SkyNet with the head-tracking VR goggles was ownage. You could look around independently from your movement!
bago
3342
Ultima VII had unique dialogue for every named NPC in the game. That was 17 years ago.
Ultima 7 was 60 megs. That was 17 years ago.
spiffy
3343
I going to have to agree the writing was one of the top draws for me. Not necessarily just the humor (although it was certainly there), but how each character oozed distinctive personality, even though many NPCs were visually rather generic. It reminds me of Star Control2, how the freeform gameplay was complemented by fantastic characters made memorable by your interactions with them.
The writing of Fallout was also exemplary in describing expositional game-world history in such a fashion that I wanted to learn more, as opposed to say Morrowind, where NPC’s would be friggin encyclopedias of fantasy information that I just couldn’t be bothered to sludge through.
I’m also of the unfortunate opinion that voice acting has lately (post y2k) been detrimental to writing in games, either poorly executing well written dialogue or not living up to my imagination, but that’s my problem.
Yes, and how many named NPCs were there really? Thirty, maybe, at the most?
I am a master of double posting, just watch!
Way more than that. There were at least 15-20 in Lord British’s castle alone. There were nearly 30 in the Fellowship Hall during meetings in in the main city.
I’d guess there had to be at least 60. Probably closer to 100 though.
edit: There were 17 trainers alone, across 11 cities. If you say there were only 5 NPCs per city you are already at 55 and frankly, there’s got to be a minimum of 10 per. Even Paws, the smallest place, had at least ten. Maybe cove might have had less. Either way, we’re clearing 100 easy.
Qenan
3347
Daggerfall was both wonderful and terrible, all in the same game.
Please, no scaling of enemies as in Oblivion…
On your honor, without googling, without looking at any resource, how many NPC’s can you remember, how many really made a lasting impression on you, in Fallout 1-2 and U7? If we’re having a discussion of 100+ npc’s here, how many do you remember to this day?
How about as in Morrowind?
I think the scaling they described - some scaling on the main quest, static levels on side elements - sounds pretty reasonable. I hope it works out well.
U7? None. Fallout? There’s the Ron Perlman guy, the Cree Summer chick, Dogmeat, the mutant voiced by Worf…that’s about it. The writing and characters were not really anything special in Fallout, IMO. It was the setting and the freedom of play that hooked me.
That and the ultraviolence.
Daggerfall was fifteen minutes of insane, glorious freedom. Followed by hours of realizing that there was very, very little to do with that freedom.
“Oh shit, I’m on a rooftop! Hot damn! Now this is a real role playing game on the PC! I can go on the roof!”
Moments later…
“Why the fuck am I on this roof?”
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take Bloody Mess every single goddamn time I played.
Fallout 3? None, because I didn’t see any in the gameplay vids I saw. Did you perhaps mean Fallout? If so, then I can name:
Overseer (Vault 13)
Adesh, (mayor of Shady Sands)
Tandy (daughter, Shady Sands)
Sheriff (Junktown)
Gizmo (Junktown)
Butch (the Hub)
Decker (the Hub)
Locksley (the Hub)
Harold (the Hub)
Cabot (Bos)
Vree (Bos)
Maxim (leader of Bos)
Seth (Necropolis)
Mutant Lt. (Mutant base)
The Master (the Cathedral)
I think that’s most of the talking heads (there are a couple of others I can think of but can’t remember names), but there are a lot of others I can name that didn’t get talking heads.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take Bloody Mess every single goddamn time I played.
Really? Bloody Mess wasn’t actually that good in the previous Fallouts. The same excessive death animations over and over lost its appeal pretty quickly, draining all the excitement out of it. The game was much better when not using it. The range of death animations are more varied and when you do get the the excessive ones its more special.
Nah, I don’t think so. The drum is too far forward and the barrel much larger in Fallout 3 than it is in those pictures.
IMO, any way :)
Hahahahaha summed up every single Daggerfall play session of mine perfectly.
GregB
3359
In Ultima you went into a town and had to solve the murder case there. So you went and talked with everyone to gather details. It was about the people, and how they lived together. Not just quest givers or random banter.
And yet from a gameplay perspective what this amounts to is clicking on every NPC you encounter and then dutifully going through the dialogue tree until you exhausted every possibility.
I certainly enjoyed U7 when I played it back in the day, but those sure are some fancy rose-colored glasses you got there.
I’d never played this particular game - but isn’t that a choice?
