Favourite computer games of all time. [2]

Just responding in general to Skyrim. Cat people suck! Enough of these damn cat people ruining everything with their stupid cat faces!!! They show up in tabletop RPGs even, D&D 5e has cat people in it now. Blech. I don't even like cats that much, but the small amount I do like them is not enough to make me want to put fucking cat faces on people and parade them around as though they are worthwhile additions to a game world!

Reading your thoughts about combat mechanics Petty, I imagine you must enjoy the combat in the Dark Souls series.

Quest design and railroading is an issue that is never far from my mind these days. These years of designing adventures in D&D have left me with a nose for picking up on questing tropes. I particularly liked your description of the interlude approach to campaigns: by taking a break from the main story-line you create a nice opportunity to cater to the specific interests of a group of players. "The main goals can wait for a little while, what would you like to spend some time pursuing?", that sort of thing.

{{{ Being a DM does indeed make you acutely aware of how rpg games construct their campaigns (which is what they are ) the main difference of course is that a traditional DM is present to react to the players actions on the spot and to allow the game world to reflect those actions. In computer RPG's the programmers have to let the AI and the plot do the job of DM'ing, allowing hopefully  to create the illusion of the world reacting to actions.

And its a thin line to walk between presenting  a plot that is compelling and interesting enough, whilst at the same time can be take it or leave it for the player.
I think with Skyrim the main plot is too rushed. You get out of Helgen, get told to go to Riverwood, get told to go Whiterun, from there you get sent back to a barrow next to Riverwood to kill everything retrieve important item x, and as soon as you return with it a dragon attacks. After that from that point on the dragons begin to attack at random throughout the land.
Its all so fast. Why not have news of dragon attacks start to spread and then for them to happen much more sporadically to begin with before the player gets fully involved with them in the main plot?
It would serve the duel purpose of allowing the player freedom to roam, explore, decide what they want to do in this world, get a bit of experience and some levels, as well as presenting a more natural intriguing way into the main plot over a period of time.
But much like current blockbuster films they want to rush right to the action as soon as possible. But in doing o they force the main quest on the player too much so it feels odd to go off and do seemingly less important non-world saving stuff instead. And that feels like your choice is being restricted, even when technically its not and you are free to just walk away at any time.

Fallout 4 took it even further of course, giving a voice to the player and pushing the narrative at every turn. IN my view Fallout is not technically an RPG any more. The ability to create, mold and shape your own character, with whatever voice and personality you wish the to have is the heart and soul of a role playing game, the clue is in the name, its the role bit, and Fallout 4 doesn't have that.
Which makes me worry for the next Elder Scrolls game- if they ever make one.}}

ESO you mean? Have you tried that?

Edit: Oh nvm, that was developed by a different company.

{{No not played ESO- not my sort of game, I'm not a MMO fan. Bad enough having to deal with other people in real life, I dont want them fucking up my gaming too!

If anyone is thinking of modding Skyrim SE here's my list of mods I cant do without from my currently installed mods (its not a full list, I have 254 active plugins at the moment, the limit being 255) but I have to have all these just to get the game to the standard I expect (any mods marked oldrim refers to a mod from original Skyrim that seems to work fine in Special Edition with skse64) all the rest are converted SE editions or created solely for SE.
Also these are more or less just in alphabetical order- not load order- that's very important!
If anyone wants a copy of my load order just let me know. }}}

SKSE64
3DNPC
83willows 101bugs (oldrim)
a quality world map
Noble Skyrim
alternative start
animated clutter
apachi skyhair
atlas map markers
bandolier bags and pouches
beards
beast skeletons
beats of tamriel
become a bard
bells of skyrim
bellyaches HD dragon replacer
better dialogue controls
better dynamic snow
better harvesting
bjins NPC overhauls
birds and flocks
blowing in the wind
book covers skyrim
calientes beautiful bodies (oldrim)
campfire
carriage and ferry travel
cats in skyrim
cloaks of skyrim
coins of tamriel
complete archery overhaul
complete crafting overhaul (oldrim)
cutting room floor
dawngaurd delayed
dead body collision
designs of the nords
diverse dragons
diverse guards
diverse horses
diversity- an npc overhaul
dogs of skyrim
dragon stalking fix
draug weaponry
drinking fountans of Skyrim
ducks and swans
dynamic dungeon loot
renthal flora overhaul
embers HD
endereal font
enhanced blood textures
ethereal clouds
falskaar
female facial animation
fences of skyrim
flora respawn fix
footprints
fores new idles
forgotten dungeons
forgotten retex project
friendlier taverns
Frostfall
gemling jewellery
hammerfell armoury
harvest overhaul
HD Lods
heathfire extended
high quality food and ingredients
hold border banners
holidays
High Poly project
HQ tree bark
immersive citizens
Immersive creatures
immersive HUD
immerive laundry
immersive patrols
immersive sounds
ineed-food water sleep
inigo
innkeepers dont escort
inns and taverns
insanity sorrow weapon pack
just ice v2
know your enemy
lanterns of skyrim
leanwolf's better shaped weapons
leather backpack
legendary cities TES arena
Lethal traps
lock HD retexture
lore weapon expansion
lore worthy hargravens
magical college of winterhold
mines and farms sell stock
misc retexture project
modern brawl bug fix
moon and star
moonpath to elsweyr
more village animals
morrowind imports
mountains natural granite
m'irssa Tails of Trouble
no interior fog
no snow under roof
no spinning death anmation
no twitching dragons
nordic snow
obsidian mountain fogs
ordinator
peltapalooza
People are strangers
perk point awards
perk points for bounty quests
point the way
populated cities, lands, roads and civil war edition
prince and the pauper
provincial courier service
ravengate riften underground
read and learn speechcraft
real bows
relationship dialogue overhaul
realistic aspen trees
realistic lighting overhaul (interiors only)
realistic ragdoll and physics
renns HD shrines
revenge of the enemies
reverb and ambience
rich merchants
RS children overhaul
rugnarok
ruins cluuter imporved
rustic potions, clothing, clutter, cooking and soulgems
shezries Old Hroldan
shield enchanments
shors stone
sky haven temple HD and gradens
simplty bigger trees
simply knock
Unique inn signs
skyhud
skyrim 3D trees
immersive creatures
improved puddles
SkyTEST- realistic animals and predators
skyUI
sofia
solitude expansion
sojunds sinkhole
sounds of skyrim complete
static mesh imporvement
stunning statues
summermyst- enchantments
tavern games
the forgotten city
The grey cowl of nicturnal
great forest of whiterun
the notice board
torches cast shadows
training dummies and targets
travellers of skyrim
ultimate HD fier and candle effects
unique loot
unique uniques
unleveled items
unoff skyrim patch
verdant- grass plugin
vilja in skyrim
violens- killmoves
animated enchantments
vivid landscapes
vivid weathers
heat wave effects
wayshrines of old
wearable lanterns
wet and cold
wild herds
wild penguins
winter is coming cloaks
wonders of weather
xp32 maximum skeleton
Your own thoughts

You have a mod called "Your own thoughts"?

{{Yeah it changes in game messages into first person messages- so if your using a needs mod then when you get hungry it will say "I'm feeling hungry" or some such rather than "You are feeling hungry". Also restores previous Elder Scroll messages- so instead of being told you need to level up you get the classic "I should rest and meditate on what I have learned."
changes most of the in-game notifications this way to keep it all nice and immersive! }}}

Neat-o!

{{ A nice example of the sort of things can happen in your Skyrim game with some of the above mods installed.
I was heading towards a town looking for an inn for the night with my companion Sofia, it having got dark, when we came across an ambush.
The civil war in vanilla Skyrim is sort of just there in the background- unless you are actively doing the civil war quest line there is no actual evidence of a civil war going on save people keep mentioning there is.

Here, as we were ambling along the road minding our own business this happened.

(note- I brightened all these images post in GIMP as with it all taking place at night it was dark and hard to see what was going on in the screenshots)

So a bunch of Stormcloaks, and I mean a bunch, were hiding up on the hillside above the road in the long grass waiting for Imperial patrols to pass by below. Which one was doing as we approached and all hell let loose.

The Stormcloaks sprung their trap. So I decided just to observe what happened.
First the Stormcloaks came down the hill firing crossbows and bows at the surprised Imperial troops.
With the immediate effect of taking a few Imperials down straight away before they knew what had hit them.



But the Imperials rallied quickly and took up defensive positions behind the walls either side of the road forming two walls of defense from where they took pot shots at the advancing Stormcloaks with their bows.



But the Stormcloak numbers were too great and the Imperials could not prevent being overwhelmed as the Stormcloaks breached the walls and flanked the Imperials, dropping most of the defenders with the remainder falling back in defensive formation up the road.



But just as it looked like the Stormcloaks had secured victory reinforcements of Imperial troops from the town began piling down the road firing volley after volley of arrow and bolts as they come and turning the Stormcloak victory into a rout, leaving the Imperials the final victors.



Now none of this is scripted events, its all arising out of the Ai and the mods dynamically interacting with each other and the environment, and of course though I choose to just observe in this case, had my character chosen a side in the war I could have got involved on either side. Or attacked both and hope to be last man standing and plunder the dead. It all adds to the role playing as well as giving a sense there really is a civil war going on in Skyrim whether you get involved in it or not, its a land at war. }}}

{{ Some more Skyrim screenshots demonstrating what the mods bring to the game.

Starting with atmospherics. The main mods at play here are the ENB- that's currently reloaded preset I'm using. Vivid Weathers. Ethreal Clouds. And a new favourite of mine Obsidan Mountain fogs- which does what it says on the tin and adds in a lot of clouds and mist on the mountains and other places. Not only does it add a lot of atmosphere in both senses of the word, but it also does a good job in a naturalistic way of obscuring Skyrim's sometimes ugly LOD's (thats distant land if you are wondering).
Interior shots on the other hand are a combination of the ENB and Realistic Lighting Overhaul. ELFX is the more popular lighting mod, but I've always preferred RLO myself.

Spoiler:

Next up we have trees. There are three mods at play here- Simply Bigger Trees, 3D Trees, and HD bark.
3D trees in particular is a bit special. In normal Skyrim, and even all other tree mods, the actual trees are not true 3D. If you get up close you will see all the pine needles on a branch are on a flat 2d plane.
This mod changes all that and makes the tress truly 3D down to the last needle. It also adds layers of accumulated 3D snow to trees in snowy areas which really adds to wintry setting.

Spoiler:

For character models Ive got XP32 Maximum skeleton. CBBE body. Mature skin retexture and Apachi Skyhair.

Spoiler:

Another couple of great mods HD dragon retexture- this will take care of the vanilla dragons and make them look a lot better and Diverse Dragons which adds in all sort of different types and looking dragons for far greater variety in fights. As they all have their own specialties and abilities, strengths and weaknesses it prevents the random dragon attacks from becoming repetitive as you never know what you are getting.

Spoiler:

For this last lot I'll label each screenshot individually, as they each demonstrate a single mod.

Spoiler:

That's nothing like the full list of mods of course, but just a bunch of examples of how mods alter the look and feel of the game and the sorts of things they can add or change. }}

{{Time lapse I made of SkyrimSE- not sure why the quality was so low- trying to sort it for the next one- but still gives a nice effect }}

{{Gave myself a challenge- thought it would be fairly quick to do, it wasn't
Made a trailer for Skyrim in the style of the GTA IV launch trailer.

Here's the original GTA trailer here-




And here is my Skyrim take on it- }}

{{Been keeping an eye on this game for a while- looking forward to its release- Kingdom Come Deliverance- if the gameplay can match the looks it will be stunning. One of, if not the, most detailed gameworld ever created, being based on a real slice of medieval Europe and on original maps of the time.}}

{{ Been playing some GTA5- story mode, I dont touch online, and I am struck most of all by the sheer artistry of it.
And I mean in that in two senses of the word- both its merits as art and the skill with which Rockstar have constructed their open world.
There are three big names in open world on multi-platform Witcher, Elder Scrolls and GTA. And GTA is not only the granddaddy of them all it has long been acknowledged as the King of them all. And with very good reason.

GTA6  is both incredibly life like and yet retains that look which marks it out as a GTA game. Its a bit like a pixar film, they can render in graphics every hair on an animals back, but it will be stylised even so, recognizably Pixar. Similarly with GTA, it creates a totally immersive believable visual world yet does so with an art style all its own.

But the thing that has stuck me most of all, and somewhat boggles my mind at the sheer manpower involved in the task, is the attention to detail in every corner of the game.
Ive grabbed  bunch of screen shots to show you what I mean.

GTA 5 has a big map, a huge city, open countryside, hick towns ect and it does a fantastic job visually of impressing its sense of scale upon you.
It is very hard not to be both hugely impressed by the vastness of the game world and at your seeming smallness in it.

Spoiler:

So as you can see you certainly get a sense of scale whilst playing.
But what really impresses me, what bends my mind is how detailed it is up close. From vast to tiny there is not a place on this vast map that does not seem to have been given the sort of attention to detail most games only reserve for prime star locations.
But in GTA, where a car chase, a gun fight or some such can occur anywhere at any time everywhere has to feel like it is was specially constructed to be a special gameplay place.
But the level of detail Rockstar have gone to is extraordinary when you consider the above screenshots demonstrating the big scale.
Here's some examples of the small scale, the sort of detail you will notice absolutely everywhere, from graffiti, posters, to skips and knocked over bins, shops and fancy shop fronts. Every inch down to the smallest thing is detailed and placed into the game world, in what must have been a task taking a lot of people a very long time to accomplish.

Spoiler:

Its a shockingly high attention to detail at every level of the game, from planning the realistic layout of the game world and all its functioning parts to making each and every inch of it more detailed than any game a 10th of its world size. Its an astonishing achievement in open world construction. There is so much detail it extends to pot holes and patches of repair in the road.

Spoiler:

And all with surprisingly low repetiton of items. Especially buildings, if they have reused them I have yet to spot them, everywhere and every part of the map feels unique and crafted.

The other thing it does exceptionally well is make the world feel alive once its built it- the city has obvious places of work, docks construction sites, lorry depots, train yards ect all over the place, and more importantly people seemingly doing believable things whilst at their work giving the whole thing a very alive illusion.  It is both still in Rockstar's style and yet a long way from GTA 3's half dozen pedestrian models often repeated spawning randomly and wandering the pavements aimlessly back and forth. Pedestrians can now be found doing a variety of activities and just generally do a far more convincing job of pretending to be an alive gameworld than in many open worlds where repetition and lack of variety is common. One of the best additions and tricks in getting this idea across is that pedestrians now can often be seen interacting with each other, chatting to each other on the phone or in person , sitting together in cafes for coffee or just on a bench to admire a view, couples strolling along the promenade ect. People talk to each other without player intervention as they go about their business. It does just enough to convince you that you are catching a small glimpses into someones life as you pass by, giving the game world a very tangible alive quality.

Spoiler:

Put it all together combined with integrating all the tv/radio shows you see/hear into visual billboards, posters ect in the gameworld and you have one of the most immersive, solid, realistic and yet stylised  open worlds ever created. I find myself somewhat in awe of the work done here.
I find myself wondering, if Rockstar ever turned their hand to a serous RPG open world, what would it be like? }}}

{{ A highly entertaining review of Elite Dangerous VR that kept me laughing all the way through }}

That is fun, although a little too rapid-paced for me: reminded me too much of Vine videos.

{{It is pretty rapid, but I think it does a nice job of both conveying how visceral an experience it is in VR and how frustrating it is for new players (I never had that problem mind you, probably because Ive been playing Elite:First Encounters for years! ) but the bit regards controls and having to map so much that you need to press two buttons at once on the HOTAS to activate secondary stuff is why my own recommendation for playing in VR includes shelling out an extra 20 notes for Voice Attack. With it running you not only get an excellent voice acted onboard computer (I use Orion voiced by William Shatner) but you can also control pretty much everything you want by voice command. I use it mainly for the secondary stuff, landing gear, cargo bay ect and so never have to double map buttons or use the keyboard freeing up the HOTAS to be entirely flight related and targeting controls. }}}

{{It seems Elite Dangerous' programming is to complex its gone quantum! You see there is a bug in the game that's been there for a very long where sometime- patches of blackness where its too dark- Well turns out the reason they haven't fixed it is because whenever their bugfixing software goes looking for it- it isn't there! Yup its a bug that only happens if you're not looking for it and as soon as you go bug hunting it vanishes without a trace! }}}

{{Ive been playing Paranormal Activity VR. Now I'm not a fan of the films and never rated them  much as horror films go. Reliant as they often are on cheap jump scares. But the reason jump scares dont work in horror films, if that's all they've got, is because you know they are coming usually as film only has a limited amount of time to tell its tale and pacing tends to follow a set rhythm, and you the viewer are watching them happen to someone else passively (which is why a switch to a pov camera is so common in horror- to make it seem more like it happens to you not the character to get the jump).
In VR jump scares really do happen to you. And as a game can unfold in its own time, and the players time, its a lot harer to predict when they will happen, and when they do rather than passively watching it you are usually absorbed in some other task at the time distracting you from thinking about a jump scare until it happens- at which point you shit yourself.
Cheap cliched tricks such doors slamming shut on their own, furniture suddenly moving, all the lights going out as a mysterious unknown shape darts past you in the dark- stuff you've seen a million times in horror films and games and which, in 2D, would be lucky to catch you by surprise let alone get your heart raising, but will in VR scare the living shit out of you.
You are simply so immersed that the shocks and jump scares genuinely make you jump- often literally.
Gameplay wise, and I'm not that far into it, it seems to be a bit of a cross between early resident Evil, in that it has puzzle elements, find key for this, read mysterious book to know what time to put the clock too ect, Resi 7 in terms of its set in a house and first person, and Kojima's never made it past a demo, PT.
Here's a  vid of some folk playing it, bit over the top, but what I think is particularly telling is the scene where the chest of drawers falls down the staircase-its not the jump scare that's interesting, its how almost all the participants try to physically move out the way to stop it hitting their legs- that I think gives the best indication of just how absorbed and taken in you can be by a well constructed VR world. And when you're that absorbed and something monstrous suddenly leaps out the dark at you, or even something as simple as a slamming door right behind you- the scares and jumps are genuine.
I've watched a hell of a lot of horror and played just about every horror game out there- and whilst this would be a nice enough if run of the mill horror game in 2D with some cliched jump scares- VR transforms it into a genuinely tense pant shitting experience. For the first time ever I had to stop playing a game because I was simply getting too stressed from the experience- I needed a break and to let my heart levels return to normal and to stop my hands sweating!



I swear between this and Alien Isolation VR my heart isn't going to last!!  }}}

Sounds interesting Petty. I have Resident Evil VR on my PS4 and lots of people said that was super scary but I didn't really think so.

Maybe it is playing tactical shooters that trained my brain to look for every possible way something can get you (which they often did anyway) but most of the scares were signposted somehow and there were very few that i didnt expect.

Wonder how this compares.

Edit - I play with some of those guys on Destiny!

Maybe it is playing tactical shooters that trained my brain- Lance

{{Nod's as good as a wink from a Forumshire secret agent!

Not played resi 7 in VR- have played about a 1/3 of it in 2d though and I enjoyed that but would not have called it scary as such. More a bit yucky!
I think with Paranormal and AI what makes them scary is they both have long undetermined periods where there are no scares or jumps or threats, and the unexpected nature of when they do occur tends to catch you off guard (this is particualry true of AI where the alien does its own thing every time you play so you cant predict where it might be or when).


Heres a vid looking at the history of Lord of the Rings games }}}

I enjoyed that.

You can hear some tracks from the ambient score of The Lord of the Rings Online in that video. The guitar bit from the beginning and end of the video featured in Bree and its environs, and the string-based piece that starts at 14:57 in the video plays in the valley of Rivendell. There's some very good music in that game, composed mostly by Chance Thomas, if I recall correctly. Some of it is a bit derivative of the LotR soundtrack, in places like Moria for example, but I think it has a lot going for it on its own too.

They had various guitar themes through most of the Bree-lands. Pretty catchy stuff!


Lothlorien had some lovely music:




This played in parts of the dwarven starting area:


Newer stuff here:


The Tom Bombadil theme.


The Hollin Gate theme:


Some music for up in Evendim, or Everswim as we used to call it:


Lament for Oakenshield:


Geez, all kinds of good stuff here!

{{I probably should take another look at LotR online- mind you my crabbit all but explode the first time as soon as I found I was encountering giant spiders in the woods of Hobbiton }}}

Let's just say it takes its liberties as concerns monsters.