up with such tedious repetition? And Flight Sims, I mean, damn. All I ever do is fly to a waypoint and kill something. And don't even get me started on RTS games. They all have me harvest some stupid mineral, and they build units until I can defeat the enemy.

Good thing I had you to point out that FPS is the only genre ever to have similar gameplay within..the genre? Thats for letting me know. I mean, I didn't expect Doom3 and Half-Life 2 to be at all similar, but now I know.

(In case you didn't notice, your description of the boring, repetitive FPS genre works for every other genre too)
 
So far as story goes - the storyline's important... but how the story is told and delivered makes all the difference in the world. The reason Half-Life is talked about (still) is because of how the story was given to the player; in bits and pieces, immersing them in the first-person view for the whole thing - you weren't treated to traditional cutscenes which took place outside of your perspective, or shown a lot of stuff in the "Meanwhile, elsewhere..." type of cinematic which took away from the immersion and illusion that one was the main character. Deus Ex is another FPS-type game with a decent story, which provided a virtual world with a distinct setting that mixed paranoid conspiracy theories with the New World Order and told it in a way that let the player discover a lot of background on their own. While it DID use cutscenes, the freedom to do things in a different way (I didn't have to shoot a lot of people to get through the whole game) made it different and delvered the story better than some RPGs I can name (Icewind Dale, FF X). Worse yet are the stories which have screen after screen of text to explain everything in the story, to the point where it's more an interactive novel than a game.

Gameplay's also important - one of the complaints people had about Metal Gear Solid 2 (which itself had quite a bit of storyline... in fact, ridiculous amounts of story and background) was that the gameplay made it feel like one kept moving from one cutscene to another, a complaint which was also levelled against WC4, IIRC. Xenosaga Ep I had a similar problem, due to its half-hour long cinematics. You got a lot of story, sure, but the game could get awful tedious with all those cutscenes.
 
Haesslich said:
Gameplay's also important - one of the complaints people had about Metal Gear Solid 2 (which itself had quite a bit of storyline... in fact, ridiculous amounts of story and background) was that the gameplay made it feel like one kept moving from one cutscene to another, a complaint which was also levelled against WC4, IIRC. Xenosaga Ep I had a similar problem, due to its half-hour long cinematics. You got a lot of story, sure, but the game could get awful tedious with all those cutscenes.
Yeah. If you spend more time watching cutscenes than playing the game, then personally, I don't really want to play it. If I want long cutscenes I'll watch a movie.

As for a successful game, it needs to have good gameplay, the story can be dire, but if the gameplay is great, then it just doesn't matter. On the other hand, f a game has a great story, but crappy gameplay, it doesn't make for a great game, and should be a novel or a movie instead.
 
I suppose everyone has a right to make an opinion to what they think of games.

Your game can have the Best Story Ever and still suck balls. It can have none at all and be more fun than anyone deserves to have. Applying some kind of arbitrary litmus test is needlessly narrow-minded and irritating to everyone around you.

Agreed, but then many games losts its appeal, even when I first played Halo and Halflife it last for what for me about an hour or so and that was it.

That aside, it's stupid to take some group of games and boil them down to their core elements. Everything boils down to some idiotically simple level, you can't have it both ways and ignore such things about whatever you've personally limited yourself to enjoying.

I was trynig not to, but to put out that many games today seem to losts its appeal, I intend not to offend anyone who loves their Halflifes, Dooms, Halos, and other what nots

Right, yeah. And also gameplay. Far more importantly gameplay. I'd rather play a fun game with a crappy story(Ninja Gaiden) than a crappy game with a great story(Final Fantasy)

Most games I enjoy usually have a good story line and quite addictive to play. In this case Wing Commander is an addictive and a good game to play. Call me a hypocrite but yes Wing Commander is a typical flight sim which you shoots down enemy ships, listen to people talk and try to win the game, but what I find interesting was that teh game had developed a history which is appealing to even the not so avid gamer. But then this is only one point of view and is one of many around the WC community.

Sure this kind of topic has been brought up numerous of times, but then someone would bring back the issue and see what people think now compare to what they thought of games maybe about 5 years ago.
One example is Baldurs Gate, although the game play was long winded and took long to get to a certain stage it had a story which was appealing to me ie a child of Bhaal who was looked after by Gorion who was a mage and a story of behind the child's identity is reveal.

Wow, you're right. I mean, it's like all those adventure games I played. THey all had me picking up items and solving puzzles. How the hell did I ever put up with such tedious repetition? And Flight Sims, I mean, damn. All I ever do is fly to a waypoint and kill something. And don't even get me started on RTS games. They all have me harvest some stupid mineral, and they build units until I can defeat the enemy.

Good thing I had you to point out that FPS is the only genre ever to have similar gameplay within..the genre? Thats for letting me know. I mean, I didn't expect Doom3 and Half-Life 2 to be at all similar, but now I know.

(In case you didn't notice, your description of the boring, repetitive FPS genre works for every other genre too)

One does not need to be sarcastic about people's opinion. Every individual is has a right to their views, what I see is only from a certain point of view.

So far as story goes - the storyline's important... but how the story is told and delivered makes all the difference in the world. The reason Half-Life is talked about (still) is because of how the story was given to the player; in bits and pieces, immersing them in the first-person view for the whole thing - you weren't treated to traditional cutscenes which took place outside of your perspective, or shown a lot of stuff in the "Meanwhile, elsewhere..." type of cinematic which took away from the immersion and illusion that one was the main character. Deus Ex is another FPS-type game with a decent story, which provided a virtual world with a distinct setting that mixed paranoid conspiracy theories with the New World Order and told it in a way that let the player discover a lot of background on their own. While it DID use cutscenes, the freedom to do things in a different way (I didn't have to shoot a lot of people to get through the whole game) made it different and delvered the story better than some RPGs I can name (Icewind Dale, FF X). Worse yet are the stories which have screen after screen of text to explain everything in the story, to the point where it's more an interactive novel than a game.

I agree that are certain games which does have that quality. I have plated Deus Ex and I must admit it is one of the most interesting games created over the last 10 years I have seen

Gameplay's also important - one of the complaints people had about Metal Gear Solid 2 (which itself had quite a bit of storyline... in fact, ridiculous amounts of story and background) was that the gameplay made it feel like one kept moving from one cutscene to another, a complaint which was also levelled against WC4, IIRC. Xenosaga Ep I had a similar problem, due to its half-hour long cinematics. You got a lot of story, sure, but the game could get awful tedious with all those cutscenes.

The old FF game was x amount of text so I too got bored with it. I am not sure about Metal Gear Solid, I am not sure about the gameplay of that because I played it and could not point out the problem with but then it has been a while since I last played it and should play it again.

Yeah. If you spend more time watching cutscenes than playing the game, then personally, I don't really want to play it. If I want long cutscenes I'll watch a movie.

As for a successful game, it needs to have good gameplay, the story can be dire, but if the gameplay is great, then it just doesn't matter. On the other hand, f a game has a great story, but crappy gameplay, it doesn't make for a great game, and should be a novel or a movie instead.

Cannot argue with that. Although it reminds me when I first played Imperialism. Wierd and boring when I first played it but gradually was addictive to play.....
 
Sword of the Beserk on Dreamcast had like 2 hours worth of cutscenes, and probably like one hour of game playing time.

It was like a really good movie with interjected "kill everything" sequences. You really wanted to not play the game and just watch it, because it really was a *very* good story with superb voice acting.
 
It's tough to decide between gameplay and depth, look at the resi games they for the most part have a an ackward control system and a predictable style of play but the atmosphere and story makes the game better than the sum of its parts.

The best games i've ever played where usually a balance of the two (Halo 1, the metroid prime series and Goldeneye)
 
I agree with Haeslich, story and plot are not synonims with CUTSCENES. A game can have oodles of story and character without stoping gameplay every 10 minutes.

Both Half-life games had that. People say they have no story, but that is not true. There is a lot going on in a narrative level, only it is not IN YOUR FACE!

Just because you can't hear the same canned sentences everytime you press square next to a vilager it is not less developed than FF.

BTW, Icewind Dale was meant to be light on story, considering how much plot they included in Torment and Baldur's Gate PC series.

And yeah, any genre can be reduced to two or three basic "actions". that is just silly. FPS games have many examples of varied gameplay, including Deus Ex and HL2 - in which you walk around, run away, follow alyx, battle with a crowbar, then the pistol, manhacks, smg, the boat, more violent combat, the ghost town and the grav gun, the buggy and the antlions, controlling antlions, so on, so forth... You rarelly spend much time doing the EXACT same kind of combat or movement. Granted, Doom3 is more primitive in gameplay than Doom2, but it does not "speak" for all FPS.
 
Nomad Terror, you just earned points for knowing that game even existed, let alone "playing" it. And I couldn't agree more with your assessment. :)

As a fake point system I have IRL: You just gained 5 points, out of 7 points possible. With a max of 17 points, before you have to cash in. ;)
 
I'm all for story. I'm an adverture gamer at heart, but too much tedious clicking and waiting can be a pain... Ever died right after a 20 minute cutscene only to have to reload before it? But wait! the Game wont let you skip it or click through it! AGGGGGHHHH:eek:
 
Everyone talks about Tolwyn changing but in the WC IV novel doesn't someone say that the idea of going for the objective (In the case of the Black Lance and bio-convergence projects Humanity's long term survival) no matter the cost was normal for Tolwyn?
 
No it wasn't normal
The way I see it but then I can be wrong is that the war with the Kilrathi changed Tolwyn, he wanted the perfect military but he did things the wrong way, he could have trained the soldiers and officers better, build better ships, research better technology all without tampering with human experiments. That is only one point of view from the hundreds and thousands of other peoples opinion
 
AD said:
I'm all for story. I'm an adverture gamer at heart, but too much tedious clicking and waiting can be a pain... Ever died right after a 20 minute cutscene only to have to reload before it? But wait! the Game wont let you skip it or click through it! AGGGGGHHHH:eek:

In my experience, and I have played a fair share of story heavy games, that is REALLY rare. That has nothing to do with the gameplay-story cutscenes issue, that is just crappy game design.

Although in the masterfully crafted Metroid Prime, you do have to retrace steps for boss fights, but no 20 minutes scenes, though.
 
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