RPG Thread XIX is getting a rhythm game spinoff

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Draekon said:
Yeah, I figured it would happen as Wizards of the Coast is bad at licensing out their IPs being the stingy doting asshole parent they are. That and the developer they licensed it to makes sub-par games for the most part. Didn't stop me from hoping we'd get something halfway decent though.

Though you have Games Workshop on the other end who seems to be less stringent lately. I really want to try Vermintide, but I'm going to wait a little as I'll have to buy two copies. Total War: Warhammer looks pretty nice too, which is surprising given the last couple Total War games.
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Wizards and GW are inscrutable entities seemingly run by sphinxes.

On Wizard's end, the licensing of D&D videogames was an infamous shitshow for years. Games like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights were huge for 2nd and 3rd Edition D&D, but they let 4e pass by entirely without a single game (the Neverwinter MMO is ostensibly 4e-based, but that came out after they had already sealed up the coffin on that edition and lowered it into the dirt) because of legal issues. And now that they've finally got those ducks set in their rows for 5e, who do they license their first game out to? Bioware? InXile? Obsidian? No, fuckin' Beamdog. Beamdog, man.

The easy explanation for that is that Wizards of the Coast doesn't particularly give a shit about the property. Like, even the actual, real, just-released-last-year D&D 5e is basically ignored by the company. It has a tiny staff working on it and they mostly farm out new content to third-party writers. And I'm not saying that like, "Oh, those evil corporate big-wigs at WotC, not giving D&D the respect it deserves." 'Cause, like... D&D is a pretty tiny part of their business. It makes pennies to the Magic: The Gathering dollar. They ignore the property because it doesn't really do much of anything for them besides exist and have name recognition.

The problem with that theory is that MtG Online is a laughable clusterfuck all on its own. MtGO is a fucking bare-ass-bones game that runs worse than Arkham Knight even though it's just text and a couple pictures. It has featured such amazing bugs as "players with usernames that are only three letters long can not watch replays", "a card that causes your opponent to skip their turn every single time", and whatever the fuck this is. So even the game that WotC cares about doesn't get done properly.

Games Workshop is an ailing beast whose death people have been predicting/hoping for for years. They are a company who decided to capitalize on the release of the PC version of Blood Bowl in 2009 by... no longer supporting the actual tabletop version of the game because they didn't want to compete with the PC version. They are a company who, despite owning some of the most venerable licenses in the gaming world and despite being named Games Workshop, insist that actually they don't make games, they make collectible figurines and the games are just kind of a side-business.

They also didn't demand that the new game be called Total Warhammer and I still can't wrap my head around that. The name was right there! fuck!

 
I feel like you need a headpat.gif, but I couldn't find one that didn't make me look like a homosexual.

And yeah, I'm familiar with both. It's still strange to see so much Warhammer right now though since they were very stingy with the IP in the past when it came to video games.

 
I have surprisingly little invested in either company, actually. Never really got into any form of Warhammer, though Fantasy Flight's flirtations with it were tempting. Never played Magic and I don't like the current incarnation of D&D so not seeing a good translation of its rules to a videogame doesn't sting as much as it could.

I'm more just baffled by the whole thing.

 
WotC has been going downhill with D&D ever since they took hold. I was hopeful they'd turn it around with 5e, since its a hell of a lot better system than 4e, but they continue to disappoint in every way. I really miss TSR. Back in their day, they released twice as much 2e content, including licensed computer and console games, as 3,4,and 5e combined.

 
TSR was a shitshow too, though. They died for a reason. A lot of reasons, really. Reasons like "half of our employees are just family members of the owners who wanted company cars" and "we're releasing games nobody plays because Lorraine Williams gets royalties from them".

 
Yeah, TSR never really became the dominating company they could have. The nepotism and the whole Buck Rogers fiasco were pretty bad, but it was some really terrible business decisions in the last few years like overprinting, (oh lets print 12 hardback books this year, when we usually only do 2 or 3! those dumb fanboys will buy them all!) and over-investing in "fads" (Dragon Dice) that really drove the nail into the coffin and forced the sale to WotC.

What TSR did do better than WotC was matching talent with products, especially in their writers and artists. When you read something done in the Planescape setting, it had a certain voice and style, no matter who the author was you knew it was Planescape. When you saw artwork, despite whomever did it, you could usually match it to the setting. Everything became kinda muddy when WotC took over.

I was a Forgotten Realms fan back in the early 90's, but WotC really should have kept Ed Greenwood writing Forgotten Realms sourcebooks instead of novels that nobody could understand. At least TSR editors read his novels before they were released and made them somewhat readable with some selective editing. All of his post-TSR books I've read are pretty terrible, mostly because you've gotta re-read paragraphs two or three times to figure out what the hell's going on.

Ah, but enough of my D&D rant....

I need to beat Suikoden II.

 
So it turns out we might have a happy follow-up to all the negativity regarding tabletop-derived computer games.

Along with TSR/WotC and Games Workshop, one of the all-time big dogs of the tabletop industry was, for a short time, White Wolf, creators of World of Darkness. The flagship game of the franchise, Vampire, was lightning in a god damn bottle, and got two computer games (the forgettable Redemption and the laughably flawed but I've still beaten it, like, three times so yeah it's real good Bloodlines). Another one of its properties, Werewolf, had a cancelled PC game back in... wanna say early 2000s, and yet another, Hunter, had a series of co-op beat-em-ups in the PS2/GC/Xbox era. Then for a long time, there has been nothing.

Reason for that was that the company was bought by CCP, the developers of EVE Online. CCP had planned to make a World of Darkness MMO, but holy shit did that ever not work out. White Wolf itself basically ceased to exist as a division of CCP and the only reason the tabletop games aren't dead is because some White Wolf veterans started a company called Onyx Path got their own games licensed back to them. So, uh...

Games developer Paradox Interactive buying role playing game company White Wolf Publishing in a multi-million business . "This is our largest investment to date ," says CEO Fredrik Wester. The acquisition is a cash transaction in which Paradox Interactive adds " several tens of million " on the table . The seller is the Icelandic Group, CCP Games , the company behind the multiplayer game EVE Online .

"This is fantastic fun and a great relief that we can pay 100 percent of Paradox own cash ," said Fredrik Wester.

With 200 employees , a more extensive game catalog and three million registered users count Paradox now among Sweden's major game developers.

White Wolf Publishing owns the rights to some of the world's biggest role play, including the World of Darkness and Vampire: The Masquerade . There are brands that spawned books, board games , card games and computer games on multiple platforms, and stood as a model for the TV series .

"Vampire is the world's second best-selling role-playing and is special because half of all players are women ," said Fredrik Wester.
He expects the acquisition in the short term can increase Paradox turnover with a couple of million. White Wolf has annual sales, according to Fredrik Wester, in the day 4-5 million a year.

Paradox Interactive has recently had substantial tailwind thanks to the success of the game Cities: Skylines. Already at half year sales doubled compared to all of last year's figures. Much speaks for Paradox reaching over 500 million in sales this year.

"There will probably be a pretty good bit north of half a billion," said Fredrik Wester.

Paradox Interactive has in the past ten years has grown steadily. In the back, the company investment company stall and then just over a year even financier Peter Lindell, principal owner of the venture capital firm Rite Internet Ventures who entered with 28 million.

First, in 2017 it may be necessary to release new games based on any of the White Wolf's brands.

"It's a bet we do, but we see great potential in making these brands broader and introduce them to more players."

Paradox plan and to develop a number of own PC games, and is also actively seeking licensing partners for some titles. Fredrik Wester exclude nor that they will give out mobile games based on the newly acquired titles.

But the marks of this kind are sensitive matter. Players are extremely dedicated and discerning. In order to maintain close contact with the fans do Paradox because White Wolf for an independent subsidiary. President becomes Tobias Sjögren, Paradox Interactive's former sales director, who has worked on the Dice.

He will be the base of a kind of licensed companies like Saltkråkan AB, which owns and manages the rights to Astrid Lindgren's book cat. The new company will be sharing facilities with Paradox Interactive on Södermalm in Stockholm.

"We start with two employees but expects two years that there will be a dozen people. It is not impossible either that we are opening an office in Los Angeles to White Wolf ", said Fredrik Wester.

He sees no danger in the trend of books, movies and television series about vampires peaked among teenagers.

"I absolutely believe that it will come to life again. Even if it could be done, there is a strong nostalgivåg to ride on. Those who played these games in their teens are 25-40 years now and will want to do it again. "

Previously, Paradox Interactive has become known for historically inspired and role-playing tendencies, strategy game Crusader Kings and Magicka. Last summer it was revealed that the studio is heading into space with the upcoming game Stellaris. The work is led by the renowned game designer Henrik Fåhreus.

Fredrik Wester is secretive about whether Paradox Interactive, with the acquisition of the White Wolf, now approaching an IPO. There is something both big stall owner and investor Peter Lindell previously announced.

"We must ensure that the portfolio is growing but at the same time have long term financial stability. There are several different ways to go, "said Fredrik Wester."
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EDIT: Also, Ed Greenwood is a motherfuckin' weirdo and while I'm sure he's done a lot of Good Things with Forgotten Realms, if I ever shook his hand, I'd feel the need to take a shower.

EDIT2: If my memory serves, Obsidian was actually in talks with White Wolf to make a WoD RPG before they got bought by CCP. Given that Pillars of Eternity was a pretty big success for Paradox and some Troika staff (the people who made Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines) still work at Obsidian, I'd be shocked if they didn't get a crack at making a White Wolf-licensed game.

 
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Finished The Last Story. I enjoyed it a lot for the most part,despite the issues I had with the plot,like with the whole heavy-handed portrayal of prejudice(JRPG's sure love that theme,don't they?). Then the villians which were just whatever,
"Gee,I haven't seen Dagran for the last quarter of the game,where could he be?!
. The characters really made the game for me,and they were wonderfully voiced too. The big issue was the game being on the Wii. The system obviously couldn't handle it since it becomes a slideshow at numerous points(also why the hell the did they bother with putting multiplayer in this?).

 
Heard about the acquisition early this morning. Paradox is doing pretty well for themselves lately, so it bodes well that they won't screw it up.

Crotch, didn't you like Nier a lot? I'm a little surprised you haven't posted anything about the Nier: Automata information this past week. Hell, the trailer hit during a live stream event yesterday.

 
I haven't RPG'd in a while, but I'm trying to squeeze in a Trails in the Sky SC playthrough in the month before Xenoblade X. We'll see what happens.

 
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creid said:
I haven't RPG'd in a while, but I'm trying to squeeze in a Trails in the Sky SC playthrough in the month before Xenoblade X. We'll see what happens.
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I'd stick with SC over dropping it and picking up Xenoblade X. I just don't see Xenoblade X having as fleshed out characters, story and world as Trails in the Sky, which is a big appeal for me. It's kinda up and down until you hit Chapter 5 where it's been on the high side since without really ebbing. Granted I'll be finished with SC by then anyways since I've devoted all my free time to it.

Objectively the game is probably about an 8 out of 10, but I just find it to be one of those memorable games that makes you want to say it's a 10 out of 10. Something nearly every jrpg has really lacked for quite a while now with a couple of exceptions, but even then they don't really quite pull at me the way this game does (for me at least). Kind of like a love child of Suikoden and Lunar. Minus the insane recruitment and base building.

SC is long as hell though.

 
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I'm a Xeno fanboy, I won't wait to play XBX. I'm actually balking on starting SC now, it's going to be a busy month of work and it's just not going to happen. I played about 20 minutes of SC and quickly remembered that I don't *like* running around and talking to every NPC after every plot point. I did it a lot in FC because I knew there was a lot of text to be found and it's one of the defining points of the game, but there's just so goddamn many of them. I'll have to get back to it next year, and hopefully by then a few bugs will be squashed.

 
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Now I'm curious to know what game that skeleton's from.

Current RPG progress: reached the Pokemon League in Pokemon X, but haven't tried taking on the Elite Four yet. My team's all in the mid-high 60s, level wise, so I think I've got this. After I'm done with this, I'll need to take a little break from RPGs for awhile, though I may still poke away at Legend of Dungeon whenever I'm in the mood.
 
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I still need to play Undertale, which I think I'll get to this month. Probably. I even had someone who asks me for the occasional recommendation tell me quite adamantly that I should play the game immediately.

 
Is it some fire haired cat lady who rights with her first or like an underage loli girl who is actually a boy and has a name that you pronounce waaaaaaay wrong?

Oh wait, you're not icebeast.

 
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I would like to try Undertale but I refuse to buy it until it's Steam Sale'd or bundled which will happen because Steam and Indie.

Excited for Fallout 4 on Tuesday. Not excited that Xenoblade is under a month away and I will still be playing F4 when my collector's edition of Xenoblade arrives.

 
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I honestly can't get excited for Fallout 4 or anything Bethesda anymore. Dealing with that shitty engine of theirs and sub-par writing just doesn't really help. That said, I'll probably still get it within a week of launch depending on how much real objective info I can find that isn't hype fueled bias. Wonder if they'll push the Steam release back for the Japan region to match the console release (December). If so, my friend who moved there will be pissed and probably ask me to setup my network so he can use me to VPN.

I already played my two hype-fest games for the year, being Witcher 3 and Trails in the Sky SC (Loved both). I suppose Pillars of Eternity was probably #3 on my list, but it didn't reach high levels for me like it did for Crotch.

EDIT: I guess I shouldn't blame the engine for Bethesda's technical prowess. Granted, that engine needs to die anyways.

 
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Draekon said:
Wonder if they'll push the Steam release back for the Japan region to match the console release (December). If so, my friend who moved there will be pissed and probably ask me to setup my network so he can use me to VPN.
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That made me curious, so I turned on my VPN and checked. Japanese Steam says the release date is December 16. Makes sense that they'd go with that date if it's the same for the console releases, but sucks for your friend :whistle2:|

 
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R. Kasahara said:
That made me curious, so I turned on my VPN and checked. Japanese Steam says the release date is December 16. Makes sense that they'd go with that date if it's the same for the console releases, but sucks for your friend :whistle2:|
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Yeah, it's not the first time something like this has happened either. On the bright side if he can wait until December, he can return the game (I think. It's GMG bought and already redeemed) and then just leech it off of my Family Share via Steam.

 
Draekon said:
I honestly can't get excited for Fallout 4 or anything Bethesda anymore. Dealing with that shitty engine of theirs and sub-par writing just doesn't really help. That said, I'll probably still get it within a week of launch depending on how much real objective info I can find that isn't hype fueled bias. Wonder if they'll push the Steam release back for the Japan region to match the console release (December). If so, my friend who moved there will be pissed and probably ask me to setup my network so he can use me to VPN.

I already played my two hype-fest games for the year, being Witcher 3 and Trails in the Sky SC (Loved both). I suppose Pillars of Eternity was probably #3 on my list, but it didn't reach high levels for me like it did for Crotch.

EDIT: I guess I shouldn't blame the engine for Bethesda's technical prowess. Granted, that engine needs to die anyways.
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I never really cared for the story of Bethesda games. I would get more lost in the world which is why I spent so many goddamn hours in Skyrim just exploring.

I need to get the new Trails and Pillars, I been slacking on both. Then again I am banking on a nice Steam Sale this year.

Speaking of, since Wasteland 2 is on consoles, has anyone tried it yet or have impressions on how it works? Since I gameshare with my GF, I might just decide to grab it on consoles at some point so she can try it because I know she would never buy it.

 
Wasteland 2 should work well with a controller. Might be a little clunky compared to PC, but I don't think it'd be bad. As for the gameplay, it's a bit more old school than say Pillars of Eternity. Meaning it's more reliant on stats and skills and has plenty of skill checks. Every time I picked it up, there was a big patch coming so I never got far enough in it to really give it a good shot, but it was enjoyable enough.

That said, it looks like Dragon Quest VII and VIII is getting localized here for the 3DS for 2016. Glad to finally see DQ7 make it over here on that and pray the translation won't be anything less than what we've seen since DQ8 on the PS2.

 
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Draekon said:
That said, it looks like Dragon Quest VII and VIII is getting localized here for the 3DS. Glad to finally see DQ7 make it over here on that and pray the translation won't be anything less than what we've seen since DQ8 on the PS2.
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If Treehouse is doing the localization, we should be fine.

Glad it's finally coming out here, at any rate.
 
I'm more excited for DQ VII than VIII, I just wish I had more time to play them. I'll prolly get them both and they'll sit on my shelf for a couple years at the rate I'm going now. I've been struggling to find time to finish Suikoden II. I made a big push last weekend to beat the game, and ended up only putting about 2.5 hours in because of other responsibilities popping up. I'm real close to the end now tho, like right before the last war battle. I really hope to have it finished this weekend.

 
Final thoughts on Suikoden II:

It has a great story, one of the best for old-school JRPGs that I've played. Great characters, good drama and comedy moments. It improves upon everything from Suikoden I. My biggest complaint with the game is that I found it way too easy. Nothing really challenged me. Most random encounters lasted 1, very rarely more than 2 rounds; bosses lasted 5-6 at the most. Even the final boss was beaten before the 10th round of combat. The war battles were a huge improvement over the first game's simple gameplay, and a lot of fun, but the majority of them were pre-determined so there was only 2 or 3 in the entire game that you really got to play around with. I really liked that there was a lot to do in the game: mini-games, recruitment sidequests, hunting for items, etc. All in all, I'd recommend it to fans of the genre. I completed just about everything, collected all the recruits (including all the squirrel monkeys and the hero from Suikoden I), almost all of the items (plants, animals, plans, windows, sounds...except for the recipes because I just didn't go thru all the cooking contests) and got the best ending. Great game.

I'll probably get around to Suikoden III sometime next year. Next up....eh, I might play around with a few things here and there, but I don't wanna tackle anything too involving because Xenoblade Chronicles X is coming up. I'll probably end up getting back into Lightning Returns. I had finished all the quests and everything with two or three days left then rushed to the final day and had trouble with one of the sub-bosses and got distracted away from it.

 
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Be thankful that you get to play the 3DS remake of Dragon Quest VII over the original. Oh my god was the introduction so insanely long, boring and it was horrible at pointing you where you needed to go. I tried several times to finish the game but I don't think I ever did and  would always give up because I never wanted to use a guide to figure out what the fuck I was supposed to do as I would always forget. I did so much aimless wandering, which would often result in me getting killed.

If I attempted it now, I don't think I'd have such a hard time with it. Back then though, ugh. Here's the binders of paper from the development of the game which is rather insane to give you an idea of its length.

As for Suikoden II, yeah it's easy if you don't run from fights, try and get everything and setup your runes properly. If you don't, there are a few fights that are a pain in the ass such as the last boss. Suikoden III was not one I particularly liked because of the whole switching protagonist thing which really rubbed me the wrong way. I tried replaying it recently but stopped after a few chapters in and haven't gone back since.

 
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Suikoden II is by far the high point of the series. Suikoden III is extremely flawed. The battle system is based around pair formations and positioning your party members;the issue with this is you have no control over their positioning and being able to only give a command to one person in each pair. The world map is designed in a way that makes traveling around extremely tedious and time-consuming. War battles are extremely boring since you don't control over a lot of them;so your just sitting their watching these play out;and the ones you do control have no real strategy to them. Also has a disappointing amount of boss fights(a lot of them you don't have to win either). Also has a ton of "where the fuck do I go" moments.

I did enjoy the three protagonist system and the story was okay. It was nice to see characters from Suikoden II return(one of them ends up being the main villain).

 
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Draekon said:
Wasteland 2 should work well with a controller. Might be a little clunky compared to PC, but I don't think it'd be bad. As for the gameplay, it's a bit more old school than say Pillars of Eternity. Meaning it's more reliant on stats and skills and has plenty of skill checks. Every time I picked it up, there was a big patch coming so I never got far enough in it to really give it a good shot, but it was enjoyable enough.
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It's also a lot more "old school" than Pillars in terms of how it uses stats and skills, much to its detriment. Nothing grognards love more than dead levels, stats that literally do nothing, and rerolling the same lockpicking attempt four times, I guess.

Wasteland 2 is actually a fair bit of fun and I've been playing quite a bit since the big update but damn if it's not baffling sometimes.

 
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