StaceyPowers

What are some of the worst situations you created for yourself in terms of making it hard to beat a game? I picked literally the worst possible preconditions for a quest in Dragon Age 2 last night, and after an hour of repeating the same fight (and preceding dialogue) over and over again, I’d had enough. I went back to a prior save and put in different preconditions, and got through it with ease. Not a terrible situation since I had that save, but might have been if I didn’t. The worst ever mess I recall getting into was in Return to Zork on DOS back in the day. There was some seemingly minor item which I lost irrevocably through some stupid decision. I thought it didn’t matter, and continued playing. Later I found out I couldn’t beat the game without it. I had to start all over. Thankfully, it seems like devs nowadays make it hard for us to strand ourselves. But what are some times you’ve screwed yourself in a game, whether recent or older?

My regrets likewise concern formats more than anything. I don't regret buying Dragon Age Origins ... but I do regret that when I went back to the game store a week later, I found a copy of the version with all the DLC included for the same price. That would've saved me like $40.

I never thought of it like that before. For me, I always think of it as essentially being about dealing with the Legion. But that's one of the reasons NV is so cool. You can play through the game with wildly different motivations and have very different experiences because of all the complexity. So you can come away with unique interpretations.

This reminds me of the time I first met the mother of that bratty little girl in Whiterun (Braith? something like that?) and found out her mom was totally neglectful. I got so annoyed that I punched her, forgetting that would instantly result in my follower killing her. I didn't feel sorry, but I did find it funny that righteous, upstanding Mjoll murdered a civilian like that =D If even Mjoll thought she needed to die, she truly must've been a terrible mother indeed. Needless to say, the entire town was pissed.

What is a list of your top 10 favorite games in any genres?

In terms of single player games, I’d say it’s probably Fallout New Vegas right now. NV still leaves a lot to be desired for me, but it’s further along than anything else I’ve tried in the areas where I want other games to improve (character depth, organic storytelling, multi-layered, complex factions). My best tabletop RPG experience was a Warhammer game with some friends back in college. It was a great group, and I loved the game universe. I also really was into MUDs when I was younger. The game I played the most was Aetolia, and I would say it was the most memorable RPG I ever played, and probably the most engaging too. But I couldn’t say it was a “favorite” in that the experience wasn’t exactly a “positive” one. Same question right back at you. What are your all-time favorite RPGs?

@TheSteelyardDweller @killamch89 @DylanC I kind of see where you all are coming from on this ... but how were the stakes actually higher in Fallout 3 than they were in NV? I mean, Caesar's Legion wasn't exactly a tiny problem. I suppose one could argue that potential genocide was a bigger deal than mass slavery/murder, but I find it hard to quantify these things. Caesar's Legion really pissed me off.

I'm with you on this one, but I had overinvolved parents who somehow seemed barely cognizant of the fact that I was a solid student who literally never touched drugs or booze growing up :/ Somehow I was still under heavy surveillance and paranoia. Media attention doesn't always mean being in the loop in a meaningful way--there is a lot of misinformation out there. There was some kind of nonsense back in the 80s about Dungeons and Dragons promoting devil worship and suicides, and I grew up with parents who ate that shit up. Seriously ... who wouldn't rather their child be playing a nerdy, creative game of the imagination seated at the kitchen table with some friends than doing drugs in some back lot? Good grief. I have no idea what my parents thought an evening of roleplaying was comprised of (blood sacrifice?), but there was no possibility of setting them straight. I was an avid roleplayer growing up, and you can imagine the stupid trouble this caused for me.

@LadyDay I'd love to see your work if you do. @Darya That is amazing about your brother--especially that he can play that well without modified controls. How does he deal with the regular sticks and buttons? @xXInfectedXx I wondered if there were eye-tracking controls. I'd be very interested in learning more about that.

Can’t get any better at something if you’re not willing to face it. I may have failures, but I try not to let turning a deliberate blind eye to them be one of them.

I'd been avoiding Dragon Age 4 news for the simple reason that I am still in the middle of my initial playthrough on the existing games. But I've been really disheartened to hear that this is going to be some sort of live service nightmare. I'm so not interested in that 😞

Good call about the Big Daddies. They really got a raw deal, and it immediately struck me during my first encounter with one that "wow, this is the only person in this place that hasnt been hostile to me so far." I've heard people say that Rapture failed because Ryan wasn't really loyal to its ideals, and behaved in a hypocritical fashion. But Fontaine seems to me to be a perfect end result of the Objectivist values of the city, and he lived up to it. Even if Ryan hadn't gone to war with him, I think Fontaine's greed and indifference would still have driven him to destroy Rapture. He would still have used it as a testing ground, and he still would have tried to bury the evidence. So I am in agreement with you that the Objectivist values--at least taken to such extremes--were indeed to blame. And in that sense, I do feel the blame spreads to the populace, who bought into those values to their own detriment. I just hope that some of the survivors would learn from their mistakes.

@DylanC Studio Ghibli! That one is definitely going on my list! Of course the deal is only active in Europe :/ But I hope I can snag it at some point in the US. Thank you so much for making me all of these exciting recommendations.

Alas, I have been that person myself more times than I’d like to admit. You are right, in any case.

@kingpotato True. The Dragonborn does a remarkable amount of grave-robbing with no consequences. I always laugh at that one quest where some guy is like "help! These necromancers are disrespecting my family tomb!" So you go in there to clear them out, but he doesn't blink when you take all the loot from his family tomb. @Bravosi Become ethereal never seems to work properly for me in the game, but I think I may not be fully understanding when or how to use it. I swear I still take damage when it's active, but isn't it supposed to stop that? :/

When you play video games that you really love, do you look for ways to bring elements of those games into your real life? For example: -While playing TLOU, every time I was walking from one location to another in real life, I would look around constantly for impromptu weapon ideas and strategies should infected attack (not literally expecting it, of course, but it was fun to see the world in a different way). -Sometimes I will lean toward eating foods in real life that characters in the games I play have been eating. -Playing Bioshock games has given me a renewed interest in Art Deco and Art Nouveau. I’ve also gained a deeper interest in design work and typefaces, and have been educating myself about the fonts used in the games. Most of the fonts I’m using in Windows right now are from the games or feature similar elements. How do you bring elements of your favorite game worlds into the real world?

In Bioshock 1, there is a point where Fontaine says something to you about “nothing down here deserves to be saved.” From a moral standpoint, I think it’s fairly obvious the Little Sisters deserve to be saved. But do you think anything else in Rapture deserves to be saved? It’s easy for me to lean toward his misanthropy regarding the place. But judging from some interactions and recordings lying around the place, to me it seems like most of the populace were foolish albeit ordinary people who invested into a concept that wasn’t going to pan out. I suspect that at least some of them must have survived (I haven’t played Bioshock 2 yet) after the city went insane, and like Tannenbaum, may have evolved as human beings (in the way that truly matters). So I reckon Rapture might be worth saving. Plus, the place itself is a marvel, and surely such vision deserves to be spared and redirected toward something positive if possible. Did you feel Rapture had any redeeming qualities or possibilities?

If you could have any ability the Dragonborn has in Skyrim in real life, what would it be? Sticking strictly with abilities in the actual skills lists, I’d either pick healing (the dull but practical answer) or Clear Skies (particularly if auroras consistently result). In terms of abilities the Dragonborn has which aren’t mentioned in the skills, I’d definitely love the same uncanny ability the Dragonborn has to apparently find money laying around everywhere (judging from the poverty throughout Skyrim, nobody else has that ability!).

Who here enjoys cooking systems in video games? I feel an odd sense of satisfaction in cooking in Skyrim which goes well beyond the health and other benefits of the foods I make, which let’s be honest, are pretty marginal next to potions. But for some reason, I feel all excited when I make something that looks tasty, even though it’s not like I’ll be eating it. I also like eating foods in video games that I hate in real life and imagining that they have a nicer flavor and texture. Like in my mind, Skyrim tomatoes are more like … balls of tomato soup =D

As a subset to our discussion about difficulty settings, @Executor Akamia got me thinking about qualities which irritate me in enemy NPCs from a "difficulty" standpoint. Here are two things which drive me crazy when I select a "harder" difficulty setting: 1- It’s annoying when the only thing and makes an enemy more difficult is the fact that it has simply turned into a bullet sponge. This doesn't actually add any nuance to the game. It makes it harder, but it doesn't make it more interesting. 2-I like an increase in enemy intelligence, but I get equally irritated when the intelligence seems outright unnatural. A good example is the bots in UT 2004. On a harder difficulty setting (and in general), they are unnaturally bright. You can climb to an incredibly remote and unexpected sniper nest, and they will instantly pinpoint your position and shoot you down, even though most real players would never think to look for you in such a spot in the first place. I think the bots in Quake III behave much more naturally. Their intelligence increases at higher difficulties, but they do not become seemingly godlike in their perception. What are your pet peeves when it comes to the impact of difficulty settings (and programming in general) on enemy NPCs? @UleTheVee @DylanC @killamch89 @kingpotato @jonbones @The Blackangel @LadyDay

@The Blackangel Hahah, I would never be able to get through any single player game with a "you're dead, you're dead," type of setting (both for lack of skill and because of performance anxiety). Though that does remind me of a MUD I played once where if you died, you died, and had to start a new character. I actually liked that concept a lot, because in a multiplayer environment, it forces people to be much more cautious and rational in how they deal with conflict. @Executor Akamia I love your detailed responses. It's a good point to bring up not just how difficult different settings are, but what makes them that way in terms of enemy AI, bullet sponge qualities, etc.

Same here. Thus I do not want it to succeed.

I never thought about it like that before. I suppose I feel that way a bit about the challenges in RDR like "kill 5 wolves with 5 knives" or whatever.There's no in-game reason to be doing that, but it's fun.

I think that I just picked "normal" or whatever. Usually, that's my default with a game I haven't played before.I think that I've been doing things in a strange order--more random exploring and encounters than the game expected me to do initially--because I finally completed that task for the snake oil salesmen, and now have the targeting active in Dead Eye. It made the game instantly so much easier.

Lots of tragic irony in that story. I can see why it'd stick with you. Sometimes when watching what characters in video games are willing to do for each other, I'm like, "why can't I find that IRL?"