I am a huge Ultima fan but don't care for Oblivion. the Ultima series was much more solid than the Elder Scrolls series.
I trust that you're not including Ultima 8: The Arcade Game or Ultima 9: The Bug Ridden, Pathetic Piece of S**t That EA Released A Year Too Early Then Never Fixed in your statement. Forget Oblivion. I mean, for crying out loud -- Yahtzee is more solid than those two.
I trust that you're not including Ultima 8: The Arcade Game or Ultima 9: The Bug Ridden, Pathetic Piece of S**t That EA Released A Year Too Early Then Never Fixed in your statement. Forget Oblivion. I mean, for crying out loud -- Yahtzee is more solid than those two.
For my money Ultima’s 4-7 & the underworld games (Though Looking Glass not Origin, they were amazing titles) were more than enough for me to class Ultima it as a historic series... A lot of the additions made in Oblivion (over Morrowind) were standard in the Ultima series (the open ended gameplay was just as advanced, using ingredients to make spells, people getting up in the morning, going to work, eating meals, going to sleep at night, etc...) - Will still enough space to allow party play, and tight storyline, personalised skill development, huge play area, history (including books and stories in game), etc..
Though I should probably shut-up at this point, since this is Tell-Tales web forum, not EA's
Though I should probably shut-up at this point, since this is Tell-Tales web forum, not EA's
Not necessarily. If TTG ever decides to try their hand in the fantasy realm, they should know beforehand what type of RPGs their customers like and dislike.
I trust that you're not including Ultima 8: The Arcade Game or Ultima 9: The Bug Ridden, Pathetic Piece of S**t That EA Released A Year Too Early Then Never Fixed in your statement. Forget Oblivion. I mean, for crying out loud -- Yahtzee is more solid than those two.
Yes, naturally I'm talking about the 'real' Ultima games, before Pagan.
The main concern I have with episodic gaming is that the areas to explore become much smaller.
I really love big adventure games like Monkey Island 2 which has a big world to explore at your own leisure.. and if there's one puzzle you're hopelessly stuck on, you can try to do somthing else while keeping that puzzle in the back of your head.
This also adds a lot of depth to the games which I feel is lacking in episodic adventure games.
Agreed. I've put in a ton of hours just in Ultima VI, far more than 100 hours. I never got bored with it because there was so much to see and do, a lot of which was irrelevant to the main plot of the story.
Nobody wants to play a 100-hour adventure game. Nobody. It would suck beyond all that you could ever imagine.
I've played many games for longer than that.
RPG's are one thing. It's different with adventure games. After a certain point it just becomes "busy work" that we're being made to do just to maybe see some story.
Nobody wants to play a 100-hour adventure game. Nobody. It would suck beyond all that you could ever imagine.
I've played many games for longer than that.
RPG's are one thing. It's different with adventure games. After a certain point it just becomes "busy work" that we're being made to do just to maybe see some story.
Once upon a time, when internet was a luxury few could afford, a game developing company released a game whitch was so complex, it was "almost" impossible to solve without a walkthrough. That game, was called... Gabriel Knight: *opens drawer to get the rest of the title* argh where is it?! anyway... GK 3... the 1st... and only... GK in 3D... THAT GAME IS SO HARD TO FIGGURE OUT!!! and the solution is 120 pages long!!!!i'll sue the writer of it to pay my wlack printer ink bill... jk...
I haven't played Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned yet. I've been saving it, along with a bunch of others like the Broken Swords and Simon the Sorcerers for a rainy day (or a freak monsoon season ). I'd love to be proven wrong about a 100 hour adventure game that has enough actual content to sustain it, but I don't think that being "stuck" counts. I hate being stuck. I never let myself be stuck for more than an hour anymore. There's not enough time in the world and I've got too many games to play.
Once upon a time, when internet was a luxury few could afford, a game developing company released a game whitch was so complex, it was "almost" impossible to solve without a walkthrough. That game, was called... Gabriel Knight: *opens drawer to get the rest of the title* argh where is it?! anyway... GK 3... the 1st... and only... GK in 3D... THAT GAME IS SO HARD TO FIGGURE OUT!!! and the solution is 120 pages long!!!!i'll sue the writer of it to pay my wlack printer ink bill... jk...
Matt
I found the first DiscWorld adventure pretty challenging (and when I finally did get to the end a bug stopped me from completing the game - gah!)
I haven't played Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned yet. I've been saving it, along with a bunch of others like the Broken Swords and Simon the Sorcerers for a rainy day (or a freak monsoon season ). I'd love to be proven wrong about a 100 hour adventure game that has enough actual content to sustain it, but I don't think that being "stuck" counts. I hate being stuck. I never let myself be stuck for more than an hour anymore. There's not enough time in the world and I've got too many games to play.
It'll have to rain for 30 days and 30 nights then if you want to complete the game... i'm preety sure the game is ATLEAST 50 hours long with a WALKTHROUGH... as i said... the walkthrough is HUGE... the shortest usefull one i found is 49 MSWord pages long
Agreed. I've put in a ton of hours just in Ultima VI, far more than 100 hours. I never got bored with it because there was so much to see and do, a lot of which was irrelevant to the main plot of the story.
Any sort of combat or character leveling system is going to suddenly add dozens of hours to a game because they're repetitive (and therefore largely reusable from battle to battle or leveling quest to leveling quest).
In an adventure game, every puzzle or conversation in the game must be new and completely different from the puzzle or conversation immediately preceeding it.
What that means is that it takes a lot more work (a lot more writing, animating, puzzle design, level design, and voice recording) to make whatever game experience fills up, say, hour 15 of an adventure game than it would to fill hour 15 of a traditional computer RPG.
In an RPG or action game there's a lot of gameplay between the story bits, whereas in most traditional adventure games, the only gameplay is the story bits (I'm including puzzles here as story bits as well, because any adventure game worth its salt will largely have puzzles that serve the story and advance the story, not puzzles thrown in there as artificial gameplay roadblocks).
I'd love for someone to play GK3 with a walkthrough and a stopwatch. I really doubt it'd take 50 hours.
Of course, how much you enjoy playing a game is more important than the number of hours it takes. But I often see people exaggerating the length of older adventure games compared to new ones, and it makes me wonder how long those older games *really* are.
(And before anyone asks, yes I have played GK3. Twice.)
Back in junior high, I had a friend who boasted that she could beat Day of the Tentacle in one hour, and that was considered to be an achievement. Now, when people can beat a game in one hour, they complain about it. My, times sure have changed...
and it makes me wonder how long those older games *really* are.
The older ones were endless, meaning that often you simply didn't beat them and gave up (unless you had a walkthrough)! B-)
Times have changed. I reckon Loom and The Secret Of Monkey Island were among the first adventure games you could ACTUALLY beat without a walkthrough. At the time many gamers complained about them being too short/simple (yes, some EVEN complained about the first Monkey, believe it or not!). Yet that turnpoint allowed many boys and girls to approach this kind of product.
I am glad to live in the age of not-so-hardly beatable games.
Times have changed. I reckon Loom and The Secret Of Monkey Island were among the first adventure games you could ACTUALLY beat without a walkthrough.
My dad and I beat King's Quest 1, King's Quest 2, and Leisure Suit Larry 1 without access to a walkthrough or hint book. Took a lot longer than it would with hints, of course, which is where I think the perception that older games are so much longer than newer games comes from. I can probably finish any one of those games in about an hour today, but I already know what I have to do -- which is really the same as playing a game for the first time with easy access to hints or a walkthrough.
I think Sam & Max are very well suited to the episodic approach. Being police, each episode can equal one case. It's a very similar approach to the comics in the sense of short, self-contained adventures. It also allows for wider variety and more experimentation, as episodes can be based on premises that perhaps wouldn't sustain a full length game and there's less at stake if something doesn't work in a particular episode, as opposed to a full, 2 year's worth of work game. Sam & Max are known for their highly bizarre escapades and locales; episodic gaming really facilitates this approach. I find myself very excited by the episodic style of games, even if I wouldn't want them to the exclusion of full length games.
My thoughts exactly. I'm looking forward to this as it will seem very much like a brand new interactive Sam & Max comic series!
IronCladChicken, I fixed your link. It had two https in there. It's hosted by the BBC, so I'm pretty sure it's legal! (Not sure about the Zork one but I'm okay with it unless someone says otherwise.)
This is not a text game, but last week I wasted a few hours with this BBC game: 7 Noble Kinsmen - A Shakespearean Murder Mystery. It has six acts and it appears that these came out episodically when it was first released (so it's even on topic!) Really fun little game. Of course, it was free, but I totally would have paid for it.
(Not sure about the Zork one but I'm okay with it unless someone says otherwise.)
Oops, it seems like I did something illegal: "Activision briefly offered free downloads of Zork I as part of the promotion of Zork: Nemesis, and Zork II and Zork III as part of the promotion for Zork Grand Inquisitor, as well as a new adventure: Zork: The Undiscovered Underground. This led many to believe that the games had been released as freeware, even though the included license explicitly prohibited redistribution. Activision's legal department has recently stated that the promotion relating to those games has ended and that it is not legal to distribute the games or make them available for download." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zork#Later_compilations_and_current_availability
Comments
For my money Ultima’s 4-7 & the underworld games (Though Looking Glass not Origin, they were amazing titles) were more than enough for me to class Ultima it as a historic series... A lot of the additions made in Oblivion (over Morrowind) were standard in the Ultima series (the open ended gameplay was just as advanced, using ingredients to make spells, people getting up in the morning, going to work, eating meals, going to sleep at night, etc...) - Will still enough space to allow party play, and tight storyline, personalised skill development, huge play area, history (including books and stories in game), etc..
Though I should probably shut-up at this point, since this is Tell-Tales web forum, not EA's
Yes, naturally I'm talking about the 'real' Ultima games, before Pagan.
I really love big adventure games like Monkey Island 2 which has a big world to explore at your own leisure.. and if there's one puzzle you're hopelessly stuck on, you can try to do somthing else while keeping that puzzle in the back of your head.
This also adds a lot of depth to the games which I feel is lacking in episodic adventure games.
"Great... more downloading from torrents..."
Matt <Not a pirate... but from slovenia
Once upon a time, when internet was a luxury few could afford, a game developing company released a game whitch was so complex, it was "almost" impossible to solve without a walkthrough. That game, was called... Gabriel Knight: *opens drawer to get the rest of the title* argh where is it?! anyway... GK 3... the 1st... and only... GK in 3D... THAT GAME IS SO HARD TO FIGGURE OUT!!! and the solution is 120 pages long!!!!i'll sue the writer of it to pay my wlack printer ink bill... jk...
Matt
I found the first DiscWorld adventure pretty challenging (and when I finally did get to the end a bug stopped me from completing the game - gah!)
It'll have to rain for 30 days and 30 nights then if you want to complete the game... i'm preety sure the game is ATLEAST 50 hours long with a WALKTHROUGH... as i said... the walkthrough is HUGE... the shortest usefull one i found is 49 MSWord pages long
Any sort of combat or character leveling system is going to suddenly add dozens of hours to a game because they're repetitive (and therefore largely reusable from battle to battle or leveling quest to leveling quest).
In an adventure game, every puzzle or conversation in the game must be new and completely different from the puzzle or conversation immediately preceeding it.
What that means is that it takes a lot more work (a lot more writing, animating, puzzle design, level design, and voice recording) to make whatever game experience fills up, say, hour 15 of an adventure game than it would to fill hour 15 of a traditional computer RPG.
In an RPG or action game there's a lot of gameplay between the story bits, whereas in most traditional adventure games, the only gameplay is the story bits (I'm including puzzles here as story bits as well, because any adventure game worth its salt will largely have puzzles that serve the story and advance the story, not puzzles thrown in there as artificial gameplay roadblocks).
Of course, how much you enjoy playing a game is more important than the number of hours it takes. But I often see people exaggerating the length of older adventure games compared to new ones, and it makes me wonder how long those older games *really* are.
(And before anyone asks, yes I have played GK3. Twice.)
The older ones were endless, meaning that often you simply didn't beat them and gave up (unless you had a walkthrough)! B-)
Times have changed. I reckon Loom and The Secret Of Monkey Island were among the first adventure games you could ACTUALLY beat without a walkthrough. At the time many gamers complained about them being too short/simple (yes, some EVEN complained about the first Monkey, believe it or not!). Yet that turnpoint allowed many boys and girls to approach this kind of product.
I am glad to live in the age of not-so-hardly beatable games.
My dad and I beat King's Quest 1, King's Quest 2, and Leisure Suit Larry 1 without access to a walkthrough or hint book. Took a lot longer than it would with hints, of course, which is where I think the perception that older games are so much longer than newer games comes from. I can probably finish any one of those games in about an hour today, but I already know what I have to do -- which is really the same as playing a game for the first time with easy access to hints or a walkthrough.
Sure, but you had no problem at all when typing ENGLISH commands in the text-parser, remember that.
I wouldn't say I had no problem with it.
"use pebbles with slingshot"
"shoot pebbles at giant"
"shoot giant with slingshot"
"use slingshot to kill giant"
etc.
etc.
etc.
?>
You have taken too long to respond.
You have been eaten by a grue.
They were cool! - made me the geek I am today!
haha! And sorry if it's illegal to link to other servers...
My turn to get my account banned;
THE HITCHHIKER ADVENTURE GAME
This is not a text game, but last week I wasted a few hours with this BBC game: 7 Noble Kinsmen - A Shakespearean Murder Mystery. It has six acts and it appears that these came out episodically when it was first released (so it's even on topic!) Really fun little game. Of course, it was free, but I totally would have paid for it.
But - this is legal!
Doh! - Thanks Emily!