Dragon's Dogma

[jakonovski]

It's Capcpom's upcoming open world RPG. I wasn't expecting much, but today I ran into this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NrCiV4LOYk4

It looks like the lovechild of Oblivion and Demon's Souls. And as a first in modern gaming, nighttime is nighttime and you can't see anything! No fast travel either if the video is to be believed.

[Ragnoros]

That looks amazing! 

Reads Wikipedia: No PC release. 

Well, Dark Souls is getting ported. So we can always hope.

[Ruvaldt]

Spectacular.

[Threash]

I was sold after ten seconds when he picked up and tossed that guard of the roof.

[Trippy]

That looks amazing! 

Reads Wikipedia: No PC release. 

I'm sure Capcom will do an incredibly shitty PC port of the game 3 or 4 years after this is released.

[schild]

This has been day 0 for a while for me. Totally stoked. Will be one of the very few games I pick up in '12. Being a week after Diablo 3 though means it won't get played til 2015.

[Hawkbit]

Same here.  This has been on my short list of 2012 for awhile now.  I really hope it looks good on PS3.

[Fabricated]

I'll pick it up even though like most large semi-sandboxy titles I'll get like 5 hours into the main plot and spend 10 fucking off before I drop it.

[Phred]

And as a first in modern gaming, nighttime is nighttime and you can't see anything!

Other than EQ1 you mean? What is the attraction to stumbling around in the dark for 12 hours anyway?

[ffc]

FIRE BEETLE EYES AHHHHHHH That's why I immediately dropped human.

There is a neat online component to Dragon's Dogma.  After creating your character you create a "pawn" which is a partner for you in the game.  You can then lend out this pawn to other players who rent these mercenary pawns from a pawn guild (total of 4 including yourself in a party).  When a pawn encounters an enemy and learns the enemy's weakness, future encounters with the same enemy will have the pawn shouting out tips, like suggesting to climb an enemy, target a weak spot, etc.  So you might rent a pawn for your party who has already beaten the monster you are facing and the pawn will help you with tips.

Here's a pawn video with the pawn shopping center at 1m25s. Looking forward to this.

[Kitsune]

I still respect EQ immensely for having more realistic lighting than pretty much every MMOG since.  It added a LOT to the races to have very different ways of seeing; when night fell and you had infravision or ultravision the game felt very different from being human and needing that wispstone to light the area around you.  I was also enamored with the fire beetle eyes, thinking it very clever that they'd made monster guts actually useful to get.  EQ2 on the other hand just added shitty color filters that made it virtually impossible to see in night or day if you activated them, so no points there.

Just yesterday I was standing in a barrow in LOTRO thinking, "Where the hell is the light coming from in this underground room?"  And just before that, I was in the Shire skirmish and was busy being pissed off that I couldn't see shit despite being an elf.  Keen elven eyes my ass.

[Kitsune]

Oh, and side note: Amazon, Best Buy, and Gamestop all have pre-order bonuses.  Of them, Gamestop's looks the best to me.  Amazon and Best Buy both give vaguely crappy-looking free equipment that you'll probably be throwing away after an hour or two, but Gamestop's bonus is in currency to buy pawns.  And if you start off with a higher-level follower, that edge doesn't go away as they keep on gaining experience.  It'll become inconsequential at some point down the road, but never as totally useless as a rusty sword on a 20th level character.

[Ruvaldt]

One of my most memorable EQ moments was as a result of the really dark nights.  While playing an Erudite I was walking through the newbie zone at night and decided to walk across a bridge.  On the bridge I looked out at the water for a moment and then turned back to face the rest of the bridge, only now there was a huge snarling Troll who had approached from the south.  I actually jumped out of my seat and was promptly clobbered.  It was harsh, but made for one of the most compelling memories I have from any mmo, and it wouldn't have happened without dark nights because I would've seen him from further away and avoided the bridge entirely.

I like the sense of mystery and dread in that video, and I think it's mostly a result of the darkness.  The nighttime zombie fight looked exhilarating.

[Sheepherder]

Just yesterday I was standing in a barrow in LOTRO thinking, "Where the hell is the light coming from in this underground room?"

 

[cironian]

Just yesterday I was standing in a barrow in LOTRO thinking, "Where the hell is the light coming from in this underground room?"

Elven poop.

[Tmon]

Other than EQ1 you mean? What is the attraction to stumbling around in the dark for 12 hours anyway?

I remember saving up my barbarian warrior pennies for days to buy a lantern, and then I figured out that I could just turn up the gamma on my video settings and make the night go away for free.

[Margalis]

This looks really good but I'm deathly scared of AI partners.

[Tairnyn]

This looks really good but I'm deathly scared of AI partners.

Ditto. At one point in the video the guy sees a troll ahead and it seems like his "team" goes rushing in before he even decides to engage. On one hand I feel like it gives the player freedom to play a glass cannon class, but I have yet to play a game with NPC assistants without moments that I wanted to murder them.

[Fabricated]

We put up with it in Skyrim. *shrug*

[Bzalthek]

Of all the monsters I've killed, I think Lydia tops the charts.  We didn't put up with it, we spammed quicksave constantly.

[Kitsune]

This looks really good but I'm deathly scared of AI partners.

Ditto. At one point in the video the guy sees a troll ahead and it seems like his "team" goes rushing in before he even decides to engage. On one hand I feel like it gives the player freedom to play a glass cannon class, but I have yet to play a game with NPC assistants without moments that I wanted to murder them.

There looked like there was a Charge! button on the controller, the player may have pressed it.  Hard to tell what party commands he was or wasn't giving.

[jakonovski]

More videos, this is starting to look really good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_328000&src_vid=NrCiV4LOYk4&v=qEsVmmXQqWA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_379356&src_vid=NrCiV4LOYk4&v=_c8krHCKHDI

[Mrbloodworth]

Is this the new wave of multiplayer? Multiplayer with out the other player?

[cironian]

How is it new? This type of trading assets between players has been around since Pokemon at least.

[Kitsune]

I'd probably refer to it more as asynchronous multiplayer.  You have an impact on another person's game through your actions with your follower, jut not an impact at the moment that you're playing.

[NiX]

I wonder if a gold sub is required for the pawn portion of the game. The answer is no.

[Yegolev]

I killed Lydia, maybe I can kill these "helpers" too.

[Mrbloodworth]

How is it new? This type of trading assets between players has been around since Pokemon at least.

Just commenting on a number of games seem to be, instead of adding multi-player, adding in some sort of proxy system.

Just like how recently, 4 is the magic number, and the unknown hero is disappearing in favor of fully fleshed out characters. ( L4D, Dead island, borderlands, ETC... )

[cironian]

Ah, I see. I guess then the answer is: Because real live multiplayer is still a giant PITA to build and rarely worth the effort unless it's a core feature of what your game should be. That is, unless you are just building rail cover shooter #4747, which makes things a lot easier.

This type of social interaction system (I wouldn't call it multiplayer really) would be much cheaper in programming effort and can just be tacked on to many existing designs, rather than having to build the whole game around it from the beginning.

So I think the decision is more between pure singleplayer and something like this, rather than between a full multiplayer implementation and this.

[Severian]

Spore used this approach, but with a better payoff because the loaned out characters were more interesting than these seem to be.

[Fabricated]

Ah, I see. I guess then the answer is: Because real live multiplayer is still a giant PITA to build and rarely worth the effort unless it's a core feature of what your game should be. That is, unless you are just building rail cover shooter #4747, which makes things a lot easier.

This type of social interaction system (I wouldn't call it multiplayer really) would be much cheaper in programming effort and can just be tacked on to many existing designs, rather than having to build the whole game around it from the beginning.

So I think the decision is more between pure singleplayer and something like this, rather than between a full multiplayer implementation and this.

Also because Japanese companies don't seem to like keeping servers for online console games up for more than like 9-12 months unless it's something like PSO or Demon's Souls (and that was only because of DS's popularity).

</3 Capcom for closing the Resident Evil Outbreak servers. They should've released the source code or something since the whole point of the game was online play.

[Velorath]

I'll probably be picking this up at launch.  Can't wait for the backlash here though when people realize that Capcom is just as notorious as EA when it comes to their DLC practices.

Edit:  As examples, RE5, MvC3, and Street Fighter X Tekken all had DLC that was on the disc.  Also they just announced the "True Ending" DLC for Asura's Wrath.

[ffc]

Demo out on PSN and Xbx (gold).  Very short, basically two monster fights.  I played through it twice for each fight because I had no idea what happened the first time.  Fun stuff!  One change I would like is to lower the amount of voiced and written party chatter, or at least shrink the size of the written chat.

[Rendakor]

Anyone know which (if any) is the platform of choice for this? I think I pre-ordered it on Xbox, just want to make sure I'm not making a mistake.

[ffc]

No screen tearing or frame drops on the PS3 at least. There are black bars on the top and bottom of the screen for some reason.

Went into options and there is a way to turn off the written party chat which takes up 33% of the screen.  I also turned off the giant button display and all other HUD elements which clutter the screen to an amazing degree, makes the game look much nicer.