Jump to content

ancientsurvivor

New Arrival
  • Posts

    2
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Previous Fields

  • All time best video game ever played
    Freelancer
  • Country
    Germany

ancientsurvivor's Achievements

Leaden Juggernaut

Leaden Juggernaut (2/20)

0

Reputation

  1. As to the matter of thsi thread's title. Depends on whether I'm still a student by then or not. Cause my machine - well I'd compare it to a 2CV. It runs, doesn't look any special but good but that's it. Sure if I can get a new machine or allready have one you can count me in. Otherwise I'll keep on playing flashgames I guess? As for the matter of what I think of S1 and Sacred 2 S1 was great (quadruple dwarven cannon/mortars in a combo? HELL YEAH!), but the mainstoryline was pretty boring after beating it nearly once with every char. My online experience consists some level 80+ full set seraphim beaming everything away while I stood there dumbfounded - so I quit. Sacred 2 is great (the difference in tense does make it look as if S1 deceased... =/ ) and I have yet to beat the storyline with most of the chars which could be because SP HC aint that easy for me. Never played online.
  2. Well this certainly is a currious theme for RPG's. It is a curious fact too that once you give players options they just want more of them. This can be either good or bad. The first case is what we'd call progress. The later are usually classed as trolls (pink SW seriously?). As to the matter of character customisation there have been quite a few interessting points here. Let's take a look at the skin/hairdo/whatnot except for armor. In games like Morrowind/Oblivion/Guild Wars as most of you know they are a key feature. While the TES-Games are SP only the immense detail that SP allows for at lower processing mean that we can see the last wrinkle in the face of our characters - those very characters that are we. That we want to be. The being saving the world (again.). Guild Wars had not so many details but it was still eating my proscessing power. It had however enough options skinwise that it was hard to meet someone that could be your siamese twin. Which enchances the perception of being the hero while playing on a literally massive scale. If I have to think of a ARPG example I'd probably pick Hellgate. Yeah I know the coding was terrible but that doesnt matter. You still had those options. Your customized face probably vanished behind a full helmet by level 5 for being a Templar/Marksmen and then you did look like - the rest - but you could put it down. As for 2D examples I can't come up with one. Now let's look at the armor. There are several interessting ways to solve this "problem". Now the easiest way has been mentioned with Guild Wars - dye. Though in Guild Wars the people in the high end areas looked pretty much the same (all posing in black Core armor sets...) allowing you to dye armor gives you the opportunity to create a feeling that something fits. It was hard to combine different Ele sets into a consistent armor but for classes liek the Assassin that was pretty easy. Dyeing individual parts also created some very harlequin looking characters but those where the exception due to the prices on dye. A similar way has been gone by 10tacle when they made Hellgate. In Hellgate there is a simple options in the dropdown menu when selecting an equipped item to choose that item's colourscheme for your whole armor. Each item had a primary and secondary colour and you could simpley play around without having to worry. Really had something of camouflage which suits a game that play at around our time. The whole has been done for with dyekits that give statboni but that is not to be discussed here (horrible if you ask me). The above examples are all 3D so let me get a 2D one (which is pretty close to the isotropic view you mainly have in Sacred 2). It's Spiral Knights. Now Spiral Knights has a rather chibi feel to the design but the armors dont look any less awesome. You do only have two items you can combine (helmet and actual armor for the whole rest) but that is enough. While the armor itself is not customizable and neither is your charcter (you can at no point unequip your armor, only replace it) you can equip a suit of armor over your actuall armor just for the looks. Which is a ptretty interessting concept. Bored of the furtrimmed cloak with smooth topped helmet? Simply equip an armor that looks like a real Knight or something that could be godzilla - or maybe even bomberman for good measure. So what do we have else that we can customize? CAs and Skills. Sacred 2 had a rather unqiue way of handling your skill development by adding mods. Though there are mods that are considered nonplusultra (Enhancement-Enhancement-Accuracy now try to guess the CA) there are rather disputed CA mods which are pretty much left to ones personal taste (Battle Aura Gold mod anyone? I take the buff approach). Same with the Skills. You can make a pure dmg one aspect build. Or you can diversify - which then leads us back to the CAs but still. Customization as I see it Customization is an integral part of an RPG. It simply is. It has to be noticeable because one tries to stand out. It helps to identify yourself with a character which in turn keeps you playing longer (likely). It does however not make a game (see Brink the game) neither does it break a game (unless you dump all you money into the development of the charaterization, in which case you have earned seeing your project fail). I think it's important that one can do change a character to ones wishes. It keeps me going. I probably would have finished all those FF parts I have if those chars wouldn't look so effete and like douchebags, but it doesn't even matter whether you wear plate mail or a robe. For those that don't care about customization, well you don't. It's right that good mechanics are more important (see Hellgate) to keep a game running, to create a place for it in peoples collections, to keep them returning to it. But being able to customize that world to your liking certainly helps. My keyboard has to answer for all grammatcal errrors and the late our for any content concerning incoherency (00:26 GMT+1). If for some reason I haven't made sense at all I'll check back after I've slept.
×
×
  • Create New...
Please Sign In or Sign Up