Usually start off reading them, but in recent experiences I stop as I go through the levels.  I can only take so much of:

"There's these animals bothering us. But we can't/won't deal with them because Y. Go kill X of them please."

and

"I have this thing that needs to be told/given to this other guy, and I just can't be bothered to go. Go do it for me please."

Before I just get bored of it, and then I quickly skim through it for what Y I need to kill X of and where, or who I take the thing to and where.

My other issue is that I get serious quest fatigue. I'd much rather have 3 very long quest chains, than 20 generic short ones. More like Icewind Dale, Summoner, or to some extent Demon's Souls (yeah, only non MMOs listed v.v).

Of course, if while quickly skimming it for the directions I catch something interesting in the text, I'll stop and read that particular chain.

While I don't care for Sims or EA games anymor tbh, my girlfriend did say that if Sims 4 releases as bare bones as Sims 3 did (compared to Sims 2 with expansions), or at the very least doesn't have any form of built in Pets, she's not going to bother with it.

And she's a Sims fanatic.

Originally posted by Pie_Rat

Ok scrap the "made history" part then.

Which game(s) were you thinking of?

Serious Sam 3 had the giant, invulnerable scorpion that chased and attacked the player non stop if it was the pirated version.

While not content per say, the original Operation Flashpoint introduced a single new bug into the game every time the game launched if it detected it was a pirated version, so slowly the game would become unplayable.

And iirc, pirated versions of the original Earthbound had a screen warning that piracy was a crime that the legitimate game did not have, and then proceeded to make the game significantly harder than it actually is; up until the last fight, where it's guaranteed to freeze so the game is uncompletable.

But that's all off the top of my head. I'm positive there's many more, but this one is quickly one of my favorites, heh heh.

To be honest, I'll probably only stick to PS4 for a while, as I'm barely touching my 360 as is and boot up my PS3 a lot more. But I'm still very excited, if not for the only reason that it'll put an answer to all the non stop rumors of "always online" and "will block used games."

I doubt either of those will be true, but it'll put a silence to them =)

Originally posted by GroovyFlower

Originally posted by Kaijin2k3

Originally posted by Sovrath

I think Dragon Age 2 was a very good game and I agree that they reused too many enviroments. I do think the combat was sub par and worse than the first one. Too artificially fast and reminded me of an arcade game.

Also, some  of the story could have been fleshed out better.

 

Biggest problem of DA2 wasn't the attempted changed, but that it was rushed. A lot of corners were cut, and things that really should have been better fleshed out, weren't.

Seems i remember this forum and bioware forums where to small of all the complaints about change from DAO to DA2, they where 2 totally different games.

I remember playing the demo and thought the fuke this is some cheap dumbdown console actioncrap game thats not DA as i know it was in DAO.

Yes and no. The forced hyper speed was undoubtedly lame, but the skills for each class were better refined along with a more in depth cross-class combo system. There were more unique builds in DA2 than in DAO, such as an elemental shield warrior as apposed to just shield = tank of DAO.

But they didn't use it to its potential. Too much of the combat was practically copy and paste from each other; the same number of melee units and ranged critters spawning in the same number of waves. Even the "Lieutenant" bosses fought exactly the same, using the same skills despite them being completely different races (ie Revenant vs. random thug boss).

Ill-fleshed out difficulty didn't help, with Normal being too mindlessly easy, and Hard not being much of a step up. Nightmare used cheap tactics to make it harder (such as rogue bosses stealing health potions), and friendly-fire was broken when you considered how they went about balancing player vs. mob health and damage values: that is, you only had 100 health, but would do 200, and the enemies had thousands of health but only did 20 damage. 

Add in game-breaking bugs (friendship bugs, health bugs, shield bugs, oh so many bugs) and you got a recipe for disaster :P Most of this would have easily been ironed out if they had wanted (or maybe allowed?) to take the time for it.

Felt the same way about party banter and companion interaction. Found it be far more frequent and more entertaining in 2, but much like the combat it really wasn't fully fleshed out.

tl;dr character skills, builds and cross-class combos were far better fleshed out if you looked past the hyperspeed, but the combat encounters were basically copy+pasted lameness with poorly thought out difficulty levels.

Originally posted by Sovrath

I think Dragon Age 2 was a very good game and I agree that they reused too many enviroments. I do think the combat was sub par and worse than the first one. Too artificially fast and reminded me of an arcade game.

Also, some  of the story could have been fleshed out better.

 

Biggest problem of DA2 wasn't the attempted changed, but that it was rushed. A lot of corners were cut, and things that really should have been better fleshed out, weren't.

Originally posted by fivoroth
Haha, when it comes to video games metacritic is HORRENDOUS! I literrally physicaly hate that website :D It is a den of hate towards every single game and people give 0s to every other game without any justification. It's all QQ and 0 score reviews. E.g., person A doesn't like 1 single tiny feature in a game and they QQ like there is no tomorrow and give the game 0 which is laughable.

Why talk about user scores when the publishers only look at the official scores? They're entirely seperate.

The article though, I'd like to have thought this was well known. Never did like my time dealing with publishers. Sometimes it feels that they are just entire dimensions away from where the rest of us are.

Eh.  #1 I don't disagree with, but I always just saw it as the evolution of the magic users. Level 6 and upwards, casters become walking globes of death. And past level 10, D&D casters became stupid as they approached demigod status.

So a rough early levels, I just saw it as part of what the class was about.

#3 always made sense. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out the hordes of leather armor and bastards are junk once you're done with initial equipment. Was a bit more simulationist. Though I guess people who didn't care for such things found it annoying to find so much junk loot.

#2 is absolutely true. The difficulty scaling is awful. I still remember the trouble I had with the first assassin as his magic missile could one shot my 18 CON fighter. But that wasn't because of D&D, Icewind Dale's scaling was a hell of a lot of better. That was just BioWare's trademarked shit-tastic sense of encounter balance.

It really is never OK to harass people. No one in my life drawing classes has ever done this to the 20 year old models posing nude in front of us all. There always needs to be levels of self control and maturity, which only you are responsible for.

Conversely though, sometimes I see outfits that are just like, "you're really OK going out in public like that? You'd wear more with a bikini." Still doesn't really excuse it, though.

But then the trap is thinking about it as a sensible person. For every 1000 guys and girls who are sensible and exhibit that self control, there's always that 1 who's  tilted in th brain who's already convinced themselves its perfectly fine, "they brought it on themselves."

Those, well, they wouldn't care about this question anyway and you won't convince them no matter what you try.

Originally posted by Dihoru

I wish I had known you 8 years ago x.x I remember in 2005 having a nasty playthrough in NWN 1 where I kept getting killed by a spellcaster and I did not know you could move and avoid the spell =)).

The only hard spellcaster I remember for my Paladin was that sorcerer in the prisons in Chapter 1. But that was just because of fireball spam against a level 4 >.>

Anyway, my main experience with that was in the multi against and with other players. IIRC, the AI always targetted you, so all their spells target sources was always you.

I don't think you could dodge the AI ones? But tbh, I actually liked the campaign but could never do it more than once. So after that, it was all multi with friends for me =)

Originally posted by Dihoru

Originally posted by tet666

Neverwinter 1 and 2 where real time with optional pause like the infinity engine games. I dont understand why people cant see the difference between RtwP and TB games is it really so hard to understand? The only true turn based AD&D CRPGs where the old gold box dos titles and in recent times Temple of Elemental Evil and Knight of the Chalice.

o.O I suggest you go read up some more, RTwP isn't even a genre and true real time games have no pause option, I remember having this same debate when I was 14 with someone and I thought NWN 1 was real time, it isn't, the turns-based bit really becomes evident in combat, observe how you hit and then the enemy, in real time games you both wail on each other with no regard but in NWN1 and NWN2 you take turns, you hit, the enemy hits, rinse and repeat the only real difference is you have no control when the turns end but the fact is it is not real time (if it was the combat dynamics would be very different).

They're neither true real time nor are they true turn based. They're a weird attempt to showcase turn based nature in a real time way. It's true, for melee or ranged, the turn based nature of how the attacks work shows. But if you see a Wizard castng Cloudkill, you can move the moment you see the cast and get out of the way.

True turn based wouldn't allow that, as you wouldn't be able to move like that during a Wizard's turn and would have to wait until yours comes up.

I guess in a way, attacks and standard actions work in this weird turn-based nature, but you're free to move whenever and however you want. Weird mix.

Personally, one of my favorite D&D PC game was Troika's ToEE :P If only they hadn't released it so half finished and bug ridden. Would have loved to see other D&D games take that and do something proper with it. But I like turn based, and what's in the past is now in the past, unfortunately :P

I'd put it on 8 / 10 in terms of "does it actually work yet?" Encountered a few bugs, but no massive issues.

For personal enjoyment, probably a 6. Perhaps I've just grown tired of the "everything is easy until max level raid" thing going. I'm just not going to invest so many hours in the hopes I'll enjoy the max level content if everything is boring me.

But as I said, in terms of the game actually working, at least my girlfriend and I did not experience any issues asside from a few non gamebreaking bugs. So can't really comment on that.

As for commenting on betas, betas and demos should be the time to both test for bugs and give feedback and comment on the general vibe, consensus and attitude of the people playing. It's still in development, and while very slim there's always a chance that changes may be made to better the game if enough of the interested players feel a certain way.

Not after it's final. The idea to withhold thoughts and judgement until everything is finalised is utterly backwards, as by then for many games it's too late.

In this case, being a free2play, I feel it doesn't matter too much as the gateway to entry is always, well, free. Just personal thoughts on that =P

Originally posted by Elapsed
I find it funny people complain about EA's DRM, but don't complain about Steam. There are many games now that require installing Steam. Although you can play Steam offline I believe. Still, Steam is DRM.

Well people would have if Valve had refused to refund the WarZ buyers after saying to contact them for a refund. But they didn't, and refunded them cleanly.

I think that's the crux of the issue, that EA told them go through support, only for support to acknowledge the statement and then just deny the refund anyway. It's just wasted time and effort, and can only be claimed to not be lie through the most technical and spinned of reasons.

Originally posted by Zekiah

It never ceases to amaze me how so many gamers will go down with the ship in defense of defective or incomplete products but in any other industry it wouldn't be put up with. I have yet to see someone ok with a Big Mac missing the meat patties and told they'll get it later.

No wonder these companies continually walk all over their customers and release the crap they do.

Ego-centric, where any wrongdoing is the fault of the customer and they weren't burned because they were just more intelligent.

Or obsession with the game, where they like it so much that any critique is viewed as a direct attack on the quality of the game.

Jaded attitude, people just raise their noses to it simply because of the more extremist and stupid actions of people in the past.

Wrong sense of "friendship," some people just think the company is some form of close friend that they must defend.

People honestly believing the company is in the right.

Or, (in)vested interests.

Just roll the dice and you decide.

That looks like the exact same game to me.

Originally posted by birdycephon
I'll have to go with EA on this one.

EA statement extends hands and offers if you want a refund, to go through support.

Support goes, "yeah, but eeeeh, naah. We're not doing refunds."

Seems incredibly legit. Very good business move. Very wise to support it.

Originally posted by asmkm22

Originally posted by Wicoa

Originally posted by asmkm22
You'll keep buying their games, and they know it.

Thats not true after swtor I uninstalled origin and dont play any of their games, I never will again.

Steam is king for me,  it has everything I could possibly want to waste time on in one store.

Why would I need EA's terrible service?

Because they tend to buy everything possible.  Seriously, aside from a few instances, if you avoid EA games then you're limiting yourself to Activision or Ubisoft.  Activision is even less creative than EA, favoring the yearly installments game rehashes, and Ubisoft is hellbent on ruining their games with abusive DRM crap.

A surprisingly high percentage of all games are published under one of those three, and to claim to write off one of them is only going to be possible up until they happen to release something you are interested in or looking forward to.

You've forgotten Take-Two, ZeniMax, and SquareEnix (as a publisher). There's also the much smaller companies such as 1C who did the King's Bounty Games, among more. 

It is very true that many people will turn their back on their experience and buy from the company they claimed they wouldn't, but one shouldn't assume everyone will do so.

Even the staunchest of supporters have breaking points.

EDIT: Switched 2k games with Take-Two, since they own them anyway.

I feel you...

Tried Origin a year back for ME3. It was OK for a while, didn't have too many gamebreaking issues with the MP. One problem that comes to mind was friends sending messages to others who were online, but the messages were never arriving for the other person.

So people would have these one way conversations wondering why the other person wasn't responding, when the other person didn't  even have a clue they were even being talked to.

Another problem was a large number of friends suffered from continuous disconnection problems, especially on the last waves. Luckily this problem did not affect me, but it aggravated many of my original friends.

But that was just originally. And eventually a week came where a large number of PC players got hit with a "Must purchase an Online Pass to play Multiplayer" error, which also locked out anyone who had DLC (including collector's). It was sorted for most, but for me the problem kept coming back over and over again. So I started becoming a regular visitor to chat support to regularly get it sorted.

Final straw was trying to show my brother-in-law the game, because he was interested in joining the MP fun. Fired the game and got hit with the damn issue again. He lol'd and said maybe he'll try it when the issues get sorted. I said ****-it-all, uninstalled ME3 and Origin then and there and moved on.

Screwed up part is that there isn't even an Online Pass for the PC version.