MigRib, kudos to you for keeping a level head and giving thought out responses to the people who don't agree with you. I am one of those people, but it's really nice to see a forum discussion that doesn't turn into a flame war just because your opinions differ.
I do have one question though, you mentioned that you wanted games to be more like PnP RPG's, but also seem to prefer more action combat. To me Pen and Paper RPG's means Turn-based, skill based, RNG and probably tactical combat. What did you you do, whack your DM on the head with a stick?
As for the dumbing down, I think the term is a bit too widespread and not properly used. Like someone mentioned maybe streamlined is a better word. Take voiceovers for example, if you want complete voice overs you have to seriously cut the amount of dialogue options in order to make the game with a reasonable budget. Games like Planescape or the original Fallouts would probably never had been made if there had been a demand for full voice overs. The amount of text in those games (especially torment) is staggering. And as a sidenote, if I had been forced to listen to all that instead of reading it it would have taken me at least five times longer to play through the games. I'll take added content, more dialogue options, more C&C and more everything else every time before voice overs.
To get back on topic, this Demo actually made me smile like som kind of loon. Can't wait to play it, my only gripes are the aforementioned dialogue system (I would prefer to be able to pick my lines like in Fallout, I would absolutely not want the more recent Bioware systems), and the fact that the game might be "on rails". I don't remeber if they stated that it would be "open world" or not, does anyone else have a clue?
I do have one question though, you mentioned that you wanted games to be more like PnP RPG's, but also seem to prefer more action combat. To me Pen and Paper RPG's means Turn-based, skill based, RNG and probably tactical combat. What did you you do, whack your DM on the head with a stick?
As for the dumbing down, I think the term is a bit too widespread and not properly used. Like someone mentioned maybe streamlined is a better word. Take voiceovers for example, if you want complete voice overs you have to seriously cut the amount of dialogue options in order to make the game with a reasonable budget. Games like Planescape or the original Fallouts would probably never had been made if there had been a demand for full voice overs. The amount of text in those games (especially torment) is staggering. And as a sidenote, if I had been forced to listen to all that instead of reading it it would have taken me at least five times longer to play through the games. I'll take added content, more dialogue options, more C&C and more everything else every time before voice overs.
To get back on topic, this Demo actually made me smile like som kind of loon. Can't wait to play it, my only gripes are the aforementioned dialogue system (I would prefer to be able to pick my lines like in Fallout, I would absolutely not want the more recent Bioware systems), and the fact that the game might be "on rails". I don't remeber if they stated that it would be "open world" or not, does anyone else have a clue?