Yeah the arrow is tricky with Oblivion/Skyrim. If you are in the same area as the item/person/whatever it just points straight at it. If you aren't, it points the door it thinks you should go through to get there. Then people move around and confuse you even more. You just have to get used to it I guess. In Morrowind there is no arrow, you just follow vague directions "go northwest to find this place.." so you end up going all over the place.
I'm not sure what I prefer- arrow/marker/pointer telling you exactly where to go, or vague directions with more exploration. I personally love exploration, but sometimes I wanna get through a quest, and I get frustrated if I can't find something.
The frustration is a small price to pay for a game that feels like an experience instead of a grind, in my opinion. "Follow this dot until you win" is not a game.
My first ever first person RPG was Might & Magic (1) on the Commodore 64. I spent hundreds of hours in that game and it gave you essentially ZERO direction.
It did get a little more interesting when I found the secret teleporting leprechaun later on, I'll admit.
I think that one spell in Skyrim should have been the only way you can really get waypoints or w/e. But then I guess everyone would feel like they're being forced to take some magic even if they dont want to.
In Fallout 3 I used fast travel only once I knew I had been through a certain area and all I had to do was get past it. They actually did a good job of putting enough dugeons in that game to where walking around wasn't as painful as it is in some other games. The difference being that there are less buildings on the horizon, fewer noticeable landmarks. Every time I saw a building I was like hey gonna go explore that shit. Why, because there was almost always computers in the building or notes that had some inkling of what was happening in the building before it was blown to smithereens. I felt like I was learning what the world was before cataclysm. Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind, and even Fallout New Vegas all suffer from this. There is surprisingly little going on outside of the quests in Fallout NV, at least from my experience with it so far. If I wasn't fast travelling in those other games then I was just covering territory for the sake of it, which to me is not fun.
I only know of Elder Scrolls, haven't played Fallout yet, but in my opinion there IS awesome stuff outside of quests. There are a ton of miscellaneous quests hiding around that only happen if you go to a spot, discover an item, talk to a person, etc., plus other interesting quirks like the Mudcrab merchant and Maiq the Liar. I also really enjoy stumbling upon beautiful scenery, and be like "wooooah, look at the deer grazing and running around, and that random hunter fighting a bear... " ^_^
I only know of Elder Scrolls, haven't played Fallout yet, but in my opinion there IS awesome stuff outside of quests. There are a ton of miscellaneous quests hiding around that only happen if you go to a spot, discover an item, talk to a person, etc., plus other interesting quirks like the Mudcrab merchant and Maiq the Liar. I also really enjoy stumbling upon beautiful scenery, and be like "wooooah, look at the deer grazing and running around, and that random hunter fighting a bear... " ^_^
Oh no doubt, I should have prefaced that by saying I'm biased towards Fallout sort of because I love the atmosphere. This is where I agree with Scott to some extent by saying that Fallout 3 didn't give you an enormous amount of stuff to do at the same time, at least I didn't experience this. Half the time in the Elder Scrolls games I'm right in the middle of doing something when I come across a dungeon and I say to myself "when I have some time I'll come back to this" but I always have so many quests to do that I often have to choose between getting expected rewards or gambling on it. The latter often leads to more experience though. Another issue I have is that a lot of the dungeons are very similar to each other, especially in Skyrim. I remember Morrowind was a little less like this and I didn't get far in Oblivion but that is mostly because I absolutely hated the VO and the way everyone looked.
I only know of Elder Scrolls, haven't played Fallout yet, but in my opinion there IS awesome stuff outside of quests. There are a ton of miscellaneous quests hiding around that only happen if you go to a spot, discover an item, talk to a person, etc., plus other interesting quirks like the Mudcrab merchant and Maiq the Liar. I also really enjoy stumbling upon beautiful scenery, and be like "wooooah, look at the deer grazing and running around, and that random hunter fighting a bear... " ^_^
Oh no doubt, I should have prefaced that by saying I'm biased towards Fallout sort of because I love the atmosphere. This is where I agree with Scott to some extent by saying that Fallout 3 didn't give you an enormous amount of stuff to do at the same time, at least I didn't experience this. Half the time in the Elder Scrolls games I'm right in the middle of doing something when I come across a dungeon and I say to myself "when I have some time I'll come back to this" but I always have so many quests to do that I often have to choose between getting expected rewards or gambling on it. The latter often leads to more experience though. Another issue I have is that a lot of the dungeons are very similar to each other, especially in Skyrim. I remember Morrowind was a little less like this and I didn't get far in Oblivion but that is mostly because I absolutely hated the VO and the way everyone looked.
I agree about caves/dungeons sucking, though in Skyrim there are some very gorgeous caves and most of them are at least unique in some way (rather than the same drab gray stone walls with a chest here and there). I noticed that if you walk into an especially awesome scene in a cave/dungeon a special musical theme plays in the background thats really pretty. Also Skyrim caves/dungeons give you a way to get back to the beginning, which is super awesome.
I learned after awhile that when you are wandering around and come upon a cave/ruin/whatever you might as well explore it now. That is, if you care about loot or finding something interesting. Also sometimes you will find an important item for later, or at least its on your map and you can fast travel later if you end up going there for a quest.
I would enjoy the unguided exploration, but only if the world is dense, and I can move at a reasonable speed.
Not quite an rpg, but in Just Cause 2 one of my favorite points was how fast the parachute + hookshot combo was. In all the time I've played the game I've used the fast travel system only rarely. In that game it's just so much fun to swing around the landscape, suddenly notice a oil pipe, swing down, kill everyone, blow up the pipe and swing away, throwing an one-liner behind.
I've said that in good sandbox game there is a fast travel system and in great sandbox you don't want to use it.
Bought Spelunky for XBLArgle. I didn't Derek Yu could improve on what was already a hardcore, old-school, devastatingly frustrating and addicting platformer. But, he did, and Derek Yuri just gave me a reason to keep my 360 hooked up. Dat procedural generation. Dat Ninja Gaiden difficulty and Nethack permadeath.
Having been a relatively hardcore Spelunker back when it was PC-only, rest assured that the only real change in the main game is the tileset and the addition of Deathmatch, multiplayer Adventure, and the extremely useful Journal/Almanac. The physics, difficulty, and procedurally-generated maps are all intact. I'd say it's a definite improvement, but I'll probably get the PC Spelunky+ or whatever as well.
Basically, if you like Metroid, Castlevania, and the insane difficulty of games like La Mulana and Mega Man, you won't regret buying XBLA Spelunky.
Having been a relatively hardcore Spelunker back when it was PC-only, rest assured that the only real change in the main game is the tileset and the addition of Deathmatch, multiplayer Adventure, and the extremely useful Journal/Almanac. The physics, difficulty, and procedurally-generated maps are all intact. I'd say it's a definite improvement, but I'll probably get the PC Spelunky+ or whatever as well.
There is a tiny, somewhat annoying change from PC version. In PC version if you carry something and crawl to hang on the ledge you drop whatever you are carrying right down. In HD version if you do the same, instead of dropping the item you throw it with a small arch, that is still big enough, that in certain places the item can bounce from wall/ceiling and hit you in the head.
The time wasting feeling comes when the illusion of a complex world falls away.
Case in point: Fallout 3. I was deeply immersed when I first left the vault and started exploring. But, once it was obvious that the vast majority of the landscape was noninteractive and effectively empty, overland travel turned immediately from delightful journey into "hold walk wasting time." It'd might as well have been Wind Waker sailing.
Jolly Rover handled this well by having you yell at the text to shut it up.
Technic is a mod. It adds tons of advanced technologies that you can craft. But it's fair, takes forever to get there. I understand you can eventually develop a nuclear generator. But it has to be encased in water. And the electricity has to go through 16-times compressed electric cables in order to be harnessed. Right now, we have pumps and stuff that are taking ore straight from a chest and moving it into the furnace without us doing anything. It's the sex. http://www.technicpack.net/
Technic is the single-player, Tekkit is the multiplayer. Or something.
Comments
In Morrowind there is no arrow, you just follow vague directions "go northwest to find this place.." so you end up going all over the place.
I'm not sure what I prefer- arrow/marker/pointer telling you exactly where to go, or vague directions with more exploration. I personally love exploration, but sometimes I wanna get through a quest, and I get frustrated if I can't find something.
My first ever first person RPG was Might & Magic (1) on the Commodore 64. I spent hundreds of hours in that game and it gave you essentially ZERO direction.
It did get a little more interesting when I found the secret teleporting leprechaun later on, I'll admit.
I learned after awhile that when you are wandering around and come upon a cave/ruin/whatever you might as well explore it now. That is, if you care about loot or finding something interesting. Also sometimes you will find an important item for later, or at least its on your map and you can fast travel later if you end up going there for a quest.
Man I love Elder Scrolls, I can go on and on ^_^
I've said that in good sandbox game there is a fast travel system and in great sandbox you don't want to use it.
Basically, if you like Metroid, Castlevania, and the insane difficulty of games like La Mulana and Mega Man, you won't regret buying XBLA Spelunky.
http://www.rubicondev.com/gbwg/index.php
By the way, Scott, how large is the demo? I bought it untested, so I wouldn't know.
I understand you can eventually develop a nuclear generator. But it has to be encased in water. And the electricity has to go through 16-times compressed electric cables in order to be harnessed.
Right now, we have pumps and stuff that are taking ore straight from a chest and moving it into the furnace without us doing anything. It's the sex.
http://www.technicpack.net/
Technic is the single-player, Tekkit is the multiplayer. Or something.